Shadow Empire

Chapter 625: A Gentle Breeze
Helier is a city in the southwest of Likale State, and it can also be said to be the center of the southwest. There is also a bay port here, which is also very lively.

However, because this is not a deep-water port, heavy cargo ships cannot dock, so although it is bustling, its economic value and status are far inferior to Jingang City.

Helier has a permanent population of about 600,000 and a floating population of more than 100,000. It is responsible for part of the work of splitting or centralizing materials.

The materials from the neighboring states will be packed here and then transported to Jingang City by train or cargo ship, and finally shipped abroad.

Or the materials coming from Jingang City will be sorted here according to their destinations, and finally transported to their different destinations through different methods of transportation.

It is a supporting city, but it is more than 300 kilometers away from Jingang City. Even if it is located at the outermost part of the urban circle, it is still far away.

This is the old nest of the Marcus family, which was formed by some young people who were engaged in porters in the local area in the early days.

The original purpose of forming the Marcus Family was to fight against the brutal exploitation and oppression of capitalists, but as the number of members of the Marcus Family grew, they no longer stood up for justice for the exploited and oppressed workers.

Because it is in the coastal area, smuggling is also rampant here, and it has become their main source of income.

Of course, smuggling and selling various types of alcohol is also one of their most important businesses.

Almost ninety-nine percent of the gangs in the entire federation are engaged in the business of smuggling liquor. After all, profits of several times or even dozens of times are enough to impress anyone.

A senior official put down the phone, and someone sitting in a chair not far away asked casually, "Who's calling?"

The senior cadre leaned back and put his feet on the table.

He put a cigarette in his mouth, then took out a match and pulled it across his jeans, and the flame burst into flames with a crackling sound.

He lit the cigarette and shook it, then threw the smoking match on the ground. He took a puff of the cigarette and said, "It's Peter, the Angel of Death. You've seen him."

When the person sitting on the chair heard the name, he thought for a while, then nodded in sudden realization, "Yes, we met at the last conference."

"What's up with him?"

"He is asking about the Lance family. I wonder if there is any conflict."

The person sitting on the chair frowned immediately when he heard him mention the keyword "Lance Family".

Part of the smuggled liquor in Jingang City was delivered to Jingang City through their hands, that is, by land transportation.

It is definitely much easier to hide wine in train cars than on smuggling ships, and railway personnel are also easier to bribe, so a few train cars of wine can easily enter Jingang City.

But with the Lans family's recent tough changes to Jingang City's smuggled liquor market strategy, all liquor is now not allowed to be sold directly to those gangs.

It must first be sold to the Lance family, and then the Lance family will sell it to other gangs. To put it simply, there is an extra link.

Some smugglers believed that this was something the Lans family came up with to make money. The wine, which could have gone directly into the hands of the terminal gangs, now has an additional distribution link, so the Lans family would definitely add a price increase on this basis.

This is equivalent to them levying a "tax" on every bottle of wine in Jingang City, but no one knows how much they will collect.

"Didn't he (Lance) say that we should go and talk to them about these things at the end of the month?"

"Who's going?"

The guy sitting on the chair is a senior official of the Marcus family, and so is the person he is talking to.

The caller scratched his head, "It's probably me who will go."

"I have always been in charge of the business in Jingang City." The guy who spoke had brown hair and did not look like the mainstream race in the Federation. His skin color looked slightly darker.

His name is Zabri, an immigrant.

Most of the members of the Marcus family are immigrants. After all, most of the laborers at the docks and stations are cheap immigrant laborers who are cheap and can be used to death.

This gang is somewhat similar to the Lance Family in this respect, but only in part, not in all.

The core of the Lance family is almost entirely made up of Imperial immigrants, while in the Marcus family, anyone can join them, but the main group is immigrants.

When there are many immigrants, small collectivism tends to arise. Immigrants from the same place are more likely to stick together. Over time, some conflicts have arisen within the Marcus family.

The three ethnic groups with the largest numbers hold the power of the entire gang, while those ethnic groups with smaller numbers are naturally excluded from the core circle of the family.

It's just that there are no problems with the gang's operation now, so the conflict has not erupted. If the family's operation starts to deteriorate, the conflict will definitely erupt. Zabri's ethnic group is the largest ethnic group in the Marcus family, so the lucrative job of Jingang City can be handed over to him.

