Empire of Shadows

Halier is a city in the southwestern part of Likalai State, and it could also be called the center of the southwest. It also has a bay port, which is also very lively.

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

Halier has a permanent population of about 600,000 and a floating population of over 100,000. It handles part of the work of splitting or concentrating materials.

Materials from the neighboring state will be concentrated and packaged here, and then transported to Golden Port City by train or freighter, and finally loaded onto ships and sent abroad.

Or, materials from Golden Port City will be sorted here according to their destinations, and finally transported to their different destinations by different modes of transport.

It’s a supporting city, but it’s still more than 300 kilometers away from Golden Port City. Even from the outermost periphery of the city circle, it’s still very far.

This is the old nest of the Marcus family. The Marcus family was originally organized by some young men who worked as porters.

The original purpose of establishing the Marcus family was to fight against the cruel exploitation and oppression of the capitalists. But as the Marcus family grew larger and larger, they no longer sought justice for the exploited and oppressed workers.

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

Of course, smuggling and selling all kinds of liquor is also one of their most important businesses.Almost 99% of the gangs in the entire Federation are involved in the smuggled liquor business. After all, a profit of several times or even more than ten times is enough to move anyone.

A high-level cadre put down the phone. A person sitting in a chair not far away asked casually, “Whose call was it?”

The high-level cadre leaned back and put his feet up on the table.

He put a cigarette in his mouth, then took out a match and struck it on his jeans. The flame flared up with a hiss.

He lit his cigarette, shook the match, and threw the smoking match on the floor. After taking a “hiss” of his cigarette, he said, “It was Peter from the Death Angels. You’ve met him.”

Hearing this name, the person sitting in the chair thought for a moment before nodding in sudden realization. “Yes, we met at the last conference.”

“What about him?”

“He’s asking about the Lance Family. I don’t know if there’s some kind of conflict.”

Hearing him mention the keyword “Lance Family,” the person sitting in the chair immediately frowned.

A portion of the smuggled liquor in Golden Port City was delivered to Golden Port City through their hands, that is, by land transportation.

Hiding liquor in a train car is definitely much better than on a smuggling ship, and railway personnel are also easier to bribe. It’s easy to get several carloads of liquor into Golden Port City.

But with the Lance Family’s recent forceful change in the smuggled liquor market strategy of Golden Port City, now all liquor is 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 believe that this is something that the Lance Family has come up with to make money. The liquor that could have gone directly into the hands of the terminal gangs now has an extra distribution link. The Lance Family will definitely add a markup on this basis.

This way, it’s as if they are levying a “tax” on every bottle of liquor in Golden Port City. It’s just that no one knows how much they will collect.

“Didn’t he (Lance) say that he wanted us to talk about these things with them at the end of the month?”

“Who’s going?”

The guy sitting in the chair was a high-level cadre of the Marcus family, and so was the person he was talking to.

The person on the phone scratched his head. “It’s probably me.”

“I’ve always been in charge of the business in Golden Port City,” said the speaker, a man with brown hair, who didn’t look like a mainstream person of the Federation. His skin tone looked slightly darker.

His name was Zabri, an immigrant descendant.

Most of the people in the Marcus family were immigrant descendants. After all, most of the cheap immigrant labor worked as coolies at the docks and stations. The price was cheap, and you could work them to death.

This gang and the Lance Family were somewhat similar in this respect, but only a part, not all.

The core of the Lance Family was almost all Empire immigrants, while in the Marcus family, anyone could join them, but the main group was immigrant descendants.

With a large number of immigrant descendants, it was easy to produce small collectivism. Immigrants from the same place were more likely to stick together. Over time, there were also some contradictions within the Marcus family now.

The three most populous ethnic groups controlled the power of the entire gang, while those ethnic groups with fewer people were naturally excluded from the core circle of the family.

It was just that there were no problems with the gang’s operation now, so the contradictions had not broken out. If the family’s operation began to go badly, the contradictions would definitely break out.

The ethnic group to which Zabri belonged was the largest ethnic group in the Marcus family, so the lucrative job in Golden Port City could be entrusted to him.

Hearing him say so, his friend couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “So you’re going to see that son of a bitch again?”

The “son of a bitch” he was talking about referred to a high-level cadre of the Holy Bell Party. The Holy Bell Party called themselves “bell ringers,” specializing in ringing the “gospel of God,” and also spreading the gospel of God.

And their way of spreading the gospel was to treat those immigrant groups in a vicious way.

They considered themselves “God’s devout white lambs,” while other ethnic groups were “mixed-color, mixed-breed lambs,” not worthy to stay in God’s pasture with them.

The western region of Likalai State was a large area of conservative farmers. Their views were more conservative, and at the same time very radical. These two words did not conflict when put together.

What was conservative was that they did not accept the concepts of outsiders. What was radical was their attitude and means of dealing with outsiders. These people were the same as the stubborn conservatives in the central region of the Federation.

In the late period of slavery, the abolition of slavery had become an unchangeable fact. But before the complete abolition of slavery, they had formed a large number of “slave-killing squads.”

Nominally, it was said to be to protect the safety of the farmers and the locals, but in fact, it was hatred for the abolition of slavery. They vented their anger by slaughtering slaves, and as much as possible, not to let these people become citizens of the Federation like them.

As long as they were slaves, regardless of whether they were runaway slaves, or freemen, or even citizens of the Federation, as long as their skin was the right color, they would open fire.

The Holy Bell Party was a radical organization of the conservative party born in that environment. Whenever they killed those slaves, there would be a special person wearing religious vestments, ringing the holy bell in his hand in a religious ritualistic way, and then “purifying the sinful soul.”

They had inherited these. The days of the immigrant descendants in the western region of Likalai State were very difficult. There were even reports that in some farms there, there were still slaves.

Although the doctrine of the Holy Bell Party was extreme, they also needed to make a profit. For the sake of money, it was not that they could not do business with the immigrant descendants.

Sometimes it’s really hard to tell whether they hate the immigrant descendants or the poor among the immigrant descendants.

But in any case, showing dissatisfaction with immigrants was a necessary element to become a member of the Holy Bell Party. As Zabri, who had a darker skin tone, would definitely have an unpleasant time when he met people from the Holy Bell Party.

Zabri waved his hand, cursed a few times, and the two of them skipped this topic.

“Did the Boss give you any instructions?”

Zabri was silent for a moment and nodded. “We don’t care how the Lance Family deals with this liquor. As long as he doesn’t harm our interests, no matter how much he raises the price to sell to others, that’s our bottom line.”

“He wants to make money, and we also want to make money. But just because he wants to make money, it doesn’t mean we have to make less.”

His companion nodded. “That’s indeed the truth.”

“When are you going?”

Zabri glanced at the calendar. “In a few days.”

It wasn’t just Zabri who was preparing. The people from the Holy Bell Party were also preparing, and the people from the Thorn Gang were also preparing.

Because of the local “faith” issue in the western region of Likalai State, basically the places outside the cities were all self-governing by the farmers.

As long as there was a demand, they would openly violate the laws of the federal government, including Prohibition.

They also had many farms that were brewing liquor. After all, the profit from this thing was indeed large.

And Golden Port City was an important area for liquor consumption, so the Holy Bell Party would definitely arrange for people to go and see Lance.

As for the Thorn Gang, they didn’t export much liquor, but imported more. It was possible that they would also go, but not to talk about selling liquor to Golden Port City, but to see if they could get some cheap liquor from Golden Port City.

For a time, the entire underworld of Likalai State began to slowly move. All of it revolved around the core of the storm, Golden Port City.

But in the core of this storm, at this time, it was surprisingly quiet!

The operators of the various bar blocks had already started to operate. A bar, except for a few areas with super-high consumption that required fine decoration, in places like the Port District, as long as there was a place for people to sit down, a bar counter, a bar, even a private residence could run a liquor business.

At first, people were a little unaccustomed to it. The operator of the bar had suddenly changed, or the bar had suddenly changed its location.

But for the drunks, what they cared about was not these things. As long as the bar could stably provide liquor, that was good enough!

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

Lance had assured them that the Bureau of Hazardous Materials would not check them, the police would not check them, the fire department would not check them, and the prosecutor would not find trouble with them.

Except for the tax bureau, which Lance still couldn’t handle, it could be said that Lance had handled all the law enforcement departments in Golden Port City that could find trouble with them!

In the past, selling secretly was definitely not as profitable as selling openly now!

(End of a Chapter)