When the deal was finally settled, the Russian delegation first left California for the eastern United States to continue their procurement activities, and a few days later the Japanese delegation also left. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info Until this time, the leaders of the Umbrella Military Industrial Group did not have time to sit together, have tea and, by the way, count the harvest.

It's not a lot -- this is the tone set by Qin Lang before the meeting begins. Even if the total value of the two contracts of the Russians exceeded $10 million, and the amount of the arms orders and Lend-Lease agreements for the Japanese amounted to more than $1 million, he insisted, this was not a lot of money.

The Japanese, in particular, were very picky, and seemed to regard a large-scale war as a child's game, and were unwilling to spend a penny more on weapons and equipment, and even with the previous contract, the Japanese army and navy ordered only 90,000 rifles, 1,100 machine guns, and 300 mortars, and rented another 450 mortars - but they were all small toys of 60 millimeter caliber. Moreover, the Japanese did not want either armored vehicles or military advisers, and Qin Lang and Rachel did everything they could to get them to agree to the technical services provided by Umbrella and then add a mercenary squad for "special guidance".

The Japanese only spent more than a million, but this amount of money was not enough to stuff their teeth.

Any arms dealer would have a complaint about such a customer, and that complaint is even stronger when there is some kind of backroom dealing—and O'Connor has made no secret of his opinion. "United Textile Technologies has already purchased two million dollars worth of Japanese raw silk and is ready to buy another million worth of raw silk, but that's all we can get. The benefits are all taken by other companies! ”

"The Japanese don't trust our company. Gentlemen, this is a regrettable fact. "An important member of the Japanese delegation told us privately that an official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry surnamed Kuroshima had made a number of unfavorable remarks against Umbrella—"

Black Island, Black Island again, always Black Island. Of course, who else but him? Qin Lang laughed. "Rachel, this Japanese Foreign Ministry official surnamed Kuroshima is an old friend of ours, Ren Kuroshima."

"This guy again?" Rachel raised an eyebrow, "He's such a nuisance. After so many failures, he is still causing problems for us. ”

"Either we fall, or he falls, otherwise this war will not end." The war never ends, and Hitoshi Kuroshima is nothing more than an iconic figure, and even if he fails, someone else will take his place. Qin Lang laughed again. "In the past fights, he always lost. This time, though, it looks like he's used his influence to earn himself a point. ”

"Maybe we should get rid of him." Rachel makes a bold suggestion.

"Then the Japanese will replace him with someone we don't know well." He shook his head, "You've probably heard that general and sniper joke, Rachel. ”

"Yes, you said that." Of course she remembered, so she shrugged her shoulders. "I reserve my opinion that Hitoshi Kuroshima is always a problem that we must solve, if not now, but in the near future."

"For the foreseeable future—yes, Rachel." It's been a long time since he's said that, "When the time comes." ”

Neither Rachel nor O'Connor cared when the "timing" would be ripe, only Qin Lang himself knew the answer. They naturally shifted the conversation back to the one they had started. In any case, the order of the Japanese was not a pleasant result, did not fully reach the desired goal, so much so that it was like a failure. Kuroshima made most of it, and there were others that seemed to be to blame for the conservative thinking of the Japanese military, the struggle between the army and other departments, the struggle between the army and the navy...... There was also the financial situation of the Japanese Empire.

Rachel and O'Connor were busy researching the various reasons that led to the "failure", Qin Lang didn't say a word, just sat next to him and watched quietly and listened. Everything was expected by him: the result of battering Japan's economy so thoroughly was that the Japanese would have to use every penny they received carefully, and Umbrella would lose many of the arms orders it could have gotten – some would have lost others.

As a matter of course, there is nothing to complain about, except for Hitoshi Kuroshima.

There's no need to purge this spy boss, who isn't a threat, but a little nasty, but it is necessary to teach him some deeper lessons.

Qin Lang changed into a more comfortable position in the chair and picked up his cup. "Our partners on Wall Street will soon sell Formosa to the Manchu government, so that we can get our first investment and profit back in a relatively short period of time."

