Although it was mired in war, the economy of the north was getting better day by day.

Even the homeless people who could only sleep empty wine bottles every day and look at the sun in a daze have jobs.

Although there are many young people, because they cannot afford to pay, are forced to go to the front. Abraham Lincoln, however, is the president with the highest approval rating in three decades.

His approval rating has even exceeded 60 percent. That's already a very scary number.

You must know that the approval rating of previous presidents has only hovered around 45 percent.

Lincoln's approval rating was so high, of course, not because of his face, which could scare a crying child.

Rather, it is because he has made the sluggish economy better, so that the vast majority of people can have enough to eat.

Of course, at the same time, facing the South with the same hatred is also one of the reasons why the North is more supportive of the federal government and more cohesive.

Almost all the commoners of the North began to work hard in an attempt to defeat the evil, enslaved black villains of the South while having a richer material life.

However, in such an exciting environment, there are still people who are inevitably sad.

Cornelius Vanderbilt, at this time, looked out the window at the shore in a daze.

Although the salty sea breeze was blocked by the glass windows, he always felt the bitter taste in his mouth when the waves crashed on the shore.

It's like when I was still drifting, I filled my mouth with seawater.

He is 66 years old this year and was born on Staten Island, New York.

His father owned a farm on the island, and from the top of the farm, he could look down on the entire New York Bay.

His father was a very ordinary person, with no ambitions, and he wanted to make the family live happily in peace.

When Vanderbilt was young, it wasn't his father who influenced him the most, but his mother.

And since he was born, he has been different from his father, lively, active, and full of fighting spirit.

When he was six years old, he nearly killed himself in a competition with a child slave from the next house two years older than him.

Although his father sent him to school, he hated abstract knowledge that required rote memorization.

As a result, although he studied in school for many years, he still could not master the complex "aristocratic" English grammar and spelling.

Even when he became famous in the future, he still severely criticized this educational model.

School time was very boring.

At the age of sixteen, he looked down on New York Harbor again and began to aspire to have a career of his own.

He was in the port of Richmond, following his father to sell sail barges, when he suddenly saw an opportunity.

Before the advent of the steam engine, this sailing barge, built by the Dutch, was the main means of transportation in New York Harbor.

They shuttle between ports and ocean-going freighters, and their flat-bottomed drafts are shallower. Eighteen meters long and seven meters wide, they are used to carry goods, and they are like artifacts.

Vanderbilt, suddenly felt that if he owned such a ship, he could also make money!

So, he borrowed a hundred dollars from his mother to buy one such sail barge.

Out of the nineteenth century, a hundred dollars was definitely not a small number.

Although his mother trusted this son, she was still very demanding.

She said to him, "If you can clear the uncultivated 3.2 hectares of land before your birthday, plow the ground and plant crops, I will give you the money." ”

At that time, Vanderbilt's birthday was less than a month away, only four weeks.

However, Vanderbilt showed his talent.

He gathered all the children around him and asked them to help him with his task.

On his birthday, he received a hundred dollars and couldn't wait to buy a sail barge.

When he stepped aboard his own sail barge for the first time, raised the sails, and put his hands on the steering wheel, it gave birth to a strong sense of satisfaction.

Because, only at this time, he felt that his fate was finally under his control.

For the first two years, though, Vanderbilt didn't make much money.

Because, although a hundred dollars is a lot, there are also many rich people in New York Harbor.

Sail barges cover the sky, and it is not easy to find a job.

He was lucky, though.

Two years of war changed his situation and made his career a success.

The military needed a supplier they could fully trust and rely on to deliver supplies to the fort defending New York Harbor.

At the time, Vanderbilt's offer was not the lowest, though.

However, it was Vanderbilt's maturing interpersonal operations that he got the contract.

And this is also the first freight contract he got.

Because in the past, the transportation of goods in the port of New York did not rely on contracts, but on the speed of rush transportation.

An ocean-going ship is moored in a distance where it will not run aground, and an infinite number of sailing barges rush past like a fine (harmony), and only the first one will be given a chance.

Vanderbilt, who was able to rely on his strong physical strength to obtain transportation opportunities in the past, now has a stable order, which is like a tiger with wings.

After that, another five years passed. He had amassed more than $9,000 in cash, and on top of that, he had the largest fleet of sailing ships in New York Harbor.

At this time, he was not satisfied with the title of king of sail barges.

He soon discovered a new business opportunity, steamboats.

Unlike sail barges, a steamship no longer relies entirely on wind power or manpower, but on the power of steam.

It's faster and smaller, but it carries more volume.

Crucially, it's not just in New York Harbor.

It is also possible to do some mid-haul shipping.

In this way, Vanderbilt connected the three ports of New York, New Brunswick, and New Jersey with steamships.

However, at that time, the steamship franchise was in the hands of another person.

Vanderbilt battled his wits with the man, and finally waited for the court to rule that the monopoly of steamships was unconstitutional.

By 1840, he had become the largest shipowner in the United States.

And, once again, good fortune struck.

In 1849, gold was discovered in California.

The whole of the United States and Europe have set off a frenzied western gold rush.

Almost everyone is crazy about the gold rush.

Vanderbilt immediately opened a route from the East Coast to West Coast California.

