Chapter 1670 No Time to Die (Thirty-Three)
The so-called exploitation is actually a phenomenon that occurs when wealth flows upward endlessly without a proper social contract.
After the Gotham gang rules were broken, the most serious consequence was that the interests continued to gather upward without restraint until they gathered in the hands of a very small number of people at the top of the pyramid.
This process can even be said to be natural, rather than someone having to force a certain number of people to death. It is a natural social phenomenon that is bound to occur under such circumstances.
Although the vested interests should be condemned, there will be another batch of vested interests after killing this batch of vested interests, so it is useless to directly mow down the high-level people in Gotham. Appropriate and stable social rules must be re-established.
To achieve this, we cannot just do it at the bottom, or all actions at the bottom must be to pull down the vested interests at the top, and the simplest way is to reach out and touch their wallets.
The three streets occupied by the Neville family are extremely important economic centers in the Midtown area. Most of the shops here are related to the people's livelihood in Gotham and can provide a steady source of income to the upper class in a very stable manner.
Once the Robins occupied this area, they went in with guns and collected protection fees from door to door. If they didn't pay, no one would live, and no one would open their business. How could the upper-class people who depended on this place for their blood supply not be anxious?
The biggest advantage of livelihood-related industries is that they can provide a steady stream of working capital, and the importance of working capital to group industries is self-evident. Once the working capital is cut off, it is equivalent to the blood transfusion artery being cut off. This is not as simple as taking less money. It only takes a moment of insufficient blood supply to collapse a business empire.
After the upper-class people and vested interests in Gotham found that their blood vessels were in danger of being cut off, they actively took measures, including but not limited to putting pressure on the police to send police cars to guard the shops; actively contacting families with security protection industries, exchanging interests with them and hiring security guards to clear the streets; letting all the media they controlled speak together and put pressure on the public opinion field; hiring killers to scout the headquarters of the Neville family and attempt to assassinate, etc.
So what effect did these measures have? The answer is that there was no effect.
If these means are used to deal with their business rivals, it is still useful. The most extreme means is to kill the helmsman of the opposite business, take away the benefits when the handover is chaotic, or simply let a group's reputation fall to the bottom, and the capital chain is broken.
But traditional gangs started with extreme violence. Robin and others got heavy weapons to surround the family's base. Those killers who usually only used small pistols to assassinate at banquets have no ability to attack the position. Most of them turned around and left when they saw this scene.
Public opinion attacks are even more useless. I am called a gangster, so I can't do bad things? The best way to deal with moral kidnapping is just a sentence "I am a barbarian."
They can't kill them, and they can't scold them. What else can these families do? Take arms and fight with real swords and guns.
Fortunately, the current Gotham is not too far away from the gangster era, and the inheritance of the gangster has not been completely cut off. There are some materials left over from the previous dynasty in the warehouses of each household. They can be used by digging them out. First, find a way to take back their own industry.
As a result, the neighborhoods within the radiation range of the Neville family seemed to have regressed twenty years overnight. Today you robbed my nightclub with a gun, and tomorrow I will carry a cannon to blow up your bar. Today you come to the fresh food market in my neighborhood to collect protection fees, and tomorrow I will go to your jewelry store to get the money back.
Such frequent fights will cause a problem. The upper-class masters can't always carry guns and cannons to the battlefield by themselves. They must hire people to go, but gang fights are actually equivalent to continuous small-scale street fights. Without professional background and practical experience, it is still difficult to command such small-scale wars.
First of all, you have to know the strategic position of each street, reasonably allocate resources to build fortifications, timely station troops and food, arrange guards and attackers, and have a proper pace and rhythm. Only then can you expand outward and gain advantages while defending the industry.
Most humans in civilized societies who have not received training do not have this skill, and this group of upper-class people who have been pampered for a long time have no chance. Not to mention commanding the battle, they don’t even know how many people they hired and how they fought in each place.
This chaotic situation gave the Robins an opportunity to take advantage of. At first, the mercenaries rushed into the streets to occupy the shops, and then attacked the family residence. However, as the fighting went on, people hired by a certain group rushed into the shops occupied by another group and began to smash and loot crazily.
I don’t know whether it was because the commanders were not good enough, the hired people had no professional qualities, or there was indeed a conflict between the two families, but it was definitely not deliberately led by the Robins. The subsequent fight was completely a random grabbing, and whoever took the shop would own it.
But this led to another problem, that is, the vested interests are actually more profit-seeking than anyone else. The prime location shop that you worked hard to run with an annual income of millions of dollars, I only need to take a gun of several hundred dollars and two rounds of bullets to grab it, so what reason do I have not to grab it? Anyway, everyone is grabbing it now.
Capitalists are like vicious dogs locked in cages, and the thickest railing of their cages is called "civilized coat". Once this coat is taken off, they will use their sharp teeth to pierce the necks of anyone who hinders them from making profits without hesitation.
