Empire of Shadows

For families with multiple children, how to reasonably distribute property is always a profound and complex subject.

But as it happens, the person who gets to make the decision on this matter cannot be that rational.

“Would you like to hear an interesting story?” Lance thought of a very meaningful story that was very fitting for the problem Roger was currently facing.

The latter would naturally not refuse, even though he might not really want to hear it. “Of course, why not?”

“There was a couple, they had two children, one older, one younger.”

“You know, as parents, there will always be favoritism.”

“They preferred the younger son a little more.”

Roger nodded. “Yes, after all, the eldest son is more adapted to this society, while the younger one needs more opportunities and the chance to make mistakes.”

Lance smiled and continued, “When it came time to distribute the property, the parents asked the eldest son to lift a millstone on the ground. Do you know what a millstone is?”

Roger laughed out loud after hearing this. “You’re underestimating me. I also did farm work when I was a child. It’s something used to husk wheat.”“We would tie a rope to it and then drag it back and forth over the grain.”

Lance nodded again. “Yes, that’s the thing.”

“The eldest son lifted the millstone with ease. For him, this was just a small matter.”

“Then his parents said—”

“You are very strong, much stronger than your younger brother. you can completely rely on your strength to earn a lot of money, so we have decided to give most of the property to your younger brother.”

Roger showed a thoughtful expression after hearing this. “They are not wrong to say so. In the countryside, a young man with strength is definitely a good hand at work. He can find more wealth from the land.”

Lance smiled without speaking. “The story is not over yet.”

“The eldest son was very unconvinced by this. He thought it was unreasonable and asked his parents to set a new question.”

“His parents still set the same question, still asking him to lift that millstone.”

“This time he had experience. He pretended to struggle to lift it. in his heart, he thought, this time, he should be able to get a large share of the property.”

“But his parents told him again that as the eldest son, he couldn’t even lift a millstone.”

“Even if they handed over the family property to him, he couldn’t protect this wealth, so they decided to give the property to his younger brother.”

After being stunned for a moment, Roger suddenly burst out laughing. “This sounds like a true story!”

“His younger brother didn’t even touch the millstone and had already locked in the wealth.”

But as he laughed, he couldn’t laugh anymore.

Recently, that young widow had been asking him to give his genetic fragments to her. If… by any chance there was a child, there was a high probability that he would keep it.

This had nothing to do with faith (faith forbids abortion). It was just that in the final stage of his life, to be able to conceive a life would be seen by him as a miracle.

And at his age, he knew the value of life even more.

This was the continuation of his life, a continuation in the truest sense.

A new individual constructed from the genetic fragments he had spread, with his own blood flowing through them.

If you don’t consider personality, this is his “immortality.”

And this kind of immortality is far fresher than the previous one, and it is also more likely to move people.

Then, he was very likely to face what had happened in this story. He would definitely leave most of his wealth to the younger one, not his eldest son.

He was silent for a moment and then asked, “What happened to this story later?”

Lance shook his head. “You wouldn’t want to know his ending.”

He paused for a moment. “I just told you a little story to give you a reminder. Don’t let certain problems ruin you and your family.”

Roger played a very important role in the Imperial Chamber of Commerce. Lance didn’t want anything to happen to him.

“Thank you. I’ll think about it seriously.” After he repeatedly expressed that he understood Lance’s intention, Lance did not continue to emphasize.

He changed the subject, the reason he had called Roger over this time. “I’ve been thinking about something recently.”

Roger put away those emotions and became more focused. “What?” he asked.

Lance leaned back. “The Lance Family has developed very rapidly, but now we are also facing a problem.”

“If we continue to expand, the organization will become too large, and people’s work content will become very scattered from some of the more professional things.”

“They have to learn to shoot, to learn how to drive a vehicle and force another car to stop, to learn to drive a large truck to accurately hit another car at a necessary location when necessary.”

“They also have to learn to run a bar, some things that might have some criminal problems. They also have to learn to protect the target mission and to fight.”

“There are too many things for them to learn!”

Lance said with sincere emotion, “And we will be more and more short of manpower.”

Roger was a little confused when he heard this. “Isn’t this a good thing?”

“The expansion of the family needs to absorb more manpower. Maybe we will have thousands, tens of thousands of people. At that time, no one will look down on us!”

Besides Roger, there were several high-level cadres in the room. They usually stayed here. Today, Lance had called Roger over and hadn’t asked them to leave, just to give them a heads-up.

They hadn’t paid much attention to the chat over here, but as Lance shifted the topic to the gang, they put down their work and also paid attention to the changes here.

