Munitions Empire

The Zhao Family in Dongwan City was also considered to have some influence; their family had been in business for generations, and their business had grown larger and larger, making them the city’s wealthiest.

However, the wealthiest man was now somewhat aggrieved, as recent times hadn’t been peaceful: when the Shen people invaded, they demanded "contributions" from his family and took away most of their wealth.

Later on, after Tang People drove away the Shen people and came themselves, they scoured his family’s home. Even his favorite desk was seized and requisitioned.

Fortunately, although they took away some household items, they left his family a way to survive and did not extort and rob them of their money and wealth again.

Just as the elder Zhao was starting to breathe a sigh of relief and pondering his family’s resurgence, an even more devastating blow came.

It was news that made him even more desperate than the looting of his house, appearing so abruptly before his eyes!

The Dongwan Port, which was originally half military and half fishing port, almost overnight, changed its appearance as ships brought in a continuous flow of materials to the docks.

Due to insufficient transport capacity, goods piled up like mountains on the dock, with neatly stacked sacks everywhere containing either cement or flour, a sight to alarm anyone.

Who has ever seen such transportation of food? Not even the capital granaries of Zheng Country might bear witness to such abundance!

The Zheng people, not used to such sights, naturally couldn’t understand what are called newly bred high-quality grains. Nor could they comprehend centralized management, mechanized farming, much less pesticides, or fertilizers...

Thus, Mr. Zhao’s understanding of an abundant harvest was already far behind the times.

In distant Brunas, glass greenhouses were already producing out-of-season fruits and vegetables for the extravagant nobility!

This is the progress brought by the Great Tang Group. When Tang Mo sold a weapon to kill a person, his technology fed a hundred! The rate of his killing could not outpace the population growth he spurred, so no one faulted him for selling weapons; instead, some called him the Star of Peace.

This phenomenon might continue until he starts selling atomic bombs, because compared to sustaining a population, mankind is more adept at reducing it...

Countless supplies arrived in Dongwan City as if bubbling up from the sea floor. Even though Dino and Tagg both felt the transportation was too slow, to the local indigenous people, such speed was frightfully exaggerated.

The food distribution business was instantly crushed by the Great Tang Grain Company. The grain merchants barely had a chance to struggle before they were forced to lay flat and swiftly became subordinate distribution agencies.

Cloths, previously unaffordable by the poor, were now luxuriously fashioned into ready-made clothes and sold cheaply in stores.

How much do you think Brunas work clothes should sell for? Naturally, they were so cheap they brought tears to your eyes. The Great Tang Group, intent on stabilizing newly conquered areas, was hardly concerned with such small profits, thus naturally there was a promotion of low prices.

As a result, the local cloth merchants had nowhere to cry and went bankrupt within a few days. They who laughed at grain merchants yesterday could only now afford to buy food.

So those who did not have the courage to commit suicide could only weep bitterly at home and, through tears, eat a few more bowls of rice...

The matter didn’t end there. With subsequent ships’ arrivals, once exorbitantly priced iron pots and kitchen knives also turned into cheap goods.

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The indigenous people suddenly found that as long as someone in their family worked for the Great Tang Group, they could afford almost all the daily necessities on the market.

Quality soaps and other chemical products, ironware that was unaffordable before, cheaply made but extremely affordable crockery, work clothes that, while uniform in style, were durable and long-lasting...

Life gradually improved so subtly and significantly that it felt somewhat surreal.

More exaggerated changes began to surface as illnesses that once spelled certain death were now less common. Medicines provided by the Great Tang Group were like elixirs that could save lives on the brink of death.

After taking medicine, eliminating intestinal parasites, and personally witnessing the entire process, the local indigenous people began to regard Tang People as gods sent to save them.

"Have you heard? Those Tang People... all follow the orders of a convict?" An older woman gossiping with a young daughter-in-law as she washed clothes with soap.

The neighbor’s daughter-in-law was also washing clothes, her garments old and patched, too cherished to discard, still being worn: "I’ve heard. They say they have black hair and black eyes, just like us."

The older woman immediately exclaimed with emotion, "They are truly like divine beings. My man, he was sick a few days ago and got better after only a few of those elixirs and for just a few coins."

"Yeah. If this had been before, wouldn’t you have to mortgage your house to pay a doctor to treat such an illness?" commented the daughter-in-law as she beat the clothes with a laundry stick.

"Hey! Dare to speak of before? Who could afford a doctor or medicine in the past?" the older woman’s voice grew louder as she glanced towards the side with ill intent.

