Then came the process of bargaining, and the Boer government officials, of course, wanted to spend less, and they tried to keep the price down, or to remove as many unnecessary or inefficient items as possible from the plans offered by Donald. For example, in the design of the Johannesburg fortress, they cut down a lot of tall things, for example, they cut the tunnels between the various fortresses into communication trenches, and succeeded in cutting the number of machine gun pillboxes by one-third.

In the original design, in addition to six fortress guns, there were supposed to be twenty 75-mm armor guns. As a result, after a series of bargaining, it was cut in half, leaving ten doors. There were also radio stations, which were originally built according to Donald's version of the luxury construction plan, one for each battalion. But in the end, government officials managed to cut it down to one regiment.

In fact, Donald's deluxe plans were a little too lavish in themselves, and if he had followed his plan, in many respects the average level of equipment of the Boer armies would have greatly exceeded that of the European armies of the same era. For example, radio stations, in Europe, this thing has only been popularized to the division level, and in Donald's plan, he actually wants to popularize it to the battalion level. In the eyes of government officials, this is, of course, the Yankees trying to figure out ways to cheat money. Therefore, at the beginning, they also planned to neatly cut the radio station to one set of division-level units, or even one set of strategic directions. But to their surprise, it was not the Americans who stood up against them first, but the Boer generals.

"Our situation is not the same as in Europe!" The officers, who did not know whether they had been influenced by the Yankees' "new tactical thinking" or whether they might have commercial kickbacks or something else, immediately stood up and spoke for the Americans. For example, General Piert Cronye, after discussing with Blackwater's tactical advisers, immediately became an ardent proponent of the need for every battalion to have a radio:

"In Europe, there is a high density of troops on the fronts, and the distance between each division is very limited. The distance between the regiments below the division was smaller, and the use of heralds on horseback to ensure that orders were transmitted to the individual units on time. And we fight differently. It is impossible for us to build an army of up to a million like the European countries, and we cannot maintain a front with such a high density of troops. Once the main British forces arrived, our tactics were to rely on Johannesburg to attract the main British forces, while our troops penetrated into the enemy's rear to attack the enemy's logistical lines. We all have horses, and we all have horses, so we have a mobility advantage. Operating in the rear of the enemy, the size of our troops cannot be too large, and each team can at most equip the radio to the battalion level, so that our troops will be very flexible when attacking the enemy's logistics lines.

Gentlemen, imagine that the vast field from Cape Town to Johannesburg was full of our cavalry, and the logistics of the British were simply not an inch. In order to ensure their own logistics line, the British had to make the logistics team large and equipped these logistics teams with a large number of escorts. If you don't have a large number of radio stations, this trick may be effective. Because if our attacking force is small in number, it will not be able to beat such a logistics team. If the size of our assault force is too large, then our own goals will be too large, and at the same time there will be problems with our own logistics. But with the radio, it's all different. We can use battalions as units to spread out in the vast fields, and if we find small groups of enemy logistics teams, they will take them out on their own. If there is a logistics team with a large number of military escorts, our people can send the information back through the guò radio. Then our commander can use the guò radio to concentrate the small forces scattered all over the place and destroy the enemy in one fell swoop.

In this way, the enemy's maintenance of the logistical supply of the attacking forces becomes an extremely dangerous, extremely difficult thing. Then the cost of their attack on us will be unbearable. Perhaps given the enormous cost, the British would have retreated. And in this series of scenarios, the role of radio is very crucial. Without it, we would not be able to execute such a powerful tactic. ”

At the insistence of the generals, the administrative officers' attempt to reduce the radio station from battalion to division level failed shamefully, and they were finally reduced to the regimental level, and were forced to agree to equip each regimental headquarters with a mobile backup radio station, so that the regimental commander could strengthen it in the direction he felt was important.

As a result, the actual cost of cutting is much less than expected. But even so, General Pierte Cronye, in his war memoirs "A Victory That Should Not Be Lost", complained that the Transvaal Republic might not have lost the battle if the government officials had only been bent on saving money.

