Soon, Zhou Suoquan, who was in New York, received a telegram from China, saying that China had authorized him to negotiate with the United States about the sale of the 1858 Linde rifle.

But on the telegram, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also asked him to try his best to get the Americans to purchase their stockpile of Mini rifles, which is a retired stock of more than 100,000 units, and it is better to sell one than rot in the warehouse.

At the same time, he also hoped that he would be able to sell some other domestic ordnance and other related products to the United States, and also attached a list of product catalogs.

Among them, there are front-loading rifled iron-cast guns produced by Jinling Arsenal, large-caliber rear-loading rifled guns from Linde Machinery Factory, ironclad ships from Shanghai Shipyard, and so on.

With the expectations of many domestic defense industry manufacturers, Zhou Suoquan once again found John and other US military and political dignitaries who were responsible for the procurement of ordnance from the US Northern Government Army.

After learning that China was willing to export the 1858 Linde rifle, John and others were full of smiles, and even did not object to the bundled sales proposed by Zhou Suoquan, and directly agreed.

The so-called bundling means that if the northern government of the United States wants to purchase the 1858 Linde rifle, it must also purchase the 1856 Mini rifle or artillery or even a battleship.

In short, the 1858 Linde rifle is not only sold, but if you want to buy it, you have to buy some other weapons of the Chinese Empire that are not very competitive.

After the two sides reached a preliminary purchase intention, soon the two sides had relevant detailed negotiations!

Five days later, the negotiating teams of both sides reached an agreement and signed a procurement contract, which was not an official contract between the two parties. Rather, it is a commercial contract between the New York Ocean Trading Company of the United States and the Shanghai Textile Company of China.

Naturally, this trading company in the United States is the official backing, and its main mission is to procure all kinds of war materials from all over the world for the governments of the North.

The reason why the Chinese side chose Shanghai Textile Company. It is because this company is the only one in the royal industry with the ability to trade in the ocean, and there are even many enterprises in China among the many enterprises in the royal industry. Only this company has a branch in New York, USA, and it is more convenient to sign a contract, otherwise it will have to ask several domestic defense companies to send people to sign the contract, and it will take several months to go back and forth.

Moreover, the enterprises of the royal industry are generally wholly owned by the royal family, especially these national defense enterprises are basically 100% controlled by the royal family, so there is no problem of interest distribution and other problems for Shanghai Textile Company to directly act as an agent for domestic enterprises to sign contracts for trade.

Since this contract was only an ordinary commercial contract, there was no messy political treaty clause, and the main content was that the New York Ocean Trading Company of the United States purchased 10,000 1858 Linde rifles and 24 1859 12-pounder front-loading rifled guns from the Shanghai Textile Company. 30,000 second-hand decommissioned 1856 Linde rifles.

The United States was also fully prepared for this purchase, for fear that the Chinese side would fool itself, so it specially specified in the contract that the 1858 Linde rifle must be the original new gun produced by the Linde Machine Factory, and did not want inferior goods produced by several other Chinese arsenals with patent licenses.

At the same time, as for the second-hand 1856 Linde rifle, it must be more than eighty percent new and well-maintained, and it must not be made up with the kind of rifling that has been run out.

In addition, at the beginning, they asked the Shanghai Textile Company to organize its own transportation, but the Shanghai Textile Company did not have many ocean-going ships at all, and the only few were ocean-going production in cooperation with other domestic raw silk enterprises. Moreover, it is also busy running European routes all year round, and it is impossible to move such a large number of ordnance to the United States.

Later, the American side said that it could organize its own transportation, but the price must be favorable, and the Chinese side must prepare the goods and wait for transportation at the Shanghai port within two months after the date of signing the contract. The U.S. side would then hire British merchant ships to transport the goods to the U.S.

After this contract was signed, several domestic defense industry-related enterprises couldn't close their mouths with laughter, especially the Linde Machinery Factory. The order for 10,000 Linde rifles of the 1858 model was not a large number, but it took them less than two months to produce them at full capacity.

But the profit is higher than the order of the military for a year!

In the early years of the Imperial Army, the purchase price of the 1858 Linde rifle was relatively high. However, in the last two years, as the technology of this rifle has matured, production has increased. The cost was further apportioned, and more importantly, the Jinling Arsenal, Changsha Arsenal, and Tianjin Arsenal also successively obtained patent authorization and produced the gun, which further led to the decline in the purchase price of this rifle.

At present, the purchase price of the gun by the Imperial Army, depending on the manufacturer, is basically maintained between 46 and 48 yuan, which is equivalent to about 10 pounds sterling.

However, the cost of producing this rifle in all aspects of Linde Machinery Factory is about nine pounds, after all, the cost of producing a product is not only the manufacturing cost, but also the initial R&D investment, the subsequent technology research and development update, as well as the construction of the production line and the training of personnel.

However, for exports to the United States, the first offer was directly quoted at 18 pounds each, and after bargaining, the two sides closed for 15 pounds.

