Volvo's Growth

Chronicle of Major Events:

In 1882, Germany, Austria, and Italy held negotiations in Vienna. On May 20 of that year, they signed the Treaty of the Triple Alliance, marking the formation of the Triple Alliance.

September 30 — The world's first hydroelectric power plant began operating. (The dam on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, was the site of the world's first hydroelectric power plant.)

On January 14, Ferdinand summoned his managers and held a meeting to plan industrial development.

The attendees included not only those in charge of the emerging industries Ferdinand had established, but also the heads of the Kohary Family's traditional industries.

Ferdinand had realized that many traditional industries still had considerable untapped potential. In his plans, many of them could intersect and complement one another.

For example, like many great noble families, the Kohary Family owned its own wine estate, which served the family exclusively.

Ferdinand himself drank a little from time to time and thought it tasted quite good. He felt it was a waste to keep a large staff just to serve a handful of family members.

They could easily expand production and sell to the market. Even if the larger output lowered the wine's quality, as long as it was no worse than the ordinary stuff on the market, he could sell it.

As for the wheat and potatoes grown on the estate, starting this year they no longer needed to be sold elsewhere. The family's factories could use them all up.

The cattle and sheep from the pastures could also be handled in-house: they could build a slaughterhouse and then sell the meat in their supermarkets.

They could also set aside a plot of land near one of their cities to grow vegetables, selling them directly to customers, and so on.

The pomp of Europe's great nobles often exceeded even the wildest imagination of ordinary people.

Take Ferdinand, for example. He had more than a dozen personal maids, as well as a team of chefs no worse than those at a five-star hotel in a later age. They could prepare cuisines from more than a dozen countries, including Italy, France, and India.

His castle housed over three hundred people, including guards and servants. He even had a tailor dedicated solely to making his clothes. He also owned seven or eight luxurious carriages for his personal use.

For his milk, he had a private pasture stocked with the finest dairy cows, whose milk was reserved exclusively for him. He also had the customary wine estate, where only the best grapes were selected for winemaking, and so on.

Of course, his own retinue was nothing compared to Princess Clémentine's. Her grandeur was entirely in keeping with her status as a French princess.

In any case, after essential expenses, the Kohary Family still spent no less than 100,000 pounds sterling a year on their lavish lifestyle, and that sum continued to rise year by year.

This was also the driving force behind great nobles' transformation into major capitalists. The income from traditional industries was limited and could no longer satisfy their ever-growing appetite for consumption.

Ferdinand despised these bad habits and was eager to change everything. As for whether it would cost him face among the nobility, he figured he could wear a vest.

Ferdinand had no intention of challenging the aristocratic system. Your position determined your perspective, and he himself benefited from it. In public, he remained a staunch supporter of the nobility; he had not given up any of the trappings of his rank. At most, he had his maids double as secretaries and his attendants serve as assistants!

As Ferdinand reorganized his industries, Vienna's retail sector was changing too. Squeezed by Volvo, many grocery stores saw their profits plummet, and their backers began changing course. Quite a few entered the supermarket business.

Starting in February, a department supermarket called Doraemon opened its doors, breaking Volvo's monopoly and ushering in an era of fierce competition in the retail industry.

By October, more than eighty department supermarkets of all sizes had opened in Vienna, this international metropolis.

At first, everyone chose their locations with some distance between them, deliberately avoiding direct clashes. Although they competed with one another, they got along well enough, and everyone still made a decent profit.

But after 1883 began, newcomers sprang up like bamboo shoots after the rain, and there was no longer any room to give one another a wide berth. Some streets had seven or eight department supermarkets, while some stores stood directly across from one another, fighting for the same customers.

The supermarket business required no technical expertise, so capitalists poured into it. By the end of 1883, Vienna's supermarket density was already on a par with that of a later age.

The brutal competition began, with one tactic after another coming into play. Price wars were the obvious first choice; discount ads littered the streets, and the good times were over for everyone.

Volvo was the industry's dominant player. Its stores had spread across cities large and small throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it had expanded into Germany and Italy. Though it had taken a hit, its Vienna stores were still profitable.

Then, in March 1884, Kotei Department Store announced its restructuring. The retail giant had officially entered the supermarket business.

Ferdinand was quite surprised. He had done more than his share to fan the flames of competition in Vienna's supermarket sector, hoping to scare off some of the major capitalists.

He had been quite successful so far. Although Volvo's stores in Vienna had taken a hit, the more conservative capitalists in other cities had backed down in response!

Volvo's losses in Vienna had been more than made up for by its profits in other cities.

Ferdinand knew Kotei Department Store's background quite well. Behind it stood a Hungarian Kingdom financial conglomerate, which included the Kohary Family.

The group was dominated by Hungarian capitalists in the flour-milling industry.

Although Ferdinand also owned flour mills, most of their output was consumed by his own businesses, so he rarely paid attention to the industry. This time, he had been caught completely off guard.

Once Ferdinand had collected himself, he immediately used his family connections to find out what had happened.

As Volvo expanded at breakneck speed, its share of the retail market continued to grow. The Shineway flour mills naturally rose along with it, steadily increasing their market share.

Sales of Hungarian flour across the Austro-Hungarian Empire had plummeted, and the flour capitalists were growing restless.

If Ferdinand had been an ordinary man, they could naturally have found a way to make him submit—or sent him straight to meet God!

But Ferdinand was also a Hungarian grandee, and this was an internal rivalry. Many of their usual methods were off the table. Apart from the capitalists who were being hurt firsthand, everyone else stood by and watched.

To change the situation in which Volvo stood alone atop the retail industry, they had chosen to support Kotei's entry into the market. Their main aim was to force Ferdinand to make concessions!

Once he understood the whole story, Ferdinand was relieved. As long as this wasn't the will of the entire Hungarian financial conglomerate, he could crush a mere Kotei Department Store whenever he pleased!

Besides, the news had reached him so quickly, and the other side had clearly signaled that they were open to talking things out. That showed they had no intention of fighting him to the bitter end.

The incident also taught Ferdinand a lesson: he had to strengthen his intelligence network. A transmigrator wasn't omnipotent. If he had paid more attention to his family's old connections, the two sides would probably have worked things out long ago, and this would never have happened!