Shadow Empire

Chapter 882 Naked

Admiral Diaz looked at the two people carrying boxes behind Lance as they walked in with Lance. What he didn't know was that his expression at this moment was the same as Admiral Miles's expression when he first saw Lance.

He didn't even stand up, he just sat in his chair.

But he didn't act so arrogant. He didn't lean back, cross his legs, and look at Lance with arrogance and contempt. Instead, he sat up straight with a smile.

With his hands on the table in front of him, there was not much arrogance on his face, in his expression, or in his eyes.

But deep down, he is still a bit arrogant.

Lance had the things placed next to the chair opposite Admiral Diaz, and then asked the two men to leave.

He walked over and shook the admiral's hand, then sat down opposite him.

"I hope you are satisfied with the little gift last time."

Lance's opening remarks were straightforward, and Admiral Diaz kept smiling, "It's OK."

After he said "it's okay", he didn't make any further comments, and Lance didn't get angry. Not everyone who does you a favor should be considered a good person and greeted with a smile.

In fact, from Admiral Diaz's perspective, he has performed very well. At least he is still willing to pretend and act as a kind person, instead of being like his predecessor who did not act at all at the beginning.

Lance gestured that he was going to bring up the two boxes, and Admiral Diaz nodded.

Soon the box was lifted up and placed on the table, then Lance opened a few clips around the bottom of the box, as if it was placed upside down on the table.

The buckles of both boxes were opened, and then he lifted the boxes by the handles.

The box without bottom support naturally exposed its contents. Even though Admiral Diaz was knowledgeable, he still took a deep breath when he saw these neatly stacked banknotes.

Two piles of banknotes, one foot wide, more than one foot long, and half a foot high, two piles!
These two piles of things, which probably cost only a few hundred dollars, attracted Admiral Diaz's attention. It took him a long time to move his eyes away from the bills.

He looked at Lance with a confused look on his face, as if to say "what does this mean".

Lance placed the two empty boxes at his feet, sat back down, and pulled out a cigarette, "Mind?"

The initiative was inadvertently transferred.

In fact, Lance is not afraid of Admiral Diaz, because he has the Congress and the Department of Defense behind him. Admiral Diaz can only embarrass him and make him unhappy, but cannot really do anything to him.

No matter which world or cultural background, the provocation of "warriors" against "literati" will be regarded by "literati" as the beginning of a war!
This is no exception here.

The masters in Congress have always believed that soldiers should be loyal to Congress and to the country. They don't need to have their own thoughts or anything else. They just need to obey.

Simply disobeying is already a crime, not to mention trying to provoke Congress.

No one who has done this has a good ending!

Lance is not a member of Congress, so he is relatively weaker than Admiral Diaz, but he is not without any support. As long as he has the opportunity, he can turn the passive situation around.

He glanced at the desktop lighter on the table. It was a gunboat. He knew it without having to do it himself. He only needed to press one of the switches, sparks would come out of the muzzle of the gunboat, and then the fire core inside would be ignited.

Desktop lighters are always unique, and of course some are specially made.

Lance didn't use the desktop lighter, but took out a match. He held the cigarette in his mouth, crossed his legs, and tilted his head slightly so that the corner of his mouth with the cigarette hanging on it was facing upward.

With a crackling sound, the match was lit, and a cloud of smoke with the smell of gunpowder rose into the air.

But the smoke did not go far before it was burned away by the flames.

He shook his hand, extinguished the match and put it in the ashtray.

Take a puff of smoke, inhale deeply and exhale more.

"This month's dividend." Lance placed his cigarette-holding hand on one of the piles of bills. "Physical therapy."

Admiral Diaz's eyes fell on the money again. He stared at the money for seven or eight seconds before looking away. "I remember that the money should have gone into Miles' pocket."

Because this money is used for military expenditure, the budget for military expenditure is made one year in advance and the funds will be directly allocated once it is completed.

Except for special projects, such as building warships.

The construction of warships is funded in phases, or there are large-scale construction projects.

Others, like these that provide free physical therapy, are one-time grants.

It itself is not expensive, and Congress will not be stingy about being generous with smaller amounts.

So the physical therapy fee for the whole year was directly allocated.

After Lance gets the money, he will give Admiral Miles' money directly to him. After all, everyone knows that the money is in Lance's hands.

If he holds on to the money and doesn't give it, or just gives a lump sum every month, it would give people the impression that he wants to use the money to control Admiral Miles.

Compared to other things, this amount of money was not a big project at all, so Lance transferred the money directly without ever waiting or paying it in installments.

