Chapter 75: 75 Negotiations

The negotiation process wasn't exactly smooth, but it wasn't because Tang Mo's products were subpar; on the contrary, Tang Mo's weapons were too good.

These weapons had astonished the Elf Race and made the sensitive Elf Noble John realize that an era of change was about to come.

With the sea breeze accompanying him, Tang Mo sat opposite John, sharing delicacies that only the Elf Nobility could enjoy, including fresh vegetables just purchased from Brunas, and meat and fish.

Of course, there was also a bottle of inferior moonlight wine from the Elf Race, a rarity in Brunas that many nobles found hard to come by.

Tang Mo continued the earlier topic, discussing the sale of the production process and the complete manufacturing technology for Tang's K1 Quick Gun, something utterly unbelievable for the Elf Noble John.

Because he truly knew how much profit it could bring him once mass production began! He wouldn't even have to venture into dangerous sea trade anymore; he could just lie at home and count his money.

"You can build a weapon workshop in your kingdom and produce Tang's K1 Quick Gun according to the standards I've set! For each rifle, I will take a design fee of 1 Gold Coin..." Tang Mo said while chewing on the vegetables he had forked into his mouth.

"But how will you know how many rifles I produce?" Although John didn't think a fee of 1 Gold Coin per gun was too expensive, he was still curious.

Because he knew that the profit from a Shireck Flintlock Gun was actually much higher than one Gold Coin, and every kingdom could only rely on buying them!

If they could produce it themselves, then the price would be transparent. Therefore, John felt Tang Mo's cooperative model was the most reasonable and beneficial for both sides.

Tang Mo gave a reasonable explanation, "It's simple. I only charge design fees for the first 100,000 units. If you produce more than 100,000, you won't have to continue paying my design fee."

In an era lacking effective regulatory measures, this kind of lump-sum deal was more rational. Tang Mo only needed to take the share he wanted, and the rest could be discounted, reducing his own personal pressure.

Making money for an arms dealer like Tang Mo was really too easy, as long as he could produce weapons, he could sell them and make money!

What truly put Tang Mo at the top of the arms dealers was the power to set the rules! As long as the whole world manufactured and used weapons according to his rules, he could make money that was ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million times more than just producing weapons!

John was taken aback, then thought he found a loophole in Tang Mo's plan, reminding him, "100,000 units? Do you know how long it takes to produce that many? It could take twenty years! How many rifles can Leite Kingdom produce in a year? 3,000?"

"That's all in the past! My friend! My specialized production equipment could let you produce more than 20,000 rifles within a year! If you expand your capacity, producing 100,000 rifles a year would be no trouble at all!" Tang Mo was actually prepared to sell his entire set of production equipment too.

"Rest assured, a 20,000 Gold Coin transaction will be settled in cash! There is no problem with that," John knew that offering 20,000 Gold Coins was not difficult for him.

As long as he took these weapons back to the Poplar Kingdom, he could earn back ten times the profit. Moreover, the political benefits that these items brought him were absolutely unattainable for just 20,000 Gold Coins.

"As for the remaining 150,000 Gold Coins, in reality, I don't have the means to settle them in Gold Coins, because although we have just sold all our goods, we don't have that much cash!" Saying this, John spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

At this point, he pointed to a sailing ship moored in the distance and said to Tang Mo, "According to what you said, you want ships, and I can also use our family's ships as compensation. The price of such a sea ship generally ranges between 3,000 and 7,000 Gold Coins, depending on the size."

"Like this ship we're standing on... the Everlasting Iris, it's a large sailing ship, and its construction cost exceeds 6,000 Gold Coins!" While saying this, he really started calculating the prices of these ships.

In this world, the price of armed merchant ships is no small sum, especially those of large tonnage, designed for cargo transport and equipped with cannons for armed commerce.

They are behemoths capable of resisting pirates, and can even be considered as warships in times of war. Any maritime nation possesses such ships and is willing to build these versatile vessels.

John explained the composition of his ship fleet to Tang Mo, which was also part of his bargaining strategy, "But I only have 15 ships here, and these ships don't belong to me alone. They also include assets owned by the King of the Poplar Kingdom."

"The approximate price of the sailboats I can sell to you... is only around 30,000 Gold Coins," he finally cited a rather conservative number.

After all, no matter what, even for the sake of safety, he had to maintain a certain fleet size to guarantee absolute safety at sea.

According to his idea, he should at least keep five large merchant ships for his own use, and the other ten ships he could sell to Tang Mo.

These ships varied in size and condition, so their prices also differed. Some small and old ones could be sold for just under 2,000 Gold Coins, while some new ones could fetch prices as high as 5,000 Gold Coins and still be in high demand.

However, all things considered, ten ships for 30,000 Gold Coins was actually a very generous offer. John's candidness had a simple purpose—I'm discounting the ships on my end, can't you also make the firearms and equipment cheaper for me?

True to form, his next words made clear the purpose of his previous candor, "Also, the design fee of 100,000 Gold Coins is really too high... I was hoping for something cheaper... Like, how about 30,000 Gold Coins?"

"Thirty thousand? My friend, at that price, I might end up losing even my pants," Tang Mo declined with a laugh and a wave of his hand.

It was a joke, the price he charged for these weapons was outrageously inflated, to the point that even Wes, standing next to him, found Tang Mo's asking price somewhat exaggerated.

But even so, if the price were slashed by seventy percent all at once, then Tang Mo really wouldn't make much money. He knew that, in the entire transaction, the most valuable part was his "design innovation"—although, in truth, that research and development cost was completely fictitious.