The dimension of the northeastern United States is actually similar to that of Northeast China, coupled with the unique topography of North America, all the mountain ranges are in a north-south direction, unlike China, where there are several east-west mountain ranges. Therefore, whenever a cold wave hits, there are still mountains in China to block one or two, but in the United States, the cold wave is unobstructed, so whenever a cold wave hits, the northeast of the United States is often a little colder than the northeast of China.

In November of '78, the first round of cold waves roared, and the temperature in New York City dropped by about 15 degrees overnight, and the lawns of Madison Square were already covered with a thick layer of frost, and it became colder and colder at night.

Ellen watched as his wife put away the dinnerware, then picked up a book from her hand and flipped it to the place where it had been marked yesterday, and the children immediately came up to woo her. With the advent of electric lights, the cost of lighting electric lamps is already smaller than lighting kerosene lamps, and the brightness of electric lamps is far from being comparable to that of kerosene lamps, so now in New York, except for the slums, almost every household uses electric lights.

With electric lights, it's no longer just about washing and sleeping at night. But now, with electric lighting, the night is no longer dark, and the natural way of life has changed a lot. For example, if you want to perform at night, you need to use a lot of oil lamps, which is very expensive. Even so, it is difficult to ensure the effect of lighting, so only some small stage performances can be held at night, and the performance effect is greatly reduced. Nowadays, however, night performances have become the mainstream of various stage performances due to the use of electric lighting. So going to the theater at night has become a new habit for many rich people.

However, Ellen's family is only a medium-sized family, and she relies on Ellen to work as a clerk in a certain company to support the whole family, so naturally it is impossible to go to the theater every night or something. So at night, around the electric lights, Ellen told stories to the children became their nightlife.

"I found, however, that the robes and stiff collars of Mr. Spinro's complainant had suppressed Piggotty's spirit, and made her more and more respectful of this man who was becoming more and more sacred in my eyes. I felt that when he sat upright in the courtroom surrounded by the texts, he was like a small lighthouse in a calm sea, sending out a circle of light in all directions...... "Ellen read the novel softly, and the eldest of his children, Katie, is fourteen years old and can understand a little bit of the novel. But the other children are still young, and some of them are not very happy to hear this. For example, the youngest son, John, was a little unhappy.

"Dad, I don't want to hear this, I want to listen to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the magician Maureen, and ......"

"Shut up, John! That's all I have to listen to! Katie immediately scolded.

"But I don't want to hear ......," John muttered, though he was a little afraid of his sister.

At this time, the room suddenly fell into darkness.

"Ahh Katie exclaimed, although she was a big sister, she was still very afraid of the dark.

"Why is there a power outage again?" Ellen muttered in the darkness and pulled a lighter out of her pocket. Then, with the sound of rubbing, a faint flame lit up.

"Dad, go and plug the battery in." Katie said.

Recently, Ellen replaced the lead-acid battery at home with Edison's nickel-iron alkaline battery. According to the habit, the power outage is generally only about two hours, and the battery at home should be enough to support the lighting during this time.

Ellen connected the battery, which was connected to a light in the living room. The voltage that the battery can provide is very limited, and it is not possible to use ordinary lights directly. It's just that tonight the light is very dim. It was so dim that it was so dimmer that Ellen couldn't even read the words on the book.

However, compared to the situation faced by Ellen, the situation in the Manhattan theater is much worse, after the comprehensive replacement of the backup power supply with a nickel-iron battery, in this cold night, in the face of the problem of sudden power failure, the problem of the poor performance of the nickel-iron battery in the cold environment was immediately revealed, the stage lights were dim, like phosphorus fire, and the performance was naturally greatly affected.

And similar problems are not only in one or two places, but all places that have switched to nickel-iron batteries as backup energy have been affected. So the next day, many newspapers in New York began to discuss whether Edison's battery had a defect. Among these reports, a report in the New York Daily Times has attracted widespread attention.

