The Death Knell

"Name?"

Customs officers stopped him. This step is inevitable for everyone, but Hawaiian ships are not the focus of inspection. They are now wary of poor Europeans, especially stowaways from Italy.

"My name is Slade Wilson, can you hurry up? I'm in a hurry to get home."

As Su Ming spoke, he handed over a five-dollar tip. He spoke with a standard New York Upper East Side accent, which fully demonstrated that he was an American.

Sure enough, the chubby customs officer smiled and nodded, accepted the tip without leaving any trace, glanced at the birth certificate casually, and there was no need to check the items he carried.

"Welcome home, sir." He signaled that Su Ming could pass, then waved the wooden stick in his hand and shouted to the people behind him: "Next, hurry up this way."

After passing through the bustling crowd and passing through the old pier full of contemporary feeling, Su Ming walked into the city with a smile on his face amidst the cries of seagulls.

Skyscrapers, classic cars, old trench coats and fedora hats, the surrounding streets are a similar sight.

The policemen were holding wooden sticks in their hands, and the children were selling their newspapers. Not far away, facing the pier, was an Italian deli. The owner was using strips of cloth to drive away the flies on the roast chicken.

Noisy and lively, this was New York in the 1920s. Watching people wearing old-style fashions walking down the street, he felt like he had stepped into a black-and-white film.

He still has more than 9,000 US dollars on him. If he just uses it for food and drink, it will be enough for him to spend a long time. But if he wants to use this money to start a weapons company and realize his long-term plan, it will not be enough.

A small workshop cannot handle national defense orders.

This money is just the start-up capital. In the early stage, Su Ming planned to make money quickly through a series of plans.

The first is wine making.

Sitting in the taxi, Su Ming could hear the sound of jazz music coming from the roadside, but without the smell of alcohol, such a day would be incomplete.

The era of Prohibition was also the era of the rise of local gangs in the United States.

It cannot be said that the starting point of prohibition is wrong. After all, it is a good thing to focus on serious life and work and not to sleep drunk every day.

However, alcohol can also be addictive.

Many people simply can't live without it, but the country doesn't allow it to be sold, and buying or selling it is illegal. What should I do?

It is said in "Das Kapital" that as long as there is adequate profit, capital will become bold. If it has a 50% profit, it will take risks; for a 100% profit, it will dare to trample on all human laws; if it has a 300% profit, it will dare to commit any crime and even take risks. Danger of hanging.

Originally, the brewing and selling business belonged to regular factories and regular merchants. Now that the state has issued an order, they can only turn from light to dark, brew secretly, and compete with the police in a battle of wits and courage.

However, the gangsters who were originally doing underground business successfully stood out from the market competition because they were more organized and kept secret. They formed a one-stop underground industry of brewing, transportation and sales, using the family as a system to make a lot of money. .

They were criminals to begin with. If they were caught, making and selling illegal liquor would probably be the lightest of the charges. Other crimes such as murder and arson would be enough to warrant the electric chair.

This is a real profit-making industry. At this time, a few sacks of corn only cost about a little more than 1 US dollar. But after distillation, fermentation, etc., it can be turned into a barrel of privately brewed corn whiskey, which can be easily sold for more than 50 US dollars.

To earn 50 times the profit in about seven days, you don’t need to run around, all you need is a basement, a few pots, steamers, and wooden barrels.

As for the bland taste of wine? Tastes bad? It was not a problem in the eyes of consumers in this era. Before 1933, you never had to worry about the market problems of your products.

If horse urine really tastes like beer, then you can sell horse urine...

Of course, gangsters often have poor craftsmanship and lack of fermentation time in order to sell the wine as quickly as possible, so the methanol content in bootleg wine mostly exceeds the standard. Many blind people in this era are also caused by drinking bootlegging.

Su Ming plans to join this industry now. He has enough capital, and distillation and brewing already have a foundation in this era. The instruments and equipment are all ready-made and can be purchased in closed factories.

He only needs to buy raw materials, choose a secluded location to start construction, and then it can cover a bar.

Will world-class super soldiers be unable to cover a bar and a factory?

Moonshine is now an underground business, so everything follows the rules of the underground world. In this world, fists have the right to speak.

Su Ming only seeks wealth, not territory, so the gangsters can just get along with him.

