Chapter 951: Federal Control Zone

"Lanse's people... are working everywhere on the street; I don't know how to say this matter."

The mayor of Zhuolan appeared in the President's office; his expression looked strange because what happened today made him, an old mayor who had been in office for more than twenty years, also feel incredible!

Because those Federals weren't destroying, or plundering, or doing anything else; they were actually maintaining order on the streets.

President Diego stood by the window; he was also observing this city, and similarly, the place where he was allowed him to see those houses in Lanse's manor in the distance.

Perhaps Lanse was also watching him?

Sometimes he would think so, but he also felt it wasn't very likely.

He turned his back to the mayor, a bit distracted, and only came back to his senses after a while, "If you don't know, then tell me in the language you can explain."

The mayor hurriedly started to explain; as President Diego heard more and more, he also became a bit muddled.

The Federals did so much just to help them maintain order?

There were only three thousand police officers in the whole of Zhuolan; besides the daily rotation and the police recently used to maintain security near the presidential palace, there were only a few hundred police officers who could be responsible for duty.

After all, those ruling classes, they also needed police to protect their property safety.

Just like those ministers, although they had their own bodyguard teams and could protect themselves and their families twenty-four hours a day, what about their industries?

Shops, warehouses, various business places; didn't these places need police protection?

At this time, if you saw one or two police officers standing outside some shops on the streets of Zhuolan, not knowing what to do, or just standing together chatting idly.

Then don't even think about it; this industry must belong to the masters.

A considerable part of the industries in the city center of this city belonged to the masters, so the police simply couldn't manage them all.

The city was also in a state of laissez-faire; the police only took responsibility for the safety of the prosperous streets in the city center, and as for the slums outside these areas, they didn't even go there.

But now, Lanse's people were actually spontaneously maintaining security in these places; what exactly did they want to do?

Diego, overlooking the city, thought for a long time with his not-so-useful brain, but couldn't think of any answer, and finally, he could only temporarily give up continuing to consider this problem.

He then asked some questions about defense-related matters in the Zhuolan area, and the mayor answered them one by one.

Just like what the Federal ambassador said, now for him, fully solving the anti-government armed forces was what he should do, instead of doing anything else.

As for Lanse... from what they were doing now, as long as they didn't mess around, let them be!

The silence of the presidential palace, the silence of the city hall, and the silence of the police station seemed to have been accepted by the people in the territory circled by Lanse.

Anyone who dared to commit crimes or do illegal things had to be prepared for the outcome of being caught and punished by Lanse's family members!

In the Federation, the methods Lanse used to deal with those gang members weren't completely suitable for use here; after all, some people might not be gang members, and the mistakes they made weren't that unforgivable.

For example, theft, for example, robbery that didn't bring serious consequences.

These criminals who weren't considered vicious criminals were caught, and they certainly couldn't be given a burst of bullets directly; this wasn't conducive to Lanse's management and control of these people in his territory, so here, there were new punishment methods.

All non-vicious criminals, caught during or after the crime, had to accept whipping!

Ranging from one lash to twenty lashes, and it wasn't just Lanse's family members who did it; they also selected some locals as executors to be responsible for dealing with those who were whipped.

These methods were very effective; compared to killing them directly, it was clearly gentler and easier for the locals to accept.

It was only two days, and people's transition from fear, curiosity, and common-sense contact with Lanse's family members to starting to accept them was just that rapid.

Lanse moved slowly on the street in a car; now some people also realized that the entire Lapa was undergoing huge changes.

Huge changes outside the city, huge changes in those anti-government armed forces, they might not have felt them yet, but the huge changes in the city, for example, those "red armbands" of Mr. Lanse White who had started to appear in large numbers on the street, they had already felt them.

The vehicle passed through an intersection slowly, and Lanse asked the driver to stop because a whipping was being carried out at the crossroads.

They had made some tools for corporal punishment overnight; in this regard, members of the Lanse family had a certain talent.

They used some discarded door panels and some wood, and soon came up with a torture tool.

The person being punished needed to lie face down facing the door panel, and then they would use a leather belt to fix the person's hands and feet, and then take off his clothes and pants, and then the whipping would start.

The whips were woven from rattan, very soft, soaked in salt water, and they would be very powerful when whipped, and very painful!

The streets were crowded with people watching the whipping, and accompanied by the "slap-slap" sounds from inside, the people watching the fun were also constantly counting.

After a few lashes, people started to applaud, and a kind of smile that they themselves might not have noticed appeared on their faces.

A guy who could barely stand was released from the torture tool; he was supported by his family, and his back and buttocks were covered in skin that had been split by the whipping, and blood kept flowing.

