King Of War: Starting with Arms Dealer

With 'Sharp Knife Squad' joining in, Joe Ga's manpower was finally sufficient.

Three locations, Dagger, Jazz, and Boss Qiao leading Team A were each responsible for one.

Each of the three teams led a 10-person P·B support group; these 'Jackal' recruits from their homeland Russia were actually not bad at all.

Compared to Wagner who jumped ship to work in Tubruq, they even had a bit of a technical and equipment advantage.

The three groups set out at ten o'clock, each pouncing on their respective targets.

Joe Ga had chosen a residential building near the center of Newark City, New Jersey...

It took about an hour's drive from the P·B farm to reach the designated location.

By now, it was approaching midnight...

Joe Ga and his team sat in an unassuming business van, drove through the decrepit streets, and finally stopped on a lane sandwiched between a community and a strip of low-rise businesses, facing a dense low-end community.

There were really few cars on the streets of downtown Newark, and the occasional passersby all seemed in a hurry.

The abundance of homeless people, wandering guys, streetwalking women under the streetlights, drug dealers hiding in secluded alleys, and drunken troublemaking punks were quite an eye-opener for Joe Ga.

Perhaps because of his profession, Joe Ga didn't find the place particularly dangerous, and the legendary omnipresence of drug addicts wasn't evident, but the fact was that one seldom saw white faces here at night.

Having not spent a cumulative long time in America, Joe Ga had never truly delved into the local customs and culture of the place.

In the past, it was just hearsay; seeing the actual circumstances led Joe Ga to realize that what he had been told about the so-called American middle class living in the suburbs and downtown becoming dangerous at night might indeed be true.

Unemployment rate, racial issues, gangs, drug dealers, and a large number of homeless people converged in the downtown area at night, as if by an unspoken agreement.

And what drew them to gather here was the downtown public facilities.

America was indeed vast, and New Jersey near New York wasn't as bustling as people imagined, its population far from dense.

Underground transactions anywhere required a venue and the downtown area, with its street lights, neon signs, and even 24-hour convenience stores, became a breeding ground for the grey-world.

The most critical source of popularity was the homeless.

They were the main consumers of cheap drugs, and the market formed around them naturally attracted those in need.

Drug dealers needed a steady clientele, so the addicts had to come here to find their dealers, and once there was traffic, streetwalkers appeared.

They could satisfy certain needs of those buying the drug, and even have some fun themselves.

And the gangs naturally gathered around...

And the reason why the 'homeless' gathered in the city center, lay in a very cruel logic—that they had nowhere else to go.

Most of the urban areas were public facilities, where they had the right to seek shelter.

But it was different in the suburban communities, which were private areas; homeless wandering there would soon invite police attention or be violently expelled by local vigilante groups.

Already embracing a bit of a ruler's mindset, Joe Ga could easily see the core logic in this nightlife characteristic of America or perhaps capitalist countries.

The downtown was the most concentrated area of a city's service industry, and where many people worked.

In the past, Joe Ga always heard how advanced Americans were, their love for living in the suburbs, residing in big houses, breathing fresh air.

Bullshit!

Joe Ga failed to see what was so convenient about living in the suburbs?

Discarding the mansions, the middle and lower-class communities were quite ordinary.

Not only were they secluded, but transportation costs were also high.

A 40-minute drive just to go to the supermarket—what convenience was there?

Working-class people around the world were largely the same; given similar living space and security conditions, they all wanted to live closer to their workplaces.

But the area around downtown America is precisely the more dangerous place, leading many apartments, which should be nicely located, to become low-cost communities.

The core reason lay in the public facilities downtown, providing resources for homeless people to survive.

This drew the homeless, leading to a chain reaction of grey industries, naturally resulting in a decline in security.

A decline in security naturally led to a drop in surrounding house prices, rental difficulties, landlords having no choice but to accept immigrants or those who lost credit and could not rent in good communities.

How could this be good?

The whole world thinks American middle-class love the suburbs, perhaps simply because not every place is Manhattan.

According to Joe Ga's understanding, for many living and working around New York, their ultimate dream is to have an apartment near Central Park.

There, transportation is convenient, life is convenient, and the nights are not dangerous.

And the root cause of all this lies in excessive urbanization and structural poverty.

These homeless, due to laziness or bankruptcy, had nowhere to go, they relied on welfare to live, bankruptcy led to lost credit and the inability to find proper work, or even rent decent housing.