Contini smiled slightly: "Bet on whether he can become the commander of the Combined Fleet or the Minister of the Navy within 12 years!" If I win, then he will come and be a naval adviser to me; If I lose, I'll pay him 1 cruiser plus 100 of the most advanced Italian planes of the time! ”

"Commander of the Combined Fleet? What is this presumably title? ”

"Equivalent to the commander-in-chief of our navy."

Agnes smiled and said, "It's quite difficult, he hasn't even become a general yet, right?" It is really difficult to become the commander-in-chief of the Navy after 12 years, how could he agree to bet this with you? Either arrogant or arrogant. ”

Contini shrugged: "Who knows about him?" Maybe that's called having self-confidence! ”

Regarding the bet, Horikichi wrote to his die-hard friend Yamamoto Isoroku: "I recently made a bet with the richest man in Italy, and probably the richest man in the world, whether I can become the commander of the combined fleet or the minister of the sea in 12 years, and if I win, I can get 1 cruiser and 100 advanced aircraft, which is a lot of money!" If I lost, I promised to serve as an adviser to him, but I put a restriction on it, and I had to wait until I was transferred to the reserves...... You know, even if I can't achieve this goal and lose the game, it will take at least 20 years to move into the reserves, so it's a sure-fire gamble! Come back early and see if you can make a bet with him......"

Theoretically, the winning chance of this bet is 99%, because Yamamoto Fifty-six became the commander of the Combined Fleet in 12 years, and his ranking is even lower than Horiyoshi, if Horiyoshi is here, it must be even higher, even if the bet is lost, it is not a big deal, and it is good to retire at the age of 65 and go to the Mediterranean as a consultant to enjoy the happiness - but there is always a small probability in the world, and only Contini knows that after 5 years, Horiyoshi will be beaten to the dust by the big horn personnel and fall early.

This one, he actually played after seeing the hole cards, even if he lost, it didn't matter - just a cruiser and 100 planes!

Since the idea of exchanging oil for raw silk has basically been agreed between the two parties, a formal contract was signed in less than 5 days for a period of 10 years, which can be renewed after mutual agreement, including 2 million tons per year for the first 5 years and 4 million tons per year for the next 5 years. However, when determining the swap price, the Japanese side played a small trick, and as a result, the international market price was unstable, requiring the two sides to calculate the average international market price of the previous three months as the transaction price for each transaction - their wishful thinking was that the price of oil was relatively stable, and the price of raw silk had a vague upward trend in the past two years, and Contini agreed with a smile.

After the economic collapse in 1929, the price of raw silk in Japan fell by three-quarters, and it could not be sold in the international market, although the price of crude oil also fell sharply, but now United Petroleum has established a tacit understanding with the United States to stabilize the oil system, and it will not fall sharply at that time.

After the successful listing of Contini crude oil, the United Group became famous in the capital market, and everyone believed that the so-called cap and guaranteed price had a stable basis, and they were much more down-to-earth, and the United States also saw the benefits of this system, so it signed a memorandum of understanding with United Petroleum, agreeing to cooperate in the purchase and storage, but because of the fear of the interference of the anti-monopoly law, it could only adopt a tacit understanding and could not formally sign the contract. In the end, the two sides announced a price stabilization system on different occasions, with the United States using Texas crude oil as the benchmark price and Italy taking Libyan oil as the benchmark price. The guaranteed purchase price was still $1, but the selling price increased to $1.5 as the market heated up, and it was agreed that the price would be corrected in line with the dollar index.

This mature system is the international crude oil pricing system that has been maintained for nearly 15 years, until the outbreak of the Great War!

Who has taken advantage of this system? In fact, it is a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers! Buyers can estimate the basic cost of a year in advance, sellers can lock in the cost and market for a year, and because price stability will not produce much supply gap, it will curb the skyrocketing - the sharp rise and fall for the exporter and the importer side may not necessarily be transferred to money, speculators can make money, so after the introduction of this stable pricing system, it becomes boring to speculate on crude oil - there is a tight spell up and down! Contini's coalition controlled two of the world's top five oil producers at the time, and considering that the second-ranked Baku crude oil was also of great use to the Soviet Union itself, Contini actually controlled two of the top four.

After he went to the Far East, the US and French banking circles began to negotiate the issue of Libyan oil field shares, and Antonio offered a price of $70 million for 10%, and the United States and France both counteroffered $60 million. It doesn't matter if you can't talk about it, Antonio put a satellite on January 1, increased the oil storage level of the Libyan oil field by 20%, and announced that the output would be increased to 8,000 tons / day, and the output of the Algerian oil field at this time was 15,000 tons / day, and said that the production of the Libyan oil field in 1928 would eventually increase to more than 12,000 tons / day!

