Lu Ming

Chapter 364 Agreement of Intent
After dinner, the sky had already darkened.After Mr. Bu and his party left the restaurant, they noticed that the street lamps on the street were lit up one after another.

The street lamps are like signals. While lighting up both sides of the Taijiang River, the brilliance like a galaxy on the ground also attracts a large number of people.

Workers in blue overalls, agricultural workers in floral T-shirts, clerks in white shirt jackets, short Japanese people with the same black hair and Japanese haircuts, and most importantly, Fanren with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing cool clothes girls.

Master Bu and the others couldn't help being surrounded by the sudden crowd and walked towards the place with the brightest lights.All the way along the way, there were girls in T-shirts and shorts showing their arms and legs. They looked at Mr. Bu blushing and scolded Cao's licentiousness and impoliteness in his heart.

Chikan Avenue is brightly lit, and various barbecue food stalls and bright windows tempt people to take out the small money in their pockets.Seeing the other members of the team having a great time, Mr. Bu had no choice but to eat two skewers of grilled squid, and then went back to sleep with his sleeves flung on the excuse that he couldn't get used to the Laoshizi chili noodles.

After a hasty night, Master Bu and the others got up early the next morning, washed up, ate a breakfast of raw porridge and rice rolls provided by the hotel, and waited for the guests to come to the door with peace of mind.

To tell the truth, no matter how much Lao Bu despises the Cao gang, he likes all kinds of organs and tools made by them from the bottom of his heart.Let alone the flushing toilet: this clean, white and good-looking appliance that can wash away dirt without leaving a trace of odor, in Master Bu's opinion, is naturally prepared for gentlemen—gentlemen are warm and moist Like jade.

As for those ordinary people, it is right to use wooden barrels, which suits their identities.

Yet these thoughts are just thoughts.Master Bu is very aware of the reality: since this expensive toilet requires a series of pipes, water supply and sewage systems, in Xinghua Prefecture, only a few wealthy businessmen and wealthy families have installed it in their homes, and ordinary people cannot afford it. of.

Even Master Bu himself, since he lives in a dilapidated official house and not his own property, he cannot enjoy such convenient and useful things on weekdays.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the guests came to the door on time.

It was two young officers in light green short-sleeved military uniforms.Master Bu and his party are no longer interested in this kind of gentleman wearing a big hat, although they can't understand the colorful seniority badge on the chest of the visitor and the pattern on the armband on the arm.

However, the young officer turned his head slightly and saluted gracefully, after all, he still bluffed Master Bu. After the latter bowed his hands in return, the two sides quickly chatted politely.

The older of the two officers, surnamed Li, reported that his family was a staff officer of the Army Logistics Department, and he came today to lead a tour group to select weapons.Master Bu had nothing to do, so the two parties went out.

Today's errands are quite special, so I can't bring so many followers, and the military four-wheeled carriage parked in front of the hotel also hinted at this.So Master Bu took Fang Tangjing into the car alone.

After the carriage started, head north along Binjiang Road.Riding the sea breeze, when the carriage crosses a series of lagoons, there is a military camp.Then the carriage continued to drive around the barracks. On the back was a series of shallow mounds with a small lake. The Army's test range was here.

Before entering the shooting range, the sound of rumbling cannons was heard from far away.And when the carriage came to the test site, the passengers could already see the white smoke of the artillery and the shells hitting the foot of the mound.

However, today's guests don't care much about artillery—Master Bu is here this time to purchase some cold weapons and light weapons such as blunderbusses. Artillery is not on the purchase list.

In addition, a group that is bent on rebellion does not intend to sell artillery to other forces.Not to mention the cost of artillery, no matter who you sell it to, you may be hit by shells on your head in the future.There are a lot of money-making products in the crossing crowd. If you use the iron material of a cannon to make a lighter, you can earn N times more silver than the cannon.

So Master Bu can only watch something else today.

In the small playground, Master Bu tried some cold weapon samples provided by Staff Officer Li one by one.These cold weapons include several types of machetes and several gun heads, all of which are commonly used by the Ming army.

As the deputy envoy of military preparations, even if he is an idler, Master Bu has done superficial articles such as reviewing the military operations under his rule and checking the military equipment on weekdays, so he is one of the few scholar-bureaucrats who have some knowledge of the standard weapons of the Ming army. .

The quality of knives and guns produced with crude steel and assembly lines is far superior to those produced by Ming blacksmiths.So after Master Bu tested the samples with a bamboo and wood target, the words "good knife!" popped out of his mouth—Master Bu followed the path of a gentleman, and he dared to scold Xiong Wencan face to face when he was in a hurry, but he didn't He will insist against his conscience that the knife in his hand is not good.

Next, Master Bu tested the matchlock gun again.

The matchlock gun is basically the highest level of ammunition exported by the crossing forces.This kind of old-fashioned musket, the gunner needs to light the match to fight, and the killing distance is accurately controlled at 50 meters.

The only bright spot of this gun is naturally the specifications: the parts of the firearms produced on the assembly line are interchangeable.At present, apart from this "made in kiln area", the matchlock guns of all other forces cannot do this.

