Seeing You Yihan cherish these numbers, He Xi immediately labeled him as a "keyboard military strategist" in his heart. This is not that there is a big discrepancy in the numbers listed by You Yihan, but that his understanding of the US national policy is still too superficial. For the national level, whether it is military or economic means, its purpose is to serve the political and national interests, and perhaps external means will affect the decision-making of the government in a certain way, but that is not the kind of "submission" that You Yihan understands.

Clausewitz said in On War that "war is nothing more than the continuation of another means of government," which fully illustrates the substantive role of military means in foreign policy. Waging war with foreign countries or simply exporting arms is not just to make the military-industrial complex behind it gain massive profits, but mainly to achieve certain political goals. The executive committee's policy can be said to be very close to this theory, whether it is economic or military means, it is aimed at the long-term interests of the group, not simply to make money or expand territory.

If, as You Yihan understood, the country's foreign policy would be "subjugated" by the interests of the military-industrial complex, then the US arms embargo decree on a certain major country would have long since become a dead letter.

But one thing You Yihan is right, if there are more interests in front of various units, it can indeed prompt the crossing group to set up a military-industrial complex to coordinate the management of military projects. The essence of the current confusion in the development of the military industry is caused by the lack of clarity and perfection in the internal management system and the distribution of responsibilities and powers, and is not just the mistake of a few units or decision-making levels. Fortunately, everyone's starting point is to do a good job and promote development, and there is no such person here who wants to rely on spraying high-level officials to save a sense of zài, and such people will definitely jump out and accuse "this qiē is a problem of the system", and the only solution they can propose is to "overthrow the existing system".

Of course, if there is such a person in the crossing group, then the most likely thing to happen is not that this kind of mouthpiece will become a leader of public opinion and a grassroots V, but that it will quickly disappear from the public eye and be sent by the executive committee to the black soil port or the exploration team in the deep mountains to do things. The tricks of the street politicians, everyone has seen a lot before the crossing, and the crossing group does not need clown-like characters to lead the public opinion, which has been repeatedly emphasized in the collective training before the crossing, so the members also have a bottom line in their hearts. Even the Ministry of Information Industry, which holds the mouthpiece of public opinion, must obey the decision-making opinions of the Executive Committee.

However, even if He Xi doesn't quite agree with You Yihan's opinion, he will not immediately refute the other party's statement. Before the second echelon came to Guangzhou, Schneider and He Xi made full communication, believing that the people selected by the Executive Committee to come to Guangzhou must have a certain working ability, but other aspects, especially ideological understanding, may not all be at the same pace as the Executive Committee, and it remains to be seen whether these people can be used and how they should be used after they arrive at the Guangzhou Office. Schneider and He Xi are both good at observing words and feelings, and after a short period of contact, they can naturally have a general understanding of these people's ideas and concepts.

Today's induction banquet just provided such an opportunity, after the three rounds of drinking, everyone has relaxed their mood, and there is no reservation in the chat, He Xi also has a preliminary impression of these newcomers.

Everyone was eating and drinking, chatting at the same time, but Chen Tianqi couldn't drink enough, and soon he was in a semi-comatose state, He Xi called two servants over and sent him back to the room to rest. It didn't take long for Ma Yu to leave the table, she was used to going to bed early and getting up early, and it was almost time to rest.

After the two men left, the conversation slowly shifted from the military-industrial complex back to the expansion policy of the Crossing Group on the mainland. At the request of everyone, Schneider first introduced the progress of the current business activities in Guangzhou.

Because the previous export commodities have signed an exclusive agency agreement with "Fu Ruifeng", so after Schneider came to Guangzhou, there are no other commodities to sell for the time being, so the current business activities are mainly based on the procurement of raw materials. Compared with the limited supply of goods in Yazhou and Qiongzhou, the market here in Guangzhou is undoubtedly much larger, and many raw materials that are difficult to buy in large quantities on Hainan Island, such as mercury, tin, copper, etc., as long as you can afford to pay here, you can naturally find a commercial bank to sell, even if there is not enough quantity to meet Schneider's procurement needs, merchants will quickly organize another supply.

And some civilian materials with relatively high prices on Hainan Island, such as Songjiang cloth, tung oil, etc., will be purchased at a much lower price in Guangzhou. Most of these purchased materials have been loaded onto the newly purchased second-hand fortune ship, and they can be taken back directly when Sun Changmi and the others return to Shengli Port.

It is said that the glass products brought back from Shengli Port in the early stage of "Fu Ruifeng" have now begun to be sold in several branches in Guangdong, and because of the limited quantity of their purchases, most places are almost sold out in the first wave of sales. In particular, several areas of Shaozhou, Nanxiong, Huizhou and Chaozhou, east of Guangzhou Prefecture, have received rave reviews for the newly appeared glass stationery, and many people have even paid a deposit in advance to the semicolon to book the next batch of goods that will arrive. And Guangzhou city is set off a wave of collecting Haihan stationery, which is naturally Schneider's original idea to Li Nai, as long as you sponsor a few poetry meetings, pay for some public knowledge to do publicity on this occasion, in the market by consumers of course is appropriate.

