Munitions Empire

Chapter 41: 41 new secret weapons

"Can I really take all of these away?" Tagg, hardly believing his own eyes, pointed at the sealed wooden crates and asked Tang Mo.

These wooden crates were simply boards that had been cut and nailed together, with a basic structure inside: some crossboards with grooves, across which the firearms were securely fit in tidy rows.

Above and below, each wooden crate contained ten brand-new K1 Quick Guns, still smelling of oil.

Accompanying ammunition pouches made of leather, along with the gun belts, were crammed into the wooden crates, serving as packing material.

This new type of gun belt was quite elaborate, with a place for attaching a bayonet, with two ammo pouches fixed securely on either side—each side having two independent ammo pouches.

Four ammo pouches could hold 40 paper cartridges, and the sturdy lining ensured that even if the pouches were struck, they wouldn't easily deform, thus protecting the bullets inside in the complex conditions of a battlefield.

Now, these ammo pouches were filled with bullets, all of which Tang Mo had his workers rush to produce.

The ammunition factory that Tang Mo was setting up was not highly automated yet, and it would take the introduction of the third steam engine before they could mass-produce bullets more quickly.

There was no helping it because, at the moment, he was truly short of raw materials and lacking the energy resources to support full-scale production expansion.

Coal was indeed available from Brunas, and Northern Ridge wasn't lacking either... but to get enough coal took time to mine, not to mention enough funds to afford the purchase.

Once again, there was no way around it; the Gold Coins in Tang Mo's possession were earmarked for land, steel, gunpowder, a whole variety of miscellaneous raw materials, and to hire workers… It simply wasn't enough!

Nowadays, even if Tang Mo were given 10 million Gold Coins, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he could almost spend it all within a few days.

The reason Tang Mo could maintain his current operations was partially because Lord Earl provided many raw materials to Tang Mo's weapon workshop in a timely fashion and partly because Tang Mo, under the name of Lord Earl, went around bluffing and deceiving to cut down on expenses.

"Yes, I've prepared 50 Quick Guns for Lord Earl. How about that? Don't you think it's more than worth it?" Tang Mo, patting Tagg on the shoulder with a smile, was fulfilling the promise he had made to Tagg earlier.

In less than 20 days, Tang Mo had produced 50 Quick Guns, effectively creating a miracle that could shock the world.

Keep in mind, this production rate had to be further accelerated—during these twenty-some days, Tang Mo spent most of his time not on weapon production.

Tagg had seen with his own eyes that after returning to Brunas, the first thing Tang Mo began working on was that thing called a steam engine.

Afterwards, Tang Mo mainly focused on purchasing land, setting up workshops to build wooden huts, and starting schools, along with a slew of other trivial matters.

It can be responsibly said that Tang Mo didn't focus on producing the K1 Quick Guns. It was only after the second steam engine started operating that Parker began to supervise, using the steam engine to drill gun barrels.

Still, within only ten days, Tang Mo managed to assemble and produce 50 new Quick Guns, a feat even Shireck's weapon workshops in the Kingdom, trying their hardest, couldn't achieve!

"It... It does seem a bit like that," Tagg admitted, looking at the four large crates in front of him, and the fifth one that contained only one gun, nodding subconsciously.

"Stop kidding, just a bit? This production speed is such that Shireck's four gun-making factories in the Kingdom, combined, might not even catch up with me!" Tang Mo said confidently.

Mathews added with a laugh at the side, "Even if they catch up now, they won't be able to in half a month."

"If nothing goes wrong… by tomorrow morning, we should be able to produce 10 more K1 Quick Guns like these," Parker said confidently to Tang Mo, Mathews, and Tagg, who was nearby, revealing even more astonishing news, "Trust me, it can really be done!"

The production progress actually exceeded Tang Mo's estimate; he had originally planned to send 50 K1 Quick Guns to the Earl all at once. But if the workers' enthusiasm for production remained high, by the time Tagg left with the shipment, the workshop could have produced about 65 Quick Guns.

For the entire era, such a heaven-defying rate of production was revolutionary—those workshops capable of producing 30 flintlock rifles a month usually had thousands of workers!

Yet, Tang Mo's current workshop, all things considered, including the workers building houses, had barely five to six hundred people.

Not all of these five or six hundred people were producing rifles; there were also children in school, Soldiers leveling ground, and other various craftsmen.

