The Royal Institute of Technology in the Empire has developed cement for a long time, and there are not many restrictions on the licensing of cement technology. Basically, as long as you can afford the patent licensing fee, you can obtain authorized production, and the price is not included.
Too expensive.
However, due to the high cost of cement in the early days, cement was only used in small quantities in construction at first, and it was mainly used in military construction. Only the military with deep pockets would not worry about the high cost of cement and purchase and use it in large quantities.
In the private sector, only a small amount of construction is used, but these small amounts of use are difficult to drive the development of the cement industry.
Businessmen of all ages are profit-seeking and short-sighted. When they see no hope of making money, they will join other industries.
Of course, this is also because the Tang Empire is currently at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It can be said that all walks of life are in a period of rapid development, and you can make money by doing anything.
Compared with industries such as cement, which have large investments and slow returns, businessmen are more willing to invest in industries with small investments and fast returns, especially industries where other people are making a lot of money.
Following the trend is the greatest characteristic of capital!
By the same token, this is why domestic capital is very fond of the textile industry.
The textile industry has low investment and is easy to operate. It requires basically no skills. You only need to register a company, find a factory, purchase textile equipment, and then recruit a group of workers to start production. Even the relevant middle and senior managers can be caught.
A lot.
More importantly, the demand for textile products is still very strong, whether in the domestic market or foreign markets. There are more than 150 million people in the country, even though a large part of them still maintain the traditional way of men farming and women weaving.
In daily life, we do not directly buy cloth or clothes, but the urban population is not a small number, and their demand for cloth and ready-made clothes is very large.
Moreover, when businessmen saw that they could not sell ready-made clothes in rural areas, and even the sales volume of cloth was very small, they simply sold cotton yarn directly.
Although women in rural areas can also weave their own textiles, cotton is not produced everywhere. Cotton yarn is sold directly to rural women, who then weave their own cloth and make it into clothes.
The country's huge population, as well as the empire's development of domestic people's livelihood for more than ten years, have gradually enriched the people's pockets, and the people's wealth also represents their consumption power.
Relying on the country's huge population, the textile industry has received excellent development opportunities, and the empire's encouragement of maritime trade and the gradually opening of foreign markets have also allowed the Tang Empire's textile industry to find a market.
In foreign markets, the merchants of the Tang Empire did not care so much. In order to seize the market, they used various messy methods to suppress local related industries through low-price dumping. These were the lowest methods. Elimination
After the local industry obtains a monopoly, it will not matter if the price increases significantly.
The most important thing is that they will use various methods to influence the local political situation, force the local market to open up, or simply help them monopolize the market.
Through various means, textile products from the Tang Empire, together with other industrial products, poured into Fusang, various parts of Southeast Asia, India, and even parts of West Asia and North Africa.
As for Europe, this market is quite special. The distance is too far and the transportation cost is too high, so it is difficult to open the market with cheap industrial products. Datang mainly relied on the two magic weapons of silk and porcelain in the European market. As for tea,
Europe is still in the process of cultivating tea consumption habits, and its export volume is very limited.
In addition, the European market is basically controlled by the Portuguese and the Ottoman Empire. Although the Spanish have joined in recent years, the Spanish fleets come too rarely and it is difficult to transport large quantities of goods.
As for Datang's own fleet, although they went there several times, each time it was a small-scale exploratory trade and did not become a success.
Therefore, the Tang Empire's trade with Europe today generally has two models. One is to sell the goods to the Portuguese, and then the Portuguese will bypass southern Africa and transport them directly back to Europe.
Another way is to use the Datang Western Trading Company to transport the special products of the Tang Dynasty to India, West Asia and other places, and then sell them to the Ottomans. The Ottomans then transport them by land to the Mediterranean, and then sell them to Europe through the Mediterranean.
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With both methods, the Tang Empire could only play the role of producer, and it was difficult to directly participate in the channels, let alone terminal sales.
Even the current cooperation with the Spaniards follows this model.
There is a lack of colonies on the western coast of India, West Asia, Africa and other regions, and thus there are not enough supply ports. This is the main reason that hinders the Tang Empire from directly participating in European trade!
But even so, the overseas trade of the Tang Empire was booming, and the textile industry continued to maintain a very high growth rate. Many people judged that the textile industry would maintain a period of rapid growth for at least ten consecutive years.
Even twenty years is possible.
Under this background, it is not difficult to explain why domestic capital is so keen on the textile industry. Various textile companies, large and small, are springing up like bamboo shoots after a rain. Some are engaged in spinning.
