The first thousand two hundred and sixty-eight chapters
Li Yubo held the newspaper and shouted excitedly: "With this, I can build a real two-wheeled bicycle, a bicycle that can run by itself without pedals!"
Not long after, Li Yubo appeared in an office with a newspaper.
In the office, Li Yangdong, the boss of Li's Bicycle Company, looked at his young second son and listened to what he said about real two-wheeled bicycles, but his heart was full of disappointment.
His son is so obsessed with real bicycles that he even gave up his studies for it. Last year, in order to work on this, he hid in his laboratory for more than a month and did not report to school. As a result, he was ordered to drop out of Huguang University. This matter
The news spread throughout Hanyang's upper class, almost losing all face to the Li family.
After all, his Li family is a gentry family, which can be regarded as a respectable family in the entire Hanyang Mansion. He, Li Dongyang, was admitted to the Army Martial Arts School when he was young, and served in the army until he was more than 30 years old, and finally became a captain.
He retired from the military and once served in the administrative department. However, he resigned and returned to his hometown within a few years. He finally took over the family business and founded Li's own company.
The first half of his resume, Li Yangdong, is the life experience of a typical upper-class kid.
Studying as a teenager, applying for a military academy as a young man, then joining the army, and then retiring in middle age to engage in politics or business. This experience is almost the standard experience for most children from upper-class families in the contemporary era.
Among them, military experience is indispensable.
This does not mean that they are willing to join the army. In fact, many people do not really want to join the army. After all, even being an officer is very tiring and tiring, and you will also be sent to the frontier or simply serve overseas.
The hardship involved is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
However, in today's society of the Tang Dynasty, joining the army is a must experience for the children of the upper class, especially the heirs of the nobles, who are all trying their best to make meritorious service in the army.
Because the aristocratic system in the Tang Empire adopts a reduced-level hereditary system, even a very small number of meritorious officials will have the preferential treatment of inheriting the original title for several generations, or they will be reduced to a lord, baron, viscount, etc. hereditary.
However, these nobles who receive preferential treatment are very few. There are more than 5,000 nobles in the Tang Dynasty. There are only a few dozen nobles who have inherited the original title for two or three generations, while those who can inherit hereditary titles such as lords are reduced to hereditary nobles.
, less than ten fingers.
Each of the above-mentioned families was a founding figure in the empire, while most of the other nobles had their ranks reduced and their titles reduced hereditary.
Of course, Li Xuan also gave his ministers a way, that is, every year he would specifically grant a small number of heirs to the title to inherit the title.
But the conditions are also very harsh, that is, the heir to the title must have made meritorious service to the country.
Whether you want to be a scientist and make scientific research results, or you want to join the army and make meritorious deeds, you have to make great achievements.
Otherwise, it can only be hereditary with reduced levels, and after a title is reduced hereditary several times, it will be irreducible and become a commoner.
In the thirty years of the empire, there have been many noble families who, after inheriting the family for several generations, reduced their titles to the people.
Even though the number of nobles in the empire has always been maintained at five to six thousand, the empire canonizes a large number of nobles every year.
This also means that every year, nobles actually lose their titles and become commoners.
It is not easy to ensure that one's family title will be passed down forever. The path of becoming a scientist is not reliable for most people.
The difficulty is even more difficult than destroying a country by one person. In the Tang Dynasty, many expedition teams went overseas and could easily destroy an indigenous kingdom!
But it is very difficult to be knighted for scientific research.
It is basically impossible for your family background to provide you with any help, because this thing tests your IQ. There is no way to make up for a lack of IQ, and melatonin and other things cannot improve your IQ.
Not to mention being knighted for scientific research, even if you want to be admitted to the Royal Institute of Technology, it is not that easy, because the Royal Institute of Technology only recruits hundreds of students every year, but what is the population of the empire? Several hundred million.
How many geniuses are there here?
The most important thing is that the Tang Dynasty valued science and adopted elite education, which made the officials of the Tang Empire, especially local officials, eager for geniuses, prodigies and the like.
If a genius with a superior IQ appears, the local education official would like to be a father and a mother to train him and then send him to apply for the Royal Institute of Technology.
If you pass the exam, not only will the candidates benefit for life, but local officials will also get a lot of political bonus points.
At the very least, a comment about meritorious education is indispensable. Getting promoted and making a fortune is a matter of minutes.
If one day this genius becomes a high-ranking official or even becomes a knight due to his scientific research, it will be like getting a big deal in advance.
Therefore, many local officials still search for geniuses all over the world and provide these geniuses with the best environment. They usually marry their daughters, granddaughters, etc. in advance, hoping to find a future son-in-law of a scientific aristocrat.
The whole situation is even more serious than the culture of officials in the pre-Ming Dynasty that focused on supernatural powers.
