Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A private pier on the banks of the Delaware River.
A late-night rainstorm washed over the wooden pier, where three massive steam ocean liners sat quietly on the water.
There were no company logos on the hulls, and all lights were extinguished, making them look like three giant beasts lurking in the darkness.
Three cordons had been set up on the pier.
Over a hundred mercenaries in black raincoats, armed with shotguns, blocked all entrances and exits.
Clive Cavendish stood under the eaves of a massive warehouse, rain streaming down his trench coat.
Heavy flatbed wagons drove out one by one from the liners' lower holds. The wagons were piled high with iron crates wrapped in thick waterproof tarps. Four armed guards followed alongside each wagon.
The wagons drove into the warehouse.
Workers quickly tore off the tarps and used iron crowbars to pry open the seals on the iron crates.
Under the dim yellow light of gas lamps, the true face of the golden-yellow gold bars was revealed.
A British accountant wearing a monocle was holding a ledger, marking each crate of gold with chalk.
Cavendish walked over.
"Is the quantity correct?" Cavendish asked.
The accountant pushed up his glasses.
"Of course... not a cent off, Mr. Cavendish. Four million pounds in physical gold and two million pounds in bearer bonds. All safely stored. The captain chose a very discreet route; we bypassed a storm at sea."
Cavendish let out a long breath of turbid air.
"Good, move these gold bars to the underground secret vault as soon as possible. Deposit the bonds in the safe," Cavendish ordered.
"First thing tomorrow morning, go to Philadelphia City Hall and re-register under the name 'British and North American Trust Investment Company.' Stay out of the sight of the New York bankruptcy courts."
The accountant nodded and took notes.
Cavendish turned around and looked at the pouring rain outside.
Let Argyle clean up that mess on Wall Street.
With millions in commercial paper turning into waste paper, even with the Imperial Bank's vast strength, this kind of bad debt would make them hurt for a while, wouldn't it?
Meanwhile, Old Morgan's true trump card now lay safely and steadily in a Philadelphia basement.
"Prepare a train for Pittsburgh," Cavendish said to the attendant beside him.
"That fool Carnegie must be driven nearly insane by now. It's time to pull in the net."
The next day.
Braddock Steel Works, Pittsburgh.
The flames of the blast furnaces were much dimmer than usual, and piles of iron ore were stacked in the yard.
Only half the workers had been working in the factory over the past few days.
Carnegie sat in a cluttered office.
A pile of telegram copies and collection notices were scattered across the desk.
Penalty notices from the Western Railway Company, supply cutoff notices from coal mine agents, and loan collection notices from the bank.
Carnegie felt like he had been abandoned by the world yet again.
The orders he had snatched by dumping prices had now become a noose around his neck.
He was losing money on every ton of steel rails produced.
But if he didn't produce, he faced penalties sufficient to bankrupt him immediately.
The door was pushed open...
Charlie walked in, his face pale and defeated.
"Boss, the workers are rioting outside. This week's wages can't be paid, and several butcher shops and bakeries have stopped giving credit to the factory canteen."
Carnegie clutched his hair with both hands, looking somewhat helpless.
"Tell them to wait another two days. I've already sent over a dozen telegrams to London. Old Morgan won't leave me to die. Although his bank closed in New York, he has money!"
"No need to wait for telegrams, Mr. Carnegie."
At the office door, Cavendish walked in, shaking the rainwater off his trench coat.
Carnegie suddenly looked up at Cavendish, rushing over like a drowning man grabbing a plank of wood.
"Clive, you're finally here! Where's the money? Where's the money Mr. Morgan promised!"
Carnegie grabbed Cavendish's arm and shook it vigorously.
"My blast furnaces are about to stop. Give me a million dollars! No, fifty thousand will do. As long as I make it through these two weeks, I can pull production back up."
Cavendish pushed Carnegie's hand away in disgust.
He walked to the desk, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He didn't take out a checkbook; instead, he pulled a thick document from his pocket.