What Roger said spoke to their hearts. For a violent maniac like Hiram, the more people there were, the more secure he felt. He wished the whole street was full of his own people.

Then when he went out to fight with other gangs, he just had to wave his hand, and hundreds or thousands of people would riddle everything in sight with their submachine guns.

Including Elvin, he also felt that an increase in the number of family members was a good thing. This represented their invincibility, their strength, and would also make their enemies feel terrified.

Lance shook his head. “This is precisely the biggest problem. We are already big enough.”

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze bypassing Roger to look at the people sitting on the sofa group behind him. “How many people do we have now?”

Mello thought for a moment. “The core members are about eight or nine hundred. I haven’t counted the peripheral members, but there should be a thousand.”

Each high-level cadre had three captains under him, and each captain had a few, or more than a dozen, men under him.

Roughly speaking, the seventeen or eighteen high-level cadres controlled at least five or six hundred core members.

Then besides these people, there were also some promoted captains. These captains would also promote some ordinary low-level members to become core members.

So this number is actually not exaggerated.

Lance continued to look at Roger. “You see, a gang already has a thousand core members. How exaggerated is that?”

“If I weren’t friends with Councilman Williams, if I had no connections at all in the state government, do you think Councilman Williams could sleep at night?”

“In his city, there is such a powerful group that is not under his control.”

“The governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, can these people sleep at night? An immigrant group of one or two thousand that can be armed at any time. Will they become an unstable bomb at some point?”

As Lance’s words went from shallow to deep, the expressions of Roger and the others in the office also gradually became serious.

No longer like just now, all with a playful smile.

“This is the problem.”

“The city is still constantly expanding. We can say that we are the underground emperors of this city. We rule here.”

“But our manpower is still not enough to cover the entire city. There are still many gangs on our turf, engaged in criminal business without our consent.”

“If we want to control every block, every alley in this city, then we need to continue to expand by at least one or two thousand core members, and the corresponding peripheral members.”

“Gentlemen, when a gang has thousands of armed thugs and is active in an important city of the Federation, do you think the gentlemen of the Department of Defense, the gentlemen of the cabinet, can still sleep?”

These words directly silenced everyone in the room. The people on the sofa all stood up and came to the side of the table to sit down, or just stood there.

Everyone’s expression became serious. This was indeed a very scary problem.

Lance gave them a period of time to think, and then continued to ask deeply, “We rule Golden Port City. Do we still want to expand outwards?”

“Creek Valley City, Gold Star City, Likalai State, a few thousand people are not enough. A few tens of thousands, is that enough?”

“A hundred thousand?”

“Then are we a private armed force, or just a gang?”

“But the problem is, which gang has so many people?”

“At that time, even Mr. President won’t be able to sleep!”

“Because no one knows if we will be that bomb. For their own safety, even if we are not, we must be.”

Now the federal government does not encircle and suppress gangster organizations. It does not mean that they can really coexist with gangs. It is just that from the perspective of the current imperfect social system, allowing the development of gangs is beneficial to the ruling class of the Federation in managing various regions.

But once society stabilizes and the economy begins to develop again, they will begin to encircle and suppress these gangs.

Lance could even foresee that Congress would pass legislation to crack down on gangs and related industries.

The bigger the expansion now, the more tragic the death when the reckoning comes.

Lance was not sure when the federal government would suddenly “awaken,” but they would definitely awaken, and they would definitely take back the basic ruling power from the hands of the gangs.

Instead of waiting until the last moment to reform, it is better to reform in advance while the gangster environment is still very relaxed.

The reason that reminded him was that there were too damn many people!

If he changed to another mayor, he might not necessarily allow a family like the Lance Family to be so dominant.

Gang reform is imperative.

Seeing that they were not speaking, after a long while, he began to talk about today’s matter again. “I have an idea: streamline the organization, de-criminalize, capitalize, but not blindly whitewash.”

“That fool Bandy’s method is not suitable, and it’s meaningless. We will not put down our knives and guns. We have to take another path.”

“We are no longer that common type of gang, but we will be purer than ordinary gangs.”

Elvin raised a question. “If we reform and reduce our manpower, how can we ensure that we can still control this city?”

“Just the bars, warehouses, and the business and transport teams on the farm side that we have now require a lot of manpower.”

“Not adding new manpower is our bottom line now. If we streamline further, some businesses may have problems.”

For example, the transport team. Lance wants to ship to the whole state now. The transport team has about two hundred people. This certainly cannot be streamlined. Then what about the farm side?

What about the local bars?

