Munitions Empire

He extended his arm, aimed at the scenery outside the window, and felt an unprecedented ease. For this was the first the he had created a truly "modern" weapon since crossing into this world.

It was a weapon he was familiar with, a weapon he understood! The ones before, including the needle-gun he had mass-produced, were merely hazy memories in his mind and data calculated by the system.

Only this Left-Wheel Handgun in front of him was designed in a way he was familiar with, was operated in a way he was familiar with!

After fiddling with his new secret weapon for a while, Tang Mo began to lower his head to the desk, drafting designs for new machinery.

He needed to quickly get steam engines to power more equipment, to ensure that the entire factory could operate at night—therefore, he needed a new type of energy: "electricity".

With electricity, many industrial products could be developed, including aluminum electrolysis, electroplating technology, and even including lighting technology, radio technology, and so on.

After obtaining electricity, Tang Mo would also be more convenient to use electric motors and other equipment to drive machine tools, making production more convenient.

In short, he had to produce electricity as soon as possible, for electricity represented a brighter and more efficient future for any factory, for anyone!

With electricity, Tang Mo would be able to communicate with Northern Ridge in real-time via telegraph, coordinating and raising production materials more quickly... All of this was extremely important to him.

However, electric motors were not so easy to produce, and a whole set of power generation equipment was also extremely complex—the more advanced and powerful the modern industrial civilization, the more supporting production technologies were required, which seriously restricted Tang Mo's development.

To give the simplest example—if Tang Mo wanted to use electricity to strengthen his lighting system, he would need something like an electric light bulb, but besides electricity, electric light bulbs also required the support of factories such as glass factories, necessitating that Tang Mo had to build a glass factory himself.

He couldn't even sell advanced technologies to existing factories, because those technologies were only needed by him. The workshops and factories existing in this era wouldn't spend a lot of money on technologies they couldn't use.

Therefore, Tang Mo could only honestly fill in the gaps in his industrial system bit by bit, which was the main reason why he spent a lot of money but made slow progress.

However, many of the technologies in Tang Mo's hands didn't rely solely on himself. He was currently negotiating with a Brunas construction materials merchant, preparing to sell the cement technology to the other party, so they could improve their own stone adhesives.

The negotiation was making some progress, and the other party was indeed willing to pay Tang Mo 200 Gold Coins for the technology. However, Tang Mo's demand that the other party provide Tang's weapons workshop with 200 tons of cement at a priority discount price was met with refusal.

This was also understandable; after improving the process, it made more sense to prioritize nobility, letting them pay more Gold Coins for the new cement. As a result, the negotiations had reached a deadlock, and Tang Mo hadn't received those 200 Gold Coins yet.

Sometimes things are just helpless, and not all developments run towards the best direction as planned.

Having no other choice, Tang Mo had to sell a more advanced sea salt production technology to the salt merchants of Brunas, in exchange for a technology transfer fee of 70 Gold Coins.

Moreover, they demanded that Tang Mo must not enter the sea salt manufacturing business for the next ten years, in exchange for providing him with some salt products for free.

Just like that, Tang Mo was calculating in his mind how much money he could still make and what he could do with it. When he realized time was slipping away, the sky had already turned completely dark.

"Ding ding ding..." Mathews knocked on the door of Tang Mo's laboratory, holding a tray with today's still-warm dinner.

"I lost track of time," Tang Mo said somewhat embarrassedly, putting down the Left-Wheel Handgun in his hand and speaking to Mathews.

"Well, anyone playing with a groundbreaking weapon would lose track of time," Mathews replied with a smile as he placed the dinner on Tang Mo's desk, looking at the metal bullets scattered across the tabletop and saying to Tang Mo.

"How's it going?" Tang Mo grabbed a spoon and suddenly looked up, asking Mathews abruptly.

Mathews knew what Tang Mo was asking and immediately responded, "Production is going very smoothly. Tomorrow morning, Tagg will be able to leave with 60 K1 Quick Guns."

As he spoke, he pulled a chair over and sat next to Tang Mo, "By tomorrow afternoon, we will have just about used up the previously accumulated gun barrels and enter into a normal production speed."

"What about our own use?" Tang Mo continued to ask while chewing on Auntie Cui Xi's not-so-tasty dinner.

"Hmm, by tomorrow afternoon, Bernard and Luff's men will all be equipped with K1 Quick Guns," Mathews replied, pursing his lips. "According to your arrangements, after Tagg leaves, each of them will also receive a Revolver."

Although the Revolver couldn't be mass-produced yet, manually making them was no longer a difficulty.

