Falsifying history is good business

Chapter 392 Another Key Plot Change

In the second month after Lin You arrived in New Orleans, Dutch van der Linde rode his white Arabian horse into Saint Denis, a satellite city west of New Orleans, full of vigor and vitality. Behind him were all the gang fighters, nine men and nine horses, responding to each other and parading through the city.

In front of the nine of them was a carriage, driven by the gang's second-in-command and strategist Hosea himself, carrying a full box of explosives, and Abigail, who was acting as a cover for the operation. The carriage was going to the other side of the city to attract the attention of the city police with an explosion and cover the robbery.

Today was considered the most important robbery for the Van der Linde gang - at least in the eyes of most gang members; their target was the Saint Denis National Bank.

Along the way, these people discussed the differences between robbing a city bank and a small town bank, imagined their retirement life after retiring, and even reiterated the key points of their action plan when they approached the target bank. They looked so unscrupulous, as if they were not robbing a busy city street, but a sparsely populated wilderness mountain road.

Just as the team was about to turn onto the street where the bank was located, Hosea suddenly pulled the reins and stopped the carriage in the middle of the road.

A Chinese man with pigtails stood in front of their horses with an expressionless face.

"Watch the road carefully, sir." As the oldest and most mature member of the gang, Hosea has always been cautious. Moreover, as the action was imminent, he did not want to cause trouble. He just pretended not to notice that the other party was deliberately blocking the road, and instead "kindly" gave a reminder.

Behind the carriage, the nine combatants on horseback all secretly reached for the handles of their guns.

"Someone wants to see you, Mr. Matthews; of course, the person he wants to see most is Mr. van der Linde." The man who blocked the way had a blank expression on his face and a calm voice, and did not shout the names of the wanted criminals.

Hosea's expression immediately changed. "Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is that you go meet that gentleman right away." The Chinese man still had no expression on his face, as if he didn't care about the dozen or so guns the other party had. "That gentleman made an appointment for this meeting a month ago, and at that time he asked your guys to bring back his goodwill and regards."

Dutch and Hosea looked at each other silently, and both thought of the train robbery carried out by Arthur and his gang a month ago. The news brought back at that time said that the other party wanted to visit, but a month later, the gang's station had changed twice, and no one came.

Originally, Dutch and others had gradually put this matter behind them, but they did not expect the other party to show up at this critical juncture, and the way of inviting a meeting was so suspicious.

"I'm glad to meet up with an old friend, but not today; we have other things to attend to..." Dutch began to decline.

"If the so-called 'other things' refer to robbing a bank..." The blocker looked at the people preparing to draw their guns with a calm expression, "The gentleman asked me to tell you that it was a trap. Half of the police in the city and more than 20 Pinkerton detectives have been lying in ambush around the bank."

"If you're kidding me..." Dutch's face clouded over.

"Are you kidding? You'll know once you meet that gentleman."

"Who is that gentleman?" Hosea asked cautiously.

The expression on the roadblocker's face finally changed a little, but the half-smile looked even more unpleasant than before; "We will not discuss the gentleman's affairs in public; but he is not far from here, if you have any questions, you can ask him in person."

"Where is he?" Dutch and Hosea once again showed their silent understanding. After a simple eye contact, they immediately terminated the plan and went to meet the mysterious "old friend" first.

When the team turned around, someone belatedly muttered, "Not going to the bank?" and was sternly scolded by others to "shut up."

Even the street urchins know we are going to rob a bank, so why bother?

In a pub near the slums, a block away from the bank, Lin You watched the Van der Linde gang approaching through the window.

Although the plot was greatly changed due to the intervention of the writer, the Van der Linde gang still made a plan to rob the Saint Denis Bank.

Firstly, they were already cornered by the Pinkerton detectives, and they needed a large sum of money to continue to flee or to quit; secondly, the St. Denis Bank was a suitable target, not too big or too small. There were bigger banks, and the big banks in New Orleans could easily have a turnover of over a million; but the big banks had stronger security, and a group of gunmen from the West did not have the connections and experience to enter the city easily.

After much selection, St. Denis, a satellite city close to New Orleans, became the most suitable target. As a result, when they were scouting the area, they happened to fall into the sight of Hongmen disciples.

