Chapter 1573 Big Deal
For Haihan, arms trade has been an extremely important part of Haihan's foreign trade over the years. Regardless of the sales method, Haihan has a relatively mature operation plan. Although the preparation time for this bidding meeting was relatively hasty, the experienced Haihan Ordnance Industry and the Ministry of National Defense prepared the relevant information and processes in just a few days.
On the surface, this arrangement is to allow the Netherlands and Malta to bid for arms equipment under equal conditions, and the winner will be eligible to purchase, but Haihan has no intention of selling to only one of them. , that’s why the arms purchase content is split into two major items and six small items for separate bidding. The purpose is to prevent one party from monopolizing all arms orders with a one-time bid. The stipulation that the next bidding time is at least one year later, and there is no specific time schedule, is also to put pressure on both bidders so that they are not too conservative in the bidding process. After all, no one knows that this wave of sales will be sold out. Is there any chance to buy again next time?
"Let me explain the content of the first bidding item." Bai Kesi read the information on the table in front of him: "The first item is firearms, including two thousand Type 28 matchlock guns and Type 29 matchlocks. There are 1,200 guns, 800 Type 29 flintlock muskets, and 200 flintlock pistols. There are also 30 rifles available for customization. Each gun is equipped with 50 rounds of ammunition, and can be replaced if necessary. For more ammunition, please apply to purchase it in the third auction.”
Judging from the quantity alone, an order of more than 4,000 guns is already considered very large. Except for An Nanguo and Fujian Mingjun, no other customer would purchase so many guns in a single order. However, if you look at the content, it is not difficult to find that the weapon models sold by Haihan are actually old equipment from the early years. In terms of weapon performance, there is naturally a huge gap between the guns currently installed by Haihan's main forces. Even the armies of traditional allies of Haihan such as Annan have been gradually replacing rifles manufactured by Haihan after this. model.
Of course, even old weapons still have certain advantages compared to the existing equipment of the two countries. The proportion of armed personnel of the East India Company equipped with muskets is slightly larger, but it is far from reaching the level of full deployment. Most of them are old goods shipped from Europe, and the quality is uneven. The guns that can be manufactured locally in Batavia will not have the performance of standard weapons such as Haihan, and even the projectiles cannot be fully versatile.
Having said that, if the defenders in the original Battle of Batavia had been equipped with a large number of standard rifles, they would not have been so passive in the city defense battle. If there were really three to four thousand musketeers with unified equipment and sufficient ammunition, the East India Company would not even have to wait for the sea fleet to return for reinforcements, and would directly solve its opponents on land.
The situation of Ma Dalan is even worse. The number of firearms equipped by the army is small and the sources are mixed. The firearms are of various types and their performance is naturally inconsistent. Ammunition supply is even more of a problem. Although there are some scattered musketeers, It is difficult to use unified tactics and organize them into the same army to form real combat effectiveness. The Malta Blue Army suffered a huge loss in weapons in the Battle of Batavia, so in the past two years they have been constantly trying to purchase new weapons and equipment from various channels to gradually replace the old cold weapons. The performance of Haihan's standard weapons in war has always been praised. It is precisely because of this that the Madalan Kingdom is willing to spend a lot of money to purchase arms from Haihan.
But even so, purchasing more than 4,000 firearms at one time was still beyond Luo Hong's imagination. He had inquired about the scale of Haihan's previous arms sales beforehand, and already had certain expectations in his mind. I originally thought that Haihan would be thankful if he could come up with an order for a thousand guns, but I didn't expect that it would be several times that number. At this time, he had some doubts as to whether his ears had heard wrongly.
The information Haihan sent to participants on both sides before the meeting only introduced the performance parameters of the arms that could be ordered, but did not indicate the quantity of each item for sale. It seemed that he wanted to surprise both bidding parties at the meeting. Of course, as long as the parties involved calm down and analyze, they will know that this arrangement is not entirely a surprise, because it is impossible to finalize the price for such an overall procurement project and then discuss the number. The Haihan people clearly stated the number of firearms, and they obviously want buyers. It means packing. And the total price of so many firearms will of course be a very scary amount.
