The journey starts from the Titanic

"Okay! I just sigh. With me, Bethlehem will be fine. Don't worry! Mr. William!" Eugene promised on the phone.

"That's good! If you have something to do, you can contact the RAND Corporation. It is more convenient for them to deal with people from the government." Situ Nan reminded Eugene finally.

After dealing with Bethlehem, Situ Nan couldn't help but call Chrysler in Detroit. After all, Chrysler was able to manufacture a large number of tanks in the war. This is already history.Since tanks can be made, making cars is not a problem!

Situ Nan has full confidence in Chrysler.Although the economy will be depressed after the war, the auto industry has been booming, so there is no need to worry too much.

...

"My dear, why the war has been won, I think you are more busy!" Laura looked at Situ Nan's somewhat exhausted look, walked behind Situ Nan early, and gently massaged Situ Nan's temples with her fingers.

"Yeah! It's time to divide the spoils, and there are a lot of intrigues. It's endless. I'll be fine after this time." Situ Nan sighed, looking at the still attractive face, he couldn't help but embrace Laura. He smiled and said, "However, it is worth the hard work to raise your beautiful wife and our lovely children."

The speaker, his mouth moved towards Laura.

This guy's mouth is getting sweeter and sweeter!Laura groaned.She was a little bit shy, but she greeted her, and the couple gnawed away in the living room.

In the cradle next to him, a white beeping baby looked at all this curiously, maybe feeling cold and crying loudly.

"Oh, Andy is crying!" Laura left Situ Nan immediately and turned to comfort her crying son.

After being disturbed by the good deeds, Situ Nan lost his enthusiasm, and looked at the guy with a tearful smile a little bitterly.This is not the first time. Recently this guy started crying when he saw that he and Laura were making each other, as if he had robbed his toy. It was funny.Situ Nan shook his head and returned to the study.

Chapter 2 Depression is also an opportunity

The development of things always has its inertia. Now the William Consortium with a big business is like a high-speed train, it is impossible to stop and stop, and it is impossible to achieve a beautiful transformation with a word of Stuart.

He found that he was overly optimistic about the situation, and the impact of the cancellation of military orders on the companies under the Wei Consortium exceeded expectations.

After losing the government's order, the company had to find a way out and open up the market.During the war, the huge production scale could not be maintained, and cost reduction became a natural thing.

During the economic downturn, the most direct way is to lay off employees.If there is no improvement, Bethlehem United Steel plans to lay off 10% of its staff in the next two years, and more than 2,500 employees will be laid off.The remaining employees may also be required to cut their salaries.

The worst is Stony Food Company, a company that has provided various food materials to Europe since 1914. It performed exceptionally well during the war and provided millions of tons of canned beef, flour and other supplements to the frontline. , Is the large kitchen behind the US military.In the past 1918, the annual income exceeded 100 million U.S. dollars and the profit was 30 million U.S. dollars. It is a member of the William Consortium that cannot be ignored.

After the war, the number of American soldiers dropped from 4 million to 1 million. In the end, there were only a hundred or two hundred thousand army and tens of thousands of navy.Without these millions of gluttons, as a manufacturing company mainly engaged in military food supplies, Stony Foods has a difficult life.

Although six months ago, under Situ Nan’s instructions, Stony Foods Company began to reduce inventory and no longer purchase meat, wheat and other raw materials on a large scale, but in the end there was still a large amount of canned food, flour and other foods left in the warehouse. The food is enough for 1 million for a month. It was originally purchased by the government. The deposit was paid, but it was cancelled later. It really hurt the Stony Food Company because it costs a lot to maintain the warehouse every day. .

Stony Foods, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Situ Nan came over on a whim.California's agriculture is developed, and Stony Foods also has a large food processing plant in Los Angeles.After the war, the Stony Food Company was greatly affected.

Coming out of the food company’s warehouse, he was followed by David Goury, the general manager of Stony Foods. He smiled and said, "It seems that doing business with the government is actually not easy."

