Chapter 85: The Great Depression (Part Four)
Translator: Shari Editor: Tehrn
The Great Depression (Part Four)
“Help me contact my mother.” Huang Xuan followed behind the new workers. The smell of perspiration mixed with body odor filled the air; it reeked of testosterone. Just like in most other factories at that time, the newly recruited workers weren’t required to go through complex procedures. The first thing they did was work. That way, their employers were able to exploit them.
This time, however, Rolin did not mention the energy loss. This was despite the fact that all he seemed to be able to do was calculate the amount of energy he was consuming.
Communication between the planes had been disrupted slightly. For pure energy to be transmitted as sound waves, more energy was required. Rolin linked all communication with Huang Xuan’s cell phone to ensure they got numbers this time. However, this transfer too required energy.
They waited for a good two minutes before they heard Zhang Xinyi’s voice. She sounded troubled as she asked, “Son, you went out so early in the morning. Where are you?”
Based on Rolin’s energy screen, it was now 6 am. Huang Xuan cheekily answered, “Mother, I’m out of Nanjing at the moment. I’ve met with some problems, and I need your help.”
“You’re out of Nanjing?” Zhang Xinyi sat up, waking Huang Qunsheng, who was sleeping next to her. Tugging on the blanket, she muttered, “This Li Qing… how dare he bring you out in the middle of the night?”
Huang Xuan carefully stayed behind Thomas and said, “This has nothing to do with him. I snuck out on my own.”
“What for?” Zhang Xinyi curtly asked. “Where are you?”
This was the bad thing about speaking to his mother. She always wanted to clarify everything. Huang Xuan lied, “It was too late yesterday. The factory in the suburbs met with some issues, and I had to come over. I was not rushing to return home after resolving everything, so I decided to call you.”
“Then be careful. I’ll ask Li Qing to fetch you. This fella…”
It looked like his mother was planning to teach Manager Li a lesson. Huang Xuan laughed bitterly, “Mother, don’t ask him to come over. I want to see to more matters while I’m here. I called you to ask for help; you’re purposely changing the topic.”
Once she was sure her son was safe and sound, Zhang Xinyi put on her sweater and asked, “Go ahead. What do you want your mother to do?”
“Hmm, I’m looking for a few professional aerospace engineers. I need them to think quick on their feet, yet be skillful. I need them to be especially familiar with skills related to aircraft from the ’30s to the ’70s. I’ll also need them to be able to draw diagrams and prepare information.”
“You should ask your father about this,” Zhang Xinyi put the phone on speaker as she spoke, then said, “Repeat it one more time for your father.”
Huang Xuan helplessly described his situation once more. By that time, a long line of people was quickly approaching the workshop. He nervously said, “My car is arriving. I just need help with that one thing. But I need professionals to work on this for a few days. I’ll pay them. Please look around for me. It’ll be best if you can find a few by this afternoon.”
“What do you need them for?” Zhang Xinyi worriedly questioned.
“I can’t explain everything to you at the moment,” Huang Xuan answered as he lowered his head. “Mother, when you find the people, please ask them to prepare the materials. Then, arrange an office and a few computers with internet connection. I’ll send the requirements and blueprint out to them when I can. When they’re done, instruct them to send their findings to me. It’ll likely take them a week or so. Is USD$1,000,000 enough?”
“What a waste!” Zhang Xinyi laughed. “Alright, I’ll pay for this. I’ll check with my secretary, then I’ll ask your father to meet with a couple of professors. But you must be courteous. Don’t discuss with them about money. We’ll arrange everything for you.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Huang Xuan was so elated that he sent a kiss through the receiver.
While he was speaking, Huang Xuan had already entered the small, newly-built factory. Rouge was the world’s largest factory. New manufacturing rooms were being set up there each day. Even the Great Depression could not stop Henry Ford’s expansion goals.
