Chapter 719: Pockets Full of Offers I Can’t Refuse
Xavier was a little surprised when he saw Lance outside the door, because he, the Red Oak Company behind him, had no contact with Lance, his Wanli Group, or the Lance family.

The Red Oak subsidiary is located in the northwest region of the federation, where economic development is a little backward and there are many border problems.

They and Jingang City are at the farthest ends of the Federation, so Mr. Xavier has no idea why Lance would come knocking on the door.

But he still welcomed Lance in.

The people behind him have already talked to him privately, telling him not to get involved in the conflict with the industry committee. Their goal is to make money, not to make enemies with anyone.

Even if the target they expected was only 3%, it would still be a huge income for them.

With sales of around 30 million per month, what else can they say?

It is not easy to make money in the Northwest, so they cannot miss this opportunity.

“Mr. Lance, please sit down.” He invited Lance to sit down somewhat at a loss. “Uh… Honestly, Mr. Lance, I don’t quite understand.”

Lance knew what he meant and explained with a smile, “I want you to vote for me in the vote in six days.”

Xavier scratched his head, “I have no intention of getting involved in the conflict between you and Mr. Richard. I am just a small winery and I am only interested in making money.”

He stated his position, and then pushed out the forces behind him, “And you know that this kind of thing is often not something we can decide on our own. I don’t know the situation on your side, but here…”

He pursed his lips and said, “I have to listen to others.”

Lance nodded slightly, “I can understand that you can’t make decisions for your own career. After all, we all climbed up from the bottom little by little.”

“But, Mr. Xavier, don’t you think that seventeen wineries are a bit too many this time?”

Xavier showed a confused expression, “I don’t quite understand what you mean, Mr. Lance, shouldn’t this number be decided by the people above?”

Lance did not deny his statement. “It is indeed decided by the higher-ups, but seventeen wineries is still too many.”

“With the war going on, I think there’s a good chance that some distilleries will be cut.”

“Look, even if we use the most even distribution method, each family will not even get 6 percent.”

“I don’t know what quota you hope to get, two percent?”

“Or three percent?”

“As some people become more greedy for profit, they will not be satisfied with you taking away the 2 or 3 percent that could have belonged to them from their pockets.”

“I’m sorry I used you and your winery as an analogy, but the point I was making doesn’t change.”

“We have to take these issues into account as possible future scenarios!”

After listening to this, Xavier thought about it seriously. In fact, he also felt that seventeen wineries were too many and they should be reduced a bit, and then the profits could be divided among the masters.

Of course, it can also be said that the current feast is the result of the gentlemen still being able to maintain their eating manners, but what if they can no longer control their eating manners?
It’s not impossible, it’s like some greedy and gluttonous villains sitting at the dining table, they can initially use the knife and fork to cut the steak gracefully.

But as their desires grow and their appetites become more terrible, they will soon abandon their knives and forks and use their hands to grab food and stuff it into their mouths.

Even at the end they didn’t even wait for the food to be served, but asked the waiter to pour the food from the plates into their mouths at the table.

Thinking about these things that might happen in the future, Xavier’s emotions were obviously affected.

Xavier is fifty-two years old. According to the files that Tom gave to Lance, his life was not all smooth sailing. He had experienced many ups and downs and a lot, so he would not be so blindly optimistic.

He looked at Lance sincerely, “That’s true, but Mr. Lance, this has nothing to do with your attempt to convince me to vote for you, right?”

Lance leaned back on the sofa, looking very relaxed with his legs crossed. He didn’t seem to feel restrained or uncomfortable visiting someone who was not a friend.

The more natural and relaxed he behaves, the more it shows that he feels safe.

And the sense of security comes from the fact that he has the initiative.

“Among so many manufacturers, Red Oak Distillers is the most likely to be kicked out.”

“I’m not ‘predicting’ anything, I’m just stating a fact, after all…”

He didn’t explain it in detail, but he knew that Xavier on the other side must understand what he wanted to express.

Xavier was a little sullen, “You still haven’t told me what this has to do with me voting for you.”

Then, Lance said a word that made Xavier’s expression change.

“Underwriting.”

For someone like Xavier who has experienced a lot, it is difficult for him to show his emotional changes directly on his face. He will hide his true thoughts to protect himself.

But this time, he couldn’t control his expression, and his expression management was out of control.

Underwriting is the word that any businessman has long dreamed of.

It’s just as great as Monopoly!
Xavier’s breathing became a little rapid, “You…just said underwriting?”

Lance nodded, “Yes, it’s underwritten. We can sign the contract.”

Xavier looked at Lance with disbelief in his eyes. This was not just a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, this could be tens of millions of dollars worth of goods every month. Could Lance really underwrite all of them?

Lance knew what he was confused about. In fact, from the moment he came in, he had firmly controlled the context of the entire conversation and the initiative.

“Xavier, I treat you as a friend, so I’m going to tell you a secret.”