In short, if Tang Mo started to focus entirely on producing the K1 Quick Guns, given abundant resources, he might within two to three months, overtake the production speed of all of Shireck's workshops inside the Kingdom.

"Have you prepared the inventory list?" Tagg looked at Tang Mo with eager anticipation, already imagining the scene of escorting 60 K1 Quick Guns back to Wolf City.

A new troop is about to be born, and the combat power of Wolf City will increase manyfold. Those fools planning to flaunt their power at Northern Ridge will definitely piss their pants in fear of the power of the K1 Quick Gun.

"Of course!" Tang Mo nodded.

"I will return as quickly as possible with everything on the list!" Tagg promised solemnly.

"I believe you can do it!" Tang Mo said with a smile, clapping Tagg on the shoulder, then glanced at Mathews: "I'll leave this place to you. I'm going to swing by the laboratory."

"No problem, Master," Mathews nodded, then he turned to Tagg, who looked somewhat bemused, and said, "Mr. Tagg, when you return to Northern Ridge, please convey to Lord Earl that this old man has decided to follow Mr. Tang Mo and become his servant."

Tagg was taken aback, then he nodded with understanding: "For a craftsman, this is indeed a good place. I understand your decision and will convey it to Lord Earl."

"Thank you!" Mathews smiled, then lowered his head to resume working on a mechanical part Tang Mo couldn't understand.

"My Lord!" On the way, a construction worker who saw Tang Mo passing by took off his hat, bowed slightly, and greeted him with a smile.

Tang Mo also nodded with a smile and quickened his pace toward his so-called laboratory. Inside the laboratory, you could see jars and bottles everywhere; upon opening the door, you could smell the strong odor of chemicals.

After closing the door and walking over to the desk, Tang Mo pulled out a drawer, took out a box, and from it, retrieved an assembled Left-Wheel Handgun.

This was a true Left-Wheel Handgun of the era, truly capable of flipping the entire cylinder out to the left for quick reloading and continuous firing.

Tang Mo then took out a yellow metal object from the drawer and casually scattered it on the table.

The metal parts clinked together, producing a pleasant sound. These were all crafted one by one by Tang Mo using a manual bullet press in front of him.

To be honest, these metal cartridge bullets, the first of their kind in this world, still fell a bit short of those produced by fully automatic bullet production equipment.

In fact, they were still rough, and the bullets still had the first generation Minié ball design, stuffed with wood!

Nevertheless, they were still the most advanced bullets in the world because inside them was the smokeless gunpowder Tang Mo had made himself, which still was not able to be mass-produced!

This was a Colt 1907 model pistol, except the caliber used was the 9mm rimmed cartridge bullets crafted by Tang Mo himself.

For ease of production, Tang Mo's bullets had a primitive design with a rim slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet body, which also facilitated the pistol's ejection mechanism for quick cartridge ejection.

Of course, this design was later completely phased out, but Tang Mo, constrained by production technology, had to come up with this kind of retro design.

Despite this, these bullets handcrafted by Tang Mo were still advanced, advanced to the point of being expensive—so expensive that Tang Mo was reluctant to use them for shooting practice.

Tang Mo was not going to use the idiotic imperial measurements, so he directly introduced the concept of millimeters. Now that he was the standard setter for the entire industry, he naturally had no reservations.

As for why he chose a complex structure like the Colt 1907 Left-Wheel Handgun instead of the more stable and easier to produce "Grip-Handle" Left-Wheel Handgun... Well, the reason is quite simple: because it's cool.

Since Tang Mo was making a handgun for himself and there was no significant technical challenge, of course, he'd choose whichever looked cooler. After all, he wasn't concerned with expanding production scale or manufacturing costs.

So, this unusual, peculiar Colt 1907 Left-Wheel Handgun was thus created.

Tang Mo used his thumb to push the mechanism on the gun body, and with a light flick, the pistol cylinder flipped out from the left side of the gun. The whole process was incredibly smooth, without any delay. There was no helping it; in this era, they couldn't produce a comfortable dampening effect, so there was a strong cheap, loose feeling.

But Tang Mo didn't care about that. He picked up a bullet from the table and easily inserted it into the cylinder, one after another, flawlessly.

After filling the cylinder with six bullets, he habitually brushed over the cylinder, and the oiled cylinder began spinning rapidly.

Mathews' craftsmanship was really strong, relying on simple machinery to produce such high-precision parts.

Tang Mo internally praised, and with a flick of his wrist, the cylinder snapped back onto the gun body with a crisp sound.