"Mr. Carnegie, calm down. This isn't a casino; no one is going to throw money at you for no reason."
Cavendish tossed the document onto the desk.
"What is this?" Carnegie was stunned.
"This is a full acquisition agreement."
Cavendish leaned back in the chair, his gaze cold.
"Mr. Morgan once admired you, but your financial management is a mess. By blindly cutting prices to sign suicidal contracts, you have lost the qualification to be an independent entrepreneur."
Carnegie's pupils contracted instantly, and he reached for the document with trembling hands.
"Full acquisition? Old Morgan wants to buy my shares?"
Carnegie's voice trembled as he flipped to the quote on the last page.
When he saw the number, Carnegie sucked in a breath of cold air.
"Two million dollars?! You're crazy!"
Carnegie slammed the document hard onto the desk.
"Two new blast furnaces alone are worth two million! Plus the land, the rail lines, and the equipment. The Braddock-Carnegie Steel Works is worth at least ten million dollars! I have a fifty percent stake, and you want to take it all for two million? This is robbery!"
"This is redemption, Mr. Carnegie."
Cavendish stared him down without yielding.
"The factory is worth over ten million, but how much debt is there? Two million in high-interest bank loans, eight hundred thousand owed to suppliers. You also face 1.5 million in breach-of-contract penalties. Your net assets are nearly negative."
Cavendish pointed out the window.
"If I weren't sitting here today with this two-million-dollar check, perhaps by tomorrow morning, Argyle' Legal Department would be here with a sheriff to seal the gates. Then they'd dismantle the blast furnaces to sell as scrap metal. Not only would you not get a cent, but you'd also be saddled with nearly a million in personal debt, rotting in a federal prison."
Carnegie slumped into his chair, his breathing becoming extremely heavy.
He finally understood.
He had been played by Old Morgan.
Perhaps from the beginning, Old Morgan letting him cut prices to steal Felix's customers was a calculation that he would be driven to a dead end by Felix's counterattack.
All of this.
Was for the sake of swallowing up all his hard work at a low price today.
Argyle was an overt butcher, hacking directly with a knife. Old Morgan, however, was an invisible venomous snake, first feeding you poison and then slowly devouring your corpse once the poison took effect.
"You group of vampires..."
Carnegie gritted his teeth, tears welling in his eyes.
He was an extremely proud Scotsman; he already disliked the British, and he could not accept becoming a puppet for them.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have rejected Felix directly back then. Although part of it was for his mentor, most of it was because he didn't want to be a puppet.
"Sign it, Andrew."
Cavendish took out a fountain pen and handed it over.
"Sign it, and these two million dollars in cash will be deposited into your account immediately. You can take this money and go on a vacation to Europe. The steel plant's sign will still bear your name, and you can stay here as the plant manager. Mr. Morgan will pay a handsome annual salary."
Carnegie stared intently at the fountain pen.
His hand slowly reached out and gripped the barrel of the pen.
But he didn't sign the document; instead, he suddenly gave a tragic laugh.
The laughter grew louder and louder, like a madman's.
"Be a plant manager? Work for the British? Bullshit!"
Carnegie snapped the pen in half, ink splattering all over his hand.
"Clive, you go back and tell Old Morgan."
Standing up, Carnegie's eyes held the madness of someone burning their bridges.
"I, Andrew Carnegie, would rather blow up the blast furnaces than ever sign this contract of indenture!"
Losing to Argyle was because he was inferior.
But if Old Morgan wanted to take this chance to swallow his steel plant, he could forget about it!
"If you don't sign, you might be bankrupt tomorrow." Cavendish frowned and stood up.
"Then I'll go find someone who can keep me from going bankrupt!"
Carnegie rushed to the door and pulled it open.
"Get out of my factory!"
Cavendish gave a cold snort.
"Foolish pride. You'll regret this, Carnegie." Cavendish straightened his trench coat and strode out of the office.
The door closed.
Carnegie leaned against the door and slid to the floor, his face a mess of tears and ink stains.
He knew.
In this desperate situation, there was perhaps only one person in all of America whose money could save him.
Only that person had the strength to contend with Old Morgan's black money.
Even if that person was the very one who had driven him into this corner.
"Charlie!" Carnegie roared toward the door.
Charlie came running in a hurry.
"Boss."
"Go to the train station and buy two tickets to New York. For the earliest train!"
Carnegie scrambled up from the floor and wiped his face haphazardly with his sleeve.
"To New York? What are we going there for?" Charlie was puzzled.
"To the Empire State Building." Carnegie gritted his teeth so hard they nearly shattered.
"I'm going to bow my head to Argyle. Even if I sell myself to the devil, I'll make sure these damned Brits lose so much they won't get a cent!"
As the carriage jolted along the potholed dirt roads of Pittsburgh.
The wheels rolled through puddles mixed with coal ash, splashing mud onto the black panels of the carriage.
Clive Cavendish, sitting on the right side of the carriage, took a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the mud from the edges of his leather shoes with an expression of disgust.
After wiping them, he threw the handkerchief directly into the rain through the gap in the carriage window.
Sitting across from him was his trusted assistant, Bates.
Bates clutched his briefcase; due to the violent shaking of the carriage, he had to press his body tightly against the wooden panels.
"Mr. Cavendish."
"I don't understand..."
Bates glanced at the blast furnaces of the Braddock Steel Works receding in the distance outside the window and finally couldn't help but speak.
Cavendish leaned back against the seat, his hands crossed over the silver handle of his cane.
"What is it, Bates? Which of my decisions has you confused?"
"Um... it's about that full acquisition."
Bates lowered his voice, a hint of worry in his tone.
"I remember that in the telegram Mr. Morgan sent from London, he didn't authorize us to directly annex Carnegie's industry. The boss's intention was to let Argyle's Lex Steel continue to squeeze Carnegie in the market. When Carnegie's capital chain completely breaks and he's on the verge of bankruptcy liquidation, we would then intervene in the name of 'debt restructuring' and buy the majority controlling interest."
Bates swallowed hard.
"But today you directly slapped a three-million-dollar buyout agreement on his desk, which is equivalent to driving him to a dead end. This doesn't align with Mr. Morgan's plan."
Cavendish gave a short, cold laugh and looked at his assistant.
"Mr. Morgan's plan? Bates, you must learn to see through the window dressing of those great men."
Cavendish lightly tapped the floor of the carriage with his cane.
"Do you think Mr. Morgan doesn't want to annex the steel mill entirely? No—of course he does. But he is a banker who cherishes his reputation immensely. In the City of London, if an investment bank openly annexes its own client, it would seriously damage our commercial credibility. People would think we're usurers engaging in hostile takeovers. Therefore, Mr. Morgan needs a fig leaf."
"He wants Carnegie to retain a small portion of shares, acting as a 'white knight' who saves a North American enterprise in its hour of need before the public. He wants both the reputation and the control. It's called wanting to eat the meat while still chanting the sutras."
Bates frowned, puzzled.
"Since you know the boss needs a reputation, why tear off the mask so early? If Carnegie leaks our demand for a full acquisition to the newspapers, London will blame you."
"But this is America, Bates."
The arrogance inherent in an English aristocrat's bones seeped from Cavendish's gaze.
"There are no gentlemen on this continent, only man-eating beasts. If we operated according to Mr. Morgan's slow 'debt restructuring,' it would take at least three months. My God... three months? Argyle could chew up Carnegie's bones and swallow them in those three months. By then, what we'd take over would be nothing but a ruin overgrown with weeds."
Cavendish leaned forward.
"Furthermore, what does Carnegie even count for? A Scottish peasant from the bottom of society who came to America as a teenager to be a telegraph boy. Since when do we English need to worry about commercial credibility in front of a crude Scotsman?"
"Giving him three million dollars is already a great mercy. Instead of signing with tears of gratitude, he actually dared to shout at me. This is the inherent baseness of the Scots; they never know how to maintain reverence for their true masters. Oh... and that damn Irishman."
Bates heard the personal prejudice in Cavendish's words.
For centuries, the hostility between the English, the Scots, and the Irish had been etched into the blood of these people.
Even after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, this hierarchy of contempt still existed.
"But Mr. Cavendish..." Bates was still somewhat uneasy.
"Carnegie just said he was going to find someone who could keep him from going bankrupt. In the entire United States, the only person who should have the ability to produce millions of dollars in cash overnight and dare to take over the steel mill's debt is that man."
"If... I mean if Carnegie really manages to move that man, wouldn't what you've done be a bit problematic?"
Bates didn't say the name, but the implication was clear.
Cavendish leaned back against the seat again.
He certainly knew who Bates was talking about, but he immediately shook his head mockingly.
"You mean Argyle, right?"
"Hahaha... Bates, your imagination is too rich. Do you think this is a chivalric novel?"
"Carnegie is an extremely proud man. For the past few years in the steel market, he has been flying the flag of opposition to Argyle's monopoly. He is the United States' number one Vanguard against Lex Steel. His name has long been on the Argyle Family's blacklist."
Cavendish looked out the window, a cold glint in his eyes.
"And Argyle is an even more cold-blooded capitalist who believes in the supremacy of interests and absolute obedience. Carnegie once rejected his recruitment and even collaborated with us behind his back. Do you think Argyle would save an enemy who bit him back?"
"Fine... even if Carnegie really is shameless enough to go to the Empire State Building, I expect Argyle would only have the security guards throw him down the steps. He will watch Carnegie go bankrupt and then, during the court auction, buy those blast furnaces for the price of scrap metal."
Cavendish closed his eyes, ending the topic.
"Alright, don't worry, Bates. Carnegie has no way out, okay? When he runs into trouble in New York and has no other path to take, he will obediently return to Pittsburgh to sign that acquisition agreement. That three-million-dollar check can ultimately only be written by me."
The carriage continued forward through the mud.
Cavendish was deeply convinced of his own judgment.
Because he firmly believed he had seen through the bottom line of human nature in America and the coldness of capital.
However, the only thing he failed to account for was that on this new continent, some people really can chew up their self-respect and bottom lines and swallow them whole.
...
On the other side, the passenger wheels of the Pennsylvania Railroad rolled over the joints of the sleepers, making a rhythmic "clang-clang" sound.
Carnegie sat on a hardwood seat by the window of the carriage, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes stared somewhat vacantly at the withered yellow woods receding rapidly outside the window.
Charlie, the production supervisor, sat across from him, clutching a leather bag tightly. Inside were all the financial statements and land title documents of the steel mill.
"Boss."
Charlie broke the silence.
However, because his voice was drowned out by the roar of the train, he had to raise his volume.
"Are we really going to beg Argyle? You publicly called him a bloodsucker in the newspapers. He couldn't possibly help us, could he?"
Carnegie did not turn his head upon hearing this, continuing to gaze out the window. Only a raspy voice issued from his mouth.
"I know what you mean, Charlie. But I know better than you what kind of man Argyle is."
"That man does not accept negotiations; he only accepts surrender."
Charlie hesitated for a moment before finally voicing the doubt in his heart.
"Boss, actually, I've never been able to figure it out. Old Morgan withdrew his capital, and United Trust Bank went bankrupt. But we aren't truly out of money."
Charlie leaned in a bit closer.
"You still have the Keystone Bridge Company. That company has taken on over a dozen major projects along the Mississippi River in recent years. Those railroad bosses and the City Hall paid in cold, hard cash. There's at least two million dollars in profit sitting on the bridge company's books."
"If... I mean, if it's possible, you could completely transfer the money from the bridge company to fill the holes the steel mill owes to suppliers and banks. That way, you wouldn't need to beg anyone at all, nor would you need to pay any mind to that arrogant Brit. You could reignite the blast furnaces yourself."
Carnegie finally turned his head.
He looked at Charlie, his haggard face revealing a shrewdness and coldness unique to businessmen.
"Charlie, you're a good foreman. But you will never become a qualified capitalist."
Carnegie's voice sounded exceptionally clear amidst the noise of the carriage.
"Do you know why? Because that's not how the accounts are calculated."
Carnegie held up two fingers.
"Why can the bridge company make so much money? Because the bridge company uses low-priced steel produced by our steel mill. The steel mill is selling iron at a loss, while the bridge company takes those low-cost materials to build bridges and earn high profits. This is called 'out of the left pocket, into the right pocket'."
"But the steel mill is a separate legal entity. It carries all the debt, those liquidated damages, and those high coal procurement costs."
Carnegie tapped the wooden frame of the carriage window.
"If I were to take the cash earned by the bridge company now and fill the bottomless pit that is the steel mill, it would be equivalent to taking the real gold and silver earned by a mint and burning it just to hear the crackle."
"The steel mill's production capacity has been squeezed to its limit by Lex Steel. Even if I were to settle the current debts, what about next month? As long as Argyle continues to offer installment loans in the market, I still won't receive any good orders. As soon as those blast furnaces start operating, they are bleeding me dry."
Carnegie's teeth were gritted, a flash of anger in his eyes.
"That old fox, Old Morgan, must have seen this clearly. He knows I won't use the bridge company's money to subsidize a steel mill destined for loss. That's why he dared to send that bastard named Cavendish with a three-million-dollar agreement to humiliate me."
"If he only wanted fifty-one percent of the shares and let me continue to control the company's operations, I might have endured it. After all, the company's survival is what's most important."
Carnegie clenched his fist, feeling somewhat resentful.
"But he actually wants all the shares; he intends to kick me out of the game entirely! He actually dares to treat me like a hired manager who can be kicked aside at any time!"
"Since he wants to swallow it all, then I'll flip the table. Even if I throw this mess to Argyle, I will never let that cunning Brit get his way."
After hearing this analysis of business logic, cold sweat broke out on Charlie's forehead.
He finally understood that in the eyes of these great capitalists, there was no industry that could not be abandoned.
Only the numbers on the ledger were real.
"But Boss, why do you think Argyle would take it over? After all, he could just wait for our bankruptcy liquidation and pick up a bargain at the court, couldn't he?" Charlie asked.
Carnegie leaned back against the hard wooden seat and closed his eyes.
"That is exactly why I am going to the Empire State Building, Charlie. I must prove to him that the company is more valuable to him alive than bankrupt."
Carnegie was thinking about his bargaining chips.
"You must realize that although Lex Steel is powerful, its current production capacity is near saturation. Yet, it has taken on so many railroad reconstruction orders from the South and the West. He needs more blast furnaces. And more importantly, he needs skilled workers who can immediately ignite the fires and produce steel rails."
"If he goes to the court to pick through the scrap, what he gets is a pile of dead iron. But if he takes over the business, what he gets is a machine that can immediately make money for him."
"Furthermore... I can also provide him with something he currently lacks."
Charlie looked at Carnegie curiously.
"What thing?"
"Old Morgan's hidden cards in the European supply chain."
Carnegie opened his eyes, a ruthless glint flashing within them.
"That fellow Cavendish thinks I don't understand shipping, but I know how the Vanderbilt Family brings in that coal and rubber. I also know where their secret warehouses in Philadelphia are. I even know which congressmen in Washington they've bribed to suppress General Electric."
Carnegie gave a cold laugh.
"Since Old Morgan is pushing me this hard, I'll give this intelligence to Argyle as a gesture of sincerity. I will use the Brit's secrets to trade for the company's survival."
The train let out a long whistle as it passed through a pitch-black tunnel.
The carriage flickered between light and shadow.
Carnegie's resolute face appeared exceptionally determined in the shadows.
He knew that this journey to New York would likely be the most humiliating one of his life.
But there was no other way; he had to go on.
His years in business had taught Carnegie that in this predatory era, dignity belonged only to the final winner.
