Reborn in 1878: America's Number One Bandit

Chapter 108 Huge Gains and the Shocked Representatives of the Chinese Laborers
Dawns in San Francisco always carry a salty, fishy chill.

Thick fog pressed down on the rooftops of North Beach and the Barbary Coast.

In this still-dormant abyss of evil, the deep cleanup is nearing its end.

In the backyard of the Golden Palace, the more than one hundred fanatical Latino scum who swore allegiance last night are now being "reformatted" by their new boss, Matteo, using the harshest methods.

Ross Precision: Includes land, factory buildings, a full set of German-made machine tools, and a secret weapons depot containing thousands of various firearms and millions of rounds of ammunition.

Ross Chemicals: Includes factory buildings, laboratories, a complete set of chemical purification equipment, and a large quantity of morphine and opium paste enough to poison half of San Francisco.

There are nine casinos of varying sizes, located on the North Beach and Barbary coast.

There are 13 brothels, including high-end, mid-range, and low-end establishments such as the Golden Palace.

There were three opium dens, with "Song of the Siren" being the largest, catering exclusively to white people.

There are 12 bars and salons, with "Shamrock" being the largest and a stronghold of the Irish gang.

Cash: A total of 503,721 Morgan Eagle Dollars.

This figure was painstakingly extracted by the Chongtu Gang and three newly parachuted suicide squads from the vaults, safes, hidden compartments, and even under the mattresses of the four major gang leaders.

Five hundred thousand eagle oceans.

In 1878, this was a number that would drive any governor, or even some bigwigs in Washington, crazy.

This money could buy the most luxurious mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York, arm a fully-equipped infantry division, or even bribe enough members of Congress to pass or veto a bill.

This money was the blood that these four scoundrels squeezed drop by drop from countless gamblers, prostitutes, sailors, and Chinese laborers in the lawless land of San Francisco.

Lawson quietly enjoyed the venison.

Is 500,000 a lot?
It looks like a lot, but it's just seed money.

Ross Precision and Ross Chemicals are the real goose that lays the golden eggs.

This is the golden egg that can hatch an empire, the true golden egg.

In the eyes of that Jewish man, Solly Ross, these two factories were his underground arms smuggling operations and morphine manufacturing labs. The limit of his imagination was using these things to control a group of addicts and fund some Algerian...

The Lan rebels traded it for more gold.

That's all he can do.

But in Lawson's eyes, he was not seeing the present, but the future, twenty or even thirty years from now.

Ross Precision, Ross Chemical.

When these two names are combined, Lawson sees a revolutionary future.

There were the spitting fire of Maxim machine guns, the precise bursts of Mauser rifles, and even the trajectories of Krupp cannons piercing the sky.

What supports all of that is smokeless gunpowder.

Ross Chemicals now has mature and complete industrial acid production equipment.

That idiot Solly Ross used them to purify morphine.

Those devices were also perfect tools for manufacturing strong cotton and nitroglycerin.

Lawson had at least three mature and stable smokeless gunpowder formulas in his mind.

If he wanted, he could bring the world into a smoke-free era within three months.

but……

Lawson raised an eyebrow and smiled. Why would he do that?
Should we throw out the trump card—smokeless gunpowder—now?
No, that would be too wasteful.

This foolish era, still clinging to the superstition that gunpowder and caliber equals justice, has one last wave of profits left unharvested.

Lawson's plan was a thousand times more greedy than Solly Ross's.

What he wants to do is not to subvert, but to reap.

"Ross Precision..."

Lawson silently recited in his mind.

Images of those heavy, crude Springfield and Sharps rifles, still using black powder, flashed through my mind.

"It's all garbage."

His plan quickly took shape in his mind.

The first step, utilizing Ross Precision's existing top-of-the-line German-made machine tools and the design blueprints in his mind, was to "copy" a pinnacle black powder rifle. It would possess the mature metal cartridge cases of later generations, a superior locking mechanism, a faster rate of fire, and greater accuracy. It would be the ultimate weapon of the black powder era.

His second step is to sell this gun to the whole world.

They sold it to the United States, Britain, Russia, and even to the Qing Dynasty.

He wanted to make the "Ross Precision" trademark synonymous with precision and lethality.

Make all the world's armies switch to his weapons.

The final step is to wait.

Once the world has fully embraced his pinnacle black powder standards, once his factories have earned ten or even a hundred times the profits of tonight, then at some opportune moment…

"Excuse me, gentlemen."

A cruel smile crept across Lawson's lips.

He will take out his smokeless gunpowder and the brand-new Ross II rifle that comes with it.

Double the range, double the power, no black smoke, and faster rate of fire.

"The weapons you have are outdated, I'm sorry."

