Chapter 1675 No Time to Die (38)
Chapter 1648 No Time to Die (Thirty-Eight)
On the upper floor of the magnificently decorated mansion, a middle-aged man in a suit and tie with gray hair was holding a phone and shouting angrily at the other end.
"A damned gangster dares to yell at me on TV?! If he is so arrogant, what will happen to the federal law? What is the FBI for?! How difficult is it to rush in and catch him?!"
"Are you mistaken? I am a congressman, not an agent! My job is to maintain the normal operation of the government, not to arrest people! Why didn't you go when the federal government was doing crisis public relations?"
The man took a deep breath, put one hand on his waist and the other hand in the air and kept pressing down, then said: "Okay, Amanda, I don't want to listen to your useless nonsense anymore. If the FBI is not afraid of losing face for dereliction of duty, then I will play with him myself! I can't go to his house to catch him, so I will let him know that he and this rotten city will have no good life!"
The man hung up the phone angrily, but when he turned his head, he felt a vague black shadow flashing in the shadow of the curtain behind him.
He immediately twitched, turned his head suspiciously and stretched his neck to look over there, shouting in a timid voice: "Who? Who's there?! Get out, or I'll call the bodyguard!"
A black figure stepped out from the shadows, and Batman looked at Lord's face and said: "I'm here to remind you not to do anything to Gotham, this is for your own good."
"Batman?!" Lord called out Batman's name in surprise. Of course, he had heard of this Dark Knight of Gotham, but it was not a good reputation.
It is difficult for anyone living in a normal city to understand what kind of environment requires a freak in tights to be a vigilante to maintain justice, so they usually don't understand Batman at all, and only regard him as a clown who is sensational.
"Are you the killer sent by Cobblepot?" Lord snorted disdainfully, raised his chin, and said arrogantly: "Does he really think that I will be afraid of him if he brags a few words on TV?! He dares to kill a federal congressman, and he can only be a fugitive in this life!"
Obviously, no matter who he faces, Batman is not good at explaining, and he feels that there is no need to explain at all. He just said: "Dealing with Gotham and the people here will not do you any good, and it may cause extreme consequences. You'd better think carefully about your decision and don't leave yourself a way out."
After saying that, Batman turned and left. Smart people like him more or less underestimated the stupidity of idiots. He felt that his hints were obvious enough.
Since Cobblepot is just a gangster boss who is not presentable, what can he do if he shouts a few words in the local program in Gotham? You should hold a meeting and condemn it. As long as you don't go to Gotham, how can he put you on the guillotine?
But not everyone has the extremely rational self-control of Batman. As the saying goes, all disputes start with "why".
Congressmen are elites who are used to being high and mighty. They are the only ones who accuse this and condemn that. Even if there are political opponents who refute, they just argue with each other. When have they ever been threatened with death?
Even if there are those who don't care about their lives, the laws of most states in the United States have criminalized death threats. The FBI arrested them in a few days.
But Oswald Cobblepot is just a gangster boss in a city and a region. He has not yet been elected as the mayor of Gotham City, but he dares to openly threaten congressmen with death. The FBI doesn't care. How can Lord, who is threatened by name, bear this breath?
Of course, he really doesn't have the courage to go deep into Gotham alone. He is not stupid. The FBI doesn't dare to go. If he goes, won't he be a delivery?
But after all, he is a state congressman and a political family. The interest groups behind him are large enough. They dare not enter Gotham to sanction, but there are ways to sanction Gotham from the outside.
First, the Coast Guard was funded to focus on cracking down on smuggling ships on the route to Gotham, and then a new draft of the Environmental Protection Law was promulgated. All food, medicine, textiles and other products produced by industries within the scope of marine pollution were not allowed to be shipped to other cities before passing inspection.
Then came a series of common sanctions such as adjusting tax rates, banning bulk products, and customs seizure of imported products.
It can be said that this variety of sanctions is the first time that it has been used in a city within the Federation.
But did this affect Cobblepot? Some impact, but not much.
Again, he is a gangster boss, and the most valuable industry under his control is just the Iceberg Restaurant. Even if there is no raw material and it needs to be closed, it will only make less money.
Cobblepot is not anxious, but Wayne is anxious.
To be honest, although the security situation in Gotham is bad, the geographical location here is indeed very good. After several generations of construction, it can also be called one of the most important heavy industrial cities on the East Coast.
It's fine if you use this method to sanction other countries, but you cut off your own shipping routes and prevent the transportation of industrial raw materials. Isn't this cutting off one's own arm? How brain-dead must a person be to do this? ? ?
Bruce Wayne has recently been rethinking the bottom line of the IQ of these politicians, but now he is facing a slightly embarrassing situation.
The series of sanctions imposed by Lord and the people behind him are not aimed at Cobblepot at all, but are actually to force Wayne.
Isn't Cobblepot hiding in Gotham? Then we negotiate directly with Wayne, handing over the person and the goods, you kill the most aggressive one, and everyone continues to make money together, what's wrong?