"Isn't it? The bastards said that they canceled it. The deposit they gave was not enough for me to maintain the warehouse." Gao Li cried his face.

"Let's do it! Your contact with Meihua Company, they may need these things." Situ Nan reminded David Gaoli.

"Really? I'll try it later." David Gaoli said with some excitement, thinking: If we can pass the Meihua Company, maybe we can open up the Asian market, this may be another new way.

Situ Nan smiled. Meihua employs a large number of workers in Nanyang and consumes a lot of food every day. Importing food from the United States is also a bargain.However, Situ Nan’s real purpose is actually the security team in Nanyang. The Stony Food Company has accumulated a batch of surplus military rations, which may be used for...

This idea also came up with Situ Nan accidentally.The Stony Foods Company is indeed facing a lot of trouble, but isn't life all about food, clothing, housing and transportation?

Food is the priority of the people, no matter what, food is an industry that will never be eliminated. As long as Stoney Foods finds a suitable path, it should not be difficult to get out of the current predicament.

"Gaoli, let me give you two suggestions! One is to develop nutritious and healthy food and the other is fast catering. I think these two industries are two good directions for the company's future development."

"Nutritious healthy food and fast food?" Gao Li thoughtfully.

Situ Nan continued to explain: "Yes. Although the current food manufacturing industry is not booming, it is only temporary. I believe that people's living standards will become higher and higher in the future, and more people will pay attention to food health, and they will be willing to buy more food. There are nutritious foods that make them healthier. There is no other company in the United States that is researching this aspect. This is the opportunity for Stony Foods. As for fast food, there is a fast food company called M Kee in San Francisco, which is called Ma Decai It was opened by Chinese people, and now there are 5 large branches. To be honest, my friend opened it. But if you are interested, you can check it out."

"Okay. I remembered." Gao Li nodded, thinking that since Situ Nan is so admired, he must go to see what M Kee fast food restaurant.

Gaoli has his own unique understanding of food manufacturing. The canned food, rations and other foods produced by Stony Foods for the military can be regarded as fast food, right?

After the emergence of M Kee fast food, it was extremely popular in San Francisco, but soon there was the damn Spanish flu. The business fell a lot, but as the flu disappeared, the business was booming again. Who doesn't like cheap and convenient food?Rising prices have not only affected ordinary working-class workers, even some white-collar workers in the company have also paid attention to saving, and more and more people have begun to abandon restaurants and enter M Kee fast food restaurants.

A month later, when Gao Li quietly appeared at the M Kee fast food restaurant in San Francisco, his heart was touched, as if he had seen a brand new road.

Of course, Stony Food Company did not become Stony Fast Food Company, but when he saw profitable Gao Li proposed to acquire M Kee (Ma Decai Catering Company), it was rejected.

Later, under the mediation of Situ Nan, the two parties reached a cooperation agreement. Stony Foods invested 1 million US dollars in M ​​Kee, accounting for 60% of the shares, but promised to ensure Ma Decai's position in M ​​Kee.

This is a good thing. With the investment of Stony Foods, M Kee’s expansion has been greatly accelerated. It jumped out of San Francisco and opened two large branches in Los Angeles.At the same time, it also opened branches in major California cities such as Sacramento, San Diego, and Long Beach.

A fast-food storm began to get used to California. A few years later, Hollywood movies also added the material of fast-food, so more and more people in the United States knew about the M note. At the same time, in eastern cities such as Chicago and Santa Louisiana, There is also a hamburger fever.When Ray Crocker saw M's fast food in the movie, he was shocked. In faraway California, someone had the same idea as his own, providing fast food service, and doing better than himself.

M Kee Fast Food obtained a lot of food processing technology from Stony Food Company, but after all, it was two different companies, each with its own main business. Although Stony Food Company entered the fast food industry by investing in M ​​Kee, it still Mainly food research and production.

Gaoli followed Situ Nan's suggestion and shifted the company's focus to nutritious and healthy food, and invested more funds to develop milk powder, beverages, beer and other products.These efforts have achieved great success a few years later.

