In the winter, several countries that were negotiating with Daheng for weapons purchases all stopped the negotiations. This was because countries began to supply breech-loaded rifled weapons on a large scale, and they began to turn to the Kingdom of Krul and others.
The state procurement is done.
And what is very embarrassing is that the breech-loading rifled weapons supplied by powerful countries such as the Kingdom of Krul have good or even better performance, and the price is moderate.
Especially in the field of warships, after the Kingdom of Krul successively put into service a number of warships equipped with rear-mounted naval guns, many potential buyers went directly to the Kingdom of Krul to order warships.
In order to compete for warship orders, the Kingdom of Krul is also very diligent, and even put out a series of advanced naval guns represented by its newly equipped 250 mm and 32 times caliber on the shelves.
This artillery is also the most powerful naval gun in their Kingdom of Krul, except for the 300 mm and 30 times caliber naval gun that is currently kept secret.
The performance is extremely powerful, and when paired with their special steel conical armor-piercing projectiles, it is powerful enough to threaten the main armor belts of almost all contemporary warships.
And while it is powerful, the barrel of this artillery has a very good lifespan and is durable!
To be fair, the caliber of this artillery seems not as good as the 300 mm 25-caliber naval gun currently promoted by the Daheng Empire, but its performance is actually more powerful than this artillery!
Powerful naval guns and armor-piercing projectiles, coupled with their excellent hull design capabilities, steel-faced iron armor, and forced ventilation steam engine technology, together make the Kingdom of Krull's warship design and manufacturing capabilities undoubtedly ranked first in the world.
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When many countries purchase warships, they will first choose to order from the Kingdom of Krul.
Even the Orissa Empire has gone to the Kingdom of Krul and is preparing to order main battleships.
Faced with this situation, Lin Ziran was a little helpless!
Our own industrial and technical strength is not as good as others, whether it is naval guns, armor or power, it is not as good as others, so there is no good way.
The only advantage is the price advantage!
Although the warships of the Kingdom of Krul are good, new warships that use many new technologies are also expensive, and many countries do not have such money.
Although the warships of the Daheng Empire are a bit inferior in technology, they are better because they are cheaper!
For this reason, after the end of the second year of Qiansheng and at the beginning of the new year, Emperor Lin Ziran gave instructions to the relevant persons in charge that the arms trade, especially the warship business, could not stop and must continue to look for more orders.
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If you can’t beat the performance, just beat the price!
In addition, geopolitics can also be used appropriately.
But not all countries can buy new warships from the Krul Kingdom. For example, the golden country of the Orr Kingdom, even if they are willing to pay a big price, they cannot buy new warships from the Krul Kingdom.
The Ruhr Kingdom is bent on annexing them and plundering their gold.
The four countries on the east coast have also had conflicts with the Kingdom of Krul recently. They have already taken advantage of this conflict to win orders for two warships, and they can continue to work hard in the future.
The Three Kingdoms Alliance on the west coast of the Southern Continent can also work hard.
As for other countries, they can also strive for it as soon as possible.
In short, don’t give up voluntarily!
This warship can easily cost hundreds of thousands or even millions. A battleship can cost several million. Any order for a warship can earn millions of yuan in trade income.
It is very important for the Daheng Empire, which is currently in the stage of reconstruction and restoration of people's livelihood.
Since purchasing a large number of advanced machinery and equipment last year, the Empire has not stopped purchasing advanced equipment. This year, it is preparing to purchase a lot of advanced machinery and equipment.
Purchasing equipment costs money. In order to avoid an excessive trade deficit, it is necessary to expand arms trade to earn foreign exchange.
In addition to earning foreign exchange, a more important aspect of arms exports is that it allows a series of domestic heavy industry companies represented by the three major arms companies to take advantage of the opportunity to achieve sustained and rapid development.
Orders for battleships not only support workers in shipyards, but also workers in a series of industries such as naval guns and steel. It also allows these companies to have enough funds to purchase machinery and equipment and carry out technological upgrades.
At the beginning of the third year of Qian Sheng, Lin Ziran continued to emphasize the importance of arms trade by holding two consecutive meetings to continue to promote arms export trade.
However, the arms export trade is always a relatively special trade. It seems to have high added value and large profits. It is okay to rely on one or two in a short period of time, but it is somewhat unreliable to rely on arms trade to earn foreign exchange in the long term.
After all, warships are not consumables. Many countries have only ordered a few battleships for several years, and they are very cautious and choose again and again before placing orders.
