The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

The layout of the port area at the beginning of the Port of Lyon was very chaotic. The civilian area, the dock area, and the wealthy area were all mixed together. There were neither street parks nor city squares. Although the commerce here was very developed, it was not suitable for people to live in.

However, with the expansion of the deep-water wharf, the port area has also undergone large-scale reconstruction. The urban areas such as the civilian area, commercial area, wealthy area, and garden area have been re-planned, and more complex structures have been built during the reconstruction. The perfect sewer makes the Port of Lyon no longer have the sewage flow as before.

The rich area is located on the south side of the port area, next to the garden area, backed by a large virgin forest, and has an independent rich man's wharf. It can be said to be the best residential area in the port area. The vast majority of people who buy houses and live in this area are not locals of Port Lyon, but more are directors or wealthy businessmen of various chambers of commerce in Port Lyon.

Although the overall national strength of the United Kingdom has not weakened after losing the area north of the Dibia Mountains, but has also increased a lot, as if a big burden has been lost, but for ordinary people, the United Kingdom has lost without resistance Gaining such a large piece of land and such an important city is a big defeat that shakes the foundation of the country. And this sentiment has also affected foreign businessmen.

The Port of Lyon, which is mainly engaged in overseas maritime trade, has been most affected. The villas and apartments in the merchant district are almost empty, and the rest are only some servants responsible for cleaning and maintenance. Most of the executives have temporarily left this place under various names. Country, it seems that they will not come back here until the situation has completely settled down.

However, at the same time, some businessmen with adventurous spirit and business acumen stayed, because they knew very well that the more turbulent the place, the more opportunities to make money and make a lot of money.

The Gude Chamber of Commerce is such a chamber of commerce that is good at obtaining huge benefits during wars. In order to avoid conflicts with those local snake chambers of commerce and cause unnecessary losses, the Gude Chamber of Commerce did not get involved in various strategic material transactions with the greatest benefits like other chambers of commerce. , but focus on those refugees, focusing on the wealth of the refugees.

Before Miria City was completely blocked by the imperial army, the wealthy and scholars in Miria City who had no time to flee to the south took refuge in Leon Port on the west side, preparing to wait for the situation to calm down there before returning to Miria City .

However, when the empire showed its determination to completely destroy the city of Miria, these rich people and scholars all chose to leave by boat, and the port of Lyon, which is opposite to the north-south port of Leon, became the most suitable refuge for landing point.

Except for a few of these refugees who had relatives in Lanxi and other states and counties who could leave smoothly, other native Miria businessmen and scholars were restricted to the Port of Lyon due to the control of the United Kingdom.

The businessman is fine, as long as he has enough funds on hand, and relying on his previous connections, he can do some small business in the Port of Lyon and gain a foothold in the Port of Lyon temporarily. Those scholars are miserable. Apart from doing academic research, they hardly know any other livelihood skills, which makes their lives even more difficult.

The business opportunity that the Gude Chamber of Commerce is looking at lies in these fleeing businessmen and scholars. It is the first transaction to buy the valuables on hand from the fleeing merchants at a low price, and then use the convenience of the chamber of commerce to do business with these fleeing merchants. The funds for the purchase of valuables were recovered, and these businessmen were brought into the circle of influence of the Gude Chamber of Commerce by using closer business relationships to strengthen the foundation of the Gude Chamber of Commerce.

Although those fleeing merchants seem to be very downcast now, they are just out of luck for a while. Once these merchants are given a chance, these merchants will be able to recover quickly, and investing in these merchants is definitely a profitable industry with no loss.

As for those scholars, they are the best commodities in themselves. In the United Kingdom, there are a large number of businessmen who are willing to spend a lot of money to hire a scholar from Miria City to serve as their tutor, business consultant, etc., and the Goode Chamber of Commerce is in For the first time, an intermediary company was established for the escaped scholars, and even before those scholars were hired, they were willing to give free loans to those scholars to maintain the living needs of those scholars.

