Chapter 1086: Managing a Country

Managing a country is no simple task. It is perhaps one of the most complex jobs in the world. Do not underestimate those leaders who, in front of you, seem to do nothing yet earn a high salary, because it is possible they are truly doing more than you.

To casually point at a position, sneer, and leave a comment like, “I could do that too,” is an irresponsible, wholesale negation of another’s work. Let’s not even talk about how to climb from the grassroots, step by step, to that position. Just analyzing the problems that need to be weighed in that position is perhaps not something others are competent to do.

Attracting foreign investment might hurt local enterprises, but local enterprises are harming the environment. The tourism industry is creating revenue for the entire region, but the tourists are destroying local businesses. The major shopping malls are all big taxpayers and cannot be offended, but the commercial districts, which have been slow to relocate, are disrupting the construction and planning of the entire region.

One must coordinate the interests of everyone in the region, the ethnic groups, the corporations, the communities, and so on… People are always finding fault with this work, yet in the end, there is not a single person who can propose a solution. Do you know how many scholars were clamoring for war at the time of the First Sino-Japanese War? But when the war started, those who actually enlisted were pitifully few.

Seeing Japan keep a train station open for just one person, people shout: “This is the gap!” But who can truly appreciate the price a country has to pay to give such special treatment to 1.3 billion people? If the country, for the sake of a so-called “sentiment,” really insisted on providing services for a few, these same critics would start to clamor again, hyping up the so-called “privilege theory” or “insider theory,” right?

Imagine, if China were only as big as Shanghai, with only a population of 1 million, then just by relying on its port throughput, it could let these 1 million people live a life like Dubai’s. Its infrastructure would be in no way inferior to America’s Manhattan, and its per capita income would look down on a tuhao (nouveau riche) country like Saudi Arabia. But would such a country truly have no weaknesses?

No voice in international affairs, a sacrificial lamb in the struggles of the great powers, no possibility of being strong for a lifetime. When encountering a difficult problem from a great power, it can only grit its teeth and bear it. And don’t even talk about independently developing weapons, because the country is small and its procurement is small, all weapons can only be purchased. And don’t talk about any hard-line, heroic words, because if this kind of country is truly attacked, it won’t even have the troops to resist.

In his office, Akado was already at his wit’s end over the matters at hand. The ethnic disputes in the Balkan region had turned that place into a hotbed of partisans. These were not partisans targeting the Germans, but micro-armies of local people attacking each other. They didn’t dare to have a firefight with the elite German troops, but in their own backyard, they were fighting to the death over some trivial matters.

Some of the policies and construction work that Germany was trying to implement here were difficult to carry out because of the chaotic local security environment. And the infrastructure construction, which had originally been a smooth process, had also become chaotic due to the doubling of German territory. How big was the Third Reich originally? Now it encompassed nearly seventy percent of the land in all of Europe. That set of policies for managing the original Germany, could it still be used now? Or rather, was it still effective?

Back then, Akado had met with a few financial tycoons, had casually chatted for half an hour, had promised a few things, and had borrowed a sum of money. He had, with great ease, built nearly a hundred kilometers of highways and railways in Germany. These roads had injected new vitality into Germany’s economic construction and had also allowed Germany’s military forces to move quickly within the country.

But now, if he wanted to build a transport line that ran from the east to the west of Germany, the funds required would be no small sum. Even if he were to mobilize the army to help, to work for a whole year, to build a new railway from Saint Rudolph to Paris would be an impossible task.

“Let’s put the Balkan problem aside for now. At least General Hoth is still able to control the situation there.” Akado, with a headache, tossed these documents to one side and then picked up a new file. He opened the first page—”Norwegian iron ore supply down by seven percent.”

Of course, the Norwegian iron ore production couldn’t have decreased for no reason. The Allied bomber base on Iceland hadn’t even been dug out of the rubble yet. How could they still have the ability to bomb Norway? And the German fighter force in Norway was unprecedentedly strong; they were sharpening their knives, just waiting for the targets to come to them.

And Germany’s production of Norwegian iron ore was also very important, so a sudden, inexplicable decrease in supply would definitely not be because of a problem with extraction or any other such link.

