Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#519 - exchange

"Chen, do you agree to continue expanding production capacity to 400 aircraft in sync, according to the original agreement?" President Robert didn't expect Dongda to make a decision so quickly, and to expand to the upper limit in his mind. "Do you need us to build another production line? We are responsible for 5 production lines, and you are responsible for 3? To avoid excessive financial pressure on your side? We have now united with the Gaul and Prussian sides, and there is no problem with expanding production capacity now. In fact, the newly expanded three production lines will be one for each of our three companies. This is the agreement we reached, otherwise the European Space Agency would not have been able to establish so quickly and come up with the European standard for aviation certification."

When Chen Hanyuan heard this, he understood. No wonder Rolls-Royce suddenly proposed such a large increase in production capacity. On the one hand, there was the realistic pressure of demand, and on the other hand, there was also the petty thought of taking advantage of the situation. If they took advantage of Dongda's insufficient investment to build production capacity there first, then the future benefits would be even greater.

After all, the aviation industry is a high-end industry. A production line involves at least tens of thousands of jobs in the industrial chain. Such huge benefits are the reason why Rolls-Royce lowered its stance to cooperate with Dongda and opened a gap in the Western aviation hegemony.

You should know that Rolls-Royce was under the threat of sanctions from major North American customers, and even cancelled orders, really taking the risk of bankruptcy to work with Dongda. Now that the storm has passed, this project has achieved greater glory than expected, and has directly brought Rolls-Royce to become another new giant in the Western world. In terms of airliners, Airbus has completely rivaled giants such as Boeing and Douglas, and even leads its competitors in the regional 100-seat mainline aircraft.

The first wave was so successful. If the long-range A300L achieves its goal as scheduled, then the dominance of this series of airliners in the 100-seat aviation market will be unshakable.

The A300L, which has a cross-continental flight range of 6,000 kilometers, undoubtedly secures Airbus's A300 series' position as the hegemon in the 100-seat market.

Under such a good situation, Robert certainly wants to fight for as much benefit as possible. There is no need to talk about the sharing aspect. The intellectual property rights originally belong to others. Now that other people's children are promising, it is unrealistic to even take the pot. Dongda is not a pushover. If they overturn the table and stop playing, and directly find Gaul and Prussia, or even Portugal, Spain, and Italy to continue playing, Robert and the others would not know how happy these partners would be.

However, if they take advantage of Dongda's insufficient capital investment and discuss with Chen Hanyuan to build one or two more new production lines in Westminster or elsewhere on the island, for Robert or Downing Street behind him, that would be another huge achievement. The rise of the John Bull family's aviation industry would be truly unstoppable, gradually leveling with its North American counterparts.

Think about it, the John Bull family's own aviation foundation is definitely not bad. The aviation engine has a top company like Rolls-Royce, and the industrial workers are also world-class. What they originally lacked was capital investment and market, and these two are mutually restrictive. Without seeing the market prospects, large capital investment would not dare to come in. And to see the prospects, there must be a large amount of capital investment to develop a competitive single product!

This is the significance of the Airbus A300 to them. Relying on this single aviation product, the financial circles of Misty City are now lining up to find Robert, vying for the opportunity to invest in Airbus!

The current Airbus is already the hottest investment target company in Europe. It can be said that relying on the financial market of Misty City, Robert has the confidence to eat up all 6 new production lines for expanding production capacity!

Chen Hanyuan didn't know that before Robert came, they had reached an agreement with several major consortia. If Dongda gave up the production capacity expansion of the production line, they would take it all! No matter how much, they would take it all!

However, now Chen Hanyuan is confident. The promised investment of over 10 billion will directly solve the problem. The mere few production lines are no longer a financial obstacle.

"Mr. Robert, thank you for your concern and support. Regarding the expansion of production capacity, we will strictly follow the original agreement. Yandu Aviation Industry is confident that it will fully promote the construction of this new production capacity according to the plan," Chen Hanyuan said with a smile. "If Mr. Robert is interested, we may need to purchase some aviation engine production equipment from some manufacturers in your country. Mr. Robert can mediate on the export license."

When Robert heard this, he was a little surprised. He knew the situation of Dongda. The large investment of more than 3 billion US dollars is by no means affordable by Yandu Aviation Industry. Even if the bank is willing to lend, it cannot lend so much, because loans themselves account for more than half of Yandu Aviation's current assets. The debt ratio is at least 60%, similar to the Airbus supported by Rolls-Royce.

Now, who can easily get a fully-funded aviation production line worth nearly 1 billion US dollars? When Rolls-Royce and Dongda jointly built Airbus, they had to talk to Downing Street to get a national guarantee before they could secure a syndicated loan to build a production line.

Now that they have seen the bright prospects, private consortia have also come smelling the scent. President Robert has found the feeling of being wealthy, but unfortunately, in front of Chen Hanyuan, he directly killed his chance to show off in the cradle.

This made Robert very frustrated.

"No problem, I will do my best to do what I can. Chen, may I ask presumptuously, the expansion of production capacity is a huge investment. We have to concentrate the power of several heavyweight partners to invest so much in fixed assets. How did you solve this problem?"

President Robert seemed to ask casually.

Chen Hanyuan took a deep look at Robert, thinking that this move would soon no longer be a secret, and replied with a smile.

Chen Hanyuan said with a smile. He was not exaggerating. When Robert heard this, he suddenly became nervous. If Dongda's funding solution was like this, then the problem might not be too big. With Dongda's reputation as an infrastructure maniac, he really had to hurry back. After all, the production attitude of his workers was very clear. They were not lazy, but it was absolutely impossible to work in the same way as Dongda, who was desperately working hard. This was a real shortcoming on his side. It would be ridiculous if Dongda's production capacity was built in two or three years, and his side was still in the process of construction.

