African Entrepreneurship Records

  Chapter 15 From Amsterdam to Venice

  June is already summer, and the whole of Prussia has not been affected by the war. The streets and alleys of Berlin are crowded with pedestrians, shops and factories are operating normally, and it is a vibrant scene.

  In the past two months, Ernst has been busy with the establishment of the Hechingen Development Bank. Fortunately, it is still very easy to run 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. After completing the equity confirmation with many factories under Ernst, the Hechingen Consortium initial 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 of course Ernst's masterpiece. Now these two companies are still empty shells. In order to find managers for the new company, Ernst has made great efforts. Investigate work, and publish job advertisements in newspapers at the same time, after completing a lot of screening work.

  On July 28, Frenchman Etienne Lenoir became the first general manager of Berlin Energy Power Company. This Etienne Lenoir is the inventor of the first generation of internal combustion engine.

  Although Lenoir is an important promoter of the development of the internal combustion engine, Lenoir's research has consumed huge financial resources, and no one has invested in it. Therefore, I am not very rich, but live a life of poverty.

  After being invited by Ernst, he readily agreed to Ernst's request, because Ernst not only offered a generous salary, but also promised to support his own research work.

  At the same time a young man about to graduate from school, Karl Friedrich Benz, became Lenoir's assistant.

   At this time, Karl Benz was still a student about to graduate from the Karlsruhe Polytechnic Institute in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany.

  Ernst discovered him in advance and directly asked him to serve as the assistant of the old Lenoir, skipping his original factory internship career.

  Berlin Energy Power Company also purchased the engine patent of a young Frenchman, Alphonse Beau Rorschach, and appointed him as a technical consultant, and Berlin Energy Power Company took shape initially.

  This Alphonse Beau Rorschach is not well-known in history, but he was the one who snatched Ross August Otto's gasifier patent in history.

  Ross August Otto is the inventor of the four-stroke engine in history. Ernst originally wanted to find this inventor who had influenced the course of human history as a senior executive of the company.

But it was a pity that it was a step too late. This Ross August Otto, who patented the innovation of the two-stroke engine in 1863, soon found a partner named Eugene Otto who provided funding for him. Langen, Eugene Langen is the son of a German sugar businessman, a typical rich second generation, and the two jointly founded a company that manufactures internal combustion engines.

  Now Ross August Otto does not need to find new partners or investors, the factory of the two has already started to make a profit.

  The newly established Berlin Energy and Power Company has also recruited many college students who have just graduated as a talent pool. The college students of this era are genuine elites. With these talents, Berlin Energy and Power Company will look good.

   Ernst's first order to the new company was to develop a more advanced four-stroke engine based on Alphonse Beau Rorschach's patent.

  In history, this Alphonse Beau Rorschach patent did not produce any prototypes, so it was forgotten, but Ernst still bought his patent and planned to further improve and develop it.

  Combined 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 will even be possible to get a practical four-stroke engine before Ross August Otto.

   Lenoir was the first person to invent the internal combustion engine. Although his internal combustion engine is only in its preliminary form and has poor efficiency, it may be difficult to find a few people in the world who are more familiar with internal combustion engines than Lenoir.

  In the future, with Benz, the young man who is scheduled to succeed him, 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 Power Company began to operate.

  Compared to the internal combustion engine industry, which has a steam engine as a bedding, the theory of electricity has only recently been proposed, and many theories are even immature.

  Ernst searched all over Europe to find a suitable candidate in Carl von Linde, who in history invented the refrigerator, that is, the refrigerator.

   As for other talents in the field of electric power, it is too difficult to find. The most famous Siemens family in Germany is itself an aristocrat, and it is valued by the Prussian government. There is no place for Ernst to shovel.

   Moreover, Siemens itself is synonymous with cheating. Ernst, who can be as famous as him, only knows the American Edison and Tesla.

These are the geniuses that Ernst took great pains to find. As a college student of science and engineering, Ernst knows many well-known scientists and inventors in later generations, but some of them have already achieved fame, or are still in a corner of Europe and the United States. Li was unknown, and was either a child or never born.

