Chapter 154: Prohibition era
"Name?"
Customs officers stopped him. Everyone can't avoid this step. But the ships in Hawaii are not the focus of inspection. They are now guarding against the poor Europeans, especially the illegal immigrants from Italy.
"My name is Slade Wilson, can I hurry up? I am in a hurry to go home."
Su Ming said, and handed out a five-dollar tip. He opened his mouth to speak his standard Upper East Side accent, which fully demonstrated that he was an American.
As expected, the chubby customs officer nodded with a smile, accepted the tip without leaving a trace, glanced at the birth certificate casually, and there was no need to check the items he carried.
"Welcome home, sir." He signaled that Su Ming could pass, then waved the stick in his hand and shouted to the person behind: "Next, hurry up here."
Through the hustle and bustle of the crowd, through the old pier full of the sense of the times, Su Ming walked into the city with a smile on the sound of seagulls.
skyscrapers, classic cars, old-style trench coats and tweed hats, the surrounding streets are all similar sights.
The policeman is holding a wooden stick in his hand. The child is hawking his own newspaper. Not far from the dock is an Italian deli. The owner is using a cloth strip to drive away flies on the roast chicken.
Noisy and lively, this is New York in the 1920s. Seeing people wearing old fashion clothes walking down the street, he felt like he had walked into a black-and-white film movie.
Now he still has more than 9,000 dollars on his body. If it is only used for food and drink, it will be enough for him to consume a long time, but if he wants to use the money to start a weapons company and realize his long-term plan, it is far from enough.
A small workshop cannot buy defense orders.
These money are only start-up funds. In the early stage, Su Ming planned to quickly accumulate money through a series of plans.
first is making wine.
Sitting in a taxi, Su Ming could hear the sound of jazz music coming from the side of the road, but there was no smell of alcohol. Such a life is not complete.
The era of Prohibition is also the era of the rise of American gangs.
The starting point of Prohibition cannot be said to be wrong. After all, it is a good thing when people focus their energy on decent life and work and not sleep drunk every day.
However, alcohol is also addictive.
Many people simply cannot do without it. As a result, the country does not allow it to be sold. No matter the sale is illegal, what should be done?
It is said in "Das Kapital"-as long as there is suitable profit, capital will be bold. If it has 50% profit, it can take the risk; for 100% profit, it dares to trample on all human laws; with 300% profit, it dares to commit any crime, or even risk The danger of hanging.
Originally brewing and selling belonged to regular factories and regular merchants. Now the state has ordered it to switch from light to dark, secretly brewing, and fighting the police.
However, the gangsters who were originally engaged in underground business were more organized and more confidential, and succeeded in breaking out of market competition. They formed a one-stop underground industry of brewing, transportation, and sales. They used the family as a system to make money. .
They were criminals in the first place. If they were caught, it would be the lightest of the crimes of producing and selling bootleg alcohol. Other crimes such as murder and arson would be enough for the electric chair.
This is a real profiteering industry. At this time, a few sacks of corn are only a little over $1, but after distillation, fermentation, etc., it becomes a barrel of privately brewed corn whiskey, which can sell for more than $50, easily.
Earn 50 times the profit in about seven days. You don’t need to run around, just have a basement, a few pots, steamers, and wooden barrels.
As for the smell of alcohol? Poor taste? In the eyes of consumers in this era, it is not a problem. Before 1933, you will never have to worry about product market problems.
If horse urine really tastes like beer, then you can also sell horse urine...
Of course, gangsters often have poor craftsmanship, and in order to sell as soon as possible, the fermentation time is insufficient, so most of the methanol content in bootleg wine is excessive. Many blind men in this era are also caused by drinking bootleg wine.
Su Ming plans to join the business now. His capital is sufficient, and the foundation of distilling wine in this era has been established. The equipment and equipment are readily available and can be purchased in closed factories.
He only needs to buy raw materials, choose a hidden location to start work, and then he can cover a bar.
Can world-class super fighters not cover a bar and factory?
Small wine is now an underground business, so everything follows the rules of the underground world. In this world, the fist is the right to speak.
Su Ming is only asking for money, not for territory, so it is good for the gangsters to be in peace with him.
Of course, if someone finds fault because he robbed the liquor business, then Su Ming doesn’t mind erasing a few more gangsters, and giving the people of New York a job in peace and contentment...