The task that Lin You gave to Huang Siye was to investigate the activities of Pinkerton detectives in the New Orleans area. It was divided into two parts: one was whether the detective agency cooperated with local official agencies - the Anti-Pinkerton Law only prohibited government agencies from hiring, but it did not prevent other forms of cooperation; the other was the cooperation between the detective agency and local gang forces - which would naturally involve the Italian gangs in the original plot of the game.

As for why they wanted to investigate Pinkerton detectives, Lin You didn't say, and Mr. Huang didn't ask.

In the next few weeks, a huge amount of information came to Lin You through human or divine channels.

On the one hand, the accountant kept sending back news of newly discovered consciousness fragments, and on the other hand, Lin You was personally keeping an eye on the current situation of the Van der Linde Gang.

Due to the change in the location of the camp, the Van der Linde gang did not intervene in the internal fighting between the two major families in Rhodes Town as in the original plot; but some things still happened as destined, such as Arthur Morgan being kidnapped during negotiations with a rival gang, and then escaping alone.

In the intersection of change and constancy, the power of the butterfly effect gradually emerged; Lin You compared the changes that occurred in the Van der Linde Gang with the time of appearance of other consciousness fragments, and found that they almost corresponded one to one.

For example, the star-crossed couple in Rhodes who were as close as Romeo and Juliet. When the situation changed and Arthur Morgan missed them and failed to establish direct contact, fragments of Loki's consciousness appeared on them at the same time.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of the game, the era of outlaws and gunslingers has come to an end; no matter how hard the Van der Linde gang tried to escape, they were still caught up by Pinkerton detectives after a short time.

The detectives have money, people and resources. When necessary, their capitalist employers will provide assistance with government power. How can you, a gang of homeless bandits whose half members are the elderly, the weak, women and children, fight against them?

So, less than a month after camping on the dry riverbed, the Van der Linde gang set out on the run again. This time, they fled all the way into the swamps of the lower Mississippi River and hid in a semi-abandoned fishing village called "Lakai".

The environment in this village, which had to be abandoned because half of the houses were submerged by the flood, was extremely bad. Lin You took a look and found that the damage to the sense of smell in the real environment was the most unbearable compared to the game where he could only see and hear.

The stench and putrid smell emanating from the swamp was nauseating; because of the flood, the houses that had survived in the village all had a musty smell, and poisonous insects and even snakes were crawling in and out through the gaps in the wooden boards.

At this point, the situation of the Van der Linde gang is even more miserable than the original plot of the game; perhaps the only good thing is that Sean, the chatterbox Irishman, escaped death and is still alive, and today he is one of the nine members of the action team.

In fact, as early as the time when the Van der Linde gang fled to the Great Swamp, Lin You received news from the Hongmen: a large number of Pinkerton detectives entered New Orleans and surrounding areas, and frequently contacted the local police and gangs; wherever they went, they cast a wide net to hunt down a fugitive Western gang.

The leader of the detective gang visited Angelo Bronte, the head of the Italian Mafia in the New Orleans area.

"This Bronte was registered with the New Orleans Police Department. He knew he had no place to stay in the city, so he ran to nearby Saint Denis. That's where Italians live, and the mayor and police chief there were easily bribed by him. He also became a local tyrant, remotely controlling the gang business in New Orleans."

At that time, Fourth Master Huang was afraid that Lin You didn't know the details, so he introduced Bronte in great detail; but he didn't know that Bronte's current identity was actually "written" by Lin You himself.

With the help of the local tyrant Hongmen, Lin You could not hide the news that the Pinkerton detectives and the police had jointly set up an ambush. He also knew that the Italian gang acted as spies for this ambush. The moment the Van der Linde gang stepped into St. Denis, their whereabouts were fully known by the gang spies scattered throughout the streets.

Fortunately, as a law enforcement agency, the police cannot take action before confirming the crime and the identity of the suspect, and Pinkerton detectives have no law enforcement powers in the strict sense; in order to catch the Van der Linde gang in one fell swoop, their original plan was to wait around the bank.

This gave Lin You the opportunity to give advance warning and intercept the person.

(End of this chapter)