In June, it was already summer, and the whole of Prussia was not affected by the war, and the streets of Berlin were full of pedestrians, shops and factories were running normally, and the scene was full of life.

For two months, Ernst has been busy with the formation of the Heixingen Development Bank, but fortunately it is still easy to run a bank in this era, and there are relatively few thresholds and regulations.

After two months of preparation, the Heixingen Development Bank was founded, which was attended by many of ERNST's company executives, and after confirming the shares of many of the factories under ERNST, the Heixingen consortium took shape.

After the establishment of the Heixingen Development Bank, in addition to opening up basic businesses such as savings and loans, the first major move was to invest in the establishment of the Berlin Electric Power Company and the Berlin Energy and Power Company.

This is naturally Ernst's masterpiece, and now the two companies are still empty shells, and in order to find managers for the new company, Ernst has gone to great lengths, in addition to visiting universities, inspecting companies in the industry, and at the same time publishing job advertisements in newspapers, after a large number of screenings.

On July 28, the Frenchman Etienne Lenoir, inventor of the original internal combustion engine, became the first managing director of Energie Power Berlin.

Although Lenoir was an important promoter of the development of the internal combustion engine, Lenoir's research cost a huge amount of money, and no one invested in it, so he was not very wealthy, but lived a poor life.

After receiving an invitation from Ernst, he readily agreed to Ernst's request, because in addition to offering a good salary, Ernst also promised to support his research work.

At the same time, a young man about to graduate from school, Carl Friedrich Benz, became Lenoir's assistant.

At this time, Karl Benz was a student about to graduate from the Karlsruhe Polytechnic in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany.

Ernst excavated him in advance and directly made him work as an assistant to Lenoir's predecessors, skipping his historical factory internship.

Berlin Energy Power also financed the purchase of the engine patent of a young Frenchman, Alphonse Bo Rorschach, and appointed him as a technical consultant, and Berlin Energy Power Company took shape.

This Alphonse Bo Rorschach is not famous in history, but it is he who has robbed Rose August Otto's patent for a vaporizer in history.

Ross August Otto was the inventor of the four-stroke engine in history, and Ernst originally wanted to be the inventor who influenced the course of human history.

But unfortunately it was a step too late, this Rose August Otto, in 1863 obtained the patent rights for the innovation of the two-stroke engine, and soon found a partner to finance him, named Eugene Langan, the son of a German sugar merchant, a typical rich second generation, and the two of them jointly founded a company that manufactured internal combustion engines.

Now Ross August Otto does not need to look for new partners and investors, and the two men's factories are already profitable.

The newly established Berlin Energy Power Company also recruited many recent graduates as a talent reserve, and the college students of this era are real elites, and after these talents, Berlin Energy Power Company looks like a good one.

ERNST's first directive to the new company was to develop a more advanced four-stroke engine based on Alphonse Bo Rorschach's patent.

Historically, Alphonse Bo Rorschach's patent was forgotten because no prototypes were produced, but Ernst bought his patent anyway and intended to further refine and develop it.

Combined with the help of Lenoir, a pioneer in the field of internal combustion engines, this goal was not difficult for the new company, and it was even possible to get a practical four-stroke engine ahead of Ross Auguste Otto.

Lenoir was the first person to invent the internal combustion engine, although his internal combustion engine is only in its initial form and inefficient, but it may be difficult to find a few people in the world who are more familiar with the internal combustion engine than Lenoir.

In the future, with Bentz, a young man who is scheduled to succeed him, Ernst will be able to realize the layout of the automotive industry in advance.

……

On 3 October, the young man Carl von Lind was appointed as its first managing director by the Development Bank in Heisingen, and the Berlin Electric Power Company was put into operation.

Compared with the internal combustion engine, which has a steam engine as a foreshadowing industry, the theory of electricity has only recently been proposed, and even many theories are not mature.

Ernst searched all over Europe to find a suitable candidate for Carl von Linde, the man who invented the refrigerator in history.

As for other talents in the field of electricity, it is too difficult to find, the most famous Siemens family in Germany is itself an aristocracy, and it is valued by the Prussian government, and there is no place for Ernst to shovel.

And Siemens itself is synonymous with openness, and the characters who can be on the same level as Ernst only know the American Edison and Tesla, of course, those theoretical bigwigs Ernst did not count.

