Chapter 342: Fielder’s Analysis

Chapter 339 – Fielder’s Analysis
No matter what kind of bad thing it is, in order to catch the person who is doing the evil, you must first go and find out the person who can profit from that bad thing. Who can benefit from your absence?

–The Count of Monte Cristo

Dumas pulled the small notebook out of his pocket and clipped one of the pages and waved it gently toward Arthur.

Arthur understood what he meant, of course, but there was no way in which the events of the day would allow him to weigh the interested parties entangled in the assassination in terms of simple stakes.

If you looked at it on a personal level, the most suspicious were clearly former Congressman Bernie Harrison and Magistrate George Norton.

But now he had a very special identity hanging over him.

From the perspective of Liverpool’s special anti-smuggling inspector, the people who want to kill him include import and export trading companies that are not happy with port control, and these companies don’t exclusively refer to those in the Liverpool Association, but also include giant companies with royal franchises around the world, such as Britannia Africa, Britannia West Indies, Britannia Moscow, and so on.

These trading companies, which held a large number of monopoly franchises, were not comparable to the large monopolistic business combinations such as cartels, syndicates, trusts, and conquests that emerged only at the end of the nineteenth century, and even their leader, the East India Company, had to bow down to Parliament on both a legal and a practical level.

But whoever thinks of these companies as benign and benign because they bowed down before Parliament is mistaken.

Take the East India Company, headquartered in London’s Lidger Street, for example. Founded in 1600, the company received a 21-year monopoly on the East Indies from Elizabeth I, and was also tasked with opening trade routes for the crown to the East Indies, the Malay Peninsula, the coast of the Ming Dynasty, and the Japanese archipelago.

At the beginning of the East India Company’s existence, the task of opening up routes did not go well. Expedition fleet repeatedly shipwrecked, East Asia’s pirates are also far more difficult to deal with than they imagined. Even the company’s backbone member, the well-known British explorer John Davis also died in a fire with the Japanese pirates.

And to time to the eighth year, even the king has no longer on the opening of the eastern route to hope, but the East India Company suddenly came to the good news. After rounds of bloodshed and unremitting efforts, the company’s fleet officially landed in Surat, India, and in a small city near the Bay of Bengal to establish the first factory.

King James I was overjoyed to receive this news, and in praise of the East India Company, he issued an indefinite charter to the other side and declared that the license would only be revoked if the company failed to make a profit for three consecutive years.

In order to protect the East India Company’s hard-won success, James I even sent diplomats to visit the Mughal Empire, the dominant power in India, and on the condition of providing European treasures on a regular basis, he succeeded in reaching a diplomatic agreement with the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, confirming the East India Company’s right to settle and set up factories in the territory of the Mughal Empire.

With the protection of these legal documents, the rapidly expanding commercial territory of the East India Company did not take long to beat the Portuguese merchants, who had been operating in India for a long time, with the force of a tiger.

And in the East India Company spring time, the British domestic but broke out the Glorious Revolution. Because their main assets are concentrated in the Indian region, so surprisingly unscathed through this half-century of strife.

Not only that, in order to compete for the support of the East India Company, which could only lay golden eggs, both Cromwell, the Lord Protector, and the British Crown, which wanted to be restored, threw an olive branch to them.

Cromwell elevated their position in Parliament, while the restored Charles II went one better.

He issued five decrees directly against the East India Company, granting it the right to occupy land on its own, to coin money, to command forts and armies, to make alliances and declare war, to sign peace treaties, and to sit in judgment on civil and criminal proceedings in the occupied territories.

The granting of these powers to the East India Company was almost tantamount to a declaration that the East India Company was the State.

Although the East India Company had always claimed that it was not a government, it was in fact a government independent of the British government at this time.

In the spirit of the right not to use the son of a bitch mentality, the East India Company soon formed an independent armed forces belonging to the company, and after a few years of hard work and horseback waging what was known as the Anglo-Mughal War, but in essence, it was the East India Company VS the Mughals war.

However, the East India Company’s armed forces have just become an army, apparently in overestimating their own combat ability, but also underestimated the strength of the Mughal Empire, as well as those in India ate their dark loss of the French merchants and Portuguese merchants on the degree of resentment towards their counterparts.

After four years of fierce fighting, received a pile of French and Portuguese arms, and the British domestic political situation because of the Glorious Revolution turbulence and inability to assist them, the company’s board of directors have gritted their teeth and finally died.

Under pressure from the 125 major shareholders, the company held an emergency board meeting and announced that it would stop its losses in time and shake hands with the Mughal Empire for 150,000 gold rupees.

The East India Company was devastated by this battle, and the royal family and parliament, reeling from the Glorious Revolution, finally realized that we had been a little too lenient with this private enterprise.
But the East India Company’s indefinite charter was after all issued through the legal process, and they have been maintaining a profit, directly collected their franchise both morally and legally does not make sense.

But this little difficulty is obviously not difficult to defeat the ‘heroes and heroines’ who all want to go to India to make a fortune.