"What?" It took a while for Rachel and O'Connor to react to the remarks, which had nothing to do with the topic they were discussing. "Sell Formosa to the Chinese government now?" O'Connor hesitated, wondering whether Wall Street's financiers were planning the right one, while Rachel was concerned with another, more meaningful issue. "Can the young man who became emperor not long ago be able to come up with that much money?"

She knew better than O'Connor about Qin Lang and the plans of the consortium leaders to sell Formosa to the Manchu government as soon as she took ownership of it, which was a step in the plan, and there was no need to think about what was right or what was not. But the financial situation of the Manchu government, it seems, has never been considered by anyone, as if it must have been able to come up with so much money.

Rachel's view was the opposite, that the Manchu government certainly couldn't afford to come up with such a huge sum of money: the consortium would get Formosa for 35 million dollars, which was the cost, and then add "a little" profit, and maybe the agents of Morgan, Rockefeller, and Mellon could shout out 50 million......

Perhaps a little lower, 45 million, but this figure was still unacceptable for the Manchu government, whose financial situation was even worse than that of the Japanese government.

The young emperor in Peking could not get so much money other than loans, not even through donations or the issuance of public bonds - if he or his ministers had such a modern economic concept, but they did not - the Chinese merchants and landlords already had an investment goal: to buy the rights to build the two railways that Qin Lang had taken away for the purpose of carrying out the railway fraud.

The consortium's sales agents are peddling that power in major cities along the railroad line, and are expected to fetch $100 million or more. However, after being siphoned off so much money by these cunning professional swindlers, even if His Majesty the Emperor sent his army to forcibly loot it, it would be difficult to get another forty-five million in a short period of time.

Coupled with the habitual drifting and withholding of the army and the bureaucracy, the Manchu government would have had to loot far more than that amount, or even double that amount - and thus the difficulty of the task was further increased.

"I don't think His Majesty the Emperor can meet our needs." "Unless he asks for a loan," she declared, "with certainty." ”

"In fact, that's our plan." Qin Lang said casually.

A small modified plan. Because some of the plans were going too fast, some of them were still at a predetermined pace, some were a little sluggish, and finally, some were not reasonable, Qin Lang had to constantly adjust his secret plan: according to the original idea, the Manchu government should first implement the policy of "nationalizing the railways" and then sell the rights to build the railways again to the consortium in exchange for the funds to buy Formosa. However, since the rights to build the two railways had not yet been fully sold, it was clear that the time was not ripe for the implementation of the policy of "nationalization of the railways", and Formosa was placed at the top of the list of goods, it was necessary to first provide a loan to the Manchu government, and then ask it to forcibly take back the rights to build the railways and sell it to a consortium in order to repay the loan.

It's a little complicated, but the benefits are obvious: if the railroad question were to be put before Formosa, the Manchu government could also argue that it was acting to redeem the country's sacred territory, and some would have accepted that interpretation; But now that the railroad issue is put behind Formosa, even if the Manchu government could defend itself on the same grounds, not many people would accept it.

In particular, the businessmen and landlords who had invested in the railways and had suffered heavy losses as a result of the "state-owned railways" policy now had more ample excuses to stir up trouble. An early Xinhai Revolution will be irreversibly brewed as he expected.

"What do you think?" Qin Lang smiled.

"I'm not sure, Qin." O'Connor began by saying, "In the present situation, is the consortium still capable of providing loans to the Manchu government?" ”

"Think about it again and don't jump to conclusions so quickly." Qin Lang reminded and turned to Rachel. "What do you think?"

"Boring game." "American banks sell Formosa to the Chinese, and British and French banks lend to them -- it looks like banks from three countries are involved, but in reality, money just flows from one pocket of the consortium to another." ”

"That's it."

"But it also means that we are marginalized." Rachel frowned, "It's going to be a consortium-led game from now on." ”

"As one of the weakest players in this game, this is a given." Qin Lang calmly accepted that fact. "After all, we're not a multinational consortium yet."

"That's a distant target......" she paused and asked, "when is Morgan going to make a proposal to sell Formosa?" ”

"Next week, the new emperor's enthronement parade." Qin Lang took a sip of Coke and added, "The current price is forty-eight million. ”

An intermediate value. She shrugged disapprovingly.

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I wish you dear readers a happy new year (to be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )