The journey starts from the Titanic

What really made it grow and developed was known throughout the world during the First World War.

From 1914 to 1918, due to a large number of orders, Zippo Company produced at least 100 million zippo lighters in four years.

As the soldiers returned home after the war, they also brought Zippo lighters back to their hometown, so Zippo became famous all over the world. This is Zippo's greatest wealth.

This is similar to the historical Coca-Cola and Geely razors brought to the world by American soldiers.

In fact, after Zippo was booming, Situ Nan went on to launch the zippo razor, which is the same as a lighter. Both of these small things quickly expanded because of orders from the military.

Situ Nan wanted to find Jinke Gillette, the inventor of the Geely razor, and then accept him as his younger brother.

But I don't know why, he paid attention to it for a long time, but the Geely razor, which was originally used in World War I, was replaced by the zippo razor produced by Zippo.

Situ Nan has never heard of the Geely razor brand. In the end, he has to admit that there is no Jinke Geely in this world, and there is no Geely razor, only Zippo!

Well, the wings of the butterfly finally moved a millimeter in history!

...

In 1913, in addition to starting a zippo, Situ Nan also expanded his farm and built a canning factory in the suburbs of Los Angeles to process meat products.

Situ Nam named this cannery California Meat Products Company, with a total investment of 1 million US dollars, of which Situ Nam accounted for 60% of the shares, Henda Brown 20%, Bot Fort Laus 15%, and Hayes 5%. .

This meat product company has quickly become a California meat product giant with its advanced production technology, good taste, sufficient raw materials, and a wide network of people such as Hengda.

In addition to the meat product factory Situ Nan also spent US$100,000 to acquire a small pharmaceutical factory with less than 30 technicians and workers, which puzzled those who follow Situ Nan.

According to Situ Nan's instructions, this small pharmaceutical factory only produces medical triangle first aid kits.There is no other product except this one.Later, among so many industries in Situ Nan, relatively speaking, this pharmaceutical factory was the worst operating.

The only exception is that the pharmaceutical factory has established a technical team, the leader of which is Li Renqiao, a chemical engineer who just graduated from MIT.Well, after Li Renqiao was recruited by Situ Nan, he studied a red dye in this pharmaceutical factory and tried to extract a substance from the red dye for medicine.

Chemistry and medicine are not separated. Many medical scientists are precisely pharmacists born in chemistry.Li Renqiao was somewhat dissatisfied with Situ Nan's arrangements, but apart from this somewhat strange request, Situ Nan never interfered in Li Renqiao's research work again, instead he was very supportive of Li Renqiao's work and tried his best to find all the equipment he needed.

Later, Li Renqiao recruited many chemistry experts one after another, and the technical team gradually expanded and divided into several research projects.Some people are puzzled that a small pharmaceutical factory can have a technical force comparable to that of a large pharmaceutical factory, but the conditions here are so good that the boss is willing to invest so much money in his own research, what else is there to say!

In fact, the red dye Situ Nan instructed Li Renqiao to study was Bailang Duo Xi. He knew that a drug called sulfa was extracted from Bai Lang Duo Xi.This is an invention no less than penicillin. Once successful, the rewards will be amazing.

Situ Nan knew only the general situation, but he didn't understand chemistry, so he gave Li Renqiao a vague request.As for whether he can succeed or not, Situ Nan doesn't have much hope.Many important inventions in history were accidentally produced, and sometimes there is more luck than hard work.However, Situ Nan, who believes that there is always a reward, believes that even if sulfa is not invented, there are other gains.

1913 was a busy year for Situ Nan. During the year, he successively invested in many industries, such as zippo, farms, meat products factories, and pharmaceutical factories. Except for the pharmaceutical factory, other industries developed well. Specific work Situ Nan Never intervene, just set certain goals and grasp the direction of the company's development.

In order to better manage his own assets, Situ Nan has successively recruited a group of talents and established his own management team. Situ Nan called this institution William Investment Company.

The largest of these is a 30% stake in California Petroleum.

This year, under the painstaking management of Hengda Brown, California Petroleum has developed well, with an annual output of 300,000 tons. It is already very good to have such a result within one year, and California Petroleum has successively acquired A lot of oil fields have been added, and oil reserves have increased a lot. In addition, California Petroleum’s own pipeline company and refinery have completed the extension of the upstream and downstream industrial chain. The scale of assets has grown from the original US$10 million to 30 million. In US dollars, Stuart’s 30% stake has also tripled and is worth tens of millions of dollars.

Petroleum is indeed a wealthy business!Seeing this result, Situ Nan showed his appreciation for Hengda's management, and he was more impressed by the black gold of oil.

Benefits are the best driving force. After seeing the potential of oil, Situ Nan thought of the several large oil fields that he planned to obtain, and his heart that had been dormant for a year became active again.Damn it, if you want to starve the courageous to death, you should get those pieces of fat first. It is not up to you to stew or stir-fry at that time. If you are accidentally discovered in advance by others, then Are you still dying?

Do what you say, and do what you do. After investing in several industries, Situ Nan’s funds are running out. In order to raise funds, he pledged 20% of California Petroleum’s shares to a bank loan of $6 million. .

After I heard that Situ Nan had mortgaged his shares, Hengda found Situ Nan. As a result, Situ Nan mortgaged the remaining 10% of the shares to Hengda. Unfortunately, Hengda did not have so much cash and could only give 1.5 million US dollars to mortgage 5% California. Petroleum shares, so Stuart did the same, and 5% of California Petroleum shares drew 1.5 million US dollars from Bot Fort Laus.

Add up to no more than 9 million US dollars of funds, this is a huge sum of money!

