1855 United States Tycoon

West Coast, Collins Shipyard.

This is a small shipyard, which has been mainly engaged in the construction of fishing boats and whaling ships. Whether it is a fishing boat or a whaling boat, it is not too big, generally not more than 1,500 tons. But the reputation of the Collins fishing boat is good, and it can be regarded as making some money for the boss. The business of container cargo ships has been so good recently, and many shipyards have already scheduled production plans for several years. The owner of the shipyard, Mr. Collins, was naturally enthusiastic, so he gritted his teeth and borrowed a large amount of money from the bank, expanded the shipyard, added a 10,000-ton berth, and prepared to start building container ships.

There is a big difference between building a container ship and building a fishing boat. Many things have to be imported from outside. Such as design, such as engineering personnel, and even a large number of experienced workers. Collins offered higher wages and hired some technology workers from other shipyards, let them be foremen, and lead others to work.

Old Charles is one of them. Charles Sr. worked in the Hart’s Shipyard on the East Coast for decades. First he worked as a riveter carrying a sledgehammer for ten years. Fortunately, Charles was eager to learn. He actually learned a lot of things related to shipbuilding by himself. The engineer Butters saw him diligently and eager to learn, and was willing to take the time to teach him. Gradually, he was able to give Butters a start as an assistant.

Of course, the boss is also willing to see this situation. Originally, such assistants have to use college students. The salary cost is not cheap. It is much cheaper to use Charles. So Charles took the wages of the workers and started working as an assistant. It is said that the boss also promised to right him in the future and let him be an official assistant. However, Charles worked as a temporary assistant for another thirty years.

"Is there a temporary assistant for thirty years in the world?" Charles finally couldn't stand it, so he took this opportunity to jump to the Collins Shipyard and became an official engineer's assistant.

And now, their first ship is finally about to be completed, and Charles is doing the final inspection of the ship. And his main content is to check the riveting condition of some key parts of the ship.

"Ryder, the rivets in these places are not hit right." Charles said to the workers, "It's like this here...but the problem is not too big...a little bit more...it's almost the same. Quick action Point, this boat will be launched next week."

...

Slipways like this are increasing rapidly, and new ships are continuously launched one after another. On the other side, almost any steel plant is producing large quantities of containers. Nowadays, it is not only ships that are in short supply, but also containers. McDonald Steel easily bought the container patent at a good price. Now other manufacturers need to pay McDonald Steel five dollars for every container they produce. Patent royalties. Worldwide, this patent alone can make McDonald's steel net income of millions of dollars within one year.

"Isn't someone trying to get around the container patent?" Graystone, wearing a yellow helmet, stood in the press shop of MacDonald Steel's Pittsburgh Steel Plant, while looking down at the huge press machine that was about to go. Stamping pieces of galvanized sheets into shape, always shouting at Donald.

"No problem! We..." The surrounding environment was too noisy. Although Donald was yelling by his throat, Donald's voice was obviously not loud enough that Gray Stone couldn't hear him clearly.

"What are you talking about? I can't hear you! Damn! Let's go out and talk about it!" Gray Stone also yelled.

They walked outside through the huge factory building through the overhead steel passage that crossed the entire workshop. The outside is full of all kinds of noises, but it is much quieter than inside the workshop, at least I can speak.

As in the original history, Pittsburgh, as the inland city with the most convenient waterway transportation, has become the center of the steel industry in the United States. Today, nearly one-third of the steel in the United States is smelted from here. Historically, it has become the steel capital and smog capital of the United States. It's just that because of the appearance of McDonald Steel, the original history of United States Steel, such as Carnegie, Mellon Consortium, and so on naturally did not emerge.

"Ahem!" Donald coughed.

"Pittsburgh is such a bastard place. The air here is really...cough..." Stimulated by the cold air outside, Grey Stone also coughed.

"It is said that London was called the City of Fog in the past, and it should be no better than Pittsburgh." Donald had already breathed out and asked, "What did you want to ask me just now?"

