Chapter 6 The Gilded Age
"He wants to do some rock prospecting in Texas?" Annabell asked calmly. "No other purpose?"
"Not yet. Standard Oil is looking for new oil fields. I don't know their purpose. But it's not surprising. It's unrealistic for us to insist on it." Isabella bit her lip and asked, "Should we reject them?"
"That's not necessary. He hasn't come yet. Don't worry!" Annabelle said, "Maybe he's just doing some exploration. Rockefeller wants to replicate his feat of swallowing up the oil industries of Ohio and Pennsylvania in Texas, but our family is not a small workshop that he can't just take over."
"I hope so!" Isabella exhaled softly, "In the past twenty years, the South has really been left further and further behind."
"Humph!" Annabell snorted. "The Yankees deliberately widened the gap between the North and the South through war. Before you were born, we were no worse than the North in terms of the number of rich people, but our industrial development is much better than the plantations. A deserter from the Civil War, a bastard who took the opportunity to hoard food, has become an oil tycoon."
Before the Civil War, Rockefeller pretended to be sick to avoid military service. When he couldn't pretend anymore, he paid for a replacement. Before the war broke out, Rockefeller did everything he could, invested all his money, and stockpiled large quantities of grain, salt, ham, cotton, coal and other strategic materials. As the war expanded, crops failed, and the prices of agricultural products and other daily necessities soared, and orders came to him like snowflakes. Only Rockefeller himself knew how much money he made.
Rockefeller was actually very concerned about the Civil War. His office was like an army staff. Rockefeller bought a large map of the United States and hung it on the wall, with the latest war reports from Washington marked in yellow and red. Like a general, Rockefeller often made comments on the current situation in front of the map. More people believed that the locations marked on the map by Rockefeller were actually his business outlets: yellow labels represented grains, and red labels represented hams. The so-called battle map was actually a business offensive map.
"Many plantation owners fled to Brazil after the war. Although our family was somewhat isolated, we also had fewer competitors in the South." Annabelle was obviously more calm than her daughter. She comforted her nervous daughter, "The Yankees are just more numerous. We can compete with any single family. Don't be nervous."
The Sheffield family is now the dominant one, which is actually the result of the Civil War. Before that, there were many plantation owners of the same level, and the Sheffield family was not the largest plantation owner in Louisiana. But after the Mexican War, Edward Sheffield, who successfully inherited the family business, moved his family to Texas against all odds, and took a fancy to the wider land in Texas, which led to the current situation.
"Don't worry, just wait for them to come!" Annabelle said slowly, feeling a little tired after a day out. "If it's just domestic, the Yankees are a little stronger than us, but if it's not limited to domestic, we're no weaker than anyone else. It's better to worry about DuPont, as they have a business conflict with us."
The business conflict was over gunpowder and firearms. The DuPont family was mainly engaged in gunpowder, which was also the business of the Sheffield family. Compared with the DuPont family, Sheffield was a latecomer and provided arms to the Confederate Army during the Civil War. This was slightly lacking in foundation compared to the DuPont family, which relied on selling Louisiana to the United States.
Because of the French Revolution, after DuPont came to the United States, Pierre also used the same trick to produce gunpowder in the United States. After all, the United States is different from France. Although Pierre is familiar with many American officials, he always has some problems in doing things. Pierre and his son set their sights on the US government. Irel DuPont suggested that his father should make a proposal to the then President Jefferson to buy Louisiana, the French territory in America.
Jefferson had actually thought about purchasing French Louisiana a year earlier, because at that time the United States actually occupied New Orleans, and the sovereignty of New Orleans belonged to France. In order to keep New Orleans, purchasing Louisiana was the best way, but the French government seemed uninterested in the US proposal, or France could not accept the conditions offered by the United States.
After Pierre got involved, Jefferson was very happy. He immediately appointed Pierre as the plenipotentiary representative to purchase French Louisiana and negotiate with Napoleon on behalf of the United States. Finally, France agreed to sell Louisiana to the United States. How important was French Louisiana? After the United States bought it back, it was divided into 14 states with an area of about 2 million square kilometers, which was equivalent to the land area of the United States at that time and more than one-fifth of the current land area of the United States.
But the Civil War changed the situation. After all, only the Texas Legion was well preserved among the southern states, and the legion commander surrendered conditionally due to an accident. This gave the southern residents psychological comfort, and only then did they have a place in the domestic chemical raw materials.
It's just that the United States hasn't been fighting any wars recently, and both companies are having a hard time with explosives and firearms, so the competition is not so fierce. But both companies are also undergoing transformation, and the competition has expanded to other chemical fields.
Sheffield, who has been in seclusion for several days, is still preparing for his graduation. Graduation from college is a small matter. From now on, he can get his diploma even if he doesn't go to college. After all, this Gilded Age is not real gold. Under the gilded appearance, the chaos in the dark is also very shocking.
Simply put, capital expanded savagely, so there was a lack of order, and many things were illegal. This led to a lower threshold for bribery. In the future, if a person wanted to conduct a secret operation, he had to bribe the entire board of directors, or even all the senior officials of the university. Only after everyone agreed, Sheffield could graduate from a higher education institution in the United States without any knowledge. This cost was not affordable for an ordinary person.
The current lack of order has lowered the threshold for accepting bribes. Many universities in the United States can graduate with impunity as long as they get in touch with some key people. Without supervision, they will inevitably become bolder.
What a bastard era this is, even a commoner can get benefits openly, just by giving money. It's different when there is order. At that time, commoners don't have the financial resources to bribe, and the right to bribe is deprived. Only I can bribe, so there is order.
"It's a family tradition. You should be bolder. Anyway, I have the support of Mr. Buddha." Sheffield bit the pen and thought for a moment, then began to write quickly.
(End of this chapter)
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