Mediterranean hegemon

Tekichi Hori smiled and walked up to Contini, shook hands, hugged him, and then asked, "How is the president's scrap steel sales business going?"

"Almost, almost..."

"Hurry up, hurry up." Hori said with a smile, "I have written a report and am ready to submit it. Italy has scrap steel, and Japan has it too. You need to be smart. Why can't you sell it? It doesn't matter if you can't get cash. You can get it if you have products and resources. You can also consider installment payments. Even if you have nothing, you can rent a piece of land and build a dock! Now is a peaceful time, making more money is the truth!"

Contini widened his eyes and pretended to be dissatisfied and said, "Are you going to steal my business?"

"No, no, the Japanese system determines that I have to submit this report for at least 6 months. It will take a month for them to react, and I haven't handed it over yet, so you still have plenty of time. "

Contini smiled: "That's enough, that's enough..."

Looking at this lively scene, those who don't know would really think that the two are old friends who have met after a long time. In fact, the two have known each other for less than a year: Last April, Hori Teikichi attended the League of Nations meeting in Geneva as a member of the navy of the Japanese delegation, and Contini was also on vacation in Switzerland with Adriana and the children at the time, and then he went to the Italian delegation in Geneva to listen to what the subsequent navy would do, because the Italian navy has made a lot of moves in the past two years, and he was afraid of attracting everyone's attention. As a result, there was no particularly explosive point of view, and everyone was still talking nonsense - even if Italy made these small moves, its strength was still too small, and Britain and the United States didn't care.

Contini was relieved about this, and who knew that he would meet Hori Teikichi by chance. At first, he didn't care about this short colonel, but soon he understood - this is Hori Teikichi! "Hearts of Iron" has implicit parameters. Before the personnel change of Okaku, Hori Teikichi was just at a normal level, but after the suppression of Okaku, his attributes will be increased. If used well, he can explode (just like the old game "Cao Cao Biography" by Japan's Koei Company, in the Xiaoyaojin level, Zhang Liao's explosive power, attack power, and command power will be increased by more than 30%). Others don't understand, how could Contini not understand? Of course, he has to win him over, this guy can be a naval advisor in the future.

Hori Teikichi didn't think highly of Contini at first, thinking that he was an attaché of an Italian diplomat. After all, he was 20 years older and had been very proud all the way. He spoke with the attitude of a superior. Later, when he saw the deputy head of the Italian delegation and the dignified navy vice admiral were respectful to Contini and wanted to run over to carry the president's bag, he realized who this person was and felt very rude - this guy is actually the crown prince of Italy.

After a while, the two people who wanted to make friends became good friends.

The scrap iron and steel mentioned by both sides had a specific purpose, which was to refer to those old naval ships. According to Contini's idea, all the light warships built 15 years ago in the Italian Navy, including cruisers and destroyers, which were powered by coal, should be disposed of! Then build new warships, and he would make up for the lack of military funds!

This move shocked the Navy Department, but what the president said made sense. Now Italy controls the two largest oil fields in Africa, and crude oil is rolling in. It has jumped from an oil-poor country to an oil exporting country. Isn't it ridiculous that the navy is still using coal-powered warships? Under the guidance of this idea, the warships of the Italian Navy were sold one after another. The Garibaldi class was sold to Marshal Zhang, and other warships were sold to Turkey, South American countries, and even one was sold to Siam.

Before leaving this time, Chen Shaokuan heard that the Northern Army had bought the Garibaldi class, so he suggested that they also buy cruisers, because the largest warship in the Southern Navy is the Revolution, with a displacement of more than 20,000 tons, and the next largest warships are the Hairong and Haichou, which are only about 2,700 tons. So far, they have been 30 years old and their speed is less than 20 knots. According to Chen Shaokuan's original idea, he wanted to add more than 10,000 tons of armored ships or battleships, corresponding to the Queen Elena class, like the Northern Navy, and then build a large cruiser of 7-8,000 tons, corresponding to the Garibaldi class. Chiang supported it in principle, but also told him that the government really had no money, and the 28 million yuan for the Revolution put pressure on the Guangzhou government.

Finally, Chen Shaokuan could only think of a way to send a telegram to Huang Xinguo, requesting to buy 1-2 cruisers of about 4,000 tons. This was easy to do. Contini immediately found the inventory - the Italian Navy had two reconnaissance cruisers, Nino Piccio class, with a displacement of about 3,600 tons and a speed of up to 28 knots. More importantly, they were in good condition. They were not completed until 1914 and had not even been in service for 15 years. The price of a single ship was 2 million oceans, and the down payment was 400,000. The Guangzhou government could squeeze out one ship with difficulty, but it was difficult to find a place for the other 1.6 million. Finally, Chen Shaokuan, as a Fujianese, made a suggestion that was not a suggestion, to exchange Fujian tea, granite and Yunnan tung oil!