Batman thinks it's not good.
Not to mention that Batman will never hand over the villain of Gotham to anyone else, Bruce Wayne can't even make a statement to arrest Cobblepot to the police station, or find a way to make him shut up.
Because Lord's move actually tied the Wayne Group and Cobblepot together, pushing them both to one side. If the Wayne Group handed over Cobblepot, it meant that he had given in, but Bruce Wayne couldn't give in, otherwise anyone could come to sanction the Wayne Group, right?
The default rule in the business world is that everyone is a wolf with sharp teeth and fangs, and wants to bite off other people's meat with green eyes. If anyone dares to show his wool, he will soon be eaten up without leaving any residue.
So even for the sake of Wayne Group's face, Bruce Wayne cannot do anything to Cobblepot.
From Batman's perspective, he can use the illegal things that Penguin said on TV to arrest him in Arkham Asylum.
The problem is that now that Penguin has disappeared, people will not think that someone is upholding justice, but will only think that it must be the Wayne Group's tricks in secret, and that the Wayne Group must have reached some kind of agreement with the state legislature to find ways to shut Cobblepot up.
This matter has already made a big fuss, and it is the recent hot topic on the East Coast. If Cobblepot shows any signs of decline, the Wayne Group will not be able to wash it off even if it jumps into the Yellow River.
Batman only imagined himself being caught in a dilemma by the Joker's crazy trap, and never thought that he would be dragged down by these stupid politicians with their unexpected IQ bottom line. It can only be said that the saying that fools are better than masters is not completely unreasonable.
The most terrifying thing is that these sanctions, which were originally intended to reach an exchange of interests with the Wayne Group, have aroused extremely strong public indignation in Gotham. The people of Gotham were already crazy because of the rain, and this has added fuel to the fire.
Everyone originally sympathized with the federal government. It is estimated that no one dared to come to this rotten city. It would be fine if you didn't help, and everyone would make do with it. But now that they have imposed such sanctions, people are shocked to find that their lives, which have already been rotten to the bottom, can still fall!
The most serious consequence of the embargo on raw materials is the shutdown of factories. Although there has been no layoffs for the time being, there is no salary to be paid if you don't work.
The newly introduced draft of the environmental law adjustment has caused the middle link of the food supplier's transportation chain to be diverted. They are afraid of being labeled as polluting in Gotham, which will make it difficult to sell their products. They would rather give up this part of the market than ship to this side, which will inevitably result in rising prices.
With lower wages and higher prices, it would be strange if people didn't make trouble.
The Gotham people who could get wages to buy things in the factory had a sense of superiority and could barely survive. Now this group of people can't survive, so what are they waiting for if they don't become bandits?
There is no work to do, and they can't sit at home and starve to death. The Gotham people's little heads, which were messed up by the rain, suddenly had an idea. Isn't the Midtown area fighting? A few days ago, I saw their announcement to recruit thugs. Being a thug is better than starving to death!
So, many workers living in cheap apartments in Gotham's downtown area shouted "Da Chu Xing, Chen Sheng is the king!" and joined the war in the Midtown area.
But as we all know, the war potential of a certain area is certain, including strategic depth, war reserve material reserves, personnel activity range and other conditions, which only allow a certain number of troops to fight here.
This is why the attacking side in many large-scale city defense wars looks like a refueling tactic. Many network commanders question why they don’t just send 100,000 troops to the border, and one person can trample down the defense line with one foot. The fact is that there is simply not enough tactical space to accommodate so many people. Those who are squeezed out are really pork in a meat grinder.
With the continuous joining of residents in the lower city, the number of people in the territory of various families and interest groups has increased suddenly, and the materials needed have also doubled, but the territories they own and the materials in the territories they can grab are not enough to supply the current manpower.
What other options do they have? Of course, they continue to expand outward, occupy larger territories, grab more things, and then they can feed more people.
However, due to the different urban structures and different division of labor, the Lower City is the main densely populated area, and most of it is residential land. Although we are poor, if you want to rob my house, the resistance is still very strong. Even if you rob it, you won’t get much money. It can be said that it is a thankless job.
But the Upper City is different. It is full of wide and flat parks, high-end restaurants, luxury jewelry stores with a lot of liquidity, and even many old banks.
Of course, the Upper City is also the home of these interest groups, but their location is further inside, that is, the Upper City in the Upper City.
The rich don't think they are in the same class as the so-called middle-class poor living on the edge of the upper city. What if the middle-class community is robbed?
Besides, as long as I have money, I can hire people to surround my own home. Whatever chaos is outside has nothing to do with me. In this case, the more I rob, the more money I will have to build my own security system. So why not rob?
So, without anyone's deliberate guidance, the greed that was uncontrollable after indulgence prompted the behind-the-scenes masterminds of Gotham to completely open Pandora's box. In an instant, chaos swept across Gotham like a plague.