America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 559
"Cuba?"

Chen Jianqiu thought for a while, and returned the gun to the arsenal without saying anything.

Lieutenant Rhodes never expected Chen Jianqiu's marksmanship to be so good.

Now he couldn't pretend to be aggressive in front of the guests, and there was no point in staying in the shooting range, so he proposed to go back to the factory in the town for dinner.

The cook in the factory had already prepared a dinner party to cleanse Chen Jianqiu up. After eating and drinking, he signed the contract.

perfect!

Chen Jianqiu was very casual, he followed the lieutenant out of the shooting range and rode his horse into the town.

Along the way, Lieutenant Rhodes still tried to get close to the hidden oriental businessman in front of him.

Now he regrets his rashness on the shooting range before, but his performance failed and he became a laughing stock.

God knows what Mr. Chen is thinking now.

"Mr. Chen, how many years have you been in the United States, are you still used to the life here?"

"Mr. Chen, are you married? Where is your wife from?"

"Mr. Chen"

Chen Jianqiu's ears were listening, his mouth was perfunctory, his eyes were looking ahead, and his mind was thinking about other things.

Along the way, he didn't remember any of the questions the lieutenant asked. He only knew that the lieutenant seemed to have started to chat about his experience of fighting wits and courage with the Indians in Montana.

They soon returned to the arsenal.

They went straight to the largest building in the middle of the arsenal.

There is not only the lieutenant's office, but also his private residence and banquet hall for receiving guests.

A young man pacing back and forth at the door caught Chen Jianqiu's attention.

The young man was dressed in a suit, with a tuft of white embroidered collar in front of his neck, and wavy curly hair. He was no different from the American young people you can see on the mainland.

But the reason why he can attract Chen Jianqiu's attention is that this young man's hair is black.

He has the facial contours of Latin Americans, but he has some oriental taste.

From his face, Chen Jianqiu felt a trace of kindness; from his also black eyes, he found a sense of familiarity.

This man is of mixed race.

But Chen Jianqiu was not in a hurry to speak, but continued to walk in with Lieutenant Rhodes.

Seeing the lieutenant's return, the young man hurried up to greet him, but he didn't notice Chen Jianqiu who was behind the lieutenant.

"Lieutenant, can we talk about weapons procurement?" He said as he hurried over.

But before he took a few steps, the lieutenant gestured an index finger at him indifferently, signaling him to stop:
"Sir, I'm very busy now, let's talk later when I'm free."

The young man wanted to say something, but was stopped by two employees.

Lieutenant Rhodes walked quickly to the door of the house, took out the key and opened the door.

He stepped aside and turned to Chen Jianqiu who was behind him, his face suddenly changed.

The captain made a gesture of invitation to the door, and said to Chen Jianqiu with a smile:
"Mr. Chen, please come in!"

Chen Jianqiu stepped forward unceremoniously and stepped up the steps.

But before entering the door, he turned his head and looked at the young man.

The eyes of the two met.

When the young man saw Chen Jianqiu, he was stunned and stood there dumbfounded.

After Chen Jianqiu gave him a meaningful look, he turned his head and walked into the room.

He stayed in Lieutenant Rhode's office for about half an hour, listening to the head of the arsenal continue to brag about his military experience, and how he led five or six soldiers to stand out surrounded by more than 100 Indians. Encircled.

Chen Jianqiu didn't care to find out whether the story he told was true or not, he just had a polite smile on his face.

Every U.S. Army general has a stomach full of stories about his galloping on the battlefield.

The opponent was either the Confederates or the Indians.

What these stories have in common is that the storyteller, that is, the protagonist of the story, all start poorly, outnumbered, and turn things around through their own ingenuity and force comparable to the God of War.

Quite American individual heroism.

The sky outside the window has completely darkened.

The door of the office was suddenly opened, and the head of an arsenal employee squeezed in through the crack of the door:

"Lieutenant, Mr. Chen, dinner is ready, you can go and eat."

"Snapped!"

Lieutenant Rhodes clapped his hands and stood up.

He still has something to say.

"Mr. Chen, let's go to dinner first. I still have a story about hand-to-hand combat with an Indian warrior. I'll tell you about it later while drinking."

The dinner was set in the lobby of the building.

This hall is not luxurious, but it is very spacious, and compared to other places in the arsenal, it is also very clean.

In addition to Chen Jianqiu and the captain, there were also lawyers who came to sign the contract with Chen Jianqiu, engineers from the arsenal, and some key personnel.

To Chen Jianqiu's surprise, the dinner was surprisingly sumptuous.

The people from the arsenal took their guns and went to the mountain to "search" in advance.

