Flowers, Swords and France

No matter what happened the day before, the sun rose as usual the next day, unmoved by external things.

In the morning, considering that Baron Bovan should have received the letter, and the poor man Du-Taai should have woken up, the other party should have known all the information, so Charles also carefully walked around his house, and found that there was nothing unusual. He was slightly relieved, but decided to continue to observe for a while.

Then, according to the scheduled arrangement, he came to Beaubourg Street because he received a call for help yesterday.

…………

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

Charles glared at the middle-aged man sitting opposite him, his tone was very stern, and his expression almost lost his usual calmness, “I reminded you several times beforehand to be careful, be careful, but you still made such a mess, Mr. Pardon, did you ignore all my words? You are derelict in your duty, an intolerable dereliction of duty!”

No wonder he was so angry, if you worked hard to get sponsorship, and someone told you that these sponsorships were accidentally wasted due to some accidents, wouldn’t you be angry?

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

"Not anxious? How could I not be anxious?" Charles was still angry, "The arms that we bought with great difficulty were seized by someone! Is it so absurd? Don't forget what you promised us beforehand? You said there would be no problems, but what happened? It doesn't matter if the money is wasted, but can you afford to waste everyone's time? I reminded you so many times before, and you promised well, but this is how you repay our trust!"

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

"Suddenly? What's so sudden?" Charles' tone was still very stern, "Shouldn't we be fully prepared beforehand to rule out the so-called 'sudden'?"

Pardon lowered his head and said nothing. He knew that the matter was handled too badly, so now he probably didn't even have room for defense, and could only bow his head and listen to the lecture honestly.

"Recently, a friend of mine found a way to get a batch of good stuff from several quartermasters and officers in the army. You have to hurry up, otherwise they will all be bought by others..." This is what he said when Charles came to give money to Mr. Pardon last time, and he did so after Charles left.

As a result, when he was executing the plan, he made a big mistake. There seemed to be some problems with the army. It was well discussed before, and the goods were shipped after the payment was received, but now the money has been given to the insider, but the batch of arms has been detained in the quartermaster warehouse and cannot be taken out. The panicked Pardon hurriedly asked Charles for countermeasures.

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

"Tell me in detail, what happened? Did those people break their promises and go back on their word?" He looked at Pardon with a grim look.

"It's not that the quartermasters regretted it, but other situations..." Pardon glanced at Charles awkwardly, "The quartermaster over there was replaced recently, and we were not prepared all of a sudden, so the work was not done well..."

What he meant was that after the replacement, due to the rush of time, the money had not been used properly.

To be honest, the procurement and quartermaster system of the French Army in this era, and even the entire military expenditure system, can be described as "a mess" or "a mess", which is already a compliment. There are all kinds of [***] in it. It is not new that the upper-level officers embezzle and misappropriate military funds, and the middle and lower-level officers and quartermasters collude with suppliers to make a profit by selling inferior goods as good ones, or simply resell the army's weapons and supplies.

This situation is not unique to France. In this era, the "Western developed countries" may have much stronger bureaucratic systems, but they are not much better than their Eastern counterparts in terms of political morality. Corruption [***] is commonplace.

If this kind of [***] is just a way for officers to earn money in addition to their salaries, it is not so terrible. The most terrible thing is that this [***] also seriously affects the combat effectiveness of the army.

Let's take the later Minié rifle as an example.

The Minié rifle can be regarded as the last peak of muzzle-loading rifles. Its advantages over ordinary smoothbore rifles are almost well known. In the 1840s, this kind of gun had already appeared in a fairly mature form. After Deville and Captain Minié invented the Minié bullet in 1849, it made epoch-making progress.

In 1850, the French designed the Minié rifle, which had a better range and accuracy than the 1842 smoothbore rifle currently in service in France, but it has never been favored by the French Army Procurement Department and has never been widely equipped in the army.

