I Became a Plutocrat in World War I: Starting with Saving France-Chapter 51: Revised - A Good Hand at Haggling

The morning light was bright, and the autumn breeze was just right.

Grevy and Arman were dressed in tight hunting clothes, riding tall horses, and each carrying double-barrel shotguns as they rode through the exclusive forest.

The servants were lined up at the other end, leading the hunting dogs that yelped and jogged ahead. Their task was to drive the game into the area before the two men for their entertainment.

"This might be the last hunt of the year, Arman!" Grevy skillfully controlled his horse, trotting lightly, his gaze drifting over the withering leaves on both sides as he sighed with some regret: "Once winter sets in, the game will hide in their dens; even if you dig three feet deep, you won’t find them!"

Arman lazily followed behind on his horse, yawning out of boredom, he replied: "That’s why I prefer game in bed, Grevy! They are there waiting for me anytime, and I can do whatever I want with them!"

Grevy laughed heartily, but suddenly, a strange noise caught his attention, and he quickly stopped laughing and alertly looked toward the bushes.

A weary elk came into sight, perhaps tired from running, it was panting heavily as it rested. Grevy quickly controlled his horse to stop, skillfully unshouldered his shotgun and aimed at the target...

Just as Grevy was about to pull the trigger, the sound of approaching horse hooves startled the target away.

Grevy sulkily put away his shotgun and cursed, "Damn it," then turned his gaze to the approaching servant, thinking that if it wasn’t something important, the servant would surely get beaten.

"Mr. Grevy!" The servant pulled the reins and stopped his horse beside Grevy: "As you predicted, Dejoka went to the city hall today to handle the industrial property for the tricycles. We were going to negotiate buying the property, but someone beat us to it!"

Grevy’s face darkened: "Someone beat us to it? The left wing people?"

"No, Mr. Grevy!" the servant replied: "It was Gallieni, he wasn’t buying the property, he placed an order on behalf of the military!"

Grevy raised his head in shock. If the military had placed an order, buying the property would not be an easy task.

Next to him, Arman let out a deep, knowing smile; the fact that the military placed an order so quickly, bypassing the Senate, indicated Gallieni had already included the tricycles in the wartime procurement list, marking it the second piece of equipment to be included in that list.

"Gallieni has a lot of guts!" Arman said: "He dares to offend both the left and the right!"

The Saint-Etienne machine gun was favored by the left, while the tricycle was desired by the right, but Gallieni had a foot in both camps.

Grevy asked expressionlessly, "What’s the procurement price? Did they reach an agreement?"

"Yes, sir!" the servant replied: "I heard it was 550 francs!"

Grevy exclaimed in surprise: "550 francs, are you sure?"

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Without another word, Grevy turned his horse’s head and galloped furiously towards the villa.

Confused, Arman followed suit, shouting from his bumpy ride: "What’s the matter, Grevy, is it because of the 550 francs?"

"Yes!" Grevy replied amidst the hoofbeats.

"What does that have to do with us?" Arman was perplexed: "We didn’t get the property anyway!"

"Think about the tanks!" Grevy turned his head to reply: "We plan to sell them to the military at a unit price of 6,000 francs!"

Arman was still bewildered; in his mind, tanks had nothing to do with tricycles, as they were different things.

"Think about it, Arman!" Grevy explained: "The cost of one tank could buy ten tricycles, which would you prefer?"

Arman stopped in his tracks, his horse unconsciously slowing down as it trailed far behind.

Ten tricycles could be equipped with ten Maxim guns, whereas a tank could only equip one machine gun. Tanks also had many drawbacks such as slow speed and high failure rates. Of course, the military would prefer to choose ten tricycles.

Grevy didn’t care about Arman. He sped up and galloped back to the villa, leapt off the horse at the door, and rushed inside. He hurriedly dialed the phone and urgently ordered: "5,000 francs, sign the contract immediately, at once!"

...

The military representative returned much more relaxed, even with a slight smile on his face.

Francis sensed something was amiss but maintained his calm demeanor: "You’re in luck, Louis, they don’t want to waste time, so they’re offering you a unit price of 5,000 francs. Sign the contract then!"

"Sorry, Francis," Louis smiled: "Maybe we can accept a unit price of 3,000 francs!"

"This is outrageous!" Francis immediately lost his composure: "This is an insult to us, this is a tank, Louis, you need it..."

"I know!" Louis interrupted Francis: "But we have an alternative that costs only 550 francs!"

Francis instantly understood what was going on. Dejoka had managed to sell the tricycles at a low price of 550 francs!

...

This was unexpected for Shire.

In his view, tanks and tricycles should not have been in a competitive relationship price-wise.

So, when he heard from Dejoka that the military had used the tricycles to push the tank price down to 3,000 francs and reached an agreement, he found it somewhat unbelievable.

After thinking for a while, Shire understood.

At that time, the military had no concept of armored or mobile warfare. In their eyes, tanks and tricycles might not be much different:

Both had armor, both carried machine guns and ran on the road, both could cause significant casualties with small squads...

Since they were almost the same, why would the military choose the expensive tanks over the cheaper, faster, and more reliable tricycles?

General Gallieni truly didn’t know the difference between the two, or was he pretending not to know to force down the price?

Shire believed Gallieni might truly not know, after all, tanks had just appeared and combat theory was still a blank. The same applied to tricycles; they didn’t know both had their own pros and cons and neither could replace the other.

"There’s more!" Dejoka handed Shire a telegram: "This is from Joseph in Britain, the British have agreed to sell the ’Holt 75’ production line and provide full technical support, but they’re asking for 500,000 francs!"

There was a hint of anxiety in Dejoka’s eyes. Five hundred thousand francs were beyond their purchasing power, unless they received the money from the military’s purchase of tricycles immediately.

But Shire was not in a hurry. He calmly said: "Tell Joseph to negotiate the price again!"

"He’s talked many times, Shire!" Dejoka looked helpless: "Joseph said he’d tried his best, this might be the lowest price the British are offering!"

Shire calmly replied: "Tell Joseph, 250,000 francs, no higher!"

"That’s impossible!" Dejoka stared at Shire in disbelief.

Shire added: "Otherwise, we’ll wait for the ’Holt 120’ to come out and tell the British that."

Dejoka was stunned, "Holt 120" was coming out?

This meant the "Holt 75" was about to be outdated, and the British still wanted to sell it at a high price?