Chapter 998: Irreconcilable and Federal Aircraft

The contradiction between Lans and Governor Wei De did indeed cause some discussion within Denuozhou, but those mayors didn't end their cooperative relationship with Lans because of this. On the contrary, they cooperated even more closely.

Who knows when this cooperation will end? While they can still get some benefits, strengthen some cooperation.

If the Lans family withdraws from the Denuozhou market in the future, they won't have so many benefits.

Many people don't think the Lans family can last long. After all, they are all outsiders.

There are also some people who are thinking about reconciling Lans and Governor Wei De.

"... Look, we have cooperated for such a long time, no one is more in sync than us."

A mayor of a city is lifting a wine bottle to pour wine for Lans, while persuading him actively with a cigarette in his mouth.

This mayor doesn't have the appearance a mayor should have at this time. The dense body hair of one or two centimeters under his rolled-up sleeves.

If he weren't wearing clothes, people wouldn't even be able to distinguish whether he was an animal or a human if they threw him into the zoo.

But it is such a guy who looks more like an animal than a human, who is now actively persuading Lans to reconcile with Governor Wei De.

Lans didn't speak, just watched the wine in the glass being poured a lot. He picked it up and clinked his glass with this hairy mayor, and then they each took a sip.

Perhaps feeling Lans's determination on this matter, the hairy mayor frowned. "Lans, we have also cooperated for a long time. I know the commission you give us is the most, and there is no such commission in many places."

"From a certain point of view, the commission we take is the most unreasonable, because it is too much."

Lans only then put his attention back on him. The hairy mayor coughed. "I know this was a means you used to grab more markets before, but now you don't need these anymore."

"Then why can't you lower our share ratio?"

"For example, lower it by half, twenty-five percent, so that Wei De only occupies

"We can all be satisfied, so there won't be any conflict between you, and our cooperation will continue, stably controlling the market here."

This was indeed a very good suggestion, and even if he hadn't said it, Lans would have discretionarily considered lowering the share the mayors received from his hands.

Even if Gold Standard Liquor made a comeback, as long as they didn't give the mayors a share, then even if he lowered the share to only twenty percent, ten percent, or even five percent, there would still be people willing to cooperate with him.

After all, five percent is better than nothing!

It was just that he hadn't expected this hairy mayor to take the initiative to bring up this suggestion, which made him somewhat surprised.

After all, in the Federation, profit is the most core thing.

He previously had a good relationship with Admiral Miles of the Navy, but because both sides stood their ground, they broke up directly; now it is the same with Governor Wei De—as long as someone's core interests are touched, breaking up is the mainstream.

Therefore, it is indeed rare for the hairy mayor to take the initiative to lower his own interests in these businesses to continuously maintain the stability of the entire business.

Lans picked up his wine glass again and took a sip, then shook his head, "You want to resolve the conflict between Wei De and me; I can feel your sincerity and intentions, but the problem with this matter is not here."

Lans put down his wine glass and looked at him, "The core problem is that he wants to force me to bow my head, but I don't want to bow my head, understand?"

"This has nothing to do with how much he can get."

"I am willing to give it to him, I can give him more, but I am not willing to give it to him, and no one can snatch it from me."

The hairy mayor suddenly felt an even worse headache, "Then how can this problem be solved?"

Lans shook his head, "This problem cannot be solved, and you don't need to waste any more effort."

He didn't want to talk about this topic because it was truly meaningless; it was unlikely that either of them would compromise now.

If Lans bowed his head now and accepted this twenty percent, even if the mayors now took the initiative to lower their own shares to balance the interest relationship within it.

But what if Governor Wei De found some excuse next time to raise the share by another five or ten percent?

Would he agree, or would he not agree?

If he didn't agree, he would fall into the same deadlock as now.

If he agreed, given Governor Wei De's personality, he would certainly test Lans by asking for more, and in the end, he would still have to face the same problem!

Actually, when it comes down to it, it's still that Lans's power is not strong enough to form a sufficient deterrent, yet he possesses enormous wealth.

The hairy mayor sighed and finally gave up on the idea of mediating between Lans and Governor Wei De; he could only promise Lans that as long as no force majeure occurred, he would continue to cooperate with Lans.

Since he could promise this, Lans's goal had already been achieved.

Lans had run to quite a few places during this period and reached a consensus with those mayors; as long as no force majeure occurred, their cooperation would continue, and they would also receive the profit share Lans promised.

No one could refuse such a large amount of wealth, no one.

In mid-November, the weather was somewhat gloomy, and New Jincheng had already had a snowfall.

The cold air arrived faster this year.

Senator Cleveland sat in his car and left the city, heading to a military base in the suburbs; he had been thinking about some problems on the way.

Without having been a senator, one cannot understand how busy a senator is.

As one of the most important departments of the federal government, it is not just about proposals, legislation, and the like; for everything that happens in the entire country, the Presidential Palace will handle one copy, and the Congress will also handle one.

And Congress handles things more meticulously; with all kinds of committees and working groups, they will break problems down to solve them.

Unlike the President, who solves what he knows how to solve, and throws what he doesn't know how to solve to Congress or the Cabinet.

Senator Cleveland had too many things to consider: war, citizens, industry, production, international relations...

However, he also enjoyed it.

In some thoughts, time passes very quickly.

Of course, it also has a certain relationship with his old age; he has become more focused, while his mental activity is not as good as when he was young.

Everyone will go through such a process—

When they were young, in the classroom, letting them sit there for forty minutes seemed as long as a century to them!

Every day was a long and agonizing day; it seemed that the concept of time in children's eyes was a process with a very long span.

But when they get older, time seems to have been pressed with a fast-forward button; let alone forty minutes, one or two hours will end very quickly.

Everyone will have such a feeling that time passes faster and faster.

But in reality, time does not change; what changed is the activity level of people's thinking.

It's like running; running one lap in a minute and running ten laps in a minute, the exercise intensity is definitely different.

If the intensity of this exercise is the speed at which humans perceive time, then naturally, the older you get, the harder it is to perceive time, and time passes faster.

Just like that, for Senator Cleveland, it was a blink of an eye, and the car had already stopped.

In front were two wire mesh walls; inside the wire mesh walls were iron thorns, a thing used to prevent people from moving, with sharp blades.

If one accidentally fell into them, one would soon be covered in cuts and bruises, and finally die there due to blood loss.

Two soldiers walked to the car, and Senator Cleveland rolled down the window and showed his pass.

The soldier checked his pass, then walked back to the guard booth to verify the authenticity of this pass by phone again, before returning it to Senator Cleveland, and bowed to salute, "Mr. Senator, you may enter."

Senator Cleveland nodded and rolled up the window again; the strict access control system was better in his view than letting him enter casually; at least they were working.

Two cars, led by a military vehicle, came directly to the side of a runway, where quite a few people had already gathered.

They had set up a temporary tent, but it didn't keep warm, because the side of the tent facing the runway had nothing, completely open.

Many people he knew had arrived early, and when people saw him coming, they all greeted him one after another. Today they were going to test fly an airplane intended to be put into the battlefield.

The airplanes manufactured by the Republic of Dantra brought more variables to the federal battlefield; it could easily find artillery positions and then launch attacks starting from the air on the artillery positions, which was difficult to defend against.

Although some military-industrial groups had already begun to produce and put into use some weapons specifically for hitting airplanes, such as anti-aircraft guns and rapid-fire cannons, the effect did not reach the degree people imagined, where one could shoot down an airplane easily.

These airplanes flew very high, and it was not a simple matter for bullets to hit them; they would leave immediately after dropping cluster bombs.

And even if they could hit some airplanes, it was impossible to hit all of them, and the Federation gradually lost its advantage on the battlefield.

The New Alliance side hoped that the Federation could immediately come up with countermeasures, and the federal side was also stepping up research.

In the past, the research and development speed of airplanes was not fast because there was no "force" to push this matter.

But now, its research and development speed had gained a huge boost because of the military's procurement intentions.

Profit is the main driving force for promoting scientific progress, bar none!

In the past few years, the ones living the best in the Federation were the major military-industrial groups; they were becoming behemoth enterprises, which made many people envious, jealous, and hateful, but they couldn't get their hands in.

Military-industrial enterprises are not like ordinary industries, where you can just get an assembly line and produce directly; military industry involves many aspects.

Smelting, chemical industry, machinery, all aspects, and also need mechanical experts proficient in design.

So even if the market knew that the military-industrial field was a place that was booming, they didn't dare to rashly try to come in and see.

This time, after the federal government proposed to procure a large number of airplanes for the war, it let people see an opportunity.

A large number of aircraft companies were quickly established, and then began to research and develop airplanes that could be used in war.

Today, some companies had already completed their designs and prototype production, and came to show them collectively to these people from the Department of Defense and Congress.

After all, whether to procure in the end, and how much to procure, was decided by these people.

Subsequently, some people arrived one after another, and they gathered together, discussing some things that had happened recently.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, an officer came to the front of the people, and he coughed twice, attracting everyone's attention.

"Gentlemen, everyone has arrived, next let them start showing their products."

