As the home port base of the Soviet Northern Fleet, many warehouses were built next to the port of Murmansk to store supplies, and walking through the cold and wide iron gate made it feel as if you were in a prison. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info but in one of the warehouses, it is a busy scene under the light. A dozen Soviet soldiers, dressed in different military uniforms, sweated in front of metal frames and open spaces in the corners: they laboriously lifted large wooden cargo boxes one by one onto carts and delivered them to Yevgeny and others.

Raphael lifted the lid of the wooden box, and saw 50 Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifles neatly lined up inside; Suddenly, the smell of guns filled the air. Illuminated by the brilliant lights overhead, every detail of these rifles is revealed. Raphael relented, and then asked one of his gunsmiths to inspect it. The latter quickly selected 3 samples from the wooden box and began to quickly disassemble the Russian rifle in his hand into a pile of parts at a jaw-dropping speed.

"The butt of this M1891 rifle is loose, the bolt is jamming, and most importantly, its crosshair is almost unrecognizable, which is difficult to hit even an enemy from 150 meters away! It can only be regarded as 5 percent new at most, and it can never be called a qualified product, and we paid 5 dollars to buy it, which is already a very lossy price. By the time he reported to Raphael, the German technician had already reassembled the parts in front of him with a "click". The extreme proficiency of the Ku Ding Jieniu style made the eyes of several high-ranking Soviet officers present widen.

Hearing Raphael's translation, Yevgeny was very anxious: because according to the agreement he had reached with the Germans in advance, the average price of these three sample guns would be used as the unit price level of the box of 50 rifles. If something goes wrong with the sample, then the box of weapons will have to be sold to the other party at the price of cabbage. Yevgeny turned and whispered a few words to the captain of the guard, who nodded awe-inspiringly, and then arranged for a soldier to check with the German technician.

"The second Mosin-Nagant is well maintained, and there are no obvious problems with the key parts, but the coupling between its re-entry mechanism and the shell of the gun body has a manufacturing defect, and it is very easy to be invaded by sand and dust in actual combat, and the bomb bay cannot return to its original position after the bomb is dropped. All things considered, it can only be regarded as 6 percent new. If the Soviets are not convinced by this conclusion, then let them let the horses come and reason with me. The German technician said loudly. In the face of this self-confidence based on solid professional skills, the Soviet soldiers who checked together were completely suppressed by his momentum, and could only nod their heads in agreement.

"Oh my God, this twisted metal component can also be considered a rifle? At least a third of its parts are defective products with cracks and defects, and the number of trachomalies is greater than that of the moles in the March field. And then who can tell me where the rifling in the barrel of it goes? Am I not in the 20th century, but back in the 18th century, when the rifles were rifled? This kind of rag is a hundred times stronger than even the cane in the hand of a beggar! ”

Seeing that his technician threw the third sample gun directly to the ground with disdain, Raphael spread his hands to Yevgeny in front of him, and said with pity: "Unfortunately, Mr. Colonel, the unit price of these rifles can only be counted as 4 dollars." I have already written down the total amount of $200 for you, and I will pay it again when the goods are fully inspected. Don't look at me like that, in fact, I would have liked the same for a hundred boxes of rifles after that. After all, only with good quality can we get a higher price from a third party. ”

"You are naked imperialist plunder! These weapons are all qualified products produced in our Soviet arsenal, and I have sold them to you without any changes, but you have behaved so harshly, which is completely contrary to the basic rules of fair trade! Yevgeny couldn't take it anymore and immediately retorted angrily.

Facing the Soviets who were about to go berserk in front of him, Raphael replied calmly: "Mr. Colonel, I need to correct the two problems in your words just now. First of all, I am originally a person from an imperialist country, and the pursuit of profit maximization is the right of every citizen given by God. If you don't want to make this deal, you can get the arms back in place. Secondly, the products that are considered qualified in your country's standard system may not be at all necessary for our country. General Valentin, who is close to you, should be well aware of this. ”

Valentin nodded slowly and said, "Comrade Ye Fei, what Mr. Raphael said is completely true. At that time, the port of Leningrad was home to two large shipyards, the Union and the Baltic State, but their manufacturing processes were completely different worlds. If what the Germans produce is a fine snowflake of steel, then the same thing we produce is a fuzzy discus of uneven thickness. As far as I know, all the large warships that we built ourselves have all kinds of quality problems after they are put into service. The reason why the Navy has not built any more large ships since 1935 is precisely to eliminate these existing shortcomings. ”

Yevgeny's face was pale, as if he was trying to suppress the anger in his heart, but instead of roaring at the Germans in front of him, he chose to endure it through gritted teeth. To be sure, the Germans were not entirely deliberate, and many of them were faulty in their own goods. And the most important thing is that there is currently this buyer, and if the transaction is canceled, these arms piled up in the warehouse will be useless waste!

"Comrade Lenin is right when he says that all evil capitalists are the ones who are happy when they squeeze all the coffin boards of the proletariat!" Yevgeny gritted his teeth hard and cursed fiercely in his heart. He asked the guards to bring the table and chairs, and then sat down directly in front of the German technician. For the sake of the money in the bag, it is necessary for him to keep an eye on these Hans the whole time, and he must not let them take an extra ruble from his hands.

In the continuous rummaging and random inspection, several hours passed quickly. During this period, two German gunsmiths moved so quickly that they checked more than 300 rifles in hundreds of boxes in one go. However, to Yevgeny's intolerable findings, less than 10 of these guns were considered excellent new goods in the eyes of the Germans. Most of them are only six or seven percent of new depreciation products, and there are not a few of them that are completely unqualified.

Yevgeny silently calculated in his mind that the price of these rifles would shrink by at least a third compared to his initial expectations. While cursing the greed and miserliness of the Germans, he also angrily cursed in his heart the gross negligence of his arsenal and combat units: these equipment were all intercepted by his own people from the warehouses of the active troops, and it was simply unbearable that there were so many mutilated items in it!

However, Yevgeny, who was a port guard, did not know that the level of maintenance of these rifles was already one of the best in the Soviet Army. Due to the rigidity of the system and the serious loss of technical personnel due to the suppression of the anti-rebellion movement, the current equipment maintenance situation of the Soviet Army is at an all-time low; Among them, the king of land warfare, the tank, is the most in perfect proportions.

At present, the Soviet Union has nearly 12,000 tanks on paper, more than the rest of the world combined, but only about 10% of them are in good condition with full parts and ready for use. The remaining tanks, totaling more than 10,000 units, were either shoddy and dilapidated, or were dismantled for repairs to other tanks, and were not combat-ready at all. If you really want to calculate it, the armored forces of the USSR at this time were not as good as those of France: although the latter's tactical thinking was outdated, the vast majority of tanks were able to go to the battlefield!

(Historically, on the eve of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the three fronts of the Soviet Union, the northwest, the west, and the southwest had a total of 10,094 tanks, which was three times the 3,332 tanks of the three German army groups; Of these, however, only 1,972 are intact. Therefore, the German armored forces actually had a numerical advantage of 1.7 to 1 over the Soviet army, which greatly contributed to the brilliant success of the German Barbarossa plan in the early stage. Considering the state of the Soviet Union in this plane, and the time it is at the moment, it is reasonable that only a tenth of the tanks of the Soviet army are intact - the author notes. ）

At 5 a.m., all rifles were declared accepted. Although the process lasted almost the entire night, there was no normal extreme drowsiness as both parties had their biological clocks reversed in advance for the deal. Raphael handed a long statistical form to Yevgeny and three other senior Soviet officers, on which the sampling of each box was recorded, along with the corresponding discount.

"Gentlemen, in total, we received 160 boxes for a total of 8 thousand rifles with a total price of 54,800 dollars. Considering this is the first collaboration between us, that number is rounded up to $55,000. Raphael still had the original smile on his face, and it didn't change in the slightest because of the ugly face of the Soviets in front of him. After a pause, he continued, "It's not early, so I ask your personnel to hoist these guns onto our ships." After that, I will immediately pay you for the weapons. ”

Yevgeny stared at the Germans in front of him and gritted his teeth: "I must first see the wealth that you are ready to give us. Seeing the bitter and bitter expression on the other party's face, Raphael pondered for a moment and then nodded directly. He pulled out a thick brown paper bag from his coat and opened it with great care. (To be continued.) )