Chapter 71: The prelude, the economic and national war begins

In March, Beijing is sunny on one side, but it is cold in spring, with a huge temperature difference between morning and evening.

But nothing can stop the vitality of the empire's heart.

Starting from the beginning of the year, an object called "Radio" began to be popular on the market.

This radio, produced by Chunhua Radio, looks like a wooden box, with two knobs, one can "modulate frequency" and the other can adjust the volume.

The reason for the hot sale is not because Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou have already started trial broadcasting of radio programs. The most important reason is because the newspaper said that His Majesty the Emperor planned to be married on May 5th, the 23rd day of the third lunar calendar, and the radio station will broadcast it live! The newspaper said that as long as you buy this Raoshi's radio, you can hear the commentary and the sound of the live as you are on the scene!

At this moment, the price of 30 Huayuan can no longer stop the radio from selling well.

In principle, this original ore machine is really not exquisite.

In terms of principle, broadcasting is to use microphone equipment to convert sound signals into voltage signals. Since human voice changes are changes in radio wave frequency, this kind of radio wave belongs to frequency conversion, not the equal-amplitude electromagnetic wave of radio telegraph machines. Although the telegraph machine developed by the Royal Hertz Institute is becoming more and more exquisite, it cannot be used to listen to amplitude broadcasts.

Zheng Ying and others are well aware of the importance of radio stations for military combat command and national information release, and they began research almost at the same time as radio telegraph machines. Driven by the national will, as early as 1898, Xue Chunhua, a researcher at the Hertz Institute, applied for the first "Silicon Crystal Detector" patent using the semiconductor characteristics of some natural ores themselves. After public announcement, they were granted a patent by the Imperial Intellectual Property Office. The patent mainly uses sharp wires commonly known as "cat whiskers" to obtain the best semiconductor effect at the sensitive contact points of the ore.

However, the invention of radio principle is still far from the emergence of commercial products. In order to promote the radio industry, the Royal Hertz Institute has established a special business unit to allocate a large amount of resources to accelerate research and development.

Due to the limitation of human hearing range, the frequency of the sound signal contained in the human ear is about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, and signals of such frequency cannot be transmitted for long distances. In order to solve this problem, Xue Chunhua and others invented "mixed frequency", adding these sound signals to high-frequency skeleton signals, commonly known as "carrier waves". The two signals are superimposed to obtain an am signal that can propagate long distances. The frequency of this am signal is very high, and the swing of its frequency is the sound signal.

After solving the problem of long-distance signal propagation, Xue Chunhua's "silicon crystal detector" came in handy, that is, through this primitive and simple device, half-wave rectification (detection) of the carrier, cut off the negative half-period of the signal, leaving only half of the signal, and then filter the high-frequency carrier with a filter, so the remaining one is the sound signal.

At this stage, the radio department of the royal industry has intervened. They have put forward requirements to the institute from the perspective of commercialization, and have provided research funds to sign future patent authorizations. In addition to obtaining research funding, the institute can obtain patent commissions in future product sales to achieve a "win-win" production-research integration model.

The royal industry raised the issue of selecting platforms and filtering noise.

The final solution is to install a "bandpass filter", that is, filter out low and high frequencies, retain only one frequency, and its interception range is adjustable.

Next is the antenna.

In the early days, the installation of antennas was really a big science. In order to solve this problem, Chunhua even equipped a special "antenna installation team" in several major cities, and a large part of the price was used for this part of labor costs. The standardized antenna was like a cross, wrapping copper wires around, fixing them, and placing them on the roof.

Chunhua Company also sells a high-quality antenna separately for demanding "VIP" customers, using permanent magnets to make coil racks, fixed in the insulator, and then wraps them with ultra-fine envelopes for thousands of turns, and even broadcast signals thousands of kilometers away can be heard.

Chunhua itself is a subsidiary of the Royal Radio Industry Company, and named it "Chunhua" to commend and commemorate Xue Chunhua, the inventor of the radio.

This company is a commercially operated company, with 25 of the pre-tax profits distributed to the management team. The operators are all top students taught by commercial schools, and naturally use a series of standardized business strategies in the royal system.

The first is the product line strategy. Chunhua's commercial products were launched and tried-sales as early as 1905, and then improved according to market feedback. "China Broadcasting Corporation" was established almost simultaneously, and in early 1906 it officially obtained a broadcast license issued by the Propaganda Department. It is scheduled to start radio trials in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou in October 1906.

The first commercial radio station "Tianya Broadcasting Corporation" was also funded by the Royal Industrial Investment Department and obtained a broadcast license after China Broadcasting Corporation.

Early radio programs ranged from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with rich content including news broadcasts (necessary), weather forecasts, crosstalk, music, storytelling, radio dramas, etc. But the real source of revenue for radio stations is still advertising.

In the business empire built by Zheng Ying and others, the foundation of professional division of labor has been laid from the beginning. The advertising industry started almost at the same time as the royal industry and formed a benign interaction with the development of various media. At the beginning, it used advertising to promote products, but later it gradually developed into promoting enterprises, enhancing corporate influence and corporate image.