They killed a deer and several rabbits, and also killed some wild ducks by the river.

Now the animals are all plucked, skinned and turned into delicious food on the table.

The wine I drank was beer from Boston.

This beer is said to have been developed by another founding father, Samuel Adams.

This revolutionary, as famous as Washington, planned the three most important events of American independence: "Resisting the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Townsend Act", "Boston Massacre"; "Boston Tea Case".

And he was born in a winemaking family, and he himself has very rich winemaking experience.

The wine researched by this rebellious brewer is naturally very strong, and the alcohol content is beyond comparison with ordinary beer.

After a while of pushing glasses and changing glasses, Lieutenant Rhodes was already a little drifting.

His cheeks were flushed, he stood up staggeringly, and staggered to Chen Jianqiu with his wine glass in hand.

The lieutenant wanted to put his hand on Chen Jianqiu's shoulder, but unexpectedly the latter adjusted his sitting posture "inadvertently".

Rhodes' hand pressed empty, and he fell to the ground with a "plop".

The wine glass in his hand also fell to the ground, and the wine in the glass naturally spilled all over the floor.

Chen Jianqiu also stood up and pulled the lieutenant up from the ground with one hand.

The employees of several arsenals also stepped down and came to help.

There was nothing serious about Rhodes, but a piece of skin was scratched on the palm of his hand, and his clothes were full of stains.

"Thank you, it's okay, it's okay."

Rhodes who stood up still staggered a little.

He supported the edge of the table with his hands, shook his head, his tongue was a little big, and said to Chen Jianqiu triumphantly:

"Mr. Chen, you, do you know that I also stayed in the Arizona Military District in the south, Jie, Geronimo, you know, right? That India, the Indian god of war."

"I heard it a little." Chen Jianqiu sat back in his seat.

"Hey, it's not that powerful at all. I, I once competed with him, he, he almost died, in my hands, in my hands!"

Rhode's eyes were a little blurred.

"Oh, then you must be very good." Chen Jianqiu pressed his fingers together and placed them on the table.

He also drank a lot, but he was only slightly drunk, and his face was a little red.

Lieutenant Rhodes hiccupped.

A strong smell of alcohol mixed with stomach acid and various strange smells came out.

Chen Jianqiu frowned subconsciously, and twitched his nose.

"Chen, Mr. Chen, you, don't you believe it?"

Lieutenant Rhodes supported himself with the hand on the table, looking at Chen Jianqiu's expression, he seemed a little dissatisfied.

After drinking for three rounds, the soldier regained his self-confidence. At this time, his self-awareness was beyond the normal range.

Simply put, the world is his.

While slightly drunk, he wanted to show himself in front of this Chinese again.

Before at the shooting range, Chen Jianqiu must have been fooled, yes, fooled.

Chen Jianqiu raised his head and glanced at him.

He pointed to the wooden barrel of beer on the table, and said to the lieutenant:
"If you finish this barrel of wine, I will believe you."

When Lieutenant Rhodes heard it, the spirit of drinking came up again.

Isn't it just shocking everyone.I can do it too!

"Okay! Look at mine!"

He yelled, startling the others who were talking behind him.

Then, under the watchful eyes of everyone, the lieutenant put his head under the barrel.

What he did next left everyone present dumbfounded, including Chen Jianqiu, who was fighting the fire.

The lieutenant uncorked the barrel and put his mouth on it.

For the first few seconds, the lieutenant's throat throbbed, as if he could still catch the beer pouring from the barrel.

But a few seconds later, the frequency of his throat throbbing obviously couldn't keep up with the rate of beer flowing out.

The lieutenant's eyes were wide open, his cheeks were puffed up, and yellow foamy liquid overflowed from the corner of his mouth.

Less than two seconds later, Mr. Lieutenant, who blocked the mouth of the wine barrel, finally reached a critical point.

Accompanied by the sound of "flutter"!
A "beer fountain" sprayed out from the lieutenant's mouth, and the beer in the mouth of the barrel flowed out continuously, filling the table.

Chen Jianqiu's eyes were quick and his hands were quick, and he backed up more than one meter with the chair to avoid disaster.

The other people nearby were not so lucky, either they were sprayed all over, or they were messed up by the wine on the table.

As for the lieutenant himself, he disappeared instantly.

Chen Jianqiu bent down and looked under the table, only to find that he was lying sprawled under the table, unconscious, with bubbles in his mouth from time to time.

Chen Jianqiu straightened up and shook his head.

I really didn't see it.

A group of employees of the military factory hurriedly dragged their "factory director" out from under the table.

Chen Jianqiu didn't continue to pay attention to how they dealt with the superior who made a fool of himself.

