Chapter 42: Elimination Goods
Shut the door, Li Mingfeng smiled and said: "Sir, you don't have to hide it either. Although I'm not clever, I can still tell that you're a military man. It's just the two of us here, so let's speak directly."
Eros was slightly stunned, then smiled and said: "It seems that our acting skills are still not good enough, and we were actually recognized by you at a glance. However, whether we are soldiers or businessmen, this does not affect the arms trade between us?"
"If you just want to sell me a thousand or so guns and dozens of cannons, then your identity has nothing to do with trade. But is that all you want to sell?" Li Mingfeng asked. In his view, the Prussian military must be planning to make a large profit by selling arms in bulk, and the profit from over a thousand guns would be negligible for a country, so they wouldn't need to come all the way across the ocean just to peddle them.
After listening to Li Mingfeng's words, Eros said with a helpless smile: "We heard in our country that this ancient and vast nation is waging a large-scale war, so we excitedly brought dozens of ships loaded with military fire to sell. However, after seeing the Taiping Army, we were thoroughly disappointed. They would rather spend money on building palaces than arm their troops, and they would rather use outdated two-hundred-year-old firearms than accept advanced Western weapons that they are not familiar with. Of course, we want to sell as many weapons as possible, but with your military strength of less than 2,000 people, how many weapons do you need?"
Li Mingfeng sat in a rocking chair, frowning as he pondered the information revealed by Eros' words. The real issue that made Li Mingfeng think was not the arms, but the global situation. These Prussian soldiers disguised themselves as merchants to come east and sell arms, obviously to prevent the Anglo-French coalition from recognizing them. Apart from this, there was no other power in Shanghai that could make the distant Prussia worry.
Looking back on 19th century European history, the thirty years from 1850 to 1880 were marked by events that had a profound impact. The unification of Germany under Prussia was one such event. During this process, France was the most resolute in its opposition to German unity, as a unified Germany would pose a serious challenge to French dominance on the European continent.
It can be seen that the contradictions between Prussia and France are sharp, irreconcilable and inevitable. In order to maintain its position as the overlord of the European continent, France will never sit idly by and allow Germany to unify. And Prussia, which is growing stronger day by day, will definitely eventually take the road to unification, so there must be a war between Prussia and France.
As for the outcome of the war, it must be Prussia's victory, otherwise there would not have been a First and Second World War.
Li Mingfeng put all the knowledge and current situation he understood together for analysis, and finally basically analyzed Prussia's intentions. At present, the European continent is still dominated by France alone, and although Prussia has made rapid progress, it does not yet have the strength to directly confront France.
Currently, except for a few areas, the whole world has fallen into colonies of powerful countries such as Britain and France. It can be said that the world has been divided up, and there is no place left for Prussia. All European countries have a common weakness, which is that they are small in territory and population, with the exception of Russia. The small size of the country leads to a scarcity of raw materials, and the small population makes it difficult to develop labor-intensive industries.
Britain and France solved this problem with their vast colonies, while Prussia, without large-scale colonies, could only rely on trade to obtain raw materials and high-labor products. The countries in the world that can meet Prussia's needs and have not been divided by Britain and France are probably only the Qing Dynasty, so these people came from afar across the ocean.
The result arrived afterwards, and even the Qing court had already made peace with France. Under duress, the Prussian military again set their sights on the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping. As a result, that self-proclaimed son of God did not bring good news to Prussia.
Relying on the investigation of Prussian missionaries, it is known that Gong Cheng and Li Mingfeng are in contact to purchase firearms. Today, Eluos deliberately came to find Gong Cheng, hoping to sell some military supplies and reduce losses as much as possible.
"You said you brought several tens of ships with cannons and guns, what is the exact number?" Li Mingfeng had already basically guessed the current situation of the Prussians. He always took "not taking advantage of a good deal is stupid" as his motto, how could he let go of such a big business opportunity?
Eros hesitated for a moment, thought for half a beat, and then sighed and replied: "Well, we don't have to hide it from you either. This time we brought 50,000 rifles and 60 spiral rifled cannons. You should know that these artillery are currently the most advanced in the world."
"Oh? So you're saying the firearms you brought are second-rate?" One of the principles of haggling is to pay attention to the shortcomings of the goods and magnify them infinitely, Li Mingfeng was well-versed in this.
The German was relatively honest and hesitated for half a day before lying: "That... that... these rifles are the ones our army just updated and replaced."
Li Mingfeng immediately stood up in 'indignation', speaking with an angry tone: "What? You actually used scrap weapons to deceive us?"
Eros also stood up, his hands gesturing continuously as he explained "No, no, you misunderstand, it's not that they're scrap, but we've replaced them with more advanced firearms. These guns have only been in service for three to five years, they're almost new, it's just that the Prussian army has decided to equip all troops with new weapons."
"How do these guns compare with the main equipment of Britain and France?"
"These rifles are of the same type as those currently in service with the British and French, technically speaking there is not much difference, but we Prussians are by nature serious, so the workmanship is much better than theirs, accuracy and durability are also higher than theirs." Eilos said proudly.
Li Mingfeng thought to himself, it seems that this time Prussia's new rifle is going to be far ahead of England and France in terms of technology, otherwise they wouldn't have replaced the firearms that had just been in service for three to five years.
It is clear that after this reform, Prussia will definitely rise sharply in strength, so as to ultimately win the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.
Li Mingfeng had no knowledge of weapons and did not know that Prussia carried out a large-scale military reform around 1858, otherwise he could have made some advanced weapons earlier.
The most advanced weapons are no longer to be hoped for, one is that Prussia will definitely not sell them, and the other is that Li Mingfeng's silver is limited. The silver he received in bribes was basically all diverted to the Guangdong side, and this time Weitai Ma allocated 100,000 taels, more than 30,000 taels were used up, leaving less than 70,000, at least one or two million must be left for soldiers' pay, only five million taels can be used to buy weapons.
But there's a saying that goes "cats have their own paths, dogs have their own roads". If you have money to buy it, if not, then you'll naturally think of ways to get military equipment without spending money.
"I have great trust in Prussia's products, but you should know that our Qing dynasty is currently in a state of war and the silver we can offer is very limited. Can we consider installment payments or bartering for this transaction?" Li Mingfeng wanted to acquire this batch of arms thoroughly, but the silver in his hands was too little, it seemed he could only use some 'means' now.
