"Your Excellency, Your Excellency, the unit of price of weapons in the list is, of course, our mark. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info" German Lieutenant Colonel Mandol still had that calm expression and said lightly. Antoniscu frowned and said, "In that case, they will be too expensive. When our country introduced 35t tanks from the Czech Republic two years ago, it cost an average of only $20,000 per tank. I sincerely hope that you will be able to offer a reasonable price based on the friendship of Droz. ”

"Your Excellency, you are not right to say that. Now the dollar to the mark is not the same as it was two years ago, and of course we have to change the price accordingly. What's more, isn't our willingness to sell these weapons to your country the best testimony to the friendship between the two countries? Now, apart from Germany, who else is willing to extend a helping hand to your country in arms sales? Mandolfer calmly retorted, but there was no verbal clumsiness of ordinary German soldiers.

Before he came, Mandolfil had already received from Claude the six-word mantra against the Romanians: love to buy, not to buy. You know, Romania has long been pro-French, and has not had a half-dime traditional friendship with Germany for the past half century. If you don't make a lot of blood this time, why should Germany, which is full of good cards, not help its allies the Soviet Union and Hungary and carve up Romania, an angry and resentful Eastern European freak?

Antoniscu fell silent when he heard this. At this critical juncture, no matter how much Romania has ten guts, it will not dare to offend the Germans, not to mention that the Romanian army is also determined to get this batch of munitions, and there will be no such shop in the village of the Germans. The equipment of the British and French armies was in short supply, and relations between Italy and Romania were quite average; The Americans were willing to support Romania's anti-Soviet cause, but if the weapons had been brought from across the Atlantic, Comrade Stalin might have entered his faithful Bucharest long ago!

"This money is a vote for the Germans." Antoniscu silently comforted himself in his heart. At the very least, Germany had given a desperate Romania a chance to break the drain, and it was already a paradise of happiness compared to the fate of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Looking at the list in front of him, the sale price was as terrifying as the number of captures, Antonescu's heart ached and was happy like a girl out of the night: since he couldn't resist, he should try to enjoy the pleasure of expanding his armament.

136 cars of 35t, buy them all! The 11-ton light tank, finalized in October 1935, is still a fairly advanced army heavyweight: its 37mm L40 Skoda gun is enough to effectively destroy the T-26 and BT series, the main tanks of the Soviet Union, and its armor, speed, communications, and man-machine fit have also achieved a satisfactory good balance. In real combat, this tank will definitely be able to exert a stronger effect than the original performance.

50 Renault-35s, buy too! Although the firepower and speed of this French 14.5-ton tank are not comparable to that of the 35t, its thick armor is effective against the attack of the Soviet 37mm tank gun. Now there are 75 Renault-35s in service in the Romanian army, and logistics maintenance is not a problem, and another 50 can form a regiment. In the face of the threat of the Soviet Union, the Romanian army could not buy more tanks, so its price of 180,000 marks was barely worth it.

40 7TP tanks, buy them all! This type of tank is developed by Poland itself, and its overall performance under the 10-ton frame can be seen as a low-profile version of the Czech 35T; However, it was equipped with a more powerful Bofors 37mm L45 gun, which was more convenient against the main armored targets of the Soviet army. Although the price was also marked at 150,000 marks by the Germans, Antoniscu regretfully asked Mantofil if it was still in stock. As far as he knows, the Poles built 130~180 of these tanks before the war, and judging from the several grand encirclements completed by the German army, the number of 7TP captured in good condition should reach about half of its total production.

Antoniscu ticked the list heartily, his eyes already automatically filtering the price of these equipment. The reason why he raised objections to the price of weapons just now was more out of consideration to test the bottom line of the Germans; And now that you know the other party's attitude, you don't have to worry about anything anymore. Since he will be slaughtered no matter what, it is better to take this opportunity to sell a big favor to Germany, so that the other party can take care of him in the future. As for the issue of payment, let the government guys worry about it, and they just need to be the shopkeepers.

