It was an extremely ordinary day. The skyrocketing urban population and immigrants, inspired by the enthusiastic thoughts of "The kingdom of heaven is above, the kingdom of Sai is heading east", boarded the hot train in an endless stream and headed towards
Go to the unexplored lands of the east to seek the coveted wealth.
The Conor brothers were also two insignificant manual workers among that group of people.
They lost their parents when they were young and worked for Renekton's bourgeoisie. Working sixteen hours a day allowed them to barely survive.
However, the pursuit of freedom and wealth is the eternal desire of mankind.
After careful consideration, the two brothers decided to join the immigrant team pioneering in the east and go there to find miracles.
That day, Joshua's backpack contained all their belongings. In addition to the 18 farcals the brothers had saved through frugality, the bulging backpack also contained several packages of compressed biscuits and rye bread.
However, in this era where there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, accidents always happen in bustling train stations.
On this day, a short-sighted boy reached into Joshua's backpack.
He almost succeeded, but the thoughtful Augusta caught him on the spot.
Next, the skinny thief suffered a "severe beating" from society, and Augusta threatened to send him to the sentry post at the train station and hand him over to the police.
But in the end, kind-hearted Joshua saved him.
……
The farmland in front of him was barren, with no new seeds sown. Arthur stood in front of Victor, smoking a cigarette. The past kept reappearing in front of his eyes, and the words Joshua said at that time were still echoing in his ears.
"'You shouldn't have stolen from me, man, you should have come with us to the unexplored land of gold and taken control of your own destiny!' That's what he told me, like a poet.
”
After a few wry smiles, the expression on Arthur's face was indescribable.
Inexplicably and without logic, the team that originally consisted of only two brothers suddenly had a dirty partner and became a three-person team.
Perhaps it is the empathy of the poor, but even now when he thinks about it, Arthur still finds it ridiculous.
Immediately afterwards, he began to talk about another key figure.
"Augusta is a hot-tempered person who is very different from his younger brother. He said he wants to do something big."
At that time, in the second-class carriage, the poor were crowded in various corners, accompanying the goods. This is what Augusta told his brother and Arthur.
"'With so many people willing to give up everything and go to the east, there must be a lot of gold there. We can learn how to mine it first, then go out and work alone, and then find a stupid buyer to get rid of the goods...' Haha, I
When I heard this, I thought this guy must have taken the wrong medicine."
Arthur teased Augusta's past and treated Victor as an old friend without reservation.
In fact, not only Augusta, but everyone in the car thought so, including Arthur himself, but he was not as exaggerated as Augusta.
"That guy thinks he can make a fortune in two years, build a house, and then build a manor of several hundred acres and live like a gentleman."
In comparison, Joshua was much calmer. He threw the book at Augusta's face and asked him to think about how to solve the first dinner after arriving in Missouri because they divided the rations.
I gave it to Arthur, so I could only hold on until the day of arrival.
Victor listened in the background and interrupted: "Joshua is really a generous and good man. If it were me, I would probably watch Augusta send you to the police."
"Yes!" Arthur said lightly.
"What happened next?" Victor asked Arthur to continue.
Arthur took off his dirty cowboy hat and stretched out in the sunshine.
"As a result, we discovered that in the barren land in the east, not only was there no gold, but we had to sow even a single potato ourselves..."
The sudden increase in immigration is disastrous. A large number of nondescript people pour into backward and barren land. There are no jobs for them in small towns, and there is no food to feed them.
Forcibly stripping them from modern civilization and allowing them to live in the Stone Age, most people do not have such survival skills.
The immigrants were organized in batches and sent by escort vehicles arranged by the government to various unopened lands to cultivate there and compete with the indigenous people for living space.
Starved to death everywhere, corpses exposed in the wilderness...
Weak women learned to hold guns, gentlemen began to use bows and arrows for hunting, elegant musicians smashed pianos, and picked up axes to chop wood...
Everything is changing and adapting, and the cost is life.
Comparatively speaking, the Conor brothers and Arthur were lucky. The clever Joshua used his eloquence to find a contractor in the quarry near Black Gold Town, and obtained from him the physical strength to transport the stone.
Live.
"Three adult men, a good labor force, and the weekly salary will not exceed 50 cents. The contractor thought he got a big deal." Arthur finished smoking and turned to look at Victor, "I want to drink some wine...
”
Victor picked up half a bottle of liquor from near the caravan at the back and handed it to Arthur.
"This income should not be enough to satisfy Augusta National's ambitions."
After Victor finished speaking, Arthur took a sip and answered his words: "What overwhelms people's hearts is not only low income, but also resentment and grievances."
There is a saying that being able to find a job in a quarry is quite good compared to other immigrants who sleep in the wilderness and mountains.
But life will not always be so smooth. The three of them only received the first week's salary, and then they were attacked by mountain robbers during the subsequent escort.
At that time, Arthur didn't know how to use a gun, and even Augusta couldn't.
Joshua can shoot, but he doesn't have a gun.
There were five escort vehicles accompanying them, but these people were all killed by the gangsters' bullets.
The three brothers were very smart and decisively escaped, and the truck of stones was nowhere to be found.
"The contractor refused to pay us a week's salary..." Arthur's cheeks gradually turned red. "He lost a batch of goods and blamed all the blame on us."
"Although it is true that we failed to protect the batch of stones, he neither provided us with weapons nor taught us how to shoot. No matter what kind of danger we encountered, our group was powerless to resist."
This kind of thing is obvious. When it comes to calculating the cost of carrying a gun, the contractor decisively abandoned the cheap human life.
"We cannot accept this result." Arthur looked a little dissatisfied. "As long as there is no income for one week, we will be hungry the next week. Who will have the energy to work?"
Joshua once found a contractor, hoping to get this salary, and he offered to double the working hours to compensate.
However, as expected, the other party decisively refused.
As a result, law-abiding citizens have only one option: to leave the quarry and find other ways to make a living.
"No one can endure hunger for a week and still have the physical strength to work. This is the day of our transformation..." Arthur was a little drunk, "from a law-abiding citizen to a unique lawless element in the East!"
The three of them discussed carefully that night. Arthur himself first proposed to beat up the contractor, then took away the wages he deserved, and then walked away.
Joshua felt that doing so would make them the target of the Sheriff's pursuit. After thinking about it, he suggested that he could sneak into the contractor's house at night and steal the money.
Augusta didn't say anything. He always listened to the advice of his smart brother.
So the three of them decided, Arthur sneaked into the contractor's house, Augusta greeted him at the window, and Joshua stood guard at the intersection...