Chapter 23: Acquiring European Art
"The amount I wanted at first was not much, it was for......" Guo Yu also responded very directly.
"Mr. Guo, we don't care what you use it for, even if you use it to launch a coup or start a world war, that's none of our business, we just sell arms." The man interrupted Guo Yu's words.
"Alright, I don't need to make up excuses anymore." As soon as Guo Yu finished speaking, both of them burst out laughing.
After all, it was their first business deal, so Guo Yu only asked for a small number of weapons, which could be considered as establishing a relationship between the two parties.
1,000 AK-47 rifles, 1 million rounds of ammunition, 10 sniper rifles, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 20 RPG rocket launchers, each with 20 rounds of ammunition, 5,000 hand grenades.
Kuo Yu's goods are all conventional weapons, cheap ones, so the total price is less than three million US dollars. Kuo Yu paid 60% in advance and had them shipped directly to Liberia, but not through his own warehouse, he can just pick up the goods later.
In Africa, shipping and receiving costs are the cheapest. If shipped to America or domestically, the freight cost is much more expensive than the goods themselves.
Kuo Yu left the other party's contact information, and the other party retreated.
Kuo Yu was doing this for the first time and felt a little excited, lying in bed unable to sleep. This guy selling arms is no different from selling cabbage.
Couldn't sleep, went straight to 1915, arrived at Xiaoni's room, Xiaoni was sleeping soundly and was woken up by someone touching her, just about to fight back, but was stopped by Guoyu, then blushed and had her pajamas taken off, hmming in response.
The next morning, holding Little Niangzi, chatting and asking about the farm temporarily having no incidents, returned to modern times.
In Monrovia Port, Liberia, the arms dealer acted quickly and delivered the goods to the port warehouse in three days. After receiving the notice, Guo Yu came alone to inspect the warehouse.
The warehouse was unguarded, so Guo Yu opened it and saw a bunch of wooden crates. He opened one of them and found an RPG rocket launcher inside. The workmanship looked authentic, definitely a genuine product. The stuff wasn't bad, so he didn't bother to look further and directly stored everything in his space.
The trip to Africa was successfully completed and I flew directly back to Hong Kong, because Zhang Chong's spring auction is ready, the company needs to do organization and publicity, and Guo Yu needs to prepare antiques in advance.
Now, Guo Yu's space has more than 5,000 antiques, enough for Zhang Chong to toss around, and after carefully selecting them at home, considering the price and category conflicts, he selected 400 antiques.
Went to HSBC Leasing Insurance Department again, called Zhang Chong and the company's people to pull goods, busy for almost a day, finally finished the things here.
Look at the time, it's 4 pm, call the driver to go to school to pick up his son. But actually, he is going to see the teacher.
The car stopped in front of "St. George" school and saw a row of luxury cars parked there, it can be seen that they are all from wealthy families.
The children walked out of the school gate one after another, and Teacher Huang, dressed in simple but elegant attire, led them out. The children were picked up by their parents one by one, and Guo Yu saw his son come out and walked forward to meet him.
"Dad, you've come to pick me up!" The son exclaimed excitedly after seeing Guo Yu, then broke free from the teacher's hand and ran over.
Guo Yu pulled her son's hand and walked in front of Huang Wenjing, "Thank you, Teacher Huang, for taking care of him. Has Xiaotian been behaving well?"
"Mr. Guo has come to pick up Little Tian, Little Tian is very smart and well-behaved." He even smiled at his son afterwards. Why don't you smile at me?
Baony is a meticulous person, and it's going to be a long time before we can get familiar with each other. Guo Yu stayed at home for two more days, picking up his son from school every day, just to exchange a few words with Huang Laoshi (teacher). After several days passed, they really became much more familiar with each other, and this is the strategy of using his son.
It has been over ten days since the last business negotiation with Huang's company, and Huang Jiaqiang called again, having contacted several cargo ships, wanting to bring materials for Guo Yu to see if they are suitable.
In Guo Yu's office, Guo Yu was browsing through the materials while Huang Jiaqiang waited beside him. These ships were really antique-level, with the earliest being from 1965 and the latest being from 1978, all of which met Guo Yu's requirements.
If it's a new ship, a 40,000-ton one would cost over 100 million RMB. Wanting to build a cargo fleet with new ships is really unaffordable for Guo Yu, whose current funds are just over 200 million. However, scrap ships are much cheaper; this 1965 three-thousand-ton bulk carrier here only costs 9.6 million RMB, which is basically the price of scrap metal.
Guo Yu could ask for what, originally was buying scrap iron, a total of four ships, Guo Yu looked at it and directly made a decision to buy it, then called people together with Huang Jiaqiang to handle this matter.
Huang Jiaqiang was excited to hear Guo Yu's words, this is a big deal, Huangshi Company can make a profit of 5 points in this deal, that is 13 million Hong Kong dollars, which is a solution to the company's urgent need, and there will be 16 more ships in the future.
Guo Yu didn't care about the ship's cargo, gave them the address of that company in Monrovia, and told them to handle it well and then sail the ship directly to Africa, where someone would naturally receive the goods.
In 1915, Guo Yu drank the tea made by Xiao Ni and sunbathed in the courtyard, listening to Xiao Ni talk about the farm's affairs. It wasn't anything major, just that the farm had started plowing, a new batch of cattle and sheep had arrived at the pasture, and the students' classes had been extended to include evening sessions, etc. These trivial matters allowed Guo Yu to better grasp the entire operation of the estate.
While listening to the little girl, he was still thinking about things. The development in America is not as smooth as Guo Yu thought. Chinese people can't get involved in high-end industries in America, there are too many bottlenecks, and the status of Chinese people is too low. Many things are too restricted. He has only dug a few oil wells and sold them, and has only dealt with Rockefeller, without entering other fields. If he were to enter other industries, as soon as there's any sign of development, he would be ruthlessly suppressed.
Moreover, America is indeed too far from the mainland and has some difficulties in exerting its power.
Go to Nanyang, buy a piece of plantation, if you want to develop industry, secretly develop it there. That place is now the territory of the Dutch and British, but the Dutch have declined, and the British are busy fighting wars, who has time to manage Nanyang? It's a good opportunity for us.
When I get there, I can dare to think about building what kind of factory and bursting what kind of technology, without being timid like now.
Bring out the world map, and it's that kind of later generation, with very detailed annotations. Xiaoni looked at it from the side, feeling that this painting was very strange, didn't know what was drawn on it, and there were many words, many words that weren't well recognized, but looked like Chinese characters.
"What's this, old man?" Little Ni asked curiously.
"This is a world map, now it's estimated that there's only one copy of this in the whole world, it's a treasure, don't go out and spread it around, did you hear?" Gu Yu said with a smile to scare Xiao Ni.
"I've seen maps before, and this one is different."
"This is a high-end product, take a look here." Guo Yu pointed to the map of Los Angeles, Orange County, and said to Xiaoni, "This is our estate, and this is the capital city. How about it? The whole world is on this piece of paper, right?"
After studying on the map for half a day, I finally decided to land on Kalimantan Island in Southeast Asia and start my first step in conquering Southeast Asia.
Kalimantan is the third largest island in the world and the largest island in Southeast Asia, later belonging to Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. However, the population is not large, with only 20 million people on the modern island, and around 3 million people in 1915, of which nearly one million were Chinese workers, because there are the largest bauxite mines in Southeast Asia, these Chinese mainly worked as miners.
Call Al and have him figure out a way to buy South Kalimantan Island which later became Martapura City
The land of Nanyang has large coal and iron mines, which can fully support the steel industry of Guoyu. The land is fertile, the climate is pleasant, and it is also suitable for living and construction. In later generations, Mochen was also a major port city in Southeast Asia, and the transportation environment there was not bad either.
Call Big Pillar, instruct him to increase the number of guards to at least 3000 people, and when going to Nanyang, more defensive power is needed. As for firearms, use Springfield for now, it's not safe to expose black technology in Nanyang yet.
Guo Yu, who had arranged everything, suddenly found himself with nothing to do on either side.
No way, I have to find something to do. Right, Europe is so lively now, I'll go and join in the fun too. Don't want anything else, just want antiques.
In modern times, European antiques are more marketable than domestic ones and have higher auction prices. The most sought-after are oil paintings. Picasso is now over 30 years old, and his oil painting manuscripts and practice books are all in demand. Bouguereau from France died just ten years ago, and Levitan from Russia, among many others, are all modern figures that one can collect.
Other master-level figures, now already famous, just look at luck.
And isn't Huang Wenjing also fond of oil painting, hehehe...
