The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

Chapter 259: The Bear Envoy and the Pineapple (Part 2)

Chewing on golden slices of salted pineapple, Special Envoy Yuri and his attendant Anna strolled through the streets of Myitkyina, feeling the hustle and bustle of the exotic streets.

"The market here has plenty of goods and is well organized. Although the streets are mostly populated by Qian people, there are also quite a few natives, and they can all coexist harmoniously in this city. You can't tell that this city was a ruin a few months ago." Although Yuri is greedy, he still keeps his eyes and ears open.

"Ivanovich (Mikoyan) is completely wrong," he thought to himself, "the huge contradiction he thinks does not exist at all."

Behind the two of them, several officers from the Security Department were dressed in plain clothes and followed them slowly.

At Zhang Chi's request, the Security Department will not impose too many restrictions on these foreign envoys. Except for some sensitive enterprises and military strongholds, these foreigners can see whatever they want in Myitkyina.

Therefore, the security officer's tracking is more for protection and routine surveillance.

"It's so funny that these two devils can't even move when they see a pineapple." One of the officers, who was from Southeast Asia, pretended to look down at the vendor's goods while looking in the direction of the two Russians without saying a word.

"Hey, they live in the frigid zone, so it's normal that they haven't seen tropical fruits. For example, in my hometown, the landlords only have two apples for the New Year, and the farmhands just pick some sour dates and apricots to eat." Another clerk waved his hand to refuse the brown-haired native child who was trying to sell him cigarettes, and answered in a low voice.

“In fact, before Marshal Zhang came, there weren’t so many goods on the market, even in Yangon.” The clerk who spoke at the beginning pushed his glasses and sighed.

"So Marshal Zhang is still the best..." another secretary also sighed.

"Alright, you can show me your loyalty, and Marshal Zhang can't hear it, haha." The clerk with glasses grinned, then suddenly said seriously: "Those two Rakshasa ghosts have turned the corner, hurry up and catch up."

-----

The purpose of Special Envoy Yuri's visit this time, in addition to the routine congratulations to Zhang Chi on his victory, was mainly to contact Zhang Chi and see whether the latter had a greater hostility or goodwill towards his motherland, the Red Bear.

Since Ivan the Great and Peter the Great, the Russians have shown extraordinary ambition and covetousness for special terms such as ice-free ports and tropical regions.

Now Zhang Chi seems to have bitten off a big piece of meat in Southeast Asia, the back garden of Western colonizers, and Uncle Steel naturally wants to come and see if he can have a drink with him.

But flies don't bite seamless eggs. Yuri, the special envoy who paid too much attention to big cities, came to the conclusion that industry and commerce here are prosperous, people's living standards are not bad, and there is no opportunity to make any tricks.

After swallowing the sweet and sour pineapple, the foodie envoy took out two 5-cent coins and bought an attractive golden banana on the roadside.

While peeling the banana, Yuri recalled his brief meeting with Zhang Chi.

Yuri secretly gave a very high evaluation to this military strongman who suddenly emerged.

He rose to a high position at a young age but did not show off.

He treated envoys from various countries with neither servility nor overbearingness, which was completely different from the common guys who kowtowed and fawned.

The most important thing is that the other party is not opposed to doing business with the great red bear.

That’s right, Special Envoy Yuri’s second mission is to try to trade with Zhang Chi.

Being located in the subarctic zone means that even if the red bear tries its best to develop agriculture, many things cannot be done due to objective reasons of the temperature.

Rubber trees and sugarcane grow best in the tropics, and even the resurrection of the great Catherine the Great cannot change this.

What's more, the best tracts of black soil in the Russian Federation have just been liberated from the Nazis, and production has not yet resumed.

The food and fodder for the entire Soviet army were almost entirely provided by several Central Asian member states in the rear, and they were stretched to the limit.

As for other allied countries, they are both cooperative and wary of the Russian bear.

So Uncle Steel set his sights on Zhang Chi and tried to import large quantities of rubber and sugar from him.

As we all know, rubber and sugar are not only commodities that everyone needs in peacetime, but are also critical military supplies in wartime.

However, Special Envoy Yuri has discovered other goods that should also be imported.

"According to Anna's inquiries to the vendors, the rural purchase price of a whole pineapple is about 1.5 rubles, while in St. Petersburg before the war, a single pineapple could be sold for hundreds of rubles..."

(The Siege of St. Petersburg had just ended in January 1945. St. Petersburg's status in the Russian Empire was similar to that of Shanghai. Although it was not the capital, it was the most developed commercial area.)

Yuri couldn't help but daydream: "This mission has granted me a total of 500 dollars in activity funds. If I use all of it to resell pineapples..."

-----

So when Zhang Chi met with special envoy Yuri again a few days later, the first request made by the other party left him completely confused.

"Excuse me, did you mean you wanted to see the canning and beverage factories?"

Zhang Chi looked at Anna, who was acting as the translator. After Anna and Yuri exchanged a few words in a low voice, Yuri, who was as tall as a brown bear, nodded vigorously.

"As long as the price is right, we are willing to import large quantities of canned fruits such as pineapples, lychees, papayas, and your specialty pineapple salt soda." Anna acted as a substitute and spoke in a half-baked dry language.

Zhang Chi remained expressionless on the surface, but was extremely speechless in his heart. He had planned to take advantage of the opportunity when the Russian bear came to him to sell penicillin openly.

You should know that the synthetic agents lurking in Bangkok, Siam had already smuggled penicillin worth about 2 tons of gold to the Russian Bear at the price of one tael of gold for 100,000 units of penicillin.

Even though the international price of penicillin in 44 has been halved again compared to 40 as White Eagle's penicillin production line has expanded, selling it openly is not comparable to the petty theft of smuggling.

You should know that as the workers' proficiency gradually increases, the penicillin production line exchanged by the system has reached its theoretical maximum output.

Zhang Chi currently stocks penicillin drugs worth approximately $8000 million to $1 million every month.

If it cannot be sold quickly, as the price of penicillin gradually drops, the $1 million will soon become 5000 million or even 1000 million. This loss will be real money.

But now that the Russians are here, they actually want to buy canned fruit first?

Zhang Chi in the reception room was now filled with questions.

But selling anything is fine, as long as there's money to be made. Zhang Chi is even willing to sell the tanks exchanged from the system: "So how do you pay? Let me make it clear first, for technical reasons, we don't accept rubles."

Anna was embarrassed when she heard this. As a hidden agent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, she knew very well the technical reason for not accepting rubles.

It was simply that the West wanted to exchange rubles for gold, and the financial officials at the time agreed for the sake of the ruble's credibility.

As a result, Uncle Steel was furious, thinking that this was a loss of property.

Naturally, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Beria, immediately arrested all those officials and treated them as Western spies.

Since then, the credibility of the ruble has plummeted, and Zhang Chi’s so-called technical problems were just a euphemism.

After whispering a few words with Special Envoy Yuri, Anna spoke again: "Steel, weapons, heavy industrial equipment, as long as you are willing to sell them, we can convert these things into payment at a fair price."