Munitions Empire

"Rest assured, you can offer them one-third of the price, I guarantee, Lord, you will still profit!" Tang Mo, catching the hint from Solon's gesture, extded another finger and swayed it in front of Solon.

Solon gave a thumbs up, pleased, "Good! That's the spirit! Mr. Tang really knows how to do business!"

"Hahaha! It's all thanks to you, Lord... for your care..." Tang Mo continued modestly.

Seeing the advantage before him, Solon also gave his promise, "Hahahaha! Rest assured, Mr. Tang! From now on, in Brunas! Your affairs are my affairs!"

"Th I'm completely in your hands, Lord!" Tang Mo immediately accepted the offered advantage.

"No problem! No problem!" Suddly realizing something, Solon asked while nodding, "But, speaking of which... your guns are so cheap, there isn't any problem with them, right?"

Tang Mo immediately shifted the blame to Shireck, "Lord, you jest. More than half of them are unoped new guns from the Shireck Consortium, honest to all ages! However, if there is a manufacturing problem with Shireck's own guns, I really can't guarantee otherwise, can I?"

"Alright! Th it's settled!" Solon, aware of the ins and outs, gritted his teeth and decided not to investigate further.

Tang Mo was satisfied with himself for selling favors with useless junk, "Th... it's a pleasure doing business with you!"

By now, he had finally confirmed that he had gott rid of the 700 obsolete flintlock guns Alice had st him.

Solon, too, was pleased about his impding fortune, "Pleasure doing business!"

...

The weather in King City of the Leite Kingdom was getting colder, and under towering trees in a luxurious manor, a single leaf drifted slowly past a man's face.

As the spokesperson for the powerful Shireck Consortium within the kingdom, Xiuyi Jisi watched the leaf and asked the several people standing behind him, "How many days has it be since Beiji left?"

"Beiji... Lord Beiji... It's be almost fifte days," a man replied, lowering his head cautiously.

"Fifte days... No news, hasn't returned..." Jisi muttered coldly, "What did Baron Stela say?"

"L-Lord... Baron Stela said... Lord Beiji indeed visited him, asked about weapons... b-but... he doesn't know what happed after that."

"What does this imply? It implies Beiji discovered an issue and was looking in the right direction." Jisi's gaze traced the cracks on the mottled tree trunk before him.

"The beggar mtioned Vicious Forest; Beiji must have gone to Brunas... He's skilled, so it's unlikely he'd come to harm at the hands of bandits in Vicious Forest, which means he was most likely ambushed in Brunas." The situation wasn't complicated, so Jisi quickly surmised the gist.

After all, Tang Mo's ambush of Beiji was a hasty setup, so there were bound to be many flaws, and the biggest issue was that Tang Mo had no way of covering up Beiji's basic itinerary.

A simple investigation could roughly pinpoint the location where Beiji lost contact, which esstially locked onto Brunas as the critical point.

Tang Mo was busy establishing a network of relationships, preparing for the first of Shireck's investigation, while the Shireck side, after waiting for a while, ssed Beiji's disappearance.

"Lord, should we sd someone to check on Brunas?" another subordinate stepped forward and asked respectfully.

"No need," Jisi rejected the survey plan without turning a, "There's no need to investigate. Brunas definitely has a problem!"

"It seems someone has indeed developed an advanced weapon... and it might ev be related to the Northern Ridge!" Jisi murmured.

Th he frowned, since his rect focus had be on planning the Suthers's annexation of Northern Ridge.

He couldn't tolerate any upset in this matter, nor could he accept his loyal subordinate disappearing in Brunas without a trace.

"Mount an assault on Brunas? Eliminate any pottial trouble..." he said to himself, appearing ready to first deal with the minor trouble in Brunas. However, he quickly shook his head, as things seemed not to be so simple.

Beiji was his most compett subordinate; if ev Beiji couldn't handle it, it wasn't an issue a few more m could resolve with another visit.

But to blow up the situation at this juncture wasn't an easy decision to make. At least for Jisi, this required careful consideration...

The Shireck Consortium was wealthy and powerful in the Leite Kingdom, that was indisputable. But ev he, Xiuyi Jisi, had to consider the feelings of the old King of Leite Kingdom.

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Although through pressure, bribery, and promises, he had successfully forced the King of Leite Kingdom to compromise and retreat on the issue of Northern Ridge, it did not mean he could provoke the old king again and again, touching the bottom line of the king and the high-ranking officials of the Kingdom.

If he suddly stirred up trouble in Brunas before the battle of Northern Ridge, it would all but signal to the Kingdom's elite that the matter of Northern Ridge was escalating.

Once that signal was received by the King, it would mean that Shireck was not planning a simple change of hands of Northern Ridge, but a subversion of Leite Kingdom.

The nature of that was completely differt! The King of Leite might be willing to trade Northern Ridge, but he would never be willing to trade his throne, as these were two tirely differt matters...

If he were not careful and his clever scheme backfired—should Brunas cause no great concern—wouldn't Gis become the laughingstock?

Being a laughingstock was a minor issue, but if he delayed the important affairs of the Consortium, allowed Count Fisheo to escape harm, and let the cooked duck of Northern Ridge fly away, he would not atone for his sins ev if he died a hundred times!

As a man of the Consortium, he naturally knew the means the Consortium used to deal with those who made mistakes. And it was truly worse than death; Gis had no desire to d his life under those horrible tortures.

So, compared to the minor issues in Brunas, the most important thing he needed to do now was to complete the arrangemts for Northern Ridge and carry out the will of the Shireck Consortium.

For this reason, after considering acting on Brunas for a few seconds, he immediately abandoned the idea. However, the issue with Brunas still concerned him greatly.

If, assuming in Brunas, a new weapon emerged—a weapon that could fire five shots in quick succession... th its impact on the battle of Northern Ridge would be absolutely decisive.

As Shireck's represtative in Leite Kingdom, he certainly did not wish for any uncontrollable variables to arise in the battle of Northern Ridge.

Several rect evts linked together heighted his anxiety: first was the beggar who came to claim credit, planting the legd of a new weapon deep in his heart.

Th, it was a rare occurrce of a significant amount of iron being hijacked near Northern Ridge, which indicated that Lord Earl had obtained a large quantity of steel. This made Gis more certain that the Earl seemed to be focusing on gathering raw materials, manufacturing weapons and preparing for battle.

Add to that Beiji's disappearance in Brunas or the Vicious Forest, and Gis became increasingly convinced of a massive change in the vicinity of the Vicious Forest that he had yet to grasp.

"If that fellow Fisheo were to equip himself with new weapons, that would be troublesome. He's uncooperative and holds no good will towards us..." Mulling over it in his mind, Gis finally made up his mind.

In his view, ev if a new weapon appeared in Brunas, it would be very troublesome to produce—as is typical with any newly introduced weapon, this was an objective law.

Since any kind of weapon would need time to be widely distributed, he saw an opportunity to act.

With this thought, he planned to tackle both issues simultaneously, arranging for action in Brunas, ready to strike at any momt, and th to quickly make his move on Northern Ridge...

He promptly gave orders, instructing his subordinates, "Bribe the Prime Minister and the related officials to dispatch investigators to the military camps near Brunas! Whether it's for drawing salaries without service or for arms smuggling... as soon as you get a hold of something incriminating, replace the commander over there! And th, I don't care how you do it, place someone we can control!"

"Yes, Lord!" replied a subordinate, nodding in agreemt.

After arranging the matter in Brunas, he continued, "Sd word to the voy at Suthers to return to Suthers immediately! Tell them... the war needs to be moved up! From spring to winter!"

He planned to initiate the war earlier, to catch Count Fisheo by surprise before his preparations were complete at Northern Ridge.

Because ev if Count Fisheo had new weapons now, firstly, there was no time for mass production and deploymt, and secondly, Fisheo was not yet trained properly, which surely would not affect the course of the war.

In contrast, on his side, although Suthers Kingdom was not ready for war either, they still held a clear advantage in troops.

T times the forces, the advantage is ours! That was his assessmt, and an important reason for his decision to start the war earlier.

"Lord! Perhaps Suthers isn't ready yet..." a subordinate warned in surprise.

"By the time these fools are ready, it will be too late! Tell them! If they can't wage war within a month, they won't get any befits!" Gis said coldly, "No matter what it takes, bring it forward two months! Next month, I want to hear the guns echoing over Northern Ridge!"

"Yes, Lord!" the subordinate who had advised Gis immediately bowed and fell silt.

Gis waved his hand, and his waiting subordinates tactfully stepped back and disappeared at the d of the courtyard.

"Why are there always complications... Why can't you all just follow my script and die as you should..." Watching the dead leaves on the g, Gis, the Shireck Consortium represtative in Leite Kingdom, muttered to himself in annoyance after a long silce.

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