The first federal agricultural and forestry machinery (design) competition initiated by the Lorraines attracted widespread attention from all walks of life with high bonuses, novel competition system and fierce competition. The mainstream newspaper with the largest circulation volume, Liberty Newspaper, published its latest progress three times within a week, and the latest issue of Liberty Weekly also made a special report on this event. After continuous preheating and dissemination, people realized that this was not just an interesting competition, but a high-level display of the federal vehicle manufacturing industry, a bold exploration and in-depth innovation of special vehicle technology. In this booming era of large-scale industrial development, opportunities are everywhere, rapid fame and rapid wealth are by no means a daydream, and various inspirational stories keep appearing.

In people's lives... Lorraine suddenly became a beacon that attracts countless young engineers and machinery enthusiasts. Some people followed the trajectory of their dreams, and some people had made certain achievements in related fields, so they came here to explore business opportunities. Therefore, in the rematch stage, the teams and participants were only one-tenth of the preliminary round, and the competition site was still crowded with people, and the onlookers were even multiples in the preliminary round. This can be seen from the hot booking situation of hotels and hotels in Lorraine. You should know that in a remote federal state capital like Mason, except for local celebrations with Lorraine characteristics and a rare national expo that can be held, there are few such lively occasions.

When people gathered in Lorraine from hundreds or thousands of miles away, they saw not only the high-standard competitions held by the Lorraine people, but also witnessed the new look of Lorraine. The more than 300 participating teams in the preliminary round, Lorraine's local area accounted for one quarter, and the "Thirty-Two Langs" entering the rematch still have six local teams. Moreover, they are not only participating teams of the Lorraine people, but also basically use vehicle and machinery made by Lorraine, and "New Lawrence" and "Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery" each contribute half. In many people's impression, Lorraine is a rich mineral deposit in addition to the mountains and snow fields, only Mason

With a decent modern industry, but it is just an influential industrial town. Not to mention Free City, even the second-tier industrial city is far behind it several streets. Nowadays, the city of Mason is still the same as before and has not changed drastically, but Lorraine is no longer the Lorraine of yesterday. The unemployment rate of males of appropriate age is close to zero. The scale of traditional industries such as mining, metallurgy, agriculture, and forestry has increased significantly compared with before the war, and the overall scale of manufacturing has increased several times. Social basic industries such as education, medical care, and transportation are also showing a rapid growth trend. However,

The shortcomings of weak industrial foundation cannot be changed overnight. Although the Free Lorraine Canal Industrial Zone has dozens of factories, known as the "full series of clusters of manufacturing", in fact, the various materials produced by the factories here are not enough to form a complete vehicle industry chain. For example, tires, not only are there not available, there are no real tire manufacturers in the entire Lorraine. They must be purchased from the eastern federal production areas. For example, the bearing components that are indispensable for flying ships and ground vehicles are mainly composed of the bearing factory of Grumman Group in the central federal federal, Longmeier.

The group supplies bearing manufacturing plants in the eastern part of the Federation. In addition, there are small items such as instrument panels and spark plugs that usually seem inconspicuous but are unable to use normally. They are also monopolized in the hands of a few factories. From the market rules, it can be seen that monopoly causes prices to far exceed costs and are very profitable industries. These monopoly hold patents and if they want to make breakthroughs in these fields, they must develop technical patents by themselves. Once patents suitable for commercial production appear, vested interests will generally acquire these patents at a lower price, hide them or take them for themselves.

The Klumber Heisen factory and other industries under the Klumber Heisen family involve tires, bearings, instruments, spark plugs and other components that cannot be produced by themselves are basically from the industries belonging to Grumman Group and Starry Sky Group. Because they have established good cooperative relationships with these giants, the price of these industrial components is not lower than the market, at least they will not increase prices, and the quality and quantity are guaranteed. However, in the long run, in order to further reduce product costs and become more competitive in the similar product market, we still need to find ways to establish a long-term and stable strategic partnership in the supply of these components, or

Further stabilize supply through equity relations. Although Weiss is not particularly good at these conventional commercial operations, there are many capable people in the Lorraine Industrial Alliance, and he often gives him various analysis, suggestions and reminders on weekdays. After just over a year of development, the Lorraine Industrial Alliance has become a very influential commercial cooperative organization in Lorraine and even the western part of the Federation. The more it grows, the more difficulties and challenges it encounters, and the more it realizes the importance of unity. After Weiss became the governor and vigorously promoted the development of Lorraine's industry, commerce and education, everyone followed this banner and grasped the rhythm of Lorraine's development...

After visiting the participating team of the Duosen Machinery Group, Weiss invited Nikola to have tea. Tea is indeed a good tea, and the tea environment is also the best for Mason, but in addition to drinking tea, there is still some business waiting. The first thing was to meet an engineer named Dumm. This was a round middle-aged man, who looked like a chef rather than a mechanical inventor, but he told Weiss and Nikola with certainty that he personally owned 22 patented technologies, and the latest one was also the one he was most proud of, which was the "inert gas that was more advanced than all current bearing production technologies.

