I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 608: Unhappy Retribution
After confirming that all the senior executives of Lightning Company were "missing", the Mayor of London ordered people to force open the door of the distillery.

The place was brightly lit, but there was no one in sight. Only the distillation retort and other equipment with a metallic luster were left lying there.

"Make them move!" Herbert turned and shouted to the technician.

The technicians looked at each other and said none of them knew how to operate this thing.

At noon, two scholars from the Royal Academy of Sciences of the United Kingdom came to Lightning Company.

After they confirmed it repeatedly and tried to operate it, the oldest man said to Herbert: "I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, this thing seems to be just an empty tin can."

"It can't even burn for a long time," another scholar pointed to the heating furnace, "it can only hold less than 50 pounds of coal, and it is definitely not possible to distill enough gas to supply the whole of London..."

Unwilling to give up, Herbert asked scholars to search the entire Lightning Company again. Finally, they were completely sure that only the equipment in the basement could produce a small amount of gas - a "face project" used to maintain dozens of street lights around the city hall.

Besides that, not even half a litre of gas can be produced.

Herbert was stunned for several minutes before he finally realized that he had encountered a huge scam.

No, the whole of London, and even the whole of Britain, was deceived!
That evening, the matter was reported directly to Little Pete.

The young Prime Minister stared at the Home Secretary, the Duke of Portland, with a frown on his face. "In other words, this Lightning Company has also issued hundreds of thousands of pounds of bonds through the bank?"

The latter nodded and said, "The Merchant Credit Bank, founded by the Goldmid family. I have sent someone to verify the total amount of the bonds, and it is estimated to be at least 70 pounds."

Little Pete suddenly felt dizzy.

70 pounds! This figure would definitely cause a stir in London. You know, the entire gas streetlight project was only allocated 30 pounds.

He hurriedly asked, "What is the relationship between the Commercial Credit Bank and Lightning Company? Freeze all their accounts immediately!"

"Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, I have done so." The Duke of Portland said, "But there are only more than 2 pounds in the bank account, and the other assets are still being counted. As for their relationship, it seems that they are accomplices now."

The funds that the British used to buy Lightning Company bonds had already been transferred away, and the more than 20,000 pounds were all the bank's own deposits.

Little Pete slammed his hand on the table and asked subconsciously, "Is it too late to block the news?"

"This... may not be easy. After all, there are too many people involved, and the street lights in London have not been lit yet."

Little Peter raised his head and exhaled, then ordered, "Go and count the bank and Lightning Company immediately, and try to find as many assets as possible to reduce the impact of the incident.

"Also, let Mordaunt resign as a member of parliament immediately. As for Herbert... he is the person directly responsible, and he is the only one who can be used to calm the anger of the people."

Until this point, he had only treated this as an ordinary fraud case, where at most the amount involved was very large, so he was still considering how to reduce the impact and deal with the aftermath.

In fact, compared with hundreds of thousands of corporate bonds, the subcontracting companies involved in the London gas streetlight project were the most powerful bomb.

After the Duke of Portland left, Pitt the Younger asked his entourage to summon people from Lloyd's of London, the most powerful private intelligence agency in the UK, and commissioned them to investigate the gas lamp case.

Bad news always travels the fastest.

By noon the next day, almost everyone in London knew that the gas streetlights were a scam.

On the church bell tower, Sir Elvis stared into the distance with empty eyes. He used all his wealth to buy Lightning Company bonds. Yesterday he was still bragging to others about his investment talent and that he would definitely be very successful in the future. But today he became a joke.

He recalled that he had been courteous to Baron Watson before, even sending his sister to his bed, but it only made it easier for that guy to cheat him out of his money...

"You are the dumbest idiot in the world!"

He pointed at himself and yelled, "Idiots don't deserve to live!"

After saying that, he jumped off the clock tower.

The reality seems cruel, but it is also fair. If Joseph had not discovered the order scam in time and managed to recover some of the losses, there would be countless bankrupt factory owners in France who would have "jumped off" like Elvis did.

In the following days, the situation in London continued to deteriorate rapidly.

First, dozens of subcontracting companies involved in the gas street lamp project asked the London City Hall for project payment, and the latter naturally refused without hesitation.

These subcontractors all signed agreements with Lightning, so how could the London City Government possibly recognize this? And the London City Government simply doesn't have that much money.

That afternoon, two subcontracting companies declared bankruptcy.

After all, this is a project involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some of the work that has been completed before, such as the cost of manufacturing street lights and laying pipes, were all paid by these companies. The amounts were higher than each other, but they have not received a penny in return.

The huge losses left them with no choice but bankruptcy.

A wave of bankruptcies soon occurred, and in less than a month, nearly 20 subcontracting companies went bankrupt.

After that, the shockwaves of bankruptcy began to spread downward.

Suppliers who sold raw materials and equipment to bankrupt companies also began to go bankrupt because they were unable to recover large amounts of money.

As a result, a large number of workers employed by these companies lost their jobs. These people soon came to London City Hall and joined the protest team of the subcontracting companies.

The windows of the city hall were smashed, the walls were covered with filth, and officials were too frightened to come to work.

Eventually, Mayor Herbert saw protesting workers setting fire outside City Hall and could no longer hold back, so he called in the police to disperse the crowd.

Inevitably, a conflict broke out between the two sides, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and imprisoned, and dozens of police officers were injured.

And more serious problems are just beginning to emerge.

The cause was that the London City Hall wanted to repair the faulty sewer pipes in a certain area, but found that it could not find a contractor who could do the job.

After Herbert asked someone to investigate, he found out that almost all the companies involved in the pipeline laying business in London had gone bankrupt - the gas street lamp project was so attractive at the time that any company with a little bit of strength tried their best to get involved, but ended up dying in it.

In fact, not only the pipeline laying industry, but also companies related to pipeline casting, valve manufacturing, gas lamp manufacturing, distillation equipment processing and other industries were wiped out.

It can be said that the foundation of the British gas street lamp industry has completely collapsed...

(End of this chapter)