Munitions Empire

As days went by, Great Tang Group's T cars started to increasingly become a part of people's lives.

Congestion began to appear in the streets and alleys, and something called a traffic signal light started to show up on the streets of Brunas.

The police also began directing traffic, which became a new part of their job. The bustling city was filled with a vibrant, vivacious energy.

It was as if Brunas was America's New York of the 1950s, developing rapidly, with people full of confidence, bravely trying various new things, and harboring hope for their own lives.

Compared to here, every other place in the world seemed backward, dark, and ignorant, even hopeless.

This place was the lighthouse to the world, illuminating the future direction of global development—many politicians from neighboring kingdoms would come to visit Brunas to learn how to develop cities.

Those familiar with Brunas knew an open secret, that the real center of Brunas was not the city hall in the urban area, but rather the factory district in the north of Brunas.

There was a huge conference and office building there, and the people inside this building were the ones who decided the future direction of Brunas's development.

At this very moment, within the conference building in the factory district, Tang Mo was presiding over a development meeting. As time went on, Great Tang Group's products received more and more attention, and so the focus of development needed timely adjustment.

Arms and equipment, limited by production capacity, had not generated much more profit for Great Tang Group. Nowadays, the main source of profit for Great Tang Group was surprisingly the civilian industry.

This was an inevitable development; although the arms industry was remarkably profitable, its scale of earnings was simply too small.

Or to put it another way, other areas of Great Tang Group had developed too rapidly: the Group took stakes in mining enterprises in countries including the Leite Kingdom, Suthers Kingdom, and Dorne Kingdom, and continuously increased its share of control by providing machinery.

As these mines enhanced their production capacities, their value kept rising, inflating Great Tang Group's worth continuously.

This rate of expansion was something the Shireck Consortium, with its stable control over the mines, could not compare to, because they could not increase production, so they could not increase the value of their shares continuously.

With the concept of appreciation in mind, the profitability of the shares held by Tang Mo's group became quite formidable.

According to the calculations and statistics of Great Tang Group's own accounting department, in the past three months alone, Great Tang Group's total asset value had already surpassed 50 million Gold Coins, a figure even higher than Tang Mo's own estimates.

Back then, when Tang Mo wanted to sell his enterprise to Shireck, the asking price wasn't even this high. Perhaps the Shireck Consortium, knowing all this, might have some regrets.

Beyond these profit-making aspects, Great Tang Group's oil refineries also began to profit, and together with the sale of cars, it could possibly become a new source of profit growth for Great Tang Group.

Tang Mo certainly knew to what extent the automotive industry would grow in the future; he just needed to maintain his technological lead, and soon he would become the world's largest car company.

Based on his knowledge of another world, in the future, Great Tang Group could be selling over 20 million cars a year!

If this modest estimate were achieved, the market value of Great Tang Group's automotive subsidiary might surpass that of the entire Great Tang Group now.

But Tang Mo knew that whether it was the arms company, the car company, or even the ship company, none of these were the most profitable parts of Great Tang Group.

Because he was already running two even more profitable subsidiaries—one was the Great Tang Bank, and the other was Great Tang Pharmaceuticals.

Without any surprises, Great Tang Group would also establish the world's first airline, the first computer hardware company, and would also set up the first telecommunications company…

In short, his group might control the technology development of the whole world in the future, and everything would complement each other, shaping his Great Tang Group into an unbreakable mega-corporation.

Harry was not aware of Tang Mo's complete development plan. As a manager of the group, his current job was the most worrisome.

So he was the first to speak up, mentioning the latest developments, "The envoy from the Songmu Kingdom has already arrived in Brunas. They came on the Brunas Battleship No. 5 and are very interested in this new type of warship."

Over a month ago, Tang Mo had decided to set a trap for the Poplar Kingdom, so when he dispatched warships to the South Waters, he let quite a few dandelions go with the ship to the neighboring countries of the Poplar Kingdom.

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These dandelions engaged in a series of activities there, ultimately piquing the interest of coastal kingdoms like Songmu, which sent envoys to Brunas to purchase new weapons to arm themselves against the greedy invasion of the Poplar Kingdom.

Mathews smiled. He had seen the Brunas-class warships and had also participated in the construction of some of their equipment, so naturally, he was very confident in what he had built, "No one would refuse to buy an advanced warship, especially one with a complete electrical system, and a telegraph machine..."

