Auckland Marina.
O'Neill directed several dockworkers to transfer his ten wagons of cargo to a cargo ferry that crossed the bay.
A thick white fog shrouded the bay, and the sound of ship horns sounded muffled and distant in the fog.
The ferry cut through the gray seawater and headed towards the city built on the hills on the opposite shore.
San Francisco.
This city, which expanded wildly during the gold rush, is now going through the painful process of transforming into a commercial center.
As O'Neal stepped onto the rough wooden boardwalk of the Nemba Cardero dock, he felt a vitality completely different from that of New York.
Unlike the somber atmosphere of Wall Street, this place is filled with dockworkers in coarse cloth shirts, mine owners with revolvers at their waists, and vendors pushing wheelbarrows and hawking their wares.
The streets were muddy and impassable.
The tracks of the horse-drawn tram were faintly visible in the mud.
The smell of horse manure mingled with the saltiness of the sea breeze.
O'Neill rented a temporary open storage area at the dockyard and hired two armed Irish guards to watch over the goods covered with tarpaulins.
He then hailed a horse-drawn carriage with his suitcase and headed straight for Montgomery Street in the city center.
This is the financial and commercial heart of San Francisco.
The buildings on both sides of the street are mostly two or three-story brick and wood structures, with spacious shops on the ground floor.
O'Neal booked a room at a Western-style hotel.
After quickly taking a hot shower, he changed into a clean gray tweed suit.
At 2 p.m., he left the hotel and arrived at the entrance of a wholesale store called " Thorne & Black " on Montgomery Street.
This was one of the largest general merchandise distributors in San Francisco that he had researched on the train.
Pushing open the glass door, the doorbell rang crisply.
The interior of the business is very spacious.
The wooden shelves against the wall were piled high with bolts of cotton cloth, crates of nails, and various odds and ends. The air smelled of tobacco and dry firewood.
A man in his fifties was standing behind the counter.
Wearing a vest with black stain-resistant sleeves, and chewing on a piece of tobacco, he was Silas Thorne, the owner of the trading company.
"What would you like, sir? We only do bulk transactions here. We don't do retail."
Thorne glanced at O'Neal and, with his years of experience, recognized that the man was from the East Coast.
O'Neal walked to the counter and put down his suitcase.
"Sorry, I'm not buying anything, Mr. Thorne." O'Neill held out his hand. " Patrick O'Neill, New York" Metropolitan Trading Company. West Coast Business Manager.
Thorne stopped chewing.
There was no handshake; he simply looked O'Neal up and down.
" Metropolitan Trading Company? I've heard of it. What's a New York company doing in the Pacific? Your cargo ship will take months to round Cape Horn. By the time the goods arrive, my buyer will have already changed."
"We will not travel by water, Mr. Thorne."
O'Neal withdrew his hand, unperturbed by the other party's coldness. He took out the shipping list from his pocket and slapped it on the counter.
"Train. From New York, seven days to Oakland. My cargo is lying on the dock right now."
Thorne's eyes flickered slightly.
He picked up the list and glanced at the categories on it.
"Kerosene, canned goods, quinine."
Thorne looked at it for a while, then sneered and threw the list back on the table.
"Mr. O'Neill, you may not know San Francisco. We have a Pacific whaling fleet here, and the docks are overflowing with whale brain oil. That stuff is cheaper to burn than kerosene in your East Coast. As for meat, California has plenty of cattle. We have no shortage of food."
O'Neal leaned forward, his hands resting on the counter.
" Mr. Thorne, you're a shrewd man. Don't try to fool me with those platitudes you use to deceive individual customers."
O'Neal looked directly into Thorne's eyes.
"Whales oil is cheap, but it produces black smoke and the smell can kill the rats in the house. Now, would the wives of those wealthy bosses in San Francisco who have made money, those rich people who build villas in Nob Hill, be willing to burn whiskies oil in the living room? Standard Oil, the premium grade of kerosene, is as clear as water and burns without black smoke. It's a symbol of status."
O'Neal tapped on the canned items on the list.
"While California does have cattle, can you really drive them alive into the silver mines of Nevada? There are thousands of miners in those mines; they don't have time to cook beef over a fire. My oatmeal canned meat is so easy to eat you can just pry it open with a bayonet. It's high in salt and calories. One can is enough to keep them mining all day."
