Munitions Empire

"Master, Dongwan Island is now ours," Luff pushed open the door and walked up to Tang Mo, reporting excitedly.

The 1st Division’s troops had taken Dongwan Island, seized control of the two most important cities on the island, and eradicated all of the defending forces of the Shen Country. Enjoy exclusive content from empire

Tang Mo nodded, more concerned about how many casualties his troops had suffered for this impromptu war, "What are the losses?"

Although Luff also felt sorry for the casualties, compared to the victory, such losses seemed negligible. He excitedly said, "Our army has 7 dead, 29 wounded, and two Wolf-class cruisers are damaged."

Hearing these numbers, Tang Mo felt somewhat relieved—the losses were very small indeed.

Consequently, he began to take an interest in the situation on Dongwan Island, asking, "How are things over there?"

"According to the locals, Dongwan Island has two coal mines and one iron mine, all of which are high-yield mines. We can set up iron factories there and replenish our coal supply," Li’ao immediately chimed in.

The resources on Dongwan Island weren’t exactly rich; there was no oil, but there were ample coal and iron mines. These minerals were very valuable and could offset some of the military expenses of the Great Tang Group.

Moreover, if exploited well, the island could completely house factories and set up processing enterprises, preparing the entire troops for landing operations in Zheng Country.

At the very least, the place needed to be capable of repairing heavy weaponry, producing enough munitions, and launching a fleet at any moment that could threaten the coastline of Zheng Country.

Therefore, the transformation of Dongwan Island had to be completed as quickly as possible—it was imperative to the strategic execution of the Great Tang Group and of utmost importance.

Indeed, after hearing there were some basic infrastructure already on the island, Tang Mo nodded with satisfaction once more, "Very good."

He wasn’t impressed by the island’s ironworks and mines, but with the strength of the Great Tang Group, quickly transforming these industrial facilities was definitely feasible.

"According to the plan, we have already started transporting mining equipment to Dongwan Island, as well as the necessary materials for constructing the port," Li’ao added, "The equipment is being organized onto ships and will soon be dispatched to Dongwan Island."

Luff also contributed, "We’ve captured 20,000 goblins, most of whom can be used to mine coal and iron, which solves our manpower shortage on Dongwan Island."

Because of the goblins’ massacre on Dongwan Island, Tang Mo did not intend to return or release these goblin prisoners. They would work as miners until death, used up until the very last one!

This was already the most merciful method of dealing with them. According to Li’ao, burying all these goblins wasn’t out of the question.

So, Li’ao remarked, "These 20,000 will be a great help in our time of need. The 3rd Group is also about to arrive at Dongwan; once they reach, there will be no more worries about the island’s defense."

Tang Mo was indifferent to the island’s defense. An enemy capable of defeating the Great Tang Group’s troops had not yet emerged.

If a bunch of goblins with flintlocks could defeat the Great Tang’s troops, the goblins would have ruled the world long ago.

"We can’t be careless! This is the starting point of our struggle for supremacy!" Although Tang Mo was not very familiar with this kind of national expansion strategy, he had read Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

When Zhuge Liang came out of seclusion, the unification plan he outlined for Liu Bei identified Jingzhou as the most vital piece. Hence, after Liu Bei lost Jingzhou, the entire Shu Han Group fell completely into a passive strategic position.

Tang Mo didn’t want to encounter the same problem as Liu Bei at a critical moment and cautiously reminded his subordinates not to follow in Guan Yu’s footsteps.

Luff didn’t know who Guan Yu was, but he knew Tang Mo’s orders were paramount, so he immediately assured earnestly, "Understood! I will remind the 1st Division and the following troops to be careful and cautious."

In fact, unlike Shu Han’s loss of Jingzhou, Dongwan Island wasn’t so easy for the Great Tang Group to lose: Tang Mo’s reinforcements were indeed headed to Dongwan Island.

In a month’s time, the number of the Great Tang Group’s troops stationed on Dongwan Island would exceed three divisions, over 30,000 men. With such a scale, there would hardly be any issues.

Besides, within at most two months, the newly expedited construction of Jade City-class battleships would hit the water for testing, elevating the Great Tang Group’s navy to a new level, far beyond comparison with any other country’s navy.

Therefore, it was highly unlikely for the Great Tang Group to lose Dongwan out of carelessness; instead, there was a possibility of negligence toward Brunas! Thus, Tang Mo kept the Northern Ridge troops in place without any intention of moving a single soldier.

The purpose of this was to keep an eye on his own backyard and let those coveting his wealth weigh carefully whether they had the ability to attack Brunas.