"Now, it's time for another round of equipment upgrades!"

This is what you call a damn business.

We'll harvest your loot first, then render all your equipment useless.

Then they'll harvest another wave of profits.

This is much more civilized than robbing a train.

Of course, this plan has a crucial core.

"Technical secrecy."

Lawson's eyes turned cold.

The formulas and designs in his mind are the most valuable assets in the world.

He cannot trust any outsiders.

Even the most loyal employees, even those who have signed a death contract.

In this era, if the interests are great enough, even Jesus could be crucified, let alone a mere engineer.

Lawson made new plans in his mind.

"Starting today, the daily refreshed suicide squad quota must include at least two technical suicide squads."

He needs truly professional talent.

Chemist, metallurgist, mechanical engineer, firearms designer...

He wanted to replace all the key positions at Ross Precision and Ross Chemical with his own people, from laboratory directors to machine operators.

Only loyal warriors, only these absolutely loyal, unwavering, secret-leaking tools who will execute his will to the best of their ability, are worthy of mastering these epoch-making creations.

……

After finishing the last bite of venison, Lawson wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Their gaze once again turned to San Francisco in the southeast.

He looked at the city.

Chinatown is his human resource pool.

North Beach and Barbary Coast were his ATMs.

Ross Precision and Ross Chemical are his future military factories.

He was very satisfied.

This pearl of the West Coast, like Marin County and Sonoma County in Northern California, is completely under his control, piece by piece, from the inside out.

Admittedly, this city is not perfect.

Looking at those crowded, dirty, and poorly planned streets, dilapidated wooden buildings that could burst into flames at any moment, and countless stinking slums.

Lawson didn't like the dirty and messy appearance.

Now that this city belongs to him, it should grow into the way he wants it to be.

To rebuild, we need tools, construction teams, and a legitimate, large-scale construction company that can openly undertake municipal engineering projects.

Lawson suddenly had a brilliant idea.

"Construction company?"

His heart quickened slightly at the thought.

"Construction, excavation, foundation, earthwork!"

Lawson smiled; this was absolutely perfect.

He was worried that the system's earthwork reserves were being depleted too quickly, and that excavating them would be a waste of manpower.

If he started a construction company and took on projects all over California: road repairs, canal digging, building skyscrapers, leveling land...

What is each shovelful of soil that is dug out?
It's not all earthwork reserves! It's his resources! Others have to pay him to dispose of "garbage," but he's harvesting the world's most precious resources.

He's essentially getting others to pay him to create more assassins.

This is simply an outrageously perfect perpetual motion machine.

"Adams."

Lawson issued commands through his consciousness.

In San Francisco, Adams, a henchman at the White Tiger Security headquarters, immediately stopped what he was doing.

"Boss."

“Use the name of Baihu Security to register a construction company, and name it ‘Titan’.”

"We will obtain all the legal licenses within three days."

……

With the biggest problem solved, Lawson felt relieved.

Suddenly I thought of London again.

In the heart of the world's financial center, dozens of British assassins he had planted had been lying in wait for nearly a month.

They are his global financial tentacles, but they are still too weak.

Lawson gave them only a few thousand silver dollars as start-up capital.

This amount of money wouldn't even make a ripple on the London Stock Exchange.

It's time to feed them more.

"From last night's profits, allocate 200,000 Fiat dollars and transfer them cleanly to a London account through Barclays Bank."

"Make them use this money to buy, to sell, to pay tuition, to figure out every unspoken rule in that exchange, and to get to know every key person!"

The thick fog has dissipated, and the sun is shining brightly in Northern California.

An era belonging to ruthless bandits is about to end.

Robbing a train? Robbing a bank?
That's the work of thugs.

He, Lawson, wants to do what the king does.

“When the time is right,” Lawson muttered, “robbing the financial markets will make you way more money than robbing trains! Hahaha!”

……

When Wang Dafu led this unusual "exploration team" onto the land of Sonoma County in Northern California, the October wind already carried a hint of coolness.

The very composition of this team is a bizarre microcosm of power dynamics in Chinatown.

Leading the way were the uncles and elders from the six major guild halls.

The old men, led by Uncle Yu, were dressed in respectable silk jackets. They stroked their goatees the whole way, remaining silent, but their eyes, like those of eagles, warily surveyed this vast land.

They are the roots of Chinatown, the bond that connects 40,000 Chinese with their ancestral clans.

Following behind them were the thirty elected representatives of the Chinese laborers.

"Damn it, there's not a soul in sight here."

Gap-toothed Liu spat and looked out the window at the endless expanse of withered yellow grass.

"Wang Dafu isn't going to bring us here to sell us to some white rancher as piglets, is he?" another railroad worker with a missing finger muttered hoarsely.

