There was a bottle of Scotch whisky on the coffee table, Mu Yichen poured himself a glass, tilted his neck and drank it, the stimulation of alcohol made the deputy general manager of Springfield & Co. excited, and three months ago, he was just an international student who would blush when he drank.

During this period of time, Mu Yichen was not idle, he has been studying international trade and weapons and equipment diligently, fortunately, he laid a deep foundation in English when he was studying at St. John's University, and later studied at Humboldt University in Germany.

Like many leather bag companies in Shanghai, Springfield & Co. only has a rented office room and a pitiful amount of liquidity, and even the typists who graduated from the girls' middle school can't afford to hire them, so they all rely on the manager to run around and be abducted and cheated to survive, but the first shot of the Chuntian Foreign Company shocked the entire Sassoon Building, and even those foreigners were amazed.

Importing 10,000 rifles is naturally nothing to old foreign companies such as Lihe Foreign Company and Swire Foreign Company, but for a small foreign company that has been established for less than half a year and is not well-known, this is already a super big deal, and the import is still an American rifle that is rarely seen in China.

Speaking of Mu Yichen until now, he can't believe his good luck, he has a full understanding of the international arms trade, taking the best-selling German 79 caliber rifle as an example, the price of the Hanyang Arsenal is about 40 yuan, and the import price of the original German Mauser is about 100 yuan, in fact, the German industry is developed, the steel can be self-sufficient, unlike the Hanyang factory, even the gun steel has to be imported, under the mechanized large-scale production, the cost should be lower than that of the national goods, which also shows the huge profits of the arms business.

The industrial level of the United States is by no means inferior to that of Germany, and it can be inferred from this that the cost of American-made rifles should be about $15, that is, about 30 silver dollars, and the United States is willing to sell 10,000 rifles at a price of $10 below the cost.

The most important thing is that this batch of goods does not have to pay for it herself, Emily really worked, and Mr. Aba Burnell, the president of the Hillman Bank of Boston, was willing to take out a full loan to fund the purchase of guns by Chen Zikun, who had been on the cover of "Time".

The U.S. War Department's Surplus Materials Management Office and Springfield Arsenal were doing business with Springfield, and it only took a few dozen telegrams to each other to finalize the matter, although with the help of Major Allen and Emily, Mu Yichen still felt that things were going too smoothly.

But he still signed the contract without hesitation, there is no such shop in this village, he knows very well what the Americans have about their ideas, it is nothing more than two points, one is to open the Chinese market, the other is to sell bullets, the M1917 rifle is a modified version of the P14 rifle produced by Winchester and Remington Arsenal for the United Kingdom, using American 30-06 bullets, there is no other way than to order American goods.

In the early years, foreigners seized the psychology of the Chinese greedy for small bargains, sent kerosene lamps for nothing, sold kerosene at high prices, and earned enough silver for the people of the Qing Dynasty.

Tonight, Mu Yichen was so drunk that he ran downstairs to the Che Mansion to shout Qiu Ling's name, but he was beaten up by the servants of the Che family and sent directly to the patrol room, and Li Yaoting came forward to bail him out the next day.

Maybe Mu Yichen was drunk in the prison room of the patrol room and spit out the truth, or maybe someone in the United States deliberately leaked the news, in short, the news that Springfield & Co. had a large supply of low-cost rifles spread far and wide, and the news spread on Shanghai Beach was boiling, and Zhang Xiaolin also received the news, he knew that Chuntian & Co. was Chen Zikun's industry, and his eyes turned to his heart.

Two days later, the Jiangdong Provincial City of Sun Inspector Army received information that the Jiangbei Protector Army had sent Chen Zikun to purchase 10,000 advanced Remington rifles from the United States! At this time, he panicked and hurriedly convened a meeting of civil and military officials.

Recently, Jiangbei has been happy, several bandits who have been rampant for many years have been recruited, Chen Zikun's strength has expanded rapidly, and it has far exceeded the establishment of a brigade, but Sun Kaiqin did not take it to heart, but gloated a little, because he knew that Nantai's economy was not enough to support the army of five thousand, the more recruits, the more losses, these bandits are white-eyed wolves who are not familiar with feeding, and there is a possibility of mutiny at any time, he is waiting to see Chen Zikun's jokes.

But after the arrival of these 10,000 rifles, the situation is very different, there are soldiers and guns, are you afraid that there is no money, the expansion of the military war surnamed Chen is nothing more than coveting Jiangnan, now Sun Kaiqin can't sit still, how can he allow others to sleep next to the couch, not to mention an opponent who is eyeing the tiger.

The military meeting was held all night, and some subordinates threatened to wave their troops north to annihilate the Chen Department in one fell swoop, this suggestion was vetoed by Sun Kaiqin on the spot, Chen Zikun was just Wu Peifu's pawn, and the 5,000 people were destroyed, but Luoyang's 100,000 direct troops would immediately go south, and then the Jiangdong fathers and elders would not be able to hold on.

