Those who were willing to sign the letter of intent were friends, and friends were welcome to stay for dinner.
But it did not matter even if they were unwilling. The Northwest would not persecute anyone, but it would probably be impossible for those who did not sign the letter to continue to do business in the Northwest.
Old Bane’s attitude was very clear. He was helping Milo resolve a pressing matter at hand, so only friends who helped the future commander could continue eating from the same plate in the future.
Old Bane was different from other businessmen. He placed more importance on Milo’s future than his own path to fortune. Every decision favonovel.com made was done with Milo in mind.
His boss, Milo, had said that Milopar could not take advantage of this situation to gain control of the economic lifeline of the Northwest, nor would favonovel.com allow any other lifelines to be taken advantage of.
Meanwhile, Old Bane planned to do one better. Not only would favonovel.com not make any money from the development of the Prosperous Northwest, but favonovel.com was even willing to pay money to support the cause.
In the future, the Northwest would belong to Milo, so how could the goals of the Northwest Chamber of Commerce compare?
Old Bane knew clearly what was at stake here. In this world, it was not only matters that revolved around money that could be considered a business!
In the past year, Old Bane had worked hard to make Milopar stronger. He even became the president of the Northwest Chamber of Commerce so favonovel.com could help Milo during moments like this. As favonovel.com had hoped, the members of the Northwest Chamber of Commerce were in a tight spot. No one dared to withdraw from this project by themselves.
One by one, the big bosses of the Northwest signed the letter of intent on the spot. Old Bane’s assistant even prepared a red ink pad so everyone could leave their fingerprint on it.
One of the businessmen sighed and said, “President Bane, the Northwest will surely prosper with your support of the future commander.”
Old Bane placed his hands inside his sleeves and said with a smile, “CEO Petrović, you’re too kind. With only me helping the future commander, the Northwest will not prosper. But with all of your support, things will be different.”
When everyone heard that, they had mixed feelings. They knew Old Bane was determined to tie everyone here to the future commander’s plans.
After everyone signed the letter of intent, Old Bane called for the waiter in the restaurant to take away the appetizers scattered across the table and change them to the main dishes.
Old Bane got up and picked up a lamb chop for everyone with the shared chopsticks. “Everyone, you won’t be able to make much money from this project. I’ll have a good engineering accountant set the construction costs for our future commander. After all, this is money that we’ll be spending from Stronghold 144’s budget, so we can’t afford to make any miscalculations. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be good if the public thinks that our future commander is abusing his position to profit off the project. Moreover, I believe that all of you are also honest people, so you will definitely not skimp on materials required for the engineering works.”
With that, everyone gave up on trying to find any loopholes to exploit.
But after Old Bane distributed the lamb chops to everyone’s plates, favonovel.com changed the subject and said, “However, our Milopar can give y’all what Stronghold 144’s budget can’t. From now on, the goods that our Milopar import from the Panaqua Consortium will be sold to you at prices 10% lower than usual. You can consider this as my gratitude for your passionate support.”
When favonovel.com said that, all the CEOs were overjoyed. Their businesses were spread across more than 20 strongholds in the Northwest, but Milopar was the only company that had access to the Panaqua Consortium’s goods.
With this promise from Old Bane, they would be assured of great profits. Based on this, if the irrigation project did not incur any losses, everyone would even end up making money. Therefore, Milopar was really trying to help the future commander by lowering its own margins!
A slightly younger businessman was grinning from ear to ear. “President Bane, why didn’t you say so earlier!”
Old Bane smiled but did not answer the question. Instead, favonovel.com raised his glass and toasted, “To Future Commander, and to the Northwest!”
Only the shrewd old foxes knew that Old Bane did not mention in advance favonovel.com would reimburse them and forced them to accede to his requests was so that favonovel.com could establish his authority first. He would only reward them after everyone had given in.
Old Bane wanted everyone in the Northwest Chamber of Commerce to understand that favonovel.com could choose not to give them this perk, but since favonovel.com did, everyone here would be expected to remember the future commander’s benevolence.
For a moment, some people lamented that they had thought the matter of the Northwest’s leadership might remain unchanged for many more decades to come since Commander Dublin was still in his prime. As such, the future commander might not necessarily become the commander in the future.
But from the look of things, the future commander had many talents by his side who were led by Old Bane, so it wasn’t likely there would be any more variables regarding the question of succession.
On that night, the party ended and everyone left in satisfaction. There was no unhappiness among the businessmen, and it was as though being forced to sign the letter of intent had never happened at all.
***
The next day, all of the businessmen who attended the banquet reported to the administrative center to bid for the contracts.
Emeka was a little dumbfounded as favonovel.com stood in the administrative office. “I haven’t even gotten the irrigation blueprints out yet, so what are you all doing here?”
The businessmen said, “It’s fine, we can wait. We also have professional civil engineers on our side, and a few of them have expertise in large-scale engineering projects, so please use them however you like.”