This figure shocked the United States and France, they immediately reacted and were ready to accept the price of $70 million, but at this time $70 million was no longer available, Antonio announced that the price would be raised to $78 million, and then another round of painstaking negotiations, just when the two sides were about to agree on the figure of $75 million, the exploration team again disclosed 15% of the new fields and reserves, and also drilled two high-production wells No. 29 and No. 33 - which can produce more than 1,000 tons per day.

This means that the 12,000-ton plan announced by Antonio will not be realized by the end of the year, but by June! As a result, the new price has now been raised to $85 million. Wall Street and French Financial Street are all itching with hatred, but there is no way - people have added production reserves, and if they don't raise prices, are they waiting for everyone to take advantage?

Antonio is not at all worried about not being able to sell his shares, because he still has two flashpoints in his hand that have not been detonated - the first is that Libya has as many crude oil reserves as Algeria (in fact, more), and the second is the listing of United Oil (Algeria), which, in Contini's words, is going to be pushed up step by step, giving the market enough room for imagination.

The market did react, and the stock price of Union Bank stubbornly rose 17% from the already high $3 to break through the $3.5 mark, and the values of investors were simple - new crude oil development sites were found, such as loans to build more facilities and tankers, which meant the spring of Union Bank.

Sure enough, Leo took another $200 million from the United States as collateral for the increased shares - called the Libyan Petroleum Development Bond, with an annual interest rate of 5.1%, and investors flocked to it, with a subscription multiple of more than 7 times! Spurred on by this situation, even the signing of an oil swap agreement between Contini and Japan is seen as a positive thing, and Wall Street tycoons are gearing up for the listing of Algerian oil shares in March.

Horikiyoshi's report on Italy's willingness to sell torpedo bombers also made the navy's top brass excited, because at present, except for the United States and Italy, there are no other countries with torpedo bombers, and Japan has long wanted to import them from the United States, but the Americans insist that the price is high, and they can't keep up with the speed of their own development -- now that the Akagi aircraft carrier has been put into service and Kaga is about to enter service (March), finding a suitable torpedo attack aircraft is a top priority.

Contini knew that the earliest torpedo aircraft of the Japanese Navy was the Type 89 shipboard attack aircraft, which was a Japanese-licensed version of the products imported by Mitsubishi from Blake, but now with United Airlines, there is nothing to do with the British, and it can make a good profit selling it to Japan.

Therefore, on February 24, the two sides signed a patent transfer and license price worth a total of $3.4 million, and this vote alone for Joint Defense earned more than $2 million in profits -- of course, the New York souvenirs that should be sent have to be sent, and the Navy Department, the Military Command Department and other high-level officials are full of praise for this, and Hori Yoshi, who introduced this business, has also been taken seriously, and a certain bigwig patted him on the shoulder and said that he would consider promoting him to rear admiral this year.

In addition to the planes, Contini came with the ship, and the majestic speed and furious two-wheeled motorcycles and combined force sidecar motorcycles were also favored by the Japanese and wanted to bring them in, and what was even more interesting was that the navy came to talk about it once, and the army also came to talk about it once - but they hid from each other, or they didn't want to talk to each other at all.

Both the army and navy are satisfied with the price and performance, and the only expectation is whether they can change the sidecar from the right side to the left - because the direction of passage in Japan is opposite to the customary direction of passage in Italy (so all the scenes of Japanese sidecar motorcycles in the Anti-Japanese War drama are all wrong, standard Japanese products, sidecars are all on the left side, and the right side can only be explained by the products seized to the Kuomintang, but where did the Kuomintang get so many sidecar motorcycles?). ）

Contini agreed that he would produce a left-sided product with exactly the same performance and exclusively for Japan, so the army and navy happily signed the contract and left, and the same product and technology were sold twice by the United Group! Zakaria, who followed Contini the whole time, said it was completely incredible, but the president smiled: "This is Japan!" ”

This business is tantamount to cutting off the products of the American Harley Company, and in the past, all the imitations made by Japan were American products, and now they have begun to imitate Italian products in an all-round way.

Horikichi later learned that the army and navy had a bloody outcome, so he shook his head and sighed: "This is the president!" Don't think that the president is young" This business is tantamount to cutting off the products of the American Harley Company, and in the past, all the imitations made by Japan were American products, and now they have begun to imitate Italian products in an all-round way.

Horikichi later learned that the army and navy had a bloody outcome, so he shook his head and sighed: "This is the president!" Don't think the president is young."