The arrogance started from Chinatown

Chapter 190 Pinkerton Detective Agency
Late at night, on South Street in the market area, only dim gas street lamps illuminated some of the surrounding roads.

With the sound of horse hooves and wheels pressing on gravel, more than a dozen carriages turned several corners and arrived at the south area of Market Street, then split into two directions.

Rong Jiacai sat in a carriage, looking around.

Although it was late at night and the security in San Francisco was not good, there were still occasional pedestrians on the road.

The current working hours are 12 to 14 hours, and some factories even work in two shifts.

Especially in the south area of Market Street, many factories are still in operation even late at night.

When the carriage stopped, a group of people got off the carriage, and two Poles came forward and knocked gently on the door.

After a while, the door was opened from the inside. A foreigner in his fifties came in. He was obviously surprised to see so many people outside.

But they quickly moved aside to allow the carriage and the people to enter the factory, and then left the door ajar.

After a while, the group arrived in front of the warehouse. Several thugs took crowbars to pry open the lock outside the warehouse and opened the door. With the help of kerosene lamps, they could see a lot of tobacco in bundles and barrels piled on the shelves inside.

"Go and see what to take." Rong Jiacai turned around and pulled over a man from the side, who was the person in charge of the cigarette factory.

The person in charge gritted his teeth and went in with a kerosene lamp to check the quality of the tobacco.

He didn't want to come, but he had to come. However, he soon became a little excited.

"These are top-quality tobaccos. Take them all..."

"This is the best..."

"The rest are all mediocre..."

Even the medium tobacco was better than the ones they had bought before.

However, in Chinatown and some surrounding grocery stores, only Chen Zhengwei’s cigarettes are sold.

"Get to work! Take away the top and best ones, and leave two racks of the middle ones..."

"Put all the straw you brought on the tobacco rack."

Following the instructions, the dozens of people brought immediately got busy.

"Where's my money?" The foreigner who opened the door earlier came up to the two Poles and asked anxiously, rubbing his hands.

"Remember what you said, take the money and go straight back to your hometown in Massachusetts!" One of them took out a wad of money and handed it to him.

"Don't worry, I won't stay in San Francisco anymore." The foreigner took the money and counted it greedily.

Rong Jiacai, who was not far away, saw this scene, and gave a look to the two henchmen beside him, then leaned over and whispered in one of them's ears: "Find a place to kill him later and throw him into the sea."

He didn't trust this white guy at all. He didn't even trust the Poles.

However, he also knew that they had to use some foreigners, so in order to prevent the Poles from thinking too much, he asked them to kill them later.

"Can I go now?" After the guard made sure the money was correct, he took a few steps back.

"No, you can only leave after we leave!" Rong Jiacai directly rejected it, and then urged the men who were carrying tobacco.

"Everyone else, hurry up!"

An hour later, most of the tobacco in the warehouse was emptied and replaced by a large amount of straw and two tons of medium-grade tobacco.

Then Rong Jiacai lit a torch and threw it directly onto the straw. Then he closed the door of the warehouse and put the padlock on it.

After a while, a group of carriages left one after another, but one carriage broke down shortly after leaving, and several people got off to repair the carriage.

Two of them disappeared into the darkness, and a moment later, they came back dragging one person.

The carriage happened to have just been repaired and disappeared into the darkness.

After more than ten minutes, the warehouse of Wucheng Tobacco Company had turned into a torch.

In the distance, the warehouse of another cigarette company was also caught in flames.

……

James Cook, the owner of Fog City Tobacco Company, only learned that his tobacco warehouse had burned down in the morning.

He rushed to the cigarette factory with a grim face, only to see that the warehouse had been completely burned to ashes.

Moreover, his loss was not just the warehouse. Not far from the warehouse were the purchasing and finance offices, which were also burned down by the fire, and almost all the account books were destroyed.

"How did the fire start? Where are the guards from last night?" James Cook's face was livid and his eyes looked like he wanted to kill someone.

There are tens of thousands of dollars worth of tobacco in the warehouse, as well as those accounts...

