I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 736 - 634: White Gloves

Smuggling, even with state support and permission, is still something that cannot be openly discussed.

In fact, if Flame Country were to openly ask European governments for what they want, in the current situation, nine times out of ten, the governments would just procrastinate but not outright refuse.

However, rather than wasting time haggling with those annoying and hypocritical politicians, the high ranks of Flame Country clearly prefer to find a few intermediaries, and then use some of the relatively surplus domestic supplies to exchange for things they are interested in like high-precision machine tools and high-performance component technologies. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

After all, unlike Flame Country, many of the top precision processing technologies in European countries are owned by private factories, rather than directly belonging to the state.

It might just be an unremarkable processing plant that looks like a private small workshop back in Flame Country, yet it possesses world-leading part processing technologies or holds some advanced global patents—this is both possible and quite common.

These small factories are ubiquitous in Europe, and many have items that interest Flame Country’s high ranks, but there are too many of them and the quantity of items high ranks are interested in is not large, going through official channels would turn into a logistics nightmare.

Because of the different political system, in European countries, truly cutting-edge technology is not in the hands of the government but in the hands of various private companies or major enterprises. The government can only obtain finished products of these technologies through purchasing.

So rather than going through European governments and wasting time negotiating, then slowly finding these manufacturers to talk about acquiring technologies, it would be better to pull a batch of intermediaries to privately find these factories directly for exchanges.

This wide-net approach is nothing new to Flame Country, as back when Suyia collapsed, Flame Country gained a lot of benefits from Suyia’s downfall and breakup through a method similar to smuggling and reselling.

And this is not completely unrelated to Flame Country’s rapid development in economic, military, and technological fields over the subsequent twenty years.

Following the example, Flame Country’s high ranks quickly completed preparations in this area, and Li Yulong, who was inserted into this operation by Chen Xin, also completed relevant business training under Chen Xin’s arrangements.

As everyone was ready, Chen Xin had also prepared the cargo ship bound for Europe.

This time, Chen Xin prepared a Land Ship equipped with anti-gravity engines again, but because it’s a cargo transport ship, this cargo ship emphasizes carrying capacity, and the hull was upgraded and modified by Chen Xin from a freighter.

Also, because it’s a freighter, the hull structure is relatively simple, and it is larger than other Land Ships.

The size of this cargo ship is not smaller than existing Mobile Bases, only slightly smaller than Land Aircraft Carriers in appearance, but in terms of tonnage, to carry more goods, when the cargo hold is fully loaded, this cargo ship can carry 30,000 tons of cargo.

This carrying capacity, compared to the pre-disaster times when Flame Country could construct 220,000-ton container cargo ships, has a considerable gap, but considering this is a Land Ship, and one that can fly, this carrying capacity is quite impressive.

The structure of the cargo ship, naturally, isn’t as complex as regular Land Ships, nor does it need to handle aircraft take-off and landing or to carry numerous crew members like Mobile Bases do, most of the space on the entire cargo ship is the cargo hold; however, the cargo hold is divided into upper and lower layers, each holding different goods.

The lower cargo hold is mainly used for transporting grain, which is considered one of the major aids that the country has decided to provide to Europe after comprehensive consideration.

Although the alien invasion nearly destroyed the ecological agricultural planting zones painstakingly established by Chen Xin and others in the Dongting Lake Region, the vast Flame Country surely has more than just this single grain production area, especially since this was only established after the disaster.

Thus, the grain yield around the Dongting Lake area was indeed impacted, causing supply tensions for a time, but this does not mean that Flame Country’s overall grain output was greatly affected.

After months, grain from other regions entered the harvest stage, temporarily the country still holds a substantial amount of grain that could be used for external trading, especially considering that even filling up this cargo ship only requires 30,000 tons of grain.

Though 30,000 tons is no small amount, it’s not substantial for a country.

Thus, for Flame Country, diverting some grain to Europe to exchange for things they fancy is a beneficial move that incurs no significant loss.

The high ranks have obviously prepared more for the cargo ship than just grain; besides grain, there’s a batch of secondhand civilian Exoskeletons and some medicines and other goods considered relatively in demand by the high ranks.

These items are the bargaining chips for Li Yulong and the group of intermediaries selected by the high ranks.

They will accompany the cargo ship to Europe and, with the assistance of the European fleet workers, contact a batch of private factories to conduct trades and exchange for things that interest the high ranks.

These intermediaries are not much different from the black marketeers of over thirty years ago, only now they are working for the authorities.

They don’t have specific targets; what they can manage to acquire from Europe depends entirely on their skills and luck.

The high ranks merely sent a team of personnel to assess accompanying them, once they acquire some nice stuff, they’ll bring them back to these staff for assessment, and once assessed, the trade can be completed.

Additionally, every completed trade allows these intermediaries to collect some points, which they can exchange for more chips and supplies, enabling them to trade for more items.

This trading method, compared to normal diplomatic channels and exchanging with the counterpart’s national high ranks, and then proceeding to trade, is undoubtedly more efficient and satisfactory in terms of yield.

So, once they had gathered the cargo, the crew had familiarized themselves with operating the cargo ship, and the intermediaries had collected their "settling-in fees," this logistics team set off.

For safety reasons, the cargo ship will maintain its floating state throughout the entire journey, and for safety reasons, it will be accompanied by an escort ship.

Though this escort ship is also a Land Ship, it will adopt a voyage mode of maintaining floating status alongside the cargo ship throughout the journey.

On the one hand, this is to test whether the anti-gravity device can support long-term uninterrupted operation, and on the other hand, it is to familiarize the crew with this operational mode for future reference.