Section 364 Agreement of Intent
After dinner, it was already dark. Master Bu and his entourage walked out of the restaurant door with their front feet, and found that the street lights on the side of the street were lit up one after another.
The street lamps are like signals, lighting up both sides of the Taijiang River, and at the same time, the brilliance like a galaxy on the ground also attracts a large number of people.
Workers in blue overalls, peasant workers in floral T-shirts, clerks in white shirts and jackets, and short men with the same black hair and a moon head, and blond and blue-eyed fans...... Most importantly, the girls in cool clothes.
Master Bu and the others were involuntarily surrounded by the crowd that suddenly appeared and walked towards the brightest place with the lights. Along the way, the eyes were full of t-shirt shorts, revealing the girls with their arms and legs exposed, and they saw the old man as red-faced, and scolded the shamelessness of the surname Cao in his heart, and the turtle did not know how to be polite.
The Avenue is brightly lit, and barbecue stalls and bright shop windows entice people to pull out their pockets. Looking at the other members of the team who were having fun and being elated, after eating two skewers of grilled squid, Master Bu had no choice but to eat these Laoshizi chili noodles under the pretext that he couldn't get used to it, and went back to sleep alone with his sleeves flicked up.
......
After a hurried night, Mr. Bu and the others got up early the next morning, washed up, and ate a breakfast of raw porridge and rice rolls presented by the hotel, and waited for the guests to come to the door with peace of mind.
To tell the truth, no matter how much Lao Bu despises the Cao gang, he likes all kinds of organs and tools made by others from the bottom of his heart. Don't care, just talk about the flushing toilet: this kind of appliance that can flush away filth without leaving a trace of odor, white, and good-looking, in Master Bu's opinion, is born for gentlemen - gentlemen are as warm as jade.
As for those ordinary people...... Just go with a wooden barrel, it suits their status.
However, these ideas are just ideas. Master Bu is well aware of the reality: because this expensive flush toilet needs to be attached to a series of plumbing, water supply and sewage systems, in Xinghua Mansion, only a few wealthy merchants and big families have installed this thing, and ordinary people cannot afford to use it.
Even Master Bu himself, because he lives in a dilapidated official mansion, not his own property, he can't enjoy this kind of convenient and easy-to-use things on weekdays.
At eight o'clock in the morning, the guests came to the door on time.
Here came two young officers in light green short-sleeved military uniforms. Master Bu and his entourage are no longer interested in this kind of public man wearing a big cap, although they can't understand the colorful seniority badge on the chest and the pattern of the armband on the armband on the arm.
However, the young officer's chic salute with his head slightly tilted his head finally bluffed Master Bu...... After the latter returned the salute, the two sides soon began to talk politely.
The slightly older of the two officers, surnamed Li, reported that he was a staff officer of the Army Logistics Department, and he had come today to take a visiting group to select weapons. Master Bu had nothing to do, so the two sides went out.
Today's errand is more special, so you can't bring so many retinues, and the military four-wheeled carriage parked in front of the hotel also hints at this. So Master Bu only took Fang Tangjing to the car.
After the carriage starts, walk all the way north along Binjiang Road. Riding on the sea breeze, when the carriage crossed a series of lagoons, there was a military camp. Then the carriage continued to drive, skirting the barracks, and on the back was a string of shallow mounds with small lakes with them, where the army's test range was located.
Before entering the shooting range, the rumbling of cannon was heard in the distance. And when the carriage arrived at the test site, the passengers could already see the white smoke of the cannon and the shells smashed at the foot of the mound.
However, today's guests don't care much about artillery - Master Bu came this time mainly to purchase some cold weapons and light weapons such as bird guns, and artillery is not on the procurement list.
In addition, a rebellious gang did not intend to sell artillery to other forces. Not to mention the cost of artillery, no matter who it is sold to, it is possible that it will be smashed back on its head by shells in the future. There are now products that make money from the crossing, and if you make a lighter out of the iron material of an artillery, you can earn far more than N times the amount of silver.
So Master Bu can only watch something else today.
In the small playground, Master Bu tried out some samples of cold weapons provided by Staff Officer Li one by one. These cold weapons include several different models of machetes and several spear heads, all of which were commonly used by the Ming army.
As the deputy envoy of the military preparation road, even if it is an idle errand, but on weekdays, he reviews the army under his rule and inspects the armament, which shows that Master Bu has done it, so he is one of the few scholars who understands the standard weapons of the Ming army.
The quality of knives and guns produced with crude steel and assembly lines is far better than those made by Mingren's blacksmiths. So after testing the sample with a bamboo and wood target, Master Bu said, "Good knife!" This sentence popped out of his mouth - the old man took the gentleman's route, and he dared to scold Xiong Wencan in person when he was in a hurry, but he would not insist on saying that the knife in his hand was not good with a clear conscience.
Next, Master Bu tested the arquebus.
The arquebus is basically the highest grade of arms exported by the passing forces. This old-fashioned musket, in which the gunner needs to light the arquebus to fight, is accurately controlled to a kill distance of 50 meters.
