Chapter 1576: Burning everything down

For a fully organized naval fleet, the three functions of reconnaissance, supply, and troop transport are all indispensable. As long as they are used properly, their roles are as important as the warships responsible for maritime operations. However, maritime operations in this era are still

There is not so much emphasis on it at all. Even European countries that colonize the world through the ocean often have colonial fleets that are only composed of armed merchant ships that integrate all functions. If there are a few old warships retired from the navy in the fleet,

The boat is already considered high quality.

For example, although the South China Sea Fleet under the East India Company looks like it has dozens of combat sailing ships, in fact, the number of warships that have actually served in the military can be counted on one hand. Most of the sailing ships have other than combat functions.

, also undertake other transportation tasks, so for the East India Company, there is no clear understanding of the role these full-time ships will play in the entire naval tactical system, and there is no excess financial and technical strength.

To design and build these specialized ships.

Things that even the Dutch can't understand, the Matalan people naturally have no corresponding understanding of. But Luo Hong doesn't care about these details. In his opinion, spending more than 200,000 yuan to buy Haihan's ships can be used in

The second is how useful it is in the military. First, it can get a glimpse of Haihan's shipbuilding technology and maybe learn something from it. Second, it can further undermine the opponent's confidence and make it more difficult for them to continue to bid.

Courage. Of course, the most important reason is that Luo Hong is convinced that the equipment sold by the Haihan people will never be just fake goods. These ships must have their functions.

Like the arrangement of army equipment, Haihan Navy's technical guidance content is also packaged into other non-ship equipment as part of the second bidding content. At the same time, this project also includes ship-borne weapons matching the warships.

This is the naval gun that buyers are longing for. For the two buyers who want to buy the Haihan warship, this is of course a project that must be snatched up.

But because these 24 warships are equipped with nearly 300 guns as standard equipment, their total price even exceeds the Army's order of 200 guns in the morning, plus ship accessories, ammunition supplies, training programs, etc.

After a while, the base price given by Haihan had reached 1.1 million. Even Luo Hong, who had been doing well in the morning, felt a little headache at this price.

Although the procurement budget that Luo Hong could control was much higher than that of the Dutch, it was not without an upper limit. The Sultan gave him a budget equivalent to three million Haihan dollars, and allowed him to increase this upper limit at a critical moment.

An increase of 30%, which is a maximum of four million. The gold he brought to Sanya this time is far from that much, so in the end he will probably have to borrow money from Haihan to pay off this military purchase order.

Luo Hong has now spent more than two million. This number is actually higher than he expected, because he did not expect that his opponent would be so "vulnerable". Among the four projects that have been completed so far,

There was actually nothing gained, and nothing could compete with Ma Dalan Country. Luo Hong even wondered if Su Keyi was just here for a formality, and had no other plan except to raise the price.

In the end, these two remaining projects are both must-win targets for the Matalan Kingdom, but their total amount has actually exceeded Luo Hong's budget limit, but he can't show the slightest panic now, lest his opponents see the flaw. Of course.

In fact, Luo Hong could not imagine that Su Keyi was not much more relaxed than him at this time. The limited financial budget greatly restricted his space for performance. Facing the last two important projects, Su Keyi's heart was full of bitterness and sadness.

nervous.

The base prices of the remaining two naval projects are both above one million. For Su Keyi, who only has a budget of 1.5 million, it is difficult to win one, let alone both. He can only choose

If one of them comes to place a bet, even then, he will probably have to borrow money from Haihan to have a chance of winning.

"Then let's proceed with the second bidding of the Navy!" Seeing that the written procedures for the previous one had been completed, Bai Kesi did not leave any more time for the two of them to think, and directly announced the continuation of the bidding process.

Luo Hong has a very heavy task. Not only does he have to seize this project, but he also has to try his best to find out where the other party's bid limit is during the bidding process to ensure that the last item can also suppress the other party. Su Keyi is just right.

