Chapter Twenty-Four: Exchanging Medicine for Weapons

  "What about the price?" Richard asked.

  "According to the domestic selling price, a bottle of sulfonamide with 100 tablets is worth one or two gold, which is about twenty-two US dollars. Mifepristone is more expensive, five US dollars per tablet." Yang Feng said calmly.

  Richard's eyebrows furrowed, and sulfonamide was within his expectations, after all, Yang Feng was selling it like that, but the price of Wan Aike was a bit beyond his bottom line. It would be difficult for him to go back and sell it at twice the price. To spend ten dollars just to have fun, for the vast majority of Americans, was absolutely unimaginable, especially during the Great Depression when countless Americans were struggling to make ends meet and didn't even have the mood to enjoy life.

  "Mr. Yang, this price is a bit high, isn't it?" he asked tentatively, but he was also well aware that in this negotiation, he had no cards to play and Yang Feng was the only supplier, in other words, he held a monopolistic position.

  "Mr. Richard, the price of sulfonamide is already very fair. If I give you a different price, it would be unfair to my fellow countrymen. As for Wan Aiko, do you think you can sell it to dockworkers in New York? No, this is a luxury item that only the wealthy can afford. Would Rockefeller care about twenty dollars? Would Morgan care about twenty dollars? No, if they could indulge in various beautiful women without harming their bodies, two hundred dollars would be nothing. On the contrary, if you sell it at a low price, that would make them feel unfair."

  Richard hesitated for a moment and decided not to pursue the matter further. In fact, he was well aware that if he went down the luxury goods route, even if he really sold them for $200, those wealthy people would still be willing to pay for them. As for sulfonamide, it was even more unnecessary to consider, as lives and dollars were not something that needed to be weighed against each other.

  "It's just that the amount of sulfonamide is a bit too small, you have to know that there are 100 million people in the United States alone, and four boxes in half a month can't even satisfy a city, let alone the entire Americas."

  "This is also beyond my control, you can't let me watch those wounded soldiers die in pain during the upcoming war, can you? Besides, the British, Germans, and even Japanese have been pestering me for days. Although I won't give anything to the Japanese, but for European countries, I couldn't possibly not give them anything, could I?" Yang Feng said with a helpless shrug of his shoulders.

  As a shrewd businessman, Richard naturally knew that he could just ignore this remark. The hungry sales method wasn't something only Yang Feng understood, but how to get Yang Feng to take out more sulfonamides obviously required other benefits, and these benefits didn't necessarily have to be monetary.

  "Mr. Yang, I think you must have other solutions that can help solve this problem?" he asked tentatively.

  "It's not that there's no way, if we can greatly reduce the casualties of our army, I don't mind taking out more sulfonamide. You should know that our army is far inferior to the Japanese in terms of equipment, they have no air defense weapons and can only endure the bombing of the Japanese, one bomb can cause dozens of deaths and injuries, even if a wounded soldier uses one bottle, then one bomb from the Japanese will also make us lose dozens of bottles of sulfonamide. As for other things like machine guns, submachine guns, mortars, they are all severely lacking, so it's normal that casualties are high. It's all because of those Japanese devils, these little Japanese are always causing trouble and making us suffer losses!" Yang Feng said with a face full of indignation.

  "Mr. Yang, we are a pharmaceutical company, not an arms dealer. Besides, the war between China and Japan is one in which the US government has declared neutrality, and they won't allow us to violate that principle." Richard said calmly.

  "Mr. Richard, we are all smart people, so let's not say anything meaningless. With Pfizer's strength, is this also a problem?"

  "So I can understand it as if we could provide you with what you said, you would sell more sulfonamides?"

  "Okay."

  "All?"

  "That's also possible."

  "Even more?"

  "That's also possible!"

  "Settle arms account with goods?"

  "Of course, but it must be at half the price that your country's merchants quote in the Chinese market. I don't think you'd have the nerve to make a profit off me, would you?"

  "Two-thirds of it, you should be clear, bypassing two customs also requires a fee."

  "Three-fifths of the bottom line, your country's arms dealers quote a high price in China."

  "Alright! Mr. Yang, I need one hundred boxes of sulfonamide and ten boxes of mebendazole."

  "No problem, from guns to medicine, but I have a small request, Thompson submachine gun, 60mm mortar, Browning M2 heavy machine gun, no ordinary bullets, one-third steel core armor-piercing bullets, two-thirds white phosphorus bullets, how many to mix, I'll let you know separately."

  "If all goes as planned, you'll be seeing these things next week." Richard raised his glass, a faint smile behind the swirling red wine.

  After dinner, Yang Feng sent Xinxin home and then drove straight to Xiao Zhenxuan's house.

  "Yang brothers, what's so urgent?" Xiao Zhenying asked curiously.

  "Hurry up and calculate how many rounds of ammunition are needed for the 60mm mortar, Thompson submachine gun, and 12.7mm Browning heavy machine gun, try to get a little more, this thing is equipped with white phosphorus shells for anti-aircraft use, it's pretty good, and equipped with steel-core armor-piercing shells to deal with those Japanese tanks."

  "Yang brothers, what do you mean?" Xiao Zhenying's face changed color and his lips trembled as he spoke.

  "No big deal, brother got a batch of this stuff for you guys, probably can get it in about a week." Yang Feng said while sipping his tea.

  "Yang brothers, what about the money?" Xiao Zhenying still couldn't quite believe it, that such a pie-in-the-sky good thing would fall onto his own head.

  "As we are brothers, let's not mention anything about money. As I always say, as long as you can fight against the Japanese, I'll support you even if it means going bankrupt. Besides, there's nothing in Chahar that I think is worth looking at, except for the fur. Even that stuff is too smelly to give to me."

  "I like gold and silver, antiques and jewelry, ginseng and cordyceps, you don't have these things there." Yang Feng said with a wave of his hand.

  Xiao Zhenying lowered his head and thought for a moment: "If Brother Yang likes precious medicinal materials, I can actually get some. Zhangjiakou is the center of domestic and foreign trade after all, so ginseng and other things can still be obtained."

  "Whatever! If you really can't bear to part with it, just make a token effort and that's fine." Yang Feng waved his hand magnanimously, as if it didn't matter. After all, it was only a few hundred thousand yuan at most. They could just get three taels of ginseng and that would be enough. He estimated that they could easily find some at a pharmacy in Zhangjiakou.

  "But brother, there's still something that needs your help, can you get me an official identity? It'll be more convenient to do things with a tiger skin." Yang Feng suddenly had an idea and quickly added.