0p0 Chapter 352 Datong Carriage Factory
Chapter 352 Datong Carriage Factory
After the singing finals on May 6th, Emperor Yuanfeng and his group stayed in Hengzhou for nearly ten days.
It was not until May 15 that urgent military intelligence was received from the imperial capital - Tianmen Pass had fallen and the empire's western border was in serious crisis.
This made a large group of high-ranking court officials who were reluctant to leave quickly return to the imperial capital Yangzhou.
In the next ten days or so, Emperor Yuanfeng brought many high-ranking officials to attend the opening ceremony of the smelting bureau under the Datong Chamber of Commerce, which had invested up to 1000 million taels of silver.
They also visited the Hengzhou Bridge and Hengzhou Freight Terminal which were under construction in Hengzhou, as well as the 20 schools and dozens of nursing homes and children's homes that had been completed and were jointly built by the Datong Foundation and the Hengzhou government.
At the same time, the Datong Chamber of Commerce took advantage of the fact that Emperor Yuanfeng and others were in Hengzhou to hold a long-planned carriage sales conference.
When seven or eight imperial supreme carriages of various sizes and decorations, specially built for Prince Cheng of Emperor Yuanfeng, slowly drove onto the square in front of the Red Building driven by two or four horses.
It immediately caused cheers.
Especially when the last heavy truck with a rough appearance, pulled by four horses and loaded with bluestone pieces came on the stage.
Everyone looked at the two marks left by the ground, which made a creeping sound on the bluestone slabs, and screamed in surprise.
In fact, the empire also had various types of cargo carriages, but never a heavy carriage with such load capacity and flexibility.
Especially when Sun Shan reported that heavy cargo carriages would be sold in three levels: 88 taels of silver, 158 taels, and 228 taels, depending on their size and cargo capacity.
In addition, we can ensure that all accessories meet unified standards and provide a three-year free warranty for the main accessories of the vehicle.
Immediately, it triggered a wave of orders.
In particular, those high-ranking court officials who purchased a lot of goods this time and wanted to take them back to the imperial capital placed orders for as many as 229 vehicles on the spot.
Among them, in addition to the supreme-class carriages of the two countries donated by the Datong Chamber of Commerce, Emperor Yuanfeng also placed orders for models 158 and 228, ten of each.
Who made him spend 70,000 or 80,000 taels of silver in Hengzhou this time?
In addition, there were gifts from Prince Heng, Sun Shan, and officials at all levels.
Without these ten heavy trucks, it would be impossible to take them back.
Besides, after these trucks are brought back, they can either be handed over to the palace for use, or they can be sold at a high price to people in the empire who need trucks.
Anyway, as long as the 1000-mile journey back to the imperial capital is possible, if there are no major problems with the carriages produced by the Datong Chamber of Commerce, they will surely rewrite the history of trucks in the empire.
Even Deputy Prime Minister Li Shimin suggested that if the Datong carriages could pass the test of the 1000-mile return journey, they could supply the imperial military on a large scale.
Of course, the cooperation between Datong Chamber of Commerce and the military will definitely be in another form, which will take the form of cooperative production, striving to produce higher quality vehicles.
As for the horse-drawn carriages used to transport people, we have also seen larger public carriages on the streets of Hengzhou in recent days.
This is because the population of Hengzhou is increasing rapidly and the original number of rickshaws cannot be met.
Especially after May 1st when the double matches started, the whole Hengzhou was crowded with people.
The Datong Chamber of Commerce, together with the Hengzhou government, has temporarily launched twelve public routes that can basically cover the entire Hengzhou.
The so-called public carriage is also the bus transportation a thousand years later. It picks up and drops off passengers along the way at their respective route stations on time and in quantity every day according to the planned time and planned routes.
Moreover, because of the subsidy from the Datong Charity Foundation, the fare for each route, regardless of distance, was only one copper coin.
This instantly became popular throughout Hengzhou.
This special public carriage is driven by four horses and can carry up to twelve people in addition to the coachman, or a small amount of luggage.
Moreover, based on the fact that there would be no one selling tickets a thousand years later, Sun Shan installed a fare box on the driver's side that could only allow entry but not exit.
As a result, when the bus or carriage is moving, the copper coins in the fare box will make pleasant and crisp sounds as they collide with each other along the way.
