1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 140 [Public Security]

Arms has always been a profitable industry.

This is especially true in times of war. The more intense and protracted the fighting, the more profit the arms dealers can reap.

As a physics teacher, Ma Shao likes to use some physical models to understand the world.

He often feels that the relationship between arms dealers and war is like the relationship between heat engines and combustion.

Combustion is a process of destruction.

During combustion, fuel is continuously consumed, and the heat engine absorbs the energy it releases and converts it into its own kinetic energy.

War is also a process of destruction. Many things are destroyed, even irreversibly.

But in such a process of destruction, arms dealers can always absorb benefits.

It has been less than a year since the two countries officially declared war on the United States and Mexico.

But through the sale of Browning pistols, Sleeping Bear City, as a neutral arms dealer, has accumulated almost 40 US dollars, most of which are profits.

40 million US dollars.

Even in the 21st century, when the dollar is no longer directly pegged to gold, that's a lot of money.

What's more, the U.S. dollar at this time is a veritable U.S. dollar, and one U.S. dollar is 1.6 grams of gold or 24 grams of silver.

Of course, gold and silver coins count.

Banknotes don't count that way.

Even strictly speaking, the so-called dollar banknotes are actually bank notes issued by private banks.

The banknotes issued by a few big banks are fairly reliable, but others are hard to say, some are even close to waste paper, and no one wants to ask for them.

Americans themselves do not trust paper money, and for Indians, paper money is certainly even less reliable.

Gold and silver, by contrast, are natural currencies.

Gold and silver have been trusted currencies at almost any time and place in human civilization.

Therefore, Sleeping Bear City has always used gold and silver coins for business, and never accepted banknotes, so the 40 US dollars it got were all real money.

Before that, the annual income of the tribe was only three 10,000+ dollars.

The profit brought by the arms business in these few months is equivalent to an extra year of fiscal revenue.

Through the intermediary in Clark Town, everything that ordinary white people can buy can also be bought in Sleeping Bear City, and it is at a normal price and will not be slaughtered.

The additional hundreds of thousands of dollars allowed Sleeping Bear City to spend as much as they wanted, purchasing a large amount of food and industrial supplies.

And more importantly, technical talents.

The purchase of food is to support the population growth. Although the agriculture in the city is developing rapidly, due to the astonishing population growth, Sleeping Bear City always needs to purchase food from the outside world in order to cope with the continuous influx of immigrants.

Even if there is enough food, Sleeping Bear City will continue to buy food just in case.

In addition to agriculture, industry must also develop.

Therefore, Mashao also purchased a large amount of industrial materials and hired some technical personnel with high salaries to drive the tribe to transform into an industrial society.

Currently, there are many industries in Sleeping Bear City.

The level of these industries is not high, and they are basically handicraft industries in small workshops, and many materials such as steel are dependent on imports, but the coverage is relatively comprehensive.

From the perspective of future generations, this is the level of a township.

But considering the background of the western region, Sleeping Bear City can already be regarded as an industrial city and a manufacturing city.

The huge profits brought by the arms made the development of Sleeping Bear City enter the fast track, and the scale and structure were rising rapidly.

No outsider would have imagined that just over two years ago, there was a stone tool society with hundreds of people here...

There is no doubt that Sleeping Bear City is a huge arms production place.

But in the city, strict weapons control is implemented-the horse whistle does not want the tribe to stage the proliferation of guns like the United States in later generations, or "involvement with guns".

It is said that East Asia is involving, but in fact the United States is also involving.

Just in a different direction.

East Asians are involuntary in the field of making questions, and Americans are involuntary in the field of holding guns.

On the east and west sides of Sleeping Bear City, there is a place for civilians to buy weapons, which also correspond to two civilian city gates, allowing anyone to enter and exit.

With the prosperity of the arms business, the name of Sleeping Bear gradually became known to the outside world, and outsiders appeared at the east gate or west gate of the city almost every day.

"Excuse me, is this Sleeping Bear City?" A group of white men came from the east, and there were dozens of them.

They are all white men, they look dusty, and most of them ride horses. There are some caravans in the procession, which are obviously business travellers.

