Reborn American Giants

A group of three Dodge cars were speeding forward from north to south on the crowded streets. Strangely, they did not enter the city, but instead headed towards the suburbs.

After getting into the car, Manuel seemed to be mute and said nothing. He only glanced at Victor who was sitting in the back seat through the rearview mirror from time to time, quietly watching the scenery passing by outside the window.

The road is not very smooth. It seems that the officials of Acajutla are not very concerned about the construction of municipal roads. After driving bumpyly for about 20 minutes, the vehicle turned west on a branch road and finally ended up on an open European-style road.

Stopped in front of the manor.

"Mr. Jose, we are here," Manuel turned around from the front seat and said to Victor, who was sitting in the back seat with his eyes closed and concentrating.

Opening your eyes, you will see a large green coffee field. A large group of women with white headscarves on their heads are carrying a basket and picking coffee berries that look like purple-red gems.

Don't think that picking coffee is easy, just pick the coffee cherries and that's it.

One of the characteristics of the coffee tree is that it can bear fruit multiple times within a year after entering the growth period. Another characteristic is that the flowers and fruits of the coffee tree coexist at different stages of maturity. The entire coffee maturation process is controlled by nature.

subject to the vagaries of change.

If the fruit is overripe, the beans inside will rot. If it is underripe, the beans inside will not ripen automatically. Therefore, pickers often need to return to the same tree several times to pick ripe fruits.

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This requires these workers to be very experienced in the habits of coffee trees. Almost all coffee harvesting in the world is done manually. Therefore, harvesting coffee is a labor-intensive and seasonal process.

Since there are both flowers and fruits on the same branch, the collector's index finger and thumb are the best tools for collecting ripe berries. Scrape the fruits off the entire branch by hand, or use an automated harvester.

It's impossible to distinguish between ripe and green berries.

Some places like to use trouble-free methods to produce some sub-grade coffee. For example, some areas in Africa use a method of picking coffee beans by shaking the coffee trees, shaking the fruits to the ground, and picking them up from the ground before they are damaged and rotten.

Most areas of Brazil produce second-grade coffee. The method of harvesting coffee in these areas is to remove all the leaves, flowers, overheated and green fruits from the branches at once. It takes two years for the coffee trees that have been damaged in this way to return to normal.

But in this way, because the quality is not pure, the flavor of the coffee is diminished and the grade of the coffee is lowered.

As the origin of traditional alpine coffee, El Salvador naturally pays more attention to the quality of coffee, and basically uses skilled manual operations.

But even so, an experienced picker can only pick about ten pounds of coffee cherries a day, which can be made into about one kilogram of coffee beans, and the income is only about 70 colones, which is less than 6 US dollars.

In the past, El Salvador's foreign trade exports came from the work of these coffee pickers. However, with the outbreak of civil war and turmoil, El Salvador's coffee production has been greatly reduced. Such a huge coffee planting field is rarely seen.

To be honest, Victor never thought that in today's El Salvador, it would be rare for an open manor with such a pleasant scenery to have no barbed wire fence.

Generally speaking, even the plantations on the outskirts of San Salvador are tightly closed with barbed wire fences. A large number of armed guards are constantly patrolling the borders of the estates, as if they are on full alert, as if they are facing a powerful enemy.

Look.

And like this, a lonely manor standing outside the city not only shows that the owner here is not afraid of anything, but also shows that the owner here is very powerful in the local area.

Indeed, the Salvadoran Association, which was born out of the local Tarasco people in Acajutla, was originally just a cooperative and mutual aid organization that was considered a minority even in El Salvador. I don’t know when it started to get involved in the gang field, and soon it became

It developed into one of the six major gangs in El Salvador.

Baldassare Ansaldo, the leader of the Salvadoran Association, is not only involved in black business. In addition to running this plantation covering an area of ​​about 5,000 acres in the Port of Acajutla, he is also involved in project contracting.

and logistics transportation business.

At the same time, they have carried out a lot of charity work locally. Last year alone, 24 8-story residential buildings were built in the small town of Salama on the outskirts of the city to house the homeless people in Akajutla. At the same time, in recent years,

He also donated and built more than 30 local primary schools and provided dozens of school buses, and promised to provide lifelong services for the maintenance and repair of these school buses.

Practices like this gave Ansaldo, the gang leader, a good reputation in the hearts of the locals. Some people even called him the "Great Good Man", which was similar to what Victor did in Fandino.

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Therefore, Acajutla has become the home base of the Salvadoran Association. Here, Ansaldo does not have to worry about anyone daring to take advantage of him.

"Mr. Jose, Boss Ansaldo is waiting for you inside, and I will arrange for the other personnel to be settled."

After Manuel got out of the car, he respectfully said to Victor.

Victor nodded, and led Nathan and Atto onto the cobblestone path leading to the main building of the manor. Before they reached the door, a tall man with slightly curly hair and a tough face stood at the door.

Victor's figure laughed and opened his arms to welcome him. While patting Victor's back, he said happily: "Boss Victor, welcome to Cruze Manor as a guest."

"As long as you don't find it troublesome."

"Haha, you are a distinguished guest that I can't even invite." Ansaldo smiled heartily and raised his right hand, "Please come in. By chance, there is another guest here."

"It's such an unlucky time for you to come. Originally, that guy from Risteo was here a few days ago, but something happened in Tijuana, Mexico, and he rushed over to deal with it."

Victor nodded to express his understanding. The Desert Ants were responsible for the route from El Salvador to Mexico. To be honest, if they hadn't taken the advantage of a favorable location, the gangs in El Salvador might not have been able to defeat the Mexicans.

Victor took the lead in uniting several major organizations in El Salvador and formed an alliance to become the distribution, transit and logistics center between Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and other countries known as the "Silver Triangle" and the United States. Soon, in the "North American Trade Agreement"

"After the signing of the Agreement, Mexico will take over this position. Therefore, the development of various organizations in El Salvador will actually steal the future jobs of Mexicans.

Therefore, Victor did not relax his vigilance about matters in Mexico. When he heard Ansaldo's words, he seemed to ask very casually, "What's wrong with the Mexicans? Boss Risteo needs to go there in person."

Ansaldo pushed open the brown-red door, and while guiding Victor the way, he replied: "It's not a big deal, it's just that a man named Miguel Ángel Felix wanted to lobby Mexico.

The bosses of various squares in the country want them to unite and form a "Square Alliance". Everything is still in chaos now, and Risteo rushed there to prevent the interests of Desert Ant from being damaged in this incident."

Ansaldo spoke very casually, but when Victor heard the name Miguel Angel Felix, he was not careless at all.

Others don't know, but Victor knows very clearly what kind of big storm this little person who is still a "nobody" will cause...