In a short time, Antoniscu added nearly 400 75-mm field cannons, more than 240 Skoda 100-mm howitzers, 60 155-mm Schneider heavy howitzers, and more than 360 Bofors 37-mm anti-tank guns to his shopping list. He had already decided to gather arms for the planned 20 new reserve divisions so that they could be put into the war against the Soviet Union in the shortest possible time. In addition, 300,000 rifles, more than 4,000 light and heavy machine guns, nearly 800 mortars, and tens of thousands of tons of ammunition were selected by Antoniscu. Although there was still a lot left on the list issued by the Germans, Antoniscu retained a bit of sanity in his heart: if he really bought it desperately, he was afraid that Romanian possessions would not be able to afford his squandering.

"Mr. Mantofil, why aren't there any transport vehicles on this list?" After buying another batch of medicines and communication equipment, Antoniscu stopped turning the page and asked the German next to him with a puzzled expression. Mantofil replied: "Vehicles and horses were a very important part of the German Army, so all the trucks and horses captured by our army in the Polish campaign were kept for our own use. If you need it, you can place an order with the factory in our country through the normal economic channels. ”

Listening to the other party's explanation, Antoniscu was even more suspicious. He couldn't understand why the Germans would abandon the best tanks they had captured, while instead treating the rotten transport vehicles and horses as treasures. No matter from which point of view, it is unwise for the other party to do this to give up the beauty of the jade and seek the stubborn stone!

Feeling the strange eyes of the Romanians, Mantofil secretly laughed in his heart: the army commander of this small country really couldn't understand the essence of armored blitzkrieg, and his vision and thinking, like most people, were still stuck in the state of the last war. In the land war of the current era, relying on armored forces and motorized corps to carry out rapid advance and division is the most powerful tactic that can give the enemy a fatal blow; To achieve this, a large number of vehicles will be needed to supply the front-line troops and transport soldiers to expand the results of the battle.

Although Antoniscu did not understand the forward tactics of the army in the new era, he was a qualified infantry commander. Antoniscu knew everything about the organization and equipment of his infantry divisions: in less than a quarter of an hour, he selected all the equipment he was going to purchase for the reserves. Mantofil took the memorandum back from Antoniscu and began to add up the amounts gradually. A few minutes later, Mantofil was shocked to write a number in the final stats column that shocked him.

"Your Excellency, you have purchased a total of 612,480,000 marks worth of arms. Do you need someone to do the math again? Mantofil stammered as he spoke, his eyes tinged with disbelief. The Army's profitless business is simply too big, and it actually earned back nearly 3.5 Bismarck-class heavy battleships at once! Although Romania paid the German government with oil, grain, and other raw materials, Minister Värt had promised to allocate an equal amount of marks to the army after the completion of the matter; And with this money, the army will also be able to enter the link of large-scale construction and rioting, and the order of all kinds of tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns is not a problem at all!

Antoniscu's cheeks twitched, and he finally couldn't bear it anymore and began to curse the greed and viciousness of the Germans. As for the final statistics, Antoniscu did not doubt that he had purchased 300,000 rifles with a unit price of 500 marks, which accounted for 150 million, not to mention so many tanks, cannons, equipment and ammunition. Thinking of the monstrous anger that the king and the finance minister were about to erupt, Antoniscu had already begun to consider whether he should first go to the hospital and pretend to be sick for a while: he had done something too out of line, and the Romanian government did not know how much public debt it would have to issue this year to fill such an astonishing hole!

However, what is the joy and joy in my heart like a lark flying out of the cage? Antoniscu was dazed, his eyes empty-sighted. He had the impression that he had never been so quick to buy arms. Could it be that in everyone's heart there is a soul with the attribute of chopping hands: it is usually in a latent state, and when the time is satisfied, it will completely manifest itself and become the dominant consciousness?

"Your Excellency, you have made the wisest choice to save Romania. As long as you can deliver the goods in a timely manner according to the agreement, then the equipment will be handed over to your army in good condition. Mantofil finally recovered from the shock and said to the man in front of him. This batch of Polish arms was enough to raise Romania's military strength to a higher level, and it was more confident in the face of the Soviet threat. Antoniscu nodded, and an unprecedented thought came to his mind: for Romania, the collapse of Poland, an ally, did not seem to be a completely bad thing. (To be continued.) )