Empire of Shadows

The conflict between Lance and Governor Wade did indeed cause some discussion in Indeno State, but the mayors did not end their cooperative relationship with Lance because of it. On the contrary, they cooperated even more closely.

Who knew when this cooperation would be terminated? While they could still get some benefits, they strengthened their cooperation.

In case the Lance Family withdrew from the Indeno State market in the future, they would no longer have so many benefits.

Many people didn’t think the Lance Family could last long. After all, they were outsiders.

There were also some who wanted to try to get Lance and Governor Wade to make up.

”...Look, we’ve been cooperating for so long. No one is more in sync than us.”

A city mayor was pouring Lance a drink from a bottle, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he actively tried to persuade him.

This mayor, at this moment, didn’t look like a mayor at all. Under his rolled-up sleeves was one or two centimeters of thick body hair.

If he weren’t wearing clothes, and you threw him into a zoo, people might not be able to tell if he was an animal or a human at first glance.

But it was this guy, who looked more like an animal than a human, who was now taking the initiative to persuade Lance and Governor Wade to make up.Lance didn’t speak, but just watched as his glass was filled with more wine. He raised his glass and clinked it with this hairy mayor, and they each took a sip.

Perhaps sensing Lance’s determination in this matter, the hairy mayor frowned. ”Lance, we’ve been cooperating for a long time. I know you give us the largest commission, and in many places, there’s no such commission at all.”

”From a certain perspective, the commission we are taking is the most unreasonable part, because it’s too much.”

Only then did Lance turn his attention back to him. The hairy mayor coughed. ”I know this was a tactic you used before to seize more of the market, but now you don’t need this.”

”So why can’t you lower our profit-sharing ratio a bit?”

”For example, cut it in half, to twenty-five percent. This way, Wade’s side gets twenty percent, which only accounts for forty-five percent of the total profit. This way, not only will what you get not decrease, but it will increase by five percent.”

”We can all be satisfied. This way, there won’t be any conflict between you, and our cooperation will continue, stably controlling the market here.”

This was indeed a very good suggestion, and even if he hadn’t said it, Lance would have considered lowering the share the mayors got from him, as appropriate.

Even if Gold Label Distillery made a comeback, as long as they didn’t give the mayors a cut, then even if he lowered his cut to only twenty percent, ten percent, or even five percent, there would still be people willing to cooperate with him.

After all, five percent is better than nothing!

It was just that he hadn’t expected this hairy mayor to take the initiative to bring up this suggestion, which had surprised him a little.

After all, in the Federation, interests were the core.

His relationship with Admiral Miles before had also been good, but because the two sides had, for their respective positions, directly had a falling out. Now it was the same with him and Governor Wade. As long as you touched someone’s core interests, a falling out was the mainstream.

So for the hairy mayor to take the initiative to lower his own interests in these businesses, in order to continue to maintain the stability of the whole business, was indeed relatively rare.

Lance took another sip of his wine from his glass, and then shook his head. ”You want to resolve the conflict between me and Wade. I can feel your sincerity and intention, but the problem with this matter is not here.”

Lance put down his wine glass and looked at him. ”The core issue is that he wants to press me down, to make me bow my head, but I don’t want to, you understand?”

”This has nothing to do with how much he can get.”

”If I am willing to give it to him, I can give him more. But if I am not, no one can snatch it from me.”

The hairy mayor suddenly felt even more of a headache. ”Then how can we solve this problem?”

Lance shook his head. ”This problem can’t be solved. You don’t have to waste your efforts.”

He didn’t want to talk about this topic, because it was really meaningless. Now it was unlikely that either of them would compromise.

If Lance had bowed his head now, and had acknowledged this twenty percent, even if the mayors had all taken the initiative to lower their own shares to balance the interests here, what about the next time Governor Wade, for whatever reason, wanted to increase his share by five or ten percent?

Should he agree, or not?

If he doesn’t, they will be in a stalemate like now.

If he agrees, with a character like Governor Wade’s, he will definitely try to ask for more from Lance. In the end, he will still have to face the same problem!

In the end, it was still that Lance’s power was not strong enough, and could not form a sufficient deterrent, but he possessed a huge amount of wealth.

The hairy mayor sighed, and in the end, he had given up on the idea of talking about Lance and Governor Wade. He could only promise Lance that as long as there was no irresistible force, he would continue to cooperate with Lance.

That he could promise this, Lance’s goal had already been achieved.

Lance had been to many places during this period, and had reached a consensus with those mayors. As long as there was no irresistible force, then their cooperation would continue, and they would also get the profit share that Lance had promised.

No one can refuse such a large fortune, no one.

...

In mid-November, the weather was a bit gloomy, and New Golden City had already had a snowfall.

The cold air had come faster this year.

Senator Cleveland sat in his car and left the city, heading for a military base in the suburbs. On the way, he had been thinking about some issues.