On the contrary, if there is no way to ensure that the project is won in this round, then it is necessary to try to interfere with the opponent's judgment in the bidding to pave the way for the final highlight.

In the competition for this project, it is actually relatively beneficial to the East India Company. After all, the Netherlands is famous for its excellent sailors and businessmen, and its maritime armed strength is not bad among its European counterparts. They are not even very good at sea.

If you need naval training provided by Haihan, you can make do with self-produced weapons such as naval guns. The East India Company's demand for this project is not as strong as that of the Matalan Kingdom.

But Su Keyi still decisively used up his budget in the first round of bidding and directly quoted the amount of 1.5 million. This strategy had never been used in the bidding process of the previous four projects, and Luo Hong also

It was completely unexpected that Su Keyi would choose a seemingly abrupt bidding strategy at this time. He increased the price by 200,000 yuan on the original price, thinking that this should be stable. However, Bai Kesi announced that the first round of bidding would be from the East India Company.

Winning was a blow to Luo Hong.

Luo Hong immediately thought of a possibility. If the other party wanted to seize this project, they planned to use these naval guns to arm their own combat ships. Coupled with the military training provided by Haihan, in this way, the Dutch could actually

Effectively improving its maritime armed strength. On the other hand, Matalan Country, even if it grabbed the last item and got the batch of warships, but did not buy the original weapons, it still has no idea whether it can defeat the Dutch fleet.

grasp.

Of course, this inference is actually suitable for the situation where the Dutch get any one of the remaining two projects. As long as the country misses any one of them, the effect of the entire arms purchase plan may be greatly affected.

Luo Hong did not dare to be careless and immediately added another 200,000 yuan to the first round. According to the Dutch bidding strategy in the previous projects, he believed that the other party would not increase the price by more than 30% of the base price, but he had already increased the price.

When it reaches 40%, it should be able to suppress the opponent.

However, the result announced by Bai Kesi next made Luo Hong even more panicked: "The second round bid of the Materan Kingdom is still lower than that of the East India Company. Please ask the representatives of the Materan State to prepare the final round of bids."

Luo Hong saw the smile on Su Keyi's face. Although the other party didn't say a word, Luo Hong could see the mockery in his eyes. Luo Hong didn't know how much the other party had raised the price for this project.

Gao, but it is obvious that Su Keyi does not intend to give up this project easily.

The cruelty of the bidding model was once again fully demonstrated at this time. The price offered by Luo Hong was already more than 1.4 million. It can only be inferred that the other party's bid was at least around 1.5 million, and it was probably higher.

For this amount, he now only has one chance to bid more than the other party. But considering that the upper limit of funds Sultan allows him to operate is four million, the price he can offer is only about 1.7 million. And more

The scary thing is that even if he seizes this project, he will no longer have the funds to seize the final warship order - unless he disobeys the Sultan's instructions and borrows a large sum of money from Haihan.

Luo Hong finally raised the price to 1.7 million. If the deal was completed at this price, his budget would have been almost exhausted. But he couldn't think about that much now. In this battle where there was no smoke in sight,

He decided to fight for every inch of territory and not leave the Dutch with a chance to make a comeback.

Su Keyi used one round of bidding to force the other party to spend the remaining budget funds. This strategy can be said to have achieved quite good results. As for how high the opponent's price must be before his own quotation exceeds, that is actually not the point.

. He knew that he had successfully disrupted the other party's rhythm and forced the other party to use an unplanned offer to compete for the project.

The remaining two rounds of bidding were simply a torment for Luo Hong. If his opponent made another higher bid, he would really have no chance to counterattack. But maybe it was God's blessing, or maybe his opponent's strategy was wrong. Luo Hong

This time, the quotation that he put in all his efforts actually survived two rounds of quotations from the other party, and finally won again in this project. When hearing Bai Kesi announce the result, Luo Hong actually had the illusion that he was in a dream.