In the spirit of ‘as long as the mind does not slip, there are always more solutions than difficulties’, the group quickly came up with an alternative trick.

Although there is no way to revoke the East India Company’s charter, but the Parliament can liberalize the rights of other companies to enter the Indian trade, this is not also tantamount to the abolition of the East India Company’s monopoly on the Indian region?
More than that, the parliament in order to prevent the company into India will be the East India Company’s volume of defeat, but also personally under the legislation set up a new company called ‘British East India Company’ to fight with the old East India Company.

And feel the crisis of the East India Company shareholders are in a hurry to rush together hundreds of thousands of pounds to eat into the shares of this new shell company, not only that, in order to show their loyalty to the government, the board of directors of the night brainstorming, and finally launched the history of the first company motto – Auspico Regis et Senatus Angliae (by England). Senatus Angliae (By Order of the King and Parliament of England/Anglia)

But although the East India Company repeatedly asked the company’s employees to seriously understand the meaning of the motto, seriously implement the spirit of the motto, and repeatedly emphasized that ‘the king and the parliament command the company’ is the fundamental principle on which the East India Company was founded, but this is ultimately unable to salvage the heart of the king and the parliament.

When the King and Parliament realized that the new company’s development in India was not as expected, and that it could not affect the monopoly of the old company, their small minds were active again.

The East India Company, which sensed that things were not going well, was one step ahead of the others and proposed a merger between the new company and the old one, and invited the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Board of Trade to participate in the reorganization of the company in depth, while the Parliament was responsible for supervising it.

In the end, the East India Company reluctantly ate the 3.2 million pounds of government loans, the merger of the old and new companies successfully passed the parliamentary review.

In return, Parliament ‘generously’ returned the monopoly franchise in India to it.

Though according to the old license, this right should have belonged to it as well.

Complaints aside, however, after settling the issue of unequal sharing of the spoils, the British government soon gave the East India Company its full diplomatic and military support once again.

On the diplomatic front, the East India Company obtained from the Mughals the right of exemption from customs duties in Bengal.

On the military front, a large number of regular Royal Navy and Army officers were sent to serve in the East India Company’s forces, and there was no shortage of famous names among these reserve officers who had fought on the battlefields of India.

Take for example Robert Clive, who defeated 70,000 Mughal troops with 3,000 men and conquered Bengal. Or the Duke of Wellington who attacked 40,000 French armies of the Kingdom of Mysore with a force of 7,000 troops and won.

It was with the help of these governments that the East India Company grew to its present size.

But the balance between the East India Company and the government was always very delicate, and whenever conflict broke out between Britain and the rest of Europe, the government loosened the reins around its neck in order to get a steady income.

In peacetime, Parliament and the Cabinet were almost daily wondering how to pad the reins back.

After the passage of the three Acts of 1784, 1786, and 1813, the former commercial colossus, though its institutional set-up had become larger and more bloated than ever before, was saddened to find, in retrospect, not only a Governing Council of India, but even a Viceroy of India placed at its head.

More than that, his commercial functions were being constantly stripped and compressed by Parliament. The trade of this golden-egg hen had been steadily rising, but the rise in profits had not kept pace with the increase in expenses. The greatest cause of this great increase in expenditure is the fact that, in response to the call of the higher authorities, they have added many local administrations in India which are of no benefit to the company itself.

When Arthur talked to Lionel, the young master of the Rothschild family, he once talked about the East India Company.

From the mouth of the Jewish young master, Arthur learned that the current East India Company was burdened with debts totaling close to 10 million pounds. Although their trade volume was still large, the profits had been compressed to an extremely meager level by the calculating Parliament.

Occasionally, when the trade market is not good, the East India Company’s annual financial statements show a negative growth in profits or even a loss of money is not once or twice.

It can be said that after the complete loss of the monopoly franchise in India in 1813, the East India Company today is like a scared bird, the slightest movement can scare them.

In order to defend their business interests, they do not mind playing a little trick, for example, to start a war or something.

Or rather, after more than two centuries of all kinds of turmoil, the East India Company has now been conditioned by the Parliament.

Their code of conduct was: with Parliament, I’ll be obsequious. When it comes to the Indians, I hit hard! If the French and Portuguese merchants dare to interfere, I will whack them too!
The East India Company dared to start a war in India, but assassinating a Scotland Yard superintendent, and a commissioner on special duty in London at that. To be honest, they really may not have the guts.

After all, the 20-year charter issued to them in 1813 is facing renewal soon.

Parliament was usually looking for an excuse to whack them, and if they bumped into the gun themselves, it would simply be a sleepy pillow, whether it was the Whigs or the Tories, both sides were begging for it.

The East India Company is a big brother, not to mention the Africa Company and the West India Company and other small brothers. The consensus of these companies is usually do not fool around, otherwise the parliament side of a management committee plus a governor’s big hat cover down, who fucking can not carry.

Thinking of this, Arthur suddenly frowned.