This means that even though Admiral Miles only worked for half a year this year, he has already pocketed all the money for the second half of the year.

He had taken the money, and Lance might call him now and ask him to return half of it.

So, he took out another sum of money and gave it to Diaz.

Of course he would make this very clear.

"Admiral Miles belongs to Admiral Miles. When he worked here, he also took good care of our business. So when the budget is drawn up every year, the money will be paid directly to him."

"We didn't know things would develop to this point. This money is my gift to him as a souvenir for leaving Jingang City."

"As for you, General Diaz, here, as long as it is what you deserve, you will not lose a cent, even if I have to pay for it myself."

"That's the rule!"

Admiral Diaz raised his hand and rubbed his forehead. "Rules," he repeated the word that Lance emphasized.

To be honest, the golden battleship before and the two piles of money on the table look like there should be about three or four hundred thousand.

He had heard that Lance was popular in Congress, and now he knew.

Anyone who can do this will be welcome wherever he is.

"Every month."

Lance added another sentence, which made Admiral Diaz's heart beat faster.

This can make much more money than cheating on ammunition subsidies through fake exercises.

It also makes more money than privately selling standard weapons that have been declared scrapped.

He took a deep breath. Although he didn't want to admit it, he had to admit that Lance White was indeed a somewhat special person.

But he still persisted, he wanted to see where Lance's "limit" was.

It's not that he wanted to make things difficult for Lance, but he and Lance didn't know each other and had just met. He would feel a little uneasy about rashly accepting such a large sum of money as a bribe.

It wasn't because of his greed and anxiety, but because he felt that Lance might have some other ideas.

You have to know that the "ultimate blow" that finally defeated Admiral Miles and made him compromise with Congress and plead guilty was "corruption"!
"I don't know, I just think I shouldn't accept the money." Admiral Diaz showed a regretful expression and said the words against his will with great effort.

All military generals have roughly the same problems.

If they want to get money, they can only get it from military budget.

Moreover, this method of making money may not necessarily generate much money. For example, in the case of military equipment, it is not the case that the money is handed over to the military and the military is asked to purchase the equipment themselves.

Congress has a Military Committee, which decides which company's products the military will purchase and how much to purchase this year.

Then they go directly to connect with these military-industrial enterprises.

The role the military can play here is recommendation - "Soldiers say that the equipment of XXX military industrial enterprise is very easy to use!"

But sometimes the Military Commission will not listen to them, they will just find a reason to get by, and then order another company's products. They have the ability to get money from the military budget, but they can't get a lot of money, and the speed of getting money is relatively slow.

There is actually a very intuitive evidence of this. In the federation, people can see many generals who are not rich. They may have worked in the army for their entire lives, but when they get old, they are actually just above the middle class level.

This also includes some military officers and so on.

But no senator is poor.

When they stepped down from their positions as senators, not every one of them was as good as a big capitalist, but they at least had a net worth of several million or tens of millions, and these are the ones who were doing the worst!
So it was really hard to refuse so much money offered by Lance.

Just like Admiral Miles, he is very arrogant and he looks down on people like Lance who come from a humble background, but Lance has given him so much, so much that he has to take the initiative to greet Lance.

It’s not that he really thinks Lance is his confidant, but Lance has given too much and he has no choice but to change his attitude.

The power of money is the same as the value it shows. The bigger the value, the greater the power of money!

Lance shook his head, "General Diaz, I respect every soldier."

"Especially now, in times of war."

He took a puff of the cigarette, and his body felt exceptionally relaxed, from the inside out.

As long as a person can stay relaxed, his self-confidence will become more obvious.

"Because soldiers use their lives to defend the interests of the federation and the people!"

After hearing these words, even though Admiral Diaz was reluctant to agree with Lance, he couldn't help but nodded. It was very well said.

"But what does this have to do with whether I accept the money or not?" he asked.

Lance smiled and spread his hands, "It matters a lot."

"General Diaz, the soldiers are still young. They have their own greed. No one wants to die as a novice."

"This program can help them relax and focus more on military training, which will help them have a better chance of surviving the war."

"We also did a survey and found that since the building at the back appeared, there have been fewer fights in the barracks. People have a place to vent their energy and they have become easier to manage."

"Admiral Miles and I jointly promoted this project. Now Admiral Miles has temporarily left here, and his officers and confidants have also left."

"There's going to be some ... concerns about what's left over from the Admiral Miles era, about whether anything is going to change."

Lance leaned forward and flicked the ash off his cigarette before continuing, "Actually, what you're collecting isn't money, but the continuation of a rule."