In that situation, Airbus, facing immense delivery pressure, would absolutely not let Dongda's production capacity sit idle waiting for their own capacity to be built up before starting production. The shift in production share would then be self-evident.

Originally, they thought Dongda would encounter significant difficulties in infrastructure construction, allowing them to seize some benefits. But after hearing Dongda's plan, Robert suddenly felt the pressure had completely shifted to his side!

Robert suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. In this aspect, there was truly no way to compete with Dongda's infrastructure capabilities!

Robert's mind raced, and suddenly he had an idea.

"Chen, since you have no problem expanding your production capacity, and we have no problem either, then let's build everything together this time. I have a suggestion: let Dongda take the lead in engineering and infrastructure, while we take the lead in equipment debugging and installation. What do you think? After all, we have many more experienced engineers in production lines."

Robert asked tentatively.

He knew that engineering and infrastructure construction consumed the most manpower. In this regard, the West could never match Dongda's speed. So, Robert had a flash of inspiration and proposed putting the equipment debugging and installation, where his side had an advantage, under his control. Moreover, the reason was indeed sufficient. When it came to experienced engineers in the aviation industry, Europe had far more than Dongda, basically a difference of orders of magnitude.

This was actually the problem Ren Zhong was most worried about. Production lines were easy to build, but mature production line technicians and engineers could not be trained so quickly.

Chen Hanyuan paused, then lowered his head and pondered for a while before looking up. "Robert, frankly speaking, we do have a shortage of qualified engineers. The large-scale expansion of production line capacity puts tremendous pressure on our production line engineers. Since our situation is so favorable, and considering the overall picture, I personally tend to agree with your view. Let's leverage our respective strengths to do this well together. Similarly, for the sake of our future development, we also hope that in this process, you will allow us to send personnel to learn one-on-one from your engineers. In addition, we will send a group of young engineers to your country for short-term production line training. Your side will arrange the training and internship work, so that we can quickly unleash the production capacity of these production lines and deliver our orders as soon as possible after the production lines are built."

Chen Hanyuan knew that in terms of aviation talent, they were completely incomparable to Western countries. Even with the dismantling of Prussia, which resulted in the near total loss of domestic high-end aviation talent, after more than a decade of development and recovery, the talent in half of Prussia's aviation industry was about the same as Dongda's. After all, their training system and accumulation still retained a large part.

The situation was even more so for John Bull, who had a violent aviation production capacity during World War II. Their current aviation industry chain had at least a million talents.

At its peak, their various aviation companies could produce more than a dozen fighter jets, and some even creatively used wood to produce front-line fighter jets, truly a generation of talent.

The three major European Axis powers, namely Gaul, were somewhat weaker. After all, their aviation industry was originally much weaker than John Bull and Prussia. However, after the war, they received some of Prussia's aviation industry heritage and also worked hard to invest in aviation development, after having suffered enough from Prussia's overwhelming aerial suppression.

Now, Gaul's aviation industry is about the same as half of Prussia.

Chen Hanyuan's proposal was a minor issue for Robert, but not a critical one.

Now that cooperation was so deep, it was normal to have interdependence.

"Chen, I don't think this is a big problem. I will try my best to coordinate it. Chen, now that we have set the direction for this major event, cooperating with you is the wisest decision I have ever made. Chen, let's open the champagne next."

President Robert did not have much objection to Chen Hanyuan's proposed talent training. Under the current circumstances, the entanglement between the two sides in the aviation industry was indeed inseparable.

Even for Rolls-Royce, after producing this aircraft, except for avionics and aero-engines, the rest could be done by Rolls-Royce's own factories. Even avionics and aero-engine replacement could be solved by them. However, Rolls-Royce must not abandon Dongda and work alone, because Airbus's current A300 intellectual property rights are provided by Dongda, and patents have been registered in both the East and the West.

Unless the door to East-West exchanges is closed, Rolls-Royce must never produce this aircraft on its own without authorization.

No one can afford such a result, especially under the current conditions of Dongda's trinity of powerful nuclear shield and nuclear deterrence.

Cooperation and common development are what Robert should be concerned about.

"Then I wish us a happy cooperation, Robert. I think our glory in the aviation passenger aircraft field has only just begun. Combining our strength with that of Europe, we will reach the pinnacle of the aviation industry soon!" Chen Hanyuan responded with a smile.

"The current good situation of the Airbus A300 series is not our end, but a new beginning. Next, our intercontinental aircraft will once again set off a new wave of climax in the intercontinental aircraft field."

"Chen, we look forward to this day coming soon!" Robert said with a glowing face.

To be honest, when he cooperated with Dongda, and the North American giants cut off the aero-engine contract, the pressure Robert suffered almost made him unable to hold on.

Now the storm has passed, and now the entire kingdom envies his unique vision, becoming the undisputed number one in the kingdom's industry, and his influence in the country is growing day by day. Maybe he even has a certain chance to run for the position of 10 Downing Street!

This is the real benefit that cooperation has brought him.

But for Robert, the position of 10 Downing Street may not be more fulfilling than taking Airbus to the dominant position in the world aviation industry!

That is really suppressing the arrogant counterparts in North America! And at 10 Downing Street, there are several bosses above who need to be smiled at.

Thinking of the way Boeing and Douglas and other giants gave them the final ultimatum in a cold tone, Robert still has some resentment now.

If there is an opportunity to destroy or even overthrow these opponents, Robert would not mind stepping on them hard a few times to prevent them from turning over, regardless of ideology, purely personal grievances.

Although Robert did not take advantage of Dongda this time, the expansion of production capacity has achieved its goal, and Airbus's future will be smooth sailing.