Chapter 300 The Wolf is Coming
"After this time, I will definitely not expand in the short term. I must control myself." Sheffield swore that he must first stabilize his current business.
"I believe you, just as you can control your own hands!" Edith Rockefeller glanced downward, pretending not to feel the numbness in her chest and turning a blind eye to the mischievous big hands.
Sheffield pulled his hand back in dismay. Just as he was about to find an excuse for his actions, Edith Rockefeller pulled his hand back again. He heard the woman say, "I don't like people who give up halfway."
Regarding the new developments in the tobacco industry, Sheffield did not dare to say that he was sure of victory, but he felt that cutting a little bit of the cake would not be a problem. First of all, there were no filter cigarettes in this era. Although the filters of later generations were not made of cotton, but a kind of chemical fiber, the filters of the earliest filter cigarettes were cotton.
Cotton is as common as food in the southern states of the United States. Without cotton, the Civil War would not have been so easy to start. In addition, Sheffield knew that the launch of mixed cigarettes quickly became popular throughout the United States. Now mixed cigarettes cannot be said to have not appeared, but they have certainly not been accepted by smokers throughout the United States. The United Company has this channel to promote tobacco nationwide.
The biggest advantage of mixed cigarettes is that they have a strong aroma and low tar content, but Sheffield has never experienced it. It may not suit the taste of the people of the Republic. In his previous life, he could only smell the strong smell of stinky feet. Now, just thinking about it makes me feel a little drunk.
The tobacco market in the Republic is basically dominated by flue-cured tobacco. Flue-cured tobacco is only available in the Republic market and the British market. Because flue-cured tobacco was invented by the British, there is basically no other market to support it. Other markets are basically dominated by American blended tobacco.
Now Sheffield is going to mix some more to see if they can come up with a blended tobacco. They'll try it themselves first, and if it has that familiar stinky feet smell, then it's basically done.
As the new boss of United Tobacco, Sheffield brought Edith Rockefeller to the Reno tobacco factory to meet with his new employees to build relationships. He also promised that all of them would be retained and their salaries would remain unchanged, which put all the tobacco workers at ease.
Edith Rockefeller watched this hypocritical man demonstrate how to win people's hearts in front of her. After leaving the factory, she whispered, "It's extraordinary that he won the love of the workers so quickly."
"I wish I could just restore slavery!" Sheffield stopped pretending in front of Edith Rockefeller and revealed his true nature as a slave owner. "For people like us, so-called workers are essentially slaves. This was the case with the Roman Empire. Although the Roman Empire perished, in modern times, countries like ours will emerge as its successors."
"So it seems that other countries that are not as powerful as Western civilization essentially do not have slavery?" Edith Rockefeller smiled and thought Sheffield was talking nonsense.
"Every civilization is different. If it weren't for the interference of the Industrial Revolution, who knows how they would develop? But since the Industrial Revolution has appeared, people like me will appear in this world. Your Yankee company is no better than mine. You just pretend not to be a slave owner, and I don't want to pretend." Sheffield said disapprovingly, "Those who learn from me will live, and those who are like me will die. Other civilized countries that learn from European civilization will eventually hit a wall."
In Sheffield's previous life, history textbooks had been revised a lot. Although the Ming fans and Qing fans were arguing loudly on the Internet, in fact, the ancestral graves of both groups had been dug up. The Kangxi and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty were no longer called prosperous times. After all, although it was a stable period of history in the agricultural society, compared horizontally with the world, it was like the Tyrannosaurus Rex before the meteorite fell from the sky. It would definitely not survive the great changes of the Industrial Revolution and was in a very embarrassing situation.
Almost in the same year, the sprouts of capitalism were also deleted from the textbooks. The sprouts of capitalism originally appeared in the textbooks, and there were two opinions for and against. The group that advocated the sprouts of capitalism was also divided into two groups, the Song and Yuan Dynasties and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This was the end. The textbooks also no longer mentioned the sprouts of capitalism.
This is good. China's political environment similar to that of Europe disappeared long after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty. The standard centralized system must rely on the feudal lords of Europe. Europe developed capitalism, and it also needs to prove that Europe has it. China must also rely on it.
Not clinging to the European environment also proves that the Republic's national strength has increased. It no longer needs to write controversial content in textbooks to enhance national pride and get rid of the influence of relying too closely on the West.
