Mercenary's War

Chapter 2431 - 2407: Cheap and Useless Things

Gao Yang sat across from Yarebin, and with a smile, said, "Teacher, I’ve decided to go to the Northwest Border."Yarebin glanced at Gao Yang and said softly, "Oh, heading to the Northwest Border? When do you depart?"

"Leaving tonight at the latest, heading to a small village named Afara at the Northwest Border, just a dozen kilometers from Shah Naidiran."

Yarebin pondered for a moment, frowned, and said, "That’s the border, and the frontline at that. Why go so forward? You must know that everything you’re good at is of no use in a large-scale war. If a war breaks out, your position would be very dangerous."

Gao Yang whispered, "I’m a bit anxious. We’ve been constantly recruiting, and now we have more than 360 people ready to be deployed. The price of being well-prepared is very high. Our daily expenditure is nearly one million US dollars, every single day costing one million!"

Yarebin said in astonishment, "Why do you need so much money?"

Gao Yang sighed softly, "We need to prepare weapons for all our employees, which is a significant expense. Not being able to join the battle means continuous training, which is also very expensive. And then there’s the wages. We have some highly-paid personnel, and even though they haven’t joined combat, maintaining a relatively low salary level is still a large figure."

Yarebin shook his head disapprovingly, "I always refrain from asking about your company matters, but now it seems I think your strategy is flawed. Why not let Saudi Arabia provide equipment? It would save a lot of money."

"But the commission would also be much lower. We use all our own equipment, even the supplies are ours. We only need to sign combat contracts with Saudi Arabia, which is the most lucrative way. If we use Saudi equipment and let Saudi handle logistics, simply calculating by the number of personnel per day, the price would be much lower."

Yarebin said with interest, "Explain, in more detail."

"Alright, the kind of order we hope to receive is one where Saudi gives a combat target and we accomplish it. Saudi cares neither about the process nor the losses, and they certainly don’t care about our casualties. They just need to tell me the combat target and pay us, that’s it. We call this a package service.

As for the other kind, which is currently the more common mercenary collaboration model, Saudi hires us with a daily pay. It’s simple: according to the current price offered by Saudi, a mercenary’s daily salary is roughly a little over One Thousand Two Hundred US dollars. We need to deduct costs and leave a reasonable profit, and then the remaining money is given to the employees. Ultimately, the money in the employees’ hands would only equate to about four hundred US dollars per day. Clearly, this price is too low."

After tapping his fingers rhythmically a few times, Yarebin asked in puzzlement, "So how much does a package contract offer?"

Gao Yang smiled and said, "This needs to be discussed in detail for each mission. According to the more certain calculations at present, if the Saudi army wants to set out from Najran to capture the small town of Kitaf, they need to pay at least 100 million dollars. Saudi doesn’t care how many people we send or how long it takes. They just need to make sure to send someone to take over on time."

Yarebin said in astonishment, "Just a small town would cost 100 million dollars?"

"At least. If the Saudi operation doesn’t go well, the price is bound to soar, possibly requiring 200 million or even Three hundred million dollars for just capturing a town. It depends on the combat effectiveness of the Houthis Armed Forces. The stronger they are, the higher the cost for Saudi Arabia."

After pondering for a moment, Yarebin frowned and said, "Isn’t that too optimistic? The Shah has money, but they’re not idiots."

"Are they not?"

"Are they?"

"Aren’t they?"

"Alright, in some respects, they’re indeed quite incapable. So, have you received any missions now?"

Gao Yang sighed, helplessly said, "There are too many people eyeing Saudi’s fat piece of meat now. Plus, many powerful and reputable big companies exist. Our goal is to monopolize the Saudi market, but even Abdul couldn’t achieve that. So we can only keep lowering our target. Now, we are satisfied if we can receive individual missions that are relatively high-priced. Things have to be taken step-by-step."

After closing his eyes and contemplating for a moment, Yarebin suddenly asked, "How big is the profit? For example, for a mission you mentioned worth 100 million US dollars, how much profit can you ultimately get?"

"Above ninety-seven million US dollars, I guess."

"Say that again, how much?"

"A 100 million dollar mission can net 97 million, not a conservative but also not an exaggerated figure. Please let me analyze. For a small town, calculating with 300 men, a daily wage of five thousand US dollars per person is already extremely high. That’s one point five million US dollars. Adding some ammunition consumption, three million is sufficient."

Yarebin shook his head, "You’re too optimistic. That’s not how it’s calculated. How is that possible! What if it’s hard to capture? If the battle drags on for many days, consuming a substantial amount of ammunition, especially the high-priced ones, and then there are many casualties. Yet, the task remains 100 million dollars with no price increase. That’s not how it’s calculated."

Gao Yang smiled, "The situation you mentioned is very likely to occur. But then, such a task wouldn’t be priced at 100 million dollars. It might be 200 or 300 million. The higher the task difficulty, the higher the asking price naturally."

Yarebin was momentarily stunned and said, "A battle worth Hundreds of millions of dollars, this... Alright, what if your price is too high, and the task is snatched away at a lower price?"

Gao Yang smiled, lowered his voice, and said, "Teacher, haven’t we been here for so long? I’m leading the most powerful Satan here to prevent such a situation. For tasks others take, we’ll fight to the death! For Solar System Company tasks, we withdraw. Discussing it now seems vague, but once the battle begins, the Shah will realize that we can complete tasks others cannot. When a task that others can’t finish falls to us, at least the Shah has to meet our price."

Yarebin was silent for a moment, then finally said softly, "Shameless."

Gao Yang bowed his head, helplessly said, "Indeed, it’s quite shameless, and very cold-blooded. I feel like a total war profiteer, selling out comrades from the Houthis Armed Forces to achieve undisclosed goals. I’ve been living in self-reproach for days. Sometimes I feel like just giving up. If we hadn’t invested so much money, if we weren’t about to run out of funds, I might really have given up."

Yarebin gave a sarcastic smile, "As a mercenary, are you only now realizing you’re a war profiteer?"

"It’s different now from before, definitely different. Before, we chased after wars; now we manufacture wars. Can it be the same? Ultimately, I think my conscience isn’t completely gone, that’s why I feel pain."

Yarebin coldly smiled, "Conscience isn’t something a war profiteer should have. If you still have it, then discard such a cheap and useless thing."