This route, in its first year of operation, brought him more than a million dollars.

And the benefits are still ongoing.

The Business Daily, the best-selling newspaper at the time, referred to him as "Captain", and others did the same.

However, it didn't take long for him to feel that the gold rush was over.

He saw great promise for the land transport industry.

A river connecting the Great Lakes and venting from New York Harbor can sustain such a vast amount of wealth.

What kind of wealth would it be if all the land routes were connected by rail?

So he sold all his steamships and began to invest in railroads in a desperate bet.

At this time, he was already middle-aged and elderly, and began to focus on cultivating the eldest son who was very similar to him.

But precisely because this son is very similar to him, an inevitable accident happened.

His son, in violation of his orders, went to the front in the south without permission.

And what is even more tragic is that this son, who condensed all his hard work, died on the front line.

Sixty-six years old is definitely not a small age in this era.

And all his hard work in the past twenty years has been ruined in one fell swoop, and the blow to him is extremely big.

But, no matter what, he needs to stick to it.

He began to nurture his youngest son.

However, his younger son has a very different personality from him and his eldest son.

He was timid and vulnerable.

I don't even dare to look people in the eye when I talk to them.

In the past, Vanderbilt didn't even want to see this little son.

However, now he has no choice.

Because, his eldest son has died.

In the railroad market, Vanderbilt encountered an enemy, and that was Goode. Person.

Unlike Vanderbilt, who hates abstract and complex concepts, Goode is passionate and loved for these complex and abstract concepts.

He didn't have the slightest fondness for industry, for sailboats, for steam engines.

His penchant is manipulation of the financial and stock markets.

Use these things to indirectly control the company he wants to control.

And when he once gained control of a company.

He will not operate for a long time, but immediately split the company to arbitrage as quickly as possible.

His approach set the tone for a large part of Wall Street's financial capitalists.

They don't care about holding it for a long time, and their favorite thing to do is to kill chickens and get eggs.

However, while financial speculators are annoying.

However, the construction of railways has promoted the development of the stock market, and the development of the stock market has also promoted the progress of railway construction.

At this time, equities are still an emerging market.

However, all emerging markets lack rules and necessary controls.

How are shares of the Ili Railway issued?

What is the security for buying and selling stocks?

None of these systems are yet fully formed.

Goode took advantage of this loophole to manipulate the market by forging a large number of stock securities.

A large number of counterfeit shares caused the stock price of Yili Railway to plummet.

Goode and his partners, on the other hand, made a lot of money by shorting and buying down.

After that, they began to carry out the classic operations of Wall Street capitalists.

After smashing the market with his own hands, he entered a large number of stocks through low prices, so as to achieve the purpose of controlling the equity and control of Yili Railway.

Their actions angered Vanderbilt, who filed a lawsuit in state court asking the government to arrest them.

However, the speculators immediately put all the evidence in the box and, as if they were running away, ran to New Jersey, just across the New York River.

At this time, although American industry and commerce paid attention to the law, the law was only valid in one state.

For example, the conclusions of the State of New York are not recognized in New Jersey.

New Jersey, on the other hand, protects criminal financial speculators because of its own interests.

Vanderbilt, even if he protested and protested, still nothing came of it.

However, although he lost control of the Ili Railway, he also lost a lot of money.

However, at the insistence of his youngest son, William, he gradually expanded the railroad from the east to the west, eventually taking control of the railroad in the area around Chicago.

After that, Vanderbilt reported the speculators to federal court.

There, the verdict was finally handed down.

So that these people who did not have time to flee the United States were finally punished.

However, just before they were about to be put in prison, one by one, they all died unexpectedly and tragically.

Vanderbilt, the captain, is old, but his attack is not light at all.

Since here, the crowd on Wall Street has not dared to provoke Vanderbilt easily.

However, those people on Wall Street are still doing things around.

Not everyone is Vanderbilt, and not everyone can convince the federal courts.

The justice of the United States is fair, and its fairness is not that all men are created equal.

Rather, everyone is equal before money.

Although Vanderbilt, who had been weathered, lost his child, he did not escape the Civil War like an ostrich.

He still sees the business opportunities contained in this issue.

The first time he made a fortune, it was because of the war, and he clearly knew that any abnormal war was a time to make a fortune.

Therefore, at a sufficient premium, he bought the railway to the south.

At the same time, at a favorable price, all the contracts for the transportation of materials by the military were snatched up.

And, at some point, he will be more cooperative with the actions of the North.

And the reward for all his actions is a lot of profit.

Enough huge profits to make people blush.

It's hard to imagine how huge this profit is.

And Vanderbilt also began to raise his youngest son at this time, hoping that before he died, this youngest son would be able to become a man of his own.

Although, he is sure, he will not be able to keep the property he owns now, but he hopes that his descendants can live a life that is not bad.

Vanderbilt, although he hated his conservative father, now that he has entered the later years of his life, he also understands the choices his father made.

Because, every action he makes no longer just means that his life will change.

At the same time, it also represents the trajectory of the future survival of the whole family.

However, while cultivating, he also had another idea.

What kind of idea?

It's to expand with all your might.

Only in this way can the younger son be left as much of the property as possible when the younger son is lost in the future.