"Our orders have been booked up to four months from now; there's no helping it, our production capacity is insufficient. We can only watch the money there, unable to earn it." Tang Mo said with a self-deprecating smile.

"They are here to pay. They plan to purchase five heavy machine guns, 10,000 needle rifles, 400 lever-action rifles, and 3,000 left-wheel handguns. Their procurement plan for these weapons also includes corresponding equipment, ammunition, and usage training." Harry handed Tang Mo a record, listing the various items the other party wanted to purchase.

"And..." Harry had finished speaking but then seemed to remember something.

"What?" Tang Mo took the list and asked while flipping through it.

Harry immediately replied, "And they have also accepted the suggestion from our liaison officers, planning to employ our commanders to train their military, helping their forces learn more advanced combat methods."

"Just from those few students' bluffs?" Tang Mo was somewhat incredulous. Although he had confidence in the 'dandelions,' he hadn't anticipated that they would succeed without fail at any given time.

Li'ao explained the reason on the side, "Actually, the news of our defeat of Shireck in Brunas has already spread, and many countries are interested in us, or at least in our products."

As the Battle of Brunas concluded, and with the expansion of the Triple Kingdom Alliance, the news of Shireck Consortium's terrible defeat also spread far and wide.

The name of the Great Tang Group had already appeared in many kingdoms; even some countries' black markets had the first-generation revolvers produced by the Great Tang Group.

"The envoy from the Poplar Kingdom has been hanging around here for five days now, and it's evident that they are seriously considering the matter of paying back the money," Harry continued.

The special envoy Fitteral from the Poplar Kingdom had been trying to meet Tang Mo but hadn't succeeded. After he and his deputy sent that telegram towards the south waters, they could only wait honestly for domestic decisions; hence, the negotiations were put on hold.

Though their negotiations were paused, the negotiations with envoys or commissioners from other countries were still ongoing.

Soon enough, these two elves from the Poplar Kingdom heard the rumor that envoys from the Songmu Kingdom had also arrived in Brunas.

But their anxiety was of no use; they could only wait. Without instructions from home, they couldn't decide on the massive matter of the 14 million gold coins' ownership.

"Shouldn't they be considering the matter of repaying the debt? Paying debts is a matter of course," Tang Mo said as if it were the most natural thing.

Harry smiled and said to Tang Mo, "You're right, but... if we didn't have warships off their coast, I doubt they would even consider repaying."

"They will definitely consider repaying. Even if we didn't have warships, they would still pay back, because if they don't, I'll arm the Songmu Kingdom, and let the Poplar Kingdom have a real taste of despair," Tang Mo also smiled, his words amusing everyone in the meeting.

After everyone had their laughter, Harry continued to introduce the business deals, "Dorne and Suthers, including some further-off kingdoms, all hope to purchase wireless telegraph machines, and some people want to buy cars on a large scale... about 400 units."

In fact, the sales of cars were not picking up, mainly restricted by the production of gasoline. Currently, the gasoline produced on Dragon Island could barely meet the consumption of Brunas and Dragon Island itself.

Li'ao spoke up, reporting to Tang Mo, "They are eager to acquire these new technologies; many countries are interested in our wireless telegraph technology."

"Not just countries, but also the feedback from the intelligence system. Shireck has already developed their electric motors and copied incandescent lamps... but the quality, it's simply unbearable to look at," Parker, as the production manager, finally felt bold enough to speak up in such a gathering.

People always make progress. Two years ago, he was just a blacksmith, a worker who could drill out a gun barrel in two days... but now, he managed Tang Mo's armaments factory, overseeing more than 25,000 workers!

"This is an inevitable situation, after all, there is no patent law in this world yet to protect our patented inventions. So, the other party will definitely find a way to copy our technology if they want to," Tang Mo felt somewhat speechless about the casual copying by others.

After all, the technology he introduced was gradually phased and not too much more advanced than what was known in this era. Therefore, it seemed like his competitors could always copy some products and follow behind the Great Tang Group, reaping the benefits or even taking a big share.

"We can't stop others from copying our technology.

We can only limit their development with technologies that they cannot copy," Tang Mo thought of some ways to delay the opponents from catching up with him, "And besides, we need to create barriers in technology monopolies, in areas where they can't copy our technologies quickly, so those who want to replicate our technology think twice before cheating."

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