According to the rules of the bidding activity, after the winning party is finally determined, its bid will be announced on the spot to show fairness. After Su Keyi saw the other party's bid of 1.7 million, he was calm on the surface, but he was stunned in his heart. So far, Su Keyi is calm.

The other party has won all the bidding projects that have ended, and the total transaction amount is already four million. This kind of rich man is indeed unmatched by the East India Company. Su Keyi can even imagine that if he asks the company Bada

If Via's council proposes a budget of four million Haihan dollars, I'm afraid that the shareholder representatives will slam the table and ask Van Diemen to fire him immediately.

Su Keyi didn't seem particularly excited when he saw Luo Hong's reaction. He was really not sure how much the other party's budget still had. But he knew that the moment for his decisive battle had come. Even if he lost the first five projects, as long as he won the last one, Dong

There is still hope for the Indian Company to make a comeback. But if even this item is snatched away by the other party, then probably all he can do is to rush back to Batavia immediately after the meeting, and advise the Governor and the Council to give up resistance as soon as possible.

Just take the initiative to beg for peace from Ma Dalan.

The only spectators in the venue who were excited about this result were probably the Executive Committee. Although the bidding results showed a one-sided trend, these old foxes have basically understood the bidding strategies of both parties and can roughly guess.

The goals of the representatives of both sides in the game process were revealed. Although it was only a civil fight rather than a military fight, there was no shortage of tense atmosphere.

"I suggest adjourning the meeting for half an hour to give representatives from both sides some rest time." Tao Donglai, as the moderator, made a suggestion that made everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Naturally, Su Keyi and Luo Hong would not object. They both needed some time to think properly.

Think about your final bidding strategy.

Haihan provided a rest room for both parties. Su Keyi and Luo Hong were not polite and hurriedly left the conference room with their men.

Tao Donglai said: "Who do you think will win this project in the end?"

Schneider responded: "It would not be surprising for a nouveau riche like Ma Daran who owns a mine at home to get a sky-high price in the end. I am optimistic about Ma Daran people."

Bai Kesi said: "But have you noticed that Su Keyi's bids for each project are calculated and the bids are raised just right. I think he has been trying to figure out his opponents during the bidding process of the previous projects.

Bidding strategy, and then suddenly counterattacked in this project just now, in order to verify the rules he summarized before. At this point, I think Su Keyi has done a better job, and is probably already preparing for the final bid.

Okay, so here’s the strategy. The Malaysians have already spent four million, and I don’t believe their budget is unlimited. If the last project is a bid-competition strategy, then I’m still optimistic that Su Keyi will win.”

"But this is a game of throwing money. In the previous bidding process, Ma Dalan almost always used force to defeat skill, which is unreasonable at all. Even if Su Keyi knew the bidding rules of the other party, it would be of no use in the face of the financial gap.

"." Schneider did not agree with Baix's view: "The Dutch can invest at most two to three million in this game. This is the amount we have calculated repeatedly beforehand, and the result will not be too different."

"Then have you calculated the upper limit of the budget of the Macedonians?" Bai Kesi immediately asked.

"We only judge that the budget of the Matarans will be higher than that of the Dutch. We cannot estimate a more specific number." Schneider shrugged: "The economic information we can get comes from the business warehouses in Surabaya Port, but

There is no way to piece together more information based on these fragments of intelligence. But in any case, at least we now know that the financial resources of Matalan are much higher than we thought."

"Financial resources and bidding strategies are only a competition at a certain level, but if you analyze it from a military perspective, the matter is actually very simple." Yan Chujie also joined the discussion: "The Dutch's superior force in the Far East is at sea.

, so they only need to try their best to enhance their maritime advantages to resist the attack of the Matalan Kingdom. As for the army, I don’t think the East India Company has the ability to maintain a firearms force of six to seven thousand people for a long time. So Su Keyi gave up the army equipment

It makes sense to focus on naval equipment, especially warships, in the competition."
Chapter completed!