"These damn little bugs, they're running too fast!" Puyol, the captain of the anti-smuggling boat, lamented. These days, there are more and more people doing smuggling in the Caribbean. In the past, these guys only imported weapons and ammunition into Cuba, but now they are importing more and more kinds of items into Cuba. All kinds of industrial products are constantly smuggled by sea into the Cuban market. As a result, today's Cuban markets are full of American goods, from cloth clothing to Spam luncheon meat Spam sausages, from honeycomb coal stoves to pans, from mirrors to soaps and perfumes, almost all of them are American. Competing with cheap American products, Spanish products are almost uncompetitive.

Once upon a time, a Spanish cargo ship loaded with a shipload of industrial goods would sail across the ocean to Cuba and almost always sell out quickly, bringing with it a boatload of tobacco leaves or fine sugar on the way back. In this period of time, although the profits made are not as good as those when he controlled almost all of South America, he could load a shipload of gold or silver on the return trip with almost no capital (for example, the Spanish treasure ship Goddess of Liberation, which was discovered in the Caribbean in 03, contained 1,200 gold bars weighing 437 kilograms, 15,399 gold coins, 153 gold candlesticks, a gold-handled sword, millions of pieces of silverware, 6 pairs of jewelry earrings, a gemstone ring, and several cabinets of gems.) But barely enough to make a little money for a declining Spain.

However, now, because the market is full of American goods, the industrial level of the United States has long surpassed that of Spain, and the American products themselves are more competitive than Spanish products in terms of quality and price. Coupled with the fact that the U.S. and Cuba are closer together, U.S. goods are cheaper to ship by sea, and there is no tax cost for smuggling. So now a Spanish ship loaded with industrial goods may not be able to sell everything in two or three months after it arrives in Cuba. I also had trouble on the way back. The smuggling ships from the United States will not go back, they will also go back full of tobacco leaves and fine sugar. Their acquisitions directly caused the price of these things to rise, which also further reduced the amount of money that the Spaniards could make.

From ancient times to the present, cutting off people's financial routes is like killing parents. In the past, the Americans had nothing more than to import some weapons and ammunition, and the Spaniards did not sell these things to Cuba in the first place, so that the Americans could earn some money, although it would increase some costs for maintaining stability in the future, but at least for the time being, they could still endure it. But now, the Americans have expanded to such a process through smuggling, and even daily necessities such as soap have begun to smuggle, which is to completely cut off the financial route of the Spaniards. This is really something that an uncle can bear, and an aunt can't bear it either.

Although Cuba is small, the coastline is very long, and most of the places where the smuggling boats go ashore are so-called "highly autonomous" areas, that is, the areas controlled by those rebels, so it is impossible for the anti-smuggling teams on land to intercept these smugglers, and to intercept these smuggling ships, they can only rely on sea power.

But since the advent of the smuggling boats, which are suddenly smoking, it has become more and more difficult to intercept them at sea. Neither the cruisers of the Navy nor the small steamers of the anti-smuggling squad could catch up with those who could run more than twenty knots. Because of this, these smugglers have become more and more arrogant. In the past, they had to wait until night to drop down the small manpower boats that were specially equipped with smuggled goods and go to the smuggling business. And now, they're doing it day and night. Anyway, the ships of the Spaniards could not catch up.

In order to solve this problem, both the Spanish detachment in Cuba and the anti-smuggling unit demanded the equipment of fast ships, like the Doge's Palace. The Governor, of course, could only transmit this request back home. But there's really nothing to do in Spain. Not to mention the tall gasoline engine, or the tall steam turbine, even the general reciprocating steam engine that is not so tall and is already considered a bad street in Western countries, the level of Spain is also backwards. There's no way to make a warship or a smuggling boat that can race up to the damn American smuggling boats. As for outsourcing, this one is also very difficult. The British and Americans, who had the capacity to build steam turbines, had been cautious about selling warships with steam turbines. Not to mention the United States, as a quasi-enemy country that is eyeing Spain's Cuba, how can it sell such weapons to Spain? As for the UK, that's basically what it looks like. As soon as they heard that Spain was going to buy warships, they immediately said that they would buy me as long as you have money, and you can buy whatever you want. But if you believe them, you're stupid. In the end, the warships they took out, although from the appearance of most of the goods used by Niu Niu were exactly the same. But in terms of actual performance, compared with the Royal Navy's own use, there will always be some such characteristics: the general combat distance of foreign trade goods can not penetrate the genuine skin, the skin of foreign trade goods, in the normal combat distance, can not withstand the genuine guns, in terms of starting and running, it is always a little slower than the genuine one, and often can only sprint, can not run long.