"Of course, you can't find another place like this!" The Apache soldier standing guard at the gate of the city said in proficient English, his tone full of pride for the city.

Then he asked, "Businessman, where are you from?"

"We are from Arkansas." The American businessman said, "I heard that this is an open Indian city, can we go in and have a rest?"

The soldier said: "Yes. There are special places for receiving guests in the east and west of the city. You can rest and shop there."

"There is also a casino in the east of the city, you can also try your luck." He added.

The busy businessman smiled and looked at his companion behind him: "Great, let's take a rest here, maybe we can buy some special products."

"Casino!" Someone else noticed this too.

The Apache soldier smiled and said: "Yes. And our casino is holding an event recently, and every guest who comes from afar will get a 'gambling credit'."

"Gambling deduction voucher, what is that?" the merchants asked curiously.

"That is, if you lose a bet, you can use it to deduct part of the money, and each voucher is worth one dollar."

"You want to send me a dollar?"

"No. The discount coupon is not allowed to be exchanged for money. It can only compensate for some lost money when you lose a bet, and it can only be used by you." The soldier explained patiently.

More and more outsiders are visiting Sleeping Bear City, and there are many business travelers among them. After all, it is not far from the Santa Fe Trail.

Business travellers, of course, had to take a break after passing by. Sleeping Bear City also provided them with places like taverns and hotels.

But taverns and hotels can only make a few dollars.

Sleeping Bear City opened a casino in order to get more money from the white business travelers passing through here.

Publicly run, monopoly casinos.

And in fact, it is only open to outsiders. If tribal members participate in gambling, although they do not commit crimes, they will become bad records, which will affect their work and welfare.

After all, gambling is not a serious activity. The original purpose of the establishment of the casino is to gather the wool of the white business travelers, so the horse whistle naturally does not want the tribe to participate.

The specific business strategies, or routines, are based on advertisements that some men in later generations will understand.

Such as gambling coupons.

It seems to be sending money, but in fact it is just bait.

"Is there such a good thing?" These people have never experienced such a routine, and they all think it is a good thing.

The soldier smiled more kindly: "Yes, why don't you try it? I heard that this event will end in a few days."

Under his instigation, someone in the caravan was eager to try: "Brothers, I feel that I have been very lucky recently, and today may be the time for me to make a fortune!"

"Let's try our luck. It doesn't matter if we lose. Anyway, there are discount coupons, so we don't have to lose money."

"Go, earn him a fortune!"

"Come with me to register first." The soldier beckoned and led a caravan of dozens of people to register.

After the registration work was completed, the soldiers told the caravan: "Leave the dangerous items on your body here, and you can enter the city. After you leave the city, these items will be returned to you."

"Dangerous goods?" The white businessmen were taken aback.

"This is it." The soldier pointed to the guns and knives that many people carried with them. "Kentucky rifles, plains rifles, Bowie knives, gunpowder...these are all."

"Isn't Sleeping Bear City a place where Browning pistols are sold? Why are guns banned?" the white man asked.

Soldier: "Selling guns and banning guns are not contradictory."

"You can buy Brownings from us, or you can buy weapons from other places, but you can't bring them into town."

Some white people blurted out: "How can this work, without weapons, who will guarantee our safety?"

"We," the soldier replied, "we have protection for anyone here—as long as you obey the law."

"Weapons don't protect you, in fact, they put you at risk."

"When everyone is unarmed, at most you can only encounter thieves, not robbers with knives and guns."

The white man continued, "But you are carrying weapons."

"We are soldiers and police." The soldier had apparently answered the question many times. "Someone has to be legally armed."

"In this case, why can't I be the one who legally holds the weapon?"

"If it could be you, or a Mexican, do you like gunfights so much?"

"It has nothing to do with this!" The American pointed to the weapons on the Apache soldiers. "Even if we want to ban weapons, we should ban all weapons, including yours."

"You can't just ban our weapons, but hold them yourself!"

The soldier asked back: "If even the weapons of law enforcement officers are banned, who will enforce the laws prohibiting weapons?"