Compared with the state China Broadcasting Corporation, the commercially operated Tianya Radio Station pays more attention to the market. The radio programs have been carefully selected and have a variety of columns. It also cooperates with paper media to regularly publish program schedules in major daily newspapers in various cities to attract listeners. In terms of radio dramas, it bought out the copyright of radio drama works of some well-known domestic novelists early and carefully recorded radio dramas.

With the radio purchase boom caused by the "Emperor's wedding", Tianya Radio Station's "One Hundred MHz" became a topic on the streets and alleys, and soon won the favor of merchants.

After investigation by professional market research companies, the current broadcast audience is mainly concentrated in "home women aged 20-40, elderly people over 55 years old", and men aged 12-30 will also listen when they are fine. After 8 o'clock at night, the whole family often listens to the radio and chats in the living room.

As a result, various furniture manufacturers, household chemical manufacturers, real estate developers, automobile manufacturers, etc. came one after another and began to seize the "voice media" position.

By April of the third year of Huaxing (1907), Tianya Radio had already launched a second set of programs.

The entire broadcaster is still in the "burning money" stage and is still losing money. But Zheng Yu can afford to lose money. A loss of more than 100,000 yuan per year is nothing to him, and the development of the radio broadcast industry is a crucial driving force for the progress of the entire society, especially for information dissemination and the promotion of civil society.

This is not something that can be calculated simply by economic accounts.

When a country's commodity economy enters orderly development, the wisdom of the people is opened. As long as the government does not deliberately rule the people and suppresses ideas, the economic leverage of the market itself is enough to stimulate creativity and trigger miracles.

Not to mention China, where two generations of time travelers were in power.

Royal South China Sea Automobile Company first installed on-board FM radio in its newly launched "Earl" series of luxury cars, making this entertainment weapon enter the car sixteen years earlier than another time and space.

The Earl A-type car first launched uses a seven-liter six-cylinder V-type petrol engine, adopts a pressure lubrication system, carefully crafted by Royal Reus Engine Company, and its performance surpasses another time and space. The Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, which was launched in 1904, has a maximum speed of 140 kilometers per hour.

In order to improve safety, this luxury car is equipped with a new seat belt, bumper, and tempered glass. It has exquisite interior and solemn and smooth lines. As soon as it was launched, it became the new favorite of the wealthy class in the south and quickly spread to the overseas Chinese community in the north and South China.

In the United States and Europe, the American and European Earl Cars, which were improved according to local consumers' habits, were also released a month later, conquering the picky European and American gentlemen's class in one fell swoop, and although the price was as high as 8,000 US dollars, it was still in short supply.

The popularity of Earl Cars lies in an unexpected remote racing event.

At the end of 1906, the Russian civil war ended, and the war that spread from Asia to Europe gradually faded. However, the arms race and tension caused by the large-scale military expansion of major powers still made it difficult for people from all countries to rest.

After the Spring Festival in 1907, Chinese newspapers published an explosive news: Ma Shaowu, former National Defense Force captain and three-time Guangzhou-Cullun Automobile Rally champion, announced that he had received sponsorship from the Royal South China Sea Automobile Company and was ready to complete an unprecedented feat: a modified Earl A-type sedan, driven by him and Nanhai Company's test driver, Zhao Wensong, set off from Guangzhou, ferry the Yangtze River through Wuhan, then arrives in Beijing, and then head west, from Dihua to Central Asia, through Russia, Germany, France, and board the ship from Brittany, crosses Britain, then ferry to New York, USA, cross North America, then ferry to Japan, from Sendai to Nagasaki, then ferry to Busan, and then drive back to Beijing, with a journey of nearly 30,000 kilometers.

This unprecedented great attempt even surpassed another time and space. The record set by the Silver Ghost of Rolls-Royce in 1907: uninterrupted driving 24,000 kilometers (the maintenance cost was only three pounds).

The slogan of this event is "The Journey of Peace".

A spokesperson for Royal Nanhai Automobile announced that Nanhai Company funded this activity with the purpose of "deepening understanding among countries" and "expressing the expectations of the Chinese people for peace". For this feat, Royal Nanhai Automobile Company arranged a whole fleet to transport gasoline, supplies and accessories, and conduct mid-way maintenance. All costs were separately priced at market prices and were supervised by accompanying journalists and observers from all countries.

This statement immediately ignited the entire European and American society.

Major newspapers reported this "peace journey" in a long and long way. Although some people proposed with ulterior motives that "this is a military geographical survey conducted by Chinese and national spies for the future political affairs in Europe, mainstream voices from Europe and the United States sneered.

French left-wing mouthpiece "The Uncompromising", and the "Shendan", whose influence has increased sharply because of the founder Clemenceau's premiership, have refuted these fallacies, believing that this is "completely a despicable trick of right-wing arms dealers, with the purpose of intimidating taxpayers." The traditional public opinion position of the Democratic Party in the south of the United States also echoes the British and French left wings, using the most direct expression to arouse readers' concerns about the distortion of the facts of the political system, and guide them to think about what force is pushing the political system to ugliness the efforts of ancient countries thousands of miles away to resist aggression and rejuvenation of the nation into a conspiracy to conquer the world.