Thorne started chewing tobacco again.
His attitude softened somewhat because what O'Neal said was true.
The mining area has a great demand for high-calorie foods that are easy to preserve.
"How much stock do you have?" Thorne asked.
"Five train cars of kerosene, 20,000 barrels. And three train cars of canned goods. 100,000 cans," O'Neal announced the numbers.
"If you buy everything, I'll charge you twelve dollars a barrel of kerosene. Twenty-five cents a can of food."
O'Neal offered a wholesale price that was twice as high as that of the East Coast.
"You're insane!"
Thorne slammed his hand on the counter and spat out the tobacco juice in his mouth.
"Twelve dollars a barrel of kerosene? I get it for only six dollars on the East Coast! This is robbery!"
"You forgot about the shipping fee, Mr. Thorne."
O'Neal remained unfazed.
" Union Pacific Railroad's freight costs are higher than the goods themselves. Besides, I'm selling ready-made goods. Right at the dock. You pay, and it's ready to go this afternoon. If you write to New York to order and wait for the train to arrive, it will take at least a month. In that month, your competitors will have already snatched up all the mine orders."
O'Neal straightened up and adjusted the buttons on his suit jacket.
"My Metropolitan Trading Company has visited more than one company in San Francisco. If you think it's too expensive, turn left and I can go to ' Harrison Trading Company.' I believe they would be very interested in being the exclusive distributor for this shipment."
O'Neal picked up his briefcase and prepared to turn around.
"Wait," Thorne called out to him.
In this city of rapid, unregulated growth, time is money. Whoever has the goods in hand controls the mining market.
Thorne quickly calculated in his mind the mine owner's ability to withstand the losses.
If he sells kerosene for $15 a barrel and canned goods for 35 cents, he still has a huge profit margin.
"I'll take it all," Thorne said through gritted teeth, "but on one condition."
O'Neal stopped in his tracks.
"Speaking."
"From now on, Thorne Trading Company will have exclusive distribution rights for the kerosene and canned goods you ship to San Francisco every month. You can no longer sell them to Harrison or anyone else."
Thorne demanded market exclusivity.
"It depends on how you pay." O'Neill turned and walked back to the counter.
"The Metropolitan Bank does not accept greenback banknotes; it only accepts physical gold or bank drafts from the Bank of California."
"We can settle the payment with gold promissory notes, not a penny less."
Thorne opened the drawer and took out a thick checkbook.
"We can give you exclusive distribution rights, but only for three months. After three months, we'll need to see your shipment volume and renegotiate the contract."
O'Neal refused to back down, after all, he had heard what Mr. Bill had said.
Mr. Argyle, the big boss, intends to expand Universal Department Store to the West Coast.
Although we don't know when, we must leave room for maneuver, right?
"Deal." Thorne picked up the dip pen.
Half an hour later, O'Neal walked out of the store.
He had a gold standard draft worth $60,000 in his inside pocket.
This money not only recovered all the costs of purchasing and transportation, but also brought back a net profit of over 80%.
The wind in San Francisco brushed against my face, bringing a touch of coolness.
But O'Neal was filled with excitement.
He successfully drove the first nail into the Argyle Empire on this western land.
But this is just the beginning.
He also needs to establish a permanent office here, hire locals, and even build a warehouse for the metropolis.
He needs cheap labor.
O'Neal looked up at the street signs and decided to go to Duban Street.
I heard that there lives a group of people who are willing to do any kind of hard or tiring work as long as they are paid.
Grant Avenue.
The environment here is completely different from Montgomery Street, just a few blocks away.
The wooden buildings on both sides of the road were crowded.
The second-floor balcony was covered with clothes drying in the sun and salted fish being air-dried. The air was thick with the smells of cheap cigarettes, cheap kerosene, and cheap, uneffective, unreliable so called Chinese medicine.
The streets were bustling with activity.
Chinese laborers, wearing patched, coarse cloth short-sleeved shirts and dragging long braids, trudged through the mud.
Many of them were retired from railroad construction sites in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
After the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, tens of thousands of Chinese laborers lost their jobs and flocked to San Francisco in search of new livelihoods.
O'Neal carried his suitcase as he walked along the bumpy street.