"The guard is missing. The fire was set by someone in the warehouse, and the lock was pried open with a crowbar. Besides us, the warehouse of the Home Run Cigarette Company also caught fire..."

"So they broke into the warehouse just to burn our tobacco?" asked James Cook.

"It's not just our tobacco that's burned!" the other party repeated.

"Have the agents from the FBI arrived?" James Cook's face was uncertain.

"They haven't come to work yet..." the man next to him said helplessly.

It was not until after eight in the morning that the people from the Investigation Bureau finally arrived.

James Cook spent the morning dealing with the fire and then headed to Cromwell Tobacco Company.

He must now reduce the losses and cannot stop production, so as to make up for the losses as much as possible.

However, when he arrived at Cromwell Tobacco Company, he received news that made him extremely angry.

"We will never sell tobacco again!" said Edward Cromwell, sitting behind his desk.

James Cook was a wealthy man and a big client, so Edward met him in person.

"What's the reason?" James Cook tried to calm himself down, but he couldn't calm down at all.

"They are Chinese. They are very powerful and their methods are very brutal. I can't afford to offend them. From now on, I can only sell my tobacco to them!" Edward Cromwell sold Chen Zhengwei directly.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether he says it or not, this kind of news cannot be concealed.

Even if he didn't say it, James Cook would know it after a while.

"So, my cigarette factory is also run by them?" James Cook became even angrier.

"I don't know!" Edward Cromwell shrugged. He was not going to get involved.

After a moment, James Cook managed to calm down: "Tell me about those Chinese."

"The Chinese were not very prominent originally, but they got a new boss who was ruthless and brutal and expanded very quickly. It is said that the Irish boss was killed by them... The newspaper said more than nine people died, but in fact, 70 or 80 people died!"

Edward Cromwell told some of what he knew.

He was forced by Chen Zheng to sell tobacco to the other party, and the price was reduced by 10%, which made him very angry.

It would be great if someone else were to cause trouble for the Chinese.

"I understand!" James Cook stood up and left.

He returned to the carriage and thought for a while, then came to a small building two blocks away. There was a sign on it: Pinkerton Detective Agency.

During this period, the United States had no control over the West, there was no federal police department, and even California did not have a state police department.

Basic public order is entirely maintained by each city’s own investigation bureau.

Under such circumstances, the Pinkerton Detective Agency cooperated with local police agencies and its power grew rapidly.

There are more than one hundred agents and nearly a thousand hired workers throughout the United States, most of whom are in the West.

Not only do they arrest wanted criminals, they also participate in criminal investigations, provide guarding and protection for some small capitalists, and suppress workers' movements.

As for the big capitalists...they have their own private armies.

San Francisco is the largest city in the West and the only city in the West with a population of over 100,000. It is also the location of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

A moment later, James Cook met the head of the local Pinkerton Detective Agency, William Pinkerton, who was also the youngest son of Pinkerton's founder Allan Pinkerton.

"Would you like some tea, Mr. Cook?"

"Mr. Cook, are you here about the fire in the cigarette factory?"

"Not bad!"

"So do you have any suspects?" asked William Pinkerton.

"Chinese!" James said in a deep voice.

William Pinkerton's expression became serious.

"I have been to Cromwell Tobacco Company. They said that their tobacco can only be sold to the Chinese in the future. They want to defeat me with this despicable means." James Cook said directly.

"That's indeed their style." William Pinkerton said to the secretary beside him, "Go get the latest information about the Chinese!"

James Cook was then asked: "So what do you want us to do?"

"Find evidence of their crimes and then hang them!" James Cook gritted his teeth.

William Pinkerton did not speak immediately. He waited until his secretary brought a thick stack of documents. He then put the documents on the table. The top portrait was of a young Chinese man.

"This is their leader, Zhengwei Chen. Many murders in San Francisco in recent months are related to him."

William Pinkerton placed some clippings from the materials on the table and showed them to James Cook one by one.