  After filtering out age and those who don’t need investment and cooperation, you have to look for a needle in a haystack all over the world.

   Fortunately, neither of these two fields has exploded with great power, and it belongs to the most cutting-edge technology of this era, and there are only a few members who can engage in related industries and research.

   Just looking at the list of companies and well-known universities that have made a fortune in these fields can still catch one or two prominent ones.

   As for the Berlin Electric Power Company, Ernst also had no good way to open it up. He could only follow the development of the times and ask his subordinates to 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, we can earn some hard money by relying on patent authorization to set up factories.

  …

   On October 20, when the Vienna Conference was being held. Ernst came to the Port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands for investigation. This time Ernst's goal is to find a suitable partner and prepare for the development of the Far East market.

As the hometown of his previous life, the Far East is naturally something that Ernst never forgets. Of course, the temptation of profit is also irresistible. In the contemporary world, apart from those resource areas, which rely on the huge population market and are coveted by European and American colonists and powers, one is India, one is East Asia.

  The magical country of India is the lifeblood of Britain, and the brain circuits of Indians are so strange that Ernst dared not get involved.

  East Asia is different. Ernst dared to say that no one in Europe knows 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, which makes it difficult for the great powers to open the door to a large East Asian country, but it is difficult to fully take root.

  Even if all the great powers join forces, they still cannot fully grasp the situation in East Asia. The forces inside are messy, and even if they sneak in as Prussians to make a fortune, they will not be too conspicuous, which is just convenient for Ernst to fish in troubled waters.

However, it is impossible for Ernst to swim to East Asia by himself, so he needs to cooperate with the ocean-going commercial fleet. Recently, Ernst has reached an agreement with a number of old Dutch ocean-going trading companies. Ernst will send people to East Asia. Establish a purely commercial stronghold, and the Dutch earn the difference from the middleman.

As for the transportation of goods in Europe and East Asia and the transmission of business information, the Dutch can only be relied on. Compared with the Netherlands, a country based on commerce, the British Ernst is not at ease. You are a great German nobleman. Going to the UK to engage in cooperation, should the British government pay special attention to it? Ernst doesn't want to deal with any official, which means trouble, especially since his family has no connections in the UK!

Although the Dutch, who were sanctioned by the British, are not as costly and safe as the sun never sets empire in ocean trade, but the Dutch are more cautious than the British when it comes to smashing signs. After all, the Netherlands can only survive by commercial trade. , reputation is more important in Europe.

  Of course, Amsterdam in the Netherlands is only the best choice for Ernst at present, and Ernst will still shift his focus to ports along the Mediterranean Sea in the future.

   In a few years, after the opening of the Suez Canal, Ernst can use this intelligence advantage to develop his own fleet and routes.

In addition, after the reunification of Germany in the future, commercial and 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. From the map, Hechingen to Vienna is comparable to Berlin Being closer also means the route is safer.

  Finally, through Venice and other ports on the Adriatic Sea, passing through the Suez Canal, you can avoid detouring half of the west coastline of Africa, and the distance to East Asia is directly reduced by half, and the freight is also cheaper.

  Not to mention these, just say that the goods departing from the Netherlands can also be transferred to the Mediterranean Sea to reach the destination through the Suez Canal.

  Before Ernst’s long-hidden plan began, Hamburg in Germany was also a transitional option, but after the reunification of Germany, the German region still lacks experience in ocean-going commerce, and the technology of ships is not as good as that of the Netherlands and Venice.

So Ernst is not in a hurry to invest in a shipyard in Hamburg. Now the focus is on Venice. The scale of his industry has not reached the level where he must rely on shipping. After all, he has not yet set foot in the bulk commodity trade. After land transportation, Ernst can also afford the cost.

  It is not too late to build a fleet in Hamburg if I want to engage in those large-volume commodity trades in the future.

  So the layout of the Mediterranean can be started by going to the site in advance. After the trip to the Netherlands, Ernst plans to go to the Adriatic Sea for investigation.

  (end of this chapter)