A few dozen kilometers away from Soroston is the free city-state of Battra.
At the Soroston Airport, when Lu Ming's private plane landed, Brooks, general manager of the Badola branch of Soros Oil Company, Russell, the mayor of Soroston, Satatoro, the chieftain of Badola, and others were already waiting at the airport.
Soros Oil Company's management of Sorostown is more like the East India Company in Lu Ming's previous life. The mayor of this small oil town, Brooks, is elected by all Western residents of the town with the right to vote, but the candidates are recommended by Soros Company, and only the company's employees are recommended.
Compared with the newly emerged West Black Mountain Fort in the north, Soroston has a much smaller population. It is a small town of more than 10,000 people, most of whom are Westerners, half of whom are blue-collar workers. The rest of the Westerners come here only to work in oil-related businesses and to pan for gold. Unlike West Black Mountain Fort, which has investments in all aspects and has also migrated here, it has become an important town in the Western Regions.
This is mainly because the crude oil mined by Soroston is transported through pipelines, which requires much less manpower.
The oil extracted from the Thoroston oil field flows northeast through pipelines and merges into the Lafite oil pipeline, and then flows east together, ending at the Luxembourg heavy industrial zone.
Luxon is rich in coal resources. It has gradually formed the industrial center of the western part of the empire a hundred years ago. Today it is one of the heavy industrial areas in the core area of the West. A year ago, it was incorporated into the territory of the Kingdom of Sonia.
The oil pipeline from the Western Regions to Luxembourg 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 was built as a joint venture between Soros Petroleum and Fira Petroleum, with Soros Petroleum holding a 60 percent stake.
In fact, a transportation route 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 Soroston is small, the Soros Building is thirteen stories high, and nearly one-tenth of the town's population works there.
In the conference room on the top floor, Wang Jincai, general manager of the Western Region Branch of Yellow River Trade, was the first person to receive the guests.
Lu Ming was introduced as Representative Li and appeared to be just one of the attendants.
Brooks, Russell and Satato received a secret telegram from their boss yesterday, in which the boss donated two oil fields, which were actually the Soros Oil Badola branch, to Prince Montenegro, who in turn entrusted the operation to Yellow River Trading Agency.
During this period, the three of them had been in a state of panic. Their boss had disappeared, and the head office was in a mess. It was being investigated by the imperial capital for tax issues, and their properties in the Kingdom of Sonia were directly confiscated.
The "Just City-State Alliance" supported by Punk Trade notified the chieftain of Satato a while ago that it wanted to absorb him as a member of the alliance.
Of course, the chieftain of Satatu knew that the other party’s target was the oil fields in Soroston.
His city-state was weak, and once he joined the alliance he became someone else's plaything and puppet.
Today, Soros Oil pays him a considerable fee every year. As the local emperor of this area, how carefree is his life
Brooks and Russell were even ready to run away, but if they were caught by the natives supported by Punk Trade, the outcome would be hard to predict.
In order to occupy the oil fields once and for all, Punk Trade might instruct the natives to execute all influential management in Thoroston, and these two would be the first to bear the brunt.
Now that the oil field has a normal receiver, Brooks and Russell can be said to have breathed a sigh of relief. Moreover, with the support of the Principality of Northern Montenegro, they can be said to have roots. Although their former boss was rich, in times of chaos, he has become a fat sheep that everyone wants to plunder.
"Here, everything will remain the same. Tomorrow, Mr. Soros will officially announce in the newspaper that all Soros oil has been sold to the Yellow River Trading Company, so we will have a lot of things to do next." Wang Jincai said, looking at the chieftain of Satatuo, "Representative Li is mainly responsible for the company's armed defense department. You can chat more."
The Yellow River Trading Company was authorized by the Principality to form armed forces outside the territory to protect its own commercial interests.
This has been the norm for some official trading companies to conduct overseas activities since the civil unrest in the empire. It can be considered a retro model of overseas trading companies from a hundred years ago.
The chieftain of Satatu immediately looked at Lu Ming with a smile on his face, "Representative Li, you..."
Lu Ming waved his hand: "Let's go, we'll go to your place to talk!" Wang Jincai and the others were mainly discussing business operations. In fact, nothing would change. They would just follow the rules. They would provide as much crude oil as needed every day to maintain stability here and take control of the Soroston area as soon as possible.
In the city-states around the West Black Mountain Oil City, Middle-Asia is now very popular, and the nobles are bound to learn Middle-Asia from a young age.
The nobles of the city-state of Badala were all fluent in Western languages.
Moreover, Westerners came to the Badaling area early, the railway was built early, and civilization began early, making the area more prosperous and developed than many other city-states.
There are many Western-style buildings in the city of Badala. Even the residence of the chieftain of Satatha is a small Bavarian-style palace.
"Do you have any contact with King Baoyue?" Lu Ming went straight to the point in the reception room of the chieftain's residence.
The chieftain of Sata was stunned for a moment and said, "His brother once came to this place to seek help from the Griffinni people."
King Baoyue was originally the ruler of the most powerful city-state in the southern part of the Western Regions. The fact that he was called "King" shows that the first generation King Baoyue was a man of great talent and strategy, and he conquered the entire southern part of the Western Regions. At the same time, the Central Continent people destroyed their country and established the Grefini Empire.
In the later years of the first Baoyue King, the Griffinni Heavy Knights arrived in the Western Regions and defeated the Baoyue King's army that was expanding northward.
From then on, the Western Region entered the era of free city-states, and under the mediation of the Griffinni, it became an imperial confederation in the form of a free city-state alliance.
But dozens of city-states in the south still worship King Baoyue as their leader.
More than three hundred years ago, another powerful ruler emerged from the Baoyue King system. He once conquered the central and northern city-states, but the empire eventually sent envoys to order him to withdraw. After that, the Baoyue King family went from bad to worse, becoming more and more indulged in pleasure and extravagance, causing some southern city-states to become disloyal and break away from the Baoyue King system.
Last year, Punk Trade supported the "Fair City-State Alliance", which mainly consisted of city-states in the central region. Some city-state lords still remembered the hatred three hundred years ago, so they issued an ultimatum demanding that the Baoyue King's family remove the title. As a result, a war broke out between the two sides. Baoyue King was defeated and paid a lot of money. Although he did not remove the title, from Punk Trade to the Central City-State Alliance, his name was changed to Baoyue Luo.
At this time, Lu Ming heard that King Baoyue's younger brother had come here to ask for help. It seems that there are still wise people in King Baoyue's family. They know that the Westerners are also divided and know about the conflict between the Griffinni and Sonya people.
Lu Ming smiled and said, "I plan to visit the city-state in the south. Please write a letter and introduce me to someone."
The best option is to keep the fighting as far away from here as possible so that there is enough time to build up defensive forces.