His gray suit and white face looked out of place here. Many Chinese people passing by cast wary glances at him and gave him a wide berth.
O'Neal ignored the stares; he was looking for someone who could make a difference.
He walked into a shop with a wooden sign that read "Dum's Grocery Store".
The shop was dimly lit, and the shelves were filled with porcelain, tea, and some dried goods imported from the Qing Dynasty.
Behind the counter, a middle-aged Chinese man in a clean long gown was checking accounts with an abacus.
The abacus beads made a crisp, crackling sound.
"What do you want to buy, sir?"
The middle-aged man looked up and asked in broken English.
"I'm not buying groceries, I'm looking for someone." O'Neal walked to the counter.
"I heard that if you need hundreds or thousands of laborers on this street, Ah Wei Dum is the most reliable. Are you Dum?"
The middle-aged man stopped fiddling with the abacus and scrutinized O'Neal.
"I'm Dum Gai. What do you need laborers for? Mining or working on a farm?"
Dum Gai spoke cautiously.
Because of the increasing discrimination against Chinese laborers by white people during this period, he had to confirm the safety of this business deal.
"Stay in San Francisco to build warehouses and move goods."
O'Neal took out the business card of Metropolitan Trading Company from his pocket and handed it over.
"I represent the Metropolitan Trading Company in New York. We have rented a plot of land near the docks. So we need to build three large timber warehouses within two weeks. Once the warehouses are built, I will also need fifty permanent porters to handle loading and unloading our goods from the train station."
Dum Gai took the business card and glanced at it.
He didn't understand those complicated company names, but he understood numbers and engineering.
"Building three large warehouses will require two hundred people. Two weeks is a tight schedule." Dum Gai pulled the abacus in front of him.
"Sir, our people work very hard. But the wages cannot be less. The carpenters and bricklayers building the warehouse will receive one dollar and fifty cents a day. The porters will receive one dollar a day."
O'Neal frowned.
The price was higher than he had expected.
"Mr. Dum. I hire Irish workers in New York for just one dollar a day," O'Neill bargained.
" Irish?"
Dum Gai sneered and shook his head.
"Sir, you're hiring Irishmen. They work half a day and then spend the other half drinking. They go to church on weekends. If they're even slightly tired, they'll go on strike and vandalize your warehouse. In two weeks, they won't even be able to lay the foundation."
Dum Gai pointed to the silent Chinese faces on the street outside the door.
"As long as my men don't have their wages deducted or their rations cut, they can work from sunrise to sunset. No drinking, no strikes, and no rest. If the warehouse isn't built within two weeks, you'll deduct half of my pay. If you want speed, that's the price."
O'Neal stared at Dum Gai.
He saw in this Chinese contractor the shrewdness of a businessman and his absolute control over the laborers at the bottom of society.
Of course... he didn't come to San Francisco to save a few dozen dollars in labor costs; he wanted to establish a logistics hub on the West Coast before other Eastern companies could react.
Time is money.
"Deal." O'Neal nodded decisively.
"Wages will be settled weekly, and I will provide lunch and dinner. But efficiency will be key. If anyone slacks off..."
"No one will slack off," Dum Gai interrupted him.
"If your men find anyone slacking off, you won't even have to lift a finger; I'll send him back to his hometown in Guangdong to eat mud."
O'Neal opened his briefcase, took out a standard employment contract, and handed it to Dum Gai.
"Find someone who understands English to take a look. If there are no problems, tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, take two hundred men to the cargo yard at the Nembardero dock. Bring your tools."
Dum Gai did not read the contract.
He pulled a calligraphy brush from the pen holder, licked it on the tip of his tongue, and signed the contract with crooked English spelling.
"No need to look anymore, sir. We keep our word. See you tomorrow morning."
The next morning, at the San Francisco pier.
The sea fog has not yet dissipated.
Two hundred Chinese laborers were already standing neatly on the open space that O'Neill had rented.
They carried shovels, saws, and hammers.
There was no noise, only heavy breathing.
Dum Gai stood at the front of the line and nodded to O'Neal.
"Ching Chong Ding Dong!"
Dum Gai turned around and shouted in Cantonese.
