Zhu Jingyuan was chatting with the employees of his company, climbed up the ladder next to the plane, and took a look inside the cockpit.
Aluminum alloy seats, simple retro style dashboard, and rows of buttons and operating levers.
It looks not much different from the planes from the war years that I remember.
After sitting in the cockpit for a while, I discovered the radio equipment in the cockpit.
Zhu Jingyuan was startled and immediately realized the problem. He stood up again and looked down:
"What is the average cost of this aircraft?"
Zheng Fuguang was stunned for a moment, but he didn't expect Zhu Jingyuan to ask this suddenly.
In Zheng Fuguang's mind, Zhu Jingyuan has always been very generous, but he did not expect that he would also care about money.
"The average price of the first dozen or so verification machines ranged from 50,000 to 60,000 silver coins, depending on the type and weapons and equipment loaded.
"After the prototype was finalized, the Dudu Mansion ordered 300 of them at a time, and the average unit price was around 40,000 silver coins.
"The aircraft produced by Daming Airlines, Royal Flying Machinery, and the Ministry of Industry Factory are of different types and uses, and the prices are also slightly different."
Zhu Jingyuan came out of the cockpit and calculated the price for a while.
The cost of a 40,000-ton battleship can be exchanged for 1,250 such aircraft.
"Our big food country needs 128 planes first, but it won't be a one-time payment, nor will it be a one-time delivery.
"From now on, every time I come to deliver supplies or haul crude oil, I just need to bring sixteen more."
Chunxiang, who had been following him, quickly wrote down Zhu Jingyuan's request on the spot.
Zhu Jingyuan said as he took a detour to another airplane nearby.
This is a small transport aircraft, and its overall shape was also designed by Zhu Jingyuan.
The reference prototype is the Y-5/An-2 transport aircraft, nicknamed the air tractor by military fans.
However, the body is lighter than the Yunwu, because the engine cannot reach the level of the Yunwu in the short term.
Zheng Fuguang also came over and told Zhu Jingyuan the final basic situation of the plane:
"This transport plane uses the same engine as fighter jets and attack aircraft.
"But the body is larger, and the cruising speed is reduced to 150 kilometers per hour.
"Because it can carry more fuel, the maximum range has been increased to 800 kilometers.
"It can transport up to one ton of cargo and up to sixteen people.
"Although the transport aircraft has fewer weapons and equipment, it uses the same engine as the fighter aircraft and is slightly larger than the fighter aircraft, so the overall price is not low.
"The mass production price also requires 40,000 silver coins."
After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan nodded lightly:
"It's okay. Dashi Country needs a total of sixteen transport planes. Let's send them over in four batches."
Chunxiang followed the record request, and Zhu Jingyuan and came to the car.
These two cars are also designed by Zhu Jingyuan.
When Zhu Jingyuan left the capital of the Ming Dynasty last year, in order to prevent the craftsmen from the Ministry of Works and his company from being idle, he left them with a large number of design tasks.
Give yourself general drawings and key points to note and let them complete the design and testing.
The appearance of these two cars designed by Zhu Jingyuan is no longer the traditional sedan model.
That kind of shape with a highly prominent seating space and a relatively complicated external structure is not conducive to running at higher speeds.
In fact, as testing and usage feedback continues to increase, or if you have time to go to the wind tunnel for interviews, Daming’s craftsmen themselves will surely gradually discover it.
Even if Zhu Jingyuan does not have special requirements, the subsequent design style of the craftsmen will change.
Historically, this process lasted for a hundred years and is still changing.
What shape can make the car run stably without bumping, shaking or drifting requires constant experimentation and exploration.
At the same time, the completion of all ideas and explorations also requires a platform for production technology and technology.
compared to
The impact of changes in aesthetic requirements, actual performance requirements and safety requirements are more important.
Zhu Jingyuan can produce the final results in one go.
However, due to the current technical level, it is impossible to directly create the appearance of a car in the new century.
In this almost purely manual era, multi-curved surface manufacturing is a worker’s nightmare.
We can only use the current mature technology to achieve the aerodynamic effect as close as possible.
If the engine power is to be large enough, the size must be much larger than that of the New Century.
The final car is a bit like a "tough" sports utility vehicle (SUV).
Zhu Jingyuan opened the car door and got into the back seat. He first tightened the seat belt he designed.
Before this, there were almost no safety measures on cars and no one dared to drive too fast.
I tried the seat belt effect and admired the interior and design.
Zhu Jingyuan got out of the car again and asked Zheng Fuguang to open the hood for him.
The engine installed here was also designed at my own request, an eight-cylinder liquid-cooled engine.
Zhu Jingyuan looked at it and instinctively asked the price.
Zheng Fuguang was used to it. When he saw new things, he first asked the price, and then said with some worry:
"This model of yours needs to be sold for 20,000 silver coins to make a profit. The actual market price is 30,000 silver coins."
Zhu Jingyuan took a deep breath:
"It's almost time to catch the plane. Can it be sold at such a high price?"
Zheng Fuguang said with some emotion:
“Although I can’t say that I sold too much, it’s actually not too little.
"I heard that after the final model was released at the end of last year, more than 100 vehicles were ordered.
"The eight-cylinder engine runs more smoothly.