Therefore, in today's Datang Empire, many preparatory schools have more or less super geniuses waiting to apply for the Royal Institute of Technology. As for the Royal Institute of Technology, there are even more geniuses everywhere.
It is impossible for almost everyone to apply for the Royal Institute of Technology, even if the rich and powerful know it.
For many children of powerful people, unless they are really super geniuses, no one would expect to be admitted to the Royal Institute of Technology. They usually aim to apply for the Army Military Academy or the Naval Military Academy. Of course, some people will
Choose to apply for four-year universities such as Imperial College and Jinling University.
Li Yangdong himself was a child of someone else and successfully entered the Army Martial Arts School. However, none of his sons became successful. None of his three sons could inherit his talent for reading.
He couldn't even get into a military academy.
In the end, only his second son, Li Yubo, managed to get admitted to Huguang University.
However, this second son was dropped out of school in Huguang last year because he didn't go to class.
This incident made Li Yangdong very angry and at the same time deeply helpless.
This time, my son is the father of a child after all. This beating cannot be repeated.
In the end, he could only let him work in the family business, but what he didn't expect was that even if he worked in the family business, he would still be riding a bicycle all day long, a bicycle that could run on its own without human pedaling.
Not only is this a waste of time, but it also wastes a lot of research money.
I bought a lot of steam engines, gas engines and the like, but they are not cheap items.
Nowadays, if you want to develop a gasoline engine, you don’t need to think about it. This will cost a lot of huge research and development funds.
This Li's bicycle company is nominally owned by him as the head of the family, but in fact it belongs to the entire family. He had previously provided too much research funds to his second son, which had already made other members of the family very dissatisfied.
This situation cannot continue. If it continues like this, I'm afraid the whole family will be in trouble.
After taking a deep breath, Li Yangdong said: "The year before last, when you entered the university, you had already had a wedding ceremony, married a wife and started a family. The so-called starting a family and starting a career. Since you have already married, it is time to start a career."
"I have asked my lawyer to arrange the documents. From now on, the machinery factory in Wuchang and the Xiangjiang Hotel will be under your name."
When Li Yubo heard this, he was stunned!
Even though he was obsessed with technology, he was not unsophisticated. He understood clearly what his father meant.
What this means is that he needs to make a living on his own like the second sons of other big families.
According to the consistent tradition of the upper-class families of the Tang Dynasty, especially in recent decades, in order to ensure the inheritance of the family, the titles and assets of the nobles are completely bound together.
Many nobles will make a will through a lawyer during their lifetime, binding all their personal property with the title. The property and the title will be passed on together. At the same time, it is generally stipulated that the personal property of the heir to the title will be unconditionally settled after inheriting the title.
Titles are bound together, and some nobles even stipulate that the personal wealth of the wife of the heir to the title must also be tied to the title.
This is the integrated inheritance system of title and property that has been very popular in the aristocratic society of the Tang Dynasty in recent decades. This system is not officially promoted, but is a spontaneous behavior of the aristocrats.
This is not only true for nobles, many upper-class families will also pass on their wealth centrally even if they do not inherit their title!
In most cases, family wealth will be inherited by the eldest son, and other children generally only receive a small amount of property to support their lives.
These families want to ensure the long-term prosperity of the family and avoid the dilution of wealth caused by the separation of generations.
So you will see that most of the people who are working hard outside are actually the second sons.
Because it is difficult for these second sons to directly inherit a large amount of wealth and they need to work hard on their own.
Now Li Yubo knows that he has also reached this day, but he is not like the second sons in other families who are unwilling to do anything or even want to engage in various conspiracies to try to compete for the family business.
Instead, he felt relaxed and even looked forward to it.
This means that he will have enough funds on hand to support his research on two-wheeled bicycles.
When he came back from the company, Li Yubo already had many documents in his hands. These documents were equity transfer documents, a small machinery factory, a hotel, and some securities.
The total value is about 20,000 Tangyuan!
On these transfer documents, one end is his father's signature, and the other end is his signature Li Yubo.
After returning to his home in the suburbs, Li Yubo told his wife about the separation and his plans. He planned to sell the hotel, raise funds to invest in the machinery factory, and recruit more manpower for research.
bike.
After talking about his plan, he pointed to the gasoline engine above and said: "With this, my bicycle will definitely be built, I guarantee it!"
His wife took the newspaper and read it. After being silent for a long time, she casually said, "Can it really be made?"
Li Yubo nodded: "The possibility of success is extremely high!"
He wasn't full of enthusiasm and didn't care about it. He also considered what to do if he failed.
His wife was silent for a moment, then turned and went upstairs, but soon went downstairs again, holding a document bag in her hand: "This is a 10,000-yuan Royal Bank certificate my mother secretly gave me when I got married.