Europa Universalis 1867: Start by inheriting an armory

Lucas glanced at Heinrich with suspicion, then sighed heavily.

He took off his hat, went into the office, and the door closed in front of Heinrich.

In the office, facing Richard and Siemens, Lucas tore the hat in his hand out of shape.

His nostrils twitched from time to time, as if a rabbit had caught the scent of a fox.

"Boss," his voice was strained, each word trembling as it came out of his throat, "what can I do for you?"

Richard leaned back on the table, relaxed. "Mr. Lucas, I've heard you're from Wales. That's a wonderful place, and I'm very interested in its culture."

Upon hearing this, Lucas's eyes widened. He turned to look at Siemens, whose brows furrowed. He didn't understand Richard's intention either, but he didn't say a word.

"What...what exactly are you trying to say?" Lucas stammered.

“It’s nothing. I just wanted you to tell me about the local myths and legends,” Richard said with a smile. “Even better about the Druids.”

Lucas licked his dry lips. At this point, seeking help from Siemens was of no use, and he was clearly just as confused.

Lucas resigned himself to his fate, swallowed hard, and began to tell his story.

The legends about Druids and Stonehenge, shrouded in the mists of the forest, have been passed down orally for centuries, their veracity uncertain.

His voice changed from trembling to calm, and finally he spoke fluently about those mysterious sacrificial rituals.

More than ten minutes passed, and in the corridor outside the door, Heinrich was sweating profusely with anxiety.

He strained his ears, trying to catch any sound through the crack in the closed door, but could hear nothing except the faint rustling of tables and chairs.

Time seemed to drag on. He didn't know what Lucas had said inside, or what Richard had asked him, or what awaited him when the door opened.

Finally, the door opened.

Lucas came out and slammed the crumpled hat on his head.

His face didn't show the weariness and frustration one would expect after being interrogated; instead, he looked somewhat...relaxed?

He didn't even glance at Heinrich, and strode down the stairs.

Richard peeked out from behind the door again, smiling as he called out in the direction of Lucas's retreating figure, "Thank you, Mr. Lucas."

Then he stopped smiling and looked at Heinrich: "It's your turn, Mr. Heinrich."

Heinrich's Adam's apple bobbed as he walked into the office, where the gaslights were so bright that even his shadow was clearly visible.

Richard sat down in the chair opposite him, crossed his legs, and said, "Go ahead."

Heinrich raised his eyebrows: "What did you say?"

Richard lowered his head and mysteriously pulled a notebook from his pocket.

His finger moved across the pages, pointing to lines of words that didn't exist.

"Lucas has admitted that you and he smuggled things from the factory together. He said it was all your idea, and he was just responsible for turning a blind eye while on guard duty." He looked up into Heinrich's eyes. "Do you need me to continue?"

Heinrich's face was pale, his hands were clenched into fists, and the veins on the back of his hands bulged.

"Impossible," he muttered, denying it. "He would never say that."

Richard put his notebook on the table: "He will, as long as I promise him some money so he can go back to Wells to retire."

Upon hearing this, Heinrich suddenly became furious. He took a step forward, and Siemens instinctively leaned back.

"That bastard Lucas!" Heinrich roared. "How dare he do this!"

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving, and Richard was worried that he would rush out of the office to confront Lucas at any moment.

"Let me be frank with you, it was all his idea," he said through gritted teeth.

Siemens understood Richard's approach; he was exploiting information asymmetry to swindle Heinrich. Who would have thought that an arms dealer and a steel mill owner would be in an office with the door closed, listening to a guard tell myths and legends for more than ten minutes?

So he took the initiative and asked, "Lucas says it's you, but you say it's Lucas. Whom should we believe?"

“You have to believe me,” Heinrich explained hoarsely, “one day Lucas came to me and said that a company was willing to pay a high price to buy back the factory’s waste.”

He turned to Siemens, yearning for his support: "He intends to work with me. You know my brother is serving in Prussia. He fell ill and it was only thanks to God's help that he's been training harder lately. I really had no other choice..."

He didn't finish speaking; the last few words were cut off.

Richard was also in a dilemma. Prussia's tradition of valuing the army began during the reign of Frederick William I, and Bismarck was taking it to its extreme.

But the young men who were drafted into the army earned only three groschens per hour, which is about four pence.

The soldiers had to save the money and send it home to their families who were still working in the fields and sweating in the factories.

After deducting various miscellaneous taxes in the military, clothing costs, equipment wear and tear costs, and training material costs, the money left is already very little.

If you get sick, the cost of medicine at the military hospital can be equivalent to more than half a month's allowance.

Richard understood why the army had intensified its training; it was now 1869, and a year later, Prussia would use this as a pretext to launch a war and fight Napoleon III to the death.

Heinrich's money was his brother's life savings.

Siemens took a deep breath and asked Heinrich with heartache, "How could you agree to do such a thing? It would be one thing if it were other workers, but don't you know that everything we do is a secret project? If that data and process were leaked..."

Heinrich suddenly raised his head, his expression changing from pleading to urgency.

"Of course I know!" His voice rose a notch. "So I was careful when I sold it. They said they only wanted the scrap, so I only gave them ordinary steel scrap. When I cleaned the chromium-nickel alloy scrap out of the furnace, I processed it all according to your requirements."

His tone was almost pleading: "You have to believe me, when have I ever done something so stupid?"

Richard sighed; he could understand Heinrich's predicament.

How could a foreman who has been standing in front of the furnace since the copper and zinc plant days, dealing with molten iron and coal ash every day, know that the inconspicuous gray-black slag that he shovels out of the furnace, that slag containing chromium and nickel, can be analyzed by a spectrometer in the laboratory, and thus the formula can be deduced?

He only knew he had made a mistake, but he didn't realize how serious it was.