"Then no ban on weapons!"

"It just creates confusion."

"This is freedom!"

A few impulsive white men refused to give up their weapons, and they argued, and finally tried to force their way into the city with weapons in hand.

"Grab a few of them!" The surrounding Apache soldiers immediately moved into action and quickly subdued the white men who were trying to break in with guns.

At the same time, the army trained in a little distance came in response, and a hundred soldiers raised their dual-wielded Browning revolvers in unison, aiming at everyone in the caravan.

"lay down your weapon!"

Looking at the two hundred black gun barrels and the orderly sound of angry reprimands, the merchants were instantly terrified.

They quickly put down their weapons and raised their hands in horror: "Surrender, we surrender!"

The soldiers collected their weapons and said at the same time: "This is not war, but law and order—Americans, you don't seem to understand the difference between the two."

……

The plain tribes need to maintain the stability in their territory, and also need to coordinate the order outside.

Just like last time, Horse Whistle settled the matter of Gray Bird through negotiations with Donivan.

Since then, Sleeping Bear has basically become a representative of the Southwest Indians.

The Indian tribes recognized the status of Sleeping Bear, and Donivan also believed that Sleeping Bear was a civilized and easy-to-communicate object.

The Whistle also needed to expand its influence among the Indians.

So he took the responsibility without hesitation, became the representative of the Indians in the Southwest, and communicated with the U.S. military.

As long as there is a conflict between the Indians and the Americans, Sleeping Bear City will come forward to mediate, eliminate the conflict as much as possible, ensure peace and stability, and at the same time absorb the population and spread its influence.

Soon, Sleeping Bear City not only mediated the conflicts between Indians and Americans, but also began to mediate the conflicts among various Indian tribes.

Even the contradictions among white people.

For example, just a few days ago, there was a conflict between two white villages not far to the northwest of Sleeping Bear City. In the end, Ma Shao personally came forward to help them resolve the conflict.

The basic principle of mediation is to act according to the law, and the law to be followed is of course the law of Sleeping Bear City.

More and more people know that Chief Horse Whistle is a trustworthy mediator and a formidable judge, Sleeping Bear City is also a well-ordered and civilized city.

Thanks to this, the expansion speed of Sleeping Bear City has always been maintained at an astonishing level.

At least a few hundred people move into the city every month, and it is not surprising that there are thousands. Most of them are Indians of various ethnic groups, but there are also a small number of whites.

The white people are mainly technical talents such as stonemasons, blacksmiths, and townspeople in Clark Town.

As the first white town to accept the influence of the horse post, Clark Town naturally also had the first batch of white converts.

Spiritual teaching is a crucial factor.

With the help of cheap public schools and public hospitals, the missionary work of shamans among the poor is quite smooth.

As for the middle-level salaried group, although they don't have much feeling about it, the Spiritual Sect is still very attractive to them.

After all... In the core of the spiritual teaching, there are actually quite a lot of red theories.

These red thoughts are not the utopianism of Robert Owen, but a summary of the history of later generations, which has more vitality.

In fact, a very small number of hard-thinking workers simply turned red after being exposed to the thoughts of the spiritual teaching.

After being reddened, they naturally abandoned some stubborn racist concepts, and instead became deeply attracted by the thoughts of the Spiritual Sect and the large amount of public-owned economy in Sleeping Bear City, eager to join it.

For joining Sleeping Bear City, the enthusiasm of such reddens is often very high, even higher than that of many Indians who came to defect.

In fact, Horse Whistle and Rainy Day have already begun to train the first batch of white shamans, further instilling knowledge and ideas in them, and letting them master the Apache language.

Of course, the most assimilated whites are not these reds, but those twenty white children.

After more than two years of assimilation and adaptation, these twenty children have fully integrated into the life of Sleeping Bear City, identifying themselves as Apaches or Sleeping Bears.

In Sleeping Bear, the Apache has become an almost purely cultural identity, more similar to the concept of "civilized people".

In addition to self-identification, they are also fluent in Apache.

Children are more sensitive to language than adults and naturally learn faster.

(End of this chapter)