Life is so wonderful!
Sometimes it is so wonderful. George came to Italy for the warships, but he never thought that the Italians would deliver the warships to his door.
Even so cheap!
1 dollar!
Did the Italians lose money?
Not at all. Those warships will be handed over to the Allies as war reparations after the war. War reparations are a magical thing. Although warships can be used to offset war reparations, when the price is calculated, it will not be much more expensive than scrap iron, just like the warships compensated by Germany after World War I, which are actually converted according to the price of steel.
If Italy can deal with some warships while it still has a certain degree of autonomy - that is, when the Allies have not completely regarded it as a defeated country, it can at least get tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. For the Italian government, it is definitely a very cost-effective deal.
As for the buyers, there is no need to worry. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, and even Spain have made a lot of money in World War II. As long as Italy is willing to sell warships, someone will definitely take it.
The only problem is that Italy wants to sell. But it is afraid of being blocked by the Allies. So, they need to cast a stone to ask.
Ordinary countries certainly can't do it, and those Allies will definitely not buy it.
So they searched and searched and finally found George, who has an extremely special identity. A magical deal was reached. On December 29, 1944, after paying one dollar in cash, George's North Borneo Guard received six destroyers.
In fact, to be precise, the total is 500,001 US dollars.
How could there be an extra 500,000 US dollars?
Because the 500,000 US dollars did not buy surface warships, but four submarines!
Submarines themselves are not within the scope of the transaction between the two parties, but after learning that there are still several submarines in the port, George went directly to buy the four submarines with the best conditions.
The two sides reached an agreement after a simple negotiation. Of course, the four submarines could not be given away for free. So George took out a huge sum of $500,000 for this.
Almost overnight, the North Borneo Guard became the second strongest navy in Asia. Well, after the little life was disarmed, it might even become the strongest navy in Asia.
It's a bit exciting to think about it!
But thinking that in another world, after Indonesia's independence, the Russians directly gave 47 warships, including a 10,000-ton cruiser and ten submarines, suddenly, the Italian warships were not so attractive.
"Hey, I have to say, knowing how to kowtow and recognize your father, you can really get benefits!"
However, soon, he was relieved. Although he was a little hard-headed and would not kowtow to recognize his father, as long as we have sheep to fleece, what's the big deal.
Although the Italian sheep is also quite fat, George is a moral person and will not fleece only one sheep. After all, it is almost bald.
After signing the contract and hiring former Italian naval personnel to drive the warship to Tunisia, George still needed to wait even though he was eager to go home.
In Switzerland, when he saw Berlin, this guy looked at him with resentful eyes and said.
"If it weren't for you, perhaps the Führer's "Defending the Rhine" plan might have succeeded."
"Defending the Rhine" is the code name for the Ardennes counterattack, a combat plan personally formulated by Hitler. It is as crazy as ever, but unfortunately Germany at this time can no longer provide sufficient resources for his madness, whether it is manpower or material resources. Even if more than 200,000 troops are barely put together, what's the use? When the gasoline runs out, the plan will naturally not succeed.
"Do you still have oil?"
One sentence made Berlin dumb. After losing the Romanian oil fields and the synthetic fuel plant being destroyed by the Allies, Germany is now out of oil.
Without oil, what's the point of fighting!
"So, we don't need tungsten ore anymore."
"I know."
George, who seemed calm, was full of regrets in his heart.
How can it not be a pity? That business makes money!
In the previous transactions, I almost earned two small goals from the Germans, all of which were directly given in gold!
Who doesn't like yellow gold?
"So?"
"Berlin informed me that if...it's convenient for you, we will launch the "Safe Harbor Plan" in the next few months."
Berlin glanced at George, took out a file bag from his briefcase and said.
"This is what I want!"
What I want!
Looking at the file, George could feel his breathing becoming a little rapid, because he knew the weight of this file.
"This list was compiled by Osenberg, the head of the Research Committee, and contains the names and home addresses of all the top scientists and engineers in Germany. The list includes 11,097 scientific and technological talents, of which 7,645 are top engineers..."
What!
George opened his eyes in astonishment. Isn't the famous "Osenberg List" only more than 1,600 people?
How come there are tens of thousands of people?
By the way, the list seemed to be picked up by the US military from the toilet, and perhaps part of it was flushed down the toilet. So the Americans only found more than 1,000 scientists.