Reborn in Brazil As a Plutocrat

  Chapter 203 Disappointment

  It seems that Colonel Chatham is indeed a very good friend. Fang Lang didn't hide anything, and even revealed to Fang Lang that there was a convoy coming today.

   "Mr. Colonel, I wonder if there is room for manipulation?"

  Fang Lang's answer obviously confirmed Colonel Chatham's question.

  After thinking for a while, Colonel Chatham asked:

"what do you mean?"

   "I am developing industry in Brazil. Of course, there is a shortage of machine tools. If I can find some high-quality and cheap machine tools from here, it must be great!"

   "However, these machine tools have been registered, and there is a special convoy responsible for transporting them back to France, which is not very easy to operate."

  Fang Lang didn't want to force it. If there were any irreplaceable equipment, Fang Lang would definitely try his best to transport them back, but now he doesn't know what equipment is still there, so it's hard to say much.

   After thinking about it, he said:

   "Mr. Colonel, I wonder if I can go inside these factories to see what kind of equipment they have."

  This kind of trivial matter is nothing more than a sentence to Colonel Chatham.

   "Of course, no problem, do you need me to accompany you on a trip?"

   "Mr. Colonel is busy with official duties, so I don't dare to trouble you to make a trip. You can just arrange someone to take us to visit."

  Fang Lang mainly didn't want to go out with this guy. If he was attacked, he wouldn't be angry.

"OK then!"

   After speaking, he said to his adjutant:

   "Adjutant, you take Colonel Fang to the machine tool factory in Stuttgart today. You must meet all the needs of Colonel Fang and ensure that Colonel Fang is satisfied. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

  The adjutant stood at attention and saluted very simply, and motioned Fang Lang to go with him.

  Fang Lang was not polite, and didn't stay in Colonel Chatham's office for too long, so he directly expressed his thanks and followed the adjutant out of Colonel Chatham's office.

  As soon as he walked to the parking lot outside the headquarters, he noticed that a very handsome young captain was sitting in a Willys jeep and parked downstairs of the headquarters.

  After seeing the adjutant, the other party took the initiative to greet the adjutant. Because both of them communicated in French, Fang Lang knew that the other party was a captain and company commander of a transportation company named Gerald.

  Although Fang Lang himself is also a young man, he is also a little curious that there is such a young captain and company commander in the French army.

   On the way to the machine tool factory, I did not forget to say with emotion:

   "The officer just now is really young!"

  After hearing Fang Lang's emotion, the adjutant looked at Fang Lang, and said without looking at how old you are:

   "Yes! During the war, capable young people are promoted very quickly."

   This made Fang Lang feel a little gossip and said:

   "Oh! Is this Captain Gerald very powerful?"

  The adjutant introduced it proudly after hearing this.

  "Yes, although Captain Gerald is young, he is an old soldier.

  He joined the guerrillas when he was sixteen years old. During the war, they were often surrounded by the Germans behind enemy lines.

  Slowly, all the comrades around him fell down, and at a young age, he finally carried the banner of the guerrillas.

  However, he had only been a guerrilla captain for two months before France was liberated.

  He also joined the army, originally serving as a company commander in a combat unit.

  Two months ago, I took the initiative to apply to be transferred to the transportation company as the transportation company commander.

   Now it is mainly responsible for transporting the mechanical equipment disassembled from Germany to the designated factory in France according to the government's plan. "

   Hearing the adjutant's introduction, Fang Lang didn't think too much about it. After all, no matter which country he was in, there would always be such characters in the face of aggression, and there was a Youth League in his hometown!

   "That's really amazing. If you have the opportunity to introduce me to such a hero in the future."

  The adjutant heard Fang Lang praise his comrade-in-arms as a hero, and felt honored in his heart, and said with a smile:

   "No problem, they will rest in Stuttgart for a few days, and I will introduce you when we meet next time."

  Fang Lang also expressed his gratitude after listening.

   Talking and laughing all the way to a large machine tool factory, Fang Lang found that there were French soldiers standing guard at the door. No wonder Mayor Jonas asked him to find the occupation army headquarters.

  The convoy stopped at the gate of the factory, and after a simple communication with the adjutant, the convoy was released smoothly.

   Soon the convoy stopped at the door of a huge production workshop. Accompanied by his adjutant, Fang Lang entered the long-awaited German machine tool manufacturer.

   It is a factory building with a height of more than ten meters, a width of more than forty to fifty meters, and a depth of nearly a hundred meters.

  It's a pity that the situation inside is far from what Fang Lang expected. Most places in the huge production workshop are empty. Fang Lang can judge from the traces left on the ground that many places used to be the location of fixed machine tools.

   It's just that there are only some screws leaking out of the ground to fix the machine tools in these places. The number of machine tools remaining in the entire workshop should be less than one-fifth of the original number.

   This disappointed Fang Lang. However, there are still more than 20 machine tools left that are still working. Fang Lang was not born in engineering, and he doesn't know much about machine tools.

  However, I have seen some machine tools in TV and movies. The machine tools in front of me are very similar to the machine tools in the 1980s in China.

  For machine tools, Fang Lang's impression is only about turning, cutting, planing, milling, grinding, boring, etc. He is not particularly clear about how to operate them.

