"Soda ash, fertilizers, pesticides......" Duncan grabbed his chin, thought slowly, and said: "I know what fertilizers and pesticides are, and what they are used for, but soda ash, what is it?" ”

He knew almost nothing about chemistry, as did Rachel and O'Connor; What is soda ash is a question for each of them. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info Unlike Duncan though, while not knowing what soda ash is, Rachel and O'Connor at least know what it stands for.

It stands for banknotes.

Soda ash is a basic and important chemical raw material, which is used by many industries - glass, chemicals, petroleum, metallurgy, building materials, textiles, ...... And so on -- a lot of use, although they can't quite say exactly what role it plays in these industries, but since it's so widely used, it's a lucrative commodity.

Profit! Rachel always puts it first, and as for the rest, that doesn't matter.

"You just need to know that soda ash is a commodity with extremely high value, and that's enough, Duncan." She said contentedly.

"More valuable than munitions?"

Qin Lang nodded. "Most of the time, it is."

"So why don't we do this in the first place...... Soda ash? Duncan said confusedly, with a hint of reproach, but he soon realized that he had made another mistake.

"Think about it, Duncan, why we're doing this with Morgan and Rockefeller." O'Connor tapped lightly on the table, and without waiting for Duncan to answer, he explained to himself: "A very profitable business, even now we have to unite the consortium, if we had done this in the first place, the trouble would have come to the door long ago." ”

"It's likely that we've become dead." Rachel went on to say, "Qin intends to adopt a new technology that only we can master, and without a strong collaborator, it will kill us all. ”

"It's a terrible speculation."

"But it's also very realistic." Qin Lang knew very well how dangerous what he was doing, and when it came to the combined alkali production method, he had to mention the ammonia synthesis process - it was very dangerous.

Anyone who knows a little about chemistry can easily deduce the huge impact of ammonia synthesis technology on the explosives industry: once this technology is put into practical use on a large scale, all the enterprises dealing in saltpeter in the world will soon close down, the saltpeter mines will be closed, and the miners will be collectively unemployed - of course, these people cannot pose a threat to Qin Lang, but the only explosives manufacturer in the United States is the DuPont Group, which will do everything to protect its monopoly position.

In fact, Qin Lang knew that there was once a DuPont engineer who resigned and opened an explosives factory, and his fate was that the entire factory, along with some of the workers, was blown up by a blasting expert sent by his former boss. So it's safe to assume that since DuPont would take such drastic action against a plant that poses little threat, it will inevitably take an even more drastic approach to a more obvious threat.

It is for this reason that he chose Morgan and Rockefeller as partners in the joint chemical enterprise. Although DuPont is very powerful, it is not yet able to compete with two of the most powerful conglomerates in the United States.

"But we still can't take it lightly," Qin Lang warned, "be careful, we must guard against more covert sabotage actions by our competitors." ”

"There's no doubt about that." "Even if there were no potential enemies, I would have asked for a tight fortification of chemical companies," Rachel said. ”

"Why?" Duncan is always the first to ask questions.

"Because of his pesticide factory." She glanced at Qin Lang and explained in a worried tone: "I have asked Elizabeth that this kind of enterprise that produces pesticides may easily be transformed into a chemical weapons factory that produces murderous gas. If something happens to it, everyone in the neighborhood will be doomed. ”

"It's not that dangerous...... Noticing Rachel's face and remembering Fisborne's farce, Qin Lang had no choice but to shrug his shoulders helplessly, "Of course, safety comes first." ”

"It's crazy." Duncan declared in a tone of extreme certainty.

Yes, it's crazy, but no one but Duncan cares about that. O'Connor was more concerned with the specifics of the new company. "What is the name of the new company? And the division of equity? ”

"The new company, based on my discussions with Morgan and Rockefeller, is called Union Carbide Corporation." However, this was still only Qin Lang's own idea. While discussing the formation of the United Chemical Enterprise, he suddenly remembered the famous Bhopal tragedy and the consequent unfortunate United Carbide Company, and knew that it would be born in 1898, so he did not hesitate to preempt its name.

But in front of Duncan and O'Connor, he was still defending himself in a serious way. "In fact, I would have preferred the name of the company to be 'United Nitride.'"

