St. Jude Orphanage in Lower Manhattan.
This red-brick building, erected on the edge of the slums, appeared exceptionally dilapidated under the ravages of the blizzard.
The gaps in the windows were stuffed with old newspapers, but they still could not stop the piercing cold wind from pouring into the room.
Mrs. Higgins, the director of the orphanage who had been working here for five years, was wrapped in a faded gray shawl, standing in the hall and counting the few remaining bags of oats.
"God bless. The coal is only enough to burn for three days, and the flour is running out."
Mrs. Higgins looked at the eight-year-old boy wearing thin clothes and shivering in the corner of the wall, and sighed with heartache.
"Tommy, come over here, go to the side of the stove in the kitchen. It can be a little warmer there."
The boy named Tommy sniffed his red, frozen nose and obediently ran into the kitchen.
In New York, orphanages like this were countless.
The government's meager subsidy simply could not support these children through the severe winter.
Every winter, children would close their eyes forever due to pneumonia and hunger.
Just as Mrs. Higgins was calculating which neighborhood she should go to for donations tomorrow, the heavy oak door of the orphanage was suddenly pounded hard from the outside.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Accompanied by the howling wind and snow, a rough man's voice came from outside the door.
"Is anyone there? This is the transport fleet of the Argyle Charitable Foundation!"
Mrs. Higgins did not understand; the Argyle Foundation? She certainly knew the name.
The poor all over New York knew it.
But usually the foundation's winter supplies were only delivered after Christmas, why was it ahead of schedule this year?
She hurried over and pulled open the door with difficulty.
Outside the door, two large four-wheeled wagons pulled by strong draft horses were parked.
On the black waterproof tarp of the truck, a prominent shield emblem of a bald eagle grasping ears of rice and lightning was printed.
That was the symbol of the Argyle Family.
A man wearing a thick woolen coat and leather gloves was standing on the steps, his beard covered in snowflakes.
"Hello, madam. I am Arthur, the transport foreman of the Argyle Food Company."
The man took off his hat and greeted politely.
"This damned weather is killing us. Our boss gave the order to deliver special Christmas supplies to the children."
"Good God ~ Please come in, Mr. Arthur."
Mrs. Higgins hurriedly stepped aside.
Arthur did not enter the house, but instead turned around and waved to several workers on the truck who were also wearing thick uniforms.
"Guys, move quickly! Move those ten wooden boxes and five iron cans inside, be careful, do not break them!"
Several strong men immediately went into action.
When those boxes exuding the fragrance of fresh pine wood were moved into the hall, almost all the orphans hiding in the rooms poked their heads out, curiously staring at these strangers.
"Mr. Arthur, this... what is this? Did you deliver to the wrong place?"
Mrs. Higgins looked at the quantity on the receipt, somewhat unable to believe her eyes.
"The oats and potatoes are in the warehouse in the block ahead."
"There is no mistake, madam. The oats and potatoes will be delivered by another fleet tomorrow."
A proud smile appeared on Arthur's rough face.
"This is high-end merchandise newly produced by our Argyle Food Company. The big boss, Mr. Argyle, personally gave the order, and every orphanage in New York has a share."
Arthur walked up to the wooden box, took out a crowbar from his pocket, and skillfully pried open the top wooden board.
In an instant, a faint sweet scent mixed with roasted wheat and cream began to permeate the hall.
Mrs. Higgins and the children who sneaked closer all widened their eyes.
Cylindrical objects wrapped in moisture-proof oiled paper were neatly stacked in the box.
Arthur opened one of the packages, took out a piece and handed it to Tommy, who had just poked his head out of the kitchen.
"Take it, little guy. Taste this."
Tommy timidly took the coin-sized thing.
They were two slices of golden-brown and crispy biscuits, with a thick layer of snow-white sweet frosting sandwiched in the middle.
He took a cautious bite.
"Crunch."
The crispy biscuits shattered in his mouth, and then, the filling whipped from top-grade Cuba cane sugar and high-purity cream suddenly melted on the tip of his tongue.
That sweetness rushing straight to the head and the rich grease feeling were a luxury that this orphan growing up in the slums had never experienced in his life.
Tommy's eyes lit up instantly, he could not even bear to chew, just holding it in his mouth, tears fell down for some reason.
"This... is this sugar?"
Mrs. Higgins looked at the contents of the box in shock. In this era, even middle-class families could only buy their children a few pieces of rough maltose during holidays.
This kind of finely processed sandwich biscuit was simply an unbelievable luxury.
"This is called a sandwich biscuit, madam."
Arthur looked at the children's eager eyes and explained with a smile.
"Do not feel bad, let the children eat as much as they want. In our factory in Brooklyn, there are two whole rows of the newest steam tablet presses. Once those machines rumble, they can produce tens of thousands of such biscuits a day. The boss said, this Christmas, he wants to fill these children's bellies with sugar."
Arthur patted the snowflakes off his body and turned to look at Mrs. Higgins.
"Actually, madam, not just the children. Because of the Argyle Family, the lives of us ordinary workers have also changed."
A trace of emotion was in Arthur's tone.
"Two years ago, I was still a coolie on the docks, fighting the Irish gangs every day for dozens of cents of wages. But now, I am the foreman of the food factory. Not only is there heating in the factory, monthly salaries are paid on time, and there are double wages during holidays. Last Sunday, I even bought a whole piece of steak for my wife."
Arthur pointed to the carriage outside the door printed with the family emblem.
"In New York, those businessmen all say that Mr. Argyle is a man-eating capitalist. But in the eyes of us workers who eat the bread he distributes and live in the low-rent housing he builds, he is much more realistic than those politicians full of righteousness."
Mrs. Higgins was silent.
She could not understand financial games, but she could truly see that the originally cold and despairing orphanage was once again filled with children's laughter because of these aromatic biscuits.
"God bless, thank Mr. Argyle for me, Mr. Arthur."
Mrs. Higgins tightly held the cross in front of her chest.
"I will, madam, Merry Christmas."
Arthur put his hat back on and turned to walk into the wind and snow.
The truck restarted, and the wheels crushed the thick snow, making a creaking sound.
Arthur sat in the front seat of the carriage and wrapped his coat tightly.
When the carriage drove past several street intersections in Manhattan, Arthur keenly noticed that City Hall workers were erecting tall wooden poles in the wind and snow.
The tops of the wooden poles were connected to thick black cables, which looked like a giant web being woven, extending towards the direction of No. 1 Wall Street.
"That is the power line, right?" the driver next to him asked curiously.
"It should be." Arthur shook his head.
"I heard it is some kind of machine that can make sound run faster than a train, and also the electric lights whose coverage is getting larger and larger recently, lighting up the street at night like day. It is said that it seems to be done by a company under Mr. Argyle."
Arthur looked at the skyscraper looming in the wind and snow, a surge of inexplicable expectation welling up in his heart.
As the street lamps gradually replaced gas lamps by the roadside.
He vaguely felt.
New York and even the entire America would soon welcome huge changes once again.
Midtown Manhattan, Dr. Benjamin Carter's private clinic.
The air in the clinic was filled with a slightly pungent yet inexplicably comforting scent.
This was a brand-new disinfectant, high-purity carbolic acid, an improved product just launched on the market last month by Argyle Pharmaceutical Company.
Dr. Carter was wearing a faded linen robe, standing in front of an enamel porcelain tray, carefully wiping a scalpel with tweezers holding snow-white medical absorbent cotton.
In the medical community, the concept of "bacteria" was only just beginning to be accepted by a few avant-garde doctors.
The sanitary conditions in most clinics remained worrying.
But ever since Argyle Pharmaceutical Company began utilizing its monopolistic advantage in the chemical field to mass-produce this purified carbolic acid solution and standardized absorbent cotton, the postoperative infection rate in many private clinics in New York had been dropping at an astonishing speed.
"Dr. Carter, the lumber mill in the lower city sent over a wounded man. His arm was scratched by a saw blade, and he bled a lot."
The nurse hurriedly pushed open the door with an anxious expression.
"Let him in immediately, and prepare sutures and tourniquets."
Dr. Carter did not panic at all.
He quickly turned around and took out a sealed kraft paper bag from the glass cabinet next to him. Tearing open the paper bag, inside was a roll of white bandages strictly sterilized by high-temperature steam.
In the past, such bandages required doctors to buy coarse cloth from the market themselves and then boil it in boiling water, which was both time-consuming and unsafe.
But now, Argyle Pharmaceutical Company had turned all of this into standardized, ready-to-use assembly-line products.
The price was not expensive either; even the stingy lumber mill owner was willing to pay this medical expense for the workers.
In just fifteen minutes, Dr. Carter skillfully treated the wound.
"Thank God, Dr. Carter. If it were last year, this hand probably wouldn't have been saved."
The injured worker was pale, but his eyes were filled with the relief of surviving a disaster.
"You shouldn't thank God, man. You should thank the scientists who researched these good things in the laboratory and the mass-producing Argyle Family."
Dr. Carter threw the blood-stained gauze into the waste bin and took off the rubber gloves.
"Alright, go back and get some rest, and don't let the wound touch water."
After seeing the patient off, Dr. Carter walked to the window and pushed it open a crack. The cold wind blew in, making his weary brain a bit clearer.
Looking at the Universal Department Store across the street, which also bore the logo of the Argyle Family, he could not help feeling a myriad of emotions.
In just a few short years, from daily food to life-saving medicines, that man's name had seeped into the blood of every ordinary person in this city.
And this permeation occurred not only in everyday grassroots life, but also within those buildings where self-proclaimed elites gathered.
"Clack, clack, clack..."
The continuous, crisp metallic clatter, sounding like machine-gun fire, echoed throughout this huge office of over three hundred square meters.
Clara Jenkins sat in front of an oak desk with her spine straight. Her fingers were jumping at an extremely fast speed on a heavy and complex metal machine.
This was the Typewriter improved by a collection of R&D personnel after General Electric merged with Standard Commercial Company.
Although its keyboard layout was still slightly rigid and required a bit of force to strike the keys, for the Argyle Family, who needed to process massive amounts of commercial documents, the appearance of this machine was much better than previous Typewriters.
Clara's gaze was fixed intently on the handwritten financial statement beside her, and her fingers did not stop for a single moment.
Accompanied by a crisp "ding" sound, she skillfully pulled the carriage return lever, pushed the paper roll back to its original position, and began typing the next line.
In Umbrella Pharmaceutical Company, there were a full fifty female typists specially trained like Clara.
This was simply a spectacle in present-day New York.
Because in the past, women's choices in the workplace were extremely limited; they either went to factories to become textile workers or went to rich people's homes to work as maids.
But Felix and Catherine broke this rule.
Previously, he had keenly discovered that when women handled such mechanical typing work requiring patience and precision, their efficiency far surpassed that of clumsy male clerks.
Therefore, Catherine offered these female typists salaries that made all men envious.
This not only allowed ordinary girls like Clara to obtain a decent and respected job, but also gradually made her the financial pillar of her family.
"Jenkins."
A supervisor walked over briskly and placed a document stamped with a red urgent seal on Clara's desk.
"There is an error in the inventory data from the pharmaceutical department, which needs to be verified immediately. You don't need to type; use that directly to confirm with them."
The supervisor pointed to a strange wooden box in the corner of the desk.
Clara nodded and took a deep breath.
Connected to that wooden box was a thick copper wire wrapped in insulating rubber, and the other end was a funnel-shaped receiver.
This was a technology that had just been laid inside the company not long ago, and it was also a wired telephone produced earlier by the New York Telephone Company.
Through the central switchboard of the Telephone Company, it could be connected to the other side of the city.
Clara picked up the receiver and held it against her ear, while her other hand vigorously cranked the handle on the side of the box a few times.
"Hiss, hiss, hiss... Please connect me to the Fourth Warehouse of Umbrella Pharmaceutical Company."
Then a harsh static noise came from the receiver, and soon after the switchboard received it, a slightly distorted male voice came from inside.
"This is the Fourth Warehouse of Umbrella, please speak."
"This is the Information Center, Jenkins."
Clara spoke loudly into the funnel-shaped mouthpiece, trying to drown out the noise.
"Regarding the batch of carbolic acid sent to Boston yesterday, your report undercounted by one hundred boxes. The supervisor requests that you verify the out-bound manifest immediately!"
"Received, we will transmit the exact data back to you in ten minutes!"
Hanging up the phone, Clara let out a long breath.
Looking at this magical machine on the desk, a strong sense of pride surged in her heart.
In this room, they mastered the most advanced communication and recording tools in all of America.
"Off work, girls!"
The supervisor glanced at the wall clock and announced loudly.
Clara packed up her things and put on her thick overcoat. When she walked out of the revolving glass door of the building and stepped into the snowy evening, struck by the scene before her.
Not only her, but pedestrians all along Wall Street stopped in their tracks, tilting their heads back and staring blankly at the sky.
On a winter evening that should have plunged into darkness, the top of the building and several major street corners around it suddenly burst forth with extremely dazzling, daylight-like intense light.
That was not the dim and flickering flame of a gas lamp, but a stable, pure, and technologically advanced strong light.
That was the light emitted by the arc lamps.
After winning the municipal power grid bidding in Washington D.C., General Electric Company did not stop its ambition in new technology.
Under Felix's instigation, using the power plant's generator sets, several newly improved carbon-arc lamps were installed on the periphery of the building and at the crossroads of Wall Street.
Although this electric light was still accompanied by a slight hiss and the light was slightly dazzling, to 19th-century New Yorkers who were accustomed to fumbling in soot and dimness, it was simply another miracle descended to earth, just like the streetlights lit in the upper-class neighborhood uptown last year.
Felix's bold statement in Washington that most of New York City would enter the electrical age was also completely realized on this Christmas Eve with the freedom of streetlights on most streets.
Thomas Miller tightly held his wife Sarah's hand and stood in the crowd with his two children.
As a maintenance worker for General Electric Company's generator sets, Thomas knew better than anyone how these lights were generated.
But he still couldn't help his inner excitement.
"Look, Sarah, look at the lights up there. That is something only rich families could afford before."
Thomas pointed to the clusters of brilliance like small suns high up on the building, his voice carrying undisguised pride.
"It is also the light emitted by us burning coal in the basement and guarding those huge machines running day and night. The boss is right, we are lighting up this city."
Sarah wrapped her child's scarf a little tighter, raised her head to look at the lights, tears glittering in her eyes.
"Thomas, this is simply incredible. This light is frighteningly bright, it's much brighter than a kerosene lamp, and yet I feel it's warmer."
"Don't be afraid, my dear. This light is the bread on our dining table, the clothes on our bodies that resist the cold wind."
Thomas forcefully squeezed his wife's hand.
Before joining the Argyle Family's company, Thomas's family was squeezed into a windowless basement in Five Points.
At that time, winter was like a death warrant to them.
But now, they moved into the red-brick apartments built by the company in Brooklyn. The apartment had clean running water and an independent fireplace where coal could be burned.
"Let's go, it's too cold outside. Let's go to the store opposite to buy a roast goose, tonight we are going to have a real Christmas."
Thomas picked up his youngest son and strode towards the street illuminated by the electric light.
On this snowy evening, the entire New York seemed to be split into two worlds.
On one side were those corners struggling in darkness and cold, tightly bitten by the old era.
On the other, it was a future metropolis enveloped by the industrial system of the Argyle Family, illuminated by electric light, and filled with the roaring sounds of machines.
And countless ordinary people like Thomas, like Clara, like Arthur, were unconsciously completely assimilated by this huge capital empire, becoming its most steadfast supporters.
All of this was the defense constructed by Felix.
He didn't need to rely on political speeches to win over people's hearts; instead, with bread, medicine, work, and light, he bound hundreds of thousands of people and the Argyle Family together.
As long as he was still standing, these people would bite for him any enemy who dared to challenge this empire.
At this time, at Argyle Manor on Long Island.
That warmth and tranquility belonging to the family was finally broken after all.
The fire in the fireplace was still burning.
Catherine had already taken the two children to the bedroom on the second floor to rest.
Felix sat alone on the sofa in the living room, holding a freshly lit Cuba cigar in his hand.
Standing in the shadow opposite was Edward Frost, who had just rushed over in the heavy snow.
Frost's coat was covered with snow, and he didn't even have time to take off his coat before handing the envelope sealed with red sealing wax in front of Felix.
"Boss, I'm sorry to disturb your Christmas Eve. But this telegram was just encrypted and transmitted back to headquarters from San Francisco. Mark thinks it must be handed to you immediately."
Frost's tone was extremely solemn, even carrying rare anxiety.
Felix took the envelope, and his slender fingers neatly tore open the sealing wax to pull out the telegram paper inside.
There were not many words on the telegram, only a few lines.
But when Felix's gaze swept over those letters, the gentle aura originally on his body instantly dissipated without a trace, replaced by suffocating violence and iciness.
The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped by several degrees with the change of his eyes.
"The dockworkers' union of the San Francisco port suddenly launched a comprehensive strike, refusing to load and unload all goods printed with the Metropolitan Trading Company logo."
Felix looked at the telegram, his voice low as if talking to himself, yet clearly reaching Frost's ears.
"Yes, boss. Not only that."
Frost swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
"Several major water stations of the Union Pacific Railroad in Nevada were attacked by unidentified armed personnel last night, and the water supply facilities were blown up. Three freight trains full of eastern supplies ready to be sent to the West Coast were forced to stop in the wilderness. The West Coast logistics network is facing the danger of paralysis."
Felix sneered and threw the telegram paper into the nearby fireplace. The flames instantly devoured the paper, turning it into black ashes.
"Striking, blowing up railways. The means are so crude yet so fatal. This is not ordinary business competition; this is someone cutting our blood vessels."
Felix stood up and walked to the window.
The wind and snow still raged, but his pitch-black eyes seemed to pierce through this blizzard and see the other end spanning the entire North American continent.
"It seems that Barings Bank couldn't wait for our ships in the Far East and finally couldn't help stretching its hands into our backyard in the Pacific Ocean?"
Felix took a deep drag of his cigar, exhaling a thick blue-white smoke.
"According to the preliminary analysis of the Intelligence Department, this is manipulated by a huge anonymous fund behind the scenes." Frost reported.
"The other party knows the underground rules of the West Coast very well. They spent heavily to bribe Italian gangs, instigated strikes, and may have even hired western outlaws to deal with our railway."
"On America's land, actually wanting to use money and violence to challenge the Argyle Family..."
Felix turned around, the corners of his mouth curling into a cruel arc.
"Frost, send the highest-level red command to San Francisco."
Felix's eyes burned with a killing intent even more intense than the fire in the fireplace.
"Since they want to play by the West Coast's rules, we will play with them to the end. Notify the private security forces stationed in Nevada to board the train fully armed. For any saboteurs who dare to approach the railway facilities, shoot to kill directly without warning."
Felix walked up to Frost and patted his shoulder covered in snow.
"And that ghost scattering money behind the scenes. Tell San Francisco's intelligence network that I want to know which bank those funds flowed out of. Once it is found out who the agent is..."
Felix's voice echoed in the spacious living room, carrying an unquestionable aura of death.
"Chop off his head, put it in a wooden box, and mail it by express train to Barings Bank in London. This is the Christmas gift from the Argyle Family to the lords of the British Empire!"
Time turned back one week.
At the San Francisco port, a steam passenger ship arriving from the Isthmus of Panama slowly docked amidst the piercing sound of its steam whistle.
Nathaniel Cobb carried a heavy leather suitcase and walked down the deck along the swaying wooden gangway.
The air here was mixed with the stench of dead fish, the saltiness of seaweed, and the black smoke emitted from inferior coal.
Cobb lowered the brim of his felt hat, his falcon-like eyes swiftly sweeping across the busy crowd on the dock.
Several giant ocean-going freighters belonging to the Metropolitan Trading Company were docked at deep-water berths, and the crane's booms, like the arms of a steel giant, loaded boxes of cargo stamped with the Argyle Family emblem into the huge cargo holds.
On the dock, hundreds of thousands of laborers shuttled back and forth like ants.
"What a tireless money-printing machine. No wonder those lords in London can't sit still." Cobb sneered.
Without lingering too much at the dock, he directly called a carriage to head toward the beach area in southern San Francisco.
That place was a gathering place for Italian immigrants and bottom-tier gangs, as well as the most chaotic and dirtiest ulcer of this city.
The carriage stopped in front of a tavern named "Broken Anchor".
Cobb pushed open the greasy spring door, and a smell mixed with vomit and cheap beer hit him head-on.
The lighting in the tavern was dim, and a few fierce-looking dockworkers were loudly cursing over a few cents of billiard bets.
Cobb walked straight to the bar and dropped a silver coin.
"Pour me something that can burn through the throat. Then go tell Garrick that the God of Wealth who brings good luck has arrived."
The bartender raised his head, glanced at Cobb with his blinded left eye, silently put away the silver coin, poured a glass of cloudy whiskey, and then turned and walked into the secret door at the back of the tavern.
Before long, the secret door was pushed open.
A man as burly as a brown bear and with a thick beard walked out.
He was Garrick, the leader of the Italian dock union in San Francisco and the local tyrant controlling the underground order of this neighborhood.
Garrick strode up to Cobb, pulled out a chair, and sat down heavily, rattling the wine glasses on the table.
"I heard from the guys that a fellow dressed like a Wall Street vampire is looking for me."
Garrick tapped on the table with his thick fingers.
"I don't know you, stranger. The beach area doesn't welcome outsiders, especially you outsiders who look full of bad intentions."
Cobb leisurely took a sip of whiskey and put down the wine glass.
"Mr. Garrick, in this world, there are only two things that can make Italians shut up and listen carefully. The first is bullets, and the second is real gold and silver. But I didn't bring a gun today."
Cobb placed the heavy leather suitcase on the table and unfastened the clasp.
"Click."
The suitcase was opened by a crack.
Inside were neatly stacked piles of bearer promissory notes issued by Wells Fargo, as well as a dozen gold bars exuding an alluring luster.
Garrick's eyes instantly widened, his breathing grew heavy, and he instinctively wanted to reach out and touch them.
"Bang!"
Cobb slammed the suitcase shut, blocking Garrick's hand outside.
"This is just a welcome gift. As long as you do as I say, the money afterwards will pour into your pocket endlessly like the water of the Pacific Ocean."
Cobb leaned against the back of the chair, his gaze icy.
Garrick swallowed a mouthful of saliva, forcing himself to move his gaze away from the suitcase.
"Speak, what do you actually want? Murder? Or burn down a warehouse? As long as the price is right, there's nothing our brothers can't do in San Francisco."
"I want you to bring the entire port to a standstill."
Cobb said word by word.
Garrick was stunned, and then burst into crude laughter.
"Guy, are your brains broken? Bring the port to a standstill? Do you know who is managing the port now? It's the Metropolitan Trading Company! It's the Argyle Family! Not only are those guys rich, but they also have a group of fearless private armed forces under them. The mayor has to bow and scrape when he sees their local manager. You want me to provoke them? The money in your suitcase isn't enough to buy the lives of my subordinate brothers!"
"Garrick, put away your tricks." Cobb looked at him coldly.
"I did some research before coming. Your Italian union hasn't been having an easy time lately, right?"
Garrick's laughter stopped abruptly, and his expression turned gloomy.
"To compress transportation costs on the West Coast, the Argyle Family is hiring a large number of those Irish, as well as the laborers previously transported from the Qing Empire."
Cobb leaned forward, his voice filled with bewitching seduction.
"Those Chinese workers and the Irish eat little, work much, and don't even need rest days. The Metropolitan Trading Company has contracted most of the loading and unloading business on the dock to them. Your Italians' rice bowls are being smashed piece by piece. Do you plan to watch your brothers starve to death in the winter?"
This sentence precisely struck Garrick's weak spot, and the resentment in the entire beach area had accumulated to the extreme.
"That Argyle is a son-of-a-bitch vampire!" Garrick cursed gritting his teeth.
"He'd rather pay wages to those yellow-skinned monkeys dragging queues and his potato-eating compatriots than hire us true American citizens. We've long wanted to teach that company a lesson!"
"Wow~ Isn't that it then." Cobb patted the suitcase.
"I represent some big shots in the East, and they are also very dissatisfied with the expansion of the Argyle Family. We provide the funds, you provide the anger. A perfect deal."
"What do you want to do?"
Garrick lowered his voice, his eyes flashing with greed and ferocity.
"Tomorrow morning, I want you to declare a general strike in the name of the union. The reason is to protest the unfair employment policies of the Metropolitan Trading Company." Cobb issued the order.
"Not only stop work yourselves, but also take people to blockade the piers. Anyone who dares to go unload cargo for the Argyle Family, whether Irish or Chinese workers, just break their legs as soon as they approach the gangplank."
Garrick hesitated for a moment.
"With such a big commotion, the police will definitely intervene. The Argyle Family has spent a lot of money at City Hall. And they have a lot of people..."
"If the police come to make arrests, you just let them arrest people. For every brother locked up, I will issue a subsidy of ten dollars a day to their families. I'll cover all the bail money. Only having people... If having people were useful, then what use would weapons be."
Cobb opened the suitcase again, pushing the gold coins in front of Garrick.
"As long as Argyle' ocean-going freighter is made to idle in the port for one more day, his loss will be tens of thousands of dollars. By comparison, what is this bit of hush money? I want his cargo to pile up like mountains on the dock and rot in the warehouse!"
Garrick looked at those gold coins, and the balance in his heart finally tilted completely.
"Deal!"
Garrick swept the gold coins into his pocket in one motion.
"When the sun rises tomorrow, I guarantee that not even a single wooden box can be shipped out of the San Francisco port!"
...
That night, in a cheap apartment in the beach area.
A young dockworker named O'Reilly was sitting on a dilapidated bed, mending his canvas gloves by the dim candlelight.
He hadn't received any work for three consecutive days.
The foremen on the dock were more willing to hire Irish and those Chinese workers whose asking price was only half of his.
His wife Mary walked in carrying a bowl of thin potato soup.
"O'Reilly, Garrick next door sent word that the union is holding an emergency meeting tonight. All the brothers must go." Mary's tone carried worry.
O'Reilly put down his gloves, took the potato soup, and drank it down in big gulps.
"It must be about work. If this goes on, we won't even be able to afford the rent." O'Reilly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I'll go take a look. Although Garrick is a bastard, he never makes people run errands for nothing."
Half an hour later, O'Reilly squeezed among hundreds of angry dockworkers, listening to Garrick giving a hoarse and frantic speech on the stage.
"Brothers, those damned capitalists threw our rice bowls to others! We shed blood and sweat on the dock, yet we can't get a piece of black bread in return! Tomorrow, we are going to let those high and mighty lords see our power. Without a wage increase, without dismissing those cheap laborers, the entire port won't even think about operating!"
Deafening shouts erupted from off the stage.
O'Reilly also waved his fists along, which was the primitive anger forced out by poverty and hunger.
Amidst the fanatical commotion of the workers, no one noticed that Nathaniel Cobb, standing in the shadows of the second floor, was coldly watching all this.
A mocking smile curled at the corners of his mouth.
On the chessboard of capital, these angry workers were nothing more than the cheapest consumables.
As long as that mysterious money order from Canada could be continuously cashed, he could use the flesh and blood of these people to forge an iron wall on the West Coast that would block the throat of the Argyle Family.
Tomorrow, the good show is about to begin.
The morning mist had yet to disperse, and the San Francisco port had already plunged into unprecedented chaos.
Hundreds of Italian dockworkers waving iron rods, wooden sticks, and union flags surged like a tide toward the deep-water dock area exclusively belonging to the Metropolitan Trading Company.
They blocked all access routes to the pier with heavy cargo wagons and barrels filled with stones.
Two Argyle Family cargo ships that had just docked and were fully loaded with machinery equipment destined for the Qing Empire were forced to drop anchor in the anchorage and could not approach the unloading area.
"Get back! There is no need for cheap scabs here!"
"Get Argyle's men out of here, give us our jobs back!"
Angry roars echoed across the sea.
A dozen porters who tried to sneakily go to work were dragged out by the crowd, pressed into the muddy water, and beaten ruthlessly, their screams making one's hair stand on end.
David Caldwell, the supervisor of the port area, stood in the second-floor office, looking through the glass window at the out-of-control situation below, sweating profusely from anxiety.
David was a young member of management promoted by the Argyle Family on the West Coast after O'Neill's promotion, and his handling of affairs had always been known for being swift and decisive.
But this was the first time he had encountered such a spectacle.
"Where are the people from City Hall? Where are the people from the police station?!" David shouted loudly at the assistant behind him.
"We pay them so much in security fees every year, and now that the docks are blocked by a mob, can't they even show their faces?"
The assistant turned pale and stammered in reply.
"Mr. Supervisor, I sent someone to the police station half an hour ago. But the sheriff said there were a bit too many people participating in the strike, and everyone in the beach area had turned out. Their meager police force didn't dare to approach at all, fearing it would trigger a large-scale bloody riot. Word also came from the mayor's side, asking us to negotiate and reconcile with the union as much as possible."
"Negotiate? Negotiate with a bunch of Italian thugs who don't even know how to read?"
David laughed out of extreme anger and slammed his fist against the window frame.
"This is not a simple labor dispute at all; they are systematically blockading our shipping lanes. Those two ships are loaded with steam machine tools scheduled to be delivered to the Far East at the end of the month, and if the shipping schedule is delayed, there will be trouble!"
David forced himself to calm down, pacing quickly in the office.
"Go, notify the security team. Issue guns to them. If there are no police, we will clear the passage ourselves."
"Sir, this is too dangerous." The assistant tried to dissuade him.
"If we really shoot and kill people, the Italian union will definitely use the opportunity to blow things out of proportion. By then, newspapers across all of California will accuse us of massacring workers."
"We can't care about that much anymore! The boss's order is to ensure the shipping lanes are clear, and I will bear all other consequences!" David clenched his teeth and issued a strict order.
Just as the security team of the Metropolitan Trading Company loaded their bullets and prepared to forcefully disperse the striking crowd, on a bustling street not far from the port, another bloodless strangulation was taking place.
Pacific Shipping Federation, a medium-sized shipping enterprise of considerable scale locally in San Francisco.
They had a dozen shallow-draft paddle steamers under their command, specifically responsible for gathering coastal and inland river supplies to San Francisco, which were then taken over by large companies' oceangoing freighters.
The owner of this company was named Samuel Higgins, a shrewd yet cowardly merchant.
At this moment, Higgins was sitting in his comfortable office, looking in terror at Nathaniel Cobb sitting opposite him.
Cobb was toying with a silver revolver in his hand, the muzzle pointing intentionally or unintentionally at Higgins.
On the table lay a thick equity transfer agreement, as well as a huge cash check stamped with the vault seal of Wells Fargo.
"Mr. Cobb, I... I don't understand. My company is operating very normally, and I have never had any intention of selling shares."
Higgins swallowed hard, his voice trembling.
"Everything has a price, Mr. Higgins."
Cobb slapped the revolver onto the agreement, making a dull sound.
"Three hundred thousand dollars. To buy sixty percent absolute controlling stake in your company. This money is enough for you to take your whole family to the East to buy a large farm and comfortably live out the rest of your lives."
"This is against the rules, my company is a legitimate business."
Higgins tried to invoke the law to protect himself.
"The rules are the gun in my hand and the money in my account," Cobb sneered with disdain.
"Don't be like this, Higgins. I know your company mainly survives by taking bulk cargo orders from the Metropolitan Trading Company. But look at the docks outside; Metropolitan's ships have already been blocked dead in the anchorage. Their cargo can't be shipped out at all. Your beat-up ships will soon rust in the port because they can't get any work."
Higgins wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
"But... but if I sell the company to you and the Argyle Family asks about it, how am I supposed to explain? Felix Argyle is not someone to mess with! He has connections even in Washington. If he finds out I sold the company to his enemy..."
"You don't need to explain."
Cobb interrupted him, his gaze turning extremely ferocious.
"You just need to sign, take the money, and get out of California with your wife and children. As for the Argyle Family, they will soon have no energy to manage this mess of yours."
Cobb stood up and stared down threateningly at Higgins from a position of superiority.
"I'll give you thirty seconds to consider. If you refuse, these three hundred thousand dollars will turn into thirty cents' worth of bullets to pierce your head. Then I will buy this company from your heirs at half the price. Trust me, on this land of California, making a person disappear because of an 'accidental robbery' is simply too easy."
Higgins collapsed as he looked into Cobb's expressionless eyes.
He knew the other party was definitely not joking.
This was the West, a combination of capital and violence, where there was simply no reasoning to be had.
With trembling hands, he picked up the dip pen on the table and signed his name on the final page of the agreement.
"A wise choice."
Cobb put away the agreement and pushed the check in front of Higgins.
"Now, in your capacity as the former boss, issue your final order. Have all the paddle steamers of the Pacific Shipping Federation immediately cease operations and drive all the ships into the dockyard for 'major repairs'. Without my command, not a single ship is allowed to leave the dock."
Higgins collapsed in the chair with a face ashen like death, and nodded.
Cobb turned and walked out of the office. He stood on the second-floor balcony, looking at the port in the distance shrouded in dense fog.
The strike cut off the throughput of the deep-water dock, and the forced acquisition cut off the confluence of inland river logistics.
The Argyle Family's massive machine on the West Coast had been forcefully stripped of two of its most crucial gears by him.
"The port is paralyzed. Next is that cross-continental steel main artery."
Cobb lit a cigar and took a deep drag.
"Argyle, you think hiding in New York's skyscrapers allows you to control everything? This is America's wilderness, and I'll let you witness what true jungle law is."
Turning around, he waved at a subordinate waiting outside the door.
"Go notify Elias, the West Coast side is all set. Let their brothers in Nevada make their move. Remember, don't go robbing those dirt-poor passenger cars; aim directly at the lifeline of the railway. Make those iron monsters spewing black smoke die completely of thirst in the desert."
The subordinate acknowledged the order and left. Cobb watched that person disappear around the street corner, the sneer at the corner of his mouth growing increasingly cruel.
Unlike the perpetually wet and foggy San Francisco, the December desert of Nevada is a brutal place ruled by cold winds and ice and snow.
There are no towering redwoods here, only low bushes and bare rocks.
A railway paved with sleepers and steel, like a black giant snake, winds through this dead wilderness.
This is the Union Pacific Railroad, the main artery connecting the East and West Coasts of America.
Although steam locomotives currently represent the most advanced industrial power, they still have a fatal weakness.
They are extremely dependent on water.
Every few dozen miles a heavily loaded freight locomotive travels, it must replenish a large amount of water to maintain boiler pressure.
Therefore, along this long railway line, a water station is established at regular intervals.
These water stations usually consist of a huge tall wooden water tower, a coal bunker, and one or two wooden cabins for the station master to rest.
They are the pacemakers on this main artery.
Without them, even the most powerful locomotive would turn into a pile of scrap iron emitting white smoke.
The Black Rock Ridge Water Station is located in the hinterland of the Nevada Desert.
Old Jeb is the station master here.
He is a veteran who lost his left leg in the Civil War and a taciturn bachelor. The company fancied his temperament that could endure loneliness and stationed him in this godforsaken place.
As night fell, the temperature plummeted below freezing.
Leaning on a crutch and carrying a windproof kerosene lamp, Old Jeb limped under the huge wooden water tower.
He carefully checked the valve of the water pump to ensure that the water inside had not frozen due to the severe cold.
"In two hours, Freight Special No. 73 from Chicago to San Francisco will arrive. That thing is fully loaded with steel and mechanical parts from the Metropolitan Trading Company. Nothing must go wrong."
Old Jeb muttered to himself and patted the thick pillars of the water tower.
He turned and walked toward the wooden cabin with a stove burning, preparing to pour himself a cup of hot coffee to warm up.
Just then, the rapid sound of horse hooves suddenly came from the wind of the wilderness.
Old Jeb stopped, raised the kerosene lamp, and looked out into the darkness.
In this ghost of a weather, it is impossible for any decent person to travel in this desert besides the train.
In less than two minutes, a dozen tall, fierce horses broke through the night and reined in before the water station.
The men on horseback all wore heavy fur coats, their faces covered with black triangular scarves, holding Winchester repeating rifles in their hands.
The leader was a man with a horrifying saber scar on his left face.
His name was Elias Thorne, formerly an officer in a Confederate cavalry company. After the defeat, he drifted to the West and became a mercenary leader who specialized in doing things for money.
"Who are you?"
Old Jeb gripped his crutch tightly and instinctively felt for the revolver at his waist.
"This is the property of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, leave quickly!"
Elias ignored Old Jeb's warning entirely.
He dismounted, threw the reins to a subordinate nearby, and strode up to Old Jeb.
Before Old Jeb could draw his gun, Elias gave his prosthetic leg a fierce kick.
Old Jeb let out a miserable cry and fell heavily onto the cold snow. The kerosene lamp rolled aside, its glass cover shattered into pieces, and the kerosene inside quickly burned.
"Old man, there is no water supply here tonight."
Elias stepped on Old Jeb's chest, pulled out the large-caliber revolver from his waist, and pointed it at his head.
"Shut your mouth and obediently lie on the ground, and I can still spare your old life."
Old Jeb looked at this group of masked thugs in terror.
He finally realized that these people were not ordinary robbers. If they were bandits, they would go to the passenger cars along the railway to rob wealthy passengers instead of running to this wilderness water station with only a well and large wooden barrels.
"What... what do you want?"
Old Jeb asked tremblingly.
"What do you want? That's none of your concern."
He turned his head and waved to his subordinates behind him.
"Do it, move quickly! Tie all those dynamite packs to the load-bearing pillars of the water tower for me. And that water pump, smash it, don't leave a single drop of water for them!"
Seven or eight big men immediately dismounted.
They took out the yellow dynamite wrapped in oiled paper from the saddlebags. This high explosive, improved by the chemical laboratory of Laughlin-DuPont and widely used in mines, had now become a weapon to destroy their own industry.
The fellows skillfully tied the dynamite to the four thick log pillars of the water tower and connected the fuses.
Another two people swung large iron hammers and frantically smashed toward the steam water pump used for pumping water next to it.
"Bang! Bang!"
The dull sound of metal crashing echoed in the empty wilderness, and that expensive water pump was soon smashed into a pile of scrap iron.
"Stop, you lunatics. Without water, the following train will have an accident due to dry boiling of the boiler!" Old Jeb shouted desperately on the ground.
"That is none of our business."
Elias moved his foot away, hooked Old Jeb's collar with the barrel of his gun, and dragged him to a safe area tens of meters away like dragging a dead dog.
"Boss, the explosives are set."
A subordinate reported loudly.
"Light the fire! Retreat!"
Elias issued the order without the slightest hesitation.
The fuse hissed in the dark, flashing orange-red sparks.
Elias and the others quickly mounted their horses, shook the reins, and a dozen horses immediately galloped toward the depths of the wilderness.
Old Jeb lay on the snow, watching helplessly as the fuse burned to the end.
"Boom!"
A deafening roar tore through the silence of the wilderness, and a huge orange-red fireball rose into the air.
The wooden water tower carrying dozens of tons of water instantly disintegrated, and the thick logs were blown to pieces, flying all over the sky.
The clear water stored inside poured down like a waterfall, instantly extinguishing the flames generated by the explosion, and then under the extremely low temperature, it quickly formed a thick layer of ice armor, tightly freezing the ruins of the entire water station.
Old Jeb despairingly closed his eyes.
This railway is done for.
At the same time, at several key nodes dozens of miles away from the Black Rock Ridge Water Station, similar explosions sounded one after another.
Elias divided into three squads and, within a short hour, extremely precisely plucked out all the water supplies on this section of desert railway.
Two hours later.
Freight Special No. 73 spewed thick black smoke in the night, laboriously climbing up a gentle slope.
"Damn it, the boiler pressure can't hold much longer. The water level gauge has bottomed out!"
The fireman stuck his head out of the cab, covered in sweat, and shouted at the driver.
"Why hasn't the Black Rock Ridge Water Station arrived yet?"
The driver stared fixedly at the rails ahead, his brows tightly locked.
"It's right ahead, hold on for a few more minutes!"
However, when the train finally rounded a curve and the locomotive's searchlight illuminated the location of the Black Rock Ridge Water Station ahead, the driver and the fireman both gasped a breath of cold air at the same time.
There was no towering water tower there, no warm lighting.
Only a pile of ruins blown into pieces and covered with ice layers of wreckage.
"Quickly pull the brakes, close the valves!"
The driver roared in terror.
The harsh sound of metal friction rang out in the wilderness.
After sliding for over a hundred meters on the rails, the massive train finally stopped with difficulty.
The steam locomotive let out a weak gasp and fell completely silent.
Without water, this special train fully loaded with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods was like a giant beast drained of blood, paralyzed rigidly in this freezing snowy desert.
It was still hundreds of miles away from the port of San Francisco.
At this moment, the logistics lifeline of the West Coast was completely severed.