To be honest, the Daheng Empire signed so many arms trade orders last year, but the total export volume of arms was far less than the trade volume of agricultural and livestock products.
Moreover, agricultural and livestock products do not even require much effort to sell. Food is hard currency and a product in strong demand. Some countries that lack food may not import weapons, but they must import food.
This is why even though Lin Ziran wants to change the domestic agricultural structure in his heart, it is inevitable that the grain industry of the Daheng Empire is still the only advantageous industry in the Daheng Empire. It would be a pity to give it up voluntarily.
However, Lin Ziran is not willing to rely on low-value-added grain exports in exchange for foreign exchange, so he has been working hard to promote the grain processing industry. It is also exporting, but exporting grain processing products such as alcohol can make more money than directly exporting grain.
At the same time, Lin Ziran is also continuing to promote the development of civilian industry, hoping that the civilian industrial products of the Daheng Empire, such as textiles, daily chemicals, etc., can open up the international market. However, Lin Ziran estimates that the hope is not great, at least three to five years ago. There is no hope for this year.
But in April of the third year of Qian Sheng, Qingshan Oil Company brought him good news!
Shayangwan Oil Company, a subsidiary of the State Assets Commission, discovered a large oil field in Changnan County, a coastal area in the northeast of Ningyu Prefecture and adjacent to Qingyuan County, Nanhai Prefecture. The oil reserves of Changnan Oilfield even exceed that of Qingshan Oilfield. It is also easy to exploit. The survey team’s first oil well was only drilled to a depth of more than 300 meters, but its daily output reached 3,000 barrels.
This is great news!
Before the unification, Lin Ziran made a lot of money by exporting kerosene. However, after the domestic unification, although the production capacity of Qingshan Petroleum has gradually increased, the production capacity is getting higher day by day, and currently has reached three million barrels, but Daheng's domestic market is too huge. Its annual output of three million barrels of oil is not enough to supply domestic supplies, let alone large-scale exports. Therefore, kerosene exports stopped for a while.
However, Lin Ziran has not stopped the development of the oil industry. In addition to instructing Qingshan Oil Company to continue to survey the Qingshan Oilfield, expand oil field production capacity and search for oil fields elsewhere, he also instructed the National Assets Commission to directly establish Shayang Bay.
Petroleum Corporation, Eastern Petroleum Corporation and many other oil companies have invested heavily in oil exploration across the country.
Finding oil these days can be both difficult and easy!
Basically, they go to places where oil is already produced, and then drill and survey to see if there are any oil fields.
In the past year, oil has been discovered in many places, especially in Nanhai Prefecture and Dongding Prefecture. However, the reserves of the discovered oil fields are very small, and it is useless to make small efforts.
But the current Changnan Oilfield is different. The reserves of this oilfield are huge, even exceeding those of the Qingshan Oilfield.
After learning the news, Lin Ziran immediately instructed Shayang Bay Petroleum Company to immediately fully develop the Changnan Oil Field, and at the same time continue to survey the surrounding areas to see if there are other oil fields.
Sure enough, good news came one after another. Just half a month later, Qingshan Oil Company reported that they had also found an oil field in the northeast of Ningyu Prefecture. Unfortunately, it was just north of Changnan Oil Field, only twenty years away.
Just a few kilometers...
To put it bluntly, the oil fields discovered by Qingshan Petroleum Company are probably part of the Changnan Oil Field.
what does that mean?
This means that the area bordering the northeastern Ningyu Prefecture and Nanhai Prefecture is very likely to be a large oil field!
For a time, in addition to Qingshan Petroleum Company and Shayangwan Petroleum Company, other oil exploration companies invested and established by the State Assets Commission also came here to continue surveying.
After this expanded survey, a lot of oil was discovered one after another.
This place definitely has a huge oil field!
If aggregated, the reserves are estimated to be ten times or even higher than those of Qingshan Oilfield!
The good news from the oil industry greatly excited Lin Ziran!
Because he found the key export commodities of the Daheng Empire: kerosene and other petroleum-related products!
As far as he knows, currently, no large-scale oil fields have been discovered in other countries around the world, except for Daheng. In other words, there are oil fields, but they have not found them yet, or they have not developed them.
This gives the Daheng Empire’s oil industry an extremely important opportunity for development!
For a time, Lin Ziran personally led many oil-related meetings and personally formulated a series of support policies for the oil industry.
Including instructing the Imperial Bank and other national banks to provide adequate financial support to the oil industry, instructing the industrial sector to prioritize oil exploration, refining equipment, etc.