"If we had built the Johannesburg fortress complex as originally designed, the blockhouses would have been connected by closed tunnels so that our soldiers could take refuge in these tunnels when the enemy used chemical gas against us. The fortress will not be lost. If the fortress is not lost, it will be difficult for the British to turn their forces, and if this continues, the situation will become more and more favorable to us. However, in order to save construction costs, they turned the closed tunnels into open traffic trenches. As a result, our fortress was powerless to resist the enemy's frenzied gas attack......"

Anyway, with the cooperation of the Boer generals, the Donald and the government of the Transvaal Republic still signed a large contract that included new arms orders, large-scale fortress construction, and large-scale military training and public opinion propaganda, with a contract amount of up to 3 million pounds, which is converted into 14.4 million US dollars, 21.966 tons of gold, and 11.76 million taels of silver if converted into Kuping silver of our Qing Dynasty!

With such a big contract, Donald went back to the United States with satisfaction, leaving some relevant personnel to continue to provide various after-sales services to the Boers. He was accompanied by a number of young Boer students who would go to the United States to receive a newer and better education so that the Boers could keep up with the latest scientific and technological developments in the future. Of course, according to the results of scientific research in a certain large country in later generations, the IQ of children from rich families is higher than that of poor families, so among these students, they are from good backgrounds, their families are rich and powerful, and there are many elders in the government, the army, and other key departments. Of course, this proves that the IQ of the children of rich families is high, and there are absolutely no other problems.

……

"Mr. Rhodes, we have new information from the Transvaal." A man wearing a top hat with a white brim reported to Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the British Cape Colony.

Cecil Rhodes was also an absolute legend at the time, the founder of the famous "De Beers Mining Company". What the? "De Beers Mining Company" haven't you heard of either? So "Kimberley", and "a diamond is eternal, a forever" This nonsense saying that has fooled a lot of women has always heard of it, right? What the? Don't even know this? So, be strict, don't quibble, you're a!

Cecil Rhodes is a well-known mining magnate whose main business is gold and diamond mining. Although the Boers were very wary of British capital and very unfriendly, he became the largest mine owner of the Witwatersrand Gold Mine, the world's largest gold mine, in Johannesburg thanks to his excellent economic means. From the diamond and gold mines, Cecil Rhodes made a profit of more than £8 million a year.

However, "the richer he is, the more he refuses to relax", and although he made a lot of money in the Witwatersrand gold mines, he was still very, very unhappy with the heavy taxes imposed on his gold mines by the Boers. As a result, he became the strongest supporter of the policy of annexing the Transvaal. Not only did he spend money to support politicians who supported expansionist policies, but he also jumped out to run for prime minister of the Cape Colony.

During his tenure as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, he was indeed very effective, and he seized the region along the Zambezi River by guò despicable means of deception and warfare, and renamed it Rhodesia, forming a north-south attack on the Transvaal Republic, and his next goal was to annex the Transvaal Republic.

"What's the news?" Cecil Rhodes didn't care much at first. Because the news of the so-called large quantities of arms after the Americans sent to the Transvaal seems to have been proven to be false - those damned intelligence officers recognized Brazilian sumu as a cannon barrel. So he thought it was the greedy Boers who had come up with some new tax.

"The Americans' arms arrived in the Transvaal." The man replied, and gave the information to Cecil Rhodes.

"Damn rebellion!" Cecil Rhodes scolded. In this steadfast emperor. Country. Host. In the eyes of the righteous, the United States of America is nothing more than a bunch of traitors. It is said that in history, this guy also set up a "Rhodes Scholarship" at Oxford University to sponsor American students to study at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and its purpose was actually to cultivate a fifth column of "love the motherland" among Americans, so as to prepare for the suppression of rebels and the recovery of North America in the future.

After carefully reading the information, Cecil Rhodes made up his mind: "The plan to annex the Transvaal must be accelerated. ”