Protests, shouts, angry crowds.

A pile of stones that flew out of the crowd from time to time, and the crackling iron railings and windows that were hit by the stones.

This is what has happened in the vicinity of London's No. 1 Apsley House in recent times.

"Beep !!"

A mournful siren pierced the sky, accompanied by the clatter of tight, scattered, hard riding boots in a pool of water.

I don't know who in the crowd shouted: "The Blue Devil is here!" ”

Hearing this, the crowd of protesters, who had just expressed their dissatisfaction in the torrential rain, suddenly became a mess.

Seeing this, the leader of the protesters, who was standing on the wooden box and gave a loud speech, hurriedly shouted: "Don't be afraid! Let's unite, those lackeys of the government, these Scotland Yard police can't beat us! Let them see the power of solidarity of our workers! ”

But......

Although his words are beautiful, it is still whimsical to want to contend with the police by civilians who have not been trained in the system organization with just one sentence.

The gentleman, who was wearing a tattered felt hat and had a slightly red nose, was even able to shout the second slogan before he was made dumplings by the policemen who were marching in a line.

In an instant, four or five policemen instantly pinned him to the ground, and even the wooden box he used to step on his feet was kicked away by the officers who followed him.

He was pinned to the ground, his nose almost squeezed into the brick cracks of the road, and almost in a moment's time, his hands were quickly handcuffed.

"You shameless people, you have sold your souls to the devil! You wag your tail at him, you snort at him, and you grovel only to get a few pieces of black bread that leaked between his fingers! ”

The leader of the protesters screamed frantically, trying to get up, but he was answered by the rod of civilization that rained down.

Seeing that the leaders and organizers had fallen, the protesters suddenly looked like sheep that had lost their hearts, and everyone fled in panic, trying to slip out of every gap accidentally left by the police encirclement.

If there was one lucky thing that happened on this unfortunate day, it was that the police accidentally left a lot of gaps.

And this is all thanks to the fact that the police commander who led the riot suppression team today is a young but very experienced enemy of the people - Mr. Arthur Hastings.

Give protesters ample opportunity to escape, and leave enough gaps in the elaborate containment network.

This was Arthur Hastings' anti-riot code, and it was an update to the latest edition of the Metropolitan Police Department's Manual of Peace Administration in 1832.

Then again, Arthur doesn't want to explain too much about how he went from being a police star to an enemy of the people overnight.

Because in this regard, The Times and the Manchester Guardian are the first to be responsible.

Ever since he had helped the Home Office prosecute thousands of participants in the Swing riots some time ago as a police representative for the Attorney's Office in London, he had earned such a shining new name from the pen of a Fleet Street reporter.

The comments of Western journalists that the wind is rain have been almost perfectly verified by these guys.

Although their sources must have known early on that His Majesty would grant amnesty to most of the rioters who had been sentenced to death by hanging, this did not prevent them from making big news about the trial before the amnesty was granted.

To make matters worse, when the royal amnesty was a foregone conclusion and Arthur's enthusiasm was about to wane, the wave of parliamentary reform was back on the rise.

Since Scotland Yard was still in its infancy, there was an extreme lack of police commanders with sufficient experience in riot control, and the Home Office was afraid that the rough way of working would escalate the situation, so they did not dare to easily let most of the senior officers who had served in the army for a long time take advantage of it, so they remembered Arthur who had performed well in riot control activities before.

Because of this, Arthur, who had finally escaped from the front-line drudgery, was arrested by the Ministry of Internal Affairs again, and he was appointed to be in charge of riot suppression in key areas of the Western District.

The only plausible explanation for why Arthur was only in charge of the West End, rather than directly in charge of the overall situation, is that the West End was home to most of London's dignitaries.

And the residence of dignitaries and dignitaries means that the West District has better exposure, so Arthur's hot search of 'Enemy of the People', which was just suppressed, was quickly stirred up again.

If it is scolded by the person who was beaten with a stick, forget it, after all, people really eat the stick.

After being sprayed twice by the Manchester Guardian, Arthur also admitted it, after all, the Guardian began to advocate parliamentary reform a long time ago.

However, if even the "Times" has been talking a lot on the side, this makes Arthur a little unhappy.

Because he liked to read newspapers very much, and he had a good memory, he still clearly remembered that the Times was a great standard-bearer of resolute opposition to parliamentary reform more than half a year ago, but now it had changed into a moral model, standing on the high point of freedom and progress and pointing at others, as if they had not just climbed up, but had been standing there.

This situation reminded Arthur of a small talk with the Duke of Wellington in the past.

"While I don't want to say loathing to other people, I still have to say that I hate the news media, especially The Times."

"Is it because they often discredit you?"

