Upstairs in the magnificently renovated mansion, a middle-aged man in a suit and leather shoes with gray hair was yelling angrily over the phone.
"A damn gang boss dares to yell at me on TV?! If he is so arrogant, federal law will lose face, and what do you FBI do for a living?! 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 don't you go when the federal government does crisis management?"
The man took a deep breath, put one hand on his hips and kept pressing down in mid-air, and then said: "Okay, Amanda, I don't want to listen to these useless nonsense from you anymore. If the FBI is not afraid of dereliction of duty and face, Sweep the floor, then I will play with him myself! I can’t go to his house to catch him, then I will let him know that neither he nor this rotten city will have an easy time!"
The man hung up the phone angrily, but when he turned his head, he felt a blurry black figure flashing in the shadow of the curtain behind him.
He immediately twitched, turned back and stretched his neck suspiciously to look over there, and shouted with an inward voice: "Who? Who is there?! Get out, or I will call the bodyguards!"
A black figure stepped out of the shadows. Batman looked at Lauder's face and said, "I'm here to remind you, don't do anything to Gotham. This is for your own good."
"Batman?!" Lauder called out Batman's name in surprise. Of course he had heard of the Dark Knight of Gotham, but he didn't have a good reputation.
It is difficult for anyone living in a normal city to understand what kind of environment requires a tight-fitting weirdo to act as a vigilante to maintain justice, so they usually don't understand Batman at all and only regard him as a clown who is sensationalizing.
"Are you the killer sent by Cobot?" Lauder snorted disdainfully. He raised his chin and said arrogantly: "Does he really think that if he brags a few words on TV, I will be afraid of him? ?! If he dares to kill a member of the federal government, he will only be a fugitive for the rest of his life!"
Obviously, no matter who he faces, Batman is very bad at explaining, and he feels that he does not need to explain at all. He just said: "Dealing with Gotham and the people here will not do you any good, and this may cause extreme You'd better think carefully about your decision and don't leave yourself no way out."
After saying that, Batman turned and left. A smart person like him more or less underestimated the stupidity of an idiot. He felt that what he hinted at was obvious enough.
Since Cobbler is just a gangster who doesn't deserve to be on the stage, what can he do if he shouts a few words on Gotham's local show? You should have meetings, you should condemn and condemn, 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 ability of Batman. As the saying goes, all disputes begin with "why."
The congressmen are all elites who are used to being superior. They are the only ones who have always criticized this and that. Even if there are political opponents to refute, they always quarrel with each other. When have they ever been threatened with death?
Even if there are those who risk their lives, death threats are criminalized under the laws of most states in the United States, and the FBI caught them within a few days.
But he, Oswald Cobblepot, was just a gang boss in one area of the city. Before he was elected mayor of Gotham City, he dared to openly threaten congressmen with death, and the FBI didn't even care. This made the person named How could the threatening Laud tolerate such a tone?
Of course, he really didn't have the courage to go deep into Gotham alone. He was not stupid. The FBI didn't dare to go. If he went, wouldn't he be delivering food?
But after all, he is a state legislator and comes from a political family, and the interest groups supporting him are large enough. They dare not enter Gotham to impose sanctions, but there are ways to sanction Gotham from the outside.
First, provide funding to the Coast Guard so that they can focus on cracking down on smuggling ships on the route to Gotham. Then promulgate a new draft environmental protection law to ban all food, medicine, textiles and other products produced by industries within the scope of marine pollution. It cannot be shipped to other cities without passing inspection.
This is followed by a series of common sanctions such as adjusting tax rates, embargoing bulk products, and customs seizure of imported products.
It can be said that this is the first time such a variety of sanctions have been used in a city within the federation.
But has this affected Cobot? Some impact, but not much.
Again, he is a gang boss, and the most valuable business he owns is the Iceberg Restaurant. Even if he has no raw materials and needs to close down, he will make less money.
Copperpot was not in a hurry, but Wayne was.
There is a saying. Although the security situation in Gotham is bad, its geographical location 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.
You can use this method to impose sanctions on other countries, but if you cut off your own shipping routes and prevent the transportation of industrial raw materials, isn't this cutting off an arm? How many people with cerebral palsy do you need to be able to do this? ? ?
Bruce Wayne has recently been rethinking the bottom line of these politicians' IQs, but now he's faced with a slightly embarrassing situation.
The series of sanctions adopted by Lauder and the people behind him were not aimed at Cobot at all, but were actually intended to force Wayne.
Aren't you, Cobot, hiding in Gotham and not coming out? Then we directly negotiate with Wayne, handing over people and delivering goods, you kill the most powerful one, and everyone continues to make money together, what's wrong with that?
Batman feels bad.
Putting aside the fact that Batman would never hand over Gotham's villains to anyone else, Bruce Wayne couldn't even make a statement, arrest Cobblepot in the police station, or find a way to silence him. .
