Chapter 4: The Arduous and Bumpy Road of Automobiles
"Genius is 90% hard work and 10% talent; success is countless failures and one breakthrough!" In order to complete the car project as soon as possible, Zhang Yu personally wrote down a motto for himself "Heaven rewards diligence", and often recited encouraging words to himself, constantly encouraging himself from his inner world that he would definitely succeed. Such encouragement continued until May 20th, 1910, a year that will forever be unforgettable for Zhang Yu.
How many years and months can one appreciate the changing of the four seasons, feeling the infinite charm brought by the replacement of life? How many years in a lifetime can one have with ambition and passion, only focusing on forging ahead, not fearing any obstacles along the way? This is the arrogance of youth. When someone is willing to use a precious year of their life to accomplish something, what is impossible? Everything becomes possible!
Many years later, Zhang Yu orally recounted his memoirs of the Republic's review road, which is a large part of his memoirs that tells about his struggles in the United States for a year. In this unforgettable year, he experienced countless failures and hardships, and spent much time staying at home, living a simple life. Looking back on this period of time, the swaying youth still lingers in his heart.
On June 20, 1909, after continuous adjustments, Asia Garments was officially renamed Asia Group, with Zhang Yu-sheng as the group's director. The group had subsidiaries including Asia Garments Co., Ltd., which designed and produced clothing and footwear, Asia Machinery Co., Ltd., Hongyuan Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd., and Asia Motor Co., Ltd., which only had one employee at that time.
Hongyuan Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. was established to meet the various regular engineering construction tasks within the AsiaMei Group in the future. The company hired several excellent architectural engineers as the design team, fully capable of completing all internal engineering construction. AsiaMei Machinery Factory, on the other hand, was specially established by Zhang Yu-sheng at a huge cost for his lifelong dream of cars, gathering the world's most advanced processing machinery and equipment at that time. The price paid was half of the $200,000 borrowed by Zhang Yu-sheng using AsiaMei Apparel as collateral.
The group had 3,072 employees at the time, of which 1,027 were Chinese, and the remaining employees were basically descendants of various nationalities with American nationality, but there was no Yamato nation. This peculiarity has been running through all Chinese-American enterprises from beginning to end until they disappeared due to the Sino-US war later on. Enterprises founded by Chinese entrepreneurs have never appeared citizens of the enemy country of the First Sino-Japanese War.
These things Zhang Yu had not been concerned about, his greatest achievement during this period was to digest all the drawings, and in nearly 40 days, he was either busy in the mechanical factory exchanging ideas with employees on the production of various parts, or staying in his office using an outdated computer to modify things, or examining whether the excellent talents recruited by Zhang Yu had real skills and whether they would be beneficial to the development of the car project. The 40 days were not wasted, and when July 2, 1909 arrived, all of Zhang Yu's efforts paid off, but at that time he did not know that this was just the beginning of his hard work. Of course, as more and more excellent talents joined in, the research responsibilities on his shoulders also had more to share.
"Be careful, this guy is pretty heavy!"
"Hey, hand me that wrench!"
In the workshop, Zhang Yu's oil-stained overalls had mixed with sweat, completely changing the appearance of his blue cotton work uniform. Everyone else was in the same state, working so hard to assemble the first car. The various components of the prototype were all manufactured by the mechanical processing plant itself. Of course, this was a prototype without an engine, and its emergence was for the purpose of undergoing various tests.
The prototype was born in less than two months, which made Zhang Yu and others extremely excited. When they saw the completed prototype with all parts installed except for the engine, Zhang Yu, who was covered in oil stains, and Zhang Yusheng, who had just returned from meeting European clients, finally showed their most genuine and brightest smiles in months.
The first prototype was soon used for various tests, and Zhang Yu personally presided over all the test projects. These unusually special projects were met with a lot of skepticism from the beginning by the employees at that time. They had many reasons, such as why they needed to conduct bumpy vibration tests on a sedan that runs on highways. Since it was made of steel, it was naturally extremely solid, so why did they need to conduct elastic collision tests? Moreover, Zhang Yu performed the craziest test for everyone to see at that time.
On September 7th, the engineers, who were almost forced by Zhang Yu's boss-like attitude, finally finished all the original experimental projects. The facilities were simple and the measurement technology was not advanced, with no data to compare the test results. When everyone thought that the last of the 20 sample cars would be kept as a souvenir, Zhang Yu decided to conduct a high-speed collision test on the longest concrete road in the group.
The test car itself had no power, so in order to give the car acceleration power, Zhang Yu personally called on the four small electric motors in the processing plant. The car would use the electricity provided by the cables specially set up above its head through the installed connectors, similar to the electrified trains of later generations. After some adjustments, the specific circuit that gradually increased the input power quickly gave the four electric motors stronger and stronger power output. The sample car, fully loaded with four simulated passengers, soon sped up on the flat factory highway. Just as it reached its top speed, it collided head-on with a specially made concrete wall.
