After Zhou Li heard this, he showed a trace of doubt: "Don't use wooden barrels, just use ships?" ”

Lin Ziran nodded and said, "Yes, don't you think it's troublesome to transport it in wooden barrels now, and the cost is also very high?" ”

Without waiting for Zhou Li to answer, Lin Ziran continued: "I don't know much about your transportation, but on our side, with the expansion of the scale, the cost of oil barrels is already quite high, and with the further improvement of production capacity in the future, I am afraid it will be difficult to purchase so many wooden barrels, and at the same time, the turnover of wooden barrels is also more troublesome!" ”

Zhou Li thought for a while and said: "The turnover of wooden barrels is indeed a trouble, every time we come to transport oil, we have to ship a large number of empty oil barrels with the ship, otherwise we can't load the goods!" ”

According to the cooperation agreement between Tsingshan Petroleum and other sales distributors, Tsingshan Petroleum only supplies kerosene, but oil drums are not among the free gifts.

When the distributors bought kerosene, they shipped it with the oil and barrels, but in fact they had to give Tsingshan Petroleum the same number of empty oil barrels at the same time.

Otherwise, Tsingshan Petroleum would not have been able to supply so many oil barrels.

On this day, there are more than 200 barrels, and in a month, there are more than 6,000 barrels, and it is sometimes difficult to purchase such oil barrels in a short period of time.

Not to mention, in fact, the cost of this standard barrel is not low.

Zhou Li, as a representative of Hongxiang Commercial Bank and Nanzhou Bank at the same time, has been in the kerosene business with Lin Ziran for so long, so he naturally knows such a drawback as a wooden barrel.

It's just that he is still a little worried: "If you directly use the cabin to transport oil, you will have to build it new, and the cost is not small!" ”

Lin Ziran smiled and did not answer.

Anyway, he just made such an offer, just a kind reminder that his Tsingshan Oil Company only sells refined oil products anyway, and only wholesale.

He doesn't care how these channel providers transport, how they open up channels, and how they retail.

The reason why he said this today is that he is already preparing to start transporting oil trucks, and in the later stage, he is preparing to build an oil pipeline on the route from Qingshan Town to Sanyang Town Wharf.

The purpose is not to save the cost of land transportation of more than 10 kilometers in this section, but more importantly, to increase the transportation volume of kerosene.

Tsingshan Petroleum Company's expansion is continuing, and the production capacity will definitely increase in the future, but it will not always be transported by horse-drawn carts and barrels.

Today, with a capacity of 200 barrels of kerosene per day, dozens of heavy four-wheeled wagons are needed to travel back and forth between the refinery and Sanyo Town every day.

If the production capacity is doubled again, wouldn't it be more than 100 every day, and then doubled, wouldn't it be 2 or 300 heavy carriages to go back and forth every day.

Therefore, Lin Ziran thought that after occupying and controlling Sanyang Town in the future, he would simply build an oil pipeline to Sanyang Town.

In the future, he even wants to build an oil refinery directly here in Sanyo Town.

Of course, these are all follow-up plans, and the minimum premise is to occupy Sanyang Town and ensure the safety of Sanyang Town before it can be done.

Now, it's just a matter of thinking about it.

But Zhou Li's side began to calculate carefully.

If a special oil tanker is built, even if it is just a steam inland river oil tanker sailing in the Luo River, even if the tonnage is only two or three hundred tons, it will take tens of thousands of dollars to take it down.

Tens of thousands of dollars may not seem like much, but it is not too little.

Whether it's worth the investment or not has to be carefully considered.

If the kerosene supplied by Lin Ziran continues to grow at a high rate in the future, then there is nothing to build a special oil tanker, but if the production capacity cannot grow at a high speed, then there is not much need.

Now it is shipped in wooden barrels, in ordinary bulk carriers, although it is a little troublesome, but everything is ready-made, and there is no need for additional input.

Regarding Zhou Li's reaction, Lin Ziran didn't say much.

The two men did not talk much about the transportation of kerosene, but turned the conversation to the procurement of ordnance.

I only heard Lin Ziran say: "Recently, we have been under a lot of pressure, and this ordnance still needs Mr. Zhou to worry more, especially the artillery and ammunition!" ”

Compared with the previous topic of kerosene transportation, Zhou Li prefers to talk about this topic of ordnance procurement, which is his old business!

Immediately said with confidence: "Lord Lin, don't worry, your orders have already been loaded with our Shengyuan and shipped, and when the time comes, Shengyuan will not only come to ship kerosene, but also bring ordnance to your department." ”

"There are six new nine-pound field guns you ordered, and I told you that this new type of nine-pound field guns is expensive to take you, but it is definitely worth the money."

"In addition, there are a thousand new Fuyuan muskets!"

"In terms of ammunition, there are 100,000 rounds of fire cap paper shells, 1,000 five-kilogram grenades, and 1,500 nine-kilogram grenades!"

When he said this, Zhou Li was full of smiles!

It's all about money!

It is said that Lin Ziran made money in the kerosene business, but even if he made money, in the end, the money did not reach the hands of their Hongxiang Commercial Bank, and the cost of their Hongxiang Commercial Bank's armaments was much lower than outsiders imagined.

At the end of the day, who makes the most money?

In fact, it's still their Hongxiang firm!

Lin Ziran, who was on the side, also showed a satisfied look when he heard Zhou Li's words.

How much money was spent on the purchase of ordnance, this is not the point of Lin Zi's words, he engaged in the kerosene business in order to expand the army and raise the army, and it is natural to make money to buy ordnance.

So even though this purchase cost him a lot of money, Lin Ziran still didn't blink.

This batch of orders includes 1,000 brand-new Fuyuan muskets, 9 catties of new field guns, 100,000 rounds of fire cap paper shells, 1,000 rounds of 5 catties of grenades, and 1,500 rounds of 9 catties of grenades!

The total price reached more than 100,000.

What is even more noteworthy is that the price of six nine-pound new field guns is only more than 8,000 yuan, and the price of two thousand Fuyuan muskets is a little more than 20,000.

The rest is all ammunition money!

There's no way, this year's Daheng, the guns themselves are not expensive, what is really expensive is ammunition!

Especially the shells!

Ordinary smoothbore guns, even bronze cannons, are actually common,

Solid bullets are naturally cheap, but no one uses this thing anymore, everyone uses grenades, the poor ones use wooden fuse grenades, and most of the people with a little money are already grenades with metal disc fuses.

This thing is very expensive, a five-pound grenade costs nearly 20 Hengyuan a round, and a nine-pound new grenade is even more expensive, requiring 35 Hengyuan a round.

Just 1,500 rounds of 9-pound grenades from a new field gun are worth more than 50,000 Hengyuan!

1,000 rounds of replenishment consumption, and the 1,000 rounds of five-pound grenades in reserve also cost more than 20,000 Hengyuan.

These two items alone cost Lin Ziran more than 70,000 yuan!

The cannon sounded ten thousand taels of gold, not a joke, but real!

But even so, Lin Ziran didn't have the slightest heartache, money is used to spend.

He engaged in the kerosene business in order to raise and expand the army, and he was more looking forward to the nine-pound new field guns he ordered from the Hongxiang Commercial Bank than spending money.