1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1574 Rich and Willful

In the history of Haihan's foreign military sales in the past, artillery can be regarded as a major sales item. The number of purchases by major customers like Annan has already exceeded a thousand, and more than [-]% of the artillery deployed in various parts of the country It's from Haihan.However, artillery, like warships, has long been on the list of not-for-sale items, and only a few customers who are closely related to Haihan can place bulk orders.Although the performance of the export model has been greatly discounted, due to the advantages of materials and manufacturing processes, the overall performance is still better than the artillery that can be manufactured in this era. For most countries in the Far East that still use cold weapons as their main equipment Generally speaking, the artillery produced by Haihan is a heavy weapon for the country.

Of course, the Dutch have mastered the technology of casting cannons long ago, but there is still a big gap compared with Haihan in terms of craftsmanship, and they cannot carry out industrial production like Haihan Ordnance Industry. It takes at least [-] cannons to manufacture by themselves. Take two or three years.But this is not the main reason for Su Keyi to sit here and bid for these artillery pieces. The reason why he wants to participate in the bidding for this project is to snipe opponents.If the Matalan men were to take these two hundred cannons into their pockets, it would be conceivable that the next time the Matalan army attacked Batavia City, it would not be just clumsy trebuchets approaching the city.Under the ebb and flow, whether the Dutch army can hold the city defense is really not sure.

Su Keyi looked at Luo Hong who was sitting across from him, who had a faint smile on his face, as if mocking Su Keyi's incompetence.The packaged price of these two hundred cannons must have far exceeded the firearms project just now. Will the Matalan people still bid with the attitude just now?
Su Keyi looked down at the quotation in front of him again. The cheapest small-caliber field gun was 300 yuan each, firing three-pound shells with a range of 18 feet, which is about [-] meters in Haihan's unit of length.Yes, even the unit of measurement, the meter, was first used by Haihan more than a century earlier. The unit of measurement that should have been invented after the French Revolution at the end of the [-]th century was once again overtaken by the travelers.And after several years of promotion, even other countries with which Haihan has close trade relations have begun to accept this unit of measurement.

But this is not the only thing affected by Haihan. Weight, volume, area, voyage and other measurement units that are often involved in trade have almost become the targets of Haihan's technology promotion.As for the benefits of doing so, people in this era may just feel that the trade process has become more convenient, but the traversers know the significance of mastering the right to formulate standards.The ancients said that "books have the same text, cars have the same track, and travel has the same spirit", and the unification and promotion of various measurement standards is also a necessary means for the internal consolidation and external expansion of Haihan culture.

Su Keyi has been in Sanya for a long time, and he is no stranger to these units of measurement that Haihan is trying to promote. However, his attention is now on calculating the prices of these guns, and he is not interested in those things with more profound meanings. No time to ponder.

Eight hundred yuan a small cannon is certainly not a problem for the East India Company, even if you buy one or two hundred, it is not a particularly large amount, but in the sales content given by the Haihan people, the proportion of such small cannons is Only [-]%, and the remaining [-]%, the unit price is much higher than it.

The large-caliber siege gun with the largest volume and weight, together with the self-weight of the gun carriage, has reached ten tons. The price quoted by Haihan is as high as 5000 yuan.The price of the corresponding city defense gun of the same caliber plus the matching rotating fort has exceeded 2 yuan.But what matches it is that the range of this large artillery is more than one mile, and the length of Haihan is about 2000 meters. This is definitely a big killer that neither party involved in the bidding has ever had.

Of course, apart from the astounding performance, this price is enough to calm Su Keyi down. If he wants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars without blinking like Luo Hong, he really can't do it.If he could buy it separately, he would be willing to persuade Governor Van Diemen to buy a few city defense cannons with rotating turrets as the confidence of Batavia City.However, Haihan said that the two hundred guns must be purchased in packages. The total price calculated for this project is indeed a bit high. The bidding has not yet started. If more than half of the money is spent here, the subsequent warship project will not be easy to operate.