Although Haihan Bank will be the backstop for this arms purchase, in theory they can bid at whatever price they want, and Haihan Bank can borrow whatever amount they want. But in fact, both companies also have their own budgets and procurement plans. If the budget exceeds the scope by a large amount, it will be impossible to complete all procurement tasks as planned.
"As for the prices of these types of firearms, I believe you have also seen it in the information provided by us. Please note that this is already our lowest supply price. Even for models with less than a thousand pieces, we supply based on thousands pieces. The wholesale price of the goods is calculated." Baikes continued to introduce the situation of this batch of firearms to both parties: "You can start to calculate the minimum price of this batch of firearms and prepare your own bids. Please note that both parties have three rounds in each bidding project. Bidding opportunities, the party with the lowest bid in each round must bid again until it is higher than the other party. The final transaction price shall be based on the highest bid in the three rounds of bidding. After the transaction is completed, the prices offered by both parties will be announced to show fairness.”
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The bidding rules formulated by Haihan are a bit complicated. They are also designed to avoid the embarrassing situation of one party bidding in one round. Three rounds of bidding give both parties ample opportunities to raise prices. The transaction price should be higher than that given by Haihan Ordnance. The wholesale sales price is much higher. Calculated according to the price given by Haihan, the total price of this batch of goods has exceeded 200,000 yuan, which is not a small amount, and this is just the appetizer among the six military purchase projects this time.
The executive committee is basically leaning towards Malaysia to pay a high price to win the first round, because the Netherlands actually has the technology to make its own firearms, but it is not able to form an industrial production scale like Haihan. When it comes to purchasing firearms, To the extent necessary, it is obvious that the Ma Dalan country, which mainly uses cold weapons as its main equipment, is more enthusiastic.
Twenty minutes later, the quotations from both parties were placed on trays and presented by the staff. Sure enough, in the first round of bidding, Luo Hong proudly offered a price of 250,000 yuan, which was a full 30,000 yuan more than Su Keyi's price of 220,000 yuan.
"In the first round of bidding, the Malta Blue Nation won. Then the Dutch East India Company made a second round of bidding." After the executive committee members had seen the number of bids from both sides, Baix announced the results of the first round of bidding to everyone. .
Su Keyi increased his bid by 15,000 yuan in the second round of bidding and quoted a price of 235,000 yuan, but it was still not as good as Luo Hong's first-round bid. Therefore, there is only one quotation opportunity left for the East India Company, but the other party has two opportunities. If Su Keyi wants to ensure that he can buy this batch of firearms, he must not only exceed the other party's quotation in the final round, but also must You have to quote a high price that the other party can't even expect. Su Keyi added another 30,000 yuan to the second-round quotation, so the third-round quotation reached 265,000. This offer is already one-third higher than the reserve price. If it is not more than the other party's first-round bid, then he has nothing to fight for. And if the other party bids more in the future, it will definitely be a quite unfair price. Su Keyi believes that Governor Van Diemen will not be willing to use public funds to buy so many high-priced muskets from Haihan.
"The Dutch East India Company won the bid in this round, and the three quotation opportunities have been used up. Now we invite Matalan to make the second round of quotations."
Now it is relatively easy for Luo Hong. He still has two quotation opportunities to overwhelm his opponents. This is of course an inevitable goal. Ma Dalan Country has been running around in order to purchase arms for the past two years, and finally got such an opportunity. Even if it costs a little more for it, it is worth it in Luo Hong's opinion.
Luo Hong didn't hesitate at all and gave a figure of 280,000 in the second round of bidding, directly crushing Su Keyi's last round bid. Ma Dalan won the first battle and won a large order of more than 4,000 firearms with this number. The staff showed the price tag of Luo Hong's last bid to Su Keyi to confirm his opponent's advantage in the bid. Luo Hong proudly thanked everyone in the conference room, even Su Keyi sitting opposite.