"The first to be shown is the Peregrine airplane produced by Xilo Industry...", as he said some parameters, in the hangar by the runway, an airplane was towed out and stopped on the runway.

The runway had been completely cleaned, including the snow and a small amount of frost on the ground, which had also been cleaned up.

With the consent of the airport staff, the pilot drove this Peregrine airplane to accelerate and quickly pulled up into the air.

"Looks like a big toy," a senator said his point of view, and others laughed.

Things like airplanes, in their eyes, really didn't have much difference from toys.

The airplane in the air quickly arrived at the predetermined location and then dropped four cluster bombs.

It's just that considering the load-bearing capacity of the airplane, the power of the cluster bombs was not very great; the targets on the ground were basically hit, and it looked a bit bluffing.

Senator Cleveland had also been paying attention to the consequences produced by the bombs; he actually didn't understand this, but he also had his own thoughts, "It seems that the consequences caused by these bombs don't seem to have any direct relationship with this airplane."

His words made quite a few people look toward his side, and then after thinking about it carefully, it was indeed so.

Bombs are bombs, airplanes are airplanes; the officer responsible for guiding seemed not to have expected Senator Cleveland to say such simple and correct words.

He was also stunned for a moment before nodding and saying, "Indeed so."

"Then should we change the subsequent display strategy?"

Senator Cleveland nodded, "I think you just need to let these airplanes take off, and then tell us how much they can carry, how fast they can fly, and so on, which is enough."

"As for the bombs dropped, I believe the heavier the shell, the greater the damage; in this regard, we have specialized enterprises doing it."

Others agreed with his point of view more or less; there were chemical enterprises specializing in producing explosives, or military-industrial enterprises producing bombs; they also knew that the effect of an explosion had a relationship with the weight of the explosive.

Whether to perform bombing actually didn't have much meaning, and it wasted time.

Soon this officer explained the situation to those companies waiting to show; after the Peregrine in the sky returned to the ground, a new airplane was also pulled onto the runway, starting to prepare for takeoff.

Airplane after airplane took off, and after turning a circle in the sky, they landed again; the gentlemen actually couldn't distinguish which airplane was better.

Until an airplane called "Sharp Arrow" appeared, the officer introduced it emphatically.

"This Sharp Arrow model airplane is different from what we showed before; the designer who designed it claimed that manufacturing it was not to let it run to a very far place and drop the bombs."

"Its purpose is to protect the space above our heads, so it is not used for bombing, but for attacking other airplanes."

As he said this, everyone saw the ground staff of this company take some very large balloons to the outside of the field, and then after filling them with gas, they rose directly into the sky.

The Sharp Arrow model airplane circling in the sky quickly turned its direction and shot down these balloons from a very far place.

This indeed made the gentlemen feel some freshness.

"Because it won't fly over the enemy's position, this airplane has more room for optimization in design..."

In the officer's introduction, this airplane could become an important defensive means to protect one's own artillery positions, attacking the enemy in the air.

The airplanes of this period didn't fly fast; in the situation of being able to obtain more "weight reduction," these Sharp Arrow model airplanes, whether in flight speed or turning ability, were more flexible and faster than other "bombers" that sought to fly farther and carry heavier loads.

This gave them the opportunity to quickly meet and attack enemy airplanes!

Displaying to here, it was actually already displayed almost enough; the Sharp Arrow model airplane in the sky quickly flew back along the runway.

The manufacturer representatives were also very nervous; this would determine whether their efforts during this period could get sufficient returns.

The senators and the generals of the Department of Defense, as well as the military generals, discussed for a while, and they decided to procure two types of airplanes with a total of three models.

A long-range bomber, a medium-range heavy bomber, and that Sharp Arrow model fighter.

Now they actually didn't have such precise classification; they were only distinguished according to their actual use and model.

The representatives of the three selected enterprises all showed smiles, while other representatives were somewhat disappointed.

However, this didn't mean that they had lost the opportunity forever; they would still have opportunities; as long as they could research and develop airplanes with more advanced performance, there would definitely be orders.

Moreover, orders didn't necessarily have to come from domestic; they could also come from abroad, such as allies in the Slad Military Alliance or something.

Subsequently, the group returned to the warm building of the military base; after preliminary negotiations, the federal government would procure one thousand airplanes.

Among them, five hundred fighters and five hundred of the two types of bombers.

The cheapest quotation for these airplanes was 43,000 federal Sol, the most expensive was 51,000 federal Sol; averaging it out, it was about 46,000 per airplane.

One thousand airplanes, that was 46 million; this was just a try at a new thing.

Once these airplanes played a role on the battlefield, defense orders would appear on the desks of these enterprises one after another.