The fierce competition between Yangtze River Shipping Company and Feng Shipping Company in the shipping market has extended to the emerging field of steamships. As for who will win in the end, it is hard to say yet.
But what is certain is that by the turn of next spring and summer, commercial steamships will be put into the market and operated one after another, allowing people to enjoy the convenience of trains as well as the convenience of steamships.
As for the competition between domestic enterprises, this is naturally a good thing for the entire empire. Only with competition can there be motivation. As long as it is not vicious competition, the officials headed by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises will maintain a non-interference attitude.
Otherwise, the Yangtze River Shipping Company would not be chased by a large number of private shipping companies behind it!
But then again, if there were not a large number of private companies chasing behind, the Yangtze River Shipping Company would not be able to develop rapidly in just a few years.
Although it has always been the number one in the country, the current scale of the Yangtze River Shipping Company is not comparable to that when it was first established. Other shipping companies are developing, and the Yangtze River Shipping Company is actually developing, but its development will be more restricted.
That's all.
In the first half of the eighteenth year of Xuanping's reign, the most eye-catching event was undoubtedly the Northeastern Campaign, but since August, trains and ships have attracted the attention of the entire empire.
And it lasted until the 19th year of Xuanping!
In the provincial examinations in February and the Chengtian Prefecture examination, the questions related to steam engines appeared in the examination questions. What is even more interesting is that nineteen years after entering Xuanping, many companies are announcing their future development plans.
When speaking, words such as steam engines, trains, and ships are more or less mentioned.
Some large factories have successively announced that they will introduce high-pressure steam engines with higher efficiency, greater power and lower cost in the future.
Some companies have also successively promoted their entry into peripheral industries such as high-pressure steam engines, trains, ships, etc., but the most eye-catching one is the domestic shipping company!
In fact, trains also attract the attention of many people. Unfortunately, the railway industry is monopolized, and the empire does not give private capital the opportunity to enter, so many people's attention can only be transferred to the shipping industry.
Just after the New Year, various shipping companies couldn't wait to announce their own ship plans one after another. They all announced with high profile that they would purchase steam ships in the future and thus enter the field of steam ships. Unfortunately, these shipping companies with high-profile announcements,
Most of them are unlikely to get any steamships within two years.
Because it is impossible for them to obtain a commercial shipboard steam engine within two years!
There are only three domestic manufacturers capable of producing high-pressure steam engines, namely Tianjin Youbang Machinery Company, Zhaoqing Machinery Company, and Naval Steam Engine Factory. The shipboard steam engine production capacity of these three companies all needs to be given priority to the navy, and their remaining production capacity is
Only then can we supply the market, and among these remaining capacities, those of Zhaoqing Machinery Company and AIA Machinery Company have already been taken over by the Yangtze River Shipping Company.
The remaining production capacity of the Naval Steam Engine Factory was also taken over by Feng Shipping Company!
If other companies want to obtain steamships, they must first obtain commercial shipboard steam engines, but unfortunately, they will not be able to obtain them for at least two years.
Representatives of many shipping companies have visited the three major manufacturing plants, and the answers they received are all the same, that is, their production capacity has reached the limit. Even if they expand production, there is not much additional production capacity.
, not to mention they have signed priority supply contracts with Yangtze River Shipping Company and Feng Shipping Company.
In fact, these three major steam engine manufacturers are now filled with regrets because of these supply contracts. Without this priority supply contract, under the competition of many shipping companies, they will definitely be able to raise their prices by a lot.
Thereby earning more profits.
But unfortunately, the contract has been signed, so they can only want to expand production capacity as much as possible, then complete the execution of that damn contract, and then freely supply to the broad market.
The three major steam engine manufacturers are unreliable!
But those shipping companies are not willing to lag behind others. Without Butcher Zhang, would it be possible to still eat pigs with hair on them? Impossible!
As a result, several large shipping companies joined forces to acquire a machinery company located in Dangtu, renamed it United Power Company, and injected large sums of money into the company for equipment upgrades and production line improvements.
Improvement, and then found the Royal Institute of Technology to apply for technical authorization of high-pressure steam engines.
The Royal Institute of Technology naturally welcomes this kind of thing. As a research and development institution, it needs to continuously export technology patents to make profits, and then exchange funds to support research, so the more popular this high-pressure steam engine is, the better.
The predecessor of United Power Company is Dangtu Second Machinery Company invested by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. The main business of this machinery company is not actually steam engines, but the repair of steam engines. However, due to poor management and the small place of Dangtu, there are no repairmen of steam engines.
There was only one manufacturer at the beginning, but later it became five or six.
In the end, it was packaged and sold as a whole due to poor management. Unfortunately, the investors it accepted later failed to revitalize the machinery company, and it was finally taken over by several major shipping companies.