Then Qin Lang became serious again. "The new company is a chemical company jointly invested by Umbrella, Standard Oil and Morgan Bank, and we own 50 percent of the shares, and the remaining 50 percent is divided equally between Morgan and Rockefeller."

"Why Umbrella and not the Great Viper Weapons Company?" Or Duncan.

"Would you love for DuPont to be straightforward in associating Union Carbide with explosives?" Rachel gave him a roll of the eye, "Don't forget, DuPont knows that the Great Viper is producing light artillery. ”

"But it doesn't make any difference." Duncan retorted, "DuPont also knows that Umbrella is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Viper Arms. ”

"That's true, but at least on the surface it's a little better." Qin Lang said, "And we will try to get rid of ourselves - except for Elizabeth, none of us will hold specific positions at Union Carbide, and Morgan and Rockefeller will send a general manager and a deputy general manager respectively." ”

In fact, he would have preferred to have one of his own people as general manager, but both Rachel and O'Connor have their own areas of responsibility, and Yi Shui and Elizabeth are neither good at day-to-day management nor good at negotiating deals with others, so for the time being, he has to hand over the management of the company to Morgan and Rockefeller's people.

But, one day, he will take back the entire company – not just a few positions, but at least the vast majority of the shares.

He will do this, Qin Lang is full of confidence in this.

At the same time, Duncan was secretly thinking about it. According to Qin Lang, Union Carbide had nothing to do with him other than a little voice on the board of directors - but this did not make Duncan uncomfortable, on the contrary, he was very satisfied with the arrangement of a chemical company, which he had neither the ability nor the willingness to participate in, let alone take on the main management work.

"I don't even know what soda ash is." He muttered in a voice that only he could hear, and asked, "What about the cotton export company?" ”

Duncan felt that he was better suited to selling cotton than the chemical industry, the arms trade, and the mercenary business, first of all, because it was a safe job and did not require much brains.

And yet he's making mistakes. Qin Lang's plan was never very simple, and since he had not forgotten to give it the ability to produce explosives and poison gases when he conceived the idea of establishing a chemical conglomerate, his cotton export company's business scope was not just to export a little cotton.

Qin Lang's plan is to monopolize...... Or to control to the maximum extent possible U.S. cotton exports to China, China's cotton and cotton cloth markets, and China's raw silk exports to the United States. Of course, this is an ambitious plan: Theoretically, the United States could export three million bales of cotton to China a year – almost equal to the output of 7.5 million acres of cotton – and if it were granted monopoly status, sales could be further increased, perhaps even doubled......

So he had to unite the Chicago and Cleveland consortiums and execute this plan with them, otherwise cotton would become as lethal as ammonia technology.

"Your plans are always stunning, Qin." Duncan was a little frightened, "A very safe commodity can also be very dangerous for you. ”

"Actually," Qin Lang let out a long sigh, and then said, "the situation is going to be even more dangerous than you expected. ”

"Are you kidding?"

"I'm very serious, Duncan." Qin Lang changed into a more comfortable posture in the chair and explained, "We are destroying the business of the Japanese. ”

And it was a business that the Japanese used to accumulate funds for industrialization. Until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese full-scale war, Japan's foreign trade had maintained such a pattern: importing cotton from the United States, exporting cotton cloth to China, buying Chinese silk, processing it into raw silk and exporting it to the United States, of course, the extra money became machinery and equipment, scrap steel, rubber and oil, and weapons and equipment for the army and navy.

Before the fifties of the twentieth century, Japan's industrial base was still very weak, and all kinds of civilian goods made in Japan were almost synonymous with "garbage" to a certain extent, so the cotton and raw silk trade was extremely important to Japan, and once it was lost, Japan's industrialization process would come to a halt until new foreign trade products could be found.

Moreover, His Majesty the Emperor had to pray that no major natural disasters would occur in his own country, and at the same time he had to pray that the government magnates would not have a fever in their minds to go to war with other countries - if it was another Sino-Japanese War, the result would have been pleasant, but Japan's next war was destined to be the Russo-Japanese War with huge losses and no gains, although the Japanese did not know it yet, but Qin Lang knew it very well.

The Japanese are starting to be unlucky.

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Note: Union Carbide Company was founded in 1898, and in 1917, together with National Carbide and Duden Gas Products, a new Union Carbide Company was formed (to be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please log on to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )