The early summer downpour had just washed over the city, and the air was thick with damp moisture.
However, the atmosphere in Felix's study was somewhat heavy.
On the table lay an urgent telegram from Texas, a report from Higgins forwarded by Caleb.
"It failed."
Felix put down the telegram, feeling relieved.
"Higgins said that while the idea of mud-wall protection was good, our steam pump didn't have enough pressure, and the mud couldn't hold back the surging quicksand. And... three of the hollow drill rods sent by Lex Steel broke in that complex underground environment."
"Then... should we continue?" Frost asked cautiously. "Mr. Bill said that project has already burned through one hundred thousand dollars."
"Stop it."
Felix made his decision. He walked to the map, looking at that distant southern land.
He realized he had made a mistake—he was too hasty.
He had actually tried to force open the door to early 20th-century technology with an 1865 industrial foundation.
The lid on top of the spindle couldn't be opened yet.
"Tell Bill to stop deep drilling in Beaumont. Seal the wellhead, disguise it well. Just leave a few people to watch it."
"Giving up?"
Frost was a little surprised; he rarely saw his Boss give up on anything.
"No, this is called hibernation."
Felix turned around, his gaze becoming profound.
"Since current technology can't devour that piece of meat, then hide the meat in the pot first, and don't let others snatch it away."
Then he picked up a red pencil and, according to his memory of American oil field distributions, began to wildly circle areas on the huge map of America.
"Edward, whether it's Texas, or..."
His pen tip moved to the West Coast.
"California. Los Angeles, and the San Joaquin River Valley."
Then the central region.
"Ohio. And here... Indian Territory (future Oklahoma)."
Felix drew large red circles in these places.
"Tell Bill that the Metropolitan Trading Company's strategic focus needs to change. Besides running slaughterhouses, I want it to become the largest 'landlord' in all of America."
"Go buy land in these places."
Felix's finger tapped heavily on the map.
"No matter if it's currently a desert, a swamp, or an Indian hunting ground. As long as it's within these circles, I want to buy it."
"What's the reason?" Frost looked at those desolate places. "After all... those places are too desolate."
"The reason is readily available." Felix smiled. "Raising cattle, raising sheep, growing fruit."
"The war is over; people need meat and wool. Texas Longhorn cattle, California orchards... these are all good things," Felix explained.
"We operate agriculture and animal husbandry on the surface; even if it doesn't make money, as long as it breaks even, that's fine. The real purpose is to own the underground mining rights."
"Buy the land, plant our flags, build fences. Then wait." Greed flickered in Felix's eyes.
"Wait for what?"
"Wait for technology to catch up with my ambition."
...After dealing with the future layout, Felix pulled his attention back to reality.
"The future is in the West, but the money now is in Pennsylvania." Felix picked up another report.
"Since the hard bone of Texas can't be gnawed, we'll eat the ready-made meat."
"Oil Creek in Pennsylvania," Felix said.
"There's so much oil there now it's flowing into the river. The strata there are simple; you can drill for oil with a percussion drill."
"But it's too chaotic there, Boss," Frost reminded him. "Thousands of small companies are fighting it out, and the oil price fell to 50 cents a barrel last week, less than water."
Felix sneered, "Then let them dig. We won't dig for oil. We'll only do two things."
"First, refining oil." He pointed in the direction of New Jersey.
"The refinery will be operational next month. We need to buy up that cheap crude oil and turn it into high-priced standard kerosene to sell."
"Second, transportation."
Felix walked to the window, looking at the busy street below.
"Those foolish drillers are still using horse-drawn carriages to haul oil barrels, charging three dollars a mile. But our Railway Company..."
"Notify Reeves. The Mississippi and Eastern Railroad Company must immediately build a branch line to Oil Creek. At the same time, we need to reach a 'secret agreement' with Chairman Ames' Union Pacific and the Pennsylvania Railroad."
"What agreement?"
"Southern Improvement Company." Felix borrowed that infamous name.
"I want these three major Railway Companies to provide exclusive rebates to Standard Oil."
"We transport oil, and the freight is discounted. If they don't transport our oil... or even if they transport a competitor's oil," Felix's voice was cold, "they must pay us a 'compensation fee'."
Frost gasped. This was blatant monopoly and plunder.
"Is this... legal?"
