Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 394: A decade of rapid development

In August 1885, the two improved Dingyuan battleships ordered by the Han Dynasty from the Vulcan Shipyard in Germany were completed and returned to China. In addition to the local ship technicians and naval officers and soldiers sent in October 8, there were more than 1882 German ship designers, experts and technicians who returned to South America along with the two battleships. They will be responsible for guiding all the technicians of the Xinjing Shipyard to complete the construction task of two 10-ton armored cruisers.

In September 1887, all the technicians of the Xinjing Shipyard and the main technical backbones of the Xing'an Shipyard and the Royal Shipyard were gathered together. After two years, which took one year longer than the construction project of the German Vulcan Shipyard at the same time, the two 9-ton armored cruisers finally passed the technical inspection and all technical indicators met the requirements for launching.

In November 1887, the two armored cruisers were delivered to the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet respectively. At this point, the Han Navy had a total of two cutting-edge battleships, two new armored cruisers, two 11-ton cruisers, eight 3200-ton light cruisers, more than 1350 torpedo ships of various types, supply ships, communication ships, and large transport ships, a total of nearly ships of various types.
The total tonnage of the navy's main warships jumped to second place in South America, not much different from the Chilean Navy, which ranks first in South America, and are generally at the same level.

Between 1880 and 1889, the overall combat capabilities of the navy and army were raised to the expected standards.

In September 1886, after the introduction and digestion of technology, the domestically manufactured 9mm heavy artillery and 155mm naval guns were successively put into service in the army and navy.

In November 1888, more than 11 main forces of the National Defense Army completed the task of replacing their equipment with new weapons. The Jianye 6-year rifle, which imitated the Mosin-Nagant rifle and used single-base gunpowder, replaced the Hanhua 1875 rifle and became the standard weapon of the army. At the same time, the Jianye 5-year heavy machine gun, the first domestic heavy machine gun, which had better overall performance than the first-generation Maxim machine gun, also replaced the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun and became the main supporting heavy firepower for regimental and battalion-level army units.

The 1880s and 1890s were the era when the Second Industrial Revolution was in full swing. A large number of new technologies emerged during this period, and new technologies quickly replaced old technologies. Many improved technologies that had just been developed ten or five years ago were likely to be replaced by another technology with better performance and lower cost.
Therefore, in order to prevent the technology that had been developed with great effort from only maintaining its advantage for a few years before being cracked by other Western countries, the Han government used nearly 1884 technologies that were cracked within ten years, including the single-base gunpowder discovered by French scientists in 1888 and the double-base gunpowder discovered by Nobel in , as bargaining chips, and carried out large-scale technology exchanges and exchanges with Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. In exchange, it acquired more than emerging technologies of various sizes from Western countries, providing a technical reserve foundation for the local industrialization take-off.

Openness, mutual assistance and technology sharing are the propaganda slogans put forward by the Han government for technological exchanges among countries. Between 1880 and 1889, the export and exchange of nearly new technologies eased to a certain extent the tense relations between Britain, France and Italy due to the earlier war. Economic exchanges between countries gradually tended to be open and close. Chemical, electrical and other products produced locally in Han were also allowed to enter Germany, Austria-Hungary and other European countries, and occupied a small market share.

The Han government's efforts to seek cooperation with other countries around the world and exchange technology not only made up for many shortcomings of the local industry, but also provided a channel for the export of local industrial products.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the Western powers were in a period of imperialist economy, and the most typical feature of imperialist economy was trade protectionism. Only domestic goods were allowed to enter the domestic market and the country's affiliated colonies. Foreign goods were absolutely not allowed to enter the domestic market without permission.

The huge colonial market provided a huge industrial market for Britain and France. A large number of domestic industrial commodities entered the colonies through ocean transportation, and then were dumped in a monopolistic manner, ultimately obtaining extremely considerable economic benefits.

After completing the Industrial Revolution, the domestic industrial market of late-developing industrial countries could no longer meet the needs of industrial development, so they had to expand overseas markets. This was also the main reason why late-developing industrial powers such as the United States and Germany challenged the British and French colonial order in the early 20th century.

Compared with Germany and the United States, China's current level of industrialization has not yet reached the level of saturation of the local market. However, as the first ten-year development plan is about to be completed, facing the rapid expansion of local industrial production capacity, planning in advance for the future overseas market layout of local products has become an important matter facing the government.

In the late 19s, the British Thomas solved the problem of dephosphorization of phosphorus-containing iron ore by adding lime to the dolomite-lined Bessemer converter.

This technological breakthrough makes it possible to widely utilize phosphorus-containing iron ore, improve steel quality and reduce production costs.

In 1879, the Germans cracked the steel smelting method invented by Thomas and applied it to the local steel smelting industry.
In the early 19s, the Thomas smelting process was known to have spread among European countries.
The Han government responded quickly to this latest technological achievement.

In December 1882, the Han Chinese Iron and Steel Association, led by the Han Chinese Embassy in Germany, could not wait to introduce this technology to Han Chinese, and Han Chinese steel production increased by leaps and bounds. The following year, Han Chinese produced 12 tons of Thomas steel and 1782 tons of Bessemer steel.

