Armor-piercing bullets don't believe in carbon-based monsters

Chapter 187 Expansion!

At ten o'clock in the morning, there were still six hours left before the final deadline set by Chen Jian for "Pope" Jin Cheng.

He was not in a hurry to get a reply from the other party. After all, he knew that the three conditions he required were not so easy to achieve.

The reason why the time is so strict is actually to put enough pressure on the other party.

If he can show a positive attitude, it doesn't matter if he delays a little.

But if he wants to act like a scoundrel, the next person to talk to him will not be me, but Zhan Luan.

Anyway, the entire Jinling City is within the coverage of the cellular network and within the alert range of Fuxi and Zhanluan. Even if the other party finally intends to tear their faces off and fire a few heavy artillery shots at the manor, the drones in the sky are enough to kill the entire Jinling City before they finish reloading their ammunition.

Therefore, although for security reasons he could not move freely in Jinling City before the negotiations began and the agreement was drawn up, he still remained quite calm.

He even found opportunities to arrange new meetings.

That is, a meeting with representatives of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce.

In fact, one of the important reasons why they came to Jinling was to find the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce, reach cooperation with them, open up trade routes, and solve the material problems in Huangshi City.

But before that, their combat operations were too intensive, and coupled with the discovery of new important clues one after another, this goal was put on hold.

Now that a major operation has finally come to an end, Chen Jian has finally restarted the mission. After the other party's representative arrived, he started negotiations with the other party with super high efficiency.

Under Fuxi's guidance, Chen Jian provided a list to the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce.

The list includes a series of materials including food, steel, rare metals, minerals, coal, etc. The main purpose of requiring these things is to lay the foundation for the early stage of industrialization and reserve resources in advance.

Chen Jian thought these things were easy to get, but he overlooked one problem:
In this era where equipment is obtained by digging graves and steel is smelted by demolishing houses, even the largest Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce cannot understand what they want.

Apart from food, steel, saltpeter and coal, the names of other minerals are basically incomprehensible to them.

What is pyrite?

What is phosphate rock?
What lithium mine?
What rare earth?
What the hell are you talking about?
How could anyone be interested in these weird things?

The representative of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce was full of questions. Chen Jian had no choice but to promise to give him a detailed list later, explaining the properties and characteristics of each item so that they could purchase or collect it.

Before the other party becomes proficient in the business and can smoothly complete the resource collection task, the main focus is still on food, steel, saltpeter and coal.

The representative thanked Chen Jian profusely for his tolerance and magnanimity, as if he was not doing business with Chen Jian, but had received a great favor from him.

Chen Jian's reaction to him was one of anger and amusement, but he didn't know what to say.

Damn it, if you are really that grateful, please give me a lower price!

He said nice things, but when it came to the price, he was really shameless and refused to budge.

After hesitating for more than an hour, seeing that he could not lower the price any further, Chen Jian finally gave in after confirming the market price with Zeng Yi and others, and they reached a preliminary cooperation framework.

After sending the other person away, Chen Jian couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.

"Damn, talking to these businessmen is more tiring than fighting a war."

"Why else do people say that shopping malls are like battlefields?"

Lei Jie, who was standing by, was rummaging through the gifts brought by the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce representative, while continuing to speak:
"It's normal actually. What we want is too strange and large in size. In this world, it's not easy to obtain it."

"It's normal that he doesn't want to lower prices. This is not the time when we had to reduce inventory and production capacity at every turn."

"It's not that easy to rebuild the industry after all. By the way, have you ever thought about how far we should go?"

After hearing Lei Jie's words, Chen Jian was silent for a moment, then replied:
"According to Fuxi's calculations, relying on the equipment and resources in the 011 fortification, we actually have several directions to choose from."

"The first is to restore all key technologies after the first industrial revolution in accordance with the timeline of several industrial revolutions in history."

"It includes things like steam engine technology, coke steelmaking, standardized parts, and so on."

"After this set of industries forms a self-circulation, we will move forward and complete the second and third industrial revolutions in sequence until we start to sprint towards the information industry."

"In theory, this is the safest option."

"But the problem is that this solution will take too long. Even with the help of artificial intelligence, it will take hundreds of years to complete the process when there is a shortage of industrial workers and the level of education is not high enough."

"If we follow the second plan and skip the first industrial revolution and start from the second industrial revolution, the process can be shortened, but not by much."

"Education is a curse that will firmly lock down the process of industrial development."

"So, if we want to resume industrial production as soon as possible, we actually only have one choice."

"That is, skip all the preconditions and focus on smart industry."

"In this way, our focus can be limited to a relatively small area." "Or to be more precise, the industrial equipment we need to build in the short term can be limited to a relatively small number."

"For example, we don't need to build large-scale mines or chemical plants."

“Instead, we build whatever is needed.”

"If you need weapons, we build an arms factory; if you need vehicles, we build an automobile assembly line."

"In short, it is to make the best use of limited resources, especially smart devices and smart chip resources, to solve urgent problems."

"If we face the dilemma of insufficient resources and inadequate industrial support during the process, we can solve it by continuing to start disaster recovery works and digging graves."

"This is consistent with the grand strategy we originally set, and can also adapt to the basic environment of this world."

“The only problem might be that this is an expansionary route.”

"As long as we decide to take this path, I'm afraid we won't be able to stop fighting."

"understood."

Lei Jie thought for a moment, then said:

"The essence of this route is to condense our original superpower into a micro-country, and then develop through continuous external expansion, right?"

"Yes."

Chen Jian nodded seriously, and Lei Jie immediately raised his hand and said:

“Then I support this path.”

"Historical experience tells us that when facing a powerful foreign enemy, the path of peaceful development will not work."

"We still have to dare to show our swords - besides, our swords are pretty sharp."

"I think so too."

Chen Jian smiled slightly, then said:

"Another advantage of this route is that it can maintain the generation gap between us and other forces to the greatest extent possible."

"This is very beneficial both in terms of personal safety and in terms of subsequent 'unification'."

"The difficulty is that cold start is too difficult."

"The balance is quite fragile. If we cannot maintain the momentum of expansion and grab as many scarce resources as possible, once development is interrupted, it will be impossible to recover."

"So we need a strong military."

Lei Jie blinked and suddenly said:

"Why do I feel this thing is a little familiar? Suddenly it feels a little dazzling."

"You can pull it down!"

Chen Jian glared at Lei Jie with a look of amusement and then said:

"This is a last resort and our best option."

"After all, time is limited. After the 011 construction is launched, the life of the equipment is also limited."

"Within our limited lifespan, we should try to do something great."

"really."

Lei Jie said no more. At this moment, he also understood Chen Jian’s painstaking efforts.

He doesn't want to be the sun in the wasteland.

However, when there is no choice, there are some steps that must be taken.

He lowered his head and continued to try to find something useful in the pile of gifts, and at this moment, the door of the room was suddenly knocked.

Several people looked up at the same time. Huang Yu, who was guarding the door, opened the door after confirming it was safe. Standing outside the door was the representative of the Mechanicus who was in charge of reception.

The latter lowered his head slightly, bowed first, and then said respectfully:
"My lords."

"The commander of the 15th Templar Guards is outside the door."

"He said he wanted to see you"

(End of this chapter)