Chapter 42 Doubts of Schneider

Until the moment he signed the agreement, Albert Schneider couldn't believe that all of this had happened in such a short time. Just 24 hours ago, two young businessmen from Austria had approached him, expressing their willingness to invest $20,000 to buy 99 percent of the shares of this shipyard.

What was the concept of $20,000? In 1919 Brazil, it could buy 400 head of cattle, or 20 large fishing sailboats or short-haul cargo ships. Today in Salvador, having $20,000 would make one a small wealthy man. If he were to sell this small shipyard to locals, he estimated he would get at most $7,000 to $9,000!

When the thick stack of dollars was laid out in front of him, Schneider finally believed that this was not a low-level prank. The only obligation in the agreement was for him to continue serving as the business representative of Schneider Shipyard, signing on behalf of the company, exercising authority or accepting commissions.

The extraordinary $20,000, a job that only required him to collect a salary without having to manage anything, and even keeping the name of the shipyard - both publicly and privately, Schneider couldn't find a reason to refuse.

However, like an old captain retiring from his familiar post, Schneider felt an indescribable bitterness in his heart. After all, he had poured a lot of effort and energy into this shipyard, and over the past decade, he had treated it as his home. Yet deep down, he also hoped that Schneider Shipyard would rise as the first-class shipyard as depicted by the two young Austrian businessmen, spreading the name Schneider throughout Brazil and even the world!

Over the next week, as the business representative of Schneider Shipyard, Schneider followed these two young men around every day, dealing with matters such as foreign investment registration, changes in corporate equity structure, bank fund transfers, and applying for shipyard land from the municipal department, as well as reporting investment plans on behalf of the shipyard. With the help of Vice Mayor Heydwoot, they managed to simplify these procedures to some extent. However, due to the large area they were applying for shipyard land, Heydwoot said it would probably take another month to get approval.

After finishing these tasks, Schneider finally had two days of rest. When he returned to the shipyard, he found that the previous workers were gone, replaced by more than 20 new faces, all of whom spoke German without exception. This puzzled Schneider greatly. However, the two major shareholders of the shipyard, Link and Braun, explained that these were all their former subordinates who had come to Brazil with them. They had originally served as sailors on the Fast boat, but since the Fast boat currently had no plans for a voyage, they had been brought over to help temporarily. As for the previous workers, Zhanhainuo said they had been given two months' paid leave and were happy to take the vacation.

Since Link and Braun seemed to never work in the shipyard, the old office was still reserved for Schneider to use. Although it was an office, Schneider had nothing substantial to do all day. He either read books in the office or sorted out his collection. When he got bored, he went to the dockyard to stroll around. Currently, out of the shipyard's four docks, three had shipbuilding tasks. Among them, two were large fishing sailboats, and one was a 150-ton small cargo ship. The only dock without a task, the No. 3 dock, had now become Link and their first renovation target.

"Mr. Link, what are you guys doing..."

Seeing the workers continuously expanding this originally only about 30 meters long dry dock backward, with no corresponding increase in width, it looked more like a canal than a dry dock. So Schneider was very curious.

"Oh, Mr. Schneider, you can just call me Enberth!"

Zhanhainuo said politely. In order not to slip up in conversation, he now simply regarded himself as Enberth Link, and only allowed the sailors to call him Captain or Captain Heynno when they returned to the Fast boat.

"We plan to convert this into a warehouse to store the goods we shipped from the United States!"

Schneider originally thought they were renovating the dry dock, but unexpectedly, they wanted to turn the dock into a warehouse, which greatly exceeded his expectations. So he asked in surprise:

"A warehouse? Doesn't the shipyard have two spare parts warehouses? If necessary, we can completely vacate one of them! Or build another one on the open space!"

"Haha, we brought 1,500 bicycles this time. We can't sell them all at once, and this No. 3 dock is too small! Don't worry, Mr. Schneider, when our new land is approved, all the docks and equipment will be moved there! This side will be converted into a specialized warehouse area!"

Zhanhainuo gestured in his hand. Indeed, if this small shipyard were to be upgraded to a large shipyard, the land, docks, and equipment here would be far from sufficient to meet the demand.

"Oh!" Although the other party's explanation was full of prospects for the future, Schneider still felt somewhat lost. After all, he had watched this shipyard being built with enthusiasm back then, and he could vaguely remember his energetic self at that time.

Schneider no longer inquired about their "warehouse renovation plan." He silently watched the workers continue to expand this "canal" backward until it was about 120 meters long. Next, the workers expanded it to both sides, finally turning it into a square dry pool measuring 120 meters by 15 meters. If filled with water, it could almost be used for a swimming competition immediately!

These people then began to build walls and coverings on top of this pool, with the coverings rising half a meter above the ground, resembling a main body of a large bunker hidden underground. But that wasn't all. After building a covering that was nearly half a meter thick, the workers started to erect walls over two meters high on top, installed steel beams, and cemented the top layer, then installed two large iron gates on the front.

If he hadn't seen the earlier projects, Schneider might have considered this large box as an aesthetically lacking artificial structure, but what was the purpose of the large pool they had dug before?

Soon, Schneider decided that something must be happening these days, so he decided to secretly observe what these guys were up to.