1855 United States Tycoon

The dimensions of northeastern United States are actually similar to northeastern China. In addition to the unique topography of North America, all mountains are north-south, unlike China, where there are several east-west mountains. Therefore, whenever a cold wave hits, China still has mountains to block it, but in United States, the cold wave is unstoppable. Therefore, whenever a cold wave hits, the northeast of United States is often a bit colder than northeast China. .

In November of 1978, the first round of cold waves came, and the temperature in New York City dropped by about 15 degrees overnight, and a thick layer of frost had formed on the lawns of Madison Square. , It gets colder at night.

Ellen watched his wife tidy up the dinner utensils, then picked up a book from hand and turned to the place where the mark was made yesterday, and the children immediately wooed him. After having electric lights, the cost of lighting a light is already lower than lighting a kerosene lamp. In addition, the brightness of the light is far from comparable to that of a kerosene lamp. So now in New York, almost everyone except the slums uses electric lights. .

With electric lights, the night time is no longer just washing and sleeping. But now, with electric lights, the night is no longer dark, and many changes have taken place in the way of natural life. For example, in theaters, if you want to perform at night, you need to use a lot of oil lamps, which is very costly. Even so, it is difficult to guarantee the lighting effect, so only some small stage performances can be performed at night, and the performance effect will be greatly reduced. But nowadays, relying on electric lighting, night performances have become the mainstream time for various stage performances. So going to the theater at night has become a new life habit of many wealthy people.

However, Ellen's family is only a middle-class family, relying on Ellen to be a clerk in a certain company to support the whole family, so naturally it is impossible to go to the theater every night. So surrounded by electric lights at night, and Ellen telling stories to the children has become their night life.

"However, I found that Mr. Spinro's suitor's robe and hard collar lowered Peggotty's air, and made her more and more respectful of this person who is increasingly Sacred in my eyes. I think that when he Sitting upright in the court surrounded by the documents, he was like a small beacon in a calm sea, emitting a circle of light around..." Ellen read the content of the novel softly. Of the children, the eldest daughter, Katie, is fourteen years old, and she can understand a little bit about the novel. But the other children are still young, so some of them are reluctant to listen to this. For example, the younger son John is a little unhappy.

"Dad, I don't want to hear this, I want to hear King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the magician Maureen, and..."

"Shut up, John! I'm going to listen to this!" Katie snapped immediately.

"But I don't want to listen..." Although John was a little afraid of Big sis, he still muttered.

At this time, the room suddenly plunged into darkness.

"Ah!" Katie exclaimed. Although she is Big Sister, she is still extraordinarily afraid of the dark.

"Why the power went off again?" Ellen muttered in the dark, and took out the lighter from his pocket. Then, with the sound of rubbing, a group of dim flames lit up.

"Dad, go and connect the battery." Katie said.

Recently, Ellen replaced the lead-acid batteries at home with Edison's nickel-iron alkaline batteries. According to custom, the power outage usually lasts about two hours, and the battery at home should be enough to support the lighting during this period.

Ellen plugged in the battery, which was only connected to a light in the living room. The voltage that the battery can provide is very limited, and it is impossible to directly use ordinary electric lights. It's just that this light is exceptionally dim tonight. It was dimmer than an oil lamp, so that Ellen couldn't even read the text on the book clearly.

However, compared to the situation faced by Ellen, the situation in the Manhattan Theater is much worse. After fully replacing the backup power supply with a nickel-iron battery, in this cold night, facing the problem of a sudden power failure, the nickel-iron The poor performance of the battery in a cold environment was immediately revealed. The lights on the stage were dim, and if there was a fire, the performance was naturally greatly affected.

And similar problems are not limited to one or two places, and all the places where nickel-iron batteries are used as backup energy sources are affected. So on the next day, many newspapers in New York began to discuss whether Edison’s battery had serious defects. Among these reports, a report in the New York Daily Times has attracted widespread attention.