But if this project is not robbed, the Matalan people have guns and cannons. When they face off against the Dutch armed forces in the future, the latter will probably be unlucky.When Su Keyi went to see the goods two days ago, he also saw the siege cannon on sale this time. It was indeed terrifyingly powerful, and a single shot could blast a large crater into a stone wall several feet thick.And according to the Haihan people, there are even more powerful artillery shells for siege, but they need to be purchased separately.

Even if Su Keyi didn't want to buy these weapons, in order not to let them fall into the hands of the Mata Lan people, he still had to bite the bullet.Su Keyi now fully understands the deep meaning of Haihan's arrangement, which is to force them to raise the price of each other, and forcefully sell the tofu for the price of meat.

The package price of two hundred guns has already exceeded 60 yuan, which is only the reserve price. If the bidding rhythm of the firearms is followed, the final transaction price is likely to exceed 80 yuan, even for Haihan, who is used to big deals. For military industry, this is by no means an unusual number.

Haihan Ordnance's annual export orders for weapons generally fluctuate around 300 to [-] million yuan, but this year with two new buyers who like fighting spirit, there will definitely be a significant improvement in performance.Beks was in a good mood at this time, and even wanted to check the inventory of weapons and equipment to see if there were any old-style equipment that needed to be cleaned up, and sold them to these two swindlers.

Sure enough, Luo Hong continued the bidding strategy of the first project just now, and raised the price by [-] on the basis of the reserve price, winning the lead in the first round of bidding.

"If you don't have money, don't pretend to be a hero. If you give up the bid, I will plead for your mercy and save your life when my army comes to the city. How about it?" Luo Hong sneered at Su Keyi triumphantly: "If you think about not The benefits of it can also be drawn down, and it’s easy to talk about.”

Of course, Su Keyi couldn't accept his tricks, he shook his head expressionlessly and said, "I'm sorry, I don't think your country will have a chance to attack the city of Batavia! Our East India Company will never fail bargaining!"

Luo Hong's expression changed, he snorted coldly, and stopped teasing the other party.In the Battle of Batavia, the Mata blue army fell short when they broke through the city defenses and seized the whole city. This has always been a shadow in Luo Hong's heart that cannot be dispelled.Although the Mata blue army caused great trouble to the East India Company in that battle, they failed to capture the city after suffering heavy casualties, so it cannot be said to be the winner.That's why attacking Batavia City again has become an obsession of the Matalan Kingdom. Even if all the money in the treasury is used to arm the army, it must be captured Batavia City and drive the Dutch out of the country. out of Java.

For Luo Hong, defeating the Dutch in the arms bidding was the first step of revenge, but obviously the Han Chinese who worked for the Dutch in front of him did not give up struggling, which made Luo Hong feel very uncomfortable.Whether it is the battlefield or the shopping mall, he must gain the upper hand and deal a severe blow to the Dutch.Luo Hong will fight for every bidding project, and he hopes to gradually destroy the opponent's psychological defense through this method.

While Su Keyi was calculating the other party's bid, he was also considering his own budget.The way of bidding was indeed beyond the expectations of the East India Company, but in the secret letter Van Diemen sent to Sanya before, he still instructed Su Keyi to do it by himself when he had the opportunity to order Haihan munitions, and the budget was even more important. It was not a small amount that was given to him.If converted into the value of Haihan currency, the upper limit is about 150 million yuan-this amount of money is almost the total profit that the East India Company can obtain in a year.Moreover, Su Keyi didn't have so much cash at all, even if he bought it, he could only ask Haihan for a loan first, and then he would transport gold and silver from Batavia to pay back.

In order to be able to take the lead in the competition with Mata Languo, Fan Dimen's bet is not insignificant. It is even hard for Su Keyi to imagine how he persuaded those greedy company shareholders to agree to this military expenditure.How to rationally use this budget in the arms purchase competition is currently the biggest problem for Su Keyi.