"Before there are clear laws, this is business rule," Felix said indifferently.
"I want to use this transportation network to strangle all independent refineries in Pennsylvania. Either join Standard Oil and accept our acquisition; or... watch their oil rot in barrels."
...A few days later, Chicago.
Bill received a thick stack of telegram papers from New York.
He looked at the huge red circles on the map. Although he didn't understand why Felix was interested in those desolate places, he never questioned it.
"Caleb."
Bill called his deputy, who was now the Vice President of Standard Oil.
"Drilling in Texas has stopped. The Boss wants me to change professions."
"Change professions?" Caleb was stunned.
"Yes, to be Cowboys."
Bill slapped a land purchase plan on the table.
"I'm going to take my checkbook and go to California, to Indian Territory, to buy land. Land that's endlessly vast."
"What for?"
"To raise cattle and sheep, and grow grapes." Bill grinned.
"Also," Bill added, "in Pennsylvania, Rambo's security team needs to be expanded. Those teamster unions haven't been very honest lately; they actually want to blow up our oil pipelines."
"Tell Rambo," a fierce glint flashed in Bill's eyes, "whoever dares to touch our pipes will disappear in Oil Creek."
...In the summer of 1865, under Felix's command, a hidden layout was taking shape.
On the surface, his refinery was rising in New Jersey, and the Railway Company was weaving a suffocating transportation network, preparing to harvest Pennsylvania's oil wealth.
Underneath, agents of the Metropolitan Trading Company, carrying vast sums of money, roamed like ghosts across the desolate lands of the West and South.
They bought plot after plot of seemingly worthless land, set boundary markers, and put out cattle and sheep.
No one knew that beneath the feet of these grazing cattle and sheep lay the most astonishing black wealth of this country for the next hundred years.
Felix sat in his study on Fifth Avenue, holding a glass of red wine, looking at the map on the wall.
He had given up a tactical battle he was bound to lose (forcibly drilling in Texas), but he was winning an entire strategic war.
"Sleep, black gold," he whispered. "The day you awaken... this world will be mine."
**********
Newark Bay, New Jersey.
William Coleman stood on the elevated walkway of the No. 2 Rolling Mill.
The iron grating under his feet vibrated, a pulse from a two-thousand-horsepower steam engine driving the flywheel.
"Haas…"
Coleman had to raise his voice, even shout, to be heard over the deafening roar of metal tearing metal below.
"Is this batch of rails cooling too fast? The color of the oxide layer on the surface doesn't look right."
Haas was leaning over the railing, a pocket watch in one hand and a grease-stained notebook in the other.
He extended a finger, pointing to the glowing red production line below.
"No, Coleman. Lex Steel No. 2 has 0.5% more manganese than No. 1. This type of steel requires faster quenching, otherwise the crystal structure will become coarse."
He put away his pocket watch and turned to look at Coleman.
"Trust me. These rails, even if laid on the frozen ground of Siberia and run over by a fifty-ton locomotive, won't crack."
Coleman nodded.
Although he didn't understand metallurgy, he trusted Haas.
Since the high-speed reversible rolling mill went into operation, Lex Steel's product quality had become the industry standard.
The two walked down the stairs to the workshop floor.
A wave of heat washed over them.
Workers, stripped to the waist, wielded long-handled iron tongs, as if battling fire dragons.
A thirty-foot-long, glowing red steel rail emerged from the rollers and slid onto the cooling bed.
"Hiss…"
Huge plumes of steam rose, and a white mist instantly engulfed half the workshop.
Felix stood at the far end of the cooling bed.
He wore a gray linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves, holding a cane. Frost stood behind him.
"Boss." Coleman and Haas walked over.
"How is this batch?"
Felix tapped the newly cooled, dark gray rail with his cane, pointing into the air.
"Perfect," Haas answered first.
"Sixty-five pounds per yard, it's currently the heaviest mass-produced steel rail in the world. I guarantee the Railway Company will love it."
"What about production?"
"Open-hearth furnace No. 3 was ignited yesterday," Coleman reported.
"Mr. Miller's coke from Pennsylvania is of excellent quality. Our current daily output has exceeded three hundred tons. If the new blower can be installed on time, we can reach four hundred tons next month."
"Not enough." Felix was somewhat dissatisfied.