The goal of several major shipping companies is naturally not to simply repair steam engines, nor is it even limited to manufacturing low-pressure steam engines. Instead, they want to directly manufacture shipboard steam engines in one step to avoid the embarrassment of being blocked by others.
After changing its name to United Power Company, it received a large amount of capital injection and obtained the patent authorization for high-pressure steam engines. The renewed United Power Company became the fourth domestic manufacturer with high-pressure steam engine patent authorization in one fell swoop.
Moreover, they were so wealthy that they didn't regard money as money at all. They just waved checks to purchase equipment and poach technicians, which actually allowed them to open up the situation in a short time.
A senior executive of United Dynamics declared in public: "No matter how difficult it is, we are not afraid!"
There was another sentence he didn't say: Even if you spend money on it, you still have to throw it out!
They made such a promise to the shareholders above, that is, several major shipping companies, that they must come up with ship-based steam engines before this winter!
Anyway, the Royal Institute of Technology has provided a complete set of technical information. All United Power Company, like the other three manufacturers, has to do is to build the steam engine according to the drawings, and they also have the mechanical equipment that the other three major manufacturers can purchase.
If they can purchase it, they can also poach the technical personnel they have.
If it can't be put into production within half a year, I'm afraid those shipping companies will go crazy.
However, even if United Dynamics Company strives to catch up, it still cannot catch up with Feng Shipping Company!
In mid-February, Feng's Shipping Company took the unprecedented step of placing an advertisement on the Jiangnan Road page of Datang Chao Bao. What advertisement?
Advertisement for Yuanfang's maiden voyage!
In advertising, Fung Shipping Company naturally boasts as much as it can!
Not only is this the first official commercial steamship in China, it is also the first mature and reliable steamship, and it is also the largest steamship!
It also comes with some basic data of the Yuanfang. The standard displacement reaches 350 tons. It adopts a standard inland river and coastal ship design, and adopts pure steam power in a leapfrog manner. It completely abandons sails. How can such ancient sails be mentioned?
And backward things can be completely thrown into the garbage heap of history.
When powered by steam, its speed can reach fifteen kilometers per hour!
Naturally, few people know whether these data are true or false. Even within the Feng Shipping Company, few people know the details of the Yuanfang. The construction of this ship has always been a secret, and the trial voyage was only in
The trials conducted in the trial area within the shipyard did not involve large-scale public trials at all.
As for its power system, outsiders don’t know that it uses a relatively complex parallel unit. To put it bluntly, it combines two sets of steam engines!
Moreover, these two sets of steam engines were not obtained from the same place. One of them was purchased from the Royal Institute of Technology, and the other was purchased from the Naval Steam Engine Factory. This steam engine was actually purchased from the Naval Steam Engine Factory.
Even the navy is afraid of the unstable quality of trial products, so they don’t want them.
Fortunately, these two sets of steam engines are actually the same model and specifications. They are both prototypes designed by the Royal Institute of Technology.
Therefore, the Yuanfang uses a power combination of two coal-fired boilers and two parallel-bar steam engines. Its maximum power can reach 180 horsepower.
It can be seen that only one hundred and eighty horsepower can be obtained by using two sets. In fact, the current development of ship-based steam engines is still relatively primitive. Although theoretical breakthroughs have been made, we still want to build a high-power steam engine for a while.
, is still relatively difficult.
After the Feng Shipping Company published the advertisement, the management of the Yangtze River Shipping Company was furious. They knew that Feng Shipping also deployed steam ships, and also ordered commercial ships from the steam engine factory affiliated to the Naval Shipyard.
steam engine.
But what they didn't expect was that the lunatics at Feng Shipping Company would dare to take out the experimental prototype and put it into commercial use.
That is a prototype for testing. Since it is said to be a prototype for testing, it means that it is not perfect in many aspects, and problems will arise if it is used directly for commercial use.
However, Feng Shipping was so bold that it directly put the prototype for commercial use, and also adopted a dual-unit parallel scheme to obtain sufficient horsepower.
But none of this is important!
What is important is that on February 26, the Yuanfang officially set sail from Shanghai, carrying more than a hundred passengers to Jinling City, and began its maiden voyage, announcing that Feng Shipping Company had officially entered the steamship era.
In the eyes of the people of the Yangtze River Shipping Company, the first steamship officially put into use in the Tang Empire, this extremely conspicuous crown, was stolen by the sneaky bastards of the Feng Shipping Company!
In order to save face, the Yangtze River Shipping Company directly purchased the other part of the ownership of the Lady from the Royal Institute of Technology without saying a word, and then announced that the Lady was officially put into commercial use and began to execute the route from Jinling City to Shanghai!
On March 1st, the Lady officially set sail in Jinling City and started its maiden voyage!
The maiden voyages of Yuanfang and Lady also officially set off the fierce competition between Yangtze River Shipping Company and Feng Shipping Company in the field of steamships. In this fierce competition, the curtain of the steamship era was completely opened!