In particular, the collaboration of Stony Foods and Stony Farms, a subsidiary of the William Consortium, in the dairy industry has become one of the world's largest dairy trusts integrating raw materials, production, research and development, and sales.This is not to mention.

Situ Nan is now less and less concerned about these specific matters, and more matters to grasp the development of the William Consortium from a strategic perspective.In order to collect money, Situ Nan split the original Stony Company into the market. In addition to Stony Food Company, it also spun off a Stony Agriculture Company.

In fact, the real trouble is this Stony Agricultural Company.U.S. agriculture is a large mechanized industry, and every economic depression is more manifested in agricultural depression.Supply exceeds demand, overproduction, the crops on the farm cannot be sold, the livestock in the pasture is sold at extremely low prices, and even a large amount of unsold milk is poured into the river, causing heavy losses for the agricultural company.

In fact, this is the situation faced by Stone Agricultural.Fortunately, the Stone Agricultural Company can get a steady stream of funds from the secret account of Occidental Petroleum for maintenance.

The agricultural depression has caused many farmers to abandon their farms and invest in other industries.In line with the principle that people abandon me, the Stony Agricultural Company, which is facing huge losses, purchases a large amount of land and takes the land of the bankrupt farmer as his own, no matter how remote the land is and the geology is poor, Stony Agricultural Company Not disgusting at all, and the price offered is not low.As long as these are in their designated areas, well, most of the farms are in California and Texas.Especially near Long Beach and East Texas.

After all, it’s nothing more than oil. Those lands are located in or close to the two major oil fields in East Texas and Houston. They are publicly acquired in the name of agricultural companies. Not only can they quietly occupy these oil-producing lands, but also A defensive measure that reduces the possibility of being discovered by Occidental Petroleum’s reserve oil fields is to treat it as a reserve oil field.

This is also a secret expansion.The two major oil fields in East Texas and Houston are too big. Even if Situ Nan has been secretly buying land in the past few years, he only occupies a large part of them. The agricultural depression has given rise to Gave him a chance.

In the two years since the United States entered the war, inflation has begun to inflate and prices have risen, but workers’ wages have not fully kept pace with rising prices.In the spring of 1919, commodity prices rose by 75% compared to before the war, and many men who had just returned from the battlefield had to face difficult living conditions.Although the government gave each soldier a subsidy before retiring, they had to face the reality that it was getting harder and harder to find a job.

The factory began to lay off workers to reduce costs, because the previous hot products were not in short supply, a large number of similar products were backlogged, and competition began to intensify.When prices are rising, some products are also being promoted at reduced prices, but no one cares because consumers are short of money.This is really a paradox.

The postwar depression was also an opportunity.Business opportunities are always reserved for people with keen insight and sufficient capital. Every depression may also be a good opportunity for large consortia to shear wool.After resisting the losses caused by the depression, large monopolies have spare capacity to achieve low-cost rapid expansion.Wells Fargo and Occidental Petroleum have already opened their mouths and bite at the poor dying small companies.

Chapter 3 First Step Overseas-Venezuela

Situ Nan got enlightenment from the agricultural company and realized that he had become a big fish and could decide the fate of others, so he no longer worried about depression.

Occidental Petroleum also annexed a large number of troubled oil and gas companies and their chemical plants in several oil continents such as Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Situ Nan discovered that not only the William Consortium, but other consortiums are also doing the same thing.It's just that more and more workers went bankrupt, and their emotions became more and more dissatisfied. After the war, revolutionary thought spread rapidly among millions of American workers, bringing a serious crisis to American society.

...

Looking into the mirror, what came into view was a clean and white face with a knife-cut outline, eyes as deep as the sea, and a faint smile on his lips, which was indescribably handsome and charming.

"Is this me? I'm more handsome than Tom, and it's a waste not to go to acting! Well, I'm one year older, and it seems to be more mature." Situ Nan said to himself.

Time has slipped past 1918. The world war has ended for half a year, and the gunpowder is gradually dissipating. Except for the rest of the Eastern European plains, human history has entered a rare period of peace.