They couldn’t hear the aircraft from within the workshop. The working conditions were definitely much better than average. Thomas brought the men in, uncovered their eyes and said, “Listen to Jens’s orders. Start from the older workers; those who don’t give their best in their work must leave, understand?”
There was a collective mutter in response. Huang Xuan looked around curiously. There were only a few lathes there. Some of the men were wearing filthy clothes, lying atop the tables and perhaps busy with something around the lathe. Most of the people there were young and were skilled men of sorts.
Large diagrams were spread out across the black iron table. Huang Xuan moved to join them and see what was happening, but he was thrown backward with a slap from someone. “Apprentices are not allowed to see these.”
The words came from Jens, a hairy man in his 40s. His hair was messily combed back. His nose was huge, and his ears were slightly bent.
Huang Xuan nonchalantly left the table. He turned around and said to Rolin, “Study that diagram. Compare it with more advanced technology.”
“How advanced?”
“Within 50 years,” Huang Xuan replied as he tried to hide from the sight of the others. “Do you have any idea how we can export those diagrams?” It was impractical to simply copy them. Huang Xuan was worried that he would be physically exhausted if the workload increased.
Without having to think, Rolin answered, “Can we just use toner ink absorption? As long as we have toner ink and paper, we’ll manage an output speed of a square for every 30 seconds.”
“That’s OK,” Huang Xuan agreed as he rejoined the team. He added, “Check on the car that Ford is researching on. Make up for the incomplete information, then look for the technology that they’re lacking.”
“Alright.” Looking for information on technology in P112 was easy for Rolin. In fact, looking for information in a fixed plane wasn’t difficult. It was only a matter of how much energy was consumed. If one wanted to conduct research in a large field, especially in other planes, a lot of energy was required, yet the process would be inefficient. After all, Rolin wasn’t going to simply use a search engine. Searching for information looked different in each plane. Therefore, the costs were high.
Now, Huang Xuan was requesting for Rolin to search within P101, where they were. In that age, where there was hardly any data, searching for information was going to waste a significant amount of energy.
They had already consumed more than one million kWh of energy in the past day alone. Time traveling was indeed equivalent to burning cash. Yet, Huang Xuan was unbothered. He was still riding on the high returns he had obtained the previous few times.
“Gather around!” Jens thought he was speaking at normal volume, but he was in fact shouting. The workers, as usual, did not even lift their heads.
Huang Xuan was careful not to drag his feet as he walked over. Rouge’s conditions were considered ahead of its time. However, the inside of the workshop was still a mess. The floors were covered in black oil stains and shavings of metal. Huang Xuan, who had never been in such a place, was having difficulty adjusting.
“The three of you, help Ke Qi with the diagrams. He still has to produce 50 drawings, and he has to complete them by today.” Jens was pointing at Huang Xuan and two other people. Huang Xuan glanced at them before walking over.
Ke Qi had big eyes. They looked hollow as if he had been deprived of sleep or he had been quarreling with his spouse for a long time. He was dissecting his painted parts and explaining them to a man who stood taller than him. He carefully placed the parts onto the table. Huang Xuan saw the thick stack of white paper and immediately regretted being recruited.
The computer was only going to be invented 14 years later. Using the CAD to make diagrams was even further down the timeline. Photocopying was completely out of the picture. From the looks of it, Ke Qi was not using parts manufactured by Ford.
Huang Xuan sucked in his breath. “Rolin, take over from here.”
Man’s limits can sometimes surprise its own kind.
The limits of Rolin, who wasn’t human, coupled with the muddled Huang Xuan stunned the Americans in the room. They were extremely fast, especially since they were creating the diagram based on the actual thing. They managed to achieve this speed but not because of any mental skill that Rolin possessed. Instead, it was thanks to Huang Xuan’s muscle endurance. Rolin had adjusted his speed according to Huang Xuan’s stamina and lactic tolerance.
Ke Qi couldn’t resist curling his own thick lips up into a smile. Huang Xuan was producing one drawing in less than ten minutes. Everyone around them watched in silence.