Through some means, the relationship between the Chamber of Commerce and these scholars was brought closer, and then these scholars were allowed to indirectly influence the businessmen who hired them, thereby expanding the influence of the Gude Chamber of Commerce.

Although this will be a loss-making operation for a period of time, the potential benefits are extremely huge. At least the Good Chamber of Commerce, a foreign chamber of commerce that has just established itself in the Port of Lyon, can get in touch with high-level officials like the United Kingdom General Chamber of Commerce in a short period of time. Get some great lucrative business opportunities from these top brass.

As the decision-maker of the Goode Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom, Spike Goode led the business expansion plan of the Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom, and successfully managed this United Kingdom branch, which was regarded as a burden by the Goode family. Judging from the development momentum, it won't take long to become one of the most outstanding branch chambers of the Good Family Chamber of Commerce in various countries.

It's just that Spike Goode is in a bad mood today, because he just received news that the men he sent to receive guests in Wuwan Town found dead in a forest not far from the city, and had been dead for more than an hour. It was an hour, and such a long time gave him no chance to send someone to remedy it, so he could only sit in the office and wait for the bad news to arrive.

Ten days ago, an order was sent from the headquarters of the Gude family in the Mosang Continent. This order was printed with the exclusive seal of the family elders, and it was the highest order among all family orders. This order is very simple, it is to Spike to help a scholar leave the United Kingdom and go to the Mozambique continent to assist the family's ongoing research on ancient monuments.

As a member of the family's New World Faction, Spike dislikes the old family's obsession with ancient family legends, relics of ancient civilizations, etc. He and other young people in the family believe that the strength of the family depends on more modern Things, such as the latest steam ships, steam locomotives and other steam machinery.

So he didn't pay much attention to this order. It wasn't until he wanted to help the scholar get a pass to leave the United Kingdom that he found that things were unexpectedly difficult.

The United Kingdom seems to be conducting some secret research, and it protects these researches extremely closely. Even if he just sent someone to inquire, he has already lost three of his best men, and was hinted at by a well-connected high-level United Kingdom method gives a warning.

And the scholar who was the target of his mission happened to participate in this research.

After feeling that things were unexpectedly difficult, Spike had to pay attention to this matter personally, and use all his connections to make secret contact with the scholar, reach a cooperation agreement, and then secretly pick up the scholar.

Although the matter was troublesome, it went smoothly. In order to avoid being noticed, or even being found to be related to himself, he did not dare to send anyone close to the scholar, and always only contacted him indirectly through the client. In the middle of the night, after the client in Button Town sent the person to the train, he used the latest telegraph to transmit the news, and he only needed to go there to pick up the person.

Originally, he was going to pick up the person himself, but in the early morning, he suddenly got an important news that a big client was coming to negotiate a huge profit deal. Maybe there will be a leap forward, so he had to stay in the chamber of commerce, waiting for the arrival of the big client, and he just sent two of his men to meet the scholar.

Thinking back now, he felt that the so-called big deal was probably just fake news, in order to divert his attention. Otherwise, if he traveled in person, he would be accompanied by five or six bodyguards, and such an accident would not have happened at all. .

Spike sits in his office waiting for the bad news to arrive, thinking about how his family will punish him if he fails in his mission, at best downgrading his support level, at worst finding someone to replace him at his current level. position, transfer him back to the family headquarters in Mozambique, then everything he has done in the United Kingdom for the past six months will be in vain.

Just when Spike was uneasy, someone knocked on the door of the office.

"Come in." Spike adjusted his sitting posture and clothes. Although his heart was full of uneasiness, his face remained calm. Even if he heard bad news, he didn't want to appear abnormal in front of his subordinates.

The door of the office opened, and Assistant Spike came in and said, "Boss, Mr. Diego sent someone to deliver a letter. He said that Professor Dior Browno had arrived at the safe house without any problems. He asked if you have any other arrangements. "

"Ah?" Hearing the news, Spike felt for a moment whether he had an auditory hallucination, and immediately confirmed: "What did you just say? Professor Dio Browno has successfully arrived at the safe house?"