As a science and engineering student, Ernst knew many well-known scientists and inventors, but some of them had already achieved fame, or were still unknown somewhere in Europe and the United States, or were still children or unborn.

After screening out the age and those who don't need investment cooperation, there is a needle in a haystack all over the world.

Fortunately, neither of these fields has yet exploded into great power, and the technology that belongs to the forefront of this era is a small number of members who can engage in related industries and research.

Just keep an eye on the list of companies and well-known universities that have already made their mark in these fields, and you can still get a prominent one or two.

For the Berlin Electric Power Company, Ernst has no good way to open the hanging, so he can only follow the development of the times and let his people make some small innovations.

In the future, it is necessary to closely follow the development of Siemens and some companies in the United States, after all, you can make some hard-earned money by relying on patent authorization to set up factories.

……

On 20 October, the Vienna Conference was taking place. Ernst visited the port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and this time his goal was to find a suitable partner to prepare for the development of the Far East market.

The Far East is the hometown of the previous life, Ernst naturally has it in his heart, and of course, the temptation of interests is also irresistible, except for those resource regions, relying on the huge population market of the contemporary world and coveted by European and American colonizers and foreign powers, one is India, the other is East Asia.

India, a magical country, is the lifeblood of Britain, and the brain circuits of Indians are so strange that Ernst does not dare to get involved.

East Asia is different, and Ernst dared to pat his chest and say that no one in Europe knows East Asia better than I do. Compared with India, a country that kneels on the ground as soon as it encounters a strong enemy, East Asians are still somewhat bloody, which makes it difficult for the great powers to open the door of a large East Asian country, but it is difficult to completely take root.

Even if all the great powers combined, they could not fully grasp the situation in East Asia, and the forces inside were in disarray, and even if they mixed in as a Prussian, they would not be too conspicuous, which was just convenient for Ernst to fish in troubled waters.

Recently, Ernst has reached an agreement with a number of old Dutch ocean-going trading companies, and Ernst will send people to East Asia to establish a purely commercial base, while the Dutch will earn the difference in middlemen.

As for the transportation of goods in Europe and East Asia and the transmission of business information can only rely on the Dutch to complete, compared to the Netherlands, a country based on commerce, the British Ernst is not at ease, you a German nobleman went to Britain to engage in cooperation, the British government should not pay special attention to it, Ernst does not want to deal with any official, that means trouble, especially since he has no connections in the UK!

Although the Dutch, who had been sanctioned by the British, could not compare with the empire in terms of the cost and safety of ocean trade, the Dutch were still more cautious than the British in smashing signboards, after all, the Netherlands could only survive on commercial trade, and its reputation in Europe was more important.

Of course, Amsterdam in the Netherlands is just the best option for Ernst at the moment, and in the future Ernst will still shift its focus to ports on the Mediterranean coast.

In a few years, after the opening of the Suez Canal, Ernst will be able to use this intelligence advantage to develop his own fleet and routes.

In addition, after the reunification of Germany in the future, commercial trade routes can pass through Austria, Prince Constantine still has some old friends in the Austrian Empire, after all, Heshingen is not far from Austria, and from the map alone, Heshingen to Vienna is closer than to Berlin, which also means that this route is safer.

Finally, through Venice and other ports on the Adriatic Sea, through the Suez Canal, you can avoid detouring most of the western African coastline, and the distance to East Asia will be directly reduced by half, and the freight will be cheaper.

In addition to these, goods departing from the Netherlands can also be transshipped to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.

Hamburg in Germany was also a transitional option until Ernst's long-hidden plan began, but after the reunification of Germany, Germany still lacked experience in sea-going commerce, and the technology of ships was not comparable to that of the Netherlands and Venice.

Therefore, Ernst was not in a hurry to invest in a shipyard in Hamburg, and now the focus was on Venice, and the scale of his industry did not reach the point where he had to rely on sea transportation, after all, the commodity trade itself had not yet set foot in, so from Berlin to Venice under the Austrian Empire, although it had to be transported by land, Ernst also had to bear the starting costs.

In the future, it is not too late to build a fleet in Hamburg if he wants to engage in large-volume commodity trade.

Therefore, the layout of the Mediterranean, it is already possible to start stepping on the spot in advance, and after the end of the trip to the Netherlands, Ernst plans to go around the Adriatic Sea to investigate.