American Celestial Master

Chapter 272: Four Americas

The cleanup in New York was the beginning, and similar actions were subsequently launched in other states, including mutual accusations and blame-shifting among the states.

Under such circumstances, several groups have obviously begun to form between the states. Several states in the New England region and several states along the eastern coast are closely linked to New York economically, and are now considered a group. Although ocean shipping has been greatly affected, the number of sea shipping between the New World and the Old World has dropped by more than an order of magnitude. Now only some high-speed cargo ships are barely maintaining shipping between the New and Old Worlds along a "safe route" explored by countless shipwrecks. And the main port corresponding to this transatlantic route in North America is New York.

This is not because of the problems with the facilities in other ports, but because of the route setting. When exploring the route, School X made a lot of efforts. Since School X helped, of course it would also benefit itself and New York, so the end point of the route naturally fell in New York. As for other ports, because the most dangerous sea monsters are basically in the open sea, the near-shore routes are also somewhat dangerous, but as long as they are equipped with a certain escort force (including warships and superheroes), considering the efficiency of sea transportation, these routes are still quite profitable.

So now on this side of the Atlantic, New York has once again become the distribution center for shipping between the entire Americas and Europe. Although the overall economic exchanges between Europe and America have decreased a lot, the throughput of the Port of New York has not been particularly affected. If calculated by transaction volume, even if it is calculated using comparable value rather than the severely inflated US dollar, the transaction volume has also increased.

On the other hand, several states near the Pacific Ocean have similar situations. With the Port of Long Beach in Los Angeles, California as the core, they also have a route that can cross the Pacific Ocean, and this route is even larger than the Atlantic route in terms of transportation volume. After all, the social production of the country on the other side is still maintained to a decent level, and it can still produce many important industrial products. On the other hand, the country on the other side has a great demand for many products from the Americas, from various minerals to various agricultural products.

The situation in the inland states and those close to the Caribbean Sea is not so good. A large number of extraordinary pirates have appeared in the Caribbean Sea in the past year or so, and their strength has grown rapidly. A year ago, a pirate group called "New Order" even destroyed a squadron of the US Navy. Although the US military later severely damaged the pirate group with a nuclear bomb that exploded underwater, their flagship "Black Emperor" was unscathed. According to the results of drone monitoring, when the nuclear explosion occurred, the sea area next to the ship was calm, and the impact and huge waves caused by the underwater nuclear explosion automatically bypassed this area.

The New Order Pirates have been attacking American ships in the Caribbean. However, they are very professional and basically only rob and do not kill. The stolen ships always disappear along with the cargo on board, but there will always be a crew member who will appear on the coast in a lifeboat and bring a message from the New Order Pirates: "Your people and ships are in our hands. As long as you pay a suitable ransom, they can be released - both people and ships."

As long as the shipowner paid the money honestly, the ship and the people would be released. Even after the nuclear bomb attack, the New Order Pirates did not change their rules. The next morning after the nuclear explosion, a lifeboat appeared outside the Port of Houston. On board was an officer from a Burke-class destroyer that sank in the previous battle. He brought the New Order Pirates' offer and a notice.

This notice declared that the entire Caribbean Sea was the territory of the New Order Pirates, and any other ships sailing in the Caribbean had to pay tolls to the New Order Pirates according to their load, otherwise they would be attacked by the New Order Pirates.

Although the United States should not compromise with pirates in theory, the performance of the "Black Emperor" in the nuclear attack not long ago proved their strength. Now the U.S. Navy is not willing to send a fleet to attack them. Besides, paying protection fees to pirates is a tradition since the founding of the United States, isn't it? So although neither the federal nor the state government directly pays tolls to them, the insurance costs of shipping companies operating the routes here have risen sharply. According to some claims, these sharply increased premiums are actually tolls paid to the New Order Pirates. It is said that the people from the insurance company involved in this matter once asked the pirates whether they needed to get a flag for those ships that had bought insurance so that they could hang it up for the pirates to identify. But this suggestion was rejected by the pirates. It is said that the pirate representative sent to negotiate said: "We have our own way to judge whether a ship has paid tolls."

The insurance premium is very expensive, almost increasing the transportation cost by 80%, and the increase in cost will of course be reflected in the increase in freight, so the sea freight here has almost doubled. Therefore, if there is a ship that does not buy this kind of insurance and still avoids the interception of pirates, then it can earn several trips of money for one trip. Therefore, there are always some ships that want to try their luck and see if they can avoid it and save this money.

However, the pirates performed very well. In the following period, they neither robbed any ship that paid the toll nor let go of any ship that went out to sea without paying the toll. They even included two Coast Guard patrol boats and a Freedom-class littoral combat ship of the Navy. Later, it was said that the Coast Guard and the Navy also bought insurance for their ships, and then their ships never had any accidents again.

As for how the pirates were able to accurately capture those ships that did not have insurance, in addition to the possibility of mysticism, some people suspected that the pirates also had spies in the port. Some even suspected that those guys who bought new insurance may have revealed the news of those illegal ships to the pirates due to the need for commercial competition.

Due to the influence of pirates, the freight of sea transportation has become extremely expensive, and these ships, after arriving in New York or Los Angeles, have to pay a large amount of port service fees before they can be included in the transoceanic fleet. When New York and Los Angeles are arranging transoceanic fleets, they will give priority to ships from their own state and closely related states, and as a result, the share allocated to ships along the Caribbean coast is always very small. As a result, the ships from these states either anchor outside the port and wait for half a year to see if they can get in line; or they can only do what the guys in New York or California want, and pay to unload the goods at their ports, and then watch the goods being loaded onto cargo ships belonging to New York or California.

As for the inland states, they have in fact formed a kind of community of interests with the states with ports according to the amount of freight. In private, some people divide them into the New York-Great Lakes Alliance, the Los Angeles Alliance, the Houston-Mississippi Alliance and the swing alliance.

(End of this chapter)