"If they could denigrate me for decades, as Byron did, I probably wouldn't hate them so much. What I hate most about them is that they are full of fake news, relying on fake news to create a topic, and then using a diametrically opposed truth to reap more sales. This kind of behavior is not good for others, except for their own benefit and satisfying the curiosity of the citizens. Especially soldiers like me, they can literally kill us. ”

"You're talking about the time you went to court-martial?"

"No, it's not. The Times did more than that, they said I was dead, I was killed in the Iberian Peninsula, and that the British army had been wiped out by Napoleon's army. ”

"Hmm...... This is indeed an irresponsible report, which will cause widespread panic in the country. ”

"Panic is less terrible than pride. Because the Times had previously reported on the Battle of Austerlitz, they said that Napoleon was so defeated by the combined forces of Russia and Austria that he fled with only fifty cavalry guards, and even his mistress Josephine did not have time to take with him when he left. ”

"This is nonsense, I heard that Josephine didn't go?"

"Your focus, young man, is always very unique, but at the time the War Office and the Foreign Office were more concerned about another factual error in the news reports. Because of this report, we mistakenly believed that the main French army had been wiped out, and as a result, we almost made a strategic miscalculation. If this catastrophic consequence had happened, I swear I'd go to Fleet Street and hang their reporters with their eyes closed. ”

Arthur could not understand why the Duke of Wellington was so hostile to The Times, but now he not only understood, but even had the idea of hanging the journalists.

But what is helpless is that with the speed of the "Times" seeing the wind and steering the rudder, most of them will not give him a chance.

And on the question of how to deal with the Times, the hanging of the Duke of Wellington certainly won't work, after all, Britain is not Prussia.

On this divided, free-spirited, but conservative and old-fashioned island of contradictions, he could only follow the method used by Viscount Palmerston to support the "Morning Post" as his own sounding board, and use the "British" as a position to fight the "Times".

Isn't that big news?

As long as the Police Intelligence Agency wants to do it, it's like Congressman Harrison's investment in Poland is everywhere.

In the future, if there is such a thing, the Times will be banned from participating in it.

Arthur looked at the crowd of demonstrators who were fleeing in all directions, and suddenly Louie's voice rang in his ears.

That's right, this member of the Bonaparte family was the on-site executive commander of this riot operation.

During the period when the situation in London was rapidly deteriorating, perhaps even Louis himself did not expect that his command skills, which he had not had the opportunity to show in the uprising of the Italian charcoal-burning party, would be useful in British soil.

And according to Arthur's observation, although the opponent is not strong, Louis was able to quickly control the situation in the chaotic scene several times, which is enough to show that what he learned in the Swiss military academy is not a fake.

His command skills are not very strong, but he is still more than enough to serve as a colonel commander above the horizontal line, and it is not a complete waste snack as the legend suggests.

Or, if he took even 10,000 steps back, he had at least inherited his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, his ability to suppress insurrections.

Louis patted his trouser leg splashed with mud dots, lit his pipe and let out a sigh of relief: "This mission has been successfully completed again." The leader had just been identified by our informants as an instigator from the British National Workers' League, a weaver. ”

Arthur borrowed a fire from Louis: "Weaver? Don't they have to go to work at this point? ”

Louis waved his hand and said, "No, Arthur, you misunderstood me. He was a handicraft worker and had his own small family workshop, not working in a factory. And it's not just him, the members of the National Workers' League are basically manual workers. ”

As soon as Arthur heard this, he immediately understood what was going on.

Having previously wondered about the frequent unrest in London, he began to send agents from the Police Intelligence Service to infiltrate the protest groups in London.

After the undercover investigation by the detectives, the social identities of most of the riot members were basically sorted out.

As Louis stated, only a very small number of factory operators were involved in the riots on the streets of London, and most of the rioters were hand-weavers in the textile industry.

These weavers are basically family-based, and for many years, or even generations, they use traditional looms to produce cotton cloth, handmade socks and other consumer goods for a living.

However, after the textile revolution, large textile factories that sprung up quickly crowded out their ecological niche in society.

The products of the big factories are not only better in quality than theirs, the colors are brighter than theirs, and even the price can be reduced to a fraction of theirs.

Over the past half-century, the profit margins of these artisanal workers have been squeezed by factory products, and in some cases their incomes have been pushed down to lower than those of hired farmers.

This naturally led to their discontent, as was the case with the Luddite movement in 1811 in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, and other places that smashed factory machinery.

Although Parliament passed a series of relevant legislation, such as the Law and Order Bill and the Punishment of Destroying Machines, and sent a large number of military police and British army units to try to intimidate these troublesome manual workers with the death penalty, it did not have much effect.

The Luddite movement lasted intermittently from 1811 to 1816, and the reason why it did not survive was not because of the sudden change in government control, but because the Napoleonic Wars ended.