The Liverpool Association, which he had originally excluded from his suspicions, was again on his suspicious list.

The Liverpool Association assassinating him because of harbor segregation dissatisfaction was the first tier.

The assassination of the Commissioner by the East India Company, by which the Liverpool Association was falsely accused, was the second layer.

Or, perhaps, the Liverpool Association purposely made the assassination so crude in order to make me and London suspicious, and ultimately mistakenly believe that the case was an attempt by the East India Company to frame the Liverpool Association, and thus trip up the renewal of the East India Company’s license warrant, is the third layer.

Does it end there?

How many more layers follow?

Dumas saw Arthur’s frown getting tighter and tighter and couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Arthur, what are you thinking about? Your face is all scrunched up like lasagna.”

Arthur sniffed, leaned back, and let out a long sigh, “Alexander, I’m pinned. I’m not going to lie to you, I look at anyone right now like the murderer behind the curtain. Tell me the truth, did you hire these Poles?”

“Do I need to hire people if I want to kill you?” Dumas drew his pistol and juggled his gun, “If I make a move, you won’t even make it to Liverpool.”

Heine also clenched his chin and said suspiciously, “Speaking of which, today’s matter is also strange. In our party today, there are members of Napoleon’s family, a famous American literary hero and secretary of the embassy, and me, a great wise man who cannot be tolerated by Prussia. Why should the assassin come exclusively to you? Could you be worth more than the three of us tied together?”

Louis sniffed and simply patted Heinrich’s jingling pockets, “For the moment, as far as I can see, for the time being. Heinrich, you’d better spend this pocket of gold coins before criticizing. It’s not hard to say that when you’re carrying money that someone else got.”

Arthur didn’t care about their words, the fact that they still had the heart to bicker at the very least meant that the emotional state of the big guys was quite stable.

But then again, the ones standing here basically had relatively strong mental qualities.

Alexandre Dumas had launched a ‘terrorist attack’ in Paris.

Louis took part in the Charcoal Burners uprising in Italy, and he himself came back from the dead from the fire of a repressive Austrian army.

Even Heine, at the very least, had to go out for a walk with a couple of Prussian secret police behind his ass in his hometown of Düsseldorf.

With this kind of experience, an assassination does not seem to be a big deal to them.

His eyes flicked to Sheriff Field, who had just completed his investigation of the crime scene.

This powerful general of the criminal investigation department, who was promoted by Arthur, looked like he was about to say something.

Seeing this, Arthur opened his mouth and asked, “Charles, did you find anything?”

Seeing Arthur take the initiative to ask, Fielder hesitated for a moment and finally spoke, “I don’t know if it’s right or not, but …… sir, if we look at it with our experience in dealing with criminal cases, this assassination doesn’t conform to the logic of a normal homicide case.”

Arthur sniffed and gave a soft hmmm, “What’s your insight?”

Fielder spoke, “Normally, if the culprit is really intent on killing someone. Then he will definitely choose the most stealthy and undetectable way of killing as possible. Only that kind of spur-of-the-moment street altercation would give birth to such an appalling way of killing with passion.

According to the way you taught me to investigate a case, a murder is usually caused by a personal grudge or a financial interest. In terms of personal grudges, you and the killers had never met, and this wasn’t a murder but an assassination, the kind of killing in the street that is usually used when someone in a less advantageous position is desperate, like the bankrupt businessman Bellingham who assassinated Prime Minister Percival. So they must have been commissioned to do the assassination, which I don’t disagree with.

But what kind of employer would ask them to use a method like street assassination in public? And not to provide any help to their own assassins, so that they have to throw themselves on the line to dry out and choose such a stupid way of assassination? On top of that, the Poles shouted your name before they did it, as if they were afraid that people wouldn’t know it was you they were trying to kill.

If I were the employer who wanted to kill you, I would have asked these assassins to do it when it was dark at the very least. Like setting a fire under the hotel at night, or planting explosives or something.

If I were to be more meticulous, I might even consider investigating which restaurants are responsible for providing the Golden Lion’s meals, and then wait for the opportunity to poison your meals. Liverpool is in the midst of a cholera outbreak, so if the assassin uses some untestable poison, everyone will think you died of cholera. If you design an assassination plan this way, it’s not only efficient and safe, but also less likely to be exposed. But the current situation is that the killers are doing the exact opposite.

This means that the employer behind the killers may not care whether they can kill you or not. All he wants is for someone to come to Liverpool with a gun and fire a couple of shots at random, with the words ‘I’m going to kill Hastings’ yelling out of their mouth. While I can’t be sure that my deduction is the right one, all the information presented in front of us so far is telling me that it really does seem to be what they want.”

Arthur’s eyes couldn’t help but slowly widen as he heard this, and his thoughts became clearer.

“This …… you have provided me with a new line of thought. This really deserves the saying, the onlooker is clear and the authorities are confused. If what that gang wants is this news effect, then perhaps we should wait a little longer, and they should deliver it to our doorsteps on their own ……”

(End of chapter)