"I'm going out to use the bathroom, you guys continue."

After leaving a sentence, he turned around and walked out of the door of the house.

At this time, the town of Springfield was dark at night.

The factory workshop is still brightly lit, and the sound of steam engines resounds.

Workers are still busy, rushing to make orders from the Ministry of War.

Chen Jianqiu walked out along the gate of the factory and came to the riverside of the town.

He planned to swing along the river to digest the dinner in his stomach.

A full moon hangs in the sky, and the moonlight is sprinkled on the river, sparkling.

Borrowing the moonlight and the lights of the workshop, Chen Jianqiu suddenly saw a person squatting by the river in front of him.

From the figure of that person, he roughly guessed his identity.

The man picked up the pebbles under his feet and threw them into the river one by one, sighing one after another.

"You are young, why are you sighing?"

Chen Jianqiu walked behind the man, and asked softly.

He was speaking English, and he wasn't sure if the man understood or not.

The squatting person was taken aback, and quickly stood up, touching his waist.

But when he turned around and saw Chen Jianqiu's face clearly, his hands dropped instantly.

At the same time, Chen Jianqiu also saw his face clearly.

Sure enough, it was the young man who was pacing in front of Lieutenant Rhodes' door during the day.

"So it was you, sorry, I reacted a little too excitedly." The young man sighed again and apologized to Chen Jianqiu.

"What's your name?" Chen Jianqiu asked, "I heard you're from Cuba?"

The young man nodded.

"My Chinese name is Lai Gubei, and my Spanish name is Dias. My father is Lai Hua. He is a Cuban Chinese. I can speak some Cantonese, but I am not very proficient. Otherwise, we should communicate in English. , I was educated in a missionary school."

"No problem." Chen Jianqiu walked to the young man's side, "Tell me about your father."

As expected, the young man in front of him was of Chinese descent.

"My father came to Cuba a long time ago and worked hard in the sugar plantations."

"During the first Cuban War of Independence, he led hundreds of local Chinese laborers to join General Francisco Carrillo. He made many military exploits and became a member of the army."

"He not only gained respect and freedom, but also gained love. He married my mother and gave birth to me. Our family is in the army."

Chen Jianqiu listened quietly.

"So you are now also a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Team."

"Yes." The young man didn't hide it.

He didn't even feel a little wary of the yellow-skinned man in front of him, and confessed frankly, his expression relaxed a lot.

"So, what are you doing here?" Chen Jianqiu continued to ask.

Hearing Chen Jianqiu say this, Lai Gubei frowned again:

"I don't know if you know that Cuba is now engaged in a second war of independence, and our revolutionary army is fighting a desperate battle with the Spaniards."

"Originally our situation was very good, but the Spanish authorities sent a new governor. At the same time, they also sent a large number of troops and brought the most advanced guns."

"That person is known as the 'butcher', and he is extremely cruel. As long as it is a village that supports independence, it will be massacred by his entire village."

"As a result, there is a problem with our supply line, and the guns in our hands are not enough to deal with the Spanish army on the opposite side."

"So, when I come to the United States this time, I want to buy a batch of guns and ammunition to ship back."

"But you were rejected?" Chen Jianqiu pointed to the arsenal behind him.

The look on Lai Gubei's face became even more melancholy:
"I don't know what the reason is. The United States suddenly imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban Revolutionary Army, which makes it difficult for me to understand. The lieutenant has been refusing my purchase for this reason."

Chen Jianqiu had also heard a little about the arms embargo.

This is not surprising.

At present, the mainstream opinion in Congress is to avoid conflicts with Spain and try to focus on diplomatic mediation.

As Roosevelt said, there is a large segment of the population that fears war.

They were afraid of the effects of war on the economy and their books.

"How could you think of crossing more than half of the United States to the Springfield Arsenal to buy weapons?" Chen Jianqiu asked with some doubts, "This is a state-owned armory."

Lai Gubei's answer made Chen Jianqiu a little dumbfounded:
"Because we thought that only such state-run arsenals would be willing to sell guns to Cuba, and only they could obtain an export license. After all, we need to raise a large number of guns in a short period of time."

Chen Jianqiu patted Lai Gubei on the shoulder:

"In the United States, this arsenal is not the only one that has an export license."

"Guns, I can sell you, ammunition, I can also sell you."

"I can export what this arsenal can export; I can export what he cannot export."

Lai Gubei was pleasantly surprised at first, but soon turned into hesitation.

This is too crazy.

"Is what you said true?" He asked doubtfully, "What's your name?"

"Chen Jianqiu."

After hearing this name, Lai Gubei opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it for a while.

(End of this chapter)