You must know that before Linde Machinery Company produced this kind of rifle, the gross profit of each rifle was only about one pound, and now the gross profit of each rifle has suddenly increased to six pounds, in other words, the same production of this rifle, but the gross profit of the production of American orders is six times that of the domestic military orders, so you can imagine how big the increase in profits is.

Linde Machinery Factory is happy, several other arsenals are also good, although they can not get export orders, but who makes them inferior to people, but Linde Machinery Factory has limited production capacity, and now it has received so many orders from the United States, naturally there is no way to continue to produce military orders, and the corresponding orders will be divided by several other arsenals in China.

And the military's order for hundreds of thousands of rifles is larger than that of the United States, although the profit is less, but it adds up to a lot.

In addition, the military is also very happy. The decommissioned 1856 Linde rifle was sold at once, although the price was not high. It's only five pounds a piece, but even if it's cheap, it's much better than throwing it in the warehouse and rotting. If there are more than 100,000 pounds, it can also relieve the pressure on the military to change clothes to a certain extent.

Besides, it's not cheap, and the brand-new 1853 Enfield rifle sold by the British to the United States is only about six pounds, and even some second-hand goods in stock are even cheaper, and their price is less than five pounds.

The reason why the price can be sold more expensive than the second-hand 1853 Enfield rifle of the British is mainly because of the light of the 1858 Linde rifle.

After all, the reason why the Americans purchased this batch of 1856 Linde rifles was clearly just to buy the 1858 Linde rifles, otherwise they would have bought the British 1853 Enfield rifles. Cheap and easy to use.

However, although the Americans bought these second-hand 1856 Linde rifles at a small loss in price, they were not as expensive as that, and the price difference was only a few shillings, and the Americans said that they were not bad for this money.

The 1856 Linde rifle is actually the Chinese version of the 1853 Enfield, and the performance and operation of both are similar, and the Americans will not have logistical supply troubles and soldiers who are not suitable for operation because they are equipped with both the 1853 Enfield rifle and the 1856 Linde rifle.

After learning that he had successfully signed a contract with the northern government of the United States, Lin Zhe's heart was full of sighs!

In later generations, someone told him that the Americans actually purchased ordnance products from China. And it is also the most important core ordnance product, which will definitely not be believed.

But who would have thought that the Americans in the mid-nineteenth century would actually purchase ordnance products from China!

You must know that although rifles and artillery may sound simple in these days, they are no less important to a country's military power than tanks and planes in later generations. They are all weapons that can directly affect the outcome of a war.

It is a pity that this kind of exclamation can only be hidden deep in the heart, at least in these years, no one thinks that the United States is so unreasonable to purchase arms products from China.

This time the order is a good start. However, the civil war in the United States could not be fought in a day or two, and it was not only the northern government that purchased guns and artillery. In fact, the Confederation of the South is the main force of procurement.

Because the northern government itself has a good industrial base, although they also purchase ordnance products from Britain and China. But this is mainly to supplement the lack of its own production.

However, in the case of the Southern Federation, there are many plantations, but there are really few factories, so it is very difficult for them to mass-produce ordnance weapons.

So they are more dependent on imports!

No, the news that the Northern government had purchased a batch of rear-loading rifles, as well as Mini rifles and front-loading rifled guns from China, was learned by the people of the Southern Federation within a few days.

A few days later, Zhou Suoquan received a secret envoy from the Southern Federation.

In front of Zhou Suoquan, this young envoy, who was about 30 years old, took out a cashier's note from a British bank, with a large two words on it and many zeros behind it.

Thirty thousand 1858 breech-loading rifles and at least fifty rifled guns were to be procured.

And when Zhou Suoquan said that his 1858 rear-loading rifle was sold with a second-hand 1856 Linde rifle, the envoy didn't blink!

"Then order another 50,000 words of your Mini rifle!"

Zhou Suoquan assured that he began to work in the Lin family firm when he was a teenager, entered the Lin Zhe shogunate at the age of 34 to engage in foreign liaison, and became the first minister of the empire to the Americas at the age of 46 and concurrently served as the minister to the United States.

But it was the first time I had met such a bold person, as if the hundreds of thousands of pounds of cashier's check in his hand was not money, and he threw it over.

So, before Zhou Suoquan could figure out what was going on, he had already signed an ordnance sales contract with the Southern Union of the United States in a daze.

Also through the Shanghai Textile Company, the Confederation ordered 30,000 Linde rifles of the 1858 model at one time, and considering the efficiency of the Linde Machine Factory's production capacity, the Confederation allowed several other Chinese arsenals to undertake this order.

In addition, 50,000 decommissioned 1856 Linde rifles, 50 front-loading rifled guns, and 20 large-caliber mortar guns were also procured from the Chinese Army.

The most surprising thing is that after hearing that the Shanghai shipyard was building ironclad ships, they directly placed an order for an ironclad ship with the Shanghai shipyard. (To be continued.) )