Munitions Empire

Chapter 115: 115 Secret Factory

"Mr. Roger!" Yulin pushed open Roger's door and called softly, "Your lunch is ready."

The young girl held a wooden platter, which bore another wooden dish, filled with some mushy food.

Potatoes and vegetable leaves were mixed together, along with some dried fish, which didn't look very appetizing, but it had the advantage of being nutritionally balanced.

Roger took the tray from the girl and casually asked, "Have you remembered everything they teach at school? I heard you've started learning equations."

Yulin showed a sweet smile and replied to Roger, "Mr. Roger, I am the class president, after all. If I don't get full marks in my courses, those little devils would laugh at me."

"Ha!" Roger nodded in satisfaction and then continued to inquire, "Is everything proceeding according to the work plans Tang Mo set out before he left, following the victory at Northern Ridge?"

The young girl immediately nodded, "Everything has already started. They are logging on a large scale in Vicious Forest, but winter is coming very soon and it looks like the work will have to stop."

In this era, that was the reality—the weather remained a major adversary to human activity; no one dared to launch large-scale operations with the onset of winter, a dictate of the natural order.

As for the current situation of Tang Mo or rather the Great Tang Group, if one were to describe it in a few words, they'd be: extremely wealthy, spending money like water.

This was almost a syndrome known as "sudden wealth," typically a spree of frenzied, retaliatory consumption triggered by an unexpected fortune.

The moment Tang Mo confirmed that Northern Ridge had secured victory in the war, he spent every last bit of his remaining assets lavishly.

Specific extravagance projects included his order to find a flat piece of land within Vicious Forest, clear the area through logging, and plan to establish a hidden secret factory.

The reason for choosing this location was that with his increasing number of technologies and the expansion of factory scale, it was indeed necessary to develop a new factory area to sustain growth.

Supporting this capricious decision to situate his own factory in such a forsaken place as Vicious Forest was another main reason: Tang Mo was preparing to construct the first railway in this world right here.

With tens or even hundreds of thousands of Gold Coins in hand, Tang Mo naturally planned to spend this wealth. Since he had to spend it, he must purchase a large number of items.

Steel was the strategic resource he could assure in the short term and procure in the most significant quantity. Brunas and Northern Ridge, fortunately, did not lack coal, making railway construction the obvious choice for Tang Mo.

Firstly, the cooperation with Count Fisheo was very pleasant, and it was clear that Fisheo was a good candidate for continued long-term cooperation—therefore, Tang Mo intended to deepen the ties between them to facilitate future trade.

Thus, the first railway in human history that would start from Brunas Port, pass through Vicious Forest, and finally connect to Northern Ridge Wolf City, was put on the construction agenda.

However, constructing a railway was not easy. It necessitated terrain surveying, geological structure verification, and choosing the most cost-effective routes... all of these required time.

Thus, a more reliable short-term plan was proposed: to first build a new factory site in Vicious Forest, then connect the new and old factory areas by railway. discover m,v,l,e,m,p,y,r novels

This plan excelled in being both safe and cheap, and since the railway would be within the lands already purchased by Tang Mo, there was a certain level of security and confidentiality.

Shortening the distance by a significant portion also ensured that the difficulty and cost of building the railway stayed within an affordable range. In reality, Tang Mo indeed reduced the transportation distance between him and Northern Ridge.

The new factory area was closer to Northern Ridge, so goods from there could be unloaded at the new site, greatly saving on transportation time and costs, while saving time for both sides.

So, before Tang Mo left Brunas, he drafted some development plans to be implemented as soon as victory in the war was secured.

The railway development plan of Tang Mo was one among them.

Speaking of railways, one cannot omit the issue of rail gauge, which is not a simple multiple-choice question. Broad gauge and narrow gauge each have their pros and cons; it's not necessarily true that broad gauge is superior to narrow gauge.

Narrow gauge has a clear advantage in terms of turning radius, as trains that use narrow gauge can navigate tighter turns.

As narrow gauge requires less material, it is more cost-effective, especially suitable for the economically struggling Tang Mo during the initial development. Additionally, narrow gauge railways have a cost advantage when building railway bridges and tunnels later on.

Yet, with all these benefits of narrow gauge, why do some countries opt for broad gauge? Because broad gauge has a more apparent advantage in terms of capacity. Wider tracks naturally support wider carriages, which also translates to a more comfortable ride for passengers in civilian transport.

