Munitions Empire

Chapter 22: Numerous Difficulties

Having witnessed Tang Mo's negotiation tactics, Tagg thought he must be wary of this man full of cunning and deceit, or as the trendy phrase goes, a "heart"-less fellow.

This sly businessman had, from the beginning to the end, never revealed his true intentions, and eventually acquired a vast expanse of urgently needed land at an extremely low price.

In the process, the businessman shamelessly demonstrated his bribery skills—after gifting the mayor 100 Gold Coins, he secretly handed the sheriff and the tax officer 30 Gold Coins each, making both of them readily agree to the deal.

Then, after covertly offering another 50 Gold Coins in bribes to the mayor, His Honor "accidentally" misaligned a boundary on the map, giving Tang Mo a large piece of unclaimed land!

The result was that, in addition to the 260 Gold Coins he paid in bribes, Tang Mo spent only 860 Gold Coins to purchase a large tract of land.

Although these lands were wastelands, unsuitable for farming, for Tang Mo, who urgently needed land for expanding his factories, the sheer size of the newly acquired property enabled him to nearly do whatever he wished.

Sitting in his carriage, holding the land deed that indicated the acreage in his trembling hands, Tang Mo was still slightly shaking.

Indeed, he had not anticipated such arbitrariness in the handling of land in this world, that he had actually managed to obtain such an immense plot of land at such a bargain price.

Moreover, this land was adjacent to the sea; if Tang Mo wished, he could even build his own private port.

Furthermore, the remaining lands near the Vicious Forest were even farther from the town and would be even cheaper—once Tang Mo completed the arms deal with the Earl, his profits would sufficiently support his acquisition of these unclaimed lands.

With this land as support, his factory now had room to expand, and once connected to the Vicious Forest, he could even conduct business as a trading merchant, directly logging from the Vicious Forest... The advantages were numerous.

In short, his development was now on the fast track; if all went smoothly, he could soon become the largest weapons manufacturer in the Leite Kingdom.

But that was only if everything went smoothly... in fact, Tang Mo's expansion was not going smoothly, because while the computer in his head could look up information, it couldn't help him come up with a sensible development plan.

After spending his limited funds on a vast expanse of land, Tang Mo encountered a series of problems. Among them, the most significant was a shortage of workers.

His development was too rapid, having swallowed too many resources he couldn't immediately utilize—those familiar with real-time strategy games understand this well: you've saved up a lot of Gold Coins, only to realize you have too few people, and you're short on corresponding lumber and oil, so your pile of Gold Coins can't be converted into the troops you want...

When Tang Mo returned to his office, he convened all the slightly capable subordinates under him: Old Roger, Parker, Dwarf Mathews, Tagg, and Wes.

He reported the good news to them, "Gentlemen, we have purchased a large amount of nearby land, which makes our future development very easy!"

"As long as we build our factory buildings on these barren lands, we can produce our products at rates ten to a hundred times faster!" he announced excitedly to all his subordinates, as if he never worried that his products would be unsellable.

However, while everyone was buoyed by the good news, very quickly the meeting turned into a session for airing grievances.

Roger coughed twice before saying to Tang Mo, "Our workforce is severely insufficient. The workers who came from the Northern Ridge have actually spent most of their time not engaging in production, but doing other things."

Tang Mo listened to Roger while fiddling with the freshly signed land deed contract in his hand, thinking about how to get production on the right track as quickly as possible.

In reality, both Dwarf Mathews and Roger were busy making the second batch of parts, preparing to use these newly made components to assemble the workshop's second steam engine production equipment.

Now that they had the experience of assembling the first one, they were confident about building the second steam engine. It's just a shame they knew that with the current raw materials, creating another steam engine was the limit.

There was no way around it; there was hardly any steel left, and Tang Mo had spent all his money. Getting iron ingots from the port was no longer possible; they could only wait for the second batch of supplies from the Northern Ridge.

"Some of the workers have been diverted to build wooden houses. We offer good provisions and food, and the wages agreed upon are not low, so their enthusiasm for work is still very high," Roger continued, looking at the pondering Tang Mo.

