Chapter 965: Finding me is right

One month.

After one month, the ammunition supply won't keep up, and the civil war will stop just as it has begun.

"If the combat plan on the front line is set more cleverly, or if fewer bullets are issued to the soldiers, then we can persist for a longer time."

Diego looked at the Minister of Logistics as if looking at a fool, even though he himself wasn't very smart.

"If I let them carry fewer bullets, can you guarantee that in every battle, before they finish the few bullets in their pockets, they will send the enemies to God's embrace?"

"Can you guarantee it?"

"Fuck!"

President Diego cursed.

Although he is a bastard in many ways, he is actually quite good in this regard; unless his emotions really explode, he rarely curses.

Now that he can curse, it only shows that his emotions and temper have indeed reached the limit.

Looking at the president who had started to get angry, the Minister of Logistics wanted to say something, but in the end, said nothing.

Experience working in government departments told him that when President Diego is angry and losing his temper, it is best to go along with his temper.

If you insist on confronting his terrible temper, he will let you know why people say he is a "great dictator" and a "tyrant"!

Watching the Minister of Logistics lower his head and not speak, he waved his hand, as if driving away flies. "Now, get out of my room!"

After watching the Minister of Logistics leave, Diego immediately called Fernandez. "Just now I asked our people, and now our ammunition reserves can only maintain the current war intensity for about a month."

"After a month, our ammunition won't keep up."

"Just now I also contacted the Federation Ambassador, and they claimed that the weapons we purchased are from Jiede, not purchased from them, so they don't bear any after-sales."

Fernandez stopped his work, pinched his forehead, and asked, "So what do you mean now?"

President Diego said in a relatively slow speed after a few seconds, "I want to buy some bullets from Jiede."

Saying "buy," in fact, this money might still need to be paid by the Republic of Jiede in the early stage, because he will only promise to use some mine resources to pay, not others.

He won't spend his own money to do anything for this country; that is his private wealth, which has nothing to do with this country, and now the country has no money.

Just like this batch of military equipment that armed 200,000 people, he didn't spend money; they signed some authorization agreements.

Authorizing some businessmen in the Republic of Jiede to mine some mineral resources in Lapa for how many years, this deal was earned by Diego himself.

After all, mineral resources cannot be completely mined in ten or so years, so he is equivalent to getting these things without paying actual money, so he earned it.

But this time, Fernandez didn't agree immediately. "I need to discuss it with Jiede, I need some time."

Diego didn't force him to answer immediately either. "You only have enough time to discuss with your cabinet, including the President of Jiede, but I hope you can be as fast as possible, because we need time to respond."

After hanging up the phone, Fernandez called the president. He didn't immediately talk about Diego's request to import bullets, but asked about the situation in the country after the Federation embargoed standard-specification ammunition.

"Very bad."

The president's voice was full of fatigue. "I have organized a group of engineers to study for a few days, and the results are disappointing."

"In fact, we can fully produce semi-automatic assembly lines to piece together the parts of bullets."

"But the problem is, we can't manufacture bullets, shells, or other things from scratch."

"This involves the most basic industry, and we happen to be the weakest link in this regard."

In fact, the industrial development of the Republic of Jiede over the years has also had a certain degree of "research is not as good as buying" problems. For example, some of their metallurgical materials are almost all imported from the Federation.

They also have steel mills, but they don't have many formulas for special metal materials.

Not to mention chemical things, which is also their weak link.

Although their universities have scoured the entire Xiang Yalan region for talent for targeted training, it may take ten or twenty years for these talents to truly play a role.

They can't wait that long, and now they can only say they are helpless about these problems.

Fernandez heard this answer, which was within his expectation. He knew very well the current industrial potential and ability of Jiede. In order to develop the industrial system faster, plus the Federation is willing to sell some things to them,

So they have been developing in "big strides" in the most basic stage. Every day, they may complete the catch-up of a certain goal in a certain field of industry, making the whole country feel like industrial rejuvenation.

But only those of them who know very well know that once the Federation cuts off supply, many of their factories will have to stop work.

The Republic of Jiede has not considered the problem of making up for the shortcomings of basic industry in the past few years, but this itself is a huge problem.

The Federation, Slard, Dantela, the Empire—the industrial development process of these industrial countries may have lasted for decades, or even hundreds of years!

The Republic of Jiede wants to make up for it in a few years, which is simply impossible. Those key industrial development information are top secret in any country and cannot be easily revealed.

