Homo Sapiens

Meanwhile, at Qingye Automobile’s Chiang Mai Branch, the engine R&D team was also testing miniature gas turbines made from new materials.

In reality, using miniature gas turbines in cars still presented a few challenges.

For instance, there was low thermal efficiency at low speeds and idle, excessive noise, and high manufacturing costs.

But these issues ultimately boiled down to just two things: the approach and the materials.

Qingye Automobile Company’s engine R&D team didn’t use the miniature gas turbine for direct propulsion. Instead, they adopted a hybrid approach.

At high speeds, the gas turbine provided direct propulsion. At medium and low speeds, the car switched to electric power, while the gas turbine was kept running at high speed to power a micro-generator that charged the lead-acid batteries.

There was no need for lithium-ion, solid-state, or ternary composite batteries. Safe and cheap lead-acid batteries were the way to go.

To support the lead-acid batteries, Qingye Automobile even opened a dedicated lead-acid battery factory. It specifically produced automotive-grade lead-acid batteries and was equipped with sulfur dioxide scrubbers to eliminate emissions.

As for the gas turbine’s noise problem, it could be mitigated through design and the installation of sound-dampening layers.

Finally, there was the issue of the miniature gas turbine’s thermal efficiency. Its low efficiency was due to its inability to perform multi-stage waste heat recycling—an advantage held by large-scale gas turbines.

Implementing a multi-stage heat cycle in a miniature gas turbine system would cause costs to skyrocket.

So, how did Qingye Automobile solve this problem?

Ultimately, it came down to materials again.

Since a single-stage cycle has low thermal efficiency and a multi-stage cycle makes the system complex and expensive, why not just increase the pressure and rotational speed?

It was just like the supercritical power generation technology used in thermal power plants.

And with the material support of the Homo Sapiens Company behind them, this was precisely the technological path Qingye Automobile took.

They increased the pressure in the gas turbine’s combustion chamber and boosted the air intake, which in turn raised the impeller’s rotational speed to 35,000 revolutions per minute.

This enhancement also allowed for a further reduction in the size of the miniature gas turbine.

After all, improved thermal efficiency meant improved power density. Since a car’s power consumption is fixed within a certain range, the new miniature gas turbine would naturally be smaller while supplying the same amount of power.

This size reduction brought another benefit: the noise level would also decrease.

Qingye Automobile’s gas turbine technology was part of a hybrid powertrain route, supported by a variety of new technologies.

It capitalized on the high thermal efficiency of the gas turbine at high speeds to charge the lead-acid batteries. Moreover, the car didn’t need a large battery pack; a full charge providing a 50-kilometer range was sufficient.

This was a hybrid, after all. It could be recharged anytime, anywhere. Equipping it with a large-capacity battery would be a waste of resources.

...

After listening to the reports from the engine, transmission, and drivetrain R&D teams, the branch manager, Wu Haishen, put down the documents in his hand and adjusted his glasses. "So, you’re saying that all our components basically meet the standards?"

"Yes, the engine team has no issues."

"The five transmission models are also ready for use," Guan Jianzhi added, then asked with some hesitation, "Manager Wu, won’t the supply cost for these parts be too high?"

Wu Haishen pulled out another document and flipped through the part quotations. "Not at all! The overall cost has actually decreased by about 37%."

"What?" Guan Jianzhi looked as if he had seen a ghost.

Immediately, the other project leads began to murmur amongst themselves.

They clearly suspected the parts supplier was playing a bait-and-switch, luring them in with low-priced, high-quality samples to secure an order, only to supply inferior parts later.

After listening to their discussions, Wu Haishen shook his head. "Don’t worry. No one would dare pull any tricks on a matter like this."

As a Spider Web Manager, Wu Haishen knew that Sea Snail New Materials Company was a sister company, a part of the Homo Sapiens Company.

The reason they could supply high-quality components at a low price was partly because Qingye Group was one of their own, and partly because Sea Snail wouldn’t be taking a loss.

After all, the new materials produced with biosynthetic technology involved fewer steps than traditional smelting, casting, and subtractive manufacturing, which significantly reduced production costs.

Naturally, this cost advantage had to be leveraged internally.

If they were supplying outsiders, the price would definitely be higher than similar parts on the market.

Hearing Wu Haishen’s confident assurance, Guan Jianzhi and the others, though still somewhat skeptical, didn’t dare question him openly. They figured the production line would have quality control regardless. They just hoped the parts supplier had some integrity and wouldn’t create an embarrassing situation for everyone down the line.

After this internal meeting, Qingye Automobile’s Chiang Mai Branch began preparations for full-scale mass production.

...

At this time, Chiang Mai Province had practically become one giant construction site.

Six large automobile plants, several motorcycle factories, and a vast number of supporting factories required hundreds of thousands of industrial workers.