The only thing that still interested Sheffield was that the two dynasties' fan groups had their points dug out, so how would they tear them down in the future? It was a pity that he didn't see it and became a modern slave owner.
"I want to add filters to cigarettes. This should not be a problem. The raw material of filters is cotton." After visiting the factory, Sheffield and Edith Rockefeller found Reynolds, the former owner of the tobacco company, again and proposed a new idea, emphasizing, "It should not be a problem technically."
The United States has long been very familiar with cotton processing. Whitney, who invented the cotton gin, was a key figure in helping the economic take-off of the southern states. However, Sheffield had absolutely no good impression of this man. He wished that this bastard would die immediately after inventing the cotton gin.
Because he promoted another thing, the standardization of gun production. The cotton gin brought an industrial revolution to cotton production in the southern United States, and the standardization of guns benefited the North. All gun parts were changed to standard parts with a unified style and unified standards. They had to meet the size requirements to be assembled together, and any normal person could master it quickly with a little training, and the efficiency was very high.
The United States's ability to produce guns was far ahead of other countries. In the British Empire, the world's hegemon at the time, the most skilled technicians could only produce two guns a day at most, while an ordinary American worker could successfully complete the production of fifty guns a day.
The end result was that Whitney's cotton gin allowed the economies of the Southern states to take off, and his standardized gun manufacturing allowed the industrial-oriented Northern Yankees to eventually take over the Southern states.
"Okay, I'll give it a try right away!" Renault agreed readily, thinking Sheffield's idea was very novel. "Is it for better packaging?"
People of that era did not have the concept that smoking was harmful to health. Renault just thought that Sheffield was just trying to make the tobacco better packaged so that it would sell better.
"I'm doing this all for the health of the citizens. They want to have the satisfaction of cigarettes while staying healthy." Sheffield lied in all seriousness. Whether filtered cigarettes are healthier depends entirely on the smoker. Whether he thinks it is healthier. If the smoker believes in his heart that it is healthy, then there is no problem.
You can never wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep. A veteran smoker fits all the descriptions of this sentence perfectly. He can always find excuses to comfort himself and think that everything will be fine.
After adding the filter, Sheffield also asked Renault to produce a new thinner cigarette, also with a filter, targeting the female market. As a man who advocates gender equality, he can't just focus on men's hobbies and leave women aside. Since he advocates gender equality, he must launch tobacco targeting the female market.
This proposal aroused the opposition of Renault, who believed that this move would definitely fail. The female market was too small and might affect profits. Sheffield persuaded him, "Now the United States has a population of more than 80 million, and women account for half. We can't ignore the market brought by nearly half of the population. It is worthwhile to think about this and prepare early. The initial investment cannot be saved."
A hundred years later, it was the female group that maintained the dignity of the United States tobacco market. In terms of numbers, the Republic had long surpassed the United States, but half of the women in the United States smoked, which maintained the dignity of American tobacco companies.
Adding filters to men's cigarettes and exploring the female market was the first thing Sheffield did after acquiring Reynolds Tobacco Company. At the same time, it asked Reynolds to start experimenting with various types of tobacco and formulate blended cigarettes, which would be put on the market in large quantities once the experiment was successful.
As for the cigarettes currently piled up at Reynolds Tobacco Company, Sheffield has already sent a telegram to the headquarters of the supermarket chain, asking them to sell them through the chain's channels, and even reduced prices. He also believes that his acquisition of Reynolds Tobacco Company and its quick move to reduce prices will immediately receive market feedback, letting other tobacco companies know that a new player has entered the tobacco field.
In this way, Sheffield's next round of tobacco mergers and acquisitions will probably go much more smoothly, because he has already opened a gap with Reynolds Tobacco Company and has entered the market. If other small and medium-sized tobacco companies disagree, he can start a price war first to clear the market in the tobacco field.
If the profits of other companies were squeezed, I believe negotiations would be much easier. Sheffield did not even celebrate the New Year that year. He just took the time to send a telegram to Anne, Evelyn and Natalia in Arlington to express his apology, and then continued to inspect the tobacco-growing areas in the southern states.
During this period, the news of United's acquisition of Reynolds Tobacco Company had spread, and small and medium-sized enterprises in the entire tobacco industry were in a state of panic, lamenting that the wolf had come. They did not know what their final fate would be, whether they would be acquired or squeezed out.
(End of this chapter)
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