Empire of Shadows

Heilier is a city in the southwest of Liclai State, and it can also be said to be the center of the southwest. There is also a bay port here, which is very lively.

However, because it is not a deep-water port, heavy freighters cannot dock, so although it is lively, its economic value and status are far inferior to Jinyang City.

Heilier has a permanent population of about 600,000 and a floating population of hundreds of thousands. It undertakes part of the material splitting or concentration work.

Materials from neighboring states are concentrated and packaged here, and then transported to Jinyang City by train or freighter, and finally loaded onto ships and sent abroad.

Or materials from Jinyang City are sorted here according to their destinations, and finally transported to their different destinations through different modes of transportation.

It is a supporting city, but it is more than 300 kilometers away from Jinyang City, even the outermost edge of the urban area is far away.

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

The initial purpose of forming the Marcus family was to resist the cruel exploitation and oppression of capitalists, but as the Marcus family grew larger and larger, they no longer stood up for those exploited and oppressed workers.

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

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

Almost 99% of the gangs in the entire Federation are engaged in the smuggling of alcohol, after all, several times or even dozens of times the profit is enough to impress anyone.

A senior cadre put down the phone, and the person sitting on the chair not far away casually asked, "Whose phone call is it?"

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 swiped it on his jeans. The flame burst into flames.

He lit the cigarette and甩了甩, and threw the white-smoking match on the ground, and said after taking a sip of the cigarette, "It's Peter from the Death Angels, you've met him."

Hearing this name, the person sitting in the chair thought for a while before suddenly nodding, "Yes, we met at the last conference."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He is inquiring about the Lance family. I don't know if there is any conflict."

The person sitting in the chair frowned immediately when he heard the keyword "Lance Family".

A part of the smuggled wine in Jinyang City is sent to Jinyang City through their hands, that is, by land transportation.

Hiding wine in train skins is definitely better than smuggling ships, and railway personnel are also easier to bribe. Several cars of wine enter Jinyang City casually.

However, with the Lance family's recent tough change in the smuggling wine market strategy in Jinyang City, all wines are now not allowed to be sold directly to those gangs.

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

Some smugglers believe that this is something that the Lance family came up with in order to make money. The wine that could have directly entered the hands of the terminal gangs has an extra distribution link, and the Lance family will definitely increase the price on this basis.

In this way, it is equivalent to them levying a "tax" on every bottle of wine in Jinyang City, but no one knows how much to charge.

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

"Who is going?"

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

The person on the phone scratched his head, "It's likely that I'm going."

"I have always been in charge of the business in Jinyang City.", This guy who spoke has brown hair and does not look like the mainstream race of the Federation. His skin looks slightly darker.

His name is Zabri, an immigrant descendant.

Most of the people in the Marcus family are immigrant descendants. After all, most of the cheap immigrant labor force is doing hard work at the docks and stations. The price is cheap, and they can be used to death.

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

The core of the Lance family is almost all imperial immigrants, while in the Marcus family, anyone can join them, but the main group is immigrant descendants.

When there are too many immigrant descendants, it is easy to produce small collectivism. Immigrants from the same place are more likely to hug each other. Over time, there are some contradictions within the current Marcus family.

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

It's just that there are no problems with the gang's operations now, so the contradictions have not broken out. If the family's operations start to deteriorate, the contradictions will definitely break out.

Zabri's ethnic group is the largest ethnic group in the Marcus family, so the lucrative job in Jinyang City can be entrusted to him.

Hearing him say this, his friend couldn't help laughing, "So you're going to see that son of a bitch again?"

The "son of a bitch" in his mouth refers to a senior cadre of the Holy Bell Party. The Holy Bell Party claims to be "bell ringers", specializing in ringing the "gospel of God" and spreading the gospel of God at the same time.

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

They consider themselves to be "God's devout white lambs", while other ethnic groups are "variegated hybrid lambs" who are not worthy of being in God's pasture with them.

The western region of Liclai State is a large area of conservative farmers, and their views are more conservative and very radical at the same time. These two words are not in conflict when put together.

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

In the late period of slavery, the abolition of slavery had become an irreversible fact, but before the complete abolition of slavery, they formed a large number of "slave killing teams".

In name, they said they wanted to protect the safety of farmers and local people, but in fact they hated the abolition of slavery and vented their anger by massacring slaves, and tried their best not to let these people become citizens of the Federation like them.

As long as they were slaves, whether they were runaway slaves, freedmen, or even federal citizens, as long as they had the right skin color, they would shoot.

The Holy Bell Party was a conservative and radical organization that was born in that environment. Whenever they killed those slaves, a special person would wear religious costumes and ring the holy bell in their hands in a religious ritualistic way, and then "cleanse the sinful soul".

They inherited these things, and the days of immigrant descendants in the western region of Liclai State are very difficult. There are even reports that slavery still exists in some farms there.

Although the Holy Bell Party's doctrine is extreme, it also needs to make profits. For money, they can also do business with immigrant descendants.

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

However, in any case, expressing dissatisfaction with immigrants is an essential element for becoming a member of the Holy Bell Party. As Zabri, who has a darker complexion, he will definitely have an unpleasant encounter with the people of the Holy Bell Party.

Zabri waved his hand and cursed a few words, and the two skipped this topic.

"Did Boss tell you anything?"

Zabri was silent for a while and nodded, "We don't care how the Lance family handles these wines. As long as he doesn't harm our interests, he can sell it to others for as much money as he wants. This is our bottom line."

"He wants to make money, and we also want to make money, but we can't let him make us less money just because he wants to make money."

His companion nodded, "That's indeed the truth."

"When are you going?"

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

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

Because of the local "belief" problem, the western region of Liclai State is basically an autonomous region of farmers outside the city.

As long as there is a need, they will openly violate the laws of the federal government, including the prohibition of alcohol.

They also have many farms that brew alcohol, after all, this thing is indeed profitable.

And Jinyang City is an important area for consuming alcohol, so the Holy Bell Party will definitely arrange for someone to meet Lance.

As for the Thorn Gang, they don't export much alcohol, but import more. It is possible that they will also go, but not to talk about selling alcohol to Jinyang City, but to see if they can get cheap alcohol from Jinyang City.

For a time, the entire underworld of Liclai State began to move slowly, and everything revolved around the core of the storm in Jinyang City.

But in the core of this storm, there is an unusual tranquility at this time!

The operators of each bar block have begun to enter the operating state. Except for a few areas with extremely high consumption that require fine decoration, bars are simple.

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

At first, people were a little uncomfortable. The operators of the bars suddenly changed, or the bars suddenly changed locations.

But for alcoholics, they don't care about these things. As long as the bar can stably provide alcohol, that's good enough!

After a short period of two or three days, the sales of each bar began to rise rapidly. In a relatively non-competitive and safe environment, the business of each bar was very good.

Lance assured them that the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau wouldn't investigate them, the police wouldn't investigate them, the fire department wouldn't investigate them, and the prosecutors wouldn't bother them.

Aside from the tax bureau, which Lance still couldn't handle, it could be said that Lance had taken care of all the law enforcement departments in Jinhai City that could cause them trouble!

Selling secretly before definitely wasn't as profitable as selling openly now!