Chapter 15 From Amsterdam to Venice
In June, it is already summer, and the whole of Prussia has not been affected by the war. The streets of Berlin are full of pedestrians, shops and factories are operating normally, and it is a vibrant scene.
For two months Ernst has been busy with the establishment of the Hechingen Development Bank. Fortunately, it is still very easy to set up a bank in this era, with relatively few thresholds and regulations.
After two months of preparation, the Hechingen Development Bank was established. Many company executives under Ernst attended the opening ceremony and completed the equity confirmation in many factories under Ernst. Later, the Hechingen Consortium took shape.
After the establishment of the Hechingen Development Bank, in addition to opening up basic businesses such as savings and loans, the first major move was to invest in the establishment of Berlin Electric Power Company and Berlin Energy Power Company.
This is naturally Ernst's masterpiece. Now the two companies are still empty shells. In order to find managers for the new company, Ernst spent a lot of effort. In addition to visiting various universities, he also conducted interviews with companies in the industry. Examine the job and publish recruitment advertisements in newspapers at the same time, after completing a large amount of screening work.
On July 28, Frenchman Etienne Lenoir became the first general manager of Berlin Energy Power Company. This Etienne Lenoir was the inventor of the first generation internal combustion engine.
Although Lenoir was an important promoter of the development of the internal combustion engine, Lenoir's research consumed a huge amount of financial resources, and no one invested in or cooperated with it. Therefore, I was not very wealthy, but lived in poverty. Life.
After receiving Ernst's invitation, he readily agreed to Ernst's request, because in addition to offering a generous salary, Ernst also promised to support his research work.
At the same time a young man named Carl Friedrich Benz, who was about to graduate from school, became Lenoir's assistant.
At this time, Karl Benz was still a student about to graduate from the Karlsruhe Technical College in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Ernst discovered him in advance and directly asked him to serve as the assistant of senior Lenoir, skipping his original factory internship career.
Berlin Energy Power Company also funded the purchase of the engine patent of a young French man, Alphonse Beau Rocha, and appointed him as a technical consultant. Berlin Energy Power Company was initially formed.
Alphonse Beau Rorschach is not famous in history, but he was the one who grabbed Ross August Otto's vaporizer patent in history.
Roth August Otto was the inventor of the four-stroke engine in history. Ernst originally wanted to find this inventor who influenced the course of human history as a senior executive of the company.
But it was a pity that it was too late. Ross August Otto obtained the patent for the two-stroke engine innovation in 1863, and soon found a partner to fund him, named Eugene. Langen, Eugene Langen is the son of a German sugar businessman and a typical rich second generation. The two jointly established a company that manufactures internal combustion engines.
Now Ross August Otto does not need to find new partners and investors. The factory of two people has already begun to make a profit.
The newly established Berlin Energy Power Company has also recruited many freshly graduated college students as a talent reserve. College students in this era are genuine elites. With these talents, Berlin Energy Power Company looks impressive .
The first instruction Ernst gave to the new company was to develop a more advanced four-stroke engine based on Alphonse Bo Rorschach's patent.
Historically, Alphonse Bo Rorschach’s patent did not produce any prototypes, so it was forgotten. However, Ernst bought his patent and planned to further improve and develop it. .
Coupled with the assistance of Lenoir, a pioneer in the field of internal combustion engines, this goal is not difficult for the new company, and it may even be able to develop a practical four-stroke engine before Ross Auguste Otto.
Lenoir was the first person to invent the internal combustion engine. Although his internal combustion engine was only in its preliminary form and its efficiency was pitifully low, we still have to find a few people in the world who are more familiar with the internal combustion engine than Lenoir. It can be difficult.
With Benz, the young man scheduled to take over, in the future, Ernst can realize the layout of the automobile industry in advance.
……
On October 3, the young man Carl von Linde was appointed as the first general manager of the Hechingen Development Bank, and the Berlin Electric Power Company began operation.
Compared with the internal combustion engine, an industry with steam engines as its foundation, the theory of electricity has only been recently proposed, and many theories are even immature.
Ernst searched all over Europe before finding a suitable candidate in Carl von Linde, the man who historically invented the refrigeration machine, the refrigerator.
As for talents in other electric power fields, it is too difficult to find. The most famous Siemens family in Germany is itself a nobleman and is valued by the Prussian government. There is no place for Ernst to put the shovel. Moreover, Siemens itself is synonymous with cheating. The eponymous figure Ernst only knows about Edison and Tesla in the United States. Of course, those theoretical tycoons Ernst are not counted.