Then first choose a place as the site of the factory to store the equipment for wine making, and in order to facilitate transportation, it is good to be close to the Hudson River. During the night, the wine barrels are carried on the boat and sent to the bar, unconsciously.
Of course, this is the way ordinary gangs do. Su Ming has a better idea, which is the complex space underground in New York City.
New York was built in 1664 and has been expanded and added several times so far. The sewer is often changed due to changes in ground construction.
For example, the place where Fifth Avenue and 64th Street once intersected was a bustling residential area. After 1856, a large area of the surrounding area was taken back by the government, and after leveling, it was converted into the current Central Park.
However, the various underground systems have no funds to change, and there is no need to waste money, so they are abandoned and left unused.
The sewers in New York contain a set of flood discharge system, which is very strong, not to mention, and many places are very spacious, enough for ten trucks to pass side by side inside.
Once Su Ming watched Die Hard, the villain inside burgled the Federal Building through an abandoned underground tunnel and pulled 100 tons of gold directly by truck.
Of course that was not what happened in the Marvel Universe, but the tactics can be used for reference. Su Ming only needs to find a sufficiently spacious and hidden place.
So he first stayed in a hotel, hid his equipment, and then took a taxi to the New York State National Library, where he could check all the underground pipeline changes since New York was built.
Through the bustling street, smiling at the child who refused to sell flowers, Su Ming walked into the high porch of the library.
This is estimated to be the smallest information fee ever paid by the death knell. It only cost 1 US dollars to obtain a library reading card, and he can freely view these pipeline records.
He pretends to be a student studying tunnel history, so the library has no doubt about him. They have seen a lot of students studying **** beetles. A few days ago, some people came to inquire about cannibalism recipes. Which professor should it be? Let's start a new topic...
Furthermore, these materials were originally publicly displayed, and no one looked at them at all.
walked around the rows of bookshelves and followed the librarian who led the way in the building full of ink smell. The bright light and solemn environment made Su Ming subconsciously relax his steps.
"It's here, this cabinet is what you want." The library staff gestured and pointed to a tall bookcase next to him and said to him.
This is not only the historical record, but also the blueprints that were originally designed, the consumption of the project, the personnel involved, and everything related to it can be found here.
Su Ming nodded his head to thank him, and drew a big scroll of drawings from it.
"Cough..."
Su Ming is going to come to a small duster to wipe this thing. It seems that no one has touched it in recent decades. It is covered with thick dust, like an archeological artifact.
He asked about the building map on the ground, and the location of the drawings of water supply pipes, power supply pipes, sewage pipes, etc. All these drawings need to be seen.
Especially the subway map. The subway was built in New York City in 1904, and some of the experimental tunnels of early construction were also abandoned~www.NovelMTL.com~ He took the map paper off the shelf, layer by layer. Spread on the table, the museum staff wearing glasses in the distance are only responsible for supervising that he will not deface the books and materials, but he does not care what he is inquiring about.
All the complicated pipelines were remembered by Su Ming. The brain comparable to a supercomputer immediately reorganized hundreds of thousands of straight lines and line segments in his brain.
He needs to choose a place that has electricity or gas supply, has enough underground space, and the building above is very hidden.
"There are so many places like this, no wonder there will be an endless stream of masked people in New York in the future. It's too easy to find a safe house here."
just glanced over, Su Ming found hundreds of eligible places, which made him inevitably sigh.
If this is the time when the Americans were popular in digging air-raid shelters after the Cold War, and now these underground passages plus abandoned air-raid shelters, it would be no problem to establish an underground kingdom.
Putting away these thoughts, Su Ming carefully put the drawings away, put them back one by one, and thanked the administrator.
Although the staff didn’t know why he only looked at the data for five minutes, but that’s good, he could leave work earlier.
Su Ming's goal is to survey all these hundreds of underground targets on one side within three days.
Time is tight and the task is heavy, and it must start immediately.
He has been on the boat for a month since he has been idle, and he is still rushing towards the plan goal to make him more comfortable.
Leaving the library, he did not take the car, found a hidden alley, opened the manhole cover on the ground and jumped down.
In urban legends, there are crocodiles bigger than kun in the sewers of New York, but for Su Ming, a good crocodile belt is also a good collection.