The workers scattered instantly, like a swarm of highly disciplined worker ants. They cleared the ground, drove in wooden stakes for the foundation, and moved timber. Everything was orderly and efficient, with no unnecessary movements.
O'Neal stood to the side, watching these silent yet efficient builders. He finally understood why that arduous railway across the Sierra Nevada Mountains was ultimately paved with the shoulders of these men.
For the next two weeks, the hammering on the dock continued day and night.
O'Neal would come to the construction site every day, not only to supervise the progress but also to purchase salted fish, rice, and cheap vegetables for the three meals a day.
He was surprised to find that these Chinese laborers consumed very little food each day, yet displayed astonishing physical strength.
On the last day of the two weeks, in the evening.
Three massive single-story wooden warehouses stand firmly on the dockyard.
The roof was covered with waterproof tarpaulin.
The wide double wooden doors were large enough for two freight wagons to drive in side by side.
Dum Gai walked up to O'Neal and pointed to the warehouse.
"Sir, the work is finished. You can inspect it now."
O'Neill walked into the warehouse and inspected the structure of the support columns and the flatness of the ground.
Excellent, very solid.
He walked out of the warehouse, took a heavy cloth bag from his inside pocket, and handed it to Dum Gai.
"This is the final payment, Mr. Dum."
" Metropolitan Trading Company has taken root in San Francisco. The fifty regular movers I mentioned before will start work tomorrow. Tell them that as long as they work for Metropolitan, the anti-Chinese thugs in San Francisco won't dare to mess with them. This warehouse district has the rules of New York."
Dum Gai took the cloth bag and weighed it in his hand.
"I will select fifty of the strongest and most discreet men for you. Good luck doing business with you, sir."
Watching Dum Gai leave with the remaining laborers, O'Neill turned to look at the three warehouses.
Now that the channels are open, the distributors are secured, and logistics and warehousing have been established, the system is in place.
He needed to send a telegram to New York.
Nembacardo Port Cargo Yard
The morning sea fog had not completely dissipated, and the air was filled with the smells of dead fish, seaweed, and horse manure.
In front of the three newly built large wooden warehouses of Metropolitan Trading Company, fifty Chinese porters dressed in coarse cloth shirts are queuing up.
They held wooden sticks with iron hooks in their hands, silently awaiting instructions.
Patrick O'Neill stood beside the wide wooden door of Warehouse Number One. He wore high leather boots, his feet sinking into the damp mud. In his hand, he held a brass-cased pocket watch.
"Seven o'clock sharp."
O'Neal stuffed his pocket watch into his vest pocket and turned to look at Dum Gai standing next to him.
"Get the men to work, Dum. Unload all the kerosene from car number two and pile it on the moisture-proof wooden mats on the left."
Dum Gai nodded and turned around.
"Get to work! Watch out for fire! If you break a bucket, you'll have to pay a month's wages!" Dum Gai shouted loudly in Cantonese.
Workers immediately rushed to the freight cars parked on the tracks, and the heavy sliding iron doors were pulled open.
Inside, neatly stacked blue tin barrels were printed with the words " Standard Oil ".
Two workers worked together, using ropes and pulleys to slowly lower the 300-pound kerosene drum to the ground. Then, they used wooden planks to support it as it was rolled into the warehouse.
The whole process was well-organized.
There were only heavy breathing sounds and the metallic scraping of the rolling tin bucket.
O'Neal took out a thick ledger and used a pencil to record the quantity of goods received.
A four-wheeled wagon stopped outside the warehouse, pulled by two strong Clydesdale horses.
A man wearing a windproof wool coat and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat jumped off the carriage.
He had a full beard, and his leather boots were covered in red mud. A Colt revolver was prominently displayed at his waist.
O'Neal closed the ledger and went to greet him.
"Jebedia Mr. Vance?" O'Neal reached out his hand.
"Just call me Jeb, you Eastern guy."
Vance didn't shake hands; he walked straight past O'Neal and peered into the warehouse, where mountains of blue metal barrels were piled up.
Vance is one of the largest suppliers to the mining area in Virginia City, Nevada, home to the famous Comstock mine, the largest silver-producing region in America.
" That old fox Silas Thorne told me that you have premium kerosene here that can turn night into day. And it's in stock."
Vance turned around and stared at O'Neal.
