In 1901, after Carnegie returned from Fort Skipper, he played a game with Schwab at the St. Andrew's Club in New York. The two walked into the study of Carnegie's villa, and Carnegie wrote on a piece of paper

Scrawled: "One point five." He instructed Schwab that if Morgan was willing to offer 1.5 times the current price, he would sell. In the end, the transaction was "agreed for more than $400 million." This decision was decisive.

Yes, that’s a staggeringly huge number!

But what was truly astonishing was after Pierpont Morgan bought the Andrew Carnegie Steel Company and established U.S. Steel. In order to speed up the company's operation, Morgan set high product prices to squeeze small and medium-sized steel companies.

On the other hand, taking advantage of the financial constraints of these small and medium-sized companies, they continued to make acquisitions - U.S. Steel Corporation annexed more than 700 related steel companies in one fell swoop.

After that, Morgan's U.S. Steel Company immediately began to cut prices. This strategy was quite effective. At this time, U.S. Steel produced 3/5 of the steel in the United States and could determine the fate of nearly 170,000 steel workers. U.S. Steel also became the oldest steel company in the history of the United States.

The first industrial company with assets of over $1 billion, it more than tripled its capital in just ten years.

Pittsburgh, the center of the steel industry in the United States, is also known as the steel capital of the world. The steel produced here in a year exceeds the steel production of the United Kingdom and Germany combined.

When the car was driving on a street full of vehicles and pedestrians, Li Zicheng, who was sitting in the back seat, subconsciously tapped his right hand on his right knee while staring out the car window at the criss-crossing streets with raindrops and lights.

Unlike New York, the air in Pittsburgh is always filled with a faint "rotten egg" smell, which is the smell of a coking plant. I am not unfamiliar with this smell. After all, I have also worked in a steel plant.

Unlike New York's frivolous life, the streets here always have an indescribable smell, like...well! A toughness that belongs to steel workers, whether it is the coachman or the car driver when driving.

His actions were extremely rough.

This is a city dominated by workers. Workers wearing blue denim overalls can be seen everywhere on both sides of the street. Most of them have thick arms and dull eyes, and their faces are burnt black. The days of American steel workers today,

Far inferior to their descendants a hundred years later.

This is a completely unique style.

The snow in late winter hit the car windows, forcing the driver to drive on the streets of Pittsburgh at the slowest speed. Li Zicheng took the opportunity to look at the streets of Pittsburgh. Two weeks ago, he took a picture

The drawings were sent to Charles Swaber, and three days ago, he received a telegram inviting him to Pittsburgh to discuss the blast furnace patent.

Money! If you return to your country, you will need a lot of money. When you are short of funds, what you can do is to make full use of every available resource in your hands.

In the steel barrels in the basement, there are tens of thousands of steel patents, steel production equipment drawings, and production data. In 1912, the most advanced ironmaking blast furnace owned by the United States Steel Company in the United States and the world only had a capacity of 5

10,000 cubic feet, which is similar to the 1,500-cubic-meter blast furnace that is the most "backward" in the drawings I own. However, the volume of iron produced by the two is very different per cubic meter. The volume of iron produced by U.S. Steel's "large blast furnace" is only 1.65 tons.

And our own is 2.28 tons.

"I hope I can get a lot of money in exchange!"

Muttering in his heart, Li Zicheng was thankful for the deal he had made. All he had to pay was to load the microfilm into the special drawing machine and use up thousands of drawings.

But what about the reward? Maybe tens of millions of dollars, maybe even more!

Thinking in his heart, Li Zicheng patted some drawings of the main body and accessories of the blast furnace with his left hand. A smile appeared on Li Zicheng's face. What a rich reward!

"What happy thing did the young master think of?"

Ah Si, who was sitting in the passenger seat, glanced sideways at the young master sitting in the back seat in the rearview mirror. After becoming the young master's servant from the China Guild Hall, until now, the young master has taken good care of him, and even

A month ago, the young master asked himself if he wanted to go home. If he wanted to go home, he would give him travel expenses.

But if I leave, what will the young master do? Anyway, my parents are dead, so it’s not bad to stay with the young master.

"No matter where the young master goes, I will definitely follow him!"

Although the young master never mentioned that matter again, Ah Si had already made his own plans. He thought so in his heart. Ah Si sat in front without saying a word. The young master had to negotiate with the foreign devils today, so he had to be smarter.

, to save the young master from asking people...

As the president of U.S. Steel, Charles Swaber rarely used his office. Most of the time, his office was actually a luxury car provided by Morgan. The heart of U.S. Steel was in Pittsburgh, but

Factories and iron mines are spread throughout the United States.

Today, Charlie Swaber, who rarely stays in the office, very formally invited a guest to the office. When he received the call from the train station, Charlie Swaber had a look of disbelief on his face.

The whole person couldn't help but came to the drawing board again and looked at the drawings sent with the letter. Although there were only a dozen drawings, they were not even enough to show the structure of the blast furnace, let alone be used for production, but if some development was added,

Data is enough for expert analysis.

"a Chinese?"

Looking at the blast furnace drawings in front of him, Charlie Swaber still wondered whether the company's experts had made a mistake. Is it possible for a Chinese to design the most efficient large-volume iron-making blast furnace in the world?

"If its technology is used to transform existing blast furnaces, production capacity can be increased by about 35%! Production costs can be reduced by 12.5%."

Experts' analysis allowed Charlie Swaber to understand what this 35% means. It means that after the completion of the blast furnace transformation, the iron produced by U.S. Steel will reach the pig iron production of the entire United States this year.

"Mr. Li, welcome!"

In front of the U.S. Steel office building, when Elbert greeted Li Zicheng, he selectively ignored his race and instead focused on the blueprint folder held by his follower.

Maybe it's the drawing of that new type of high-efficiency blast furnace.

After entering the conference room on the third floor of U.S. Steel, Li Zicheng did not speak, but spread the drawings in his hands on the round table in the middle. These were just descriptive drawings, which were far from the drawings that could actually be used for production.

Far.

At this time, there were a total of 7 people present. After Li Zicheng sat down, everyone gathered in a circle and began to look through the drawings on the table. Everyone looked very serious and made the same blueprint. This somewhat made some people

I was a little disappointed, especially since the company's legal advisor didn't have the original drawings, so it was impossible for them to obtain these drawings through "legal means."

“Very nice design.”

As the technical director of U.S. Steel, Jason spread his hands and said to Charlie Swaber.

"But we already have a similar design, so there's no need to spend money on it."

Li Zicheng curled his lips, the same design? The same design, it will take at least another ten years until American steel technicians design it. He leaned comfortably on the sofa, drank coffee, and remained silent.

Charlie Swaber also didn't speak. He knew the situation in his factory better than anyone else. Others spoke and discussed it. However, everyone knew that Jason's words before were just strategies.

A strategy to keep prices down.

"Did you design it?"

Elbert, who is also a technician, curiously asked Li Zicheng, who had not said anything since entering the conference room.

"certainly."

Li Zicheng looked at him with unpretentious eyes.

In the early 20th century, it was quite common for one person to design an industrial product. General Electric and Ford were all born in this way. This is not an era of "institutional" inventions, but an era of individual genius.

Albert expressed his appreciation with his eyes. Faced with his appreciation, Li Zicheng just looked out the window and looked at the smoke-filled production area of ​​the U.S. Steel Company. The steel produced by this steel plant is equivalent to that of the world's three major powers.

It is the first large-scale steel enterprise in the world with an annual output of over 10 million tons of steel.

If one day, I can establish a steel company like this in China...

When Li Zicheng looked at the huge steel plant and was lost in thought, several people gathered around the more than 100 detailed drawings and further development data that Li Zicheng had just brought and discussed in a low voice. At the same time, the United States

The legal counsel of the steel company, Hansen, pretended to be intimate and walked up to Li Zicheng and asked.

"Mr. Li, have you registered a patent?"

Li Zicheng smiled nonchalantly and said.

"Of course, if you don't apply for a patent, anyone will take it, right?"

I am a law student myself, how could I not know how to apply for a patent? Even in order to fold the wings of the Boeing 727, I specifically applied for patents for more than a dozen tools such as cross lifters and plum blossom lifters.

Li Zicheng's answer was not unexpected for these gentlemen, who have been accustomed to registering every thing as a patent since their grandfather's generation.

After a moment of silence and looking at each other, Charlie Swaber said.

"I don't know what the appropriate price is in your mind. Didn't your lawyer come?"

"I am a lawyer myself!"

Li Zicheng noticed that when he said that he was a lawyer, all of them had a look of disbelief on their faces.

"According to the current agreement signed between the American steel industry and others, I personally hope that the patent fee for each ton of pig iron will be US$1.35! The patent period is thirty years!"

"This is impossible……"

Before Charlie Swaber could finish speaking, Li Zicheng interrupted him.

"In 1875, the Carnegie Company, the predecessor of the United States Steel Company, obtained the patent fee of US$1.17 per ton of steel for the Belgrade converter. The patent period was thirty years, but now it has passed..."

With a smile on his face, he had done enough homework when he came.

"37 years! I guess $1.40 isn't too much!"

Faced with this almost-asked price, Charlie Swaber, who could no longer make the decision, looked at the young man in front of him who was both an inventor and a lawyer and said.

"That's steel! And this is iron!"

“That’s why I offered the price of $1.40!”

"Mr. Li, maybe we need to discuss it..."

"Mr. Swaber."

After drinking all the coffee in the cup, Li Zicheng stood up and said.

"Of course you can discuss it, but I need to return to New York tonight."

"This is simply impossible!"

"We need to verify and consider similar designs. Before seeing your complete design information, we do not know how much modification is needed to the old blast furnace and the technical feasibility of a new high pot. Likewise, we cannot accurately predict
To be continued...