"I want to ask, is there a way to get around our container patent?" Grey Stone also stopped coughing.

Containers don't need too difficult technology, so it doesn't seem to be impossible to bypass patent restrictions. So Greystone is naturally a little worried.

"In terms of technology, it's not difficult." Donald said, "I have at least a hundred ways to bypass our technology restrictions and make similar things. But these are not of much use. Because our patent is really important, what makes it difficult for others to deal with is the size regulation. At least this regulation can guarantee that they can't easily bypass our restriction. However, as you know, this restriction is also established in Alaska. Develop the above. And the ports of Alaska are all controlled by us. Therefore, containers that do not meet the size of our restrictions, we can completely claim that they cannot be loaded and unloaded. This makes any ships planning to run Alaska routes to use our size containers . But in fact, you also know that the size difference is so small, our port facilities can also load and unload them. So this is only effective for those cargoes that are used in Alaska, as for the ships that run in other places, honestly, there is no way. . There shouldn’t be that we can at least guarantee that all containers used in Alaska can provide us with patent revenue. As far as I know, those damn British guys have specified another size. For them, it’s Alaska anyway. The shipping business is not particularly large, and container transportation can bring them more benefits, so they...Grey Stone, you know, we currently have nothing to do with those British guys.""Damn British!" Grey Stone also said, this feeling of being robbed of money is really terrible.

"One day, I will let these British guys spit out the money for us!" Greystone finally said viciously.

...

Although he had left most of the things to Grey Stone, it was still difficult for Scrooge to completely idle. To be honest, it may not be a good thing for someone like him who has been accustomed to being busy all the time. Many elderly people who have been busy, once they are free, often have a rapid decline in their physical and mental conditions.

There are several things that Scrooge is most concerned about today, and the same are some experimental studies in large laboratories. For example, the effect of traditional Chinese medicine on viruses, such as brand-new antiseptic drugs, these things, at present, no one can completely replace him. Of course, if Dena can come back, Scrooge feels that he can take her with him, he can trust her with this piece of peace of mind.

In addition, over the years, Scrooge seemed to be influenced by Rockefeller again and became pious. He now goes to church more often. Although he had donated a lot to the church in the past, and the church unanimously recognized him as a devout believer.

Many years ago, oh, it should be said that in his last life, when Scrooge was in high school, he learned a text called "The Scrooge". This article is an excerpt from Mr. Balzac's novel "Eugenie Grandet". When studying that article, Scrooge always felt that Balzac’s description of Old Grandet was too exaggerated, so that it was not like a realist writer, but like Hugo’s romanticism. NS. And at that time, he always felt incomprehensible to the last sentence in the text, "This proves that Christianity is indeed the religion of the miser." But now, as he gets older and older, Scrooge finds that he can understand Old Grandet more and more, and he can understand Balzac's words more and more. If everything is empty when you die, what is the use of the accumulated wealth? Therefore, what must exist "over there", if not, you can't expect that one day in the future, Greystone, who takes care of everything well, will be able to pass "over there" to "repay" him. So now, when life is gradually entering his old age, Scrooge's faith in Christ really has a little bit of piety in it.

Of course, the last important thing is to collect and analyze Dana's relevant intelligence. Dena has also participated in a lot of revolutionary activities over the years, and has also left a lot of theoretical works. Scrooge collected the relevant information, carefully studied Dena's style and theoretical characteristics, and made various inferences about her next move, and then further adjusted and upgraded her own database based on the feedback. Scrooge found that Dena, like all communists at the time, lacked foresight of the various problems they might encounter in the future. Scrooge felt that he might be able to seize the loopholes in her theory and assumptions and find a suitable time. For example, when they disagree or encounter major setbacks, use this to defeat Dena in one fell swoop. Then, maybe Dana will return to the McDonald family honestly, so as to make up for the last shortcoming of the second generation of the McDonald family.

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