The only highlight of this gun is, of course, the specifications: the parts of the guns produced on the assembly line are interchangeable. At present, except for this kind of "kiln area construction", the arquebuses of all other forces cannot do this.
After a little clumsy and fired two shots at the target, Master Bu was noncommittal. The smoothbore toy of the arquebus relies on scale to win, and the singles hit rate is very poor, so Master Bu didn't hit the target with two shots.
Staff Officer Li, who knew it in his heart, naturally wouldn't explain so much. He then just swapped the parts of a few guns according to the process, and as for whether Master Bu could see the mystery of this, it was not his scope to worry about.
It turns out that playing tickets is playing tickets. Scholars without the slightest experience in actual combat cannot understand the industrial strength and huge strategic value represented by the exchange of weapon parts. For the arquebus, in addition to praising the two sentences in general, the barrel has no burrs and is well-made, he can't say anything else.
After firing the arquebus, Mr. Bu tested the samples of the bird gun and the three-eyed gun, and then the two sides began the first negotiations on the arms purchase case.
Sitting on both sides of the long wooden tables in the barracks, Master Bu lowered his head and carefully read the contract handed to him by Staff Officer Li. To his secret surprise, the price of the weapons on the deed was not too high, but too low.
The quotations of these high-grade blades basically fluctuate around three taels of silver, which is actually the same as the price of ordinary goods in Fujian, and the price of 20 taels of silver for firearms is also not high in the eyes of Master Bu.
Comrade Bu Daxing was a little confused at this time: Originally, in his expectations, what he saw today must be a batch of weapons of inferior quality and high price-otherwise, how would the boss Jiao make money?
Raising his head, closing his eyes, and slowly brushing his long beard under his chin, it only took two minutes for the clever old man Bu to guess the trick: the samples shown to him today are all of the highest grade, and when the goods are delivered in the future, they will become a pile of broken copper and iron!
Comrade Bu Daxing, who had no concept of industrialized commodity prices and thought he had seen through everything, secretly made up his mind at this time: when he went to Xinghua Mansion to deliver and inspect the goods in the future, he would not be able to eat and walk around with the villains!
Now that he has figured it out, Master Bu then signed the agreement of intent in a dashing manner, so the arms purchase case between the two sides officially entered the implementation stage. Staff Officer Li said happily: The weapons ordered by Master Bu should be shipped in a week.
"In this way, there will be laborers and nobles." After Old Man Bu arched his hand without smiling, he ended this short business.
......
As in later business trips, after hastily finishing official business, the remaining time for private affairs is the most important. After spending only one morning to be loyal to the country, Master Bu took his entourage to Chihkan Avenue in the afternoon to consume.
Chikan Street, whose status was equivalent to that of New York's Fifth Avenue in later generations, has long been famous. Master Bu was scared away by the red men and green women last night, and today these shameless people have all gone to work, so he naturally wants to do some shopping.
Richly decorated, one by one with glass windows lined up on Chikan Avenue, the first of the five visitors was a men's gift shop.
The glass counter is filled with cigarette sticks, cigarette cases, belts, lighters, nail clippers, ear pickers, rings, wallets, key rings, ties, tie clips, and ......
Small gifts, made by surface plating, glow with a dazzling metallic glow under the light bulbs at the corners of the counter. The female shopping guide wearing an embroidered cloisonne cheongsam was full of smiles, took out the goods one by one with her white and tender little hands, and put them on the countertop for the guests to choose.
Master Bu was not very disgusted with the girl in the robe, he listened to the girl's clever introduction, picked up the small gifts, and figured them out one by one.
The other members of the visiting group on the side were naturally not willing to be left behind, and people like Fang Tangjing, who were usually pretentious, were especially concerned.
You must know that Hangzhou's rich second-generation circles, master circles, including Qingke circles, have long been popular with these easy-to-use, good-looking gadgets. Among them, the most popular, the least numerous, and the most useful for loading is the metal windproof lighter that can emit a long and clean sound when igniting...... So since someone from the other side has come to the source of goods today, he must not miss it.
So I didn't think much about it, Fang Tangjing will be optimistic about all the lighter models, each of which has bought enough of the upper limit of four "quotas" - almost all the goods on Chihkan Avenue are restricted, and the limit of lighters per passenger is 2 models, so Fang Tangjing and Xiaowu can only buy 4 each.
There is no way to limit this kind of purchase. The first is the lack of production capacity in the kiln area, and the second is to protect the local agents - if there is no restriction on purchases, there have been many embarrassing incidents in the past where merchants have used horse-drawn carts to pull silver boxes to sweep goods along the streets.
Master Bu also made a move at this time. Except for the Dunhill lighter represented by Jiao's boss's brother-in-law, who didn't like him, the rest of the gadgets, the old man bought three hundred taels of silver in one go. The master is not stupid, even if he goes back to give away the excess, the return gift he gets is far more than the original price.
However, the next moment the old man was angry. After settling the bill, their own long-term entourage and little servant actually took out a stack of banknotes from their arms and slapped them on the counter: "Sister Lao, calculate how much money we have left, and buy the rest of the hair." ”
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