It looked very serious; in fact... these injuries only looked scary; it played a very good role in curbing crime.

Lanse observed for a while before the motorcade started again.

Whenever they escorted a new person to be punished, someone would read out their crimes and how many lashes they had to take.

This was like a different kind of public trial, making people have more participation, and at the same time, the warning to them was more effective!

From the slums to the city center, it was almost the same; after turning around in these places, Lanse went to his factory again.

The factory hadn't stopped production and was still maintaining production.

Large piles of alcohol were piled up like mountains, and these alcohols would eventually be loaded onto ships and sent to the Federation.

Of course, it was in the name of military supplies; after all, Lanse was also considered a national defense supplier.

If it were in peacetime, containers involving military supplies might be inspected, but in wartime, as long as the military supply seal was applied, no one dared to inspect them.

Everything was so magical; reality was like this; sometimes the more unreasonable it was, the more likely it was to be true.

At the end of April, the Federal army in Saige City was completely driven out by Pedro's people; they not only suffered heavy casualties, but more importantly, they lost several field artillery pieces in their hands.

The commander attributed the failure of this battle to the Federals.

Now there was a very interesting phenomenon in Lapa: as long as something unfavorable happened, as long as it was pushed onto the Federals, the people above wouldn't say anything anymore.

For example, some import specialty businesses became worse; this was the Federals' fault,

Because the Federals brought those low-priced imported goods here, making it hard for import specialty businesses to sell; this was the Federals' fault.

For example, the Federals had already defaulted to possessing some privileges in Lapa; it was the result of the Federal government's excessive toughness and military deterrence; this was the Federals' fault!

Then it was clearly reasonable that the Lapa government army couldn't beat Pedro's anti-government armed forces; they believed that there were Federals helping them among Pedro's group.

Helping them establish advantages in urban street fighting, expanding advantages, and finally driving them all out of the city, and also losing the field artillery.

These were all the Federals' fault; the Federals had rich street fighting experience, but they didn't, so this wasn't their problem.

The commander reported his way of evading responsibility; just as he considered, including President Diego, no one blamed him, but asked him to bring the remaining field artillery and army back to Zhuolan as soon as possible, because the trouble was bigger.

Up to now, nineteen anti-government armed forces had appeared in Lapa; they had obtained a large amount of military material support from the Federals, started to expand their influence, occupy territory, and grab resources.

The largest group was Pedro's group; according to the commander who fled back, Pedro and the others possessed at least more than ten thousand anti-government militants.

Of course, in reality, they couldn't have so many people; if the residents and family members in the entire Saige City were added together, perhaps there was this number.

But this number was definitely an exaggerated number, just to evade responsibility.

And the smallest group also had hundreds of people. Adding all these people together, there were about more than one hundred thousand people; of course, this number had moisture.

However, Diego and his people believed that even if there was moisture, there wouldn't be particularly much; there were still seven or eighty thousand anti-government militants.

This made them have to face a problem they didn't want to face, which was that the Lapa government army only had fifty thousand people; removing the batch that was beaten down, the number he could control now was less than thirty thousand.

On one side were anti-government armed forces two or even three times the number of soldiers in his hands, and on the other side were Federals who continuously supported them with various materials; now the situation had actually undergone huge changes.

Outside the Zhuolan area, many areas and some people with ideas locally started to try to walk on another different path.

Even some city mayors took the initiative to call the Federal ambassador, asking if they stood out and clearly opposed the Lapa government, could they obtain some aid from the Federal government?

The speed of the development of the situation was faster than Lanse, faster than the Congress side imagined, but everything was so reasonable.

This made Lapa, as well as its ruling group, feel deep unease!

On the weekend of the first week of May, the temperature in Lapa had become hot, with twenty-seven or eight degrees; the Lanse family members patrolling the street wore unified short-sleeved shirts, and the left arm sleeve had become red, and it also looked more natural.

People had already started to get used to these people appearing on the street, and terminating criminal behavior at any time.

Within the scope controlled by the Lanse family, security had been greatly improved, and Lanse's factory mainly recruited workers from the areas under his control.

Increased local employment rate.

In fact, whether it was the Federation or Lapa, the essence of society was the same, all the same.

The bottom-level laboring people needed to materialize "human value" through the way of selling labor, and then take this money to support themselves or conduct consumption.

As long as there were stable job opportunities and environment, allowing people to have a little ability to consume besides supporting themselves, then society would tend to be stable.

Now in this place called "Federal Control Zone" in people's mouths, it had already started to attract people to come here actively.

Lanse also let Luo Jiefu and the others build factories in this Federal control zone, recruit workers, which also made the entire region visibly stable and prosperous.