"Yes." Spike's assistant looked at his boss with some puzzlement, and handed over the note he had just received.

"Didn't he meet those disguised killers?" Spike, who received an affirmative response, couldn't help feeling a little puzzled, took a look at the note, and soon found that things were not as he thought.

The content recorded on the note paper indicated that Dior Browno went to the safe house on the exclusive steam locomotive of the Gude Chamber of Commerce, but the driver who arrived at the safe house with him was not his subordinate, nor did he kill his subordinate. The killer in disguise, but a man he had never heard of, a student of Dior Browno.

"Dior Browno's student?" Spike's face was full of doubts. It stands to reason that if there was a student like Dior Browno, the client would definitely mention it in all the communications, but the client never mentioned this person from the beginning to the end. This made him wonder whether this so-called student would meet on the train.

While this guess felt absurd, Spike couldn't think of any other plausible answer.

Moreover, he still thought about more, such as why the professor and the so-called student would drive the car to pick him up? This undoubtedly means that the killer who killed his men failed, and what was the reason for the failure? No matter how you think about it, it shouldn't be the scholar and professor who only knows how to study ancient civilizations, but the mysterious person who suddenly appeared and became a professor of students.

"Silver Mask." Spike immediately thought of Silver Mask, the secret department of the United Kingdom, and guessed that his behavior of secretly taking away Professor Dior Browno had alarmed Silver Mask, so they sent someone to investigate this matter.

But then he denied this guess, because according to his understanding, if he was really targeted by the silver mask, the other party would never appear in front of him like this, and conduct investigations blatantly, and would only collect evidence secretly. The moment the masked person appeared in front of him, that was when the opponent made a move.

Spike couldn't help being curious about this mysterious student. After thinking about it for a while, he stood up and told his assistant, "All the meetings this morning will be moved to the afternoon. If you have an appointment, please arrange another time, unless it is a very important document." Otherwise, let the department heads decide for themselves."

After speaking, he picked up the coat on the hanger, put it on his body, walked out of the office, went downstairs, got into the prepared carriage, and drove towards the safe house.

The Goode Chamber of Commerce has set up a total of five safe houses in the Port of Lyon in case of emergency, four of which are located in the dock area, and only one is in the wealthy area. This safe house is a private club, and its ostensible business is to provide a meeting place for scholars funded by the Good Chamber of Commerce. In the past month, it has become a rare cultural exchange place in Lyon Port. fame.

This safe house is personally in charge of Spike, but the current supervisor of the safe house is Diego, a master builder from Mozambique, who is specially hired to receive those fleeing scholars.

In the family task received this time, Diego also contributed a lot, because it happened that Diego and the target of this task, Dio Browno, turned out to be friends for many years, and Diego had some problems with the decoration of classical buildings. They will ask Dio Browno, and Dio Browno will also ask Diego to help him find some unique decorations with civilization characteristics on ancient buildings.

Because of Diego's help, Spike was able to find enough bargaining chips to attract Dio Browno to agree to go to Mozambique to participate in the family's archaeological mission, so in terms of reception, Spike also handed over this matter to Diego.

Diego didn't know about the accident at the reception, but the person who sent Dior Browno to the safe house was not a member of the Goode Chamber of Commerce, but a student of Dio, and the vehicle he could ride was the Goode Chamber of Commerce The steam locomotive felt something was wrong.

So, after he sent someone to tell Spike Goode the information that the mission target had arrived safely, he came to the room where Dio Browno was placed and asked what happened.

Dio Bruno did not hide from his good friend, and directly told him what happened on the road.

"What Wakanha people want to assassinate you?" Diego also felt a little surprised. At the same time, he sneaked a glance at Leo who was admiring the oil paintings in the room. Surprised by the ability to deal with killers.