It was still Xia Jingqi and Adjutant Xia who made a move: "Robbery!" ”

Didn't Chen Zikun purchase rifles from the United States, this batch of goods must be unloaded at the Shanghai wharf, and then transported to Jiangbei by water or land, no matter how it goes, it will pass through the territory controlled by Sun Dujun, and when the time comes, send someone to rob this batch of guns, and naturally everything will be fine.

Last time, Jiangbei made a move to secretly cross Chen Cang on the plank road, and successfully transported a batch of pistols back to Nantai, this time it was different, the volume and weight of 10,000 rifles were extremely large, and they couldn't cover it up, and with the intelligence support of Zhang Xiaolin and Boss Zhang, they would definitely not be able to run.

Sun Kaiqin was overjoyed and let Xia Jingqi be in charge of this matter, and there must be no more mistakes.

"If there is a bullet and a bullet transported to Jiangbei, you will come and see you." Sun Dujun gave the order to die.

"Yes!" Xia Jingqi snapped upright, murderous and full of ambition.

……

A month later, the freighter from San Francisco slowly sailed into the Huangpu River, the cold wind was biting, two black Chevrolet cars were parked on the 16th Pu Wharf, and several men in tweed coats and top hats stood by the river, with cigarette butts at their feet, thinking that they had been waiting for a long time.

Mu Yichen, the head of Springfield & Co., and Li Yaoting, the major shareholder, personally went to the wharf to pick up the goods, and looked at the boxes of wooden boxes with the emblem of the US government carried off the ship, and the two looked at each other, with joy in their eyebrows.

Along with the arrival of 10,000 rifles, several American guests, including Allen Brown, the nominal general manager of Springfield. Mr. King, along with a sales manager from Springfield Arsenal and an accountant at Hillman Bank in Boston, as well as a lawyer.

The wooden box was temporarily moved into the rented warehouse of Swire & Co., which was guarded by British troops and very safe, and Li Yaoting warmly entertained the American guests, inviting them to live in the most luxurious restaurant on the beach, eat the most authentic French food, and play with the most beautiful White Russian girls, so that these American Tutiao could see what the first metropolis in the Far East is.

At night, a Chinese watchman passed by in front of the warehouse with a bangzi, and saw that the British soldiers standing guard did not notice this, and quietly made a gesture, and a few black shadows jumped down from the wall, twisted the wire and sneaked into the warehouse, pried open a wooden box, and opened the filling, which was twelve long strips wrapped in oilcloth stuck in the slot, and cut the oilcloth with a dagger, and a rifle coated with thick butter came into view, and a bayonet with an iron scabbard was tied next to it.

The black shadow carefully still wrapped the gun in the tarpaulin and carried it on his back, covered the box, and returned the way he came, but unfortunately there was a British soldier passing by, and saw a thief coming out of the warehouse, and hurriedly shouted loudly, and suddenly the searchlight came over, and the sound of pulling the bolt came from the sentry box, and the black shadow saw that the situation was not good, and went to the wall with a whoosh, and the movement was as neat as a cat.

Half an hour later, the gun was sent to the study of Zhang's mansion, and sitting opposite Zhang Xiaolin was Xia Jingqi, who was dressed in civilian clothes, he stroked the gun and exclaimed: "What a new gun." ”

Zhang Xiaolin smoked a big cigar and swallowed the clouds: "Adjutant Xia, Allah didn't lie to Nong, the little red guy surnamed Chen bought 10,000 American spears, you have to be careful." ”

Xia Jingqi's expression was grim: "Thanks to Boss Zhang's report, Inspector Sun will definitely thank you." ”

Zhang Xiaolin waved his hand casually: "Gossip." ”

When the news of the theft of Swire & Co. reached Mu Yichen's ears, he was very glad that if he hadn't taken precautions and signed an additional contract with the American businessman, it would have been a bit troublesome.

This batch of goods was delayed in the warehouse for a few days, and after completing the customs formalities, it was loaded onto the shallower draft Taikoo Yangxing river vessel, entered the Huaijiang River through the Yangtze River waterway, and was transported to Nantai.

This time, Adjutant Xia was not fooled again, and the intelligence work was done quite accurately, and he bought off the sailors on the river ship to confirm that it was indeed a rifle and not something else that was carried on board.

Pegasus rushed back to the provincial capital to report, Sun Kaiqin held a meeting again to discuss countermeasures, Swire foreign steamers are not as good as Chinese cargo ships, robbery when they say robbery, killing if they say killing, no one can afford to move foreigners, so it is a little inappropriate to pretend to be a bandit again.

Someone suggested that this batch of goods was bought by Chen Zikun anyway, so why don't we come forward to confiscate the prohibited materials in our official capacity, in short, if we don't move the steamer, we won't hurt the foreigners.

Sun Kaiqin still shook his head: "It's not proper, the foreigner's ship can't move." ”

Xia Jingqi said: "Dashuai, I have a plan, the steamer of Swire Ocean Company will be refueled with coal at the wharf of the provincial capital, and when the time comes, the goods can be detained without offending the British." ”

Sun Kaiqin was overjoyed: "Xiao Xia, you are really a talent, you are a lieutenant Qu Cai, when this matter is done, I will get you a chief of staff." ”

Xia Jingqi said happily: "Xie Dashuai cultivates. ”