The first thousand five hundred and fifty chapters
The three companies that Li Xuan attaches great importance to are naturally heavy industries and are leaders in core industries.
The first one is Zhaoqing Machinery Company. Needless to say, what this company has in Shanghai is only their R&D base and production base, not a headquarters, but Li Xuan will still visit it.
And although their company is headquartered in Guangzhou, their production base in Shanghai is the largest production base of the company and even all domestic machinery industries.
And here is their largest R&D laboratory.
The second company is Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company. This company is the most popular steel company in recent years. It produces various types of special steel products with high quality and low prices. It has already squeezed out a large number of companies.
The steel company has become the second largest supplier of special steel after Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company. For example, among the major domestic steam engine manufacturers, the steel they use to manufacture key components such as crankshafts is basically from Xuzhou.
Special steel purchased by steel companies.
The third company is a seemingly inconspicuous company, but it is the company that Li Xuanqin decided to visit, that is Nanyang Rubber Company.
As a later generation, Li Xuan naturally knew the importance of rubber. He had already brought rubber trees from the Americas and planted them extensively in various parts of Nanyang, including Qiongzhou Prefecture, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places. This Nanyang Rubber Company is responsible for rubber planting.
A company that integrates processing.
Li Xuan first went to Zhaoqing Machinery Company, visited their R&D building, and met with several of the company's main R&D personnel. Interestingly, these R&D personnel were all from the Royal Institute of Technology.
Over the years, the Royal Institute of Technology has provided many high-end talents to all walks of life, among which R&D personnel are a top priority. Basically, the main R&D talents in some large enterprises in the empire are from the Royal Institute of Technology.
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In addition to R&D personnel, there are also many professional students, mainly economics scholars, because the Economics Department of the Royal Institute of Technology is very famous, and the scholars in it are also the only group of professional economists in the empire.
, if many of them don’t want to engage in research at the Royal Institute of Technology, they often work as think tanks or simply as senior executives in major companies.
Wei Bowen, the former general manager of Feng Shipping Company, was actually from the Economics Department of the Royal Institute of Technology. He was already an associate professor when he was at the Royal Institute of Technology. Later, he was poached by Feng Shipping Company with a high salary and was directly hired.
Attracted by the annual salary of more than 100,000 yuan and high incentives, he finally gave up his status as an associate professor and became an executive of the company, and later served as the company's general manager.
Of course, scholars from this college not only widely flow to major companies, but in fact more of them flow to the political arena.
After all, doing business these days is not the first choice for these high-quality talents. Most people are still more willing to learn and work with the best.
Especially among the economics and other liberal arts scholars in the college, many finally choose to enter politics. For example, the current director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance was a professor in the Economics Department of the Royal Institute of Technology.
Moreover, when he first became an official, he was the deputy director of the Department of Finance, and there was no talk of transitioning to a mid- to low-level official position.
At the same time, the current right minister of the Ministry of Rites is also from the Royal Institute of Technology, but he entered the political arena when he was still a graduate student, and he started very high, starting directly from the fourth grade.
There are many more situations like this.
The reason for this situation is also related to the major they studied.
Although the Tang Empire had a special group of academic aristocrats, these academic aristocrats were limited to science and engineering. Only by doing research and making inventions could you obtain the title of aristocrat.
Currently, there are about three hundred academic nobles in the Tang Empire, all of whom are scientific researchers of various types, and the tallest among them is already a marquis.
However, except for science and engineering, it is basically impossible for other Royal Institute of Technology students to obtain noble titles.
There is nothing that can be done about this. Li Xuan supports scientists engaged in science and technology, not sociologists, economists, etc., so although they are both teachers and students of the Royal Institute of Technology, there is a gap between liberal arts and science.
The gap is still relatively large.
In addition, not every student of the Royal Institute of Technology in science and engineering can obtain a title of nobility. Let alone the title of nobility, it is not easy to even become a professor now.
Even though most of the students at the Royal Institute of Technology are geniuses, geniuses can also be divided into super geniuses and ordinary geniuses.
It would be great for an ordinary genius to successfully graduate. It is not easy to go one step further and become an academic leader, become a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, and make great achievements to obtain a title of nobility.
Therefore, after graduating from the Royal Institute of Technology, some science and engineering students have no confidence in making great academic achievements, and they will choose to work in companies or enter politics. Basically, they will go into politics for power, and they will work in companies for money.
