Mei Jie took a deep breath: \"The fire plan... I'm afraid it's really not about money. If possible, I would prefer your directors to come to the XX clubhouse."

Lockhart heard the sound and knew the meaning: o I see, it seems that our company is embarrassing for some people, doesn't it? In fact, we do not exclude investment. After all, if we only have tens of millions of pounds, it is difficult to continue to expand business. "

"Of course it's the best." Major's eyes lit up.

If that's the case, I might as well accept the company's employment and save some coffin books for myself. Major thought to himself.

At this moment, Lockhart suddenly had an idea.

So he sat up a little more and changed to a more serious expression.

"That's right... As part of our sincerity, our company has recently prepared to invite a group of people who are well-known in the oil investment community to come to a resort 50% owned by our company directors. I hope you can help us. One, let's have a chance to talk to them...trust me, we'll definitely make them happy."

Major smiled too—it seemed that wizards weren't all idiots.

"I hope my face is enough," Major said.

Of course, Lockhart will not doubt whether a prime minister's face is enough: he is only worried about how to use this opportunity to complete his political layout in one breath without Fudge.

So he took out a small cowhide bag and threw it on the table.

After the cowhide bag fell on the table, there was a dull metal crashing sound, and then the mouth of the bag, which was not so firmly tied, opened.

"Thank you for attending our event and giving your speech. This is your prepaid speech fee. According to our market price, it is about 200 Galleons... I will bring Blake over tomorrow morning, bye!"

After Lockhart finished speaking, he stood up, seemingly not intending to give Major any chance to refuse.

And Major stared at the golden light from the mouth of the cowhide bag and wanted to say no, but couldn't open his mouth.

It wasn't until Lockhart Apparated and disappeared from his office that Major glanced at the door with a guilty conscience, then looked at the empty portrait on the wall, and then quickly put the bag in the drawer of his desk.

Although according to the current official exchange rate of Gringotts, 200 Galleons can only be exchanged for 1,400 pounds, but Major did not know.

He secretly took out a gold coin and made an estimate. One Galleon weighs about 1/8 ounce. Even if the gold is not of a particularly high purity, according to the current gold price, this 20

0 Galleons should also be worth at least six or seven dry pounds.

Very good, this is a guy who knows the rules, it seems that this transaction can be done for a long time in the future

Because it was a total windfall, Major, while secretly overjoyed, automatically ignored the small matter of Lockhart's bribery in the office.

Wizards are ignorant!

Major felt himself suddenly forgiving.

Chapter 246 Performance

The next morning, Lockhart dragged Sirius Black into the Whitehall parlour as promised.

Since Hogwarts is now on holiday, after a few months of wandering outside, Sirius is back in London, ready to spy on the Dursleys in case they abuse Harry.

But before he could start threatening Vernon Dursley, Lockhart arrested him and asked him to cooperate with the Muggle government's arrest.

Sirius didn't want to come, but when Lockhart showed him his wanted list all over the street, he reluctantly gave in.

If he wanted to find a house near Privet Drive, he would have to deal with the surrounding Muggles. In this way, he has to find a way to revoke his wanted order, otherwise he will have to live a life of being called to the police nine times by passers-by even when he goes out to buy a newspaper.

"It's just this time, it won't happen next time." Sirius said with a sullen face.

It didn't take Lockhart too much time to hunt down the two escaped prisoners. With a tracking spell from Sirius, a group hypnosis from Lockhart, and all the restraints, the two fugitives who were resting were easily captured.

If the two of them were prepared, Lockhart and the others would not have succeeded so easily. However, the two were hiding in a locked garage and concentrating on eating, so Lockhart did not spend anything at all. Jin caught them, and they didn't even know what was going on when they got caught.

Next, Lockhart and Sirius brought one each, and showed the prisoners' entourage to the Whitehall drawing room, and handed over the escaped prisoners to the suspicious Scotland Yard (London Police Service) Chief who came at the invitation of the Prime Minister.

Seeing Lockhart appear, Prime Minister Major was obviously relieved.

He hurriedly introduced Sirius to the chief of Scotland Yard, and in accordance with the caliber agreed with Lockhart in advance, asked him to revoke Black's wanted order.

The director was very surprised to see that the two escaped prisoners were indeed caught.

Although nominally Scotland Yard is only responsible to the Queen, in fact they are still under the jurisdiction of the British Home Office, and the London Police Service is more detached than the local police.

In other words, there is some discord between the central and local governments.

The escape took place in the north, but it was Scotland Yard who finally caught the fugitive. For the director, this was undoubtedly a very face-saving thing.

But happy to be happy, some things still need to be figured out.

"Excuse me, Mr. Black...why don't we have your file?" the Director asked.

■■■

Sirius obeyed Lockhart's "Don't say more than a word" confession, mouth

closed tightly.

Major picked up the conversation quickly: "Sorry, Charlie, your level of confidentiality is not enough. Originally, we were going to reserve this operator for great use, but for you, I had to use it overkill, and now I will use his value. ...he had to retire early."

"Not enough secrecy? Please, John, I'm the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police!" Charlie shouted in disbelief.

