124 Chaotic Battle (4)

At the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Group's Shanghai Shipyard, a group of visitors wearing "Visitor" badges on their chests walked into a dry dock in an orderly queue. The shipyard's workers and engineers glanced at the faces of this group of Asians. They had already determined that they were Japanese. The People's Party placed the utmost importance on institutionalization; visitors' badges had their national flags on them, and the Japanese one, a red circle in the middle of a white cloth, was very easy to recognize. The Chinese workers and engineers were all very curious—why were Japanese people allowed to come and visit?

Those who had come to visit were a part of the Japanese delegation to China related to the shipbuilding industry. After the Showa Restoration, Japan's life had been much easier in recent years.

After Kita Ikki and other Showa Restorationists took control of the military, they formed the Japanese Socialist Liberal Democratic Party based on the Japanese Anti-Feudal Alliance. It became the largest party in the parliament in the new government, and Kita Ikki became the Prime Minister of Japan. He immediately established a policy of common development with China.

After the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, Japan first obtained a relatively sufficient supply of iron ore. Steel is the backbone of modern industry; Japan itself did not lack coal too much, and with iron ore from China and Korea, Japan's steel production climbed rapidly. After purchasing a large amount of equipment from China, Japan's steel production exploded to over one million tons.

In order to balance trade, China purchased quite a few products from Japan. It also provided many job opportunities to Japan; for example, on the Kra Canal project, China hired one hundred thousand Japanese. After these one hundred thousand Japanese went to the construction site, they greatly promoted the progress of the project.

Japan was a country with a large population, scarce raw materials, and an even scarcer market. After hitching a ride on China's success, and under China's intentional trade inclination, Japan suddenly saw a boom in both production and sales. The rebuilt state-owned enterprises became the fastest-expanding part of the economy in the midst of this. The Japanese military had once clamored that the state should shoulder the work for retired soldiers; after clamoring for many years, Kita Ikki thoroughly put this matter into practice.

Whether they supported the Showa Restoration or opposed it, or were even soldiers who had retired previously without being settled, as long as they submitted an application, they could obtain the opportunity to enter state-owned enterprises for employment. Thanks to the policy of separating Japanese officers and soldiers, the soldiers who had never had opportunities finally found a foundation for settling down and getting on with their lives. Joining the army equaled employment; this single policy alone gathered the loyalty of the Japanese soldier class.

Therefore, after Kita Ikki proposed the Mandatory Land Reform Bill in 1938, the Japanese landlords also resisted, but this resistance did not gain many supporters. In particular, the soldiers in the army who came from tenant farmer backgrounds firmly united around Prime Minister and Chairman of the Japanese Socialist Liberal Democratic Party Kita Ikki, while those young military officers from middle-class and petty-bourgeois backgrounds were even more brimming with idealistic passion. They either went to persuade their own families or went to the grassroots level, to the countryside, to organize the masses, and forcefully completed the preliminary land reform first in the Kanto region, where there were more plains.

In the Kanto region where land reform was completed, Prime Minister Kita Ikki, in accordance with policy promises, slashed the agricultural tax to 50% in one go, and relying on state-owned chemical plants, he also chopped down the prices of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Kanto region, which had once been apprehensive, immediately became a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Kita Ikki and became the "iron vote bank" of the Japanese Socialist Liberal Democratic Party. Other regions of Japan also immediately inclined fully towards Kita Ikki.

The people of this country, Japan, were accustomed to obedience. Kita Ikki established a policy that state-owned enterprises could not fire workers at will, but workers had to accept various trainings. After this policy was introduced, the workers of Japanese state-owned enterprises felt that the sky had become bluer. In Japan, things like firing workers or making things difficult for workers by deducting wages were all too common. Enterprises actually could not fire workers at will; this was truly benevolent governance.

