Chapter 574 War Profits

In the small town of Lavaise, the tractor factory was rainy and the sound of steel colliding and knocking could be heard one after another.

Before Joseph left, Charles went to his office.

Joseph's office was very simple, with only a desk and a sofa for guests. In the corner was a pot of French chrysanthemums, which was Joseph's favorite.

Seeing Charles appear at the door, Joseph was so happy that he couldn't close his mouth. He immediately put down the documents in his hand and greeted him with a surprised look and shook Charles' hand 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 doesn't matter, Joseph." Charles replied: "We are family, don't care about these."

"It's my honor, Master Charles." Joseph agreed happily.

He knew that he shouldn't be too restrained at this time, otherwise he would deny what Master Charles said about "family".

Sitting on the sofa, a trace of guilt arose in Charles' heart.

When Charles' family was bullied by Francis, Joseph had been secretly helping them, especially caring for Charles. It was not an exaggeration to say that he treated Charles as a child.

However, Charles had not visited him for nearly a year, even when he went home or was in the tractor factory.

Joseph did not think there was anything wrong with Charles.

Master Charles was busy saving France, and he rarely went home. He was busy working even during holidays.

But even so, he still saved Matthew and helped him grow into a useful and confident talent.

Joseph was very pleased. He was only grateful to Charles, from the bottom of his heart!

"Have you considered how to develop in the United States?" Charles took the coffee handed by Joseph.

Joseph hesitated: "I think we should start with grenades. Because it is not difficult to produce, low cost, suitable for mass production, and easier to gain a foothold."

Everything is difficult at the beginning, Joseph plans to choose a simple beginning.

But Charles denied his idea: "No, Joseph, you should start the military industry as soon as possible. Not only grenades, but also mortars, submachine guns, rifles, and even helmets."

"Helmets?" Joseph looked at Charles puzzledly: "The American army is not worthy of wearing helmets, young master."

He knew this after a preliminary understanding of the American arms market last night.

What's more, helmets are also related to aesthetics. First of all, you have to consider whether Americans are willing to use them. This usually takes place after negotiations.

But Charles insisted on his own ideas: "Just produce, and don't consider other things."

Americans will definitely use them, Charles is sure.

Because that was when the United States was "hungry and indiscriminate", let alone helmets, they would even be willing to put an iron pot on their heads.

"Okay, young master." Joseph nodded and agreed.

Master Charles must have his considerations. If it doesn't work, these helmets can be sold at a good price when shipped from the United States to France. There is no worry about these things not being able to sell during the war.

Charles added: "You probably have $100 million in funding."

Joseph, who had just sat on the sofa, looked at Charles in shock. Master Charles was sure that the US military industry could make money once and bet all his chips!

"Is this too risky?" Joseph hesitated.

"No, Joseph." Charles replied: "Do as I say. What you need to consider is how to use the funds in your hands 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 tolerance: "I will do as you say."

Joseph guessed that Master Charles was a general. He should know the direction of the war, so he chose this seemingly risky and radical way to seize business opportunities.

Then Charles explained: "But the equipment produced is stored in the warehouse and cannot be known to the Americans, especially the US military."

Joseph can understand this point. This is a common method used by capitalists, commonly known as "hunger marketing": artificially create the illusion of commodity shortage to raise prices, and then suddenly dump them at high prices to achieve huge profits.

What Joseph didn't know was that things were far from as simple as he thought.

Charles' logic was very 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 Charles a "minimum purchase volume" to ensure that Charles' arsenal would not go bankrupt.

Doing so seemed to give Charles a lot of preferential policies, but in fact it was to keep Charles' arsenal alive until the Americans learned all the technology and trained a large number of workers and technicians.

But what they didn't expect was that Charles was taking advantage of their psychology.

Reading the error-free version! 6=9+book_ba first release of this novel

When talking about the "minimum purchase quantity", Charles can use this to raise the price:

"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 for it!"

"10,000 is not enough. It's not even a fraction of what you can get in Europe. The profit is not enough to buy machines and build factories."

"15,000... OK, but at double the price, otherwise we won't have any profit margin at all!"

...

The Americans calculated that this was right. They could not let Charles go bankrupt and leave like this, so the agreement was reached happily.

It's a similar situation not just for rifles, but for all other equipment.

The U.S. military thinks it has taken advantage. They have obtained the same advanced equipment as those used on the European battlefield at a very small price, as well as technology, tactics, etc. Many things cannot be bought with money.

However, one day they suddenly knew that they were going to join the war, and the situation was completely different:

"We need 100,000 rifles, now!"

"What? Insufficient production capacity?"

"Let's add money, the sooner the better!"

…

As a result, a large amount of equipment was delivered to American soldiers at a price several times higher than the normal price, and it was by no means just "100,000."

(The picture above shows the U.S. military in 1917. There were only 130,000 U.S. troops in 1917. After deciding to participate in 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 battlefield. The equipment can be seen in the picture Extremely crude, the U.S. military later issued hundreds of thousands of French or British helmets on an emergency basis)

The development direction formulated by Shire is aimed at the period when the short-term expansion of the US military has resulted in a shortage of various equipment.

By then, not only the prices of equipment such as rifles, grenades, and bullets, but also the fabrics used to produce military uniforms, water bottles, medicines, etc. will rise.

The Americans wanted to kill the "lamb" of Charles, but they never expected that they would be stabbed by Charles in turn.