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Chapter 172: Rapid Entry into the Industrial Age

Joseph first visited Marat to check on his injuries, then quickly set off for Nancy.

Tulle was less than 20 kilometers from Nancy, so just after noon, his convoy arrived at the newly established Nancy Industrial Development Zone.

The development zone was situated beside the Meurthe River, encircled by an endless gray stone wall, spanning a massive expanse of some 33 to 40 hectares.

Even from a distance, Joseph could already see smoke rising into the air from the zone. Coal mines were abundant here, so coal was universally used as fuel in production. After the introduction of steam engines, coal consumption had increased even more dramatically.

Upon learning of the Crown Prince's arrival, officials of the industrial development zone promptly set aside their tasks and gathered at the west gate to greet him.

The head of the development zone was Alexander Rameau. He was not a local Nancy official, but had been recommended by Mirabeau to manage the area. He also owned a considerable ironworks himself.

As the initiator and planner of the development zone, Joseph commanded immense prestige here. He was surrounded by hundreds of officials and workshop owners, with respectful and enthusiastic greetings and praises filling the air.

Unable to refuse their enthusiastic welcome, Joseph delivered an impromptu speech to boost morale before finally managing to extricate himself.

Rameau and a dozen or so key managers of the development zone began to guide him through the park. The others, unwilling to leave, followed closely, peering over shoulders from fifty to sixty meters behind.

"Your Highness, that area is for the iron-smelting workshops. Both the Grigo brothers' and Viscount Olivier's workshops are quite large," Rameau pointed to a vast cluster of buildings shrouded in black smoke by the river, recalling various data with impressive clarity. "The two workshops together have seven furnaces and nine forging facilities. They can produce over 22 metric tons of iron ingots daily.

"The Grigo brothers' workshop, in particular, uses the latest type of reverberatory furnace, producing iron ingots of very high quality."

Joseph offered words of encouragement to the two ironworks, but inwardly, he was not entirely satisfied.

While 50,000 pounds sounded like a lot, it amounted to only 25 metric tons daily, or 7,000 metric tons annually.

It was important to note that this accounted for nearly ninety percent of Nancy's steel production.

Currently, France as a whole produced only about 120,000 metric tons of pig iron annually, which was far from enough for the Industrial Revolution.

Furthermore, Joseph himself wasn't overly familiar with steel-making processes. The only theories he could recall were vague notions like 'using coke' and 'blast furnace smelting.' In the short term, increasing output would likely depend solely on expanding scale.

In reality, a significant increase in steel production hinged on demand.

Only by laying a massive network of railways nationwide, stimulating strong demand, would capital be willing to invest in the steel industry, thereby fostering new technologies.

And the prerequisite for building railways was trains. The prerequisite for trains was efficient and mature steam engines.

'This will depend on Murdoch's progress,' Joseph thought silently to himself.

Rameau led him through the riverside complex, introducing several glass workshops, ironware workshops, and coal crushing plants along the way.

Until, in the distance, a light gray two-story building appeared, Rameau announced with some delight, "Your Highness, that is Mr. Gensonné's newly established 'Production Management Consulting Company.'

"They are currently responsible for promoting the 'factory system' and 'Production Standardization' that you requested."

Joseph nodded. He had instructed Gensonné to establish this consulting company. After receiving training on Production Standardization from Joseph, Gensonné had rushed to Nancy to impart the new management concepts.

The transition from manual workshops to factories was a crucial undertaking for the industrial development zone, intended to serve as a model for all of France.

Although "workshop" and "factory" differed by only one word, their underlying implications spanned an entire Industrial Revolution!

A "workshop" simply gathered handicraft artisans in a large courtyard; aside from being larger in scale, it was no different from primitive small workshops, with management largely depending on the whip of the workshop owner.

A "factory," on the other hand, was a product of the Industrial Revolution. First and foremost, it required a complete set of management systems, from basic punctuality rules to more advanced team and shift leader responsibilities, and then to Production Standardization, which drastically improved production efficiency.

Moreover, the employment methods were quite different. Factories operated on a completely capitalist employment system, where workers and factories established labor contracts with mutual freedom of choice. Workshops typically followed a master-apprentice model. Apprentices were personally dependent on their masters, and this dependency was overseen and solidified by guilds in each industry.

For instance, in France currently, to enter a certain industry, it wasn't enough to simply master the skill. You first had to find a master to introduce you to the guild, beginning a five to seven-year apprenticeship during which the master could exploit you at will. After completing the apprenticeship, you would become a journeyman, nominally able to work independently, but still largely dependent on your master. Only after another three to five years could you obtain guild registration and become a true artisan, then begin exploiting apprentices yourself...

This model severely hindered industrial development. Often, tasks that could be learned in a few months of factory training would take years, even decades, due to guild regulations.

The final point was that factories must have a higher pursuit of and adaptability to new technologies.

The characteristic of a factory was to maximize profit by making every effort to automate production using machinery.

The transformation from workshop to factory, if left to history's normal pace, would require a decade or more of the Industrial Revolution's Baptism to gradually complete.

However, under Joseph's guidance, the industrial development zone would directly adopt the most efficient model, sprinting into the Industrial Age.

Once the factory system matured, they would then unleash the ultimate weapon of industrial production: the assembly line.

At that point, France's factories would decimate all its European rivals!

Rameau remarked, "Your Highness, although guilds are completely forbidden in the development zone, artisans are accustomed to the master-apprentice model, and it will take some time to completely change over.

"As for Production Standardization... it is still being promoted, and no workshop has yet managed to fully implement it."

"Hmm, that's normal. As for you all, don't be too hasty. Everything must be done without affecting workshop production," Joseph said, knowing that such a significant leap in management models could never be achieved overnight.

"Yes, Your Highness."

Rameau then led Joseph through the development zone's dormitory area, schools, hospitals, and other facilities.

These supporting facilities were immensely helpful to the factories within the zone. The dormitories alone could significantly reduce workshop costs, allowing them to even recruit vagrants to work. The hospital, meanwhile, greatly improved worker attendance rates.

After walking for a while longer, Rameau gestured towards a large cluster of buildings ahead, from which white smoke continually billowed: "Your Highness, that is the French United Steam Engine Company."