Everyone thought Chen Shaokuan was crazy. Why would an Italian want Fujian tea? Granite and tung oil may still have some use, but unexpectedly, granite was excluded first - because Italy has no other resources, but the stone is the top in Europe. All the residential construction of United Real Estate uses Italian granite and marble. Real estate development is in full swing, so that stone is widely used. When United Real Estate creatively uses dry hanging stone as a sign of high-end residential areas, the craze becomes even more unstoppable. There is a craze for digging stones everywhere, and the overall landform of Italy Everything is changing. The mountainous areas that were once neglected are now flooded with many miners. Although it will cause some environmental problems, considering the benefits of boosting employment, the Mussolini government still very much welcomes the large-scale stone development. Nowadays, Italian stone is sold well in Europe. If there is not enough, you can go to Turkey and Greece to get it. There is no need to transport it all the way from Fujian.

But the deal was eventually concluded, and the key lies in Fujian tea. Because there are now 150,000 Chinese people in Libya, the weather is hot, and the amount of tea used is not small. This is the first sales channel; the second is that United Group has established a new segment, the 13th is United Pharmaceuticals, and the 14th It’s United Foods, and among the foods that bear the brunt are all kinds of convenience foods and fast food, including fast food, military compressed biscuits, and fast food. The first product that became popular was instant coffee. In fact, Instant coffee was available 20 years ago, but the quality was not stable enough. As a result of joint laboratory research, United Coffee came out. In order to promote it, instant coffee is now included in urban movies produced by United Film Company. , and people saw that it was a joint card-suggesting that this is the life and rhythm of the little bourgeoisie.

In addition to instant coffee, the second key item of Contini's directive is tea bags. Chinese people rarely use bags to drink tea at this time, while European and American people drink tea through filtered tea leaves, so bags have a special meaning.

Teabags were also invented by Americans 20 years ago, but Contini believed that the packaging of Americans was too low. Under his instructions, although teabags in Italy started very late, they became very popular. The anti-traditional square tea bag design has introduced round tea bags, pyramid tea bags, as well as drawstrings and exquisite tail pendants - the slogan of United Food is clearly displayed on it, "For a better life, and the tea bags are in There are various flavors such as black tea and green tea. Although Italians are not as fond of drinking tea as the British, they are still among the best in continental Europe.

Due to the special status of the United Group, it is obvious that all the fast food products of the Italian army are taken over by the United Company. This is a very stable sales channel, so Chen Shaokuan's proposal of Fujian tea to offset military purchases won Contini's heart. , he immediately decided to establish a tea bag production factory in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.

As for tung oil, it was originally the main raw material for making paint. Because of the large-scale construction of real estate in Italy, the furniture industry is also booming. The factory that produced components for aircraft found a new world after the aircraft structure gradually turned to hard aluminum. Naturally, the source With continuous supply, the second factory in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was developed - a paint factory. As for textile mills and yarn mills, they have been planned for a long time and are waiting for the concrete implementation of negotiations with Japan.

Therefore, Contini agreed to deliver a cruiser to Guangzhou first. If the Guangzhou government could still pay a down payment of 400,000 next year, he could agree to sell another ship of the same class. To show his sincerity, he guaranteed that this warship would be The one-year priority is reserved for the Guangzhou government and will not be sold to other countries. Therefore, Contini also said that the "scrap steel sales business" has not yet been completed.

"Hori-kun, since you have become the captain of the Mutsu, I want to tell you that if you want our people to come visit, you must not hide your secrets."

"Of course, of course." Horikichi introduced Contini to the other Japanese people with a smile, and said, "There is absolutely no problem in visiting. The Ministry of Navy has said that you can see whatever you want. We are friendly Well, the Navy Ministry is also very interested in which carrier-based fighter jets of the United Group, and would like to ask if they can buy a batch and then grant us the patent to produce them in Japan.”

"Absolutely, I also have a new torpedo machine, do you want it?"

"Torpedo plane?" Horikichi was stunned, "I haven't heard of it."

Contini shrugged: "It's a special postal plane, the kind that can carry 800 kilograms of postal parcels..."

"I understand, I understand..." Horikichi said with a smile, "I also know about the floating airport on the sea. This time you can go and observe our floating airport Akagi - which was rebuilt from a battleship hull."

When she had some free time, Agnes asked: "Calais, are you familiar with this Japanese?"

"He's a bit familiar. I made a bet with him..."

Agnes laughed: "That sounds really interesting. How to bet? What is the bet?"