“My winery can now produce at least 50 million worth of wine every month, and this amount of wine is not even enough for me to sell. Sometimes I have to find ways to steal some from others to sell.”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help laughing. “Sorry, you know, I came from a gang, so sometimes I’m not so friendly to my peers!”

“As long as the price you give me is within my acceptable range, I can underwrite it.”

“In fact, you don’t have to consider selling to me. As long as you are brave enough, you can dump it into this huge market that is in short supply of alcoholic beverages.”

“Three hundred yuan a bottle, four hundred or five hundred yuan a bottle, it’s all this!”

Listening to Lance talking about these things, Xavier couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

How could he not know how hot the bootleg liquor market is right now?
Someone had secretly contacted him a long time ago, wanting to cooperate with him in selling wine.

He was responsible for producing the wine, and then those people were responsible for selling it to the market. The price they gave was indeed as Lance said, basically more than 400 yuan per bottle.

They can split the profits in half. As long as they can produce 10,000 bottles of wine every month, the profit will be at least 1.5 million.

But does he dare to do it?
He didn’t dare to do it.

The local hazardous materials administration bureau has been keeping a close eye on him. If his factory dares to operate or his liquor is sold at will, they will arrest him immediately.

He is not like Lance, who comes from a gangster family and specializes in this. He is brave and can handle it.

He doesn’t have such a strong bone, nor such a courage.

Seeing the embarrassment and sigh on Xavier’s face, Lance continued, “Think about it, the Ministry of Defense’s offer is two hundred dollars. It has a profit, but it’s not big.”

“How much can you get?”

“Pure profit, a dozen dollars?”

“Still twenty bucks?”

Lance’s profit is actually not high, only about 20 yuan, which is only a small part of the overall profit.

He can only earn 200,000 yuan if he sells 10,000 bottles of wine.

It seems like the profit is huge, but in fact the final profit may not be that much, because it will be reduced due to labor, transportation and other reasons.

Even if he produces 400,000 bottles every month, the profit he can get is only more than 4 million. After paying taxes, there will be probably more than 2 million left.

Well, it’s a lot, but it’s a lot less than the profit from moonshine!
A bottle of 750 ml Bronze Lion whiskey has a market price of about 550 yuan, and the cost price is about 60 or 70 yuan, but the profit it brings to Lans is close to 500 yuan.

And this money is not taxable. Although it is black money, there is no shortage of ways to launder money in this era. As the film industry continues to flourish, a large number of cinemas have started the “ghost movie-watching” mode. The cinema belongs to Lans, and the ghosts are also Lans, although they also have to pay taxes.

But as long as he wants to launder the money, it can be laundered quickly into his account.

And there is still a lot of money that does not need to be laundered at all, and he is preparing for another big event.

Once this is done, there is absolutely no problem of money laundering losses.

What he wants now is to make wine in an open and honest way. As his market grows, the scale of Lawrence Farm can no longer keep up and needs to continue to expand.

This expansion is bound to attract some people’s attention. He has dealt with the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau in Jingang City, but he has not yet dealt with those in other places and the State Prohibition Committee.

So he needs a license that allows him to legally produce alcoholic beverages on a large scale. As for selling them to the private market, that is another matter.

He believed that Xavier, who was also a winery operator, would be able to understand what he meant.

“Xavier, my friend, two hundred and seventy dollars for all your wine!”

Xavier took a deep breath and looked at Lance in disbelief. “Do you… have such a big market?”

Lance didn’t deny it. “Before Prohibition was lifted.”

“Xavier, you are not me. You don’t understand my style of doing things.”

“As long as it’s in my territory, I will be stricter than the Hazardous Materials Administration to find those bootleggers, break their legs, and throw them off the cliff.”

“Because they’re not selling my wine, get it?”

“Don’t pay attention to what Richard and his people are shouting. As long as he dares to sell his wine on the market, I guarantee that he will be in big trouble!”

“You are too far away from me, so I can’t interfere. But in the south, I will gradually eat up all the southern states. Don’t even mention your current production. Even if you increase it tenfold, I can still swallow it!”

Xavier couldn’t help but curse, “Fuck!”

Then he came to his senses, “I’m not talking about you, Lance, I’m talking about… this damn society!”

His emotions exploded in shock and surprise, and he began to complain.

“This damn Prohibition thing is so fucking stupid, it nearly bankrupted me, and I’m done with it.”

“Can you imagine that this is a policy that a normal human brain could come up with?”

“Even the donkey on my farm can think better than these people!”

“They should be chewed up and fed to pigs instead of sitting there telling us ‘you fucking listen to me’!”

After complaining for a while, he understood what Lance meant. The money he made from selling the wine to Lance was much more than that from selling it to the Ministry of Defense.

He didn’t even need to take any responsibility because they were all defense suppliers. He just transported the alcohol he produced to another supplier and packed them as a whole. He knew nothing about it!
He couldn’t help but stand up, light a cigarette, and walk back and forth several times, “I need to make a call, Lance.”