"If people see that you're taking money, they'll realize that some of the programs and some of the rules that were in place during Admiral Miles' time are not going to change."

"They don't need to think about whether they can adapt to the new environment, they just need to do it the same way they did before."

"Train, eat, rest, relieve stress, and listen to the commander!"

"I can guarantee that the soldiers on this base will love you even more if I leave your office empty-handed."

"You are not collecting stolen money or black money. You are calming their emotions and providing them with some benefits, so that they will at least have no regrets before heading into the war and the gunfire."

Listening to Lance's words, Admiral Diaz began to fall into deep thought. He clasped his fists under his chin and looked at the money with a frown.

According to Lance, it seems that he really has to pay back the money? !

He himself actually did not reject this idea, but... he did not like his current passivity.

But what Lance said made sense, and for a moment he himself was a little undecided.

At the same time, he thought of another question. Lance mentioned officers and soldiers in his words. What did he want to express?
He wants to say that his penetration into the base is strong?
Or do you want to say something else?
In fact, being a general is not that easy. If a general cannot take into account the interests of his subordinates, these officers and soldiers may not really support him.

After much hesitation, he finally agreed.

"You're an interesting man, Lance."

When he said this, Lance knew he had taken the money.

He was never afraid of greedy people, he was only afraid of people not being greedy enough.

The relationship between the two sides had a better foundation for progress. After Admiral Diaz sent Lance to the door, he returned to his desk.

He picked up the two empty boxes on the ground, covered the money with them, fastened the locks, and put the boxes in the corner.

He asked his adjutant to come in and keep an eye on some changes in the barracks.

Lance came with something and left empty-handed, which did attract some people's attention. Soon some soldiers went into the building behind with a smile on their faces.

When this news was reported back, Admiral Diaz frowned.

His adjutant asked, "Shall we have the military police get them all out?"

Admiral Diaz raised his hand. "No, no. I just think that Lance has corrupted this barracks much more than I thought."

The adjutant was silent for a while, then said softly, "This is from Jingang City, General."

Admiral Diaz's eyes fell on him, and the adjutant went further, "This is the base camp of Lance and the Lance family. As long as the soldiers can go to the city, it is difficult for them to not associate what they see, hear, and touch with Lance and the Lance family."

"I heard a rumor."

"As long as the soldiers have the warrior nameplate, they will receive some preferential treatment in the business establishments opened by the Lans family, including the casino."

Soldiers are allowed to leave the barracks during holidays and go to the city to play.

In fact, humans are the least opinionated creatures, as can be seen from the fact that they can be easily persuaded.

If they had their own opinions, they wouldn't be so easily persuaded.

So when these soldiers live in an environment where everyone praises Lance and the Lance family and deifies him in some aspects, they will also subtly change some of their ideas.

Including the physical therapists, when they help the soldiers relax, some soldiers will ask these more difficult questions.

But none of them hated Lance. Instead, they all expressed respect for him.

It was Lance who gave them the job opportunities that other women dreamed of, stable jobs, no bullying, stable income, and regular free physical examinations.

As the soldiers are exposed to such environments more often, they will feel that Lance is a good person and should be respected instead of despised and confronted.

Although they will not stand against Admiral Diaz because of Lance, their impression of Admiral Diaz will become worse because of the conflict between Lance and Admiral Diaz.

Lance gave them free sex, free booze, respect, and favors.

If he can't get along with such nice people, then it can only be said that Admiral Diaz is very difficult to deal with.

He doesn't care if this kind of thing happens in non-war times. In a dictatorial place like the military, he is not afraid of the lower-level soldiers causing trouble.

But now is a time of war, and the one who is actually going to the front line is not him, the general, but the soldier under his command.

At this moment, he finally understood what Lance meant by the "rules".

It was an invisible wall, a palace, but also a cage.

If people don't want to get hurt, the best way is to follow the rules.

The news spread quickly in the barracks. At night, the building behind the barracks became lively again. The soldiers had an hour of free time after dinner.

Many of them choose to go into the building to have some fun and relax, even though it may only be for a few minutes or ten minutes.

But the restlessness in the body will disappear in these few minutes or ten minutes!

The soldier walked out of the room, tidying up his clothes as he walked, with a satisfied smile on his face, "Thank you, Mr. Lance!"

The girl in the room put a card in a safe place for safekeeping. This card can be exchanged for money.

She also cleaned herself and said with emotion, "I really have to thank Mr. Lance..."

(End of this chapter)