His friend couldn't help laughing when he said that. "So you're going to see that son of a bitch again?"

The "son of a bitch" he mentioned refers to a senior cadre of the Holy Bell Party, which calls itself a "bell ringer" who specializes in ringing the "God's gospel" and also spreads the Gospel of God.

And the way they spread the gospel is to treat those immigrant groups in a vicious way.

They considered themselves to be “God’s pious white lambs” and other ethnic groups to be “mixed-colored bastard lambs” who were not worthy to stay with them in God’s pasture.

The western part of Likale State is home to a large number of conservative farmers whose ideas are more conservative, but also very radical. These two words do not conflict when put together.

What is conservative is that they do not accept the ideas of outsiders, and what is radical is their attitude and methods of dealing with outsiders. These people are the same as the stubborn conservatives in the central region of the Federation.

At the end of slavery, the abolition of slavery had become an unchangeable fact, but before the complete abolition of slavery, they formed a large number of "slave killing teams".

In name, it was to protect the safety of farmers and local people, but in reality it was out of hatred for the abolition of slavery, venting their anger by slaughtering slaves, and trying their best to prevent these people from becoming citizens of the federation like them.

As long as they were slaves, whether they were runaways, freemen, or even Union citizens, they would shoot them as long as their skin was right.

The Holy Bell Party was a conservative radical organization born in that environment. Whenever they killed slaves, there were special people wearing religious clothes and ringing the holy bells in their hands in a religious ritual manner to "cleanse the sinful souls."

They inherited these, and life was very difficult for the immigrants in the western part of Likale State. There were even reports that slaves still existed on some farms there.

Although the Holy Bell Party's doctrines are extreme, they also need to make a profit, and it is not impossible for them to do business with immigrants for money.

Sometimes it is really difficult to tell whether they hate immigrants or hate the poor among immigrants.

But no matter what, showing dissatisfaction with immigrants is a necessary element to becoming a member of the Holy Bell Party. As a person with darker skin, Zabri would definitely have an unpleasant experience if he met someone from the Holy Bell Party.

Zabri waved his hands, cursed a few words, and the two of them passed over the topic.

"Did the boss tell you anything?"

Zabri was silent for a while, then nodded. "We don't care how the Lance family handles the wine. As long as they don't harm our interests, they can sell it to others at any price they want. This is our bottom line."

"He wants to make money, and we want to make money too, but we can't make less money just because he wants to make money."

His companion nodded. "That's true."

"When are you going?"

Zabry glanced at the calendar, "There are still a few days left."

Not only Zabri is preparing, but also the people from the Holy Bell Party and the Thorn Gang are preparing.

Due to local "religious" issues, the western region of Likale State is basically governed by farmers outside the city.

They would blatantly violate federal laws, including Prohibition, whenever necessary.

They also have quite a few farms that make wine, after all, it's a very profitable business.

Jingang City is an important area for alcohol consumption, so the Saint Bell Party will definitely arrange for someone to meet Lance.

As for the Ci Gang, they don't export much alcohol, but import more. It is possible that they will go there, but not to discuss selling alcohol to Jingang City, but to see if they can get cheap alcohol from Jingang City.

For a moment, the entire underground world of Likalai Province began to move slowly, and everything revolved around Jingang City, the core of the storm.

But in the core of this storm, it was surprisingly quiet at this moment!
The operators of various bar blocks have already begun to operate. Bars, except for a few areas with extremely high consumption, require fine decoration.

In places like the port area, as long as there is a place for people to sit down, a bar counter, and a pub, even a residential house can run a beverage business.

People were a little uncomfortable at first because the bar owner suddenly changed or the bar suddenly moved to a new location.

But for drunkards, they don’t care about these things. As long as the bar can provide drinks steadily, that’s good enough!
After just two or three days, sales of various bars began to rise rapidly. In a relatively non-competitive and non-dangerous environment, all bars were doing good business.

Lance assured them that the Hazardous Materials Administration wouldn't investigate them, the police wouldn't investigate them, the fire department wouldn't investigate them, and the prosecutors wouldn't cause trouble for them.

Except for the Tax Bureau, which Lance couldn't handle, it can be said that Lance could handle all the law enforcement agencies that could cause trouble for them in Jingang City!
Selling secretly in the past was definitely not as profitable as selling openly now!
(End of this chapter)