As for the glass mirror, there is no need for "Fu Ruifeng" to engage in any official propaganda, and it would be unimaginable if the back house of the rich merchant and gentry did not have one or two silver mirrors produced by Haihan. Although the price of "Fu Ruifeng" is very high, the price of a two-inch silver mirror is more than 50 taels of silver, but this does not stop the rich from buying**, and even a one-foot square mirror priced at 2,000 taels of silver has been sold out. He Qiang of "Fu Ruifeng" also came to visit two days ago, asking Schneider if he could sell a larger size mirror, it is said that the wealthy businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang liked it very much after seeing the Haihan silver mirror, and expressed their willingness to pay a lot of money to buy a larger mirror, but the specific price is not detailed for some real rich businessmen, money is really just a number, whether in this era or in a few hundred years later.

The new matches and soaps, because the production is only limited, are only sold in the general number of "Fu Ruifeng" in Guangzhou City. Of course, businessmen like Li Jifeng don't forget to use the same sales methods that the Shanghai Han people say. This is the first OEM product in the real sense of "Fu Ruifeng", according to the original agreement, the outer packaging of the soap is all printed in Guangzhou, and will be sold under the name of "Fu Ruifeng", in order to ensure that this new product can be an instant hit, Li Jifeng also put a great deal of money on this.

The latest product from Haihan, emollient soap, can only be bought through guò with a deposit, as for how good this thing is, "Fu Ruifeng" has been promoted through various channels in the public half a month before the sale. Although a lot of publicity money was spent, due to the reputation of silver mirrors and glass stationery, the marketing of the new product "Furuifeng Soap" was also unusually smooth. And Li Jifeng also came up with another promotional method without a teacher, and customers who paid a deposit in advance will give a box of another new product "Haihan matches".

For the soap that has been hyped up by the folk and the pre-sale price is as high as five taels of silver, the purchase price of a box of matches is only a few tens of dollars as a gift will not lose money, but will give customers some freshness. And these customers who will spend five taels of silver to buy soap have strong spending power, and after these people have used matches, they will definitely like this convenient daily necessities, and they will definitely come to buy them after they are used up, as for the price of two hundred wen per box, it is really just a drizzle for the wealthy class. At the same time as selling soap, by the way, the matches were also marketed, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone, and even Schneider praised Li Jifeng after learning the news, and actually knew how to use this method to carry out commercial promotion for target customers.

The export of fast-moving consumer goods and salt, which is the most important part of the crossing group, is also relatively smooth. Although "Fu Ruifeng" pulled more than 10,000 catties of salt from Shengli Port back to Guangzhou, "Fu Ruifeng" was not stupid enough to sell these private salts only in Guangzhou, but shipped them to various places and cooperated with Li Lu and Li Nai to lobby salt merchants in various places to show their supply capacity. After these private salts are evenly distributed to all parts of the province, they are distributed to each town and town, which will not cause an obvious impact on the market at all. At present, Li Lu and Li Nai are still running marketing in other places, and it is estimated that it will take at least one or two months to transfer back to Guangzhou. However, "Fu Ruifeng" has placed an order with Schneider in advance, hoping that the next ship to Shengli Port can bring back at least 50,000 catties of refined salt.

Last time, after visiting the military base in Shengli Port, Li Nai ordered 200 Type 27 arquebuses, 10 6-pounder guns and 5 12-pounder guns in one go, totaling more than 13,000 taels of silver, under the vigorous promotion of Tao Donglai and others. The previous time, because the arquebus was not in stock, only 100 were delivered at that time, and then Li Nai delayed some time in Shengli Port, and when he left, he handed over another 50, and the remaining 50 guns were shipped to Guangzhou by ship this time, and the last order can be completed tomorrow.

According to Li Nai's original plan, this batch of arms was to be shipped to Fujian and sold to the big pirate gang "Eighteen Zhi" who were fighting against the Ming army. However, the Executive Committee directly intervened in this sales direction, demanding that "Fu Ruifeng" could only sell this batch of arms to armed forces other than the "Eighteen Zhi" in Fujian, such as Zheng Zhilong, the leader of the "Eighteen Zhis", who was currently planning to get rid of his opponent Xu Xinsu.

The reason why the Executive Committee wants to intervene in this matter is also for the sake of long-term considerations. After the death of the maritime merchant Li Dan, Xu Xinsu inherited his property in Xiamen, Fujian, and became a thorn in Zheng Zhilong's side because of this. In 1626, Xu Xinsu, who was forced by external pressure, took refuge in Yu Zhigao, the general soldier of Fujian, and sent all the pirates under his command to the sailor, and he also hung up the title of chief of the sailor. Of course, this is not the other, Xu Xinsu, as the largest maritime merchant in Fujian at this time, wants money and money, and has people, but there are hundreds of ships that can go to sea in the First World War, and his strength is much stronger than Luo someone, an officer of the same level in Yazhou.