Coleman and Haas exchanged glances. Four hundred tons was already double the output of the Krupp Factory.
"Boss, our workers are already on two shifts," Coleman explained. "If we push harder, the machines can take it, but the people can't."
"Then make it three shifts." Felix's voice was unperturbed.
"Go recruit people. Didn't a Clover Project ship just arrive? Bring those people over. Feed them well, let them drink well, and have them sell all their strength to me."
Felix walked to the workshop entrance, looking at the bustling dedicated railway line outside.
A train loaded with ore had just arrived, and another train full of steel rails was preparing to depart.
"The Union Pacific Railroad is pushing into Wyoming," Felix said, pointing west.
"A telegram arrived yesterday, they want to build the railway to Cheyenne before the heavy snow closes the mountains. So, they need two hundred miles of track within three months."
"Two hundred miles?" Haas calculated in his head.
"That's twenty thousand tons of steel. My God, do they want to lay tracks to the moon?"
"It's not just them," Felix continued.
"The Southern Reconstruction Committee has also approved, we need to repair all railways from Richmond to Atlanta. All those rails twisted into pretzels by General Sherman must be replaced with ours."
"It's a bottomless pit."
Felix turned around, looking at the two engineers.
"But it's also a gold mine. As long as our furnaces burn, every rail shipped out is a gold coin stamped with our name."
Felix remembered something, "And how is the 'structural steel' coming along?"
"It's in trial production," Coleman replied.
"According to your requirements, we adjusted the shape of the rollers. It's no longer an 'I' shape, but that… box-like rectangular beam. And also the H-beam."
"That's good." Felix nodded.
"New York architects can't wait. They want to build ten-story buildings in Manhattan. Masonry structures can't support that high, they need steel bones."
"Give them the best steel. Tell the sales department that if it's steel for building construction, the price should be increased by twenty percent."
"Why?" Coleman was puzzled, "The cost is similar to rails."
"Because they are 'skyscrapers'," Felix smiled. "People who can live in the clouds don't care about that money."
The group walked out of the workshop and into the relatively quiet office area.
The air was slightly fresher, but still carried the smell of sulfur.
"Oh, and one more thing."
Felix stopped, his expression becoming more serious.
"Regarding the mines in the Allegheny Mountains."
"Is there a problem with Mr. Miller's side?" Coleman asked.
"Not the mine itself." Felix took out a telegram.
"It's the transportation capacity. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company's capacity is saturated. Although Chairman Becker is my man, General Manager Cassatt said that single-track railway simply can't handle that many trains. Our ore is piled up at the foot of the mountain, and we can't transport it out."
"This will starve the blast furnaces!" Haas exclaimed. "Without ore, my furnaces will have to stop."
"So we need our own path," Felix said. "I plan to build another double-track line in the Allegheny Mountains. Not for passenger transport, but specifically for transporting coal and iron."
"But this requires approval from the State Assembly," Coleman reminded him. "The last branch line already made many canal merchants unhappy."
"Then let them be even more unhappy." Felix sneered. "This time, don't go to the assembly, go to the Keystone Bridge Company."
"Carnegie?" Coleman was stunned for a moment.
"Yes," Felix said.
"He's doing well in Pittsburgh lately. Iron bridges are selling very well. Tell him I have a big business deal for him. I want him to build a bridge for me over the Susquehanna River. A double-track steel bridge that can handle heavy-load trains."
"But he has to use our steel," Felix added. "And I won't pay cash for the bridge construction. It will be offset by freight charges."
"Freight charges?"
"Yes." A glint flashed in Felix's eyes.
"Tell him that as long as the bridge is built, for all coal transported across this bridge to Pittsburgh in the future, I will give him a five-cent commission per ton. Make him my partner."
Coleman gasped.
This move was brilliant.
It not only solved the transportation bottleneck but also tied a potential competitor to his war chariot.
Carnegie, that Scot, would definitely not be able to refuse such a temptation.
"I'll do it." Coleman nodded. "I'll go to Pittsburgh to find him personally."
"Very good."
Felix glanced at his watch.
"Edward, prepare the car. We need to go back to New York."
"So urgent?" Coleman asked. "The cafeteria is stewing beef tonight."
"Leave it for the workers," Felix straightened his collar. "I have another meeting tonight, with some friends from Pennsylvania."