The drugstore owner’s wife’s expression darkened as she did her laundry. Their family’s business had recently and thoroughly gone bankrupt.

No one came for consultations anymore, nor did they come to get medicine. The finished drugs provided by the Great Tang Group were fast-acting and genuinely effective, and with the arrival of military doctors, their diagnoses were accurate and direct, earning the trust of the locals more and more.

If the Great Tang Group hadn’t set up a temporary hospital in Dongwan City and found these senior doctors to help out, they would probably be going bankrupt along with the merchants by now.

But where there are losers, there are winners. As shiploads of materials began to arrive in Dongwan City, the native population increasingly embraced the rule of the Great Tang Group.

Public security became stable, and those who had hidden in the deep mountains and forests gradually started to return to their villages to resume production; everything began to fall into order.

With the arrival of successive battalions of the Great Tang Group’s 4th Division, Tagg held a more abundant force in his hands.

Then came something that made the natives of Dongwan City even more compliant—the airship bombers, after refilling their gas, flew over Dongwan City slowly with their terrifying liveries.

When the natives of Dongwan City saw these giant sharks with their ferocious faces and gaping mouths fly over their heads, shrouding the sky like dark clouds, they were left with little else on their minds.

Shen Wenmao, who was busy organizing goblins for mining, became even more like a compliant lackey after seeing these airships.

The goblin laborers on the construction site worked even harder, with even the number of runaways dropping. Inside the mines, everyone worked with zealous fervor, and any hint of laziness would lead to being caught by Shen Wenmao and made an example of with a severe beating.

Meanwhile, Shen Wenmao, who was in charge of receiving the slaves from the Shen country that were brought into the city, truly cemented his role as a conscience-selling comprador when he saw the airships.

This elder brother even personally went to the port to inspect goods a few days later, rejecting the sick and weak sent by the Shen country with such precision that describing him as meticulous was an understatement.

"We are Tang People!" Recalling her child’s words from school, the aunt suddenly felt a surge of pride.

The young wife nodded in agreement. Although she didn’t have children in school, her husband worked on the construction site, and he often came home saying he was a Tang Person.

If they weren’t all one big family, why would their wages be full and never docked, why would the soldiers passing through commit no offenses, why would the government officials treat them as individuals?

When people from the Shen country came, they exploited and bullied without restraint, so even though the Shen people were powerful, they never truly connected; they remained people of the Shen country for life.

But after the Tang People came, they helped them resume production, ensured they had food and clothing, and even helped them regain their dignity—weren’t they brothers, then?

It’s undetermined when the concept of "Tang People" first appeared in history, but it indeed emerged during the time the Great Tang Group occupied Dongwan Island. The locals called the occupying forces of the Great Tang Group Tang People, and later also referred to themselves as Tang People.

Later on, the inhabitants of the Great Tang Group’s occupied areas also began to refer to themselves as Tang People, and the proof of being a Tang Person lay in their identity cards, complete with their bareheaded photos and steel stamps.

Eventually, in the territories controlled by the Great Tang Empire, everyone called themselves Tang People, carrying with them a sense of superiority, as if they were a cut above the rest.

...

"To become a ’Tang Person’... it’s not that simple!" In his office, Dino tapped his fingers on a blank identity card.

Issuing identity cards for hundreds of thousands of people from the Great Tang Group was no small project—taking photographs, sealing stamps, verifying identities, delineating obligations and responsibilities, and showcasing the promises of benefits. It would take months of busy work at the minimum.

Right now, he didn’t have that much time to deal with such low-priority tasks, his priority was to quickly restore the socioeconomic state to normal.

The materials and products of the Great Tang Group had completely decimated the local economy of Dongwan Island; he had to ensure that the economy here aligned with and cycled positively with the Great Tang Group’s system.

In addition, many troops carrying experimental new weapons would also be arriving. The subsequent work would require his coordination and arrangement with Tagg.

Why did weapon development come to a halt? Because there was no war! War is the driving force behind weapons research and development!

When Tang Mo received the comprehensive summary of all the frontline issues from the battle for Dongwan Island, the technological reserves of the Great Tang Group were thoroughly scrutinized.

It wasn’t a joke; some weapons that had never even been heard of in the market were now manufactured as samples and sent to Dongwan Island for testing.

The variety of new weapons was vast, but they remained classified. However, the airships as new weapons of the sky had already caught the attention of military factions worldwide.

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Just two updates today, if I’m feeling better tomorrow, I’ll start making up the missed updates.

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