Not only did he not fire workers, but Kita Ikki even accepted Chen Ke's suggestions and implemented a new enterprise system in Japan. "Corporate culture," "team spirit," "lifetime employment," "seniority-based promotion"—these characteristics of Japanese enterprises in Chen Ke's timeline—Kita Ikki also began to implement in Japanese state-owned enterprises. Kita Ikki even implemented a "professional manager system." The managers of state-owned enterprises were not appointed by the upper echelons but were selected openly and transparently.

Since most of the employees in state-owned enterprises at this stage were from military backgrounds, they naturally adapted quite well to these systems that were very suitable for Japan's national conditions. And Japan's "shame culture" also played a very good role at this stage. The Japanese were not people who didn't know what was good for them; since a big shot like Prime Minister Kita Ikki, who held military and financial power in his hands, propagated policies that were truly beneficial to laborers, Japanese laborers were naturally willing to obey.

Of course, the Japanese people did not quite understand why Kita Ikki actually appointed the young entrepreneur Konosuke Matsushita, who was in his thirties, to serve as the Chairman of the Japanese State-owned Assets Committee.

Apart from these, Kita Ikki attached extreme importance to the Chinese market and strictly ordered Japan to introduce industrial standardization from China and implement the same weights and measures standards. In short, after such operations, the Japanese private "flesh and blood factories" were soon teetering on the verge of collapse under the blows of the state-owned "blood and sweat factories."

Within two or three years, Japanese society, which had once been so turbulent that it almost exploded, miraculously stabilized. This was not because the living standards of the Japanese people had improved by much, but because everyone had hope. Even the losses of the landlords were limited; Kita Ikki engaged in a bout of inflation in finance but implemented a strict rationing system for basic daily necessities. The landlords first received a pile of currency that soon began to depreciate, but this money could not be used for hoarding and speculation. A few landlords did commit suicide. Of course, compared to the brutality of the Japanese exploiting class towards the ordinary Japanese people, the ferocity of this policy counted for nothing at all.

Of course, Kita Ikki had attended classes in China after all; he knew that all the current achievements were due to China's support. If China had not provided credit loans to Japan in finance, Kita Ikki's new government would have gone completely bankrupt dozens of times by now. In order to be able to quickly lead Japan onto a brand-new track, Kita Ikki dispatched business delegations to China every year, firstly to discuss Sino-Japanese trade, and secondly to learn the latest industrial production standards from China, so as to increase exports to China as soon as possible.

Obtaining the opportunity to visit a Chinese shipyard was also a new height of cooperation between the two countries, China and Japan. Previously, the Japanese side had mainly cooperated with China in light industry. Japan's shipbuilding industry was very wary of China. Regardless of the level of development of the Chinese navy, the Japanese side still believed that China's shipbuilding industry was somewhat more backward than Japan's. The purpose of coming to visit this time was not necessarily to really exchange ideas, but to see the true face of China's shipbuilding industry.

Upon entering the Chinese shipyard, the Japanese realized that something was wrong. The layout of the Chinese dry docks was vastly different from that of Japan. As experts in the shipbuilding industry, the Japanese side could spot quite a few tricks, but it was very obvious that the technology adopted by the Chinese shipbuilding industry had immense differences from Japan's.

When the Japanese saw the gigantic gantry cranes used in those dry docks, the unease in their hearts became even stronger. The design layout of the gantry cranes was different from Japan's because the tracks used by these gantry cranes could actually move back and forth between quite a few dry docks. After crossing one gate after another, the main construction site of the shipyard that appeared before the eyes of the Japanese shipbuilding experts left all the Japanese experts dumbfounded.

In these times, ship construction was all done by building one ship inside one dry dock. The dry dock would be occupied while building. It might take a few months, or even a few years. The structure of the Chinese dry docks before the eyes of the Japanese experts was completely different from traditional dry docks. If one had to describe it, the traditional manufacturing method adopted by Japan was craftsmen producing individually, while China's ship manufacturing was a production line model.