"One hundred and twenty horsepower, six-speed gearbox, and four-wheel drive design.
“The technical parameters far exceed all other models on the market, and it is like a chariot among cars.
"There are also a series of important safety protection measures designed by His Highness himself, as well as a stand-out image.
“These factors make it quite popular among the wealthy class.
“It happened that the market started to improve rapidly last year, and many owners made a lot of money last year.
"With a car of this caliber, some people want to give it a try."
Zhu Jingyuan nodded lightly:
“The market for top-end luxury cars does exist, and it will continue to exist in the future, and it can continue to develop like this.
“But we can’t just develop this, we still need to develop mid-range models and popular models.
"Change the engine to a four-cylinder, reduce the power to thirty or forty horsepower, and change it to a regular rear-wheel drive and a three-speed gearbox.
"Other accessories should also be reduced as much as possible. Can the price be reduced to a few thousand silver coins at least?"
Zheng Fuguang nodded directly and said:
"Yes, most cars are originally designed like this, and most cars are priced in the range of three to five thousand silver coins.
"The car His Highness requested is an over-the-top car with a design that shocked the market and peers."
Zhu Jingyuan thought about it again:
"For a worker with three thousand silver coins and a monthly salary of fifteen silver coins, even if he did not eat or drink at all, it would take him seventeen years to afford it.
"The price is still too high for workers. I can buy a dozen orchids to help make money.
“We still have to find ways to lower the sales price of cars and at the same time increase workers’ income.
"It would be best if we could make it so that workers can buy a car with one year's wages.
"Let most ordinary Ming Dynasty families have access to cars."
Zheng Fuguang basically shook his head and said without hesitation:
"This is impossible. This would require car prices to be reduced by more than ten times, or workers' wages as a whole to be increased by more than ten times..."
Zhu Jingyuan rummaged through the things in his mind, compared it with the current situation in the world, slowly shook his head and said:
"It may not be impossible. First, we can reduce costs and configuration as much as possible.
"Just make the car run and control the speed and direction. No complicated functions are required.
“For example, there are three gears, fast, slow and reverse, and you can start it by hand.
"Then use an assembly line to produce, as standardized an assembly line as possible."
Zhu Jingyuan plans to refer to Ford in history and reproduce his car assembly line.
At the same time, we are preparing to recreate the "myth" of creating the middle class in Ming Dynasty.
In fact, in the Ming Dynasty of this world, the word assembly line already existed. Of course, it was His Majesty Emperor Shizu who proposed it.
The assembly line itself has appeared a long time ago.
The porcelain of Jingdezhen in ancient China required dozens of processes and dozens of people were responsible for it.
The new porcelain factories of the British Industrial Revolution era also broke down the process to everyone.
I don’t know why, but many articles directly regard Henry Ford of Ford Company as the inventor of the “assembly line”.
He also said that the idea of "inventing" the assembly line came to him when he visited an "assembly-limited slaughterhouse."
Inconsistency……
At best, Ford could only design the automobile production line.
Cars before that were basically handmade.
A group of workers are busy working around a car, finishing one car and then working on the next.
Ford broke it down into a standardized assembly line.
Then there are the "myths" described in his chicken soup articles.
"The Great Five Dollars" proactively raised workers' wages from $2.50 per day to $5 per day.
"Creating the American middle class" has driven the overall income of American workers to a higher level and expanded the size of the middle class.
There are also "the greatest entrepreneurs in human history", "promoting human civilization to accelerate into a new era" and so on.
If you want to reproduce these myths of his, you have to look at the internal logic of his operations, rather than directly copying the final results from later generations of chicken soup articles, otherwise you may die in an ugly way.
Historically, Ford was not prepared to improve work efficiency.
Ford was a factory owner, not a paternalistic head of government.
Ford's more famous quote is: "I just hired a pair of hands, why did one person come?"
The actual situation is that his standard assembly line work is too boring and hard, and the worker resignation rate is as high as 300%.
Three to four people are replaced in one position within a year.
In order to retain skilled workers, Ford had to raise workers' wages many times.
In the end, it was directly increased to the point of doubling, and the resignation rate of skilled workers was overwhelmed to an acceptable level.
The assembly line greatly improved production efficiency and significantly reduced Ford's production costs.
The price of cars in the U.S. market has dropped from two to three thousand dollars to two to three hundred dollars.
Other small car workshops closed down one after another, and large car factories copied Ford's production model.
The era of assembly line automobile production has arrived, and the wages of automobile production line workers have remained at a high level.
The choices made by the relevant personnel were driven by direct interests. The intrinsic reason for the final result was that the workers' higher intensity of labor greatly improved the overall production efficiency, resulting in Ford's production costs falling and its competitiveness increasing.
Based on these experiences, the most critical part is the efficiency of the assembly line and keeping costs as low as possible.
In conjunction with the improvement of assembly line efficiency and work intensity, the wages of automobile production line workers will be simultaneously increased, eventually reaching a relatively reasonable and high level.
At the same time, for the production of Ming's fighter jets, we can also try to design a production line model.
Zhu Jingyuan reviewed the historical situation in his mind, made a simple analysis, and then turned to Zheng Fuguang and said:
"I'll write up a production plan later and send it to the local factory in Daming for testing."
