What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 660 Seeking cooperation
Tang Wen could now imagine the contents of the top-secret files being written by the National Security Bureau:
【No.: Gaijin-096】

[Abnormal Entity: Tang Wen]
Common forms: Top billionaires, members of the Dragon Group's decision-making team, musicians, science fiction writers, early pioneers of the internet, founders of the mobile internet ecosystem, oil tycoons, and suspected of possessing a large number of warships.

[Rating: Safe]

[Note: Although the situation is at a safe level, he may propose many unimaginable plans. Rejecting these plans could lead to valuable technology and massive amounts of funds flowing to other factions. Accepting them could bring enormous benefits, but it does not rule out the possibility of huge risks.]

[Status: Temporarily contained at a great cost for world peace]

All of the above are imagined.

In addition, Tang Wen was well aware of the absurdity of the moon landing plan—it was indeed a little over the top, since he could only provide some outdated rocket technology and funding.

The Apollo program was actually quite rudimentary. Every rocket and spacecraft was meticulously crafted by hand, unlike industrial products like those from SpaceX. As a result, it was extremely expensive and not sustainable.

The three essential elements for a lunar landing are: rocket, spacecraft, and lander.

The lunar landing program only requires four steps:
1. A rocket launched the spaceship and lander to the moon;
2. The spacecraft and lander separate, and the astronauts land on the lunar surface;

3. The lander returns the astronauts to space and docks with the spacecraft;

4. The spacecraft returned to Earth and landed successfully.

To save time and money, the rocket design planned to disassemble the parts of the Saturn V rocket, select the usable parts, reassemble them, apply them to a completely new design, and adopt a modern electrical control system. This would reduce the difficulty and workload of developing the new rocket to about 30% of the original.

As for lunar spacecraft and landers, there's nothing we can do. Not only are there none at Johnson Space Launch Complex, but even if we had some decades-old spacecraft, they wouldn't be of any use.

Armstrong's spacecraft had a memory core made of magnetic cores carefully woven by female workers, and its control computer was far inferior to even a microcontroller. The computer crashed when it landed on the moon, and it was only by manually taking over control by the American superhuman astronaut that it was successfully restored.

In his discussions with Qian Lin'an, the latter was inclined to draw inspiration from the N1 rocket lunar landing plan developed by the Russian spacecraft. This involved directly enhancing the manned portion of the spacecraft based on the Shenzhou spacecraft, such as enlarging and lengthening the service module to provide power for round trips between Earth and the Moon, and eliminating the orbital module to reduce weight. This would reduce the difficulty and workload of developing the spacecraft from scratch to 30%.
The lander had no choice but to be developed entirely independently. Besides, the Apollo landers were so bad that they were not worth considering, but fortunately, the workload was theoretically not a big problem.

Based on a comprehensive assessment, Qian Lin'an believes that the workload and difficulty of this lunar landing should be about 50% of that of the Apollo program, but the safety would be greatly improved.

As for funding... Qian Lin'an estimates it will exceed 1000 billion yuan. After all, the total budget for the stingy Shenzhou program is 150 to 200 billion yuan. 1000 billion yuan is only 120 billion US dollars, which is not much for a lunar landing program, but no one dares to say it is a small number.

Could Tang Wen produce it? At least at this point, those in the know could not doubt that a man could produce 700 tons of gold and a super aircraft carrier.

The biggest challenge of the plan is how much domestic resources it will consume, and whether the empire will see it as a challenge and suppress it.

In addition, we must also consider that once the plan begins, it will inevitably be made public. What if something goes wrong and the project falls apart?
Therefore, Tang Wen is not in a hurry to find answers, and he may not be able to go to the United States to get the Saturn V data until the second half of the year—don't even think about it in the first half of the year. The Prism Building has not yet let him off the hook because of the Nanyang incident. Going there now would definitely land him in jail, or he would be fined hundreds of billions or have to hand over some important technology to get out of trouble.

It will only be safe when Prism Building is extremely busy in the second half of the year, and the FCC's MDA program needs his guidance and invitation.

"No rush, it would be great if we had news within this year."

Tang Wen's response put Zhao Hande at ease; this much time was enough for him to weigh the pros and cons and make a decision.

"That's good. I'll come to the capital for a meeting in a few days."

"Can I not go... Lan Xi is very smart and let her go in my place."

Tang Wen's face fell immediately. Since Gai Jin had grown up, his goal of returning to Goose City to live a peaceful life seemed a distant dream.

The reason is simple: Gaijin Group is a giant enterprise, and many industry standards and new regulations are subject to consultation.

As for Tang Wen himself, setting aside his secret identity, he has the background of pushing China into the WTO, making billions of dollars in stock trading with Zhao Hande, and being the number one supporter of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Sometimes asking a few more questions might yield new insights.

He is now considering taking one of the MD.11 orders to use as a private jet, otherwise buying tickets is quite troublesome.