These are geniuses that Ernst took great pains to find. As a college student majoring in science and engineering, Ernst knew many well-known scientists and inventors in later generations, but some people He has already become famous, or he is still unknown in some corner of Europe and America, or he is still a child or has not been born.
After filtering out age and those who don’t need investment cooperation, you still have to find a needle in a haystack all over the world.
Fortunately, these two fields have not yet exploded into great power, and they are the most cutting-edge technologies of this era. There are only a few members who can engage in related industries and research.
Just by looking at the lists of companies and well-known universities that have made a fortune in these fields, you can still find one or two that stand out.
For the Berlin Electric Power Company, Ernst had no good way to cheat. He could only follow the development of the times and let his people make some small innovations.
In the future, we still have to follow the trend of Siemens and some companies in the United States. After all, you can make some hard money by setting up factories through patent licensing.
...
October 20, when the Vienna Conference was being held. Ernst came to the Port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands for inspection. This time Ernst’s goal was to find suitable partners to prepare for the development of the Far East market.
As the hometown of the Far East in his previous life, Ernst naturally never forgets it. Of course, the temptation of interests is also hard to resist. In the contemporary world, apart from those resource areas, relying on the huge population market, they are coveted by European and American colonists and powers. One is India and the other is East Asia.
The magical country of India is the lifeblood of Britain, and the Indian brain circuit is so strange that Ernst did not dare to get involved.
East Asia is different. Ernst dared to pat his chest and say that no one in Europe understands East Asia better than me. Compared with India, a country that kneels on the ground whenever it encounters a strong enemy, East Asians are still somewhat bloody. This makes it difficult for the great powers to fully take root when they open the door to a large country in East Asia.
Even if all the great powers unite, they cannot fully control the situation in East Asia. The forces there are in a mess. Even if you sneak in as a Prussian to make a fortune, it will not be too conspicuous, which is convenient for Ernst to fish in troubled waters.
But it is impossible for Ernst to swim to East Asia and do some work on his own, so he needs to find an ocean-going commercial fleet to cooperate. Recently, Ernst has reached agreements with a number of established Dutch ocean-going trading companies. Ernst People will be sent to East Asia to establish purely commercial strongholds, and the Dutch will earn the price difference from the middlemen.
As for the transportation of goods and the transmission of business information in Europe and East Asia, the Dutch can only rely on the Dutch. Compared with a country like the Netherlands that is based on commerce, the British Ernst is not at ease. , you, a German noble, came to the UK to cooperate. Should the British government pay special attention to it? Ernst did not want to deal with any officials. That would mean trouble, especially since he had no connections in the UK!
Although the Dutch, who have been sanctioned by the British, cannot compare with the cost and safety of ocean trade compared to the empire on which the sun never sets, they are still more cautious than the British when it comes to smashing signs. After all, the Dutch They can only survive through commercial trade, and reputation is more important in Europe.
Of course, Amsterdam in the Netherlands is only Ernst’s best choice at the moment. In the future, Ernst will shift its focus to ports along the Mediterranean coast.
In a few years, after the opening of the Suez Canal, Ernst could use this intelligence advantage to develop his own fleet and routes.
In addition, after the reunification of Germany in the future, commercial trade routes can pass through Austria. Prince Constantine still has some old friends in the Austrian Empire. After all, Hechingen is not far from Austria. Just look at Hechingen from the map. It's closer to Vienna than to Berlin, which means this route is safer.
Finally, passing through ports on the Adriatic Sea such as Venice and the Suez Canal can avoid detouring most of the western coastline of Africa. The distance to East Asia is directly reduced by half, and the freight is cheaper.
Not to mention these, just say that goods departing from the Netherlands can also be transferred to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal to reach the destination.
Before Ernst’s long-hidden plan begins, Hamburg in Germany is also a transitional option. However, after German reunification, the German region currently lacks experience in ocean-going commerce, and the technology of ships cannot match it. Netherlands and Venice area.
Therefore, Ernst is not in a hurry to invest in a shipyard in Hamburg. The focus now is Venice. The scale of his industry has not reached the point where he must rely on shipping. After all, he has not yet set foot in bulk commodity trade, so from Berlin to Venice under the Austrian Empire, although it takes Through land transportation, Ernst could also afford the cost.
It won’t be too late to build a fleet in Hamburg if you want to trade large-volume commodities in the future.
So the layout of the Mediterranean Sea can already be started by visiting the locations in advance. After finishing his trip to the Netherlands, Ernst planned to conduct inspections around the Adriatic Sea.
(End of this chapter)