"Yes, it's not enough." Meijie sternly said, "Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, you know..."

Seeing that the Prime Minister's attitude was firm, the director had to change the subject: "Well, how did they escape? How did they get arrested? I always have the right to ask."

Major immediately set his sights on Lockhart

Lockhart made a gesture to the chief to reassure him.

"According to our investigation, the IRA bought the local gangsters near the prison, and then the gangsters mixed a few locals to work in the food center, and hid the parts of the firearms in the metal plates that were given to the prisoners. After they finished eating Gather the parts and assemble them in prison...

After escaping the prison, they divided into three teams, one along the main road to attract the police's attention; the other team escaped to the side road and then north along the wheat fields; and these two were the most cunning, they escaped down the steam pipe to the river side, and then swam downstream, according to them, this is to avoid the infrared thermal imager used by the police..."

"No wonder the helicopters didn't find them." The director suddenly realized.

All of what Lockhart said is true, but the way to get these things is by investigating the memory of the fugitive, not to mention Scotland Yard, even the fugitive himself may not know how Lockhart obtained this information.

In the face of the easy credit, the director actually didn't care how the information was obtained. Anyway, the Prime Minister said that it should be kept secret, so he was too lazy to continue to ask the truth.

He cheerfully called his subordinates, asked them to **** the two fugitives back to the police station and informed the reporter that he would quickly swallow the credit before everyone else responded.

Of course, when recounting his credit, he must not forget to mention the Prime Minister.

After the police chief left, Lockhart was officially fulfilling his promise, and he finally gained the trust of Muggle Prime Minister Major.

Although Major was still very unfamiliar with the wizarding world at this time, he no longer simply regarded the wizarding world as a "trouble" as he did when he first came to power.

If you insist on saying it, it should be regarded as an "interesting existence who can barely talk, can cooperate occasionally, and does not have too many conflicts of interest"

Although Major was a Conservative, his background was not very good, and his family was once

He was also poor and down and out, and could be regarded as a civilian prime minister.

Compared with those veteran politicians, Major's political resources are really not rich, so someone like Lockhart who can bring him some resources is very precious to him.

Don't look at him doing everything in front of Lockhart, but what he didn't explain to Lockhart - the point is that if there is no Sniff Drilling Company, he actually has nothing to do with those oil tycoons.

Lockhart knew all this, and that's why he dared to make an offer to Major.

Because he knows that the British political scene has undergone a major turning point since 1970.

Before the 1970s, before Prime Minister Heath took office, almost all British prime ministers were landed aristocrats. And Mrs Thatcher, Major, and Blair after Heath did not belong to the traditional aristocracy, but the "elite management class"

Many people think that Britain has become a bourgeois country after the "Glorious Revolution", but this is not entirely true. In the words of the textbooks, it still "retains a large number of feudal remnants", which is "one time". incomplete revolution"

So, how incomplete is this "incompleteness"?

In fact, until the new millennium, that is, the 21st century, the landed aristocrats in the UK still hold 1/3 of the agricultural land in the UK, even if their power and status are not worth mentioning compared to a century ago.

As we all know, Rowling is just a novelist and doesn't understand the social composition of the wizarding world (laughs), so the current situation of the broken pure-blood wizarding families in her writings is largely based on the current situation in the UK that is on the verge of bankruptcy. Described by descendants of landed nobles.

If this is already the case in British Muggle politics, then the wizarding world is even more stubborn, and the pure-blood family's control of the regime has reached the level of madness.

For example, the Diggory family, they were the first Minister of Magic to set up the Auror recruitment system. The reason why Cedric Diggory was able to win the two-time duel competition at Hogwarts in a row was because his family had hundreds of The combat skills and experience of all Aurors over the years are closely related.

Another example is the Lestrange family, Voldemort's loyal servants, whose family, Zuradofoss Lestrange, once wanted to close the Department of Mysteries when he was Minister of Magic; Draco Malfoy was in the School girlfriend Parkinson, whose ancestors tried to outlaw intermarriage with Muggles when she was Minister for Magic;

There is also the Flint family, the old captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team - his ancestor Josephine Flint, when he was Minister of Magic, once pointed out that "Muggle telegrams can interfere with the normal operation of wands". .

Of course, this accusation is baseless. The reason why old Flint did not want the telegraph to enter the wizarding world was only because he was worried about the business of the family-run owl shop and the owl post office. Many Muggle readers of Rowling thought that radio and telegraphy could Interfering with the operation of magic is actually the rumor that the Flint family put out.

The owl, "Hedwig," that Hagrid gave Harry, had been bought from the Flint family's Ella owl store, which was still in operation during Voldemort's reign.

This fact fully illustrates one point - that is, the reason why a pure-blood family like Flint would support Voldemort, to put it bluntly, is for profit, not some **** idea.

Even Lockhart's current girlfriend, Gemma Farley, and her grandfather, Hector Farley, also served as Minister of Magic, but they were kicked out because of their ineffective response to the Grindelwald chaos.

The power of the pure-blood family is intertwined in the wizarding world. If there is no major change, it is almost impossible for Lockhart to become Minister of Magic with his own efforts. His mixed-blood status naturally determines that he cannot take the position unless he is willing to change his surname to Farley. .