First, the block manufacturing plants far away from the seaside produced segmented hull blocks. After the segmented hull blocks were manufactured, they were transported by huge gantry cranes and other cranes to the assembly workshops further forward, to start assembling and installing large components, including the keel, together with the segmented hull blocks. Then, the initially formed hull was sent into the water from the dry dock of the assembly workshop to begin outfitting.

Having visited the basic process, the Japanese experts stood dumbstruck at the outfitting dry dock, unable to move. Two thoughts were rolling around in their brains: "The Chinese are crazy!" "Exactly how many ships does China want to build?"

This also left the Japanese no choice but to be shocked. During World War II, the United States could manufacture an escort carrier in 33 days and launch a ten-thousand-ton freighter in 7 days; the paint hadn't even dried when it was launched. Without relying on this method, it simply wouldn't work.

Of course, when the Japanese experts were visiting, China turned off all the laser rangefinders. Chen Ke only knew that there was such a shipbuilding method, but in the beginning, the People's Party had suffered greatly. The devil is in the details. China had started developing welding technology 30 years ago, and even used carbon dioxide shielding very early on, and later used argon shielding. However, there were still many problems.

A steel plate exceeding one meter in length having an error of 5 millimeters is a gap of less than 5 parts per thousand. However, 100 pieces with such errors accumulated would be 50 centimeters. If a warship dared to have a half-meter problem after assembly, this would be a major disaster. If it were according to the traditional production method, adjustments could still be made during the production process. The problem with block production lay in that you couldn't just cut half a meter off a steel plate. If you did that, it would be equivalent to all the originally designed load-bearing and such being done for. The load-bearing properties of a one-meter-long steel plate and a half-meter-long steel plate are completely different.

These were merely problems on the X-axis. Shipbuilding is a three-dimensional industry; the correspondence of the Y-axis and Z-axis all needs to be seamless. A ship requires thousands upon thousands of welds. The details of these adjustment problems added up to so many that even old engineers with decades of shipbuilding experience would have splitting headaches. The first few welded ships produced using block shipbuilding technology did not have much higher quality than the riveted ships of traditional manufacturing. The cost and adjustment time were even far higher than the cost and time of using traditional shipbuilding technology.

Shipbuilding is not a small investment; hundreds of thousands or millions are thrown into one ship. If it were a large vessel like an aircraft carrier, tens of millions or hundreds of millions would be nothing. Fortunately, the one who proposed this idea was Chen Ke; fortunately, the one who proposed this shipbuilding method was Chen Ke. If it had been anyone else, let alone persisting, after the huge waste caused in the initial experiments, they would probably have been taken down immediately, or even investigated on the grounds of "economic sabotage."

However, after China had laser measurement technology, this problem was largely solved. Precise measurement and positioning technology could keep the error within millimeters. Even so, solving one problem meant that other devils hidden in the details finally had the chance to emerge. In order to solve these devils, the Chinese shipbuilding industry relied on the massive research system formed by the Tech Tree Plan, solving problems one by one. While solving problems, China's basic research industry also achieved considerable development.

It could be said that if Chen Ke had not been presiding here, no one would have had the ability to hold on under such huge pressure. By 1939, China had expended huge manpower and material resources, and finally was able to raise the shipbuilding speed and quality to an unprecedented level.

The shipbuilding industry had also been purged several times for this. Those who were complacent, formed cliques, and in short, engaged in that set of feudal system practices were all purged from the shipbuilding team. Although the remaining comrades each had their own views on the shipbuilding industry, everyone had a common view on two things: "Within the industrialization system, it's either fast and good, or slow and bad. There is no such thing as fast and bad or slow and good." "To do a good job, an artisan must first sharpen his tools."

The Japanese simply did not know how much effort China had paid, nor did they know what kind of changes had occurred in China's manufacturing mindset. What they saw was merely the production method that China had already established. The Japanese who came to visit this time were all experts in the shipbuilding industry. Although they did not understand China's technology, they knew very well what kind of shipbuilding speed could be achieved if China followed such a production method. That would be more than ten times, dozens of times that of Japan.

