When he returned home, Gladstone thought it over and over, then called his two most trusted men and had them come to his house.
"I've run into a little trouble..."
The moment the two men sat down, Gladstone said this, and they rose again in response.
One of them currently served as the highest-ranking Chief of the Progressive Party Development Office.
The Development Office was a very special department.
It did not wield much power. Its purpose was to seek out promising people in society and bring them into the Progressive Party's cause.
Previously, the position had been held by a woman who had worked there for many years. Many of the Progressive Party's middle-class members had become party members through her.
She had also been the Elder's capable assistant.
No one would refuse a smart, capable woman with a pleasant personality and excellent connections! But after Gladstone took office, he casually found an excuse to transfer her to another office and assigned her a thankless job.
That way, he had firmly seized control of the Party Development Office.
On the surface, this department possessed only a tiny, almost invisible amount of power: recommending people for entry.
But precisely because of the nature of its work, many middle-class members had maintained extremely strong friendships with the former officeholder.
And that was exactly what Gladstone did not want to see.
He would not allow such a hidden group to exist within his party.
Besides, the woman had been the Elder's trusted aide, so he had easily replaced her with one of his own men, just as he had done with everyone else.
The other man did not hold a position in the party. Instead, he ran a logistics company.
Both men were Gladstone's absolute loyalists.
They had stood up intending to