Zhao Hande ignored him and continued speaking to himself:

"This time we're discussing the standardization of car registration and modification standards. Could you also offer your opinions?"

Because of the early entry into the WTO, many problems were exposed ahead of time, and the bill was also pushed to be introduced ahead of time. The original timeline had to wait until after 01.

"Then I'll participate."

Tang Wen immediately perked up. He made up his mind to ban blue-green license plates first, not knowing how many good cars in the future would be ruined by license plates; at the same time, it would be best to relax the inspection on modifications... Start cultivating CDMs now.

In addition, the formalization of procedures is also related to the interests of the government. Now, buying a car requires various certificates and signatures, which excludes many "nouveau riche". Most of the cars on the road are smuggled cars, and the remaining legitimate cars rarely have proper and complete procedures, which is not conducive to the popularization of cars.

……

Before going to the capital, Tang Wen would come to check on the progress of the new factory of Hongdu Smart Selection Machine from time to time.

Hongdu is also in the flood-affected area, so the precision equipment is still stored in the warehouse of the First Aircraft Manufacturing Plant, and the current work is on factory construction.

It must be said that Robert is a very kind person. Tang originally wanted some high-end equipment—the kind that the MD.11 project could not import due to the embargo—but he also sent over a large amount of special equipment specifically for fighter jet production, some of which even came with tooling.

In fact, McDonnell Douglas' top management had no objection to the deal, because what was being sold were obsolete equipment that served the military's production lines. Due to secrecy and control, the equipment could only be piled up in warehouses and moldy. Converting it into passenger aircraft manufacturing would be a losing proposition. The key point is that the deep-pocketed Sharp Edge Building was not interested in the destination of obsolete production equipment at all.

Tang Wen was willing to buy these "junk" items that should have been gathering dust for years and then being scrapped, and privately stated that "as long as you dare to sell, I won't haggle."

The payment method involves bearer tankers transiting through third-party ports. Underground banks love oil even more than gold, and some intermediaries are willing to help launder it. There are even rumors that it was a job handled by a high-ranking IRS official, making it as reliable as it gets.

McDonnell Douglas's cost for this deal was zero, and every penny earned was pure profit. Robert readily sold at least $300 million worth of supplies, without even any risk.

Commissioner Smith could easily access clear scrapping records, with everything meticulously documented from the factory to the scrap yard. A thorough investigation would only reveal that the equipment had already been destroyed and smelted back into scrap metal.

Besides, Prism Building wouldn't be so idle as to investigate "scrap materials." Every year, the military scraps countless, even brand-new, high-value, materials, and no one dares to investigate their whereabouts, let alone a few insignificant old machines.

But this was completely unexpected for Tang Wen. McDonnell Douglas had gone so far as to cram in equipment from three production lines, and because of the hasty packing, they didn't even have time to sort the parts carefully. Changbus even found a lot of SOP manuals and fighter jet parts. The purpose of SOP manuals is to guide operators on how to install parts, specify screw torque, assembly sequence, etc., in great detail. The purpose is to allow an ordinary operator to complete the work by referring to the SOP—this kind of leak is no less serious than the original blueprints.

The materials that Changbus found during his search mainly pertain to the F-18A/B, and some even belong to the C-17. Even though the amount is small, it is enough to give people a glimpse into the overall picture and deepen their understanding of Imperial fighter jets.

Besides the unexpected bonus, McDonnell Douglas also dismissed several on-site managers who had participated in the assembly and production of military aircraft. The latter quickly transited through Europe and are now working diligently to restore the McDonnell Douglas military aircraft factory to the highest standards in Hongdu.

However, this joy could not be shared with Mr. Lu for the time being, as he was currently assembling F-14s in a military industrial city in Sichuan.

Thanks to the Third Front construction project, Sichuan has so many military industrial cities that it's almost their main industry, and there are countless classified units. When Mr. Lu led his team to look for sites, they didn't encounter any trouble and even received help from Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.

歼10才刚刚首飞2个月，成飞所的人也很想知道“争气机”和大猫相比怎么样，百忙之中也分出精力支援洪都所将F14A升级到F110发动机，条件是要1台F110试试能不能怼在歼10上。

Tang Wen was quite embarrassed after Zhao Yaohua relayed this news to him. This meant that the J-10 might be equipped with three engines at the same time in the future: WS10A, AL31F and F110... The three mainstream high-thrust engines would take turns serving a medium-sized aircraft.

"The Air Force is certain about getting the F-110, but the WS-10A will not be cancelled either."

Zhao Yaohua, who was watching excavators demolish old factory buildings with Tang Wen, shared gossip from the aviation industry:
"The F110 may be assigned to the WS-15 'Emei' turbofan engine, while the WS-10A will still follow the old path, with the 606 Institute and Liming Factory undertaking the tasks. The Air Force... Didn't two F110s airlifted to Liming Factory for testing last month? After the testing, they wanted to abandon the WS-10A and switch to it completely. Fortunately, the top leader said that we should do both."