This is the famous "monkey version of the weapon" in the international arms market, which means that the difference in performance is as big as the gap between a monkey and a human despite the appearance of the genuine weapon. It is said that in the eighties of the twentieth century, the rabbit country once wanted to buy the tall F-14 from the bald eagle (as a meow party, the saliva is direct), but he couldn't afford a small amount of money, and in the end the bald eagle was only willing to give the F-16, and then the rabbits thought that the pomegranate sister was not bad, and the white eagle family was willing to buy the production line? Then the rabbits looked at the product manual again, and then they were angry, and the White Eagle family actually replaced the turbofan engine of the F-16 with a turbojet!

The Spaniards received similar treatment with the British, who refused to want Spain to sell warships equipped with steam turbines, but only to install rotten reciprocating steam engines on the streets.

As for the gasoline engine for the dinghy, even the British did not have such technology. Still, the Spaniards found a way.

……

"Mr. Frank, there's a big client who wants to negotiate a deal with you. He wanted to order a batch of gasoline engines from us. Frank Rockefeller's secretary walked into his office with a copy and said this to him.

"Ah, Jim, didn't I say that a long time ago? We don't sell engines, we only sell cars. Frank replied without looking up. The reason for this is simple, because the production of engines is slightly higher than that of cars, but not much. Now that Volkswagen is selling very well, why sell engines? Unless the other party's bid for the engine brings a profit that can exceed the profit from the sale of the whole vehicle. And now, considering the fact that those smugglers buy engines and then sell the other parts back to Volkswagen at the price of scrap, and then Volkswagen adds another engine to it, so that it can be bought again as a new car, and now if you want to order the engine separately, unless the profit from selling the engine directly exceeds the profit from selling the whole vehicle and then recycling other parts at a low price. But how is this possible? In this way, it is better to buy the whole car directly.

"I know, Mr. Frank." The secretary replied, "But the other party is really willing to pay a lot of money." ”

"Oh? Is anyone really willing to pay such a price? Frank was taken aback.

"It's just, just Mr. Frank, there might be something wrong with where this guy came from...... You know I'm not talking about gangsters or smugglers, that's not a problem. I mean, he could be Spaniard. ”

"Spaniards?" Frank thought about it and roughly understood what was going on. The Spaniards were now in dire need of a smuggling boat that could run fast enough to deal with the smuggling boats. Honestly, it's a good deal. When the government buys something, as long as it is willing to give a good rebate, it can get a very beautiful price. And for Volkswagen, the speed race between the two sides in the Caribbean will only make Volkswagen earn more and more. However, some other enterprises of the Macdonald consortium also benefited from smuggling to Cuba, and once the strength of the Spaniards' anti-smuggling squad was strengthened, it would also have a certain impact on the sales of other products of the McDonald consortium. At least Frank can't make that judgment. So he decided to slow down for a while, report the matter to Scrooge, and let Scrooge, the head of the consortium, make the decision.

……

"Dorothea, do you think we should sell gasoline engines to the Spaniards?" Scrooge waited quietly for Dorothea to read all the material, including an investigation into the identity of the person who made the order, including the offer from the Spaniards, including an assessment of the possible profits and the losses that would be incurred.

"Your material is wrong." Dorothea sneered and said, "Your materials don't take into account the profits that those smugglers can bring us by upgrading their equipment to improve their smuggling abilities. For example, now there is usually only one engine per ship, and if the Spaniards had a ship with a petrol engine, the captains would quickly order more engines from us, for example, two or even three engines on the ship. I think that as long as we control the number and skill of the engines for the Spaniards, we will be able to create a race of speed in the Caribbean without losing more in other areas, or even in other areas, and thus profit from our engines and even shipbuilding. ”

"The person who makes the assessment can only make an assessment of the current state, and he has no right to imagine future changes arbitrarily. This is our job and our power. Feel free they didn't take into account what you said, that's normal. Scrooge smiled and said, "Don't you think about it, is it good for the country to arm the Spaniards?" ”

"Come less!" Dorothea pouted, "We need the country, we need it to serve our interests, not to have the opportunity to serve it." Leave it to death! ”