Munitions Empire

While Tang Mo and Wes were chatting, Harry came over with a stack of files. Seeing him, the waiter waved gently and stayed well away with the tray.

Wes fiddled with the Thompson submachine gun and seemed to become quite enamored with it—after all, submachine guns are quite fun, aren’t they?

Harry glanced at Wes who was aiming and then playing with the gun and, without paying much attention to him, reported directly to Tang Mo, "The shipyard at the port has confirmed it."

"Hmm," Tang Mo gestured for him to continue.

Harry delivered some not-so-good news, "In the short term, we can’t build ships any faster, because the production capacity for steel simply can’t keep up."

"We are building 2 warships at Dragon Island at the same time, and there are also 4 transport ships, which have taken up all the docks," he said as he pulled out a document from the ones he was carrying and handed it to Tang Mo.

Then he took out a second document and passed it over as well, "Brunas’ five large docks are all producing Wolf-class cruisers, and the remaining four docks are producing transport ships..."

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Tang Mo first took the first report and, upon seeing the information it contained, revealed no sign of anger. He was just reading through the content to understand the issues at hand.

In fact, the shipbuilding system of the Great Tang Group was indeed running at full capacity—Tang Mo had built 15 iron ships in one go, including 8 transport ships and 7 warships.

These steel behemoths took up a large amount of steel and also exhausted Tang Mo’s shipbuilding workforce.

Most of those shipbuilders actually only had experience in making sailing ships and had been rushed into becoming builders of steamships.

And the Great Tang Group actually had another large shipyard in Osa that used to produce sailing warships but had been converted into a shipyard producing civilian sailing ships.

Now it only produced large-tonnage transport ships, most of which were specially designed for transporting oil, with a cargo hold full of barrels carrying hundreds of tons of crude oil at a time.

Nevertheless, sea transport capacity was still insufficient. Tang Mo needed a vast number of ships, countless fleets, to replenish production materials for his Dragon Island and Brunas.

"That is to say, we have 15 steam-powered ships being produced simultaneously, using up tens of thousands of tons of steel... indeed, it’s a bit much," Tang Mo thought to himself as he took the second set of documents from Harry, rubbed his forehead, and continued reading.

If these warships and transport ships were to be launched, the maritime power of the Great Tang Group could indeed soar to unprecedented heights.

Moreover, once the 5 Wolf-class warships were launched, he was confident that he could sell all the Brunas-class warships in his hands—it was clear that this could let him recover a great deal of investment.

You should know, ironclad warships are a novelty, and any maritime power would drool over such weaponry. As long as there is a chance to buy, they won’t care how much they spend.

With some concern, Harry reminded Tang Mo, "At the same time, we are also producing a large number of rails. Many factories, including those in Northern Ridge, are running at full capacity to produce rails. We are laying a 300-kilometer-long railway, which is the limit of what we can handle."

After tasting the benefits of railway transportation, both the Leite Kingdom and the Great Tang Group were striving to expand their railway mileage.

This was a trend, and so there was nothing Harry could do about it. But such infrastructural projects did consume a large amount of steel, and so indeed affected the material reserves of the Great Tang Group.

While speaking, Harry handed another report to Tang Mo, "Additionally, we are supplying several battlefields, providing ammunition, bullets, rifles, and other weapons and equipment... To be frank, the scale of the war has never been as large as it is today."

Tang Mo said nothing, took the report, and after looking at it briefly, held onto it, "What’s your opinion?"

This was him testing his student—Harry was his proud disciple, and also the person he was preparing to replace Roger in foreign matters.

Of course, for internal affairs or secretarial work, Tang Mo was prepared to hand them over to Yulin—just waiting for this queen to successfully graduate from the military academy.

Harry was unfazed and answered Tang Mo’s question directly, "Our weapons are very advanced, so the rate of killing is also unprecedented. Under these circumstances, troop losses are soaring."

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Clearly, he had done a substantial amount of work. This young man, who had also ranked at the top in the academy, was far from mediocre: "To ensure that the troops can bear substantial losses, the size of the troops had to be increased from the past... This was an unavoidable matter."

He shared the answer he had thought out with Tang Mo: "In the past two years, a war involving a combat force of tens of thousands had been considered a large-scale war, and Shireck had planned for the Northern Ridge war nearly a year in advance."

