My Wife is a Counsel Chapter 173: Driving wolves and fighting tigers
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A few dozen kilometers away from Thoroston is the free city-state of Bhadra.
When Lu Ming's special plane landed at Thoroston Airport, Brooks, general manager of the Soros Petroleum Company's Badala Branch, Russell, the mayor of Thoroston, Sattado, the chieftain of Badala, and others were already waiting. At the airport.
Soros Petroleum Company’s management of Thoroston is more like the East India Company in Lu Ming’s previous life. It is Brooks, the mayor of this oil town. Although the Western residents of the town have the right to vote, the candidate People are recommended by the Soros Company, and only employees of the company are recommended.
Compared with the new West Black Mountain Castle in the north, Thoroston has a much smaller population. It is a town of more than 10,000 people, mostly Westerners, half of whom are blue-collar workers. The rest of the Westerners come here only Those who do oil related business are here to prospect for gold. Unlike Xiheishan Fort, which has investments in all aspects, it has also migrated its population, forming an important town in the Western Regions.
Mainly because the crude oil mined in Thoroston is transported by pipeline, which requires much less manpower.
The oil extracted from the Thoroston oil field flows northeast through the pipeline, merges into the Lafite Oil Pipeline, and then east together, ending at the Luxon Heavy Industrial Zone.
Luxen is rich in coal resources. It has gradually formed the industrial center area in the western part of the empire a hundred years ago. Now it is one of the heavy industrial areas in the core area of the West. A year ago, it was merged into the territory of the Kingdom of Sonia.
The oil pipeline from the Western Region to Luxon was completed just before the outbreak of the Imperial Civil War. It is more than 2,000 kilometers long, cost 250 million yuan, and used 410,000 tons of steel.
The pipeline is a joint venture between Soros Petroleum and Fila Petroleum, with Soros Petroleum holding a 60% stake.
In fact, a transmission line from Xiheishan Fort to Hanzhou is also being planned. Of course, the premise of this plan is that Hanzhou must be included in the future territory of the principality.
……
Although the town of Thoroston is small, the Thoros Building is thirteen stories high, and nearly one-tenth of the town's population works in it.
In the conference room on the top floor, Wang Jincai, general manager of the Western Region Branch of Yellow River Trading, was the main person who came to receive the meeting.
Lu Ming was introduced as Representative Li and seemed to be just one of the entourage.
Brooks, Russell and Sartado just received a secret message from their boss yesterday. The boss donated two oil fields, which are actually the Soros Petroleum Bhadra branch, to the Prince of Montenegro. It was entrusted to the Yellow River Trading Agency for operation.
During this period, the three of them have been feeling anxious. Their boss has disappeared, and the head office is in a state of disarray. Tax issues are being investigated by the Imperial Capital, and their properties in the Sonia Kingdom have been confiscated.
The "Just City-State Alliance" supported by the punk trade recently notified Chieftain Satatu to recruit him as a member of the alliance.
Of course Chief Satatu knew that the other party’s target was the oil fields in Thoroston.
His city-state is weak, and once he enters the alliance, he becomes his plaything and puppet.
Nowadays, Soros Oil pays him a lot of money every year. How happy and carefree is it to be the local emperor in this area?
Brooks and Russell were even prepared to run away. If they were caught by the natives supported by the punk trade, the outcome would be difficult to say.
In order to occupy the oil fields once and for all, Punk Trading may have instructed the natives to execute all the influential management in Thoroston, and they will bear the brunt.
Now that the oil field has a normal receiver, Brooks and Russell are relieved. Moreover, they have roots in the Principality of Northern Montenegro. Although their previous bosses were rich, in troubled times, they simply couldn’t Become a fat sheep that everyone wants to plunder.
"Here, everything will be business as usual from now on. Tomorrow Mr. Soros will officially publish the news in the newspaper to announce to the outside world that all Soros Oil has been sold to the Yellow River Trading Company, so there will be a lot of things for us to do next." Wang Jincai said , looking at Chief Satatu, "Representative Li is mainly responsible for the matters of the company's armed defense department. You can talk more about it."
The Yellow River Trading Company is authorized by the principality to form armed forces outside the territory to protect its commercial interests.
This has been the norm for some official trading companies to operate outside the territory since the civil strife in the empire. It can be regarded as a return to the overseas trading company model of a hundred years ago.
Chief Satatu immediately looked at Lu Ming with a smile on his face, "Representative Li, you..."
Lu Ming has already waved his hand: "Let's go, let's go to your place to talk!" Wang Jincai and the others are mainly talking about business operations. In fact, nothing will change. Xiao Guicao just follows the rules and provides as much crude oil as he needs to transport every day. , maintain stability here, and firmly control the Thoroston area in your own hands as soon as possible.
In the city-states around the Oil City of West Black Mountain Castle, the Central Asian language is now very popular, and nobles are bound to learn the Central Asian language from an early age.
The nobles in the Bhadra city-state are all proficient in Western languages.
Moreover, the Westerners in the Bhadra area came earlier, built railways earlier, and became civilized earlier, making them more prosperous and developed than many city-states.
In Bhadra City, there are many Western-style buildings. Even the residence of Chief Sattar is a small Bavarian-style palace.
"Do you have any contact with King Baoyue?" In the reception room of the chieftain's residence, Lu Ming got straight to the point.
Chief Satatu was stunned and said, "His younger brother once came to the local area and wanted to seek help from the Grifenni people."
Baoyue King was originally the leader of the most powerful city-state in the southern part of the Western Region. You know why he can be called a "king". The first generation of Baoyue King was so talented and bold that he conquered the entire southern part of the Western Region. At the same time, It was also the time when the people of Middle-earth were destroyed and the Greyfinni Empire was established.
In the later years of the first generation of King Baoyue, the heavy-armored knights of Grifenni arrived in the Western Region and defeated the army of King Baoyue that expanded northward.
Since then, the Western Region has entered the era of free city-states. Under the mediation of the Grifenni people, it has become the Imperial Confederation in the form of the Free City-State Alliance.
But dozens of city-states in the south are still dominated by King Baoyue.
More than three hundred years ago, another hero emerged from the Baoyue King system. He once conquered the central and northern city-states. In the end, the empire sent envoys to order him to retreat. Since then, the Baoyue King family has been deteriorating and becoming more and more dissatisfied. Hedonism and extreme luxury caused some southern city-states to deviate from their morality and break away from the Baoyue King system.
Last year, the punk trade supported the "Fair City-State Alliance", mainly the city-states in the central part of the country. Some city-state owners still remembered the hatred three hundred years ago, so they issued an ultimatum asking the Baoyue King family to remove their title. From this, both parties A war broke out, and King Baoyue was defeated and lost a lot of money. Although he did not get rid of his title, from the punk trade to the city-state alliance in the middle, he was called Baoyueluo.
At this time, Lu Ming heard that the younger brother of King Baoyue once came here to ask for help. It seems that there are still wise men in King Baoyue's family. They also know that the Westerners are also divided, and they know about the dispute between the Grifenni and the Sonians. .
Lu Ming smiled and said: "I am going to visit the southern city-state. Please write a letter and help me introduce them."
The war is as far away from this place as possible, so that there is enough time to build defensive weapons, which is naturally the best choice.