When the profit reaches 1,000%, capitalists will inevitably take risks for it, and if the profit is 1,000% and there is almost no cost, they will go crazy for it.
So, Gotham's Midtown District began to be in unprecedented chaos. Since the shops in the Neville family's residence can be robbed, why can't the shops across the street be robbed?
If you rob the Neville family's shop, you may be greeted by heavy guns and rocket launchers. If you rob the shop next door, even if the clerk has a gun, the resistance you encounter will not be more intense than that of the Neville family's residence. Isn't it safer and easier?
This group of vicious dogs who have tasted the sweetness took advantage of the small crack in the civilized coat torn by the Robins and chose a more direct way to gain profits - robbing and it's over.
Grabbing territory is actually a behavior with strong positive feedback. After taking over a piece of territory, you will immediately feel that your territory has expanded, instead of investing a sum of money and waiting for production and sales to recover the funds.
This strong positive feedback and dopamine stimulation are more addictive than any drug. This is why many generals in the history of modern wars are criticized as warmongers. Winning a war is really addictive.
The rapidity of the development of the situation far exceeded the imagination of Batman in front of the screen. He only stayed in the Batcave for two days, and the entire Gotham Midtown was in chaos. The problem is that the main participants in this war are still enjoying it.
That night, Batman, who finally couldn't bear it anymore, came to the roof of the tallest building in Midtown.
Originally, he planned to take action directly to completely end this chaos, but now, Batman under the night is thinking about a question-
Where the hell did all these heavy weapons like firecrackers come from?
Suddenly, Batman remembered a figure he hadn't seen on the surveillance screen for a long time. After a little thought, he jumped down from the roof.
On the second floor of a mansion on Swan Street, not far from Nottingham Street, two figures, one large and one small, were standing in front of a table.
Harley crossed her arms, stretched out one hand and slapped the table hard, saying to the person opposite: "I advise you not to be ignorant. This is our last batch of machine guns. If you don't want it, I will send it to your mortal enemy Kensing immediately. By then, the two streets you just took down will be replaced. Don't hide in the quilt and cry!"
"Don't try to fool us." Harley sat on the edge of the table, chewing bubble gum and said: "We only accept cash payments. One hand pays the other hand. The guy who tried to rob us the day before yesterday, his ashes should have floated into the sea."
More than ten minutes later, a group of people with bodyguards walked out of the room with dark faces. The two figures, one large and one small, high-fived and cheered. Harley crossed her arms and raised her face proudly.
"I told you long ago, I'm familiar with this job! In our universe, this is how I make deals with the devil. Even the devil can't escape, so what can they do?!"
Harley immediately showed a bright smile, rushed forward and held Harley's cheeks with both hands, then kissed her hard on the face twice, and said in a voice that was much sweeter than Harley's.
"Oh my God, my little baby, my lovely daughter, it would be great if you were really my daughter, come here and let me kiss you again!"
Harley hurriedly pushed her away in a hurry to prevent her dark lipstick from rubbing against her face.
Just as the two of them were playing and joking, Harley suddenly caught a glimpse of a black figure appearing between the light and shadows of the curtains.
"Batman?! What do you want to do? Are you going to rob my daughter who I just recognized?"
"She's not your daughter." Batman walked out from behind the curtains and his eyes fell on the box of banknotes in front of Harley.
"So you want to rob me of my money?! I warn you, Batman, I earned all this myself. If you dare to rob me, I will print your headshot in the newspaper and say you robbed legal income!"
Harley suddenly pulled the Harley's arm and whispered in her ear, "Wait a minute, this doesn't seem to be legal..."
"What are you talking about?! My dear daughter! This is legal in Gotham. Is there any business in Gotham that is more legal than selling arms?"
Ignoring the chattering Harley, Batman's deep and serious eyes fell on Harley, and Harley pursed her lips. He shrugged, then said, "You control freak, if you really want to know, yes, we are selling arms."
Batman pointed at the gun behind her with his eyes, and Harley turned her head and looked at it and said, "Are you asking where we get the goods from? Jason contacted a seller at first, but I thought this business was promising, so I expanded the channel 'slightly'."
Batman narrowed his eyes and repeated, "slightly?"
"Okay, I can't hide it from you." Harley jumped off the table and patted her chest.
"This is the exclusive sales agent of Motor Sich on the East Coast of the United States."
Then he reached out and patted Harley and said, "This is the Atlantic general distributor of the Kharkiv Morozov Mechanical Design Bureau."
Harley patted herself, then patted Harley and said, "The two of us together are the holders of the highest sales record of Ukrainian medium and heavy weapons in the Americas so far, and it took less than half a month to create the record!"
Harley nodded vigorously, and Batman's head was buzzing when he saw the same smug expressions on the faces of the two Harleys, one big and one small.
Kill, eat and bury the dragon