Although secrecy was again emphasized, the news of the agreement between the Manchus and the shipyards of Chile and the United States was revealed by Japanese newspapers. Of course, this is again due to leaks from the Manchu government. After the news broke, representatives of the Japanese government lodged a "solemn protest" against the Manchu and Chilean governments, as well as the US government. However, such protests were completely ineffective, and the Chilean government said that "our agreement is not directed against any third country, but only a completely reasonable and legal move between Chile and China to ensure peace in the Pacific." The protest of the Japanese government is completely unjustified. As for the U.S. government, it simply said: "This is just a normal business operation of an American company, and the U.S. government doesn't see anything wrong with it." Could it be that Japan can order warships from other countries, while Chile or China cannot order warships from the United States? ”

Of course, the arrogant Manchu government did not take Japan into account at all. There was not even a reply to Japan's protests.

Of course, the Japanese side is not completely talking, and just two days after the news of the agreement was revealed, Emperor Meiji of Japan issued a call for donations to the Japanese people. Emperor Meiji declared that he would eat one less meal a day and use the money saved to buy new warships for the Japanese Navy.

Under the leadership of Emperor Meiji, Japan set off a wave of donations to buy warships. The mobilization capacity of the industrialized countries is far from being comparable to that of the feudal countries. The whole of Japan, from the Chinese (the name of the Japanese aristocracy) to the Japanese prostitutes who earn foreign exchange in foreign countries. Female, it can be said that except for Japanese farmers, they all took out their own money jars and donated more or less to the government. Taking advantage of the situation, the Japanese government took the lead in subscribing to a number of treasury bonds, and then various enterprises also bought treasury bonds. In just a few months, the Japanese government has collected more than 60 million yen in funds through fundraising and the purchase of government bonds.

The yen of this era was not the kind of thing that people in later generations were accustomed to having a ratio of about 100 to 1 to the dollar. This amount of money is even more than half of Japan's annual fiscal revenue.

……

"We have received news that Japan has begun to make additional requests for ships from the United Kingdom, and at the same time has made requests for ships from France and Germany." Bond reported to Scrooge.

"What warships did they order?" Scrooge asked.

"We don't know that yet. But it should be something similar to the warship they ordered now. Bond replied.

"Ah, I see." Scrooge said.

At this time, the phone on Scrooge's desk suddenly rang. The secretary picked up the earpiece, put it to his ear, then took it off again, covered the lower end with his hand, and said to Scrooge, "Mr. MacDonald, it's Mr. Morgan's phone." ”

After successfully pitting Morgan, the relationship between the MacDonald family and the Morgan family is not as close as it once was. However, as the saying goes, there are no permanent friends, and there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. So after that, although the two consortia will inevitably still have some fights, today you pit me, tomorrow I pit you too many things to count, but this does not mean that the two have really become mortal enemies. Although there are not as many people as before when the two families partner to pit people, it is not nothing. Even now, the two industries are often integrated into the same enterprise, and the struggle between the two sides is more often about competing for the control of some enterprises.

Scrooge stretched out his hand to take the phone from the secretary and said, "Is it Mr. Morgan?" Why did you suddenly remember to call me? His tone was very affectionate, and if you didn't know it, just listening to this voice, most of you would think that Scrooge and Morgan were good friends.

"Oh, Mr. MacDonald." Morgan said by phone, "I was approached by some Japanese who wanted to make a deal with our shipyard." I know you're fiddling with things in the Far East and want to hear your opinion. ”

The Japanese actually went to Morgan, and they would be willing to do business with the shipyards owned by the MacDonald consortium that had just messed up their mess. This was a bit of a surprise to Scrooge.

"What deal do they want to negotiate with us?" Scrooge asked.

"They want to order warships from us." "It's exactly the same as the warships we've built for Chile," Morgan said. And they want us to let the warships they ordered be delivered before the warships of the Chileans. ”

Scrooge couldn't help but laugh, it seemed that the Japanese really understood the characteristics of those guys, including Morgan and himself—all for profit, for profit.

"What's there to hesitate about." "We are doing this deal, and as long as the U.S. government does not prohibit arms sales to Japan, we can do this business with them," Scrooge said. Whose money isn't money? ”

Anyway, the Japanese have money in their hands, and they can always buy warships, and even if they don't sell them themselves, they will definitely be able to buy these things somewhere else. Besides, no matter how this battle was fought, Scrooge felt that Japan's victory was inevitable. In this case, it is better to let others earn this money, than to let yourself earn it. When this money is in the hands of others, it will not be beneficial to China at all, but in their own hands, after the defeat of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, they can still go to China to run education, run newspapers, and open up people's wisdom. Although subjectively, this is still done to make money, but objectively it is definitely good for China.

"Since you see it that way, then I will agree. In addition, the Japanese indicated to us that if we could push back the delivery date of the warships built for Chile, then they would be willing to pay us more for them. You can see that the actions you have made them feel very stressed. Morgan's voice was smiling.

"That's what we're supposed to do." Scrooge didn't know what was going on, and suddenly such a sentence came out. Then he said to Morgan: "The Japanese have recently bought a lot of warships, didn't you take the opportunity to ask them for agency financing?" ”

"Absolutely. However, the Japanese do not need this at the moment. Unless you can sell the Chinese another fleet in one go. Morgan said.

It is obviously impossible to sell another fleet to China in one go, and even if a certain "Lafayette" suddenly becomes ill and sells the Summer Palace, he will not be able to come up with so much money. And even if "Lafayette" got so much money, Scrooge didn't have enough capacity here to build such a large number of warships. Of course, he could let out some rumors that the Manchus had ordered more warships from him. But the Japanese are not stupid, and the capacity of the Morgan-MacDonald shipyard can only be found by looking at the number of dry docks, as well as the number of ships they have built over the years. You can't fool those little Japan. Alas, if only they could be as easy to deceive as the Manchus of today, or the Heisei Dead House many years from now.

"It can't be done." "But I don't think it's very likely that the Japanese will buy warships from us in the future." If you can make money once, make money once. Ah, by the way, you can lie to the Japanese and say that we secretly built an underwater warship for the Manchus. Specifically designed to raid moorings. Let's see if we can trick them into ordering another batch of patrol boats from us. ”

Tips: The new domain name "biquge.info" has been launched by Biquge, and the original domain name is about to be discontinued. Please tell each other, thank you!