After the end of the war, due to the complete lifting of the French continental blockade of Britain, and the European land was basically plowed by Napoleon, the demand for British textile consumer goods in the recovery period in European countries surged.

Whether it is factory textiles or handmade textiles, everyone can make money, and naturally no one is idle to make trouble.

Although the reason behind it sounds nonsensical, it is because of this money problem.

But this kind of situation where everyone has money to earn is bound to be indefinite, because Britain was the first country in the world to carry out the industrial revolution, so the British are also quite honored to be the first people in the world to experience what is called an economic cycle.

As the core of the first industrial revolution, the textile industry, practitioners in this industry naturally have a deeper understanding of the economic cycle.

To put it simply, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the guys who have made a lot of money through the textile industry have unrealistically optimistic expectations for the future, so they have invested the sales profits of the textile industry in increasing production capacity.

The owners of the big factories have invested in technology to develop more efficient textile machines.

Others are more direct, directly expanding their factories, purchasing production equipment, and recruiting more workers, and for this reason, they even do not hesitate to mortgage all their belongings and borrow money from banks to engage in production.

Looking at that posture, I can't wait for the whole world to use their products.

Although they don't have so much capital and don't have enough knowledge, they have always kept in mind the teachings of their ancestors - having children!

The more children, the more labor, and the more labor, the higher the output of the family workshop.

When the yield is high, let the child have children, and so on for generations.

Of course, in today's situation, there is no doubt that it is a tragedy for both textile factories and craftsmen.

When they rushed to the world with more of their products with great expectations, they unfortunately found that it seemed that Europe and America together did not need to import so many cotton clothes and cotton pants.

Even if the perspective is turned back to China, even if the gentlemen and ladies of Britain waste it, a passion can only tear a pair of stockings.

In this case, even the factory owners in the textile industry cannot guarantee a stable income, and those family workshops whose products are not as good as theirs will have to drink the northwest wind.

But......

These white stockings, but sewn out of a stitch and thread, if they can't be sold, isn't it bad?

Therefore, in line with the principle of waste reuse, these manual workers resolutely decided to wear stockings on the top of their heads, transform into high-end technical talents, and do something high-risk and high-return.

Of course, this is not referring to the London Stock Exchange, but some people do have a keen interest in the banks next to the stock exchange.

The bankers, who were horrified by the situation, could not resist standing up for the workers, saying that the root cause of this situation was the British form of government, and that if the parliament had been reformed, everything would have been fine.

Admittedly, Arthur must admit that there are indeed many bankers who are calling for parliamentary reform from an impartial, objective and rational perspective, because some of them have been shouting similar slogans since a decade or even decades ago.

But for the rest of the group, Arthur can only be said to be as non-critical as the Times did.

Arthur took the investigation document handed over by Louis from Louie's hand, just flipped through two pages casually and said: "It's still the same, the person arrested today will be put in prison for two days, and then take the class action lawsuit from the District Attorney's Office when he has saved up enough money." In the recent situation, two years of hard labor is almost enough, and if the circumstances are serious, it will be the best time to go to Australia. ”

As soon as Arthur finished speaking, he heard a creak, and the closed iron door of the Apsley Mansion was pulled open from behind.

The Duke of Wellington's butler and a few manservants first looked out, until he saw that the demonstrators had fled, and those who did not flee were pushed to the ground one by one by the Scotland Yard policemen in tuxedos, and then the butler raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his head and came to Arthur with a smiling face.

"Officer Hastings, I'm sorry for you this time. These thugs are even more arrogant than they were when the Catholic Liberation Act was passed, and if you hadn't arrived in time, I would have almost thought they were going to lay down the house. ”

Arthur laughed and said, "It's not enough to set the house on fire, I remember that the War Department didn't send additional guards to the Duke of Wellington?" Those are all the elites of Cold Creek, and even if we don't come, they will definitely be able to solve the problem. ”

The butler smiled bitterly and said, "Mr. Hastings, if it is really as you say, then the matter will not be so difficult. The War Office did give us additional guards, but there were ten men in all, and His Excellency the Duke, fearing that the conflict would intensify, strictly forbade them to use guns to disperse the crowd. Even if Leng Xi's soldiers could fight again, it would be impossible to deal with hundreds of thugs. After all, they were not medieval knights, they had a full set of armor, and they could also carry a few servants to assist in battle. ”

Arthur quipped, "If they want armor, they can borrow a few sets from the armory in the Tower of London, there are quite a few antiques in there, and I have borrowed shields from them before." You may not believe it, but the shields are from the 17th century. ”

The housekeeper laughed when he heard this, and he opened his mouth to invite: "You are still so funny, it's still early, why don't you go inside and have a cup of tea?" His Excellency the Duke has been a little depressed lately, and you can talk to him to make him feel better. ”

(End of chapter)

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