But Siam’s population was only 66.17 million. A demand for hundreds of thousands of industrial workers created an obvious and massive labor shortage.

After all, Siam had previously been a predominantly agricultural region. Although it had 12 years of compulsory education and a relatively decent level of internal education, the general attainment was high school level, with only a small number of university graduates.

Furthermore, Siam favored a Western-style education model, which didn’t emphasize science and engineering.

Industrial workers not only needed a certain level of education but were ideally university or college graduates in science and engineering fields.

Asking university students with a Western-style education to become industrial workers was clearly forcing the issue. Unless they had no other choice, they would rather work for foreign companies or become civil servants than be factory workers.

Therefore, Homo Sapiens Company had to find a way to solve this problem itself.

Chiang Mai Group’s Number One Construction Company.

This company had contracted the construction of Chiang Mai Group’s Glory Automobile factory and had hired a large number of young migrant workers.

The construction workers were organized into squads, squadrons, and battalions for strict internal management.

Many of the squad leaders and squadron leaders were actually veterans of the Royal Thai Army. These men had been "reforged"—the scum were turned into Soldiers, while those with potential for improvement became New Humans.

Shi Shan Shamen was a retired soldier. Because he had no major demerits on his record, he was absorbed and became a New Human. After more than a month of training at the Chiang Mai career transition school, he was made a squadron leader at the construction company.

To adapt to the company’s internal culture, he even took a Chinese name: Meng Shi.

He was inspecting the project’s progress when his walkie-talkie suddenly crackled to life:

"All squadron leaders and above, please report to the manager’s office for a meeting within half an hour..."

After the message was repeated three times, Meng Shi shouted to a few of his squad leaders, "Keep up the good work. No slacking."

"Got it!"

"Don’t worry, Chief!"

The squad leaders quickly replied.

Whether they were ordinary construction workers or squad leaders, everyone respected and feared Meng Shi.

This was mainly because his conduct was too upright; he was nothing like the typical soldier from the Royal Thai Army.

Meng Shi paid his subordinates no further mind and hurried to the office for the meeting.

A dozen or so squadron leaders, a few battalion leaders, and several department heads arrived at the office one after another.

The manager was Wu Xinhe, who had come over from Hongsawaddy. Seeing that everyone was present, he got straight to the point:

"Your work is about to get a bit busier. The company is launching a plan that will require your cooperation."

"Manager Wu, what kind of plan?" asked Battalion Leader Ba Kun.

"See for yourselves. Here’s a copy for each of you." After speaking, Wu Xinhe distributed a stack of documents to everyone present.

Meng Shi got his copy and eagerly opened it.

It was a proposal for training industrial workers. The core idea was very simple: each construction team was required to form study groups, select workers who were willing to learn and change careers, and then provide them with comprehensive training.

The training would be conducted in a night school format. The instructors would be the New Humans from within the company, and the automobile plant would also dispatch a group of engineers and technicians to serve as temporary teachers.

As New Humans, Meng Shi and the others had only undergone a little over a month of training, followed by some independent study in their free time. But with the help of their bio-chips, their educational levels were actually quite high.

"They’re all high school graduates?" Meng Shi frowned.

Wu Xinhe smiled and shook his head. "What else? Did you think university graduates would be willing to work on an assembly line?"

The others immediately understood.

They had all been around the block. Siam had plenty of university graduates each year, but the elite among them had already left for Xing Island, Europe, and America.

The ones who remained were caught in the rat race in the big cities.

Although Chiang Mai Province was the country’s second-largest city, these graduates generally hoped to enter fields like finance, management, IT, pharmaceuticals, design, education, and medicine.

They wouldn’t consider difficult and tiring industries like construction, mechanics, or metallurgy unless the pay was exceptionally high.

Homo Sapiens Company was here to make a profit, not to hand out welfare. Therefore, training their own talent was the best option at present.

Its subsidiary construction companies were all screening for hardworking construction workers and then setting up internal night schools and crash courses.

The hundreds of thousands of industrial workers needed for Chiang Mai Province’s entire automotive industry in the future could only be cultivated from these high school graduates in their late teens and early twenties.

Fortunately, Siam’s basic education system was decent, and there was a considerable number of unemployed people internally. Otherwise, the gray-market entertainment industry wouldn’t be so developed.

High school graduates, in particular, were Siam’s most awkward demographic: they had some education but not enough available jobs.

Those from rural areas were better off; at worst, they could go home and farm.

But high school graduates born in the city could only join the urban rat race or abandon their dignity and sell their bodies.

That was why Chiang Mai Group’s construction companies had easily recruited a large number of young high school graduates as construction workers.

Now, they were being offered another path for upward mobility. As long as they were willing to learn and wanted to change their circumstances, becoming an industrial worker was a good way forward.

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