Regardless of what happened the day before, the sun rises the next day as usual, untouched by external objects.

In the morning, considering that Baron Beauwan must have received the letter, and that the poor man of Du Taai must have woken up, and that he should have known all the information, Charles went out of his way to look around his house carefully, and found that nothing unusual happened. He relieved himself slightly, but decided to continue to observe for a while.

Then, as scheduled, he went to Boble Street, because he had received a call for help yesterday.

…………

"What? You actually made such a mistake!? Unforgivable! ”

Charles glared angrily at the middle-aged man sitting opposite, his tone was very stern, and his expression almost lost his usual composure, "I warned you several times beforehand, be careful, be careful, but you still caused such a mess for me, Mr. Pardon, did you take my words as a deaf ear?" You are a dereliction of duty, a dereliction of duty that cannot be tolerated! ”

No wonder he's so angry, if you work so hard to get sponsorship, and someone tells you that these sponsorships accidentally went down the drain because of some accident, wouldn't you be angry?

The gun shop owner Pardon had some beads of sweat on his forehead, looking very nervous, and he looked at Charles with some flattery, "Sir, we didn't expect things to turn out like this...... Don't worry......"

"Not in a hurry? How could I not be in a hurry? Charles was still angry, "The arms that were finally bought with money were directly seized!" Is there such an absurd and ridiculous thing? Don't forget how you promised us beforehand? He also said that there would be no problems, but the result! It doesn't matter if the money is spent in vain. But can you afford to delay everyone's time? I've reminded you so many times before, and you've promised you well, and it turned out to be. This is how you repay our trust! ”

"It happened suddenly, I didn't expect ......"

"Suddenly? What's sudden? Charles's tone was still very harsh, "Shouldn't we be prepared in advance to rule out the so-called 'sudden'?" ”

Pardon bowed his head and said nothing. He himself knew that this matter was too bad, so now I am afraid that he will not even have room to plead, so he can only honestly bow his head and listen to the training.

"Recently a friend of mine found a way. You can get a batch of good goods from several quartermasters and officers in the army, but you have to hurry up and do it, otherwise they will all be bought by others......" The last time Charles came to give money to this Mr. Pardon. That's what he said, and that's exactly what he did after Charles was gone.

As a result, he was executing jihua at the time. but poked a big basket. There seems to be something wrong with the Army. It was discussed well before, and the money was delivered, but now the money has been given to the internal response, but the batch of munitions has been detained in the munitions warehouse and cannot be released, and the panicked Pardon hurriedly asked Charles to discuss countermeasures.

After venting his anger, Charles finally regained some of his usual composure.

"Tell me in detail, what the hell is going on? Could it be that those people do not pay attention to their credibility and repent? He looked at Pardon. The gaze was a little calm.

"It's not that the quartermasters are repentant, it's something else......" Pardon glanced at Charles with some embarrassment. There was a recent change of quartermaster over there, and we didn't prepare for it all of a sudden, so we didn't get the job done......"

What he meant was that after the change of person, the money had not yet been made due to the rush of time.

To tell the truth, the procurement and munitions system of the French Army in this era, and even the entire military spending system, even if described as "a mess" or "a mess", are already compliments, and they are full of all kinds of corruption. It is nothing new for officers at the top to embezzle military funds on a large scale, and for officers and quartermasters at the middle and lower levels to collude with suppliers to make a difference in prices with shoddy goods, or to simply resell military weapons and supplies.

This situation is not unique to France, and the bureaucratic capacity of the "developed Western countries" in this era may be much stronger, but it is not much better in terms of political morality than its colleagues in the East, and corruption and so on are commonplace.

If this kind of corruption is just a way to generate income for officers in addition to their salaries, it is not very terrible, and the most terrible thing is that this kind of corruption also seriously affects the combat effectiveness of the army.

Let's take the example of the later Minnie gun being installed in the army.

The Mini gun can be called the pinnacle of the front-loading gun Zuihou, the advantages of the general smoothbore gun are almost universally known, in the 40s of the 19th century this gun has appeared quite mature type, and in 1849 Deville and Captain Mini invented the Mini bullet, more epoch-making progress has been made.

In 1850, the French designed the Mini rifle, which had a range and accuracy that completely destroyed the Type 1842 smoothbore gun now installed in France, but it was not favored by the French Army procurement department and was not installed in the army on a large scale.