By the beginning of 1889, influenced by the large-scale railway construction,
The crude steel output in Han reached 24 tons per year, and the pig iron output reached 31 tons per year.

In the same year, world crude steel production reached 1000 million tons.

The United States ranks first in the world with 402 million tons.

The United Kingdom ranked second in the world, with production increasing to 353.6 million tons.

Germany ranks third in the world with 201 million tons, following the United Kingdom.

Although France ranks fourth, its output is only 70 tons, which is far behind the top three.

Russia's production slowly increased to 37.8 tons, maintaining the fifth place in the world.

Han's crude steel output ranked eighth in the world, after the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy.

The local steel production has made a great stride into the world's top ten, and the total mileage of local railways has increased from 1879 kilometers in 2000 to 6000 kilometers. The representative industries of the Second Industrial Revolution, such as chemicals, electricity, and internal combustion engines, have made leapfrog development in Han. The big chemical industry strategy is the top priority of the ten-year development plan. After years of leapfrogging development, the big chemical industry has become the fastest growing and most proud national industry in the field of large industries in Han.

Polymer Chemical Industry Branch,
Local researchers mixed sulfur and natural rubber and heated them to produce an elastic material with better performance.
It is used in bicycle pneumatic tires and other rubber products and has a wide range of uses.

In 1887, using Goodyear technology and introduced wire drawing technology, the Chinese Chemical Society established the first rayon factory in Xinjing.

Coal chemical industry branch field,
In February 1883, the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully built a coke oven with a chemical recovery device in Yangzhou, extracting a large amount of aromatic hydrocarbons from coal tar as raw materials for industries such as medicine and dyes.

Photosensitive materials field,

In 1884, the Chang'an Municipal Government led the establishment of the Chang'an Film Company, whose main products were photographic plates and films.
In March 1888, Changan Film Company began producing photographic films and rolls, thus opening the door to photographic technology.

In June 1888, the films produced by Changan Film Company entered the European market. In August, the first batch of films was sold out and the quality of the films was widely praised. In December 6, Changan Film Company occupied 8% of the international film market and was ranked as the world's two largest film manufacturers along with Kodak Film Company of the United States.

Textile dyes field,

In May 1882, researchers at the Academy of Chemical Sciences synthesized indigo using phenylacetic acid, thus completing the technology for the total synthesis of indigo.

In January 1883, local chemical researchers used high-temperature roasting to complete the technical preparation of synthesizing organic materials (lignite, sawdust, paper, leather, etc.) with sodium sulfide and sulfur into brown sulphur dyes.

In 1885, Liu Linping, a returned overseas student, used low temperature and drying conditions to control

Soak the cotton cloth with a solution of sodium ethyl naphthol, then use ethyl acetate diazonium salt to develop the color, revealing red on the cotton fiber.

Because ice is needed to maintain low temperature during the dyeing process, this dye is called ice dye.

While local chemical dye technology is developing rapidly, dye technology in Western countries is also in a stage of rapid improvement.

Hundreds of new chemical dye companies were established in Western countries such as Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and the United States. Among them, the most famous ones are Germany's Baden Aniline Soda, Hoechst, Bayer AG, Britain's Brunner Mond Chemical Industries, the United States' DuPont, and Switzerland's Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. In the international dye market, these foreign chemical companies compete with large local chemical companies such as Royal Soda Company, Susong Textile Company, and Jiangnan Textile Company, fiercely competing for international market share.

Rubber branch field,

Since China is the world's largest producer of natural rubber raw materials, it has advantages in raw material costs and technical reserves.
Therefore, after 1884, the initially formed rubber industry in China was able to produce rubber tape, rubber shoes, rubber hoses, rubber sheets and some daily necessities. These rubber products quickly seized the international rubber product market by virtue of their price advantage and scarcity, and then promoted large local enterprises headed by the Royal Rubber Manufacturing Company and Luozhou Rubber Industry Group to go abroad and complete the transformation from local state-owned enterprises to large international trust enterprises.

By 1889, local rubber companies accounted for percent of the international market, initially forming a monopoly structure.

Soda ash industry,

In 1876, the Han government used the introduced Solvay process to establish the Royal Alkali Company in its home country to engage in the production of chemical products such as soda ash.

In February 1886, the Royal Soda Company completed the technical improvements to the Solvay process, which reduced the price of soda ash per ton from 2 Han Yuan to 52 Han Yuan after large-scale production.

The production cost of soda ash has been greatly reduced. The soda ash produced by Royal Soda Manufacturing Company has surpassed Bayer of Germany to become the most popular product among consumers in the international soda ash market. However, due to the protection of the domestic market by European powers, soda ash has not been given the opportunity to compete fairly with companies in the same industry in European countries like scarce or niche industrial products such as rubber and film.

After 1887, the international soda ash market share held by Han Guo companies remained stagnant, while companies such as Germany's Bayer and Britain's Brunner Mond Chemical Company took advantage of trade agreements between European countries to quickly occupy the European market share and continuously narrowed the sales gap with Han Guo soda ash manufacturers. …………

(End of this chapter)