The federal government didn't intend to do this, it's just that the government and capitalists did this unintentionally—

They sell assembly lines, but don't sell plans and formulas for producing raw materials, so they can continuously sell some materials to the Republic of Jiede at high prices.

And the Republic of Jiede has also achieved "self-production" in a certain field.

Now, they need to pay the price for their big-stride development.

"Then what do you plan to do?" Fernandez asked. "Re-equip?"

The president had a headache when talking about this, and the sound of palms hitting skin also came from the receiver, which was very likely him slapping his own forehead.

"This is also something I don't know what to do about. We have produced about two million weapons."

"Honestly, I don't know how to face them."

Using weapons designed and produced by themselves is also one of Jiede's development plans. At the same time, this approach can greatly improve the soldiers' sense of honor.

After all, as the first power in the Xiang Yalan region, they still use the Federation's imported weapons, which indeed has nothing to do with being a "power."

But if they use weapons designed and produced by the Republic of Jiede, then the soldiers will have a very special emotion!

They will feel proud and glorious for the weapons in their hands!

Now they need to pay the price for this glory.

Two million weapons, all semi-automatic rifles, the production cost of these rifles is about 230 Federation Sol each.

This price is actually much more expensive than the Federation.

Before the Federation was still selling standard-specification weapons to the outside world, the cost of a rifle was about 150, and they were equal to 50% to 60% more.

But this is self-produced, a kind of glory, a kind of achievement.

Hundreds of millions of Federation Sol in expenditure have now become waste, and the Republic of Jiede and the industrial side cannot bear it.

Plus the various resources invested in research, in order to produce "the first semi-automatic rifle made in the country," and produced two million rifles.

Jiede Republic invested about 500 million Federation Sol in this project!

Now saying these 500 million are useless, who can bear it?

The people will definitely make trouble if they know!

Fernandez could feel the pain of his classmate, friend, and president at this time. "We can buy some bullets from other countries, we can buy them at a premium."

"Store enough ammunition now, and then consider whether to replace the equipment."

"In addition, I believe the Empire, or other countries, are willing to sell ammunition to us. We can buy more at one time as war reserves."

"Now this is not our family's problem, it is the problem of the entire Xiang Yalan Alliance. They also have a large number of weapons from the Federation, and they also need ammunition."

"We can sell the ammunition stored for a period of time to them, so that we don't need to pay, and even make a profit from it, solving the ammunition problem."

The president thought seriously for a while after hearing this. "This idea is very good. I will convene a cabinet meeting to discuss it. It's a pity you are not here."

"Otherwise I would send you to the Empire or other countries to talk." Fernandez is indeed highly valued by the president, and the plan he proposed indeed has the possibility of being implemented.

Although Fernandez didn't say it in such detail, the president could understand his friend's train of thought.

He gave a big framework, and the president could fill in the things inside himself.

The two exchanged some intelligence and then hung up the phone. Then he called Diego and told Diego that the Republic of Jiede had no way either.

Their ammunition reserves are actually insufficient, and the President of Jiede also entrusted him to ask Diego if Lapa's ammunition could be sold to Jiede.

This made Diego slam the phone directly.

He sat there for a while, and finally couldn't help but call the Federation Ambassador. "How do you sell your new weapons?"

He doesn't care about others in this civil war, but he cannot lose.

If he loses, he will lose everything, not just the power as president, but also his life, and the future of his entire family.

The Lavila family will become the first ruling family in Lapa to be annihilated in the civil war. Whether for himself, or for his family, or for something else, the government army has no reason to lose.

Then for this, he can pay anything, including bowing his head to the Federation people.

Regarding Diego's inquiry about these military equipment, the Federation Ambassador directly asked him to call Lanse.

Now the arms sales representatives on the Federation side are all with Lanse, and Lanse has their contact information.

When the phone rang, Lanse was chatting with these sales representatives.

In the past few days, the domestic news about the arms embargo didn't cause much of a stir. For ordinary people, it's just not selling good weapons to foreigners. They don't care about this; after all, it has no direct connection to them.

In their eyes, large caliber is correct and justice, so they won't feel that the federal government is doing wrong by doing so.

Some media even took the initiative to praise the federal government for taking a firm step forward on the road of protecting people's interests.

"I am Lanse..."

Lanse handed the wine glass in his hand to the person beside him, then looked at the people still laughing and talking in the hall not far away, and turned to look out the window.