This report claims that the development plan of the nickel-iron battery was originally included in the research plan of the University of Cleveland's large laboratory. Later, when the large laboratory was conducting a feasibility study, it noticed that this battery has the advantage of better electrode protection. , But there is also the problem of low response intensity, which will inevitably bring about the slower charging and discharging speed, and the obvious influence of temperature. So in the pre-research stage, this plan was terminated.

This report immediately caused an uproar. Most of those who bought Edison's batteries regretted it, and the sales of Edison's nickel-iron batteries also plummeted.

...

"Thomas, did you tell me that you really didn't know anything about the defects of this battery?" Morgan asked, in a gentle tone, but it made Edison quite worried.

Edison knew that he had defected from the Macdonald Consortium, and if he lost the support of Morgan, the United States would really have no place for his own. So he quickly explained:

"Mr. Morgan, this statement is absolutely false. It's not that I don't have other plans to study, so how can I use a plan that has been rejected as a prevarication? This must be a member of the MacDonald Consortium. A deliberately fabricated lie."

This statement is indeed very convincing, and Morgan also knew that this could not have been intentional by Edison. But in any case, Edison was also responsible for something like this, and it was necessary to give him a hit. And taking advantage of the frustration of the battery, it can further strengthen the control of Edison.

"Thomas, we all believe in you, but you still have considerable responsibility for this matter. Of course, the battery is just a small matter, but I hope that there will be no more incidents like this on more important things." Morgan finally Say so.

Edison certainly knew what the so-called more important things meant, of course it was the engine problem. So he immediately replied: "Mr. Morgan, I will naturally work harder. But if new products do not make mistakes, they naturally need more investment for experiments and tests. In addition, it will take longer. To inspect all aspects of the product."

"That's not good." Morgan said flatly. "It may be feasible to increase funding, but if you want to increase research and development funding, you have to make concessions on patents. As for time, you can't relax too much. At least. , The time to take out the samples must not be relaxed. The time to market may be relaxed a little, but it cannot be relaxed too much."

Bringing out a new car, making money is of course a very important point, but it is the key to suppress the excess profits made by the McDonald Consortium through cars. As long as there are new gasoline engines and new cars, it means that consumers have more choices, they will look forward to the price of cars, and they will stay on the sidelines. And these will affect the circulation of funds of the MacDonald Consortium.

...

"You said, after this counterattack, will Morgan shrink back?" Dorothea asked a little worried.

"How is it possible to stop? The Morgan Consortium is just a consortium headed by Morgan. It is not an individual Morgan or even a consortium of the Morgan family. Just retreat, how can you explain to your collaborators? Let's talk about the losses that this incident can cause. It is trivial and can only be seen as our helpless counterattack, and the fact that we can only do such a counterattack also shows our weakness." Scrooge said, "It's like fishing, if the bait is completely the same. Do not move, a large bass like Morgan will not bite."

"Fishing? Beware of being dragged into the water by big fish. Okay, no joke. They have already invested a lot of money in car engines. When will we start to fight back? In addition, we should also pay attention to fight back. It also needs financial support. Do we have enough funds for the activities?" Dorothea asked.

"Of course there is. There are so many things that we can discount. Don't forget, our goal is not to expand, but to contract safely. In order to achieve this, we need to take a bite of Morgan. We In this series of activities, there is no need to make a profit, just let those who try to take advantage of the big advantage and who have the power to take advantage of the big advantage suffer a big loss first. To put it more clearly, it is to make money through the tactics of detrimental to others. Those guys who dared to covet us took a head-on. Anyway, we have a lot of money. And, in a sense, even if Morgan starts to produce cars, what can we do? At most, it means lowering the profits of cars. But car prices fall, What will inevitably bring is the ascending of production and sales, and the ascending of production and sales will inevitably bring ascending to the demand for steel and fuel. In these industries, we also have a huge share. Therefore, our loss will not be How big we are, we can play with them. And we have so many oil fields in our hands. In this situation, we can get a lot of development funds by cooperating to develop one. In this situation, Morgan invested How much can the development funds be recovered?"

...

Just a few months later, although he didn't make much money in the development of the battery, Morgan is still expanding his research center. There are rumors that Morgan's gasoline engine is already undergoing bench testing.

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