If you haven’t been a senator, you can’t understand how busy a senator is.

As the most important department of the federal government, this place was not just related to matters like proposing and legislating. All the things that happened in the entire country, the Presidential Palace would handle a copy, and in Congress, they would also handle a copy.

And Congress would handle it in more detail. All kinds of committees, working groups, they would break the problem down and solve it.

Unlike the president, if he knew how to solve it, he would solve it himself. If he didn’t know how to, he would just throw it to Congress to handle or the cabinet to handle.

Senator Cleveland had too many things to consider. War, the nation, industry, production, international relations...

But he also enjoyed it.

In some thoughts, time would pass very quickly.

Of course, it also had something to do with his age. He had become more focused, and at the same time, the activity of his mind was not as good as when he was young.

Everyone will go through such a process—

When they were young, in the classroom, to have them sit there for forty minutes was as long as a century!

Every day was a long and tormented day. It seemed that the concept of time, in the eyes of children, was a process with a very long span.

But as they got older, time seemed to have had its accelerator pressed. Let alone forty minutes, even one or two hours would end very quickly.

Everyone will have this feeling, that time is passing faster and faster.

But in fact, time will not change. What has changed is the activity of people’s minds.

This is like running. To run a round trip in one minute, and to run ten round trips in one minute, the intensity of the exercise is definitely not the same.

If this intensity of exercise is the speed at which humans perceive time, then it is very natural that the older you get, the harder it is to perceive time, and the faster time passes.

In what was perhaps just a blink of an eye for Senator Cleveland, the car had stopped.

In front of him were two wire mesh fences. Inside the fences was barbed wire, a thing used to stop people from moving, with sharp blades.

If you accidentally fell in, you would soon be covered in wounds, and in the end, you would die in there from blood loss.

Two soldiers walked to the side of the car. Senator Cleveland rolled down the window and showed his pass.

The soldier checked his pass, then walked back to the sentry post and once again, through the phone, verified the authenticity of this pass, before he had returned it to Senator Cleveland, and had, with a bow, saluted, ”Mr. Senator, you may enter.”

Senator Cleveland nodded, and rolled up the window again. The strict access control system, in his opinion, was much better than just letting him in. At least they were working.

The two cars, led by a military vehicle, had come directly to the side of a runway. Many people had already gathered here.

They had set up a temporary tent, but it was not very warm, because the side of the tent that was facing the runway had nothing, and was completely open.

Many of the people he knew had already arrived. When people saw him come over, they had all, one after another, greeted him.

Today they were going to test-fly an airplane that was intended to be put into the battlefield.

The airplanes made by the Dantra Republic had brought more variables to the federal battlefield. It could easily find the artillery positions, and then to launch an attack on the artillery positions from the air. This was very difficult to defend against.

Although some of the arms industry groups had already begun to produce and to put into use some of the weapons that were specially used to shoot down airplanes, for example, anti-aircraft guns, and rapid-fire machine cannons, the effect had not reached the level that people had imagined, that they could just casually shoot down an airplane.

These airplanes flew very high, and it was not so easy for a bullet to hit them. They would, after dropping their cluster bombs, immediately leave.

And even if they could hit some airplanes, it was impossible to hit all of them. The Federation was gradually losing its advantage on the battlefield.

The New Alliance’s side had hoped that the Federation could immediately come up with a countermeasure. The Federation’s side was also stepping up its research.

In the past, the development speed of airplanes was not fast, because there was no ”force” to push this.

But now, its research and development speed had been greatly enhanced, because of the procurement intentions of the military.

Interest is the main driving force for scientific progress, bar none!

In these few years, the ones who had had the best life in the Federation were the major arms industry groups. They were becoming one after another of the behemoth enterprises, which had made many people envious, jealous, and hateful, but they couldn’t get a hand in.

An arms industry enterprise is not like an ordinary industry. You can’t just get an assembly line and to directly produce. The arms industry involves many aspects.

Metallurgy, chemical industry, machinery, all kinds of aspects, and you also need a mechanical expert who is proficient in design.

So even if the market knew that the arms industry was a booming place, they did not dare to rashly try to come in and have a look.

This time, after the federal government had proposed to purchase a large number of airplanes for the war, it had let people see an opportunity.

A large number of aircraft companies had been quickly established, and then had begun to develop airplanes that could be used in war.

Today was when a part of the companies had already completed their designs and prototype production, and had come to centrally demonstrate them to the Department of Defense and these people in Congress.

After all, whether to purchase in the end, and how much, was decided by these people.

Then, some more people had arrived, one after another. They had gathered together, discussing some of the things that had happened recently.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, a military officer had come in front of the people. He had coughed twice, attracting everyone’s attention.

”Gentlemen, everyone is here. Next, let them start to show their products.”

”The first to be shown is the Peregrine airplane produced by Silo Industries...” as he was speaking of some of the parameters, in the hangar by the side of the runway, an airplane had been towed out, and had stopped on the runway.