In fact, this result was also expected by Su Keyi. Compared with the East India Company's armed forces, the Matalan Army's desire for long-range anti-personnel weapons is naturally much stronger. Four thousand muskets are enough for the Matalan Army to equip a specialized The Musketeers unit greatly enhances the combat capabilities of its army. Su Keyi must use his limited budget wisely, and the firearms project is not the main target he wants to compete for. It is Su Keyi's best effort to raise the price so that the Matalan people spend an unjust amount of money.
But it doesn’t mean that the money was spent unjustly. In fact, it still depends on whether the person concerned thinks it is worth it. As long as the person thinks it is worth it, then it doesn’t matter if it is wronged. This is the mentality of Ma Dalan Country. As long as they can buy the weapons they want, it doesn't matter if they spend a little more money. I'm afraid they won't have anywhere to buy them. Let alone 280,000 yuan, for a one-man business like this, even if it costs 380,000 yuan, you still have to buy it. After all, among the people that Madalan Country has access to, there is no other company that can sell more than 4,000 muskets at one time like Haihan.
Su Keyi's price increase seemed to Luo Hong just a pointless struggle. This idea originally came from Luo Hong, and of course he would not relax at all. Although this is not a battlefield, Luo Hong believes that he must try his best to defeat the Dutch and fundamentally destroy their will. As long as they can win this arms purchase order, what else can the Dutch do in the future to resist the horse and the Blues after changing their uniforms?
Of course, the person who was most happy about this result was not Luo Hong, but the Haihan Executive Committee who presided over the matter. The base price set by Haihan Ordnance Industry based on the transaction prices of past arms trade has a relatively generous profit guarantee. However, under the pressure of competition, these two companies raised the prices of each other and increased the prices by as much as 40%. It was simply Huge profits. While Luo Hong had to sign a series of confirmation documents at this time, these old foxes on the executive committee also took the time to exchange their views.
"This is really...a surprising transaction price!" Schneider spread his hands and said that the price was beyond his expectation.
"We might as well start bidding from now on. You see, it's such a shame to grab it, but you still need a competitive atmosphere to be able to afford the price!" Bai Kesi also lamented the situation just now. He has presided over many arms trade negotiations, but it is really rare for buyers to take the initiative to raise prices on their own. Probably only this kind of limited purchase restriction activity between enemies can trigger such a surge. enthusiasm for buying.
"Then you have to find a way to provoke everyone to whom we sell weapons to fight, and then organize the warring parties together to hold a bidding auction. Haihan Ordnance Industry's profits should be doubled!" Tao Donglai He was in a good mood and started joking along with Bai Kesi.
Of course, it is impossible for Haihan to provoke all his big customers to go to war, such as heavyweight customers like Annan and Daming. If the two sides go to war, the profits Haihan can get from selling arms cannot make up for the losses caused by the war. The arms demand brought about by the special antagonistic relationship between the Netherlands and Maltalan is really something that can only be met but cannot be obtained. Haihan's operation method in this matter is difficult to simply copy elsewhere.
"Congratulations to Matalan Country for obtaining the ordering rights for the first military procurement project, then we will proceed with the second project." Baikes turned the document book in front of him to the next page, and then announced in a deep voice: "Next It is an army artillery weapon.”
The types of artillery launched by Haihan Ordnance for sale this time are no less than firearms. They are divided into two categories: urban defense artillery with fixed forts and field artillery with light mobility and good mobility. Of course, these two kinds of artillery can also have interchangeable functions under certain special circumstances, but they are definitely not that convenient to use. For example, if a large-caliber city defense cannon is given to the attacker, it can be used as a siege cannon, but it will take a lot of work to transport it to the city. Small-caliber field guns can also be set up on city walls, but their range and lethality are not outstanding in urban offensive and defensive battles.
As a long-range heavy attack weapon, the price of artillery is much higher than that of firearms. Even the smallest caliber field gun costs dozens of times that of a flintlock rifle. As for a big city like Batavia, whether it is to be attacked or defended, it cannot be solved by a dozen cannons. Therefore, what Haihan provided for this project was an artillery package covering various calibers and uses. A total of two hundred artillery pieces were packaged and sold.
(End of chapter)