Because Lauder's actions actually tied the Wayne Group and Copot on the same line, pushing the two of them aside. The Wayne Group handing over Copot meant that he had given in, but Bruce Wayne can't give in, otherwise wouldn't anyone be able to sanction the Wayne Group?
The default rule in the business world is that everyone is a wolf with sharp teeth and green eyes, trying to bite off other people's flesh. If anyone dares to show his own wool, he will soon be eaten by the scum. Nothing left.
Therefore, even for the sake of Wayne Group's face, Bruce Wayne cannot attack Copot.
From Batman's perspective, he could take advantage of what Penguin said on TV about the illegal things he did and put him in Arkham Asylum.
The problem is, now that the Penguin disappears, people will not feel that someone is seeking justice. They will only feel that it must be the Wayne Group secretly doing something. The Wayne Group must have reached some kind of agreement with the state assembly and tried every means to get the science to pass. Potter shut up.
This matter has become a big deal, and it is a hot topic on the East Coast recently. If Copot shows any signs of decline, even if the Wayne Group jumps into the Yellow River, it will not be able to clean it up.
Batman only imagined that he would be trapped in a dilemma by the Joker's crazy setup. He never thought that he would be dragged into the water by these stupid politicians with their unexpected IQ bottom line. I can only say that the saying that a fool defeats a master is not entirely true. It doesn't make sense.
The most frightening thing is that these sanctions, which were originally intended to achieve an exchange of interests with the Wayne Group, aroused extremely strong public anger in Gotham. Gotham people were already driven crazy by the rain, and this added fuel to the fire. .
Everyone was originally considerate of the federal government. It is estimated that no one dares to come to this rotten city. It’s okay if you don’t help. Everyone makes do with it. But now that they have imposed such sanctions, people are shocked that their lives, which have already reached the bottom of the valley, are still alive. There is room to go down!
The most serious consequence of the raw material embargo is the shutdown of factories. Although there have been no layoffs yet, if you don't work, you won't get paid.
The newly introduced draft adjustment to the environmental protection law has caused the intermediate links in the transportation chain of food suppliers to be rerouted. For fear of being labeled as Gotham pollution, which will make it difficult to sell their own products, they would rather give up this part of the market than transport it here, bringing about is the inevitable result of rising prices.
Wages have dropped, prices have risen, and people will be troubled if they don't stir up trouble.
The people of Gotham who used to be able to get wages to buy things in the factory still had a sense of superiority and could barely survive. Now this group of people can't survive either. So what are they waiting for if they don't commit crime?
There was no work to do and he couldn't sit at home and starve to death. The Gotham people's little heads that were confused by the rain suddenly had an idea. Isn't there a war in Midtown? I saw an announcement a few days ago that they were recruiting thugs. Being a thug is better than starving to death!
As a result, many migrant workers living in low-cost apartments in downtown Gotham shouted "Da Chu Xing, King Chen Sheng!" and joined the war in Midtown.
As we all know, the war potential of a certain area is certain, including strategic depth, combat readiness material reserves, scope of personnel activities and other conditions, which only allow a certain number of troops to fight here.
This is why many large-scale city defense battles look like the attacking side is just a fuel tactic. There are many network commanders who question why they don't just press the border with a hundred thousand troops as soon as they type on the keyboard. One person can collapse the defense line with one kick. The fact is that there is not that much tactical space to accommodate so many people, and the people who are squeezed out are really pork in the meat grinder.
As the residents of Xiacheng District continued to join the war, the manpower in the territories of various families and interest groups suddenly increased, and the supplies they needed also doubled. However, the territories they owned and the materials they could grab were simply not enough to supply. Current manpower.
What choice do they have? Of course, we should continue to expand outwards, occupy more territory, grab more things, and then we can feed more people.
However, due to the different structures of urban areas, the division of labor is also different. Xiacheng District is the main densely populated area, and most of it is residential land. Although everyone is poor, if you want to rob my house, the resistance will still be very strong, even if you rob it. I don’t have much money, so I can say that my efforts are thankless.
But Shangcheng is different. It is full of wide and flat parks, high-end restaurants, luxury jewelry stores with large amounts of liquidity, and even many old banks.
Of course, Shangcheng District is also the home of these interest groups, but their location is further inside, that is, Shangcheng District within Shangcheng District.
Don’t the rich feel that they are in the same class as the so-called middle-class poor people who live on the edge of uptown? So what if the middle-class community is robbed?
Besides, as long as I have money, I can hire people to surround my own home. It has nothing to do with what kind of chaos there is outside. In this case, the more money I grab, the more funds I can use to build my own defense system. The more abundant it is, then why not grab it?
As a result, there was no need for intentional guidance, and the uncontrollable greed after indulgence prompted the masterminds behind Gotham to completely open Pandora's Box. In an instant, chaos swept the entire Gotham like a plague.
(End of chapter)