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But no matter how outstanding they are in the future, their social status and political status will be far inferior to those professors from the Royal Institute of Technology who can successfully stay in school and produce scientific research results.
Professors generally start with third-grade treatment, and it is relatively easy to obtain a noble title.
Today's noble titles are not just titles, but real nobles. There is no essential difference between academic nobles and military nobles. Their treatment is the same, and they will have all the fiefdoms they should have.
In the continuous overseas canonization in recent years, many academic nobles also obtained fiefs in Nanyang, which is not much worse than the military nobles.
In other words, in today's imperial atmosphere, only students from the Royal Institute of Technology who have little confidence in making achievements in scientific research will choose to work as officials or engage in business. As long as there is a chance to stay in school, they are more willing to stay in school and teach.
If you want social status, you must have social status, if you want political status, you must have political status, if you want enjoyment, you must have enjoyment, and you can also obtain a noble title, so that your family will become an imperial noble family from now on.
No normal person would give up easily.
This social phenomenon is inseparable from Li Xuan's deliberate support. Without Li Xuan's support, how could those scientists receive such high treatment? Without such high treatment, how could they attract many geniuses to apply for the Royal Institute of Technology?
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After visiting the R&D building of Zhaoqing Machinery Company, we then went to the company’s production base next door and visited several of their representative products.
These products are almost all types of mechanical equipment, but the core products are various types of high-precision industrial machine tools.
Although Zhaoqing Machinery Company is the largest machinery company in the country, they are involved in almost everything related to machinery. They develop and produce various types of equipment such as textile machines and looms. However, in recent years, they have begun to move towards
Upstream companies have transformed.
Its research and development focus has become various industrial machine tools!
The various types of machine tools produced by the company basically represent the top industrial power of the contemporary empire. Well, they are limited to mass production. If we only talk about laboratory equipment, some of the experimental equipment are hand-made within the Royal Institute of Technology.
Much more than these mass production equipment.
However, experimental equipment and industrial equipment are two different things and cannot be confused.
Li Xuan expressed support for Zhaoqing Machinery Company's change.
He told Zhaoqing Machinery Company and the accompanying officials and gentry that the development of imperial industry was inseparable from various types of mechanical equipment, and the production and manufacturing of various types of mechanical equipment was inseparable from industrial machine tools. Zhaoqing Machinery Company specializes in various types of industrial machine tools.
, has made certain contributions to the improvement of the empire's industrial level, which is worthy of encouragement and promotion.
After finishing the inspection of Zhaoqing Machinery Company, he went to Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company. This company is more radical than Zhaoqing Machinery Company. Although their company still bears the name of Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company, in fact they even have the company headquarters.
Moving to Shanghai is not just about setting up R&D institutions and production bases here.
Of course, their largest production base is not in Shanghai, but still in their hometown of Xuzhou. In addition, they have also established large-scale production bases in Tianjin in the north and Guangzhou in the south.
The top three steel companies in the country basically have a nationwide layout. They will have their production bases and sales channels in the south, middle, north and southwest. If they are limited to one place, it is impossible to be among the top three in the country.
level.
When visiting the company, Li Xuan saw what a positive and progressive company should look like. To be honest, their strength and scale are not as good as Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company. Their company headquarters is not a magnificent office building. It is not even a grand office building.
It can be called crude.
However, their R&D building is large-scale, the environment is quite good, and the various equipment in the production base are also the most advanced.
Several leaders of Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company told Li Xuan that they invest at least 10% of their revenue as research and development expenses every year, not 10% of profits, but 10% of revenue.
And it invests heavily in equipment upgrades every year to maintain market competitiveness.
This makes Li Xuan particularly appreciate that without sufficient R&D investment, how can it be possible to promote technological upgrading and progress? How can one compete with peers and occupy the market without leading technology.
The Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company is able to take the lead in the field of special steels because of their huge investment in research and development every year.
In comparison, Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company appears to be much lagging behind.
Although Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company is still a wholly-owned enterprise owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, it is still the largest steel company in the country. But to be honest, they only rely on their early establishment and the natural advantage of Dangtu Iron Mine. However, in terms of products,
Technically, they are actually lagging behind.
When visiting Xuzhou Iron and Steel Company, Li Xuan also noticed that the company was also developing armor steel for the navy.