"Lanse, I am Diego. I have some things I want to talk to you about. Do you have time now?"

Diego's voice was very gentle; it was hard to connect this voice with its owner.

Lanse said "um." "Do we need to meet and talk?"

"If we meet, it might take a while. I have some friends from the Federation here."

"If we can talk on the phone, then I'll go to the study."

Diego caught a detail in his words. "Friends from the Federation?"

"Are they those sales consultants from the military-industrial group?"

Lanse nodded, which made Diego inevitably suspect whether Lanse also played some disgraceful role in this matter.

On one side, the Federation prohibits the sale of standard-specification weapons and ammunition to the outside world, and on the other side, the Federation's military-industrial sales consultants appear in Lanse's manor. To say they have nothing to do with each other, President Diego is absolutely unwilling to believe it.

But it's meaningless to say this at this time. Behind Lanse is the federal government. Even if he knew, he wouldn't be able to do anything to Lanse.

"I heard that the federal government has a new policy recently. You no longer sell standard-specification weapons and ammunition to the outside world?"

After listening, Lanse replied, "I just heard about it. This is really terrible news."

President Diego hummed twice with a fake smile, "Yeah, it's terrible!"

"It just so happens that I want to chat with these military-industrial sales consultants about the situation of re-equipping Lapa soldiers. Do you think we can sit down and talk?"

Lanse didn't refuse. "Tonight."

"We both have time tonight!"

"Then tonight."

After discussing the time and place, Lanse hung up the phone, then returned to the living room, watching the gentlemen in the living room not sitting down, but standing in the position where he had sat before.

This made these military-industrial sales consultants stop talking, and their eyes were focused on him.

Lanse took another glass of wine, raised it slightly, "Diego, that is, the one from Lapa, just called me and said he intends to talk to you about sales."

All the representatives stood up with joy on their faces, and they raised their glasses to thank Lanse.

They knew very well that if they wanted to do business in Lapa, Lanse and his power were definitely a link that couldn't be bypassed.

Now that the Lapa civil war has broken out, both the government army and the anti-government armed forces need a large amount of military supplies. For the military-industrial group, this is also a big business!

To show sincerity, each of them had actually contacted Lanse privately, and they were willing to take out a part of the commission and give it to Lanse, as a kind of cooperation.

After all, the only person who can decide how long this civil war can be fought and how intense it is, is Lanse.

After clinking glasses with everyone, Lanse took the lead to sit down. He held the wine glass in his hand, constantly rotating it. This little action helped him think and sort out his train of thought.

"Diego is very stingy. Although he is the president of a country, he doesn't have the slightest bearing as the president of this country!"

"So he is very likely not to pay you in cash. He will find ways to pay for this money through some other channels."

"For example, mineral resources; this is the thing Lapa can take out most now."

Other representatives nodded one after another. They had encountered this situation before, especially when selling weapons to some poor and backward places.

Some small countries, their own currency is not recognized internationally at all, so these military-industrial groups will not collect their currency. The only way is "barter."

Minerals, gems, precious metals, or other valuable things, anyway, as long as they are widely recognized internationally, they have a lot of experience in this regard.

Lanse continued, "The mines in Lapa are basically in my hands now."

Looking at the stunned expressions on the faces of these representatives, Lanse showed a reserved but also a bit pretentious smile, "I'll explain first, these have property transfer contracts."

"I reasonably, sensibly, and legally own these mineral resources."

"So, if Diego says he wants to use mineral resources to exchange for the weapons in your hands, don't agree to him. I don't want us to have any embarrassment or conflict, so I'll make it clear first."

"Maybe he can offer very good conditions, for example, promising to subcontract a gold mine directly to you."

"But I need to remind you, no matter how good the things he promises you are, without my nod, I guarantee you won't be able to take a penny out of here!"

The atmosphere at the scene gradually became a bit serious. He said with a smile on his face, "I'm just reminding you, don't be so nervous."

"You can tell him that you only accept cash, precious metals, gems, or art, or, let him pay for this money."

"Diego has about 50 or 60 million in cash savings in the Federation Bank, enough to support this civil war."

"But he is very likely not to take out this money himself, so as long as you bite and don't accept mineral resources, then you will definitely not be able to talk about this contract!"

At this time, a military-industrial sales consultant couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Lanse, then I don't quite understand."

"We want to make this deal with him, but he is unwilling to take out money, so how can we make this deal?"

Lanse smiled, "Let him find me."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 966 =====