Chapter 172 This is a Cannon

Meeting room at the Ritz Hotel in central Paris.

It was still rainy and cold outside, but the room was warm and comfortable because of the stove.

Steed arrived at the conference room half an hour early and waited.

Today is Halloween. He walked to the window, smoking a cigar and looking at the pumpkin lanterns lit on the street downstairs with interest.

An interesting picture popped up in Steed's mind unconsciously: Charles took other children to knock on the door and shouted at the owner: "Trick or treat if you don't give us candy!"

If so, I wonder how the owner would react?

I guess he would just stand there in a daze and forget to give me the candy!

At this time, Steed saw a black Ford Model T driving towards the hotel gate. He realized that it might be Djokovic and Charles' car, so he quickly put out his cigar and opened the curtains to ventilate the room.

This was the first time Steed met Charles, and he didn't want to leave a bad impression on Charles.

Then Steed became nervous. He didn't know whether he should sit and wait, stand at the door, or go out to greet him.

Finally, he decided to sit back in his chair and pretend that he knew nothing. Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable all over and didn't know where to put his hands and feet.

Soon, Charles and Djokovic arrived.

The butler pushed open the door from the outside, and Deyoka politely called out to Steed, who had a strange expression on his face: "Mr. Steed, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting!"

Steed was as if he had been pardoned. He quickly stood up and shook hands with Djoka. When he shook hands with Charles, he was inexplicably excited: "I've heard of your name for a long time, Charles. It's nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you, sir!" Charles replied calmly. He glanced at Steed with a look of confusion on his face.

Charles didn't understand why Steed looked a little nervous. As the owner of Saint-Etienne, he should have seen a lot of big events. What was so special about this occasion? !

Steed looked at Charles for a while before he reacted. He said "Uh" and walked towards the conference room. He warmly invited the two to sit down and said, "I'm sorry, I just met with my partner today. You know, this is out of caution!"

"I understand, Mr. Steed!" replied Charles.

Charles has a military background, so of course he has to avoid suspicion when meeting Steed, a capitalist, just like Gallieni met Charles secretly before. Otherwise, it would be easy for people to see it as collusion between the military and businessmen.

This is also the reason why Gallieni could discuss the price of grenades with Charles and place an order, but openly traded with Saint-Etienne.

Everyone understands what is going on, but it is a procedure that requires it to be done in order to avoid giving others an advantage.

The butler served coffee to several people, which turned out to be Algerian-style coffee.

Charles smiled softly when he smelled the fragrance. He knew that this might be because Steed made a mistake when he asked about his preferences and mistook Francis's favorite flavors for Charles's.

Steed added two pieces of sugar to the coffee, stirred it gently with a spoon, and looked at Charles expectantly: "I have a favor to ask, Charles, I hope our cooperation project is not just about grenades!"

Charles pretended to be confused: "But I don't have any other projects, sir..."

"I mean the future!" said Steed. "If you think of anything in the future!"

Then Steed added: "Like a grenade, or something else. I hope you will only contact me, Charles! I will also give you a contract for a grenade!"

Charles replied calmly: "Such cooperation obviously cannot be signed with a contract. If it is just a verbal promise, do you think it makes sense?"

"Of course!" Steed nodded seriously.

If it was someone else's verbal promise, Steed would certainly know that it was meaningless, but it was different for Charles, even if it was just a verbal promise.

Steed needed Charles to show an attitude, otherwise he would be worried all the time, fearing that Charles would hand over another invention to someone else, which would be a fatal blow to Saint-Etienne.

Djoka understood what Steed meant. He looked at Charles with a hint of anxiety, as if to say, this is Saint-Etienne, why are you hesitating?

But Charles didn't rush to answer. He took a sip of coffee and said slowly, "Mr. Steed, the military is planning to purchase 105MM artillery from Schneider recently. Have you heard about this?"

"Yes." Steed nodded: "M1913 cannon."

Schneider has always had the ability to produce large-caliber artillery, but because the 75 gun was so successful, the military was only willing to equip the 75 gun and sweep all other artillery into the garbage dump.

Therefore, Schneider had no choice but to produce the M1910 cannon for export to Russia.

Schneider later tried to win an order from the French military to improve it into the M1913 model, but the military was still not interested and only symbolically purchased a few for testing.

Steed looked at Charles in confusion: "But we can't stop Schneider. The military needs this artillery, and we..."

Steed's face showed a little embarrassment as he spoke. Saint-Etienne has always been producing light weapons and cannot compete with Schneider in heavy equipment, especially artillery.

"I know we can't change anything," Charles replied, "the military will buy this artillery with a range of 12 kilometers to gradually replace the 75 guns anyway."

This was the army's shortcoming in equipment. They needed to use the M1913 to suppress the German artillery. The weakness of the 75 gun's insufficient range had made it unbearable for them on the battlefield.

"But..." Ciel changed the subject: "I think the soldiers on the front line have other needs, but the military has not discovered them yet."

"What do you mean?" Steed didn't understand.

Charles turned his gaze to Djoka, who understood and immediately took out a document from his briefcase and handed it over.

Steed turned on the desk lamp and flipped through the document under the orange light. Then he looked up at Charles with wide eyes, and then impatiently turned his gaze to the document again and read it carefully.

"Trenches, sir!" Charles said calmly, "Everyone has overlooked one point. The soldiers on the front line need to throw explosives into the enemy's trenches, just like grenades."

"But this..." Steed raised his head in confusion: "This is a cannon, Charles!"

"Yes, it is indeed a cannon!" Charles nodded, "but it is a cannon for soldiers on the front line. Imagine, when both the enemy and us are throwing grenades into each other's trenches, what will eventually happen?"

Steed suddenly realized.

Both the enemy and I are throwing grenades, and we will definitely hope to throw them farther so that we can hit the enemy without the enemy hitting us.

But human arm strength is limited after all, and they will eventually need a cannon, a short-range and indirect-fire cannon that can help them throw "grenades" into the enemy's trenches at a long distance.

After figuring this out, Steed's eyes lit up instantly. He held the document in his hand as if it were a treasure, and laughed like a child: "Great, Charles, great! This is what we need. We can compete with Schneider in artillery!"

(End of this chapter)