American Comic Dimensional Trading Device

Everyone is given a ration book, which contains small plastic tags that allocate 48 blue dots and 64 red dots each month.

Blue dots are for purchasing canned, bottled, and other processed foods; red dots are for purchasing meat, fish, and dairy products.

Ordinary people could only purchase supplies according to their rations, with only shops and restaurants receiving larger rations, and all other supplies being allocated to the front lines.

On the front lines, the supplies rationed to an ordinary army soldier are generally three to four times that of an ordinary civilian.

It can be said that everything was prioritized in service of the war.

This rationing system would not be gradually ended until the latter half of 1944, when the production of various materials in the United States reached its peak and a surplus began to appear.

Of course, just like the bootlegging business of the past twenty years, you can buy more supplies if you are willing to spend money.

After having a hearty meal, Josie left the restaurant and, after making sure no one was watching her, relaxed and walked down the street before hailing a taxi.

Don't be surprised, even Shanghai in China had taxis at the same time, let alone the United States.

After giving an address, the car started moving.

We soon arrived at a used car dealership.

As the world's leading industrial power at that time, the United States had an astonishing number of cars, reaching 25% in 1937.

That means that, on average, one in four Americans owns a car.

The vast majority of them are concentrated in major cities.

Not to mention top-tier industrial cities like Chicago.

Moreover, the price of the cars is not high; a brand-new, basic Ford Model A sedan costs only five or six hundred dollars.

However, with the United States officially entering World War II, major American companies were temporarily prohibited from producing civilian cars and instead focused on producing military vehicles. As a result, new cars are not easy to buy now. Like most supplies, they are subject to a rationing system, and basically only special professions such as doctors and priests can get quotas.

Gasoline and tires are also subject to quota restrictions.

In comparison, a driver's license is a piece of cake.

Although some basic traffic regulations were introduced more than a decade ago due to the large number of cars on the road, they are still relatively new and not very strict.

So even though Josh is a little short of the required age, he can still get his driver's license by spending just a little more money.

However, Josh doesn't have much need for a new car; a working used car will do.

After all, Chicago is so big, having a car makes things much more convenient.

Moreover, although gasoline and tires are subject to rationing, as the saying goes, as long as you have money, everything is easy.

In the end, Josh bought a used Ford with a full tank of gas and in good condition for two hundred dollars.

However, this also reduced Josie's assets by two hundred dollars, a decrease of nearly half.

After getting the car, Josie wobbled off onto the road.

To be honest, having driven automatic cars all my life, it was a bit of a shock to drive this old-fashioned manual car again at first. But traffic rules weren't nearly as complicated back then, so Josh had a pretty smooth ride.

Soon, Josie drove to a rather secluded gun shop.

Upon entering the gun shop, a wide variety of firearms come into view.

Don't be fooled by the fact that firearms in this era weren't as advanced as those in later generations. It's important to know that the United States didn't have an automatic weapons law at the time; that kind of thing wasn't enacted until 1986.

So now, gun shops in the United States not only have light automatic weapons such as Thompson submachine guns, M1918 Browning, and Colt automatic pistols, but also heavy machine guns like the Colt M1895. It's incredible.

However, Josh could only look at these guns because they were too expensive.

In its early days, the Thomson was extremely expensive, costing over two hundred dollars. After years of improvements, the price has come down, but it is still over seventy dollars, and that is the official purchase price.

The retail price has also increased due to the war, now directly priced at 108.

At that price, with the little money Josie had, she could only afford two guns, and even that wouldn't last long with bullets.

Models like the M1 Garand are even more expensive, with a retail price of $150, which puts them out of his reach.

So Josie's target was an old gun from World War I.

It's not Springfield. Springfield was also widely used during World War II due to its excellent performance, but production capacity was insufficient and prices were high.

What Josie wanted was the M1917, a supplementary rifle to the Springfield rifle.

Because of its relatively simple structure, the M1917 was mass-produced during World War I. After the war, it was withdrawn from service, some were sold, and more than one million were mothballed.

After World War II, although this rifle was reintroduced, it was mainly used for support to other countries or for US military training, and was rarely used in actual combat. As a result, there are still huge stockpiles in the United States, which makes it very cheap.

A gun and a thousand rounds of ammunition for only $45 is quite cheap.