Under the strong public opinion voice, the right wings of various countries had to lower their tone and even publicly praised this "peaceful effort".

This global car journey has become a hot topic in newspapers from various countries in the next six months.

"...Silver lightning traveled through the streets under the Bodhi tree. This is a testimony to the friendship between the Eastern Empire and the Western Empire...What did I see? Lightning traveled through the Brandenburg Gate...Four-horse carriage, goddess of victory...Yes, maybe one day it has the chance to become the goddess' carriage..."

"...This is the Earl Car! The magical boy from China! What a smooth and elegant line, it surpasses the best thoroughbred..."

New York, Boston, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels... The launch of the South China Sea Automobile Company was synchronized with the launch of Earl Cars. The "regional flagship stores" established in accordance with the model of the later 4S stores, and the well-dressed rich men, and the beautiful ladies and beautiful ladies who were holding jewelry, spent a lot of money to order Earl Cars.

Just as shown on the poster, only famous cars and beautiful women represent successful people.

Earl, what sells is not a car, but taste, wealth and achievements.

Just one month after the pre-sale began, more than 6,000 luxury cars have been ordered overseas.

The general manager of Nanhai Automobile Company was already in greater trouble before he could be happy.

The biggest problem now is the production schedule. The insufficient supply of Earl cars has triggered limited supply, and the result of limited supply is more enthusiastic.

The Count Cart began to be regarded as the best label for "the nobles among the nobles".

Even if it is not considered domestic orders, one month of overseas orders has already booked the car's production capacity for the next eight months.

The biggest bottleneck is the engine.

Although Royal Reus had already expanded its production capacity crazily around the war, military orders had already made them breathless, and civilian orders were extremely terrifying. Seeing the market explode, Royal Reus had to subcontract simpler and standardized military production to other engine manufacturers in a commissioned processing model, focusing on the highest-end and most profitable products.

The waters are rising, and Chinese cars have become synonymous with high quality and high reliability overseas. In this Asian war, the cool performance of the motorized column became a lively advertisement. Chinese cars blew a more violent "Chinese whirlwind" after the war.

Although the official propaganda of some countries has curbed the popularity of Chinese goods to a certain extent, China's move to mediate the Russian civil war and this "peace journey" undoubtedly gave a heavy blow to the "Yellow Peril Theory" of various countries. As Clemenceau wrote in his diary, "If the Chinese government mediated the Russian civil war to slap our left face, then the peace journey is to slap our right face with the backhand, and we have to applaud."

Under this continuous trend, China's automobile industry was like an extremely violent whirlwind sweeping European and American societies. From the beginning, the Chinese automobile industry, which was linked to the royal automobile industry, has absorbed the various industries of a certain country in the future, and even slandered its competitors to compete for the market. This led to the mistakes of a certain country's goods becoming "low quality" and "unethical" defective products overseas, and did not fall into another time and space again in the cruel price war within a certain country's goods.

As early as the early days of China's automobile market opening, the Chinese automobile industry had established the European Automobile Federation, the American Automobile Federation and other Kangcaien organizations to coordinate product pricing. All automobile factories tried to take the differentiated path, some focused on large-displacement luxury cars, some focused on ordinary cars, some focused on business cars, some focused on off-road vehicles, some focused on trucks, and some focused on agricultural vehicles. They also set grades according to quality and price within each product market. The pricing is often solved in the coordinated way of Kangcaien.

This differentiated competitive strategy has formed a micro-focused focus, focused on development, and built a complete product line at the macro level, and realized a certain degree of sharing of the overall brand value of "Chinese Automobile".

The automobile industry is a triple-intensive industry for capital, technology and labor. For such core pillar industries, China has adopted an access system, sets thresholds for automobile manufacturers in terms of capital, and adopts vehicle model reviews, and conducts audits in terms of safety, reliability, etc. to avoid inferior products damaging the image of China's automobile manufacturing industry.

In order to cooperate with vehicle model testing, China Political Fu took the lead in developing a complete set of vehicle testing standards and established a national automobile testing center as an official sample. Soon, some private institutions also entered the field of automobile testing and obtained official certification, and launched fierce competition. In order to ensure their authority, the centers had to strictly control the inspection quality. The five private testing centers that survived the market have pushed the entire testing system, from standards, processes to equipment, to a new level of more perfection.

According to Zheng Yu's plan, automobiles are not only the locomotive that drives the overall development of China's economy, but also the best tool for China's industrial products to create a "high-quality" image.

Taking the "Peace Journey" as an opportunity, the image of "Chinese Automobile" as a breakthrough, and the purpose of enhancing the image and overall influence of China's industrial products, an unprecedented national brand shaping project kicked off.

……
Chapter completed!