The British made the early Minnie gun in 1851, and in 1853 it began to be mass-produced and equipped with the army, and then Spain, the United States, and many German states, including Russia, which was damaged in the Crimean War, began to desperately copy the Minie gun, while France was only equipped with a very small number of Minnie guns until the end of the Crimean War (the main infantry weapons were still the 1842 and 1853 smoothbore guns, or the 1846 and 1853 carbines), As the country where the Mini bullet was invented, France almost became the last country to install the Mini gun.

weishenme？ Because the suppliers had not yet made enough money and did not want to invest in the replacement of Minnie guns, the Army Procurement Department, which had received large sums of money from them, refused to buy Minnie guns from other arms dealers to supply the Army.

This is an institutional problem, and this is an extremely serious institutional problem.

In the Crimean War, which began in 1854, the French suffered five or six times as many casualties as the British army.

Charles originally thought that after the success of the organization's plan, he would stuff the Minnie gun into the army through various means as soon as possible, but he did not expect that he would be involved in the army's institutional problems so quickly.

"If you can't even control this risk, you shouldn't be greedy for this kind of cheap in the first place!" Charles still scolded Pardon, but his tone had slowed down a lot, "And what are you going to do now?" ”

"If you want to buy enough good weapons at once, isn't the best place to go to the army? I can't help it when time is so tight......" Pardon whispered a word of defense, then picked up a handkerchief, wiped the sweat stains on his head, and then whispered his next plan, "I'm going to go find those officers first, but let them introduce me to the new quartermaster to see if they can be accommodating, according to my guess, the other party should just want to card us and ask for money from it, and will not stick to the end." So, if necessary, I think it's okay to give him some money......"

"That's all you can do, you can do it yourself." Charles sighed quietly, "But you have to be careful not to expose yourself in front of others, in front of him and other officers, you are just an arms dealer who colluded with officers to make a windfall, understand?" ”

"Of course I understand." Pardon nodded hurriedly.

"That's what you said last time, and you ended up with such a big basket for me!" "Are you going to perfunctory me with the same assurances this time?" ”

"Of course not! Of course not! Pardon said in a loud voice, "This time I promise you, the same situation will never happen again, last time it was really just an accident, just an accident!" ”

Charles stared at the other party tightly, seeing that the other party had really made up his mind this time, so he nodded, "Okay, I'll trust you again this time, you'd better not let us down again, otherwise I think you should know the consequences, right?" ”

"Yes, yes, yes......" Pardon's head oozed cold sweat again, obviously a sturdy and burly middle-aged man, but at the moment he looked like an honest and tame middle school student.

"You go first, and if there is any unexpected situation at that time, remember to inform me as soon as possible." Xia Er still frowned, and said his Zuihou considerations, "If the worst-case scenario, this deal will be directly suspended, and the matter of weapons and money will be found later." After all, all this money is just a trivial matter, and everyone's safety comes first. Of course, this can only be done when Zuihou can't do it......"

"Haode, I understand."

………………

After explaining what should be explained, Charles finally put away his cold demeanor just now, "I'm leaving, do you have anything else to report to me?" ”

"Didn't I mention the '121 Comrades Association' to you when you came? I've recently inquired about their situation......" Pardon seemed to want to win back some image points in Charles's heart, and quickly replied with a somewhat flattering smile, "This is a new organization, but it seems that there are quite a lot of members, and it seems that they are planning something recently, and they have been expanding their personnel and buying a lot of weapons." However, I didn't know that they would be able to do it so quickly......"

"Does that need to be said? They also found one of their prince's wives. Charles said a cold joke, "Okay, let's put this kind of thing aside for now, now it's important to get the gun back, these people are still our friends for now, and we'll talk about it later." ”

[Refers to the wife of Prince Belgiojoso, Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, born in Milan in 1808 to a noble family, and later married Prince Belgiojoso.] She was a staunch opponent of Austrian rule in Italy, and was exiled by the Austrian government for her participation in the Charcoal Party, and most of her property was confiscated, but she continued to use her remaining money to sponsor Italian revolutionary organizations against Austrian rule. Since the beginning of the 30s, she has been living in France and has made a name for herself in French high society for her experiences. 】

"Haode, I understand." Pardon nodded in agreement. (To be continued......)