Since it wasn’t a problem with Norway’s production capacity, then it must be a problem with the transport and stockpiling links. Seventy percent of the Norwegian iron ore was in the hands of the German Wehrmacht. The rest had been mortgaged to a certain German financial consortium as compensation. Akado frowned, and then slammed the report on the desk.

“Linus Sebastian!” He squeezed a name from between his teeth, a name that made the German financial world’s blood run cold. He was all too familiar with this name. Just after the German army had captured the Baku oil fields, the owner of this name had even sought out Akado, proposing to use this oil field to repay the Empire’s national debt.

He had, of course, refused this unreasonable, or rather, somewhat excessive, demand. And the other had left with a few harsh words. It was clear that the other was now beginning to retaliate, to directly use the steel production capacity in his hands to put pressure on Akado, this Imperial Führer.

“Interesting! Interesting!” Akado looked at the report again, and then a smile suddenly appeared on his face. There was a very interesting sentence in Marx’s Das Kapital, and Akado had just thought of it now: With 20 percent profit, capital becomes restless; with 50 percent, it becomes adventurous; with 100 percent, it will trample all human laws underfoot; and with 300 percent, there is no crime it will not risk, even that of the gallows.

Akado couldn’t even imagine just how much profit one would make by monopolizing the entire oil supply of an empire that spanned Eurasia and Africa. Because the richest person he had heard of in his two lifetimes had only controlled a twentieth of this target. The sheiks of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, plus the oligarchs who sold oil in Libya and Russia, all added up—that was the ultimate goal that Linus Sebastian was pursuing. Just thinking about it made Akado himself feel extremely excited.

“If he really had the ability to do this, then I think this world, rather than belonging to the Third Reich or America, would be his, Linus Sebastian’s!” Akado said with a sigh of admiration. He then pressed his hand on this document. “Unfortunately, capital is, in the end, just capital.”

After muttering this, Akado turned his head and instructed Anna, who had been standing behind him, watching him work. “Have Mercedes release the prepared materials through our untraceable channels. Also, notify Gascoigne. Have him come to my office.”

By the time Gascoigne had arrived at Akado’s office, Akado was in the process of approving an increase in the production capacity of the heavy industrial base in Bavaria. He was demanding that these enterprises produce two times more cars and tractors, because he was convinced that the post-war recovery work, and the massive Asian market, could support this production capacity until 1970, or even longer.

“Heil Akado Rudolph, my Führer!” Gascoigne, standing at the door, stood at attention, meticulously, and gave a Greater German salute. He did not, just because Akado had not looked up, lower his own standards, because he was full of respect for Akado, and was unconditionally obedient.

“Send a message to ‘Beehive.’ Have them find a way to forge a person in the old Soviet archives,” Akado said, putting down the document in his hand. He then looked at Gascoigne. “This person’s father once financed the October Revolution. He was Stalin’s best friend abroad, and his most staunch supporter. He was ordered to lurk in Germany, to sabotage all of Germany’s war against the Soviet Union.”

“Gulp.” Gascoigne swallowed. He knew that whoever had this kind of identity and background fabricated for them would, with just a slight verification, be shot on the spot. This person’s entire family would be sent to a concentration camp. This person’s reputation would be completely erased within the Third Reich… In short, anyone who had this hat put on them, no matter how important they were, was a dead man.

“The reason for arranging this is because we can’t pay back the debt we owe Mr. Linus Sebastian,” Akado said with a smile, as if he were talking about something very interesting. But in every word, Gascoigne could hear a cold feeling. So when he heard the name Linus Sebastian, he knew that this super-tycoon, who held the fate of the Empire’s economy in his hands, was in for a bad time.

“We owe this person 17 billion Imperial Gold Marks. The things to be used for repayment include 4 companies in Belgium, 2 shipyards in the Netherlands, 6 arsenals in France, and 14 labor camps in Poland. And now I have to give him an oil field, half of the farms in Ukraine, and the tax revenue of a full 9 occupied territories!” The faster Akado spoke, the faster his words came. Gascoigne, his eyes lowered, did not speak.

Only after Akado had finished venting, did Gascoigne raise his gaze and say slowly, “In fact, my Führer, I have no need to know why he deserves to die… All I need is your order. You give the order to kill him, and tomorrow morning, I will have him strangled on his sunlit balcony… Even if he is a good man, with a blind daughter, and a paralyzed old mother—he is still a dead man.”

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