These are the issues they must face now, and in fact, there are many more details to be dealt with. Just assigning people to settle down the new workers from the Northern Ridge and get them started on work had already left Roger feeling overwhelmed.

Moreover, he was actually expending great effort with Dwarf Mathews in manufacturing a second steam engine.

Therefore, within Tang Mo's initial team, the person with the highest loyalty spoke in a somewhat weary voice, "The children they brought, along with the apprentices, are all helping out with the work. In fact, they have already built a row of plank houses in the past two days and are now constructing a second row of the same houses."

As he reached this point, he paused to lick his slightly dry lips, then continued, "However, although it's not cold here in the winter, these plank houses are very poorly insulated, and if we light a fire for warmth, they can easily catch fire. So, the people living in these houses will have a hard time in the winter."

Tang Mo had just come to his senses and noticed this detail. He stood up and rummaged around his office, managing to provide a cup of water for everyone.

In fact, the beer had already been doled out by him—one part as a reward to the workers who had been working hard, and another part to the soldiers brought by Tagg.

After all, while they assisted with standing guard and keeping watch, they also had helped the workshop a great deal. Hence Tang Mo was not stingy at all in giving them many additional rewards.

Therefore, Tang Mo could only pour a cup of water for each person attending this temporary meeting, allowing everyone to continue the meeting with a cup in hand.

After taking a sip of water, Roger's nearly smoking throat finally felt much better, and he continued speaking, "Additionally, the wood you had us stockpile is almost used up, and what's left is the air-dried wood... That's meant for producing the K1 Quick Gun, so it can't be repurposed."

"If you redirect some people to gather more wood, then we'll have even fewer hands for building houses. We need more people..." Roger expressed his worries, reminding Tang Mo of all the difficulties that were imminent.

As one of Tang Mo's elders, he truly did not want to see Tang Mo, in a situation where everything seemed to be going well, mismanage the business his father had left him.

So without waiting for Tang Mo to say anything, Roger continued, "A more serious problem is that we're currently building plank houses within our own workshop grounds, which are leveled, so they can be used directly."

Tang Mo knew that this kind of expansion was irrational. If he were a genuine businessman, the most appropriate thing for him to do now would be to allocate his income reasonably and ensure the safety of the cash flow as much as possible.

But Tang Mo also knew he was not a true businessman. He preferred to take risks, to expand rapidly, to break free from the current passive state of relying on others.

Compared to the madmen he was familiar with from later generations, who started fundraising after making a few PowerPoint presentations, dared to seek bank loans of millions with a couple of hundred thousand on hand, and who, upon securing loans, dared to seek financing, and with financing success dared to borrow even more money, and then with more money began working toward going public, his current development could indeed be described as conservative.

In fact, Tang Mo really had considered the issue of subsequent development, and he had his own set of solutions.

The first step was to establish his factory and then sell the weapons to the other nobility of the Leite Kingdom.

As long as Northern Ridge secured a victory in the imminent war and showcased its might, he would never lack customers. Those nobles, unless they were fools, would certainly choose Tang Mo's weapons!

Even if they were fools, as news of the war spread further and further, more distant places, more distant countries, would become supporters of the weapons he produced.

Soon, the outdated weapons produced by the Shireck Conglomerate would be phased out, and he would take their place, becoming the new world's arms supplier!

Of course, this was just his strategic plan. In practice, he had many details to fill in and perfect, and it certainly wouldn't be so simple.

Roger wasn't aware of Tang Mo's plan. He was just deeply concerned about the current situation, so he kept talking incessantly to Tang Mo about the upcoming difficulties, "But if we use up these leveled lands, we'll need even more manpower and much more time to level the uncultivated land outside, and that's going to be even more problematic."

Mathews, who was sitting beside him, was clearly also dissatisfied with the situation, his demeanor one of wanting to speak but holding back. According to him, Tang Mo should let the workers do what workers are supposed to do. As for expanding the factory, Mathews thought Tang Mo could wait to hire proper construction workers later.

"We can't afford to hire people to level the land now, because according to our accounts, our profits aren't much. To be precise, like before, we don't even have enough money for next month's wages for the workers!" He paused at this point because he knew he had already said enough, and Tang Mo should have realized the seriousness of the problem by now.