A motorcade composed of three luxury cars and some motorcycles was moving not so fast in the Federal control zone; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lapa was sitting in the car observing everything here.

"What is that?", he pointed to a torture tool placed diagonally at the crossroads and asked.

His secretary sitting in the passenger seat introduced actively, "This is a whipping platform; Lanse and the others formulated the rules here; if someone commits a crime, not a vicious case like murder, people have to take lashes."

"Generally, it starts from two lashes, and for women, it starts from one lash, but so far, I haven't heard of many women taking lashes; basically, they are all men."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs nodded, and he looked at those small vendors on the side of the road again, "Are these goods all from Lanse's side?"

The secretary nodded, "They got quite a few goods; some were transported by them from the Federation, and some were produced by them locally."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs' expression became a bit serious, "They have already started production locally?"

The secretary nodded again, "They built many factories; some simple-process goods or parts are produced by them locally, and only more complex, or complex industrial products that cannot be produced here, will be transported over after being produced in the Federation, and assembled here."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs' expression kept changing, constantly switching between serious, heavy, and some indescribable relief and greed.

Since the last century, the ruling group of Lapa had started to consider the matter of industrialization, but after decades, they not only didn't realize the development of industrial technology level, but also lost the last bit of industrial foundation.

The reason was actually very simple: research and development, producing by oneself, was not as good as buying a batch from the Federation; not only was it cheap, but it was also more beautiful and durable.

"Buying is not as good as making" had already gone deep into the bones of this generation of rulers; as for the independent research and development that the previous generation of ruling groups wanted, it had long since lost its market.

Some of them were even very certain, believing that industry couldn't appear on this land of Lapa; it seemed that with such a judgment, the severance of Lapa's industrial development had nothing to do with them.

But at this moment, when the Minister of Foreign Affairs heard that they had realized the production of some industrialized goods by themselves, he had some indescribable emotions churning.

"Are these things... expensive?"

The secretary shook his head, "The price is very cheap, cheaper than imported ones."

This sentence made the Minister of Foreign Affairs fall into silence; if it could be cheaper than imported ones, it could explain that they already possessed the possibility of complete localized production.

He knew very well the profits of these things and the value behind them.

The reason why Lapa had always been very poor was that this place had always been a semi-agricultural society; human resources simply couldn't be turned, nor could they produce more wealth.

Why was the Jiede Republic wealthy?

Because they completed the construction of industrial foundation; they could let their citizens work in factories, produce goods, and then sell them to the surrounding poor brothers.

They used the money earned to pay the workers, and the remaining profits were used to continue to develop industrialization, constantly iterating, when the Jiede Republic had already become the most powerful country in Yalan, without one.

Was this a chance for overtaking on a bend?

He was considering, if complete localized production could be realized, it meant the maturity of technology.

They had never gotten these assembly lines and equipment used for production; the Federals had never sold these things to them.

He considered a lot, a lot; many ideas appeared in his mind like lightning, and then quickly flashed by.

Unknowingly, he arrived at Lanse's manor.

Kaxia, as the ambassador to Lapa to the Federation, was also personally nodded by the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he could go to the Federation.

He and Kaxia had a pretty good relationship; after all, under his hands... there had to be a few people who could work, not all of them were waste.

Kaxia contacted him and talked about some things, which touched him and gave him some ideas; he felt it was time to come and talk to Lanse.

The recent situation was very terrible; cities were constantly losing control outside, and overnight, it seemed the entire Lapa was in chaos; among twelve million people, at least eleven million were anti-government militants.

Diego was smashing things in his presidential palace every day, although the Lapa government had decided to expand the army to a scale of two hundred thousand as soon as possible, and had also negotiated a batch of military aid with the Jiede Republic.

But the Minister of Foreign Affairs believed that this might be a turning point where the situation moved toward a worse direction.

What should be sought now was a peaceful solution to the problem, rather than continuing to escalate contradictions through war and other means.

If it could be solved, that would be fine, but the problem was they definitely couldn't solve it.

The government army was expanding, what about those anti-government armed forces?

Didn't they know how to continue to expand their influence?

And he had heard some inside information from Kaxia's side that along with the constant strengthening of these anti-government armed forces, the Federal government's aid to them would also gradually increase, letting them always maintain a huge deterrent and threat ability to the Lapa government!

So the core of this trouble didn't lie in how to solve those anti-government armed forces, but how to solve the Federals.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs didn't believe that with their backward society and technology now, they were the Federals' opponent, so as a non-top-level ruler, he still had another path—

If you can't beat them, join them.

This time he came, just wanting to test whether he had a chance to become the next Federal.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 952 =====