Don't forget, even after the victory of the Second War against Voldemort, the Minister of Magic in the wizarding world is still Kingsley Shacklebolt from Holy Twenty-Eight Pure Blood.

A British Muggle political scene that has completed a change of blood at the top political level, and a wizarding world where traditional land aristocrats still occupy high positions, this is the current situation.

Lockhart needed the help of Major, the Muggle civilian prime minister, to help him rise, so he was happy to help him when he was in trouble.

If possible, he wants to form a "grassroots political alliance" with Major, and if he wants to complete this idea, he must take the lead in expressing and gaining the trust of the other party.

Now it seems that this first step has been done fairly well, and Prime Minister Major has begun to believe in his ability.

Chapter 247 Oil Tycoon

That night, Prime Minister Major, in a good mood, took Lockhart to an old club in London and introduced him to the person Lockhart named to meet.

The man Lockhart took so much trouble to meet was not well-known at this time, but he knew that this man would shake the world in the future.

BP's executives - John Brown.

This person is not a small role. He was later rated by the business community as the first of the 50 most influential business leaders in the world because of his feat of leading BP to become the world's number one, and he deserves the name of "The Emperor of BP" head.

Even if he retired later, his influence is still among the best in the UK. Not only is he a director of many companies, he is also employed by several first-class universities as an honorary professor. Even Huawei hired this person as a non-executive director when it opened a branch in the UK.

Although Brown had not yet served as the CE of BP in 1994, and BP was not the world's largest annual revenue giant in the future, it was not long since he took office in 1995. time, and within the company, he is also considered a high-level authority, and has won the trust of many directors.

So strictly speaking, Lockhart is not a cold stove.

Brown has been working for BP since he was 18 years old, and this year he is in his forties, the age with the strongest professionalism. If the Prime Minister hadn't asked an acquaintance to come forward, Lockhart might not have seen him.

In the club, Lockhart chatted with Mr. Brown, saying that Sniff Drilling Company has unique exploration technology, and as the company's managing director, he is also willing to "advance and retreat" with Mr. Brown

The man who can bring BP to the size of the future is certainly not a fool

, Brown is very clear that the strength of the Sniff Drilling Company is more than what it seems on the surface - accounting for

/\\

Although Nigeria is rich in oil, most of its oil exploration and trading are carried out by two foreign companies, namely British Petroleum and Dutch Shell.

BP's sphere of influence has always been in the Niger Delta, where the Nigerian rebels have been watching the trouble, and local thieves like to bring small boats and barrels to steal from their oil warehouses when they are short of money Oil is sold, so the cost of extraction has not come down.

John O. Brown also has a headache - if the company can't make any money on these wells, then these oil wells are not so much an asset to the company as a liability to the company.

But this sniffing drilling company is obviously very skilled - not only do they drill a well locally and produce oil from a well, but the Nigerian rebels and local residents never bother to harass there, which makes John o Brown inexplicable. Yu was a little bit angry.

He once sent someone to investigate, but the investigator gave him a very unexpected result.

"The Africans told me that the wizards in their village warned them that if they dared to do anything with the oil from the Sniff Drilling Company, the curse would befall them... It's a real evil." The investigator smiled wryly. Say.

Mr Brown scoffed at the superstitions of the Africans, but his question was whether to keep the Nigerian wells going.

If it does, the company needs to keep investing, but the company's finances are so tight right now that Brown knows he can't. He intends to make the company's finances very good, because only in this way can he make money in the capital market

But if these oil wells are not maintained, BP, which has lost part of its supply, will undoubtedly lose a lot of say in pricing, which will affect the company's overall profitability.

However, the emergence of the sniffing and drilling company undoubtedly provided a new option for John Brown.

"If we sell you these wells in shards, will you take over?" he asked Lockhart bluntly.

Lockhart didn't plan to hide anything from this future boss, and the company's financial situation couldn't hide from these people who had been fighting in the capital market for many years. Relations with partners.

So he told the truth: \"Our company's liquidity is not very rich, and there are no financing channels, so if we take over too much at one time, our capital chain will break immediately."

John Brown had expected Lockhart's words for a long time - if the sniffing drilling company had strong financial strength, then they would never have only opened two or three wells, so he could guess the financial situation.

"I see..." Brown pretended to think for a moment, and then slowly offered his suggestion, "If your company is willing to use the output of the next few years as collateral to hand over the sales of crude oil to our company, I will Consider allowing your company to pay in instalments, or even pay off the debt with physical oil."

"Physical mortgage? What about the price? As far as I know, pricing power..."

In the business, he was afraid that Lockhart knew that the Sniffing Drilling Company had no sales channels, and that the other party's big package would only benefit him, but he still pretended to be embarrassed.

"The price is of course discounted by a fixed percentage according to the real-time market price, and then multiplied by several seasonal influence factors... Rest assured, to ensure your satisfaction, we are a big company, and we will never do anything in terms of price, BP's reputation than this profit

much more important. "

Seeing that there seemed to be a drama, Brown hurriedly made his own promise, and at the same time gave Major a wink.