The money seems to be quite a lot, but in the bidding arranged by Haihan, it is difficult to guarantee that the East India Company can grab all the key projects. The amount of budget prepared for the bidding is obviously higher than his own.Therefore, Su Keyi must consider the priorities of each project, which projects will only be raised in price, which ones should be striven for, and which ones should not be missed. He has to think carefully before bidding and allocate the limited budget reasonably.

In Su Keyi's view, artillery, firearms, and even other equipment of the army are not the equipment that the East India Company must purchase.Most of these weapons can be produced by the East India Company itself, but the performance and output cannot be compared with Haihan products.If you can choose the type and quantity of weapons, you can buy some, but the package purchase arranged this time is not so suitable for the East India Company.

If the Mata blue people are allowed to buy these equipments, although they will inevitably suffer losses in land battles in the future, Su Keyi believes that this kind of situation can actually be avoided. If the Mata blue people want to attack the Batavia area, they must come from the sea , then if the East India Company can resist the enemy at sea, naturally there will be no large-scale land battles.And the large amount of army equipment purchased by Ma Talan will be greatly limited in what can be used.

Therefore, Su Keyi intends to bluff the price of the army, and focus on the navy, especially the combat ships.As long as the East India Company's maritime armed forces can become as powerful as Haihan, he believes that it is completely possible to prevent the Matalan people from getting a chance to land at all.

Of course, even if it was a bluff, Su Keyi had to try his best to play his acting skills, try to anger the opponent, and let him invest more money in the army equipment bidding.Although Matalan is rich, it is not a pile of gold and silver. Su Keyi believes that Luo Hong will inevitably have a budget limit. The more money he invests in the first half, the more space he will have for the second half. smaller.

Su Keyi gritted his teeth and offered a price of 80 in the second round, finally overpowering Luo Hong.It is indeed more risky for him to do so, because if Luo Hong does not bite his price, or simply gives up the artillery project, then more than half of Su Keyi's budget will be spent here and cannot be recovered, and the funds that can be used to buy ships later It will be much less.

After hearing the news that Bai Kesi announced that he had won this round of bidding, Su Keyi smiled slightly at Luo Hong and said, "What you said just now, I want to return the original sentence. If you don't have money, don't bite the bullet and pretend to be a hero!"

Luo Hong snorted coldly, but he was not disturbed by his opponent. He just added another [-] yuan to the first round of bidding step by step.Although he didn't know Su Keyi's bid, he could roughly estimate that the opponent's price increase would not be too outrageous. If he hadn't suppressed his opponent in this round, then he would have time to offer a high price to secure the deal in the last round.

However, because the base price of this project was more than 60 yuan, Luo Hong increased the price by 20 yuan in two rounds. The total price has already surpassed Su Keyi's bid of 80 yuan in the second round, regaining the upper hand.

Su Keyi didn't dare to increase the price significantly in the last round. He was not afraid of [-] but just in case. He cautiously increased the price by [-]. In the end, he still overwhelmed Luo Hong's bid, and finally forced Luo Hong to the third round of bidding. .

Luo Hong also couldn't figure out how confident this dead-faced guy opposite him was to compete with him for this project, but he was very sure of one thing, if the Dutch bought these artillery pieces, it would be considered as the next horse fight. If the blue army can attack the city of Batavia again, it may be difficult to defeat the defensive position consisting of more than [-] artillery pieces.In any case, the Dutch cannot be allowed to buy these artillery.

"Since the last round of bidding, the other party has no chance to fight back, so I'll bid directly." After obtaining Bai Kesi's consent, Luo Hong stretched out a finger and said: "100 million!"

"You are rich and self-willed!" The same thought flashed through the minds of several executive committee officials present.

Two hundred cannons can be sold for a high price of 100 million. Even Schneider, who is known for his shrewdness, would not be able to achieve this level. Apart from giving Luo Hong a thumbs up, there is nothing to say.

Su Keyi, who had been expressionless all the time, also gasped. The financial resources shown by his opponent really made him feel powerless. Could it be that the Matalan people really dug a big gold mine recently?
(End of this chapter)