After becoming an official businessman, Xu Xinsu was the only trade intermediary between the Fujian local government and the Dutch, and he also seized this opportunity to contract almost all the business of the Dutch East India Company on the southeast coast, which obviously greatly blocked the "Eighteen Zhi" who were bent on controlling the entire waters of the Taiwan Strait. Zheng Zhilong is bent on destroying Xu Xinsu in order to take full control of the maritime trade business on the southeast coast, and Xu Xinsu also wants to defeat Zheng Zhilong's pirate gang and regain the part of Taiwan's industry that was "illegally occupied" by Zheng Zhilong after the death of his friend Li Dan. Under these circumstances, the two sides have been constantly fighting in the waters of the Taiwan Strait since 1626, in which they have won and lost each other.

According to "Fu Ruifeng's" view, it is obviously more realistic to sell arms to "Eighteen Zhi", because it is very troublesome for the Ming army to purchase arms, and it has to be reported to the Ministry of War first, and then several departments go back and forth for the budget, and when this budget is approved, it may be the year of the monkey. And buyers like "Eighteen Zhi" can pay cash immediately as long as they see it, and the efficiency is more than ten times higher than that of the Ming army.

However, the Executive Committee, which is aware of the trend of historical development, knows very well that next year Xu Xinsu will be defeated in Xiamen, and he himself will be killed by Zheng Zhilong, and his boss Yu Zhigao will also be defeated by the "Eighteen Zhizhi", and the entire Taiwan Strait will completely fall into the hands of Zheng Zhilong. After that, Zheng Zhilong accepted the recruitment of Xiong Wencan, the governor of Fujian, and also became an officer of the Daming Water Division.

The Taiwan Strait is an important shipping route from the South China Sea to the north, and if the Crossing Group wants to expand its influence to East China, North China and even Northeast Asia in the future, it will inevitably need to pass through the Taiwan Strait, which is a transportation artery, and if such a place is controlled by Zheng Zhilong, a pirate leader with expansionist ambitions, it is not a good thing for the Crossing Group. Not to mention anything else, the sea ships that pass there need to pay Zheng Zhilin thousands of taels of silver every year for protection, and this condition is impossible for the crossing group to accept lightly. And Zheng Zhilong has always been good at playing the trick of annexation, and his entire history is accompanied by an uninterrupted routine of big fish eating small fish, it is difficult to say whether he will covet the crossing group in Hainan in the future.

From a historical point of view, no one in the entire southeast coast could stop Zheng Zhilong's rise, but this historical development trend is not a good thing for the Crossing Group, so the Executive Committee is determined to reverse this trend, at least not to let Zheng Zhilong's power expand so easily. At present, the crossing group does not even have enough merchant ships for its own use, so there is no need to mention organizing an expeditionary force to deal with the 30,000 pirates entrenched in the Taiwan Strait. If you want to make Zheng Zhilong some trouble, the most effective way is to fund his opponent.

Although the Ming army had no money to buy arms, Xu Xinsu, as a maritime merchant, did not lack the money to purchase high-end equipment. Moreover, backed by such a large market on the mainland, Xu Xinsu's economic resources can be said to be endless, and the situation is far better than the "Eighteen Zhi", which has to rely on sea raids to maintain its operation. In the eyes of the Executive Committee, the positioning of "Eighteen Zhi" is at most an ordinary consumer, but Xu Xinsu is an officially certified "RMB warrior", a proper VIP player, and of course he must first earn this more wealthy master to make money.

Arm Xu Xinsu first, and gradually reverse his decline in the struggle between the two sides, so as to stop the trend of the "Eighteen Zhi" family dominance and continue to develop. After Xu Xinsu's side has an obvious upper hand, the Executive Committee will consider opening up arms sales to the "Eighteen Zhi", and the more ruthless the two fight, the more beneficial it will be to the crossing group. If the two sides lose in a few years, it will be easier for the full-fledged crossing group to clean up the mess in the Taiwan Strait.

At present, through some channels, "Fu Ruifeng" has reached a preliminary arms deal agreement with Xu Xinsu. The first shipment of artillery and arquebuses has already been shipped from Guangzhou to Xiamen by sea, and deliveries are expected to be completed by the end of September and early October at the latest. Although it is not clear that the actual price of the transaction between "Fu Ruifeng" and Xu Xinsu is not clear, Schneider found from the recent contacts with Li Jifeng that the other party has been intentionally or unintentionally trying to explore the arms production capacity of the crossing group, and it seems that it should be sold at a good price, and it is already planning a follow-up long-term transaction.

After the introduction, Schneider concluded with a smile: "As far as the current trade situation is concerned, although there are not many varieties of our export commodities, we are more profitable, and we have initially opened the trade window of the mainland, and we also have a certain brand effect in Guangzhou." Even with the current volume of exports, it is more than enough to feed these people in Victory Port on export profits. ”

Everyone listened to it for a while, and after obtaining a stable income through guò trade, there were even more things that could be done by crossing the group. The business model of the crossing group will help the crossing group to quickly accumulate capital and is expected to achieve explosive development speed in the future in the future.