As it happened, the greatest winner in America at the moment was the man who had twice tried to recruit him and repeatedly suppressed him.
...
German Empire, Berlin.
Imperial Chancellor's Residence.
Outside the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the traffic on Unter den Linden flowed incessantly.
Bismarck sat behind his desk, holding two documents that had just been delivered.
One was a public political briefing from Washington, and the other was a top-secret telegram sent from New York by Ludwig Fischer.
As the door was pushed open...
The adjutant placed hot coffee on the desk and then withdrew silently.
Bismarck picked up the coffee cup and blew on the steam. His gaze remained fixed on the decoded telegram.
"This American oligarch's appetite is even larger than those French aristocrats I saw at the Palace of Versailles."
Bismarck took a sip of coffee and muttered to himself in a low voice.
The telegram clearly listed the bottom-line conditions set by Felix: twenty million dollars in physical gold cash, mining rights for two large coal mines, and three thousand acres of permanent industrial land. Furthermore, he refused any joint venture, demanding one hundred percent sole ownership of the European headquarters, and also refused to have core equipment manufactured on German soil.
This was simply excessive!
Bismarck stood up and walked to the map.
Gold worth twenty million dollars.
When converted into German Marks or francs, it was no small sum.
To Bismarck, although the country had received an indemnity of five billion francs from the French...
...this money had already been pre-allocated by the German Empire's Department of the Army, Navy Department, and various Junker nobles.
If he were to forcibly allocate twenty million dollars from the treasury to purchase a patent license from an American businessman, the opposition in the Imperial Diet would surely jump out and accuse him of betraying national interests.
"It seems twenty million is impossible."
Bismarck's finger tapped heavily on the map.
"The treasury's funds must prioritize the expansion of Krupp's armaments factories; we can only give him ten million dollars in cash at most. The mining rights can be converted into a twenty-million-dollar quota for him. This is the absolute bottom line the Empire can offer."
He turned around and walked back to his desk.
The issue of money could still be negotiated.
What truly dissatisfied Bismarck was Felix's blockade of core technology.
One hundred percent sole ownership, with core components relying entirely on imports.
How was that any different from the military factories they had collaborated with before?
This was equivalent to tethering the industrial nerves of the German Empire entirely to those few transatlantic shipping routes.
Once a conflict of interest occurred between Germany and America in the future, the Americans would only need to cut off the supply of parts, and Berlin's power grid would immediately be paralyzed.
"Not giving shares is fine; I can disregard the ownership of capital," Bismarck said, looking at the words on the telegram.
"But knowledge and technology must remain on this land."
Bismarck picked up the fountain pen on the desk and began drafting instructions to Fischer on a blank sheet of stationery.
He was a thorough realist and did not view Argyle' patent barriers as an insurmountable chasm.
"Tell Argyle he can establish a wholly-owned company," Bismarck wrote rapidly on the paper.
"However, as a prerequisite for enjoying tax exemptions and land privileges within the German Empire, he must establish a joint research center in Berlin."
"This research center must be open to professors of physics and mechanics from the Berlin Institute of Technology. Our scientists have the right to participate in the research and improvement of their peripheral equipment."
Having written this, Bismarck paused his pen, a cold smile filled with an 'iron and blood' sentiment curling at the corner of his mouth.
Patents?
In the Europe of 1871...
...international intellectual property protection was essentially a scrap of waste paper.
The British Empire was stealing mechanical designs from the European continent every day, and Prussian armaments factories also frequently copied the French's artillery gas checks.
As long as General Electric's equipment entered Germany...
...as long as those telephone exchanges were installed in Berlin's post offices...
...if there were truly a need, Bismarck would not require Argyle' consent at all.
He would immediately order the Imperial Ordnance Department and several top-tier machinery plants to dismantle all that equipment into parts.
Even if the processing precision of the core components was insufficient, German craftsmen would spend two or three years using magnifying glasses to measure them and would definitely be able to reverse-engineer them.
If Argyle were to protest with a patent certificate from Washington, Bismarck would only throw that piece of paper into the wastebasket.
The sovereign laws of the German Empire would never protect a foreign businessman's technological monopoly on its own territory.
By the time German factories could produce that equipment themselves, Argyle' so-called European headquarters would become a hollowed-out shell.
"Lure him in first. Once the machines are on the ground, the remaining rules will be determined by German guns and cannons."
Bismarck swallowed this unspoken subtext and did not write it down.
He only wrote the superficial condition requiring the establishment of a joint research center.
After finishing, Bismarck folded the stationery and placed it in an envelope.
Just as he was about to press the call bell on his desk...
...the office door was suddenly pushed open without a polite knock.
This made Bismarck frown.
In the Chancellor's residence, there was likely only one person who dared to enter without knocking.
The head of the Imperial Military Intelligence Bureau, Wilhelm Stieber.
Stieber wore an ordinary black overcoat and held an unmarked gray folder. His expression was extremely serious, even carrying a rare trace of fluster.
"Your Excellency the Chancellor."
Stieber walked quickly to the desk, ignoring Bismarck's displeasure.
"Apologies for barging in, but I must report to you immediately."
"What happened, Stieber?"
Bismarck put down the bell in his hand.
Stieber placed the gray folder on the desk.
"Our inside source in Washington just sent back the latest political developments through a diplomatic pouch," Stieber lowered his voice.
"Excellency, the intelligence regarding President Grant's preparation to launch an antitrust investigation against Felix Argyle is now outdated."
Bismarck's movements froze.
"Outdated? What do you mean?"
Stieber flipped open the folder.
"Just two days ago, Argyle took a special train to Washington. In the Oval Office of The White House, he held a secret three-hour talk with President Grant. The specific details of the conversation are strictly classified."
"But after the talk ended, President Grant immediately ordered the destruction of the draft antitrust report prepared by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, the current Secretary of the Treasury, George Boutwell, announced his resignation that same afternoon. The British United Trust Bank had its treasury support cut off and has already filed for bankruptcy in New York."
Stieber looked at Bismarck, his words sounding somewhat strained.
"Excellency, according to reliable news from Capitol Hill, not only was Argyle not broken up, but he is about to reach an extremely deep binding agreement with the U.S. government. I heard that the U.S. Department of the Treasury is about to provide funding to jointly establish a massive Civil Service Retirement Fund. This fund will directly hold a large amount of special shares in General Electric and the Telephone Company."
Bismarck's eyes widened, staring fixedly at Stieber.
That face, which usually remained unmoved even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, finally showed a change.
"Persuaded the President so quickly... and even made the United States treasury his shareholder?"
Bismarck's voice was dry, filled with disbelief.
"Yes, Excellency." Stieber closed the folder.
"The Argyle Family has now completely become a national-level monopoly oligarchy in America, their political interests almost fused as one with Washington's. It currently seems that no external force can shake his position in North America anymore."
Bismarck Silence.
He looked at the instruction letter on the desk that he had just written, intended for bargaining with Felix.
He suddenly realized that his calculations had come to naught.
He had originally thought Felix was a stray dog with nowhere to go, needing Germany's protection. That was why he dared to suppress the price and demand the opening of a research center.
But now the situation had completely changed.
Argyle had not only not fallen in America, but his power had been further strengthened.
Which meant he didn't need a European safe haven at all?
Those harsh conditions on the telegram weren't an ask; they were a notice delivered to the German Empire.
"Excellency." Stieber looked at the silent Bismarck.
"Should I still send that counter-offering instruction to Fischer?"
Bismarck did not speak immediately.
He picked up the letter, walked to the fireplace, and threw it directly into the burning flames.
Bismarck watched the envelope turn to ash, his voice regaining that iron-blooded decisiveness.
"Tell Fischer that we can agree to both the twenty million in cash and the mining rights. However, we hope that a research center can be established in Germany."
Bismarck turned around.
"Since he is already bound to the United States government, we must buy his power grid for Berlin at any cost. If he leans toward London, Germany's industry will truly fall behind."