This report claims that the development plan of the nickel-iron battery was originally within the research plan of the University of Cleveland's Dashi Yàn Room, and later when the Dashi Yàn Room conducted a feasibility study, it was noticed that although this kind of battery has the advantages of better electrode protection, it also has the problem of low reaction strength, which will inevitably bring the problem of slower charging and discharging speed, and obvious influence by temperature. So at that time, in the pre-research stage, this project was terminated.

The report caused an immediate uproar, with most of those who bought Edison's batteries regretting it, and sales of Edison's nickel-iron batteries plummeted.

……

"Thomas, you tell me that you really don't know anything about this battery defect beforehand?" Morgan asked, in a very gentle tone, but it made Edison quite nervous.

Edison knew that if he defected from the MacDonald consortium and lost Morgan's support again, the United States would be so big that there would really be no place for him. So he hastened to explain:

"Mr. Morgan, this statement is absolutely untrue. It's not like I don't have any other plans to study, so how can I prevaricate with a plan that has already been rejected? This must have been a lie deliberately concocted by the people of the MacDonald consortium. ”

This argument is indeed very convincing, and Morgan knows that it cannot be intentional on the part of Edison. But in any case, it was Edison's responsibility to have such a thing, and it was necessary to beat him up. And taking advantage of the frustration of the battery, it can also further strengthen the control of Edison.

"Thomas, we all believe in you, but you still have a lot of responsibility for this incident. Of course, batteries are just a small thing, but I hope that in more important things, there will be no more such incidents. Morgan concluded.

Edison, of course, knew what the more important thing meant, and of course he was referring to the engine. So he immediately replied, "Mr. Morgan, I will naturally work harder." But new products, in order not to make mistakes, naturally require more investment in the implementation and testing of the product. In addition, it takes longer to inspect all aspects of the product. ”

"That's not going to work." Morgan said categorically, "It may be possible to increase the funding, but if you want to increase the research and development funding, you have to make concessions on patents." As for the time, it can't be too wide in any way. At the very least, the time to take out the sample must not be relaxed. The time to market may be a little more relaxed, but not too much. ”

It is of course important to come up with a new car and make money, but it is the key to suppress the excess profits obtained by the McDonald consortium through Guò Motors. As long as there are new gasoline engines and new cars appear, it means that consumers have more choices, they will expect the price reduction of cars, and they will wait and see. And all this will affect the flow of funds of the McDonald consortium.

……

"You say, will Morgan back down after this counterattack?" Dorothea asked, a little worried.

"How can it be stopped? The Morgan consortium is just a consortium headed by Morgan, not Morgan personally, or even a consortium of the Morgan family. Withdrawing casually, how to explain to collaborators? Besides, the damage that can be caused by this incident is insignificant, and it can only be seen as a counterattack in our helplessness, and the fact that we can only do such a counterattack also shows our weakness. "It's like fishing, and if the bait is completely motionless, a big bass like Morgan won't bite." ”

"Fishing? Beware of being dragged into the water by big fish. Well, no kidding. They've already started to invest a lot in car engines. When do we start fighting back? In addition, we also need to pay attention to the fact that counterattack also needs financial support, do we have enough funds for activities? Dorothea asked.

"Of course, we have a lot of things that we can cash in. Don't forget, our goal is not to expand, but to shrink safely, and in order to get there, we need to bite Morgan hard. We don't need to profit in this series of activities, we just need to let those who try to take advantage of the big advantage, and also have the power to take advantage of the big advantage, suffer a big loss first. To put it more plainly, it is to use guò to harm others and not to benefit oneself in order to get those who dare to covet us to blow head-on. Anyway, we have a lot of money. And, in a sense, even if Morgan started making cars, what if? At most, that is, to drive down the profit of the car. However, the decline in automobile prices will inevitably bring about an increase in production and sales, and the increase in production and sales will inevitably bring about an increase in demand for steel and fuel. And in these industries, we also have a huge share. So, we won't lose much, and we can play with them completely. Moreover, we have so many oil fields in our hands, and in this situation, we can get a lot of development funds by cooperating with one of them. And in such a situation, how much can Morgan's development funds be recovered? ”

……

A few months later, Morgan continued to expand his research center, and although he didn't make much money developing the battery, it was rumored that Morgan's gasoline engine was already undergoing bench testing.