Denmark is one of the oldest kingdoms in European history and is a bridge connecting the European continent to Scandinavia. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Although the reigning King Christian X of Denmark claims to have traced his ancestry back to Gohm, the first monarch of Denmark who died in 940 AD, his main bloodline comes from the family of the Dukes of Glücksburg in the former German Empire.

The family of the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Töhendeburg-Glücksburg flourished so much that after centuries of complicated marriages, the thrones of Denmark, Norway and Greece were now in their hands.

John remembers that Prince Philip, the husband of the future Queen Elizabeth of England and Prince Philip of Greece, was also from this family. In other words, the British royal family will also have the blood of the Duke of Glücksburg in the future.

However, John's visit to Copenhagen has nothing to do with the current Danish royal family. He came to meet the head of another "royal family" that would later surpass the Danish royal family, the Maersk Maritime Kingdom.

The Maersk family is currently headed by Arnold Peter Müller, who, together with his father, Peter Maersk Müller, founded the current Swinburg Steamship Company in 1904. Daddy Peter is the chairman, and son Arnold is the general manager. Thanks to the increase in shipping costs during the First World War, the shipping business of the Müller father and son grew rapidly.

Today, the Maersk Group is a typical family business, with virtually three shipping companies under its name. One was the Swambrough Steamship Company, in which John and his family had a stake, the other two were the 1912 Steamship Company, a wholly-owned enterprise founded by Arnold, and an oil tanker company founded by Arnold and one of his German cousins, Hans, in New York, which mainly operated crude oil transportation services between the Far East and the United States.

In his previous life, John had some dealings with Maersk Marine when he was at UPS. Perhaps because the owner's ancestors were Viking, the company has always been known for its arrogance, rigidity, and credibility in the industry.

Every Maersk employee, regardless of gender, has to go on board for six months after joining the company, even if it is the heir of the family. For example, Maersk (Maersk Michael-Kenny Müller, son of Arnold Peter Müller, who took over the company in 1965), when he joined the family company in 1932, spent half a year at sea wiping copper parts from the ship with Basu copper water.

Maersk Group's headquarters are located in the northeast of Copenhagen and are a small six-storey building with the wide Øresund Strait just east of it. John, accompanied by the Foundation's representative to Maersk, took the elevator to Arnold's office on the sixth floor. In the elevator, the representative told John that although the headquarters had installed an elevator, because the big boss climbed the stairs to his office every day, no one dared to sit on it, and everyone consciously climbed the stairs.

Arnold is a low-key, pragmatic and stubborn, strong-fashioned seaman. He began sailing with his father's sailboat at the age of 14 and gradually grew from a trainee sailor to a major owner with nearly 30 ocean-going freighters. So when they first met, he didn't like John, the American "second ancestor" who grew up with a silver soup spoon.

In fact, Arnold did not have a good relationship with the other shareholders of the Swambold Steamship Company. At that time, he just couldn't stand the fingers of these "laymen" for the company, so he started a new "1912 Steamship Company". With the rapid growth of the company's performance in recent years, Arnold has now fully established itself as an authority within the group. Outside directors like John have long since become rubber stamps who only take dividends.

John never thought that he, a "layman", could "convince" Arnold, the old captain, as soon as they met. In fact, he didn't have to. From the beginning, John was not interested in Maersk's fleet, but because it was a Danish shipping company.

Denmark is a country that plays an important role on the North Atlantic route between the United States and Europe. Although its traditional territory is only Jutland Peninsula and the islands of the Philippines and Zealand, in fact, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, which are strategic points in the North Atlantic, are still its "territory".

Historically, after the German occupation of Denmark, the United States quickly occupied Greenland and Iceland, and the British occupied the Faroe Islands in order to protect this vital sea shipping route for the "free world".

Moreover, after the German occupation of Denmark, Maersk's industry became "enemy property". In order to prevent these assets from falling into German hands, Maersk Group's overseas bank accounts were frozen, and the fleet in the United States was taken over by the Coast Guard.

Therefore, John came this time simply to meet Arnold and his son Maersk and make an impression on each other. When the father and son are desperate, they will naturally come to the door on their own. At that time, whether to strengthen cooperation or directly annex the Maersk Group, the initiative will be on John's side.

John's visit this time was under the banner of coming to Maersk Group to inspect and study, and to conduct research for FedEx to carry out sea and land intermodal transportation business. He modestly said that he is a newcomer to this industry, and hopes to learn some basic knowledge of shipping business from Maersk, and looks forward to some business cooperation with the other party, such as opening up a shipping route from New York to Houston.

FedEx has always had a headache about how to grow its business in the Gulf of Mexico. On the one hand, with the development of the East Texas oil field in 1930, the Gulf of Mexico region has become another hot spot for economic development in the United States, and the demand for transportation business is very huge. On the other hand, the rail network in this new industrial area is very incomplete, and many goods from the east need to detour through the Midwest before they can be transported to the area via the South Pacific Railway.

John had long wanted to open a sea transportation route from New York to Houston. If we can reach a cooperation agreement with Maersk Group this time, we can not only solve this transportation bottleneck, but also strengthen the ties between the two sides, which can be said to kill multiple birds with one stone.

Arnold agreed to John's request for an expedition, and he simply dumped his son Ponykee on John, and went about his business.

Over the next few days, John was accompanied by Ponyk on field trips to the company's headquarters, docks, and fleet. In fact, John is also a veteran in this area, and in his previous life, he was mainly responsible for the shipping business when he was in the Shanghai operation center. In 1938, Maersk was only a medium-sized shipping company, with no computers, no Internet of Things, and no containers, and everything was still very primitive.

So, John's main target was actually Mastard himself.

Although most of his abilities are now under the suppression of his father, there is no room for use. (Arnold was very harsh with him at the company, feeling more like an apprentice than a son.) But John, who is familiar with the history of the transportation industry, is well aware of the young man's abilities.

Historically, in 1940, in order to keep as many ships as possible for the company, Maersk, who was not yet 26 years old, was ordered to be sent by his father to the United States to integrate the company's entire fleet.

Then, with the fall of Denmark, the situation of the Maersk Group began to take a sharp turn for the worse. Their accounts were frozen, their fleets were taken over, and they were even banned from doing all shipping-related business. Although Ponyk founded the 'Mueller Trading Company' in New York, there were not many commodities to trade and there were not enough customers.

During the first seven years in the United States, Maersk was rarely even able to connect with his father in Copenhagen, and everything was on his own. He joined a club and used it as a platform to meet many businessmen, including the Danish ambassador to the United States, Henrik Kaufmann.

With Kaufman's help, Maersk broadened its reach in the United States and eventually regained ownership of the ships that survived the war after the war. He also secured royalties and depreciation from the U.S. government, which were important for strengthening the company and rebuilding after the war.

Maersk's achievements in the United States alone were outstanding, but when he returned to Copenhagen in 1947 at the age of 34, he once again had to work under the guidance and strict supervision of his father.

It wasn't until Arnold Sr. retired in 1965 that Ponyk regained control of the company. In the end, the scale of the company has grown from 88 cargo ships when he took over to 1,460 ships, with operations in 142 countries, becoming the world's leading shipping company.

After a few days together, even without thinking about the future achievements of this 24-year-old young man, John can feel that Maersk is a very thoughtful young man. He began to try to tempt him with his idea of starting an international land and water transportation business, trying to tie him to the big FedEx ship.

John's killer feature is the standard container shipping concept. Historically, in the 60s, Arnold and Maersk had a fierce disagreement over whether to start the business, and the winner was the one who supported the use of containers.