Environmental forming method, claiming to be able to significantly improve the quality of products. Of course, from design to implementation, this technology not only requires a complete metallurgical manufacturing system, but also requires high-end metallurgical reprocessing equipment and inert gas production equipment in the final bearing manufacturing process, requiring a high-end metallurgical reprocessing equipment and an expensive investment of at least 2,000 gold kroner. He is willing to share his invention with the Lorraines, but requires at least 30% of the equity in production cooperation, and obtain a senior executive position such as the technical director or the chairman of the technical committee in the production company.

These conditions are reasonable and reasonable, and it is unreasonable and unreasonable. Dum has been in Lorraine for more than half a month and has had contact with many contestants and viewers. There are two or three factories within the Lorraine Industrial Alliance for preliminary contact with him. Weiss has heard some of this from his companions. They said that the patent technology brought by Dum is genuine, and they have conducted theoretical verification. The problem is that the investment required to transform this patent technology into actual productivity is very large. Once the investment is made according to the current requirements, not only will the patent fee be paid, but it will also have to be given 20 to 30% of the equity for free, and the cost is actually very considerable. As for his position as technical director or senior executive, it is fundamentally beneficial, because it is a production patent he designed. If there are any problems or areas that need improvement in the production and research and development process, he can still play a great role.

In addition, investors are also worried about a very realistic problem: the production of precision bearings is different from wheels for carriages. It requires a large amount of production facilities and professional workers. Once it is spent, it will be a lot of money. If the bearings cannot compete with old industrial products after they are produced, the risk of investment failure is very high. In Lorraine and even the western part of the Federation, the leader in bearing manufacturing is the Grumman Group. Their bearing production has accumulated for decades and sales account for about one-third of the federal market. Backed by the Grumman Group, both in quality and price competition have inherent advantages. Lorraine's industrialists have weak foundations and shallow accumulation. If they are dragged into a war of attrition, they will most likely be defeated by their competitors.

Before meeting with Mr. Doom, Weiss had already figured out these things. Rejection means passing by a huge opportunity; acceptance means a great adventure. Before that, both as the initiator of the Lorraine Industrial Alliance and as the governor of Lorraine, he organized a series of large-scale investment projects, including the first private investment canal and canal industrial zone in Lorraine, the unprecedented scale of Mason University Town, the new canal built by the official and private economies and the second canal industrial zone. These have achieved beyond imagination and injected vigorous momentum into the development of Lorraine. However, this does not mean that the project can be used as soon as possible and the project can be successful. It also requires careful analysis, trade-offs and calculations. From a steady standpoint, Weiss originally tended to

Giving up this opportunity, after all, without bearings does not mean that the industrial system cannot operate, but only increases the corresponding cost. Having bearings does not mean that the product can be overwhelmingly competitive immediately. However, after the interview, he felt that Dum was an unusual inventor and might be a down-and-out Tesla. So he asked Mr. Dum to introduce the remaining patents, including those that have been sold, to him and Nikola one by one. Although this took a lot of time and even affected the subsequent itinerary, he felt that this was very necessary and meaningful. As for Nikola, this strange woman who always showed off in men's clothing was dragged by him as a special judge. She had spent two months at Mason and didn't care about these few hours, so she patiently listened with him.

Mr. Dum is definitely very eyebrowed. The two young people in front of him may not be older than him, but their status and reputation are not comparable to ordinary people. They listened to their introduction of technical patents so patiently, which was both surprising and surprising. He talked about his inventions in a swift manner, and also said the inspiration and research process of inventions. It may sound like a sleepy person, but Weiss found it very interesting, and he also had the idea of ​​hiring him as a technical consultant of the Lorraine State Government. However, some

People are good at saying, some people are good at doing, what they are good at doing may not be good at saying, and what they are good at saying may not be good at doing. After more than two hours of communication, he told Doum that he intends to cooperate in depth with him, but because the affairs of the past two days are relatively busy, he hopes to conduct more formal and systematic negotiations after the competition to determine the form and scope of cooperation between the two parties. To show sincerity, Weiss asked Doum to leave a hotel room number so that people can be sent to contact at any time. Moreover, all expenses during his stay at Mason will be borne by the Klumber Heisen family.

Other verbal promises may be commonplace for Dum who often sells himself. Full reimbursement of expenses can make him feel real sincerity, and he also knew that such a large investment must be completed after a relatively long tug-of-war negotiation, so he happily accepted Weiss's arrangement.

Because he had been talking to Mr. Dume for too long, Weiss and Nicholas had a simple lunch in this high-end teahouse. The other two inventors of the technology patents who were originally scheduled to be interviewed in the morning had to be arranged in the afternoon. Although these two people also had real things, they came to Weiss because they had a vision of looking at history from the future and knew that although these two things had played a certain role in a specific historical period, they would eventually be replaced by newer technologies. From an economic perspective, this over-proprietary technology lacked long-term investment value. Although they did not like their technical patents

, but he felt that these two inventors were still worthy of recognition in terms of their own abilities, so he tried his best to invite them to Lorraine to find a well-paid and stable position, which was much more stable than they continued to rely on their own research and invention to obtain profits. Unfortunately, the great people are always arrogant and unwilling to be limited to a certain situation. Both of them thanked Weiss for their kindness and resolutely continued to look for their next opportunity in the market, intending to become rich entrepreneurs through their own technical patents, rather than holding so-called high-paid engineers or consultants.
Chapter completed!