Empire of the Ring

Chapter 60: Charles Company’s Choice (2)

The absence of Park Jongil, Karajan, and Cha Insoo made a big change to Youngho’s schedule. During the day, he worked in his direct stores and during the night, he met government officials. He could not make time to begin any work on the farm.

Gerhardt was in charge of farm work but there was still a lot of things needed to be done by Youngho. Although he had sorted things out with the Charles company, he could not pretermit the farm’s security at nights because he knew how temperamental businessmen in Baku could be. He had inquired about who Araz of the Charles company was, and what he found about Araz made him even insecure.

Araz had raised his company in a short period of time from a small-scale farm inherited from his parents. It would have been impossible for him to make the company as big as now in such a short period of time if he had run his business in the normal way. He was known to lower the purchase value of grapes of other small-scale farms and to frequently threaten other farm owners. Youngho’s farm could be one of his victims.

Youngho opened his eyes automatically in his sleep because of a sudden chill he felt. It was not from outside since the windows were closed. He realized that it was the ring signing near danger. Not wasting a moment, he dressed and went down to the security office where there were alarms and monitors. The night guard who was dozing off woke up and asked what was wrong. There was no sign of people shown on the monitors. When he was about to turn on the security lights, he changed his mind and stopped his motion. He told the guards to protect the building. Then he put on the leather shoes and left the back door with a pistol and night vision goggles in his hands.

Because of the snow from two days ago, the field was bright. Using the leather shoes, he ran about two kilometers in a moment. There was nobody around where the alarm sensors were located. He could see footprints, which meant that the intruders were already inside the farm. Youngho went back and checked the farm routes. After running and carefully searching for any evidence of intruders for a while, he could find two robust men walking 100 meters ahead of him. They were panting because of the big backpacks they carried.

Using the running speed of the leather shoes, he approached them and struck the back of their necks. They fell unconscious. Right away, Youngho searched their backpacks while they were unconscious. They had each brought a gasoline container and pistol. They must have come to burn something in the farm. He woke them up to find out what they wanted.

Being threatened at gunpoint, they let out everything they knew. They were street hoodlums paid by the Charles company to sabotage Youngho’s farm. They came to burn the wine production facilities which were still under construction. Saying that they only brought guns for protection, they begged Youngho for mercy. They were a typical example of back alley hoodlums that ruled only the powerless. They were Araz’s partners who had been doing the dirty job for him. At Araz’s commission, they had been threatening powerless farmers.

Youngho thought it was no use to turn them in to the police. If his farm continued producing wines, Araz would keep trying to ruin his business. He needed to get rid of the root cause.

The winter night was long.

It had only passed 3 AM. Youngho was now aiming the Charles Wine Company’s wine factory with a portable rocket launcher. He knew the way around the factory site because he had visited here for a tour. Two rockets were launched and burned the automated factory building. Another two shots burned the storage unit for aging tanks. The last rocket directly hit an oil storage unit. The factory was devastated in a moment. Not only Araz lost all the wines produced this year but also it would cost him a few billion won to rebuild the factory facility. He might as well file for bankruptcy.

It did not matter if they doubt Youngho for this. It was the Charles company who had provoked the bad blood first. Youngho was not going to wait for Araz to ruin his business, so he burned his property first. It was a self-defense. In order to survive as a businessman in Baku, he thought he should have this much gut. Since he could not get rid of the two who intruded the farm, he called Sergey to take them. Now the two were destined to spend the rest of their lives working at a lumber camp in Siberia.

The explosion of the Charles company’s wine factory caused an uproar among Baku’s people. People even guessed that there was war. Araz was in shock since his factory was on fire instead of Youngho’s farm, which was still intact, and he could not reach the two men he sent to Youngho’s farm. He could not doubt Youngho for the explosion since he knew that his Korean employees were absent for their trip to Korea. And even if Youngho had found out about Araz’s plan to burn Youngho’s farm, it was impossible for a person to travel dozens of kilometers during the night to attack the factory.

The investigators reported that the explosion was due to rocket fires.

The news reported about the explosion for days. There were many people who would have been vindictive toward the Charles company in Baku due to Araz’s brutality. The police interviewed people who were on bad terms with the company but Youngho was out of the investigation radar.

“Boss, we need to buy more aging tanks. It’s going to be difficult to supply for the Charles company from now on.”

Youngho felt a prick at his conscious at Gerhardt’s remark but he responded naturally.

“The Charles company will restore the factory soon since they have plenty of funds.”

Gerhardt looked at Youngho as if he was being too naive.

“Boss, haven’t you heard? Araz’s out of funds now because he had to repay to his business partners.”

Gerhardt worried about the workers of the Charles company.

“Do you mean that Araz is quitting wine production?”

“There’s nothing left to quit anymore. I already received calls from the workers of his company. They asked me to hire them for our farm. They also said Araz was selling his grape farm too at a cheap price.”

“You know, we can’t hire the workers right now as if we’ve been waiting for this. They’d doubt us as the culprit for the explosion.”

Youngho did not want to get related to Araz’s business but Gerhardt kept on convincing him.

“The Charles company is notorious for its brutality. Although you can’t see it, people would be applauding inside now that the company’s gone.”

Youngho wondered why Araz even bought the grape extracts from Zeynep Farm. Gerhardt explained his question.

“The government pressured local farms to sell their extracts to the Charles company. Then the company sold their wine at a cheap price in a mass production. Because of them, other wine companies got behind in the price competition and lost their market.”

Listening to Gerhardt’s explanation, Youngho thought Araz had been a trashy, corrupt dealer.

“His company had bled the local farmers dry.”

“That’s why people are applauding for his failure.”

Youngho decided to find a way to buy Araz’s farm which Gerhardt wanted. Surprisingly, someone unexpected contacted him to suggest him to buy out the Charles company’s farm and wine factory. It was Kamal, the head of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kamal was promoting the Charles company’s wine factory and farm site due to a request from the agriculture department.

Youngho rejected his request with a reason that he had used all of his savings to buy wine production facilities. However, Kamal convinced him to buy the property, saying that he would connect him to bank advances.

Since the government approached Youngho first, he had a reasonable cause to buy the farm. With 200,000 dollars of down payment and 400,000 dollars of a mortgage, the 300 acres of Araz’s farm was now Youngho’s. It was equipped with a lodging area, office, and aging storage. In a normal circumstance, the farm would have cost at least 800,000 dollars but Youngho could buy it cheap because he insisted that he did not have any money.

Araz of Charles Wine Company was going crazy over his factory’s explosion. Even though he treated his business partners brutally, it was not to the extent where someone would burn down his factory. He could not guess who did this to him. Now that his factory was destroyed, his wine business seemed to be done.

Since he needed to return the advanced payment from his clients for his wines, his loss was huge. The police were concluding the cause for the explosion as mishandling of gasoline, in order to hide the instability of the city’s security.

After the day of the explosion, Araz had searched for the men who had gone missing in Youngho’s farm. However, he could not ask him if somebody visited the farm at night. He concluded that they must have run away with his money paid in advance. It was doubtful that his factory was exploded on the day that he sent men to Youngho’s farm but he did not doubt him. He could not imagine a foreign investor acting this violent in Baku.