As a result, the passengers along the way were intoxicated by the crisp sound of copper coins. For this reason, some people jokingly called it the Copper Coin Car.
For this purpose, some people with nothing to do spent a lot of copper coins to take public horse-drawn carriages on various lines and travel around Hengzhou City.
Among them were high-ranking officials from the imperial court.
Through this most intimate contact with the grassroots people, they learned more and more about all aspects of Hengzhou in a more detailed way, and also saw more clearly the entire face of Hengzhou and its rapid expansion.
Because buses and carriages will pass by various residential and commercial areas under construction.
As a result, the importance of rickshaws decreased instantly, and their income also decreased significantly.
This caused a considerable number of rickshaw drivers to change their careers. They either became bus drivers with a fixed salary after training, or transferred to the Hengzhou Wharf which was about to be completed and became employees of the Datong Shipping Company which was about to be established.
Another large number of people were assigned to the rapidly expanding carriage factory to become screw-driving carriage workers.
Compared with load-carrying carriages, passenger carriages are much smaller and more delicate.
Datong Coach Factory only launched four versions this time.
The smallest of them, the Qin, which can only accommodate four to five people, is divided into standard, comfort and premium types.
The selling prices, excluding the horses, were 28 taels, 32 taels and 36 taels of silver respectively.
The medium-sized Han, which can carry five to six people, also has the three versions mentioned above, and the prices are 36 taels of silver, 42 taels and 48 taels of silver respectively.
The larger Chu, which can carry eight to ten people and can be driven by four horses when necessary, is much more expensive.
The price starts at 58 taels, the comfort type is 68 taels, and the premium type is 88 taels.
In addition, the supreme carriage worth several thousand taels, which was customized for Emperor Yuanfeng, or the next level of noble carriage worth thousands of taels, are still under intensive debugging.
It may not be delivered until the end of this year or early next year.
If necessary, you can also pay a deposit for customization after watching the test drive sample car.
This carriage launch conference lasted a whole day.
A total of 2956 vehicles were ordered and sold on that day!
However, these carriages are all produced on order, and the earliest they can be delivered is seven days later, gradually based on the order of delivery.
Sun Shan explained that the Datong Carriage Factory is still in the process of expansion and running-in. With the current daily output of only 70 to 80 vehicles, if the ultimate goal of producing 10,000 vehicles per month is to be achieved, it must wait until the smelting bureau's iron block output and quality are improved.
Only then can we meet everyone's needs.
Among them, Qin received the most orders, with a total of 1218 vehicles ordered.
Next were Han and Chu, which placed orders for 834 and 566 vehicles respectively.
The rest are the ones for which only a deposit has been paid and whose selling price has not yet been determined. They are temporarily named the "Yangwang" (Admired) four-horse driven noble carriages.
On that day, Datong Carriage Factory received a total of more than 18 taels of money for carriages.
Although, compared with the nearly one million taels of silver that Datong Real Estate earned on its opening day, and the more than 40 taels of silver that Honglou earned on the same day, it is a bit dwarfed.
But this carriage is different from the house.
It is a consumable good that can be produced continuously and sold throughout the empire, and can even be exported to neighboring countries.
Some of the carriages sold this time will be used in Hengzhou City as extensions of public carriages, running to places that public carriages cannot reach, and providing chartered services.
So, on the second day of the press conference, which was three days before Emperor Yuanfeng and his party left Hengzhou, Lu Jinxi and Li Shimin negotiated and tentatively signed the Datong carriage franchise in Suzhou and Yuezhou with an annual operating fee of 10 taels of silver respectively.
As for the imperial capital Yangzhou, it was naturally Emperor Yuanfeng who represented the royal fund and symbolically took it for 20 taels per year in operating expenses.
Of course, Sun Shan also had tens of thousands of words of rules and regulations in the contract regarding their exclusive rights.
First, you can sell it to them at a wholesale price of 20% off.
Secondly, their local retail prices must not exceed 10% of the base price of Datong carriages in Hengzhou, otherwise their qualifications will be revoked.
Emperor Yuanfeng was very annoyed about this, thinking that since they had paid so much operating fees, they had the right to set their own prices.
However, facing Sun Shan's toughness, the two parties happily reached a cooperation after Sun Shan took into account the freight costs and increased the Hengzhou base price by 10%.