Situ Nan almost shivered when he got it, 9 million dollars!A hundred years later, it will be 900 million U.S. dollars. Nowadays, the top Sovereign-class battleship of the British Empire is not much different from this number!

If it weren't for the current good oil market and the good development of California oil, Situ Nan would really not get the $9 million loan.Hengda and the others once asked Situ Nan what to do with so much money?

However, he was moved by Situ Nan's investment in the steel industry.

In fact, Situ Nan also thought about investing in the steel industry. There was a war in Europe. Investing in steel is definitely profitable.But this was just an excuse for Situ Nan, he was going to use the money to secretly buy the oil field that made him salivate.

If he really had money left, he wouldn't mind investing in steel. Didn't Bot transfer a steel plant to himself?However, Situ Nan had been careless about it.

In October 1913, with a draft of 9 million US dollars in Situ Nan's pocket and He Wenxiu, Hayes and his party quietly left Los Angeles and headed south.

Before departure, an interesting incident happened in Los Angeles. One day, when Situ Nan was reading the newspaper, a report in the "Los Angeles Times" aroused Situ Nan's interest: the newspaper printed a resounding headline: "Fight against the Italian Invaders" !"

Then the next day, the newspaper's entire advertisement ran another even more painful headline: "Poor Italy lends money to poor citizens and laborers. Italy is a friend of the poor."

It turned out that a banker from San Francisco went to Los Angeles to buy a bank called Parker Bank that was about to go bankrupt. This aroused the resentment of the local bankers, and the two sides started a war of words.

It just so happened that Hengda was also one of the shareholders of the hapless bank. After learning that the Italian banker was Amadi Giannini, Situ Nan felt a little threatened.Immediately as quickly as possible, through Henda's relationship, he bought the Parker Bank before Giannini, and let the Italians come home.

However, Situ Nan had no intention to manage the bank at the time. After rectifying the finances and straightening out the relationship, he did not care about it as much.Until a few years later, Parker Bank was still half-dead.

After being delayed by the bank for a week, Situ Nan no longer wanted to stay in Los Angeles.

Yes, just as the Americans flocked to California because of the California oil fever, Situ Nan had quietly dripped into the village-Texas!Well, no one who shoots!

There, due to poor agricultural harvests in recent years, many unintentional farmers sold their farms and went to California to try their luck.

Situ Nan was able to hoard a large amount of land at a very low price.

Chapter 10 The Invisible Oil Black Hand

"There are more cowboys in Texas, and more cow shit in Houston!"

The first stop of Situ Nan and his party came to Houston, an important town in the southern United States.Located in the upper part of the Gulf of Mexico Plain in southeastern Texas, 80 kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico, 49 feet (14.94 meters) above sea level.The Greater Houston area (including the surrounding 7 counties) has an area of ​​6,304 square miles and a population of approximately 4.3 million; the Houston city area is 617 square miles.Mainly white, black, Mexican descent.Among them, the Mexican population has grown rapidly in recent years.

The closed city has a subtropical climate with an average annual temperature of 20.7 degrees Celsius and an average annual rainfall of 1224 mm.Summer is hot and humid, with temperatures above 33 degrees Celsius for 94 days.The annual sunshine period is 188 days, and there are many hurricanes from July to November each year.

The surrounding areas of the closed market, especially the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, are extremely rich in oil and natural gas. In addition, barite, gypsum, magnesium, salt, wood and fresh water resources are also abundant.

Relying on abundant oil resources, Houston has become the oil center of Texas and the oil center of the United States in the past life.

Situ Nan's previous life in Houston is incredible. As the fourth largest city in the United States, it has the reputation of being an energy center, a space center, a world port, a trade and financial center, and so on.Situ Nan has been to Houston several times in his previous life, but a hundred years later, Houston is full of high-rise buildings and the city is prosperous. I don't want to see it like this now.

Coming out of the train station, Situ Nan saw only a small and messy town with not many high-rise buildings. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Situ Nan didn't expect that the people walking on the street here would be well-dressed intellectual white-collar workers. Now the streets are full of arrogant cowboys.

The folkway is really tough!It's no wonder that the frenetic cowboy contest in the previous life will be popular in Texas, but the venue is Dallas, which is also one of Situ Nan's itineraries.

The vicissitudes of life, a hundred years are enough to change a lot of things, and now Situ Nan is not used to it, just because he doesn't know what he has stepped on, a little depressed.

"Stoney, I don't know why I came to this rotten ghost place!" Hayes complained.Since following Situ Nan, Hayes is no longer the former embarrassed oil worker. He now has such a small amount of money. Of course, this is a small amount of money for Situ Nan, but for most Americans, Hayes is already a property owner.After a person has money, his taste is more or less higher, so Hayes couldn't help complaining after spending a night in a humble hotel in Houston.

Even the honest man Hayes has complained. It can be seen that although Houston has developed to a certain extent, it is incomparable to the eastern cities and inferior to Los Angeles. But isn't this backward situation exactly what I hope for?If Houston develops well, what opportunities does it have?So complaining to Hayes, Situ Nan just smiled: "Here is what I need."

"Oh!" Since Situ Nan said it would be fine. Anyway, it is good to have a share.Hayes scratched his head, like a chimpanzee, grinning, showing white teeth, a little cute.

Situ Nan did not tell Hayes that he was looking for oil, only that he would do some ranch and logging business. People like Hayes were honest and honest people would not think too much. This is why Situ Nan brought him here. one.The other one is that this guy is strong enough to be a cameo bodyguard if he has something to do.

As for He Wenxiu, he has stayed with Situ Nan for two years, and has been following Situ Nan silently, and even if he knew about other things, he would not pay attention to it.

Situ Nan remembered that a large oil field in Texas was in Conroe Town, not far north of Houston, but many people did not know this place after asking.