However, this means there will now be two units producing F110 copies: Liming Factory and your aviation machinery factory.

The WS-15 turbofan engine was sidelined by a substitute.

But this is not necessarily a bad thing. The original world line WS15 was not officially launched until 2006, and it would be much faster to start full-scale imitation now.

Tang Wen couldn't help but think that in the future, Dongda would use the Mi-type supersonic aircraft, the carrier-based aircraft would be modified F-14s, the main fighter jets would be equipped with F-110s, and the lunar rockets would be derived from the Saturn V... Clearly, the Empire was the most loyal ally of the Chai.

"Just wait, the aviation machinery factory will definitely be faster."

Tang Wen was very confident in his money-spending strategy, but Zhao Yaohua suddenly asked, as if struck by a sudden thought:
"Since you have the F110, you should be able to get the F404 too, right?"

"Yes, it exists, but it's not used domestically now, is it?"

Tang Wen doesn't recall any aircraft currently under development that require medium-thrust engines.

"I'm just mentioning... Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has recently come in with foreign trade business again. They want to continue developing the 'Super 7' with higher targets and faster delivery. They want to use the F404, but right now they can only get the RD93."

It's a JF-17 Thunder.

The JF-17 Thunder also started around this time in the original timeline, but this time it's different. Because India is eager to release internal pressure to the outside world, its fighting determination is very strong, and Pakistan is more in need of advanced light aircraft that can be mass-produced.

What Tang Wen didn't know was that the first choice for the small bus was actually the F-16, but the batch they bought in 1993 was directly withheld by the Empire, which favored India. So when Prism Building took the initiative to promote it this time, they were more careful, neither giving up the F-16 nor hoping to continue developing the 'Super 7'.

Adhering to the principle of dealing with chaos in the world, Tang Wen immediately had an idea:

“There is no need to proactively provide F404, but Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group can consider adapting to F404 when designing new aircraft, and then tell customers that there are channels overseas that can obtain F404, so that they can modify it themselves, and I will give them a commission for each aircraft sold.”

Please pretend I didn't say anything.

Zhao Yaohua wanted to slap himself twice. Why did he always have to be so talkative?

……

Capital
The first meeting to solicit opinions on promoting standardized vehicle registration and restrictions on vehicle modifications concluded successfully.

Tang Wen walked out of the venue, and his smiling face was photographed and published in the newspaper.

Feiyue Auto is currently the undisputed leader among private car manufacturers in China. Although its own brand, Hanma Auto, has been controversial in terms of appearance, it has already secured a place in the market. At the same time, it has invested tens of billions of yuan to build three large joint venture factories: Feiyue BMW, Feiyue GM, and Feiyue Saab. It is expected that CKD assembly will begin by the end of the year, and localization will begin next year. It is definitely a future giant.

Keep in mind that they were building passenger cars, which was considered a major scandal in the automotive industry at that time. Both FAW and SAIC were on high alert.

Therefore, Tang Wen's several "minor suggestions" were passed without much hindrance, including white license plates and more lenient modification restrictions, which are destined to be hailed as god-like by future CDM players.

The power of the Flying Leap Motors was also spread around the world through headshots in newspapers. The Saab acquisition, which began in April, went more smoothly with the cooperation of GM. Saab engineers who were originally in the United States were packed up and sent to Dongguan along with the dismantled production lines.

The reason is that the water supply in Echeng is simply not enough to support the current Gaijin factory, which leads to the restriction of water resources supplied to Xiangjiang. Furthermore, the supporting industries in Nansha District are not particularly well-developed. As a result, Saab's new factory was located in Dongguan, which is not far from Echeng.

Saab, which had been on the verge of bankruptcy and being sold off repeatedly, had resigned itself to its fate. At least Gaijin was really rich, and with the current domestic market, there was no worry about not being able to sell its cars. Given Saab's European background, there were plenty of car owners willing to buy them.

Tang Wen was also pleased with Saab's conciliatory attitude. He communicated remotely with the Swiss authorities to assure them that Saab's Swiss research and development center and factory would be retained. Gustav XVI had no objection to the US dollar and even warmly invited him to visit Switzerland.

After the automotive conference, Saab executives met with Tang Wen again, but this time they brought several unfamiliar faces.

The visitor also looked like a typical elite, and introduced himself as Saab—only Saab Airlines.

Tang Wen immediately suspected that they wanted to sell Eagle Lion products, and as expected, they quickly revealed their intentions, but he decisively rejected them.

Not to mention that the Gripen itself relies on external supply chains, even the military doesn't think much of this small aircraft.

Undeterred, the other party made a new request for cooperation:

Develop new regional jets.

Tang Wen suddenly realized that it was no secret that Gaijin Aviation was preparing to develop a new type of passenger aircraft with fewer than 200 seats for the domestic market, and that it had been trying to negotiate with Boeing and Airbus. If Saab could get a deal with them, it would definitely be a big business opportunity.

But... does Saab have the technical capability?

(End of this chapter)