The runway had been completely cleaned up, including the snow on the ground and a small amount of frost, which had also been cleaned up.

With the approval of the airport staff, the pilot had, by driving this Peregrine airplane, and by accelerating, had soon pulled up and had entered the air.

”It looks like a big toy,” one of the senators said, stating his own point of view. The others all laughed.

An airplane, this thing, in their eyes, was indeed not much different from a toy.

The airplane in the air had soon arrived at the predetermined location, and then had dropped four cluster bombs.

However, considering the airplane’s carrying capacity, the power of the cluster bombs was not very large. The targets on the ground had basically all been hit. The effect looked a bit impressive.

Senator Cleveland had also been paying attention to the consequences of the bombs. He didn’t really understand this, but he also had his own thoughts. ”It seems that the consequences of these bombs don’t seem to have any direct relationship with this airplane.”

His words had made many people look towards him, and then, after a careful thought, it was indeed so.

A bomb is a bomb, and an airplane is an airplane. The officer who was in charge of the guidance seemed to have also not expected that Senator Cleveland would say such a simple and correct thing.

He was also stunned for a moment and then had nodded and said, ”That is indeed so.”

”Then do we need to change the subsequent demonstration strategy?”

Senator Cleveland nodded. ”I think you just need to let these airplanes take off, and then to tell us how much they can carry, and how fast they can fly. That will be enough.”

”As for the bombs that are dropped, I believe that the heavier the shell, the greater the damage. We have a specialized enterprise that is doing this.”

The others had, more or less, all agreed with his point of view. There were chemical enterprises that specialized in producing explosives, or arms industry enterprises that produced bombs. They also knew that the effect of an explosion was related to the weight of the explosive.

Whether to demonstrate the bombing or not actually did not have much significance, and it also wasted time.

Soon, this military officer had explained the situation to the companies that were waiting to demonstrate. After the Peregrine in the sky had returned to the ground, a new airplane had been pulled onto the runway, and had begun to prepare for takeoff.

One after another, the airplanes had taken off, and after turning a circle in the sky, they had landed again. The gentlemen actually also couldn’t tell which airplane was better.

Until a model called the ”Sharp Arrow” had appeared, the military officer had emphatically introduced it.

”This Sharp Arrow model is different from the ones we have shown before. The designer who had designed it had said that it was not made to let it fly to a very far place and to drop its bombs.”

”Its purpose is to protect this space above our heads, so it is not used for bombing, but for attacking other airplanes.”

As he spoke, everyone had seen the ground staff of this company take some large balloons to the outside of the field, and then, after they were full of air, they had been released into the air.

The Sharp Arrow model airplane, which had been circling in the sky, had soon turned its direction, and from a very far place, had shot down all these balloons.

This had indeed made the gentlemen all feel a little novelty.

”Because it will not fly over the enemy’s positions, this airplane, in its design, has more room for optimization...”

In the military officer’s introduction, this airplane could become an important defensive means to protect one’s own artillery positions, and to attack the enemy in the air.

The airplanes of this period did not fly fast. In the situation where they could get more ”weight reduction,” these Sharp Arrow model airplanes, whether it was in their flying speed, or their turning ability, were all more flexible, and faster, than the other ”bombers” that were, in order to seek to fly further, and to carry a higher load.

This had given them the opportunity to be able to quickly meet and to attack the enemy’s airplanes!

The demonstration, up to this point, was actually pretty much over. The Sharp Arrow model airplane in the sky had soon, following the runway, flown back.

The representatives of the manufacturers were also very nervous. This would decide if their efforts during this period could get a sufficient return.

The senators and the generals of the Department of Defense, and also the generals of the military, had discussed for a while. They had decided to purchase two types, a total of three models of airplanes.

One long-range bomber, one medium-range heavy bomber, and that Sharp Arrow model fighter.

Now they actually did not have such a precise classification. They could only be distinguished according to their actual use and model.

The representatives of the three selected enterprises all had a smile on their faces, while the other representatives were a little disappointed.

However, this did not mean that they had forever lost their opportunity. They would still have a chance. As long as they could develop an airplane with a more advanced performance, there would definitely be an order.

Moreover, the order did not necessarily have to come from within the country. It could also come from abroad, for example, from the allies in the Slad military alliance.

Then the group of people had returned to the warm building of the military base. After a preliminary discussion, the federal government would be purchasing 1,000 airplanes.

Among them, 500 would be fighters, and 500 would be the two types of bombers.

The cheapest of these airplanes was quoted at 43,000 Federal Sols, and the most expensive was 51,000. On average, it was about 46,000 an airplane.

1,000 airplanes, that was 46 million. And this was just a try on a new thing.

Once these airplanes had played a role on the battlefield, the defense orders would continuously appear on the desks of these enterprises.