Even the workers operating the machine noticed Huang Xuan. They observed the vibrating T-square and the rapid movement of the pencil in his hand. All of these proved that the young Asian man in front of them possessed unthinkable skills.
Ke Qi took a second look at the drawing that Huang Xuan produced. It was flawless. This was unusual. Even experienced workers produced drawings that fell short of the actual thing. In order to draw a three-dimensional drawing, one had to ensure his line of sight was parallel to the subject. Then, he had to positively project what he saw onto the paper in front of him. This was slightly counter-intuitive. To illustrate, an ellipsoid would appear to be a rectangle — this explained why it was common for problems to surface.
Huang Xuan squinted. Everyone thought that this Asian was unpredictable. However, what they couldn’t know was that Huang Xuan was refreshing his mind by closing his eyes.
Thomas snapped out of his daze after a long while. He shouted, “Focus, everybody! Move quickly!”
It was only then that the workers held back their curiosity and got back to work. Huang Xuan was left to work his arm.
Luo Qi stared at Huang Xuan in amazement. He patted his shoulder and remarked, “You’re not too bad, young man.”
“That’s right,” Huang Xuan chuckled. The work his arms were doing remained unaffected. If
only they had televisions in that time.
Within half a day, Huang Xuan won the other workers over with Rolin’s help. The story of him hitting Thomas with three punches reduced to two and spread throughout the workshop. Unfortunately, there weren’t many famous Asians in that era. Otherwise, Huang Xuan would have borrowed their name.
The Rouge plant area was Henry Ford’s biggest dream. When he was still healthy, it was his base camp. After he stepped down as president of the company, his son, Edsel Ford, took over. However, Henry continued to have a huge voice. Normally, Edsel still had to consult Henry when he made decisions.
Undeniably, Edsel Ford had the final say in the day-to-day operations within the company. Old Ford’s health was deteriorating, and he was no longer capable of managing it.
Edsel was responsible for the design of the engine and other internal parts of the A-type car. History showed that the car model was successful. From a modern perspective, it was equivalent to a mix of Audi and Santana — it was cheap, convenient, and of good quality. Most of the industrial capitalists in the ’30s had technical backgrounds. Similarly, most people in the computer industry in the ’90s had technical backgrounds. Edsel himself was a capitalist who valued mechanical strength.
Huang Xuan continued drawing diagrams after lunch. He had already completed his task, and while no one was looking, he stealthily made a few sketches for his own benefit. One of them was of the Ford V8’s engine which included technical indicators. One would normally require over a hundred pages to fully capture this; however, having a rough one-page sketch was sufficient for pure understanding.
His second sketch was a classic car — the world’s first front-wheel drive car, the Citroen Traction Avant. This car model was introduced in 1934. It was a front-wheel drive car with no chassis. With a torsion bar, it combined the single wheel suspension and hydraulic brake technologies into one. Then, it underwent mass production. Its greatest selling point was that it was reliable. It was especially useful for chasing and escaping; its obvious advantages in this area earned its name as “the robber’s car”.
To Huang Xuan, it didn’t matter what people used the Traction Avant for. The important thing was that they liked it. Although it was said that this model followed from Ford’s T-type car and that it was a new milestone in the history of cars, America’s research into front-wheel drive cars had been stagnant. It was only in 1966, 30 years later, that Oldsmobile made Tunas and Cadillacs that had front-wheel drive. This had to do with the technology and manufacturing abilities at that time. However, it was possible that Americans would not like the idea of the front-wheel drive until they experienced it for themselves.
There was information on the diagrams in P112 that was readily available. Huang Xuan quickly finished his sketches and hid them under a stack of paper. Most of the other workers were still hard at work. This gave him some time to catch a breather.
In the ’30s, Ford’s workers were not paid based on piece rates. However, Huang Xuan was far too fast and had completed far more work than his colleagues. Instead of making him do more work, Ke Qi thought it more reasonable to allow Huang Xuan to wander around the workshop.
