1855 United States Tycoon

The United States government, and all United States businessmen behind the United States government, are very concerned about the development of Alaska. Although Alaska can't actually accommodate too many people, it can't provide United States with almost a century of development space like the West. But after all, it is a large wasteland to be developed, and now a large amount of oil has been discovered. With this, it should still be possible to bring United States prosperity for several years. Especially for President Taft, this is already his second term, and it is estimated that there will be no third. If this prosperity can last until the end of his term, then his evaluation in the history of United States It will be good. Therefore, even for personal reasons, he is very happy to promote this big development.

So the White House proposed a stimulus bill for the development of Alaska, including tax relief, including a series of other preferential treatments, and then higher tariffs, and plans to submit it to the two houses for deliberation in the near future.

This higher tariff immediately aroused the anger of the international community. Even the British and Germans have temporarily formed a united front. The British clamored for revenge, and they wanted to pay a punitive tariff on United States goods entering the British Empire and its territories. The Germans also jumped out and accused the United States of acting as a provocation to all other civilized countries and violating the principle of free trade that United States itself has always advocated. They also vowed that if the United States does not change this practice, Germany will unite all countries that support free trade and jointly impose punitive tariffs on United States.

The situation today is different from when Lincoln was decades ago. At that time, United States was exporting agricultural products to foreign countries and importing industrial products. For United States’ industrial and commercial sectors, raising tariffs can not only preserve the domestic industrial product market, but also induce other countries to increase tariffs on United States, which makes Southern agricultural products can only be sold to domestic industrial and commercial enterprises at low prices. At that time, raising taxes was the wish of all patriots who loved United States, and United States of America was absolutely not afraid of other countries raising tariffs on United States.But the situation is different now. Today, United States is the world's largest industrial power. In addition to the domestic products and colonies of United States, a large part of the industrial products it produces are exported to South America, Europe and Asia. There are not many Europeans in South America that can intervene, but the European market is now very important to the United States, and in Asia, some important ports are also controlled by those Europeans. Therefore, this posture made by Europeans now puts considerable pressure on United States.

However, this behavior of the Europeans was originally expected by President Taft. This attitude of Europe is very natural. It would be strange if they did not react like this. President Taft proposed such a "bill" to a large extent in order to bargain with those European countries. Europeans want to take a share in this big project. They do have the ability to take a share in many aspects. They must not be divided. It will definitely not work, but if it is distributed to them directly, it will not work, at least. In China, it is difficult to explain. Therefore, let this trend come first, and once you have an explanation to the country, after waiting for any response from the European side, then take a small step back, and people in the country will naturally understand it. Secondly, this is also one of the common ways to take advantage. Generally speaking, there are two commonly used methods to take advantage. One is called cutting sausages. Just like cutting sausages, only a small thin slice is cut each time. If there is not much reaction to the opposite side, then cut another slice. Go forward a little bit more quietly. The second trick is to first declare that the house is too dark. Let's remove the roof for ventilation. When others strongly objected, he reluctantly took a step back and expressed his willingness to open only a window as they suggested.

Now President Taft’s tactics belong to the second category. Anyway, the bill has not been submitted to the two houses, so there are some things to talk about, so all kinds of bargaining began. In the end, the increase in tariffs, which made everyone nervous, was of course cancelled, but President Taft’s government still helped United States and received a small amount of compensation in both the United Kingdom and Germany. For example, the British promised not to interfere with certain cooperation between the United States and China's local government. The Germans promised to crack down on some copycat behaviors of United States products. Yes, copycat behavior. At that time, the German manufacturing was far from the myth of oil-paper bags. Copycats and other things were common. Although the strength of Germany has been reduced a lot in the past two years, there is still a lot of copying British and United States products. This is also an indispensable stage in the development of almost all emerging industrial countries. It's like the later generations of Heifer riding on a rocket-the fucking awesome Toyota car. After World War II and until the 1960s, several of the main models produced, in terms of appearance, are similar to some models of Ford. , Almost only the car logo is different.

However, these so-called promises are, to a large extent, nothing more than empty talk, and it is difficult to say how much they can be implemented, because President Taft’s tricks are actually understood by everyone in the industry. In that case, how can there be too much gain? Of course, such a promise is still very good for Mr. President's prestige.