Driven by the dual benefits of profits and policies, the empire's three state-controlled oil companies and the Qingshan Oil Company, which was directly owned by the royal family, erected numerous oil wells in Changnan County, four of which were directly owned by the four oil companies.
Super large oil refineries were built in just a few months, and a huge oil pipeline with a length of dozens of kilometers was completed and put into use in just a few months.
Not only official capital, but also private capital has poured into the oil industry intensively.
The empire does not prohibit private capital from investing in the oil industry. As long as the business is conducted legally and compliantly and does not attempt to adjust or influence official capital to control the energy industry, the empire does not care if private capital follows suit.
In a short period of time, hundreds of oil companies appeared in the empire, and they invested in finding oil everywhere like gambling.
It’s just that finding oil is not easy, and the oil exploration and development rights in many places, especially those where there are oil seedlings, have been obtained by the three major national oil companies and the royal family’s private property Qingshan Oil Company. Private capital oil companies The only option is to go elsewhere to find oil.
Not to mention, it actually allowed some companies to find oil.
However, the oil reserves they found are not worth mentioning compared with the oil reserves in Changnan Oilfield.
As the four major oil companies continue to conduct surveys in Changnan County and surrounding areas, the oil reserves in the area continue to rise, and multiple high-yield oil wells have appeared in succession.
In August of the third year of Qian Sheng, the No. 36 oil well of Shayang Bay Petroleum Company successfully produced oil. On the day it was produced, tens of thousands of barrels of oil were ejected, setting a record for Imperial Oil exploration and development. Well, the previous record was also Their company's daily output is 5,000 barrels.
Just relying on these high-yield oil wells allowed Sayang Bay Oil Company to surpass Qingshan Oil Company and become the largest oil company in the empire.
With the development of the petroleum industry, Daheng Empire's petroleum products, mainly kerosene, have reappeared in the international market!
Because in just the three years of Qian Sheng, the oil production capacity of the Daheng Empire has exploded several times. Even because of the rapid expansion of crude oil production capacity, the refining capacity has not been able to keep up in time. However, a lot of oil cannot be produced for the first time. The rapid refining and sales forced many oil companies to build many large oil tanks for storage.
The crude oil production capacity of the Daheng Empire quickly exceeded 3 million barrels to 15 million barrels in the third year of Qian Sheng.
Although the Daheng Empire has a large population and a huge market, such a huge oil production capacity is somewhat difficult to digest.
After all, the price of current petroleum terminal products, mainly kerosene, is still relatively high, and the overall market capacity is limited. The Imperial Oil Industry has no intention of significantly lowering prices in a short period of time to expand consumption by lowering kerosene prices. Group approach to expand a larger market.
In this way, the market seems to be bigger, but in fact you will not make more money, or even make less money.
Because kerosene is actually always in short supply, every cent cheaper means you earn less by one cent!
Even if the oil production capacity in the Daheng Empire has skyrocketed, the production capacity of the end product kerosene has also increased significantly, so that the domestic kerosene market has reached a certain degree of saturation without reducing prices.
However, compared to the vast global lighting market, kerosene is still in short supply.
At the same time, the four major oil companies in the empire are all under official and royal control. They keep the same pace on oil prices and adopt a common advance and retreat approach. Therefore, even if oil production capacity increases, the price of kerosene does not fall too much. Overall, Yan still maintained a relatively stable state.
In the second year of Qian Sheng, after years of continuous decline, the price of crude oil remained at about ten constant yuan. This year, the price has dropped to about eight constant yuan. However, compared with other types of competitive products, oil at this price has already It is extremely competitive, so the four major oil companies in the empire have no plans to continue cutting prices.
Unless oil production capacity continues to skyrocket, or foreign competitors emerge, causing the global kerosene market to be unable to maintain its current high prices and requiring an expansion of consumer groups, then further price cuts will be considered.
After all, the price of kerosene now has a very obvious competitive advantage compared to whale oil and other animals/animals and plants!
There are no foreign competitors now, and kerosene is in short supply relative to the global market. At this time, the oil companies of the Daheng Empire naturally began to actively expand externally. They need a broader overseas market to digest the huge oil production capacity.
In November of the third year of Qian Sheng, when the Qingshan Petroleum Company's Shengyuan motor-sailboat arrived at the Kingdom of Krul loaded with more than 2,000 tons of kerosene, it officially announced that the Daheng Empire's oil had begun to conquer the city on a comprehensive scale!