Europe, May 1914. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Ordinary people may still not feel anything abnormal, but the confrontation between the two major military blocs has become more and more serious, especially the frantic arms race between the armies of the two sides, which has almost reached a white-hot level.

The air over the whole of Europe is tense to the extreme!

If the trajectory of history had not changed, Serbia's National Day, a little more than a month later, would have triggered the outbreak of the First World War - of course, this was not the fundamental cause, but it was customary to attribute the outbreak of war to specific events.

It was in these tense times that a large fleet arrived in the port of Hamburg from North America.

Just as the dock workers were busy and began to unload the cargo, in a dark corner not far away, a middle-aged man with a tired face asked with a wry smile: "Don, or the fleet of the Huntelaar Shipping Company?" How many batches are this coming this year? ”

"Twelfth batch, sir!"

The young man named Don stiffened his eyelids and replied listlessly: "I have checked, in addition to a large number of machinery and equipment, this time the delivery is mainly aircraft parts, heavy trucks and a strange kind of car parts...... Unfortunately, we can't tell what these auto parts are used for, the only thing that is certain is that they are not used for the kind of trucks that can tow heavy artillery. ”

"Hoo ......"

After listening to his subordinate's answer, the middle-aged man suddenly exhaled, and the whole person seemed to be much more relaxed. However, after a short period of relaxation, the middle-aged man finally gritted his teeth and scolded viciously: "Damn greedy Yankees, always make trouble for us!" ”

In the past half a year, middle-aged men have really had enough of the damn Huntelaar consortium!

God knows what these damn Yankees had in their heads, inventing a monster truck that could run around the world with heavy artillery, and then quickly gained the favor of the German Army. In just half a year, the German Army imported five thousand heavy trucks from the United States!

The amount of these transactions alone is a jaw-dropping number!

Of course, the huge effort will inevitably pay off, and the German Army's mobility has been improved like never before! Think about it, what a terrible fact that thousands of artillery pieces can be maneuvered at speeds of more than thirty kilometers per hour?

Because of this, the German Army did not hesitate to give the order to the Huntelaar Automobile Company.

Germany is not without car companies, in fact, as the country where the automobile was invented, the original General Motors is famous all over the world. But it's a pity that when General Motors, with the support of domestic capital forces, squeezed out John? Huntelaar, after the ambitious implementation of their expansion plans, their leading position in the world was quickly replaced by Huntelaar Motors.

It took Huntelaar Motors only five years to complete the process.

Ordinary people will never know that Huntelaar Motors has three times as many R&D personnel and eight times as many R&D personnel as General Motors, and that under John's personal intervention, all kinds of advanced R&D concepts are not measurable by numbers. So when the heavy trucks and armored vehicles of the Huntelaar Automobile Company suddenly appeared in front of the generals of the German Army in early 1914 and could provide a large number of them in stock, they placed an order after inspecting similar products from General Motors......

"It's always a little weird, though."

After some mental calculations, the young man suddenly spoke: "According to our intelligence, the total number of this order is only a thousand vehicles, and then the Germans will buy all the relevant patents and production processes for a million dollars, and then produce them at General Motors." But...... The Americans have significantly more trucks than they can do, so do they have big customers that we don't know about? ”

"What's so strange about that?"

Before the young man could finish speaking, the middle-aged man scolded angrily and whispered, "So, they will have more heavy trucks...... Yes, what's going on with those car parts? Is it the latest model of reconnaissance aircraft of the Americans? Damn it...... Why are the planes of the Americans so tough?! ”

"This ...... I don't know, sir. ”

After a moment of silence, the young man shook his head with a wry smile.

Compared with heavy trucks and various types of machinery and equipment, these intelligence officers valued more than the Germans imported rubber from the United States, processed products of various minerals, petroleum, synthetic ammonia, and other strategic materials, as far as airplanes were concerned...... No one really put much effort into it, after all, the planes of these years don't seem to be of much use other than reconnaissance......"

On the topic of airplanes, young people have little interest in continuing.

In fact, this is the general attitude of Europeans towards aircraft, curiosity, and pursuit, but no one will think that they will play a big role in the war except for reconnaissance.

"Hmm......"

After a slight groan, the middle-aged man quickly nodded and said, "Okay, focus on those two strange freighters, and try your best to find out what is on them!" Damn the Yankees, why are there such strange freighters every time? ”

"Yes, sir!"

Without any hesitation, the young man nodded immediately.

It's not just middle-aged men who are depressed, but young people themselves are actually unhappy. Because in the past six months, there are always one or two strange guys in the cargo ship from the United States to Germany, and both the Americans and the Germans keep it strictly secret, and it is very difficult to find out what is on it. So far, they have only been able to figure out four shipments, three of which are huge quantities of ammonia, and one is radio equipment - far more advanced and smaller than anything else on the market today!

The transportation of these two goods made Britain, France and other countries very dissatisfied.

Synthetic ammonia is the raw material for the production of explosives, which is obviously a military material, and the same is true for radio equipment, the fact that the Germans only need one donkey to camel a whole set of radio equipment, how can the British and French armies be embarrassed by the fact that it takes two or three donkeys to achieve the same effect?

As a result, after the protest, they also bought the exact same equipment!

"Damn Yankees!"

When he thought of this, the young man couldn't help but scold, but unlike his boss, he added: "Damn the Huntelaar consortium, the British should really confiscate all their properties and freeze their assets...... It's the same with us in France! ”

For the legendary richest man in the world, young people can be said to hate it to the core!

Automobiles, trucks, ammonia, radios, airplanes, munitions, rubber......

Almost half of everything that the Germans are desperately trying to import now comes from that damn Huntelaar consortium in the United States, from that damn John? Huntelaar. God knows how he was able to invent those frightening new technologies, and no one knows why he was able to lay out so many years in advance and almost monopolize 70% of the world's rubber resources......

Young people only know one thing, and that is John? Huntelaar must have made a lot of money!

Not only did the Germans desperately buy supplies from him, but even the British and French had no choice but to follow suit. Even the Germans, who have a high production of synthetic ammonia, continue to buy it, can they not buy it? The Germans updated the radio equipment, you want to lag behind? Who could be missing those advanced trucks and rubber?

The sheer number is jaw-dropping!

As ordinary intelligence officers, the two almost thought that the Huntelaar consortium had sold all its products to Europe! If they knew another fact, it was that the Huntelaar consortium sold to the Germans, to Austria-Hungary, to the British, the French and the Russians only a small part of the goods, and the much greater quantities were still in North America, they would not know how surprised they would be!

But......

It won't be long before they understand that the so-called enormity that amazes them is really just a very small number......