The British manufactured the early Minie gun in 1851 and began mass production and fielding it in the army in 1853. Then Spain, the United States and many German states were even damaged in the Crimean War. Russia began to desperately imitate the Minigun, while France Until the end of the Crimean War, only a very small number of Mini guns were equipped (the main infantry weapons were still 1842-type and 1853-type muskets, or 1846-type and 1853-type carbines). As the country that invented the Mini bullet France actually almost became the last country to install miniguns.

Why? Because the suppliers had not made enough money yet and did not want to invest in the production of miniguns, the Army Procurement Department, which received a large amount of benefits from them, refused to purchase miniguns from other arms dealers for the army.

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

In the Crimean War that began in 1854, the French army suffered five or six times more casualties than the British army. Although the French army acted as the main force on land and took on the main offensive mission, it may also be directly related to this institutional problem.

Charles originally thought that after the organization's plan was successful, private goods such as Miniguns could be inserted into the Army through various means as early as possible. He did not expect that he would be involved with the Army's institutional problems so quickly.

"If you can't even control this risk, you shouldn't have taken advantage of it in the first place!" Charles still scolded Parton, but his tone was much slower, "Then 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 if time is so tight..." Paldon defended in a low voice, then picked up a handkerchief and wiped it. Wiping the sweat on his head, he whispered his next plan, "I plan to go find him first I went to those officers and asked them to introduce me to the new quartermaster to see if we could be more accommodating. According to my guess, the other party just wanted to give us a pass and ask for money, and I won’t stick to it to the end, so if necessary, I think it’s okay to give him some money…”

"That's all we can do, you can figure it out yourself." Charles sighed softly, "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 officer who has colluded. Just an arms dealer who wants to make a fortune, do you understand?"

"Of course I understand this." Paldon nodded quickly.

Read the original text in Liu#9@书/吧!

"You said the same thing last time, and it ended up creating such a big mess for me!" Charles continued to pound, "Are you going to use the same guarantee to perfunctory me this time?"

"Of course not! Of course not!" Paldon apologized repeatedly, "I promise you this time, the same situation will never happen again. The last time was really just an accident, just an accident!"

Charles stared at the other party closely and saw that the other party had really made up his mind this time, so he nodded, "Okay, I will 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..." Cold sweat broke out on Paldon's head again. He was obviously a strong and burly middle-aged man, but at this moment he was like an honest and obedient middle school student.

"You go ahead and do it first. If something unexpected happens again, remember to inform me as soon as possible." Charles still frowned and expressed his final consideration, "If it is the worst case scenario, this transaction will be done directly." Forget it, we’ll figure out something about the weapons and money later. After all, the money is just a small matter, and everyone’s safety comes first. Of course, this can only be done when there is no other way..."

"Okay, I understand."

………………

After explaining what should be explained, Charles finally put away his cold expression, "I'm leaving. Is there anything else you want to report to me?"

"Didn't I tell you about the '121 Comrades Association' when you came that time? I recently inquired about their situation..." Parton seemed to want to win back something in Charles's heart. Impressed by his image, he quickly replied with a flattering smile, "This is a new organization, but it seems to have a lot of members. It seems that they are planning something recently. They have been expanding their staff and buying a lot of weapons. However, I I still don’t know why they were able to do it so quickly…”

"Needless to say? They also found one of their princes and wives." Charles said a cold joke, "Okay, let's put this kind of thing aside for now. The most important thing now is to get the gun back quickly. At the moment These people are still our friends, and we will talk about the future later." \u003ciojoso) was born in a noble family in Milan in 1808 and later married Prince Belgiojoso. She resolutely opposed Austria's rule over Italy and had joined the Carbonari Party. She was therefore exiled by the Austrian government and most of her property was confiscated. However, she still used the remaining money to continue to fund Italy's resistance to Austrian rule. **organize. She has been living in France since the early 1930s, and has gained a great reputation among French upper class because of her experiences. 】

"Okay, I understand." Paldon nodded in agreement.