, some are engaged in weaving, some are engaged in printing and dyeing, some are engaged in ready-made clothing, some are engaged in quilts, etc., and some are engaged in woolen cloth, raw silk, and silk.
The above-mentioned textile industry has directly driven the development of machinery, chemicals, steel, shipbuilding, transportation, energy and many other industries!
Because the textile industry requires machinery and equipment for production, carriages and ships for transportation, and then further extends to the need for chemical raw materials, steel materials, wood, coal, etc.
Otherwise, how could the textile industry be listed as a strategic development industry by the Ministry of Commerce of the Empire and called the leading industry of industry and commerce in the Empire? This is because the textile industry can drive the development of a large number of related industries.
In the same way, this is why in the original time and space, when various countries in the world were undergoing industrial revolutions, many countries started the industrial revolution from the textile industry.
The industrial revolution in most European countries was inseparable from the textile industry. If you look at the rise of the British, you will know how strong their textile industry was during the Industrial Revolution.
Even Fuso and Huaxia, which are backward countries in East Asia, started industrial development in the mid-19th century, hundreds of years after the start of the industrial revolution, but they still chose the textile industry as their supporting industry.
When the Chinese people initially developed industry in the mid-to-late 19th century, the textile industry was also their absolute pillar industry.
The Fuso people exchanged raw silk for warships, and the Chinese also exchanged raw silk for warships. However, our early development path was not smooth due to internal strife and foreign invasion, and the whole process was suspended.
From the hundreds of years after the industrial revolution to the modern industrial period, the textile industry has had an unshakable core position. This is unquestionable.
The textile industry has a great future. Many people know this, so a large amount of capital has poured into it.
Of course, even smart businessmen will choose other related industries. Some people even boldly enter heavy industries such as shipbuilding, shipping, machinery, steel, and energy.
However, cement is still not the first choice for many businessmen!
Although cement is also an emerging industry, many people are optimistic about it. However, in the early years, cement was expensive and people were not familiar with this product, so the actual application scale was relatively small. The only big customer was the military.
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This situation changed in several major cities in the country when they began to use cement to pave roads. Direct use of cement to pave roads did not bring a broad market for cement, which in turn stimulated the rapid development of cement.
Now, the empire has carried out large-scale infrastructure construction, especially water conservancy facilities, which has completely detonated the cement industry.
No one is stupid. After many businessmen saw the bright prospects of the cement industry, they just waved their checks and entered the cement industry.
Don’t have the skills? It doesn’t matter, go directly to the Royal Institute of Technology to buy it. Buy it first and produce it, and then develop other cement products yourself.
Don’t have equipment? Needless to say, buy it anyway! As long as you have money, you can order any machinery you want from several major domestic machinery and equipment manufacturers.
No technical staff? Dig! Offer high wages and poach people directly from existing cement factories.
As for ordinary managers and workers, this is not a problem, as long as you have money, you can grab a lot of them!
Are you saying that cement cannot be sold after it is produced? Are you kidding me internationally? Haven’t you seen that the entire empire is engaged in infrastructure construction? Not to mention other things, the major water conservancy facilities projects announced by the empire alone are enough to feed the entire cement industry.
industry, not to mention that several major cities in China are now building cement roads one after another. In addition, the general construction industry has also begun to popularize cement on a large scale.
As long as the cement is produced and the quality is guaranteed, there will be no worries about sales.
Under this trend, in the second half of the 15th year of Xuanping, 26 cement plants across the country broke ground and started production one after another.
The annual output of these 26 cement plants alone is four times the previous national annual cement output!
In other words, the cement industry was affected by the empire's vigorous construction of water conservancy facilities and saw a growth rate of 400% in half a year!
However, its output is still unable to fill the empire's huge demand for cement!
Sixteen years after entering Xuanping, there are still reports of cement plant projects being proposed and construction started from various places.
The report submitted by the Royal Institute of Technology pointed out that by the 16th year of Xuanping, a total of 38 companies had been granted cement patents. These were 38 companies, not 38 factories.
Many companies here can open multiple cement factories at the same time.
As long as you can afford the patent licensing fee, the Royal Institute of Technology doesn't care about you. Anyway, they charge patent fees based on output. If you open ten or eight factories, they can charge more patent fees, and they will be happier.
The outbreak of the cement industry was just one of the impacts of the empire's large-scale infrastructure construction. Not only the cement industry, but also the steel industry, coal, transportation and many other industries were greatly affected.
However, the impact was not as great as the cement industry.
But this does not mean that steel and other industries have not developed. In fact, steel and other industries are still developing very rapidly. Their size is much larger than that of a mere cement industry, and they are more valued by Li Xuan.