Chapter 574 War Profits
In the small town of Lavaise, it was raining heavily at the tractor factory, and the sounds of steel colliding and knocking could be heard one after another.
Before Joseph left, Charles visited his office.
Joseph's office is very simple, with only a desk and a sofa for receiving guests. In the corner is a pot of chrysanthemums, which is Joseph's favorite.
Seeing Charles appear at the door, Joseph was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling. He immediately put down the documents in his hand, walked up to Charles with a look of surprise and shook hands enthusiastically.
"Long time no see, Master Charles." Joseph was used to calling Charles that, but when he saw Charles' military uniform, he felt a little embarrassed.
"Should I call you General?" he said.
"It's all right, Joseph," Charles replied. "We are family, we don't need to worry about it."
"It's my honor, Master Charles." Joseph agreed happily.
He knew that he should not act too reserved at this time, otherwise he would be denying what Master Charles said about "his own people".
Sitting down on the sofa, Charles felt a sense of guilt.
When Charles' family was bullied by Francis, Joseph had been helping them secretly, especially caring for Charles. It is not an exaggeration to say that he treated Charles as a child.
However, Charles had not visited him for nearly a year, not even at home or at the tractor factory.
Joseph didn't think there was anything wrong with Charles.
Master Charles is busy saving France and rarely goes home. Even during holidays he is busy working.
But even so, he still saved Matthew and helped him grow into a useful and confident person.
Joseph was very pleased. He felt only gratitude towards Charles, gratitude from the bottom of his heart!
"Have you considered how to develop in the United States?" Charles took the coffee handed to him by Joseph.
Joseph hesitated and said, "I think we should start with grenades. Because they are easy to produce, low-cost and suitable for mass production, it is easier to gain a foothold."
All things are difficult at the beginning, and Joseph plans to choose a simple beginning.
But Charles rejected his idea: "No, Joseph, you should roll out the military industry as soon as possible. Not just grenades, but also mortars, submachine guns, rifles, and even helmets."
"Helmet?" Joseph looked at Charles in confusion: "American troops are not allowed to wear helmets, sir."
He learned this last night after taking a preliminary look at the U.S. arms market.
What's more, helmets are also related to aesthetics. First of all, we have to consider whether Americans are willing to use them, and this usually requires negotiation before a decision can be made.
But Charles insisted on his own idea: "Just focus on production, don't worry about other things."
The Americans will definitely use it, Charles was sure.
Because at that time the Americans were "starving and indiscriminate", not to mention helmets, they would even put an iron pot on their heads.
"Okay, sir." Joseph nodded in agreement.
Master Charles must have his considerations. If it doesn't work out, these helmets can be sold for a good price if shipped from the United States to France. There will be no trouble selling these things during wartime.
Charles added, "You have about $100 million in funding."
Joseph, who had just sat on the sofa, looked at Charles in shock. Master Charles was so sure that the American military industry could make money at once that he bet all his chips!
"Isn't this too risky?" Joseph hesitated.
"No, Joseph," Charles replied, "Do as I say. What you need to consider is how to use the funds you have to expand production capacity and produce as many qualified products as possible in the shortest time."
"As you wish, Master Charles." Joseph sat up straight, as if this matter was beyond his ability to bear. "I will do as you say."
Joseph guessed that Master Charles was a general and he should know the direction of the war, so he chose this seemingly risky and radical approach which was actually to seize business opportunities.
Then Charles explained: "But the equipment produced is stored in the warehouse and the Americans must not know about it, especially the US military."
Joseph could understand this. This was a common tactic used by capitalists, commonly known as "hunger marketing": artificially creating the illusion of commodity shortage to raise prices, and then suddenly dumping the goods at high prices to realize huge profits.
What Joseph didn't know was that things were far from as simple as he thought.
Ciel's logic was clear.
At this time, the Americans themselves thought that they would not participate in this war that had nothing to do with them, so the US military would only purchase in small quantities.
As Colonel Johnson said, they would give Shire a "minimum purchase amount" to ensure that Shire's arsenal would not go bankrupt.
Doing so may seem to give Charles many preferential policies, but in fact it is keeping Charles' military factories in a state of limbo until the Americans have learned all the technologies and trained a large number of workers and technicians.
But what they didn't expect was that Charles was taking advantage of their mentality.
When it comes to "minimum purchase quantities", Shire can use this as an excuse to raise prices:
"What? Only 1,000?"
"The quantity is too small. This is a rifle. There are hundreds of thousands of them on the European battlefield. Why are you scrambling to get it?"
"Even 10,000 won't do. It's not even a fraction of what we can get in Europe, and the profit is not enough to buy machines and build factories."
"15,000... OK, but you have to pay double the price, otherwise we won't be able to make a profit at all!"
…
The Americans calculated that this was true and they could not let Charles go bankrupt, so the agreement was happily reached.
It's not just rifles, the same goes for all other equipment.
The US military thought they had gotten an advantage. They obtained the same advanced equipment, technology, tactics, etc. as those on the European battlefield at a very small cost. Many of these things could not be bought with money.
However, one day they suddenly knew they had to go to war, and the situation was completely different:
"We need 100,000 rifles, and we need them now!"
"What? Insufficient production capacity?"
"We'll add more money, the sooner the better!"
…
As a result, a large amount of equipment was delivered to American soldiers at prices several times higher than the normal price, and it was definitely not just "100,000".
(The picture above shows the U.S. military in 1917. The U.S. military had only 130,000 troops in 1917. After deciding to join the war, it quickly expanded to 4 million in just one year, of which more than 2 million troops were deployed on the Western Front. As can be seen in the picture, the equipment was extremely simple. Afterwards, the U.S. military urgently distributed hundreds of thousands of French or British helmets)
The development direction formulated by Charles is aimed at the period when the US military's short-term expansion has led to a shortage of various equipment.
By then, not only the prices of equipment such as rifles, grenades, and bullets, but also the prices of fabrics used to produce military uniforms, as well as water bottles, medicines, etc. will rise rapidly.
The Americans wanted to slaughter Charles, the "lamb", but they never expected that they would be severely fleeced by Charles in return.
(End of this chapter)
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