And those people on the streets?

If they were all streamlined, would there be a problem?

Lance pointed at him. “You’ve asked a good question.”

“What I want to streamline is not our current manpower, but the way we manage our industries.”

“Currently, all our industries are run by ourselves: bars, distilleries, the transportation industry.”

“We won’t change the transportation for the time being, but the bars, warehouses, these, I plan to hand them over.”

“The core purpose of us running bars and selling contraband is to make money.”

“As our industries become more and more numerous and larger in scale, we don’t need to run those consumer-facing terminals ourselves at all.”

“Contract it out.”

Lance looked at Roger. “If I now rent out all the bars at a clear price and guarantee the safety of each bar, do you think there will be people who are willing to run the bars in a contractual way?”

“You provide the people, I’ll be responsible for the liquor and transportation. If someone causes trouble, I can also help you solve the trouble.”

Roger’s heart began to beat faster. He knew how profitable those bars of Lance’s were!

The accelerated heartbeat made his mouth a little dry. He licked his lips. “Can I contract one?”

Lance nodded and said, “Absolutely no problem. If you are willing to contract, I will give you a good bar.”

“So that you can earn a handsome reward of at least two or three thousand a month from it.”

He thought for a moment. “At least two or three thousand.”

It may not sound like much, but this kind of business is written in the criminal law and the constitutional amendment, which also means that it is a sure-fire profit, as long as it can be operated.

Roger said almost without thinking, “I’m willing to contract…” he glanced at Lance, “Can I contract a few more?”

Lance shook his head. “Giving you one quota without competition is because you have done a lot for the Imperial Chamber of Commerce.”

“The other bars must be completed through bidding. Whoever gives a higher contract price, we will let them run it.”

“This time the contract period is one year. After one year, it will all be changed to two years.”

After thinking seriously for a while, Roger couldn’t help but exclaim, “What a genius idea!”

As long as Lance announced his profit situation, there would definitely be people who would bet that they could run it better. And currently, the Five Families had been eradicated. The three most profitable districts of the city center, the Starlight District, and the Bay Area were all in Lance’s hands.

At the same time, those small and medium-sized gangs posed no threat to him. He could completely do this in a unified way.

Without continuing to expand the manpower, he could indirectly earn more money from more bars. This was a fucking genius!

However, Roger also had a little confusion of his own. “How do you guarantee the operational safety of these bars?”

“I’m not questioning your ability, Mr. Lance, but the people outside need a guarantee before they will take out the money.”

Lance laughed twice. “10% of the contract fee will be taken out and divided into three parts. One part will be distributed to the local police force, one part will be given to City Hall, and one part will be given to the Bureau of Hazardous Materials.”

“Not long ago, I have already convinced Director Dale, and the next director.”

Roger looked at Lance with a dumbfounded expression. He couldn’t imagine how Lance had done it, but he knew that this city was really going to change!

“I asked you to come this time because I hope you can, within the Imperial Chamber of Commerce, and with the locals, have a chat. I hope the bars in the Empire District are in the hands of the locals. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I don’t want external forces to penetrate deep into our core territory. That will make some things complicated.”

Roger understood what Lance meant. “I will tell them.”

He paused for a moment. “If we compete, how much… would a bar probably cost?”

Mello was clearer about this question. “A bar in the Starlight District has a profit of about two million a year. It’s a bit worse on the Empire District side, but the annual profit is also between 250,000 and 300,000.”

“If it’s to be contracted out, I think the price will probably be about the same as this.”

Lance nodded. “It will be a little lower, so that you at least have a profit. Like the bars in the Starlight District, they’ve invested two million. You can’t just let the contractor earn a few tens of thousands a year.”

“Let’s say 1.5 million. A profit of 500,000 should be able to attract people.”

Roger swallowed. 500,000 a year?

His eyes were a little red. He also wanted to contract this, but he knew he couldn’t use that free quota, otherwise it would be that he didn’t know his place.

But he would contact others and find a way to contract one. Even if everyone shared, it would still be a lot of money.

An annual return rate of more than 30%. Besides criminal businesses, what else could have such a high return rate?

Lance introduced some of his other ideas, for example, that the liquor must be purchased from the Lance Family.

After all, from a strict sense, the entire Golden Port City was Lance’s territory now. If he didn’t sell liquor, then that’s that.

He was still frantically brewing liquor now, so he would naturally not allow others to ship goods on his turf.

These were actually small problems. Everyone knew that Lance’s liquor was not expensive. As long as he was not too greedy, people were still willing.

(End of a Chapter)