Mikhail's return to Volkovo was a study in contrasts. He arrived with an imperial charter that promised to birth an industrial giant, yet he returned to the same muddy yard, the same humble wooden manor, and the same group of men whose world was defined by soil and seasons. He gathered his inner circle—Alexei, Ivan, and Pyotr—in his study, the air thick with the smell of woodsmoke.
He laid the charter, with its heavy wax seals and elegant script, on the table. "This," he announced, his voice quiet but resonant, "is the birth certificate of the Northern Industrial Syndicate. We are no longer just making bricks and pipes for Pskov. We are going to make steel for the Empire."
The men stared at the document as if it were a holy relic. Ivan and Pyotr could not fully grasp the scale of it, but they understood it was a victory, a testament to their lord's power. Alexei, however, saw the truth. His eyes, now accustomed to seeing the world through the lens of engineering, widened with a terrifying comprehension of the task ahead. It was one thing to build a single furnace; it was another to challenge the industrial might of Europe.
The new reality arrived a week later in the form of a polished, but unassuming, carriage. Out of it stepped Kazimir Volgin, the Special Government Supervisor. He was a man in his forties, with the pale skin and soft hands of a career bureaucrat, but his eyes were sharp and missed nothing. Dressed in the severe black uniform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he carried himself with the languid arrogance of an ancient noble family forced to observe the grubby work of a lesser man.
"Baron Volkov," Volgin said, his voice a smooth, cultured baritone that was somehow more insulting than a shout. "I am here to assist you in your duties to the state. I trust my presence will not be an inconvenience."
"On the contrary, Supervisor Volgin," Mikhail replied with a disarmingly warm smile. "Your guidance will be invaluable. An extra set of eyes to ensure our work is worthy of the Tsar's trust is a blessing."
The silent war began that day. Volgin expected to find a chaotic, over-extended operation ripe for criticism. He expected a provincial baron drunk on his sudden importance, making rash decisions. He found neither.
Mikhail did not immediately break ground on a grand steelworks. To Volgin's surprise and frustration, he directed the first wave of capital from Witte's investors into something far more mundane: infrastructure. He used his own brickworks to build a series of large, sturdy warehouses. He hired a small army of laborers to construct a proper crushed-rock road connecting Volkovo to the main highway, cutting transport times in half. He expanded the sawmill and put Alexei in charge of producing standardized timbers for construction. He was not building a factory; he was building the skeleton that would support a future industrial body.
Every action was logical, efficient, and fiscally conservative. It was infuriatingly difficult to criticize.
Mikhail, for his part, treated Volgin not as a spy, but as an esteemed partner. He inundated the supervisor with information. Every evening, a detailed report on the day's progress, expenditures, and production quotas was delivered to Volgin's room in the manor. The account books were presented for inspection weekly, every kopek flawlessly accounted for.
"Supervisor, if you have a moment," Mikhail would say, catching him in the yard, "I would value your opinion. Do you believe we should prioritize the western road or the expansion of the workers' bunkhouses for the next phase? Your experience in governmental administration would be most helpful."
He was drowning his watchdog in transparency, burying him in a mountain of boring, perfect paperwork. Volgin, a man trained to find conspiracy in shadows, found himself blinded by the light.
The true test of Mikhail's new venture came not in a ledger, but in fire. When they prepared for the first steel pour, Volgin observed from what he deemed a safe distance, his posture exuding a practiced indifference. He was prepared to document a catastrophic failure. But what he saw was not chaos. He watched Alexei, the peasant boy, direct the small crew with the calm authority of a seasoned officer. The furnace roared, the crucible tipped, and the molten steel flowed, a blindingly bright serpent of liquid light. The resulting tool heads, once cooled, were tested against the old ones. The Pskov-bought iron axe head chipped and dented; the Volkovo steel axe head sang as it bit deep into a log. It was an undeniable, and deeply unsettling, success.
That night, Supervisor Kazimir Volgin sat in his room, composing his weekly report to Minister Plehve. He found the task unexpectedly difficult. Every fact he had gathered pointed to a conclusion he was unwilling to accept.
"Minister," he wrote, the nib of his pen scratching in the quiet room. "I have completed my preliminary review of Baron Volkov's enterprise. I can report no fiscal irregularities. His books are transparent, his expenditures are logical, and his workforce is managed with a firm, paternalistic discipline that has so far prevented any unrest. The initial phase of infrastructure development proceeds on schedule and under budget."
He stopped, rereading the words. They were accurate but felt wholly inadequate. They captured the facts but missed the truth entirely. The very flawlessness of the operation was the flaw. He dipped his pen again.
"That being said, I am compelled to add a personal observation. The Baron's operational foresight is abnormal. He seems to possess a complete, almost clairvoyant understanding of logistics, engineering, and resource management that is entirely inconsistent with his age and provincial background. He is building something here, Minister, with a speed and logic that suggests a grander, more deliberate design than simple profit. I cannot yet identify a direct threat to state interests, but I recommend continued, heightened scrutiny. We are not dealing with an ambitious boy; we are dealing with a highly sophisticated operator whose long-term intentions remain dangerously opaque."