To ensure nothing went wrong, Tang Mo had deliberately created chaos for the Shireck people. Now, Sofia is preoccupied with competing with several other board members for Smile Tiger’s inheritance and has also borrowed a large sum of money from Tang Mo, so she doesn’t have the luxury to covet Tang Mo’s territory for the time being.

With so many precautions in place, Tang Mo finally felt confident enough to deploy troops to occupy Dongwan Island, leading to the grand phenomenon of the whole world plundering the Shenguo.

"The 4th, 5th, and 6th Divisions will continue to gather on Dongwan Island as planned. Our shipyards are also working tirelessly to produce even more Freedom Wheel ships," Luff reported on Great Tang Group’s ongoing war preparations.

Manufacturing more Freedom Wheel ships was a given; the Great Tang Group needed them to ensure transportation between Dragon Island and Dongwan Island.

At the same time, the Great Tang Group also had to make sure it possessed a sufficient number of ships to quickly dominate the ship sales market in the future.

Overall, from every standpoint, the Great Tang Group should build more and better ships.

The current scale of Great Tang Ship building was unprecedented, and the types of ships being produced were becoming increasingly diverse.

Besides the cargo-type Freedom Wheel ships, Great Tang Ship building had also constructed passenger-type Freedom Wheel ships, establishing a series of maritime routes from Eternal Winter City to Osa, from Osa to Southern Water, from Southern Water to Brunas, from Brunas to Hotwind Port, and from Hotwind Port to Winterless City.

Furthermore, with an increasing number of passenger ships and abundant transport capacity, the Great Tang Group was also considering establishing passenger maritime routes to Dragon Island from the surrounding areas of the Endless Sea.

However, due to security and confidentiality considerations, these routes had not been opened. The ships transporting personnel to Dragon Island were still under the jurisdiction of the Great Tang Group’s Intelligence Department, with stringent checks in place.

Even to this day, no country has an envoy stationed on Dragon Island; all diplomats still operate out of Brunas.

Hearing Luff’s report, Tang Mo was already picturing the spectacular sight of four divisions, the 4th to 6th, stationed on Dongwan Island.

Li’ao added, "These ships are intended to fill the gap after Shenguo’s transport losses. There’s a need for transport capacity on the Endless Sea, so our profits could very well soar to a new level."

Currently, everyone is frantically building various models of transport ships; even Shireck has received countless orders.

Everyone can see the losses suffered by Shenguo, and they all know what will happen next. Thus, preparing in advance to seize the market share lost by Shenguo can surely net a handsome profit.

These days, wealth is scarce. People need money to buy new weapons and equipment in preparation for the next round of expansion wars... So everyone wants to dip into a business that can make money.

The Great Tang Group has also been producing wooden iron-shell ships that do not require as much steel, although most of these are coastal fishing vessels and other ships such as communication boats and patrol boats.

These small craft are sold to national security forces, fishermen, and small merchants. As for large vessels, the Great Tang Group has no plans to sell on a large scale just yet.

Regrettably, due to production capacity constraints, it seems unrealistic for the Great Tang Group to aim to make more money by building ships.

By today’s standards, Great Tang Shipbuilding’s scale can be said to be the largest in the world, yet it still cannot meet the global demand for ships.

There’s no choice, even China in the twenty-first century couldn’t manage to produce enough ships for the whole world on its own. Even at full capacity, China’s shipyards could only satisfy about three-quarters of the demand.

Moreover, the scale of Great Tang Group’s shipbuilding factory isn’t that vast yet — maintaining the construction of two Jade City-class battleships and keeping up the production of ten Brunas-class ironclad warships, and five Wolf-class cruisers, has nearly engaged all the world’s top shipbuilding workers.

Moreover, Tang Mo was also rapidly building dozens of Freedom Wheel ships — this level of production had already surpassed that of the British Empire in 1880.

The current scale of the Great Tang Group was so vast that even Tang Mo was taken aback. Further rapid expansion was not quite as easy anymore.

This is because there are only so many talents and workers available. Even though the Great Tang Group was feverishly cultivating talent and workers, the supply still couldn’t meet the demand.

There’s a limit to how much you can achieve by drafting in laborers. As the technology of the manufacturing industry advances, temporarily conscripted labor forces are increasingly unable to operate new digital production equipment.

The principle is simple. If you want to teach someone to use mechanical equipment to produce a simple part, a few hours of learning is enough for an intelligent person to begin working.

But if you are training someone to operate a digital machine tool, it’s definitely more complex. At a minimum, that person needs to have a basic understanding of mechanics, the ability to read, and a foundation of learning...

So now, it is clear to the world’s ship buyers that the best ships are made by the Great Tang Group, but unfortunately, they are not available — the best accessible ships are manufactured by Shireck.

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