Lance made a gesture to leave, and Xavier quickly returned to the room and closed the door.

He needs to talk to those people who support him behind the scenes. Those senators don’t support him for no reason. They support him because Xavier is easy to control and simple.

Anyway, this job will be done by anyone, so why not find someone who is easy to control to do it?
Looking for someone like Lance?
That’s really crazy!
The more capable the rulers are, the less they want their subordinates to have too many ideas, or even to be too smart or too capable.

What they need is someone who can obey their orders 100%, not a genius with his own ideas or someone who can force beans!
Lance waited outside the door for about twenty minutes before Xavier came out of the room with a smile on his face, “Mr. Lance, do you know?”

“There’s a really great restaurant nearby where some of the senators ate, and it was delicious.”

“If you don’t have any other appointments at noon, why don’t you come with me and try it?”

Lance glanced at the time. It was almost twelve o’clock, which was the time for the federals to have lunch.

He put down his legs and stood up. “No problem. I’m hungry too.”

Xavier seemed very excited, “When can I ship the stuff to your place?”

He couldn’t help asking as he put on his clothes.

Lance gave him a reassuring answer, “Any time is fine, but you have to make sure you complete the order from the Ministry of Defense first.”

Xavier’s face was full of excitement. The senators behind him said that they could appropriately reduce some orders from the Department of Defense and provide more alcohol to Lance in order to make more profits!

As for voting?

What voting?!

Xavier and Lance are good brothers. If I don’t vote for him, who should I vote for?

The restaurant Xavier chose was indeed delicious, and the price was as unexpected as it tasted, not cheap at all.

But these no longer mattered to Lance. When a person felt that something was very expensive, it meant that you could afford it, but your level was not suitable for owning it.

Only when you feel that these things are no longer expensive to you, or that it takes courage to bear them, can you truly reach the level where you can use and control them at will.

After dinner, Lance rejected Xavier’s invitation to play basketball in the afternoon. He still had several families to convince.

This is why these small wineries are easy to deal with. Compared to those wineries that can get 7%, 8%, or 10% and have strong connections behind them, they care more about the actual profits!
People like Lance are fighting for more quotas so that people like Senator Claymore can have enough food, not for himself.

If he only considered himself, he felt that a quota of 1%, or even 1%, or 1/1000, would be enough. After all, all he wanted was a franchise, not to really sell the wine that could make a lot of money at a low price.

On the contrary, for those small wineries that were purely for profit, Lance provided them with a way to make money and make a lot of money, so they immediately joined Lance’s side.

Including the politicians behind them, they may not have direct contact with Lance at this stage, but both sides have left a good impression on each other.

Every family was very enthusiastic and willing to cooperate with Lans. They were also willing to invite Lans to taste the specialties of Xinjin City.

Lance has been busy with these things these days, and during this time he also asked someone to bring Alberto’s body back and buy the body back using Alberto’s registered federal wife’s identity.

In the blink of an eye, a week has passed and the winning bidder of the Ministry of National Defense has been announced. Just as everyone knew the result before the bidding, there was no surprise at all.

No one suggested making the results public, and everyone expressed their agreement with the results announced by the Ministry of National Defense.

After all, sometimes they are also one of the beneficiaries.

Lance fought hard and got a 9% quota, but in reality the quota was more than 14% because some quotas were transferred to him privately by other factories.

After these matters were settled, all that remained was the matter of the industry committee.

This time they were in a meeting room prepared by the Ministry of Defense, and Mr. Rao was presiding over the meeting.

With a smiling expression on his face, he said, “Gentlemen, it’s been a week since we last met. I hope you have finished your work. Now, we will continue to elect the first rotating chairman.”

“Mr. Lance, who was nominated by Mr. Joseph before, has already received four votes…” When Mr. Rao said this, Mr. Joseph and the two people beside him showed obvious surprise on their faces.

Mr. Joseph even interrupted Mr. Rao and asked, “Aren’t we going to vote again?”

He was getting angry and didn’t want to vote for Lance anymore.

Mr. Rao was obviously on Lance’s side. He frowned and said, “You already submitted it last week. What? You want to revise it?”

Lance turned to look at Mr. Joseph, who finally chose to give up in the face of Mr. Rao’s displeased gaze and the undisguised, threatening look in Lance’s eyes that made him uneasy.

“No, I’m just asking.”

Mr. Rao nodded slightly. “Since you are just asking, don’t say anything that could lead to misunderstanding!”

Lance glanced at Mr. Rao, who happened to be looking at him. Their eyes met for a second or two, but it was enough to convey the message.

Compared with the favors of the interest groups behind Mr. Joseph, Mr. Rao obviously wants to sell favors to Senator Cleveland’s small circle.

He can still tell which ones are valuable and which ones are not!

“So now, the rest of you can vote.”

(End of this chapter)