From this aspect, it can be seen that the broad gauge actually has greater advantages on vast plains, permafrost, and straight roads. On these terrains, the strong advantages of the broad gauge are infinitely magnified, while its disadvantages, such as a larger turning radius and more expensive bridges and tunnels, are almost concealed.

Of course, Tang Mo built railways with the hope that his railway standards could be used continuously. Therefore, these standards must take other terrains into consideration as much as possible.

That is to say, Tang Mo had to consider issues such as bridges and tunnels to the greatest extent, so he couldn't opt for a two-meter broad gauge to demonstrate his "foresight."

Tang Mo needed to consider these advantages and disadvantages, so blindly choosing broad gauge was not wise for him. The most important thing was—the cost of the first railway built by humans had to be kept within a reasonable range.

After all, although he was now wealthy, he was not yet at the point where he could splurge at will—under these circumstances, blindly building a costly broad gauge railway was obviously too crazy.

Therefore, Tang Mo tended to choose the standard rail gauge—the rail gauge used by Huaxia! At least, this gauge had shown strong adaptability across 9.6 million square kilometers of vast land, including mountains, rivers, plateaus, and basins!

When it comes to infrastructure construction, if one is unable to decide, one naturally asks the infrastructure fanatic! After all, any idea that has been vetted by the infrastructure fanatic can be put to use directly...

Thus, in the other world, the first railway track was not a narrow gauge but a standard gauge, drawing on the experience of a distant and ancient nation that did not exist in this other world...

Besides starting to build new factory areas and clearing a dedicated railway, Tang Mo's third expansion plan was to build his own private harbor on the other side of Brunas!

After all, he was now a merchant with a fleet, and naturally, he also had to engage in maritime transport and trade.

Moreover, he did not want to be restricted by the narrow harbor size of Brunas in the future when purchasing overseas steel, oil, and other materials, so he decided to build a harbor in advance to facilitate expansion or integration later.

Consequently, a brand-new harbor began to be built, and this time the construction became quite different from that of previous harbors.

First of all, Tang Mo began to use cement on a large scale to build his new harbor to ensure its solidity.

One has to admit, Brunas is a natural good harbor, deep and free of ice, and not far away there are even highlands suitable for the construction of battery installations. The only thing that held back its development was a larger port to the south that had developed earlier.

The Leite Kingdom did not value maritime trade, so compared to others, the construction of the harbor at Brunas was not prioritized, and since local procurement never increased significantly, it naturally did not generate substantial trade. Since ships did not frequently come here, the harbor could not grow large in scale.

This was a vicious cycle, and in some sense, Tang Mo's arrival broke this trade cycle.

The quantity and total volume of items he needed were simply too great—steel, which a country might not consume much, Tang Mo was now ready to lay directly on the ground.

The purchase list of the Great Tang Group included pig bristles, leather, steel, brass, lime, gunpowder, and various chemicals.

The reason why they did not purchase grain was that Northern Ridge had stockpiled quite a bit of it last year, which could supply Brunas for the time being. But if Tang Mo's factories continued to develop, purchasing grain, meat, and horses was just a matter of time.

To facilitate future development, Tang Mo even requested merchants to bring soil samples and seeds from various places for him, and he also bought books from various countries at a high price, including novels, travel logs, and poetry anthologies.

In the territory that Tang Mo had bought, hardworking workers had also started to farm. Although it was doomed to yield little profit, it gave the place a lively appearance.

In short, Tang Mo had not yet returned to Brunas, and during the month he was away, the development of Brunas did not lag at all.

Mathews and Parker, the two men in charge of the factory, had expanded the entire factory area to an extent that was previously unimaginable.

Now, the Great Tang Group already had more than a dozen factory buildings, dozens of steam engines, and half the factory buildings were equipped with electric machines.

What's more interesting is that after the steam engines were put into production, another difficult problem that plagued the Great Tang Group was unexpectedly solved—heating!

Those factory buildings, which were constructed in a rush to push for completion, actually had very poor insulation. According to previous estimates, these factory buildings would have been unusable after the onset of winter.

But now, after Mathews, Roger, and others tackled the problem according to Tang Mo's blueprints and produced equipment for pipe processing, the cooling waste water from the steam engines found a good use.

Hot water flowed through these pipes, heating the entire factory like a giant furnace. After temporarily thickening some of the surrounding walls, the factory buildings were able to continue operating in winter without any issues.