Of course, if someone comes to make trouble for him for stealing the liquor business, Su Ming doesn't mind wiping out a few more gangsters and giving the people of New York a place to live and work in peace and contentment...

So first of all, we need to choose a place as a factory site to store equipment for brewing. In order to facilitate transportation, it would be good to be close to the Hudson River. We can load the barrels onto the boat at night and deliver them to the bar without anyone noticing.

Of course, this is what ordinary gangsters do. Su Ming has a better idea, which is the complex underground space in New York City.

New York was built in 1664 and has been expanded and built several times so far. Sewers often change due to changes in ground construction.

For example, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 64th Street used to be a bustling residential area. After 1856, a large area around it was taken back by the government, bulldozed and transformed into today's Central Park.

However, there were no funds to modify the various underground systems, and there was no need to waste money, so they were abandoned and idle.

New York's sewers contain a flood discharge system that is very strong and, in many places, spacious enough for ten trucks to pass side by side.

In "Die Hard III" that Su Ming once watched, the villain in it robbed the federal building through an abandoned underground tunnel and directly used a truck to haul away 100 tons of gold.

Of course, that didn't happen in the Marvel universe, but the tactics could be used for reference. Su Ming just needed to find a place that was spacious enough and hidden.

So he first found a hotel to stay in, hid the equipment, and then took a taxi to the New York State National Library, where he could check all the changes in underground pipelines since the founding of New York.

After walking through the bustling streets and smiling at the children selling flowers, Su Ming walked into the high hallway of the library.

This was probably the smallest intelligence fee Deathstroke had ever paid. He only spent $1 to get a library reading card, and he could freely view these pipeline records.

He pretended to be a student studying the history of tunnels, so the library had no doubts about him. They had seen many students studying coprophagous beetles. A few days ago, some people came to inquire about cannibal recipes. Which professor should it be? Let’s start a new subject...

Besides, these materials are on public display and no one usually reads them.

Walking around the rows of bookshelves, he followed the librarian who led the way and walked in this building full of the smell of ink. The bright light and solemn environment made Su Ming subconsciously slow down his steps.

"It's right here. This cabinet is all the things you want." The library staff gestured and pointed to a tall bookcase next to him.

Here is not only the historical record, but also the original design blueprint, the cost of the project, the personnel involved, and everything related to it can be found here.

Su Ming nodded to him to express his gratitude and pulled out a large drawing scroll from above.

"cough......"

Su Ming came to wipe this thing with a small duster. It seemed that no one had touched it in recent decades. It was covered with thick dust, like an archaeological relic.

He also asked about the building map on the ground, as well as the location of the water supply pipelines, power supply pipelines, sewage pipelines and other drawings. These drawings all needed to be seen.

Especially the subway route map. New York City built the subway in 1904, and some of the early experimental tunnels were abandoned.

He took the maps one by one from the bookshelf and spread them on the table layer by layer. The museum staff wearing glasses in the distance were only responsible for supervising him not to deface the books and materials, but they did not care what he was looking for.

All the complex pipelines were memorized in Su Ming's mind, and his brain, which was comparable to a super computer, immediately reorganized hundreds of thousands of straight lines and line segments in his mind.

He needs to choose a place with electricity or gas supply, sufficient underground space, and a very hidden building above.

"There are so many places like this. No wonder there will be an endless stream of masked people in New York in the future. It will be too easy to find a safe house here."

With just a quick glance, Su Ming found hundreds of places that met the conditions, which made him sigh.

If after the Cold War, the days when Americans dug air-raid shelters became popular, and now these underground passages are combined with abandoned air-raid shelters, then there would be no problem in establishing an underground kingdom.

Putting away these thoughts, Su Ming carefully put away the drawings, put them back one by one, and thanked the administrator.

Although the staff member didn't know why he only read the information for five minutes, it was good, because he could get off work earlier.

Su Ming's goal is to conduct on-site surveys of all these hundreds of underground targets within three days.

Time is tight and the task is heavy, so we must start immediately.

This month on the ship, he was so idle that he almost grew hairy, but he still pursued the planned goal to make him more comfortable.

After leaving the library, he didn't even take a car. He found a hidden alley, opened the manhole cover on the ground and jumped down.

According to urban legend, there are crocodiles bigger than Kun in the sewers of New York, but for Su Ming, a good crocodile belt is also a good collectible.