"I came down the mountain to purchase winter supplies for the silver mine. It's too dark down in the mine, and the fumes from the whale brain oil will suffocate the miners in the tunnels."
" Mr. Thorne is not lying to you."
O'Neal walked up to a kerosene drum that had just been removed and used a wrench to unscrew the brass cap on top.
A pure, unblemished petrified smell wafted out.
"Look closer, Jeb," O'Neal said, pointing into the bucket.
"It's as clear as spring water, washed with sulfuric acid at the Standard Oil Company's refinery. There's no sulfur smell. When lit in a miner's lamp, the flame won't flicker or form charcoal. Your miners can extract 20% more ore underground."
Vance leaned in and smelled it, then nodded in satisfaction.
"The goods are good. And the price? Thorne quoted me fifteen dollars a barrel. He said he's the exclusive distributor."
Thorne is a distributor in the San Francisco area.
O'Neal leaned against the metal barrel, took out his cigar box, and handed one to Vance.
"But Nevada is not within his agency's scope. The Metropolitan Trading Company can do business with you directly. Skip Thorne's cut, twelve and a half dollars a barrel."
Vance took the cigar, bit off the cap, and didn't light it immediately.
"Twelve and a half dollars. I have a fleet of fifty wagons. We can take two thousand barrels at once. Can you lower the price a bit, buddy?" Vance began to haggle.
"The cost of hay for horses on the winding dirt roads from San Francisco to Nevada is outrageously high."
"Not a single point less, Jeb."
O'Neal put the cigar box back in his pocket.
"You can do the math. How long does a barrel of premium kerosene burn? How long does a barrel of whale brain oil burn? Your wagon caravan can take two thousand barrels up there. When you get to Virginia, you can resell them for twenty dollars a barrel. Those silver mine owners will be scrambling to pay for them. I not only have kerosene, but also one hundred thousand cans of high-salt meat. That's enough for your miners to eat through the winter."
Vance spun around twice in place.
He knew the man from the East was telling the truth. The mining area was short of everything; as long as the goods could be transported up there, the profits would be enormous.
"Okay, twelve and a half dollars it is." Vance spat.
"What payment method? I didn't bring that many greenback banknotes from the East."
"We don't want green-backed banknotes."
O'Neal's eyes became extremely shrewd.
" Metropolitan Trading Company only recognizes two things in the West: Double Eagle gold coins or cash on demand promissory notes issued by the Bank of California. If you have high-purity silver bars directly minted from Nevada silver mines, you can also have them converted at market price."
Vance grinned.
"I didn't bring any paper tickets, but there are three money boxes under the carriage floor. They're full of gold dust and silver bars that just came from Virginia." Vance patted the holster at his waist.
"Then let's exchange money for goods."
"Dum!" O'Neal shouted as he turned around.
Dum Gai immediately ran over.
"Call ten brothers over and unload the money box from Mr. Vance's carriage. Take it to the office and weigh it," O'Neill ordered.
O'Neal then turned to Vance.
"Come on, Jeb, let's go to my office and have a whiskey. After we've weighed it and checked the purity, my men will immediately load two thousand barrels of kerosene onto your wagon."
The two walked toward a newly built wooden office at the edge of the freight yard.
"You guys from the East, you're really ruthless in business."
Vance sighed as he walked.
"In the past, merchants who traded by sea had to beg us to buy their goods when they arrived at the dock. You built your warehouse right next to my carriage."
"Because times have changed, Jeb." O'Neal pushed open the office door.
"The railroad tracks have been laid all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Those old San Francisco geezers who rely on sailing ships to transport goods should retire. From now on, the Metropolitan Trading Company will control the supplies in the West."
In the office, Dum Gai, along with several workers, lifted the heavy metal money box onto a brass balance scale.
O'Neill took out a magnifying glass and a bottle of nitric acid and began to carefully examine the purity of the gold dust.
His movements were practiced and meticulous. Every ounce of gold was a bargaining chip for him to prove the strength of the Metropolis to New York.
In this wildly growing West Coast, there are none of the polite contracts found on Wall Street.
All that's available is the most basic spot goods and the hardest precious metals.
O'Neill knew he had to devour the wealth he had unearthed from the mines, skin and bones, into the Argyle family's coffers like a hungry wolf.