After a massive crash, Zhang Yu quickly shut off the power supply to the transmission line, and then let everyone rush over to see the sample car that had crashed at nearly 220 km/h. The crazy collision instantaneously caused severe deformation of the Beetle's head, while the powerful impact force quickly twisted all the steel in the front frame into a knot, the entire sample car was like being lightly kissed by a million-ton hydraulic press, the rear end almost connected to the front end, and the entire scene was littered with various parts of the sample car.
The result of the entire collision was extremely successful. In Zhang Yu's words, it was such a car body structure that at such high speeds, it wasn't smashed to pieces, and even maintained some integrity. Later, when they cut open the car body, they found that one of the "passengers" in the back seat hadn't suffered much injury, perhaps just internal injuries. It's enough to say that someone who experienced such a terrible car accident could still be left with an intact corpse. Zhang Yu had reason to accept this wonderful result, because cars in this era couldn't possibly have such high speeds, even if two cars were to collide head-on at high speed, which is fundamentally impossible. Who would willingly crash into someone else at high speed for no reason? So the Beetle was already very excellent, but the engine required by the car was still a problem.
About this whole process, from the manufacture of sample car parts to the completion of the last test, Müller from Germany has the most say and his oral account is also included in Zhang Yu's autobiography.
"At that time, the technical director Mr. Zhang gave me many drawings! Yes, a kind of drawing with various technical requirements marked in great detail, I even doubted the purpose of the group hiring me, because after seeing such drawings, I found that what they might need is not a mechanical engineer but just some processing technical personnel, maybe at that time I was thinking this way, it's true! But I had signed the contract, I was taking their salary, so I should follow orders."
"The proportions of the car in the blueprint are 4081/1724/1498, which is extremely bold. The body of the car is shorter than any other car at that time, and it wasn't until many years later that I understood why this was done. And its wheelbase reached an astonishing 2508mm, all of which made me feel the perfection of the designer. But some technical requirements that came out later completely surprised me."
"This was a car that was extremely difficult to process, and it was indeed so at the time. The drawings were full of processing requirements everywhere, and the fatal thing was that the processing error basically had to reach zero point one millimeter level, hundreds and thousands of various types of screws, nuts, fasteners, and various parts. Zhang Yu said at the time, 'Hey, buddies, we have to do these things uniformly according to standards in order to achieve standardized production and manufacturing, which will be beneficial for large-scale manufacturing in the future.' I was really overwhelmed at the time, and those who had to process and shape the car doors, forge and strengthen the body, and high-strength transmission shafts, etc., didn't have it easy either. Indeed, our technical director was very rigid, and I really doubted whether he could bully us. We all called him 'the big guy with a small mind, the Oriental man'."
"A car is just like a human being, it needs the core to provide life and movement. We humans need a heart made of flesh, while it needs an engine made of steel, aluminum or other materials." The memoirs of Zhang Yusheng also include the recollections of two German gasoline engine engineers, or enthusiasts, Notschew and Sandton, about their work on this major project at that time.
One morning, Director Zhang found us with great excitement. When we thought he had made something himself or discovered something, we were ready to congratulate this Easterner again. However, he said: "Comrades, buddies. Our car has finally completed the overall design verification and can be mass-produced, but before that, we need to install a heart for the engine, and its heart will be born under our hands. For this grand goal, we must work hard for three months." To be honest, at that time I wanted to beat him up badly, but I didn't have the guts, because I saw him fight with a strong Slavic man and knock the damn Russian down in three seconds.
Nuochev, when recalling that period of time, still couldn't help but shrug his shoulders and put on the same surprised expression as back then. The person in charge of recording could immediately tell just how fast and astonishing Zhang Yu's movements were at the time.
"Generally, a mini car needs to reach speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour, with a power output of at least 30 or more, and a torque of at least fifty. The general manager's requirement for us is to make the Beetle reach speeds of 100 miles per hour, which can be seen from its parameter design, perhaps this is to adapt to the increasingly fast pace of life, rich people all like to drive fast cars."
"Furthermore, the director particularly emphasized that if we want to achieve a comprehensive victory in competing with Ford cars, we must also make great demands on climbing ability. Ford cars can only back up slopes, but our Beetle must be able to overcome at least 15% of the slope, plus some other requirements. I really doubt whether the director is not planning to manufacture cars anymore. If such a monster is manufactured, it will probably take twenty years for us to fall behind, whereas in fact our cars have been proven to be used poorly for more than twenty years."
When interviewed, Sandton's facial expressions were exceptionally rich. Even when he was interviewed in 1950 at the age of eighty and living in a high-end villa, he was still spirited and articulate, with memories clearer than those of Nachef beside him, so many of the following contents are Sandton's recollections.
Santon soon recalled that on September 10, 1909, it was proposed to equip the already mass-produced Beetle with an engine belonging to the Ammi group as soon as possible, otherwise there would be a situation where cars were piled up in warehouses without suitable engines installed, which was absolutely unacceptable for Ammi.