Of course, these Japanese experts were considered lucky. Historically, Japan faced the United States, whose shipbuilding level was definitely not inferior to China's. In the timeline Chen Ke was in, the history books recorded, "...Therefore, in June 1942, Kaiser finally obtained the contract to produce 50 escort carriers. These 50 ships were later named the Casablanca-class, and were all completed within the thirteen months from July 1943 to July 1944... When initially built, due to lack of proficiency, there were also those that took 119 days, but as mass production got on track, the best result could reach 33 days!"

With Japan's traditional shipbuilding speed that was like a manual workshop, confronting the American shipbuilding industry that was like dumping dumplings into a pot, even though the United States invested its main forces in the North Atlantic, it still beat Japan into a pulp with one hand in its pocket.

And the Sea Wolves of Nazi Germany tried their hardest; even if they could sink millions of tons of ships a year, the United States' manufacturing speed was faster than the Nazis' sinking speed. World War II was a war of competing industrial capabilities. The United States was able to become the world's top power through World War II definitely not because of luck, but because of solid strength.

The visit time was not long. For the Chinese side to let Japan come to visit was originally a kind of strategic intimidation. After all, the Japanese side was only partially willing to be friendly with China. There were still people who were unwilling to be friendly with China, such as these guys in the Japanese shipbuilding industry. They were afraid that China would learn Japan's "advanced technology," and among this group of people, there were also quite a few Japanese naval military men who held a hardline attitude. These guys supported the Showa Restoration but did not necessarily support Sino-Japanese goodwill. For these people, they must be made to know the immensity of heaven and earth through strength.

Of course, the accompanying People's Party comrades were satisfied to see the hardliners of the Japanese Navy pursing their lips one by one, or opening their mouths in disbelief. Regardless of what requests for careful inspection these Japanese made, the comrades on the Chinese side took them all away. After all, when this group of people was visiting, it really delayed China's production progress. China was frantically building ships, preparing to perfect the defense system in the Western Pacific. With China's current production efficiency, a delay of one day meant the progress of one-tenth of a ten-thousand-ton ship. Especially since the laser measurement instruments on the entire construction site were turned off; with just this one demonstration, the manufacturing progress of ships with tens of thousands of tons of tonnage had to be delayed at least.

After finally sending away the Japanese who were seething with a thirst for knowledge, the person in charge of the shipyard breathed a huge sigh of relief. For an industrial country, some waste is not necessarily a waste of physical objects; delaying progress is often the biggest waste. When the entire country is gradually integrated into a production system, a problem in one link can trigger a chain reaction.

The Japanese were now more backward than China, but this did not mean the Japanese were stupid. The units visited included not only shipyards but also machinery plants, arsenals, and various heavy industrial enterprises. Japan had once hoped to obtain orders for China's heavy industrial production. After all, the profits of these industries were the greatest. Japan had to produce a million shirts or quilts for its profits to reach the profit of one warship. After witnessing China's heavy industry and military industry with their own eyes, the Japanese side truly gave up hope.

Not only did they give up hope, but many people in this delegation were inclined towards the Japanese zaibatsu. They were very dissatisfied with Kita Ikki's state-owned enterprises and many economic measures. The excuses used to oppose Kita Ikki were still the same old set, nothing more than state-owned enterprises having backward technology, state-owned enterprises having low efficiency, and workers in state-owned enterprises being lazy.

After personally visiting a round of China's state-owned enterprises, the opponents on the Japanese side also had nothing to say. Unless they admitted that Japanese people were born inferior to Chinese people, they really had no way to deny the huge success achieved by China's state-owned enterprises. Even if Japan's private enterprises worked their own workers to death, they could not reach the level that China's state-owned enterprises could reach.

After the Japanese delegation set off to return to Japan, the representatives of private enterprises among them either remained silent and no longer attacked state-owned enterprises, or simply switched allegiances and demanded that Japanese state-owned enterprises and private enterprises develop together and advance together.