"Shut up!" Gap-toothed Liu glared at him. "Didn't you see Uncle Yu and the others are here? If the sky falls, they'll hold it up."

That's what they said, but everyone had a heavy weight on their hearts.

One silver dollar a day? Food and lodging included?

When have white people ever been so kind?

All they had ever seen was the foreman's whip, the meager wages, and the sandy, coarse rice they could never get enough to eat.

"arrive."

The horse-drawn carriage caravan stopped on a high slope.

When the thirty representatives were urged and grumbled by their uncles and elders to jump off the carriage, they were immediately stunned.

This place was not the hell they imagined, where white overseers wielded whips to drive away hundreds of Chinese laborers.

What lay before them was a vast apple orchard that stretched as far as the eye could see.

It is harvest season right now.

Thousands upon thousands of apple trees stand neatly on a gentle slope, their fruit already harvested. Workers are tidying up the orchard.

"My God!" Gap-toothed Liu's front tooth was so prominent that he couldn't close it properly.

"How many apples must that be?!"

"Look! There's someone over there!" the man with the severed finger pointed into the distance.

They all turned their heads in unison, and were shocked once again.

In the orchard, dozens of figures were standing on tall wooden ladders, busy working.

They worked while laughing loudly, exchanging crude jokes with each other in their local dialect.

“Their hair!” one of the representatives muttered.

Uncle Yu, the head of the Sixth Bureau, suddenly opened his small eyes.

That's right! None of those people had braids; instead, they all had neat, short hair.

They weren't wearing the greasy, tattered rags of indistinguishable color found on railway construction sites, but rather uniform indigo cotton work clothes.

Most importantly, it's their mental state.

You can't see numbness or fear on their faces, nor can you see the submissive, zombie-like defiance that comes from being tortured.

Although these people are sweating, they are visibly living a dignified life.

"Mr. Wang," Uncle Yu's Adam's apple bobbed, his mind momentarily blank. He adjusted his melon-shaped hat and asked in a deep voice, "Are these all our men?"

“Of course,” Wang Dafu said with a smile, “they were the first brothers to respond to the call of the Chinese Youth Association and leave the railway construction site.”

“Then…” Uncle Yu’s eyes began to search rapidly in the orchard, trying to find the key figure, “Where is the foreman here? Where is that white rancher?”

In Uncle Yu's mind, Chinese people should be governed.

Although the scene here looks beautiful, there must be a white overseer with a gun behind the scenes.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Wang Dafu's smile widened, filled with pride: "There are no white overseers here."

"what?"

“The Chinese Youth Association has signed a full management contract with the true owners of this land,” Wang Dafu said, waving his hand and pointing to the 1,800-acre orchard. “From planting, harvesting, and packaging to transportation and sales, everything is handled by us Chinese ourselves.”

"We'll take care of ourselves."

The impact of those words was no less than that of an exploding cannonball, leaving everyone stunned and frozen in place.

Chinese people should manage themselves?
This...how is this possible?

"Uncle Yu? Is it really you?"

Just then, a cheerful voice came from the orchard.

Two figures emerged from the bushes and ran quickly toward the high slope.

They were also wearing the same blue overalls, but they had a red armband with the words "Foreman" written on it.

They ran up to Uncle Yu and bowed respectfully.

"Who are you?" Uncle Yu stared at the tanned but exceptionally strong man with bright eyes in front of him, and didn't recognize him for a moment.

“Uncle Yu! It’s me! Zhou Dapao!” The man grinned, revealing a set of white teeth. “And him, Erzhu! We used to be from the Gangzhou Guild Hall, working on the Central Pacific Railway. Every month we would go to your Tongshunchang to send money home!”

"Zhou Dapao?" Uncle Yu's eyes widened.

He remembered.

He remembered Zhou Dapao. A laborer who was as thin as a bamboo pole and had a slightly hunched back, who always came to send money covered in injuries and dared not speak loudly.

But the person in front of me now is completely different from the one before.

Is this the same person?

“Erzhu, your face?” Gap-toothed Liu also recognized the other person.

Erzhu's frostbite and festering scars have completely disappeared, and healthy wheat-colored skin has grown over the wounds.

At this point, the thirty representatives were completely bewildered.

Trust? What the hell is trust?
That's what you call trust.

They all came from the same village, the same town, and the same guild hall.

They don't believe Wang Dafu, but they believe Zhou Dapao.

"Big Cannon! Is this for real?" Gap-toothed Liu was the first to rush forward, grabbing Zhou Dapao's arm. "Is that 'one silver dollar a day' thing a lie?"

"What about the food? Is it still that pig swill?" the man with the severed finger roared, his eyes red.

"Do they hit people? What about those white pigs?"

(End of this chapter)