"Irish gangster Otto Powell, his right-hand men Wes and Moran, and more Irish gang members. More than 80 people were killed or wounded."

"The previous shooting on Kearney Street left more than twenty people dead."

"Hanging at the Pier..."

"The Pacific Heights Massacre..."

"These are just what we know from the newspapers. In addition, there are some others... For example, the German mafia recently changed a group of people, and he is also behind this incident..."

“And there’s still a lot we don’t know!”

"This is an extremely brutal criminal!" William Pinkerton emphasized at the end to illustrate the dangerousness of Chen Zhengwei.

James Cook's expression gradually began to change. He knew that the other party was dangerous, but he didn't expect it to be so dangerous.

"What on earth is the San Francisco Bureau of Investigation doing?" James Cook knew that the Bureau was unreliable, so he came to Detective Pinkerton, but the result still shocked him.

"From what I understand, he has close ties with the Bureau of Investigation," said William Pinkerton.

In fact, he had never investigated Chen Zhengwei, but the Pinkerton Detective Agency had the habit of collecting information by clipping newspapers.

Chen Zhengwei's recent actions have inevitably attracted attention. These news items published in newspapers have a relatively large impact, so they were cut out for use as information.

"Mr. Cook, do you still want to investigate now?" William Pinkerton asked.

"Check! Check where my tobacco is!" James Cook gritted his teeth. He couldn't swallow this.

Those green bugs actually bullied him.

And if these people can do it once, they will definitely do it a second time unless he closes the company.

"In that case, I recommend our security business to you. You know, this person is very dangerous. If he senses something, he can do anything!"

William Pinkerton smiled.

"Our Pinkerton agents can protect the safety of Mr. James and his family, and can also provide strong protection for your company."

In addition to the detective department, the Pinkerton Detective Agency also has a security consulting department and a special operations team.

The Security Advisory Department provides protection to some businessmen, while the Special Operations Group carries out special tasks, such as arresting railway thief gangs and conducting interstate investigations.

……

Chen Zhengwei didn't know that he was being targeted by Pinkerton agents.

He was at the cigarette factory, looking at the tobacco piled up in the warehouse.

He just put these things in the warehouse of the cigarette factory without worrying about anyone coming to check.

Who will come to check?

Michael? Or Alan?
"Are these tobaccos better than what we used before?" Chen Zhengwei asked.

"The worst is still a level better than before!" said the person in charge of the cigarette factory.

Chen Zhengwei whistled, feeling good. These tobaccos were worth at least fifty or sixty thousand US dollars.

"Expand the scale of production and let those female workers work in two shifts... If there are not enough people, recruit some! Many small factories will go bankrupt recently, so recruit them here!" Chen Zhengwei ordered.

"I provided them with so many jobs that they didn't starve to death. They all have me to thank! Don't you think so?"

Chen Zhengwei felt that the words "good man" were written all over his face.

There will be a lot of vacant market share next, and his goods will be able to flow freely in his own and the Italians' territories.

The current cigarette factories are not large enough to take over all of these markets.

I have to find the right place myself.

"The top-quality tobacco is used to make cardamom... and then divided into two brands, one is called Black Diamond, and the other is called... you can think about it together, what should it be called... You don't use your brains at all every day, what's the use of you?"

Chen Zhengwei thought for a moment but couldn't think of a good idea, so he simply kicked the man next to him.

Everyone discussed several names and Chen Zhengwei quickly decided on one. The original Black Jack remained unchanged, and a new brand called Black Diamond was added. It was made with high-quality tobacco, so the price naturally increased a lot, selling for 60 cents a pack.

Phoenix switched to medium tobacco and sold for 25 cents. It also added a new brand called Queen, which, like Black Jack, sold for 15 cents.

In this way, the market is fully divided, and the variety of cigarettes is rich enough, so consumers have more choices.

After leaving the cigarette factory, Chen Zhengwei returned to the casino. A henchman came over and whispered, "Brother Wei, I've brought the people you wanted. There are two of them."

"Bring them to my office."

(End of this chapter)