West Coast, Collins Shipyard. This is a small shipyard that has always 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 no more than 1,500 tons. But Collins Fishing Boat has a good reputation, which can be regarded as making some money for the boss. The business of container ships has been so good recently that many shipyards have postponed their production plans for several years. The owner of the shipyard, Mr. Collins, was naturally enthused, so he gritted his teeth and borrowed a large amount of money from the bank to expand the shipyard, adding a 10,000-ton slipway, and preparing to start building container ships. There is a big difference between building container ships and fishing boats. Many things must be imported from outside. For example, design, engineering staff, and even a large number of experienced workers. Collins offered higher wages and poached some ()() (novel) skilled workers from other shipyards, making them foremen and leading others to work. Old Charles is one of them. Charles Sr. had worked in the Hartwin Shipyard on the East Coast for decades. He first worked as a riveter carrying a sledgehammer for ten years. Fortunately, Charles was studious and actually taught himself a lot of things related to shipbuilding. At that time, the shipyard The engineer Butters saw that he was diligent and studious, and he was willing to take time to teach him. Later, gradually, he was able to work as an assistant to Butters. Of course, the boss is also very willing to see this situation. Originally, these kind of assistants have to be college students, and the salary cost is not cheap. It is much cheaper to use Charles. So Charles received a worker's salary and started working as an assistant. It is said that the boss also promised to straighten him up and make him a formal assistant in the future. However, Charles worked for another thirty years, still as a temporary assistant. "How can there be a temporary assistant for thirty years in the world?" Charles finally couldn't stand it anymore, so he took this opportunity to jump to Collins Shipyard and became a formal engineer's assistant. And now, their first boat is finally almost complete, and Charles is doing final inspections of the boat. The main thing he is responsible for is inspecting the riveting conditions of some key parts of the ship. "Lyder, the rivets in these places are all driven incorrectly." Charles said to each worker, "It needs to be like this herebut the problem is not too biga little more like thisit's basically the same. Move quickly. "This boat will be launched next week" Slipways like this are increasing rapidly, and new boats are being launched one after another. On the other side, almost every steel plant is producing containers in large quantities. Nowadays, it¡¯s not just ships that are in short supply, containers are also in short supply. McDonald Steel easily bought the patent for containers at a good price. Now other manufacturers need to pay McDonald Steel five US dollars for every container they produce. Royalties. Around the world, this patent alone can net McDonald Steel millions of dollars in one year. "Will the patent for containers be circumvented by others?" Graystone, wearing a yellow safety helmet, stood in the stamping workshop of McDonald Steel's Pittsburgh steel plant, looking down at the huge stamping machine that was in the process of processing. Stamping pieces of galvanized sheet into shape, he kept shouting at Donald. "No problem! We" The surrounding environment was too noisy. Although Donald shouted at the top of his throat, Donald's voice was obviously not loud enough for Gray Stone to hear clearly. "What did you say? I can't hear you clearly! Damn it! Let's go out and talk!" Gray Stone also shouted. They walked through the huge factory building through the overhead steel passage that spanned the entire workshop and walked outside. The outside is also full of noise, but it is much quieter than inside the workshop. At least I can talk. Just like in the original history, Pittsburgh, as an inland city with the most convenient water transportation, has become the center of the U.S. steel industry. Today, nearly one-third of the steel in the United States is smelted from here. It is just like in the original history. It has also become the steel capital and the smog capital of the United States. It's just that because of the emergence of McDonald Steel, the original American steel in history, such as Carnegie, Mellon Group, etc., naturally failed to emerge. "Ahem!" Donald coughed. "Pittsburgh is such a bastard place. The air here is reallyahem" Stimulated by the cold air outside, Graystone also started coughing. "It is said that London was called the Fog City in those days, and it should not be better than Pittsburgh." Donald had already caught his breath and asked again: "What did you want to ask me just now?" "I want to ask, is there any way to get around our container patent? Past?" Gray Stone also stopped coughing. Containers do not require any difficult technology, so it does not seem impossible to bypass patent restrictions. thereforeGray Stone was naturally a little worried. "Technically, it's not difficult," Donald said. "I have at least a hundred ways to get around our technical limitations and make something similar. But none of them are of much use. Because what is really important about our patent is the size regulation that makes it difficult for others to deal with. At least this regulation can ensure that they cannot easily circumvent our restrictions. However, you also know that this restriction is also established in Alaska. Develop the above. All the ports in Alaska are under our control, so we can declare that containers that do not meet our restrictions cannot be loaded and unloaded. This means that any ship intending to run the Alaska route must use containers of our size. . But in fact, you know, the size difference is just a little bit, our port facilities can still handle them, so this is only valid for those cargoes that are going to be used in other places, honestly, there is no way. . Shouldn't we at least be guaranteed that all the containers used in Alaska will provide us with patented revenue. As far as I know, those damn Brits have specified another size for them in Alaska anyway. Their shipping business is not particularly big, and container transportation can bring them more benefits, so theyGladstone, you know, there is nothing we can do about those British guys at the moment." "Damn British guys. !" Gray Stone also said that the feeling of being robbed of money is really terrible. "One day, I'm going to make these British guys spit out all our money!" Graystone finally said viciously. Although most of the things have been left to Gray Stone, it is still difficult for Scrooge to completely relax. To be honest, for a person like him who is used to being busy, being idle may not be a good thing. . Many elderly people who have been busy often experience rapid physical and mental decline once they are free. There are a few things that Scrooge is most concerned about now, and they are also some experimental research in large laboratories. For example, the effect of traditional Chinese medicine on viruses, such as brand-new antiseptic drugs, for these things, currently, no one can completely replace him. Of course, if Dena can come back, Scrooge feels that if he can take her with him again, he can safely entrust this piece to her. In addition, over the years, Scrooge seems to have been influenced by Rockefeller again and became more religious. He now goes to church more frequently. 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 it was in a previous life, when Scrooge was in high school, he studied a text called "The Miser". This article is excerpted from Mr. Balzac's novel "Eug¨¦nie Grandet". When he was studying that article, Scrooge always felt that Balzac's description of the old Grandet was too exaggerated, making him less like a realistic writer and more like a romantic like Hugo. . And at that time, he always felt incomprehensible to the last sentence in the text, "This proves that Christianity is indeed the religion of misers." But now, as he gets older and older, Scrooge finds that he can understand the old Grandet more and more, and he can understand Balzac's words more and more. If death means nothing, then what is the use of accumulated wealth? Therefore, "over there" must exist. Otherwise, we cannot expect that one day in the future, Graystone and the others, who have taken good care of everything, will be able to go to "over there" and "reimburse" him. So now, as his life gradually enters his later years, Scrooge really has some piety in his faith in Christ. Of course, the last important thing is to collect and analyze Dena¡¯s relevant information. Dena has participated in many revolutionary activities over the years and has left many theoretical works. Scrooge gathered all the relevant information, carefully studied Dena's acting style and theoretical characteristics, and made various inferences about her next move, and then further adjusted and upgraded his database based on the feedback. Scrooge discovers that Dana, 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 loophole in her theories and assumptions and find a suitable time, such as when they have differences or major setbacks, to use this to defeat Dena's belief in communism in one fell swoop. Then, maybe Dena will return to the McDonald family honestly, thus filling in the last shortcoming of the second generation of the McDonald family.