Seeing that Tang Mo had no intention of speaking, he continued: "But now, assembling an army of over 30,000 is merely the basic requirement for a simple battle encounter, and it seems that a few thousand troops can hardly satisfy strategic needs."

"Of course, except for our security forces; since our security forces have equipment that leads the entire era, our troops don’t need to worry about such issues." After finishing, he stopped as if waiting for Tang Mo’s evaluation.

Tang Mo rolled the document in his hand into a cylinder, not lifting his head, he instructed: "You have analyzed well, continue!"

"Although we don’t need to worry, other countries do have such troubles. Their forces suffer losses too quickly in the face of new weapons, forcing them to mobilize more troops to participate in the war." After pondering briefly, Harry continued.

"The Dorne battle engagement involved combat forces of over 100,000 from both sides, which by past standards, would have been a war of national extinction." He cited the recently concluded Dorne battle as a specific example: "And now, after this battle, both sides still have the capacity to continue the war...

Bolton just sent news that the Xilun Kingdom had another 20,000 troops completely wiped out and has still not surrendered."

"Go and call Mathews and Parker!" Tang Mo thought for a few seconds, then loudly commanded a servant who was standing at a distance.

Watching the servant depart, Tang Mo then turned his head to Harry and said: "I know your opinion, I want to hear from the production department, and then I will make arrangements."

Soon, Mathews and Parker hurried over from the factory area.

Upon meeting, Parker was first to speak of the excellent achievements the Great Tang Group had made in the past month: "In terms of total power generation, we have made some progress, and now there is a bit of surplus power, which can support us in continuing research on metal plating."

The head of the production department had grown considerably over the past year because in the past he wouldn’t have been able to report such good news to Tang Mo so fluently.

Previously, he always started with the bad news... However, it was clear he had begun to realize that sometimes, the order in which reports are given is actually very meaningful.

This change couldn’t be said to be bad, after all Tang Mo knew that people always grow—whether they become more mature or gradually age, they will eventually grow...

"Additionally, we have also been experimenting with the electrolysis process for aluminum, and in fact, we have already obtained some aluminum metal..." Mathews also began talking about his recent experiment projects with great interest.

Electroplating and aluminum electrolysis were major projects that Tang Mo’s factory was recently researching. Once successful, with new materials and new plating processes, the quality of Great Tang Group’s components would rise to a whole new level.

Seeing that Tang Mo was silent, Parker hurriedly started discussing the matter of personnel sent to the Ice Cold Kingdom: "I have ordered 300 people to head to the dwarves’ Ice Cold Kingdom to develop and operate copper and gold mines, as well as oil fields and other industries.

However, the extraction of minerals there won’t quench our immediate thirst as it is a distant solution and cannot alleviate our material scarcity crisis right away."

Then he brought up a piece of intelligence that Tang Mo actually already knew: "King Leite VII has already ordered that iron ore be temporarily classified as a strategic material not available for trade, which to a certain extent, can compensate for some of our losses."

After listing a whole bunch of good news and some that was neither good nor bad, Parker finally mustered the courage to voice his opinion: "If it were up to me, we should postpone some unnecessary production, like automobiles... We can currently produce more than 6,000 T-model cars a year, and that really isn’t necessary."

It seemed that he, just like Harry, also hoped that Tang Mo would suspend the production of some products to focus on expanding the production of essential goods: "If we don’t produce so many cars, we won’t need such large refining capacity for oil... which can then be shifted to weapon production."

After speaking, he fell silent as if waiting for Tang Mo to speak up, or perhaps for others to agree.

Soon, Mathews also began to speak, it appeared he also agreed with Parker and Harry’s views: "At least, we can save 3,000 workers, which is not a small number, and we can also save the steel consumed in car production..."

"I understand all that you’re saying, but if we halt the production of cars, our existing transport capacity will slowly decrease, and we will still end up in a passive situation where lagging transport capacity restricts our upcoming expansion," Tang Mo considered their input for a minute and then presented his own opinion: "But now, whoever backs down first might slow down their pace of development and lose future victories!"

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The second update will be a bit late; everyone can watch it tomorrow morning.

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