After firing two shots at the target clumsily, Master Bu was noncommittal.Matchlock guns, a smooth-bore toy, rely on size to win, and their hit rate in singles is very poor, so a player like Master Bu missed the target with two shots.

Staff Li, who knew it well, naturally wouldn't explain so much.Next, he just exchanged the parts of several guns according to the procedure. As for whether Master Bu could see the mystery, that was not his concern.

It turns out that playing tickets is playing tickets.Scholar bureaucrats without any actual combat experience could not understand the industrial strength and huge strategic value represented by the exchange of weapon parts.As for the matchlock gun, Master Bu couldn't say anything other than general praise that the barrel of the gun has no burrs and is well-made.

After firing the matchlock gun, Master Bu tested the samples of the bird gun and the three-eyed gun. After that, the two sides started the first negotiation on the arms purchase case.

Sitting on both sides of the long wooden table in the barracks, Master Bu lowered his head and carefully read the contract handed to him by Staff Officer Li.What surprised him secretly was that the price of weapons on the contract was not too high, but too low.

The quotations of these high-grade weapons basically fluctuated around three taels of silver, which was actually the same price as ordinary goods in Fujian, and the price of 20 taels of silver for firearms was also not high in Master Bu's opinion.

Comrade Bu Daxing was a little confused now: Originally, in his expectation, what he saw today must be a batch of low-quality and high-priced weapons—how else would his immediate boss, Mr. Jiao, make money?

He raised his head, closed his eyes, and slowly stroked his long beard under his chin. The ice-snow-smart Master Bu guessed the trick in just 2 minutes: the samples shown to him today are all top-grade, and when the goods are delivered in the future, It will become a pile of broken copper and rotten iron!

Comrade Bu Daxing, who has no idea about the price of industrialized commodities, thinks he has seen through everything, secretly made up his mind at this moment: when he goes to Xinghua Mansion to deliver and inspect the goods in the future, he will teach you and other villains to walk around without food!
Now that he had figured it out, Master Bu signed the agreement of intent in a chic manner, and the arms purchase case between the two parties officially entered the implementation stage.Staff Officer Li said straightforwardly: The weapons Master Bu ordered should be delivered in a week.

"If that's the case, I'll be thankful for everyone." Master Bu cupped his hands with a smile on his face, and ended this brief official business.

Just like business trips in later generations, after hastily finishing business affairs, the time left for personal affairs is the most important.After Mr. Bu spent only one morning serving his country, he took his entourage to spend money on Chikan Avenue in the afternoon.

Chikan Street, whose status is equal to Fifth Avenue in New York, has long been famous.Mr. Bu was scared away by the red men and women last night. Today, these shameless people have all gone to work, so he naturally wants to do some shopping.

The decoration is gorgeous, one next to one high-end shops with glass windows are lined up on Chikan Avenue, the five members of the visiting group are all dispatched this time, the first shop they entered was a men's gift shop.

A variety of tobacco rods, cigarette cases, belts, lighters, nail clippers, ear picks, rings, wallets, key rings, ties, tie clips are placed in the glass counter
The small gifts made by the surface electroplating process exude dazzling metallic light under the light of the light bulbs at the four corners of the counter.The female shopping guide wearing an embroidered cloisonné cheongsam smiled all over her face, and took out the goods one by one with her white and tender hands, and put them on the table for customers to choose.

Master Bu was not very disgusted with girls in long gowns. While listening to the girl's clever introduction, he picked up the small gifts and tried to figure them out one by one.

The other members of the visiting group on the side were naturally not to be outdone, and people like Fang Tangjing, who usually pretended to be romantic, were especially concerned.

We must know that these useful and good-looking gadgets have long been popular in Hangzhou's rich second-generation circles, master circles, including Qingke circles.Among them, the most popular, the least in number, and the most attractive is the metal windproof lighter that can make a long and clear sound when lighting. So since someone from the other party has come to the source of the goods today, he must not miss it.

So without much consideration, Fang Tangjing bought all the lighter models he was optimistic about, and bought up to the upper limit of four "quota" for each model-almost all products on Chikan Avenue are restricted, and the purchase limit for lighters per passenger is 2 One/person/model, so Fang Tangjing and Xiao Si can only buy 4 of each model together.

This kind of restriction is also impossible.The first is the lack of production capacity in the kiln area, and the second is to protect agents in various places-if there is no purchase restriction, there have been many embarrassing incidents in the past that merchants used horse-drawn carts to pull silver boxes along the street to sweep goods.

Master Bu also made a move at this time.Except for the Dunhill brand lighter represented by Boss Jiao's brother-in-law, who didn't like him, the master bought 300 taels of silver for the rest of the gadgets.Master is not stupid, even if you go back to give away the extra, the gift you get in return will far exceed the original price.

However, the next moment the master was outraged.After paying the bill, the easy-going servants of the family each took out another stack of banknotes from their pockets and patted them on the counter: "Thank you, sister, calculate how much money we have left, and buy the rest at every turn." Alright."

(End of this chapter)