"As early as 1862, French engineer Beau de Rochas had proposed that the power generation method of internal combustion engines should adopt a four-stroke approach, namely completing an intake, compression, combustion expansion and exhaust work cycle in four strokes. German Mr. Otto also succinctly summarized his own ideas: compressing air to make it burn in this high-pressure air, causing the temperature inside the cylinder to rise, then expanding the compressed air step by step to reduce pressure back to its initial state, and pushing the piston to move, generating energy from the piston movement to drive the engine's movement, finally expelling all gases from the cylinder. This is the Otto cycle."
"The cycle he described is indeed the Otto cycle, which uses a steam or gas engine with two reversible adiabatic processes between two isochoric processes. The load regulation of this internal combustion engine, i.e., the amount of energy produced, is usually achieved by controlling the amount of combustible gas entering the cylinder, and the ignition method is also special, using an external flame or electric spark to ignite, so the ignition time can be controlled. These are the most basic characteristics that make up the four-stroke cycle, and since it maximizes fuel utilization, it is also called the 'ideal cycle'."
Due to Otto's detailed design of the four-stroke cycle principle and its strong practicality, after completing the initial design of this principle, he spent very little time designing and manufacturing the world's first four-stroke internal combustion engine prototype. This internal combustion engine has reliable performance, high thermal efficiency, low running noise, and is much better than the Lenoir-type internal combustion engine in many aspects such as fuel consumption.
So, despite the fact that this first model of internal combustion engine still had some defects in appearance, it immediately won people's high praise once it was launched. The thermal efficiency of Otto's internal combustion engine was twice as high as that of the four-stroke cycle engine at that time (about 14%), and its thermal efficiency was even four times that of the Lenoir engine. It can be said that Otto's engine had a very practical value, and Zhang Yu personally analyzed this for Santon and others in front of an original German-made Otto internal combustion engine.
Sandon recalled this historical process, still feeling unbelievable at the time. Everyone thought that oriental people were all with long braids and full of corrupt ideas, but Zhang Yu's understanding of mechanics, especially engines, was far beyond his own. So Sandon didn't believe at the time that the oriental person in front of him could understand Western industry so well, which is why he still remembered it vividly after many years.
Later, the director began to talk about what we were going to do. What I needed to make was also a new type of four-stroke inline-four engine that adopted the Otto cycle concept. With a displacement of 2.5 liters, the engine could provide enough powerful power for the car. The key lay in the technology required for processing, and the precision and reliability of the parts were the main problems to be solved. The inner wall of the cylinder was not only smooth and round but also had a certain strength and plasticity. The error fit between the piston, ring, and other parts was not calculated in centimeters but at the level of 0.1 millimeters, or even higher. In short, from then on, we fell into the director's "trap" because we were obsessed with creating such a machine, one that could create human history in the use of fuel power!
The venerable Sandton still missed a lot of key points, in fact Zhang Yu not only explained one type of engine, including the Knox engine that appeared in 1905, a horizontal opposed piston engine with air cooling, using fluted bolts around the cylinder to get 32 square inches (about 0.000645 square meters) of heat dissipation per square inch of cylinder surface, all sorts of advantages were clearly explained, and its disadvantages were not spared either.
The output torque is very unstable, because no vibration damper is added; the service life is not enough, except for the processing and manufacturing precision and material related issues, there are problems with the lubricating oil itself and the lubrication method that need to be improved. Therefore, Zhang Yu quickly transitioned to the engine presented by the researchers' drawings, adopting a four-cylinder design, adding four curved shafts as vibration dampers on two planes, changing local lubrication to full lubrication, etc., which will improve all the shortcomings of the Knox engine.
Unforgettable years were filled with a lot of sweat and bitterness, and a considerable part of this was spent on the long road of engine research. The car body that had already started production was waiting to be matched with an engine for sale to alleviate the increasingly heavy financial pressure. Therefore, Zhang Yu could not help but work harder and more crazily on the engine project. Finally, on April 10, 1910, the first mass-produced 2.5L gasoline engine rolled off the assembly line at the Asia Motor Engine Manufacturing Plant. The stone that had been hanging in Zhang Yu's heart finally fell to the ground.
On April 20, ten Beetles that had been fully assembled with all parts including the engine completed road testing, and the good operating performance was the first words of the test drivers after getting off the cars. The terrifying number of a top speed of over 127 kilometers per hour also made Zhang Yu extremely satisfied.
On May 1st, the Amoi Group collectively took a one-day holiday to celebrate that the Beetle had officially completed all test projects and reached all design indicators. The Beetle was about to go into mass production, so in order to welcome the high-intensity assembly line-style car manufacturing for 20 consecutive days, the Amoi Group gave all employees of the three major factories of Amoi Automobile a one-day holiday, and employees of other directly affiliated companies also took a holiday. From that day on, May 1st became a unique festival for Amoi Group employees, and after returning to China, it evolved into a festival belonging to all laborers.
After nearly a dozen days of continuous production, Asia has stored enough goods, and with the recent publicity, many people are looking forward to the official market launch on the 20th. Everyone's efforts will begin to reap the fruits of victory irrigated by countless blood and sweat on that day.
New book new author, hope to get support and encouragement.