Originally thought that as a machine tool manufacturer, Fang Lang would have the opportunity to see what the legendary industrial hen looked like, but what he saw now seemed to be not too different from the machining workshop in his hometown in the 1980s. the difference.

   Fang Lang watched while walking, and when he reached the end of the workshop, he saw several masters measuring the processed workpieces with tools, so he moved over curiously to have a look.

   When the workers saw outsiders coming, they got up quickly. Fang Lang smiled politely and asked:

   "Master, how accurate can your machining be?"

The translator next to    translated Fang Lang's question, and the master smiled shyly and said:

   "0.01mm."

   This really surprised Fang Lang. Could such accuracy be achieved during World War II?

its not right! Fang Lang remembered that he had heard somewhere that the machining accuracy of the 88mm anti-aircraft guns produced by the Germans during World War II was 0.1mm! How come the machining accuracy here is 0.01 mm!

   Of course he had to ask if he didn't understand, Fang Lang directly expressed the question in his heart:

   "Master, I heard that the machining accuracy of the 88mm gun produced by Krupp is only up to 0.1mm?"

   Soon the master smiled and said:

   "That's the processing accuracy of the drilling machine. It is already very remarkable that such a long artillery barrel can be drilled to achieve a processing accuracy of 0.1 mm.

   But we are a machine tool processing factory here, and the precision requirements must be higher in order to be able to produce other machine tools with higher precision. "

   At this moment, Fang Lang was really envious! Unexpectedly, the machining accuracy of the Germans' machine tools at such an early age has reached such a terrifying level.

   Involuntarily, he gave the master a thumbs up.

  Out of this workshop, Fang Lang came to an assembly workshop again, and saw workers combining and installing various parts together to become some basic machine tools.

  Fang Lang understands that it should be the machine tool that can still be produced in Germany now, and the production of more advanced machine tools should be restricted.

   It is estimated that there is nothing to see in these factories, which makes Fang Lang feel a little discouraged.

  Looking at the empty workshop in the huge factory area, Fang Lang sighed secretly, he was late, and all the good things had been dragged away by the occupying forces.

   I just don’t know if we can recruit some designers of advanced machine tools this time. After arriving in Brazil, we can produce machine tools that can reach the machining accuracy of Germany.

   Turned around and went to the warehouse again. I saw a lot of very tight machine tool equipment wrapped in wooden crates. Obviously, these were all ready to be shipped away.

  Through the packaging, Fang Lang can also see that these are all recently produced by the factory, and they are not particularly advanced machine tools. In this case, Fang Lang can only shake his head helplessly, and left the machine tool factory with a look of disappointment.

  Not even interested in visiting the next factory.

  Because, Fang Lang knew in his heart that the French should not leave anything to the Germans.

  The machine tools left here are not even as advanced as the machine tools Fang Lang shipped back from the Japanese artillery factory.

   At least, among those machine tools, there are several large machine tools produced in Germany for processing gun barrels, but now this factory no longer has these equipments.

  Thinking of the rapid rise of German machine tools from this situation, I am unconsciously admiring.

   From this point of view, it is talents who ultimately promote the development of technology! It should be right to recruit excellent machine tool designers and skilled workers. I believe that with excellent talents, we will be able to produce excellent machine tools.

   After all, talents are the most precious wealth! In terms of processing technology, Fang Lang has heard of the same machine tool, which can be easily processed by a master craftsman on the same machine tool, but some masters scrapped a hundred pieces of material on the same machine tool. None of them were successful either.

  The precision of the processing is very different, so Fang Lang feels more and more that as long as he has excellent talents, the technical level will definitely reach the excellent standard.

  As for the machine tools needed by the factory in the early stage, it seems that they can only be purchased in Switzerland, Italy and the United States.

   After leaving the factory, Fang Lang went directly back to the hotel, and no longer hoped to obtain high-quality and cheap ready-made machine tools from Germany.

  After all, I am about to build an automobile industry system in Brazil, which also requires a lot of machine tools.

  Purchasing from abroad is not a small expense. It would be great if we can directly take advantage of this opportunity to promote the localization of the machine tool industry.

  I can’t help but feel a little regretful. After all, I was not born in engineering. Why didn’t I think that I should get the machine tool factory first, and then introduce the automobile factory?

  Thinking of this, Fang Lang didn't hesitate anymore, and drove directly to the city hall to meet Mayor Jonas.

   "What? You mean that your RWTH Aachen University established a machine tool laboratory as early as 1907?"

  When Fang Lang arrived at the municipal government, Mayor Jonas was planning to recruit technical talents for the machine tool industry that Fang Lang needed, and met with several outstanding mechanical engineers.

   Among them, two intellectuals who looked to be almost fifty years old were particularly eye-catching, because it seemed that the people around them were dominated by these two.

  Seeing Fang Lang coming, Jonas naturally took the initiative to introduce several people to each other.

   Through the introduction of Fang Lang, I learned that several machine tool designers here are all graduated from the same university, and the two old gentlemen are excellent talents from the Machine Tool Experimental Research Laboratory of Aachen University.

  (end of this chapter)