Of course, tax cuts are the internal affairs of the United States, which absolutely does not allow foreign interference. Moreover, this proposal is definitely in the interests of those entrepreneurs in the United States. Therefore, this thing was of course submitted to the two houses for deliberation, and some foreign countries, especially the United Kingdom’s accusations of such tax cuts and subsidies, are even more serious. Helped this plan. Because even members of the opposition party have to worry about whether they will be attacked as a spokesperson for the United Kingdom if they vote against it. So this proposal was passed naturally.

However, as a landlord, United States still has many natural advantages. For example, in terms of transportation. The port of Alaska is on the Pacific Ocean. Many supplies from the United States can be shipped from San Francisco and shipped directly to Alaska. Even the supplies from the Northeast, starting from New York and bypassing the Panama Canal, are closer than Europeans. A lot. The freight is much cheaper.

What's more, the port is controlled by the McDonald consortium. Of course, McDonald used various methods to give priority to the unloading of own ships. As a result, some German goods had to be transported through the McDonald's transport fleet.

...

Now it has been a week since the first snow in Alaska, and the earth has frozen hard. The groundwater caused Cook and his project to be delayed for almost two days, so they could not dig into the permafrost zone before the freezing. But even in winter, the project cannot be stopped, and even if the ground is frozen, the project cannot be stopped.

Of course, the frozen land can no longer be dealt with with a shovel. The only thing that can deal with them is explosives. So today's work flow has become, first make a blasthole on the ground, then load explosives, then blast, and then use vehicles or something to clean up the blasted frozen soil until it reaches the permafrost.

The result of this construction is that Cook's head is buzzing all day long.

"Okay, this depth is enough." Cook looked at the cleared long ditch, nodded and said, "It has reached the depth of the permafrost, and now it can be filled with rocks."

The heat sprayed from Cook's mouth immediately condensed into frost, hung on his eyebrows, making his eyebrows white. But Cook is very used to this kind of weather. When he was working on the Siberian Railway, it was colder than this, and much colder. At this temperature, Cook estimates that it is just over ten degrees below zero, and it is still less than twenty degrees below zero. In Siberia, it is more than forty degrees below zero.

But the other workers are not good. Most of these United States workers have no experience of working in such cold conditions. Although they have received relevant training before, they still have a lot of frostbite. In addition, as time goes by, the daytime is getting shorter and shorter. Sometimes, in order to keep up with the progress, I have to continue to work after dark. For example, now, at three o'clock in the afternoon, it is already dark. Fortunately, there are gasoline generators on the construction site, which can be lighted by lights. Of course, this also further increases the cost. In addition, it also brings some safety issues. The lights will attract wandering gray wolves and grizzly bears. In the past two weeks, there have been four incidents of wild animals attacking humans on the entire construction site. Two people have become fat reserves of grizzly bears or other things in these unfortunate incidents. Although this number is nothing compared to the total number of 3,400 road construction workers, and it is not even a fraction of the number of casualties caused by a certain crane accident, the fear of being eaten is far more than that of being eaten by a crane. Because of this, the company had to prepare armed guards for every construction site, but they were not full-time workers. Of course, at any time, humans are top predators at the top of the food chain. In this week, about ten bears and more reindeer have become human food.

The arrival of winter also brought a lot of convenience. For example, a few days ago, because the road was muddy, it was impossible for a vehicle to transport stones. Even a dedicated crawler truck, if it was full of heavy stones, would sink into the mud. Cook had seen such a tracked transporter with his own eyes, the whole of which was sunk, even the roof of the car was submerged under the ground. You must know that this kind of car can be close to four meters high. Therefore, it is completely impossible to fill stones and press roadbeds. Even the supply of some Life materials is in short supply. But now, the ground is frozen, crawler-type transport vehicles, even wheeled transport vehicles can run, of course, wheeled vehicles must be tied to the wheels with iron chains.

The restoration of traffic speeded up the construction of roads after winter. Maybe this railway will be able to complete most of the work except for the final track laying before the muddy season next spring arrives...

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