Tang Mo had given Tagg 5 revolvers, and he prepared about 300 rounds of ammunition for these guns.

Although it wasn't much, the few bullets were already enough to showcase to Lord Earl a weapon capable of rapid fire.

Therefore, Tang Mo was now brimming with confidence, waiting for Lord Earl to have Tagg bring back enough supplies and a large order.

"By the way, Wes took another revolver with him, so now he has two of such handguns," Mathews added.

Tang Mo, still wolfing down his food, asked with his mouth full, "Hmm, how is he doing teaching physical education at school? Is he serious about it?"

"Apart from going to the new shooting range to practice shooting, he spends the rest of his time teaching at the school. Bernard and Luff, as well as all the mercenaries you're recruiting, including those kids, are learning swordsmanship from him," Mathews answered. "The results are... very good."

"Worth every penny," Tang Mo swallowed a mouthful of dinner and said excitedly to Mathews, "How's the research on the lever-action rifle going?"

"I tried making one, and it's practically a work of art. It's incredible! It's almost unbelievable," Mathews said, his eyes shining with excitement.

It was the first time he had seen such a precise and efficient bullet-feeding mechanism; such a weapon would surely be a nightmare for enemies on the battlefield.

Tang Mo, as if talking about something trivial, continued eating while asking, "How about it? Isn't the lever-action rifle much better than the needle gun?"

In fact, the lever-action rifle he had in his possession was indeed just an ordinary weapon, not even a mainstream one.

After being sifted through the harsh selection of the battlefield, the lever-action rifle was replaced by bolt-action rifles and became more of a plaything in hunting and collecting realms.

After all, this type of weapon had too many flaws, making it difficult to become a true favorite in warfare. However, Mathews didn't know this and still thought that the lever-action rifle was the ultimate personal weapon equipment for Tang Mo's next generation.

Therefore, Mathews answered earnestly, "There's no comparison at all! If metal cartridges become widespread, then such a weapon could completely revolutionize warfare!"

During the past couple of days, Mathews had really been researching the lever-action rifle, and in his view, the weapon could only be described as perfect.

The incredibly fast loading speed and the almost continuous firing capability made the advantages of this weapon very clear.

After Mathews tried making a linked mechanism for the lever-action rifle, he immediately developed a keen interest in this type of bullet-feeding method.

The more he studied this bullet-feeding mechanism, the more he was impressed by Tang Mo's innovative ideas. To him, the combination of these mechanisms in front of him was nothing short of miraculous.

He felt that choosing Tang Mo as his master and serving him might just be the best decision he had made in his lifetime.

Therefore, he shared some of the concerns he had before entering the room with Tang Mo. "Actually, metal cased cartridges will indeed become widespread! But for now, it seems that this technology is too..."

Tang Mo of course knew Mathews' worries, as he had worried about the same things. So he nodded and agreed, "Too advanced, isn't it? That's why it only exists on our blueprints and isn't being mass-produced by us."

At this time, the Tang Weapon Workshop, not in control of mines and lacking complete production capabilities, obviously couldn't compete with the resources of the Shireck Consortium.

And, precisely because of this, bringing out more advanced weapon designs at this time would be digging a hole for themselves.

Reminded of this, Tang Mo felt helpless, but he could only continue, "We don't have a large supply of metal ore resources; these are currently in the hands of the kingdom's nobility and the Shireck Consortium. Once we start mass distribution of metal cased cartridges and new rifles, our weakness will become even more evident."

"You're right, Master. We should first stock up on some materials to prepare for later weapons development," Mathews suggested.

Tang Mo shook his head. "There's no time, the money we are currently making is too little to stockpile resources. What we can do now is to cling to Lord Earl's coattails and strengthen ourselves as much as possible."

"Take control of our destiny as soon as possible..." After finishing his thought, he put the spoon back into the empty bowl. "Arm ourselves to avoid being devoured by Shireck in an extreme counterattack that they may choose!"

"That won't be easy, with just the dozen or so mercenaries we've recruited to confront the tens of thousands of troops Shireck might deploy," Mathews said, worriedly looking at Tang Mo, reminding him.

"There's no other way, we can only take things one step at a time because we simply don't have the money to invest in armed forces," Tang Mo said with a helpless shrug. "Every penny we earn now must be invested in production as much as possible.

We need a chemical plant for producing new propellants, a building materials production plant, a larger metallurgy factory, leather factories, breeding farms... schools, hospitals..."

He sighed and looked out the window. "There are so many places in need of money, and what we lack the most right now, is money! Gold Coins, a large number of Gold Coins!"

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