Chapter 33: Smart Approach

At Armand Manor, Grevy opened a bottle of champagne amid cheers, and Francis also felt the glory of this victory.

"Great speech, Armand!" Grevy praised sincerely when pouring wine for Armand.

Armand smiled and replied: "Compared to the speech, I am more happy to see Steed's face. Did you see it? He can't do anything and can only sit there stupidly!"

"I saw it!" Nicholas raised his glass: "I sat not far from him. He was like a statue, completely stunned!"

Several people laughed.

Francis laughed along, his expression was a little embarrassed. He was the only one who did not attend the meeting and had no idea what happened.

After hesitating for a while, Francis mustered up the courage to ask: "So, we won, right?"

"Of course, Francis!" Armand replied triumphantly: "We got a big order in the first batch: 1,500 tanks, with a unit price of 5,000...!"

Grevy interrupted Armand with a "hmm" and winked at Armand, this idiot, Francis doesn't need to know this.

Armand smiled indifferently. In his opinion, Grevy's reaction was a bit excessive. Even if Francis knew about it, what would happen? He was just a farmer who made his living with a tractor!

Francis' eyes widened in surprise. He knew what happened. They sold the tanks at a unit price of 5,000 francs.

And the unit price of the tanks they got from him was only 1,360 francs, including a machine gun!

The price difference multiplied by 1,500 vehicles, God, they can make more than 5 million francs just from this batch!

Charles only made 1.1 million francs from selling patents, and he only made a little profit!

These dirty capitalists, hateful vampires, and parasites of the country, they plundered the taxes we paid in this way!

"Any questions?" Armand saw that Francis' face was not right, so he raised his eyebrows and asked.

"No, no, no problem!" Francis hurriedly put on a smile and raised his glass: "Gentlemen! For our victory..."

But the others did not respond, and Armand said expressionlessly: "It's too early to celebrate the victory now, Mr. Francis, it's not too late to say this when we receive the money!"

"You are right, Mr. Armand!" Francis awkwardly retracted his hand holding the glass.

After a moment of silence, Nicola asked: "So, what should we write now?"

Nicola's full name is Nicola Kocher, he is the owner of Le Figaro.

Unlike the Petit Journal, Le Figaro is a newspaper targeting the aristocracy and the upper class. A newspaper costs one franc, which is not affordable for ordinary people.

Therefore, Le Figaro also has aristocratic characteristics: it disdains to contact ordinary people, and usually reports on national affairs and issues debated by parliamentarians. Another point: its information and intelligence are often seriously inconsistent with the facts, after all, it is out of touch with the civilian class.

For example, before the Franco-German War, Le Figaro thought that France could reproduce the glory of sweeping Germany 14 times in the past and easily win the war, so it called on readers to continue to enjoy brandy and cigars and wait for victory.

The result is...

"Victory, Nicola!" Grevy said: "You just need to report the victory, the victory of the tank, let everyone go crazy for the tank, and everyone knows its inventor Charles! Then, we can wait for wealth to roll in to us!"

Armand was a little confused: "Don't you report our patent for the tank?"

"No!" Grevy replied: "It's not the right time yet! I hope... Steed will copy it!"

Armand was stunned, and understood the next second.

Grevy wanted to mislead Steed and make him think that the patent was still in Charles' hands.

Once Steed copied or bypassed the tank patent, the right wing could throw the patent in Steed's face, and then occupy the commanding heights of public opinion through the media, law and other means to give him a slap in the face, and even demand compensation from him.

"Smart move!" Armand affirmed Grevy, and the glasses of several people clinked together to make a few crisp sounds.

...

When Francis returned to his villa, he was still unperturbed. Why can those arrogant guys make millions with just a few words, while he only makes hundreds of thousands of francs after doing everything he did.

But no matter how angry he was, he still had to do business, otherwise he wouldn't be able to make hundreds of thousands of francs!

Francis comforted himself: Now is an extraordinary period, money is not so easy to make, many factories went bankrupt because of the war, he can not only survive but also make a profit, he should be content!

"Simon!" Francis called the butler: "Let Joseph come!"

"Master!" The butler replied: "Joseph has resigned!"

"Resigned?" Francis frowned.

"Yes!" The butler replied: "I think it's because of his son. His son lost a leg on the battlefield and needs someone to take care of him!"

Francis said "um" and didn't take it to heart.

"Then call Thomas!"

The butler was stunned: "Thomas seems to have resigned too. During the few days you were in Paris, more than 70 people resigned one after another. I put the list in your study! Thomas should be one of them, I'm not sure!"

Francis felt that this was a bit unusual and asked: "Where did they go? Why did so many people resign?"

They didn't resign even when the Germans were rumored to attack, but chose to resign at this time.

This question stumped Simon, and he could only give an unconfirmed answer: "It is said that they were frightened by the number of casualties. They were worried that they would receive a conscription order in the near future, so they planned to find a job in the UK, so that they could..."

Francis nodded. This explanation was reasonable. Now more and more people have received conscription orders, which has caused panic.

Going to the UK to work may not be avoided, but at least the French government does not know where they are, and cannot send the conscription order to them in the short term.

Then Francis laughed: "These fools, didn't they think we were going to switch to producing tanks? As a factory that provides important equipment for the army, they will not receive a conscription order!"

The butler sighed: "If they were smarter, or resigned later, they wouldn't have to suffer this. This is their loss, sir!"

Francis quickly forgot about it. After all, the tractor factory has more than 2,000 employees, and it can still operate without these 70 or so people, not to mention that he has to hurry up to produce tanks.

What Francis didn't expect was that this was exactly what Charles wanted!

What the butler knew was that Charles deliberately let Joseph spread the "rumor" in the factory.

Charles didn't want Francis to notice his plan too early and be prepared!