During this period, many people in the United States would choose to buy this gun for hunting or shooting competitions.

"What would you like, sir?" the chubby gun shop owner asked. Beside him was a similarly chubby young man, about the same age as Josie, who was probably his son.

“I want four M1917s, and also an M1911,” Josie said directly.

The rifle was intended for sale, while the M1911 was for his own self-defense.

Although it was somewhat unexpected that Josie wanted four rifles at once, the shop owner didn't ask any questions. Having lived through the Great Depression, what hadn't he seen? Even Dillinger had bought guns from him back in the day.

As long as the money is paid, what the customer does with the gun is none of his business.

Chapter 3 Plane Trader

Josie asked the shop owner to help her load the gun into the car, paid him, and then got in and drove away.

However, after turning a few corners, Josie stopped again, brushed her hand over all the guns and bullets, and everything disappeared instantly.

He then calmly drove off again.

Half an hour later, Josie finally got home, and luckily, she didn't encounter any trouble along the way.

Perhaps because a large number of unemployed youths had joined the army, Chicago's public security seemed to be quite good at this time. At least in the week that Josie had been there, he had not seen any serious crimes.

I've never seen a scene in a gangster movie where mafia members are shooting Thomson rifles right there on the street.

Of course, the fact that Josie didn't see her doesn't mean she didn't exist.

After all, whether it's the past two or three decades or the next two or three decades, it's been a period of rampant growth for the American Mafia.

If Josie had arrived a few years earlier, the scenes in the movies of gangsters wearing overcoats and top hats, shooting Thompson submachine guns on the streets, would have been more common.

The reason why we rarely see him now is that the neighborhoods he frequents are relatively safe. In this era when political segregation was still in effect, you couldn't see black people on the streets.

Another reason is war.

Don't think that war has nothing to do with gangs.

There are many complex relationships involved.

One reason, as Josie had thought, was that a large number of unemployed youths who used to frequent the streets had joined the army to earn money, which reduced the number of fresh blood in the gangs.

Secondly, most gangs are busy making money right now.

Why do people join gangs? Ultimately, isn't it all about making money?

What kind of money is easiest to make during wartime?

smuggling!

No, it can't even be called smuggling anymore; it should be called transportation.

During the war, in order to support the war effort in Europe and due to the enormous risks of maritime transport, the United States almost completely lifted its maritime restrictions on Europe.

If you're bold enough, any Liberty ship loaded with cargo can earn you dozens or even hundreds of times your initial investment in wealth from Britain, Europe, and Asia.

It's the same work, but isn't this better than struggling to grab territory in the US?

Therefore, during the years of World War II, most of the American gangs were busy with "foreign trade".

Of course, this is not all, but the rest are either not respectable or irrelevant to ordinary people.

Therefore, all things considered, the security situation in white neighborhoods during the war was naturally much better than before the war.

Back home, Josie locked the door and sat down in a chair.

"System! Contact Daenerys."

As soon as he finished speaking, a virtual screen appeared in front of Josie.

This is the crucial guarantee for Josie's survival in this era, and also his cheat code—a system from an unknown high-dimensional civilization called the Dimensional Trading System.

The system's function is quite simple: it possesses a dimensional beacon that is randomly sent to an unknown world and selects a host.

Then Josie can trade with the host of this beacon.

Furthermore, the system generates a new dimensional beacon every year to search for new dimensions.

In addition, the system has an extremely powerful storage function. The guns that were in the car disappeared because Josie used the storage function.

The world searched by the system's first dimensional beacon was the world of a TV series that Josie had watched in her previous life: Game of Thrones! And the host was none other than the famous Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons.

The ten ounces of gold that Josie sold earlier was the first deal he made with Daenerys.

The items used for the trade were a .38 revolver and a copy of The Prince, left behind by Josie's deceased father.

Josie prepared the M1917 to trade more gold with Daenerys, or silver if necessary.

"Josie, did you buy the items?" The previously dim screen lit up, and Daenerys Targaryen, dressed simply but with a clean and beautiful face and silver hair, appeared on the screen.

The dimensional beacon was bound to Daenerys Targaryen during Game of Thrones Season 6, when she was captured by the Dothraki, used fire to kill many of their leaders, gained their allegiance, and prepared to return to Slaver's Bay to quell the rebellion.