Emeka was taken aback yet again. “Our engineering budget is very low. You all won’t make any money from this.”
The businessmen replied, “It’s fine. What’s the big deal about not making money if it’s for the vision of the Prosperous Northwest? How about this? We’ll transport all the engineering equipment over first so that when all the plans are out, we can immediately start building the Prosperous Northwest!”
In just one night, all of the construction projects within Stronghold 144 came to a halt. There was only one project left to be carried out in the huge territory of the Northwest now, irrigation works.
When Old Bane ran to Milo’s courtyard house, Milo asked with a smile, “I heard that you held a meeting with the Northwest Chamber of Commerce? Uncle Bane, you’ve thought ahead for me again.”
Old Bane chuckled and said, “It’s my duty to share some of the burden with you, Future Commander…”
“Uncle Bane, you can just call me Milo,” Milo corrected.
However, Old Bane shook his head. “No, we can’t break etiquette.”
The progress of Stronghold 144’s reforms was picking up much faster than they had imagined. Although they could not mitigate the food shortage in time for the coming year by recultivating the wasteland, this was something that would benefit them for hundreds of years to come. Everyone was aware of that.
Over at Fortress 178, Gregory walked towards Peter’s office with a smile while holding a thick stack of documents in his hand.
At this moment, several high-ranking commanders were giving their work reports in the office. After Gregory entered, favonovel.com sat down off to the side and remained silent.
When Peter saw that favonovel.com had come in, favonovel.com unexpectedly interrupted the work report and asked Gregory, “How are things?”
Gregory said with a smile, “It progressed much faster than expected, and they’re doing rather solid work at Stronghold 144. With so many people working together, it looks like it’s going to be very successful, especially the irrigation project. Old Jardine was quite troubled by that previously and did not know how to handle it. But now that it’s being handled by the future commander, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be a problem at all. Milopar stepped up to it and handled everything.”
A high-ranking commander in the office wondered, “Milopar? Isn’t Milopar a company? Why is Milopar stepping in to handle this matter?”
Gregory explained, “Because Milopar’s boss, Old Bane, is the president of the Northwest Chamber of Commerce. So he’s quite influential in the business world. Reportedly, favonovel.com gathered all the businessmen to participate in the construction of the Northwest. That’s how the problem of insufficient engineering equipment was resolved.”
That high-ranking commander muttered, “But based on what I know, that Milopar is the future commander’s private company, right? If favonovel.com participates in such a huge project, there had better not be any problems with the intermediary procedures. A lot of people could get into trouble over this project.”
His words sneakily hinted that Milo was trying to profit off the irrigation work contracts. The other high-ranking commanders in the office did not say anything and just looked at Peter.
Moreover, everyone was thinking that this commander, Salvatore Adamo, who doubted Milo was a trusted aide of Commander Dublin. In that case, why would favonovel.com suddenly oppose the commander and question Milo’s purpose?
Could there be some disgruntlement?
“Then let’s investigate it.” Peter said with a smile, “Greg, after you finish investigating, make known the results. If there’s any discrepancies, they’ll be severely punished.”
“Understood.” Gregory nodded and said, “I’ll get someone to follow up on this matter.”
After everyone left, a lot of people started paying attention to this matter. Everyone wanted to see if the future commander of the Northwest would make any mistakes in handling the financial aspects of the project.
Actually, some people had already discussed this possibility in private a few days ago, but no one dared to mention it to Commander Dublin. But now that someone was finding fault with the future commander, everyone could watch the proceedings from the sidelines.
But seven days later, Peter suddenly called for a meeting with all of the high-ranking commanders of the Northwest. The agenda was Gregory’s investigative report.
The report showed that Milo’s private company had not only not profited off the reforms introduced at Stronghold 144, but it also made many concessions for the project. Milopar was basically coughing up money to help Milo with the reforms.
This report was written by Gregory, and the contents of the investigation were so detailed that it convinced everyone.
Someone held the report and said with a laugh, “Future Commander is really selfless and so admirable. This Old Bane is also talented. I consider it a great achievement to convince the Northwest Chamber of Commerce to contribute to the construction of the Northwest.”
At this moment, everyone looked at Salvatore, the person who first cast doubt on Milopar’s motives. However, they realized that Salvatore was smiling without saying anything. He did not look like favonovel.com had been slapped in the face by the results of this investigation.
As such, some wily old foxes came to an immediate realization.
Commander Dublin might have also heard there were people privately discussing the building of the irrigation infrastructure. Therefore, favonovel.com might as well let Salvatore lay it all out on the table and clear things up for everyone. It could also be considered as justifying Milo’s character so everyone would not have to worry that favonovel.com would try to profit from the reforms.
Some of the high-ranking commanders had wry smiles on their faces. In order to protect the successor, the commander had really put in a lot of effort. He even dragged in Salvatore to put on an act in front of everyone for this very reason!