At that time period, mechanical technology was approaching its peak. Precision machinery was also progressing significantly. Rouge was leading the way into pipeline operations. On the other hand, the experts and scholars were being praised for their progress on the real-time system. Although it was still in its budding stage, it greatly improved the productivity levels and reduced the costs.
Be that as it were, Huang Xuan was unable to see any hint of this in the workshop. He could only listen to Rolin’s explanation and try to imagine this industrial base that spread over ten million acres. In about 100 years, this same area would be sufficient for China to build several industrial parks.
He was standing behind another worker, observing the way he used the machine. Suddenly, he heard shouting, “Boss is here!” and everyone began to work faster.
Huang Xuan was good at acting. His present situation reminded him of being in the classroom. Whenever someone shouted, “The head teacher is here!” everyone would pretend to be studying hard, burying their heads in their books.
Edsel was neatly dressed. He had an air of sharpness and decisiveness, and his stride was confident; he looked like an important person in every way. Yet, Huang Xuan was fully aware that in a few years, Edsel would lose his life in an accident, and Ford would be thrown into a managerial crisis. That was a major reason why modern day Ford was lagging behind major corporate groups like GM. During the second world war, Ford incurred losses every day because of its managerial problems, and Roosevelt became concerned that Ford’s operations would affect equipment production.
As usual, Edsel had a word with the supervisors first. Then, he made his round around the workshop, listening to the workers’ explanations. He tried to remember the problems they raised to the best of his ability. He normally spent 20 minutes doing this before the company resumed its daily operations. It was largely similar to presidential campaigns.
This time, however, as he approached Huang Xuan, Huang Xuan picked out the diagram of the V8’s engine from under the stack of papers. He laid it out on the table and said to Edsel, “Mr. Ford, you might be interested in these.”
Luo Qi paled and stared in disbelief. He began to explain to the now curious Edsel, “Uh, this is the apprentice that we recruited today. His diagrams are not bad.”
Ford smiled as he walked over. Initially, he wanted to exchange a few pleasantries. However, he forgot what he had wanted to say after taking a glance at the diagram.
The shift from manufacturing the T-type car to the A-type car was a hasty one. Ford, which was incurring huge losses at the time, began looking into new models. By that time, they had a solid foundation on the V8. However, the model that Huang Xuan sketched was to be the final version of it. Even Edsel didn’t know that the final design of the V8’s engine would look like that.
“You drew this?” The diagram looked simple; however, its content was valuable. Edsel, who had a substantial technical knowledge, immediately realized this with one look. His words carried a hint of astonishment.
“That’s right. I drew it, and I’m confident that it’ll work.”
“Where?” Edsel had completely forgotten about finishing his round around the workshop.
Huang Xuan shook his head and said, “I’m planning to sell it. Are you interested?”
“Oh?” Edsel was returning to his capitalist state. Huang Xuan retrieved a pencil and, under the guidance of Rolin, quickly sketched two more diagrams.
They were of the V8’s external design.
Edsel hid his amazement at how quickly Huang Xuan managed to sketch the diagrams. The designs in front of him were capable of earning Ford a windfall. The designs seemed to have been made specially for the company. Of course, Ford had technically come up with them by themselves. He searched Huang Xuan’s expression for a good minute, but he couldn’t find a hint of fear. He asked, “Can we talk? In private.”
“Of course.” That was exactly what Huang Xuan wanted.
Everything had gone smoothly thus far, but only because luck was on his side. Otherwise, Huang Xuan might have had to spend more time and money to meet Edsel Ford or any other important person. Given the limited time he had, he wouldn’t have been able to do much then. These were also the limitations Rolin was referring to. Selling technology was undeniably profitable; however, there were costs involved that weren’t purely monetary. It often took much longer than direct sale of goods. Had they been in the 21st century, they could have expected to easily spend two years trying. Huang Xuan was fighting hard every second that he was here.
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