Munitions Empire

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"Opening a school?" Upon receiving the message, the City Lord of Linshui City put aside the book in his hand, surprised, and looked towards his trusted aide.

If he didn't have a bit of strength and his own eyes and ears in loyal service, he couldn't possibly hold steady his position as City Lord here. Thus, he had a good idea of what those nobles who paid him handsomely were up to.

Before, they had been hell-bent on constructing roads, roads that adhered to high standards, at least requiring broken stone for the bed and thorough compaction, a specification almost equivalent to the highest-grade post roads in Zheng Country.

Moreover, these roads were to be raised to prevent water damage, with meticulous construction of the road foundations and the digging of drainage facilities alongside.

In the eyes of the old City Lord, such expensive roads were entirely pointless, deeming it a waste to construct such high-quality roads for the common merchants and traders who traveled them.

Yet, he didn't voice any objections, since the other party had no intention of explaining their actions. In his view, it was likely that these people were preparing to set up workshops or the like on his turf, necessitating a substantial amount of trade to sustain them.

This also explained why they chose Linshui City — with the convenience of maritime transport, an improvement to the terrestrial transport would make it an essential traffic hub.

Later on, those moneyed nobles began constructing factories around Linshui City, which also puzzled the old City Lord.

Such large-scale factories had never before appeared in Zheng Country. Every day, the factory construction sites were bustling with more activity than the markets inside Linshui City.

Interestingly, the construction of these factories had started over two months ago. While they had already taken shape, King Zheng Tong of Zheng Country suddenly decreed an initiative encouraging merchants everywhere to raise funds on their own and establish workshops, to share the country's worries.

This foresighted construction, preceding the royal command, allowed the old City Lord to discern something unusual: it meant that the nobles bribing him had the power to be privy to the country's strategic decisions in advance.

Or perhaps, these nobles had the clout to directly influence national decisions, making the Zheng King Zheng Tong issue orders favorable to them!

However, the roads and factories outside the city weren't what shocked him the most; it was the transformational work on the Linshui Port by these nobles.

Not long after accepting their bribes, the Linshui docks were bought up by these nobles. Now, that place was private property, strictly off-limits to the unaffiliated public.

Rather than calling it renovation, it would be more apt to say Linshui Port was being rebuilt: construction was everywhere within the port, as docks capable of accommodating massive ships extended towards the sea.

Beside the docks, there was a vast expanse of shipyards under construction, so massive that a mere glance from a distant highland would leave one astounded by their scale.

No joke, such a shipyard could build six to eight of the largest sailboats simultaneously; the term 'huge' no longer sufficed to describe it.

What the old City Lord didn't know was that these docks and shipyards were being built to the highest standards, using reinforced concrete and preemptively laying down pedestrian-accessible underwater pipelines for easy future cable connections and equipment placement.

At the same time, these facilities had spaces reserved for gantry cranes and cargo cranes, ready for immediate installation as soon as the equipment was available.

Linking these unusual activities together, the City Lord felt he had probably figured out what these people were up to.

In his mind, these people bribing him had prior knowledge of Zheng Country's strategic decisions and were using the time advantage to make a fortune under his protection.

Just think about it, because the industrial foundation of Linshui was established ahead of time, it could start production earlier and exploit a timing gap to begin making large sums of money on a grand scale.

Their transportation conditions were the best in Zheng Country, so the goods produced could quickly be sold to every corner of the country using the roads. Thereby, they were assured to make a tidy profit.

With his protection, the workshops could evade taxes, and there would be no hindrances or harassment on the roads. A million Gold Coins... It would probably all be recouped in about a year and a half!

Having reached this conclusion, he felt he saw the truth clearly. He even thought he could guess the identities of these nobles: probably the wealthy merchants and tycoons from Dahua, or even those with more imperial merchant backgrounds. Otherwise, their enormous influence was inexplicable.

Now, these people were also ready to establish a school here... The reason was obvious; the commoners of Zheng Country were hardly of any use!

If they didn't spend money educating these clodhoppers, where else would they recruit workers for the factories that had been set up? Thus, it was logical to cultivate some people in advance for the work.

Having thought he grasped all the keys, the complacent old City Lord scoffed with disdain and looked towards his confidant, "Don't worry about it, they're just out to make money."

"Understood!" The confidant nodded slightly and then left the old City Lord's study. At the moment the door was closed, the confidant touched the Gold Coins in his pocket, cast another glance at the door, and walked away.

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The other party did open a school, that's true, but most of the students recruited were children, only adults were taught literacy and craftwork at night school... It's clearly two separate matters...

However, the other party offered so much that it was enough to blind him and shut his mouth, so he only reported one thing.

...

"Type 1 Destroyer! Displacement of 1075 tons! Sleek hull, a top speed of 45 kilometers per hour! Equipped with two 120mm caliber naval guns, one mounted on a rotating turret at both the bow and stern! Additionally, there are two 75mm cannons, one on each side!

Firepower is formidable!" At Brunas's dock, a Brunas receptionist was introducing the Great Tang Group's latest warship products to a group of naval officers from various countries.

"It can definitely engage with Brunas-class warships. Although it does not have an advantage in the number of guns, it's faster, and the price... is also cheaper!" Pointing to this new type of warship, the salesperson skillfully outlined the advantages and disadvantages of this vessel.

The destroyer in front of them was actually just a 1st battle destroyer without torpedoes. In terms of combat capability, it was quite ordinary, but you couldn't beat the price.

With just forty thousand Gold Coins, one could buy such a warship, and the Great Tang Group even promised that after purchasing ten ships, they would sell the corresponding production and maintenance equipment so that the navies could produce these warships themselves.

Due to its relatively small size, being much smaller than the Brunas-class Ironclad Warship, this type of warship could dock at piers designed for sailboats to resupply, which indeed was convenient for countries with less favorable port conditions.

Additionally, the small warship was fast, and while its range was somewhat limited, it was barely sufficient for port defense and patrolling, making it an excellent choice for such duties.

This subtractive design approach gave various navies hope for enhancing their fleet's combat capabilities: possessing half the firepower of a Brunas-class Ironclad Warship, with even faster speed, although with lower defense, it was absolutely worth more than its cost!

Because these new type of warships could be mass-produced and replace the outdated sailships of the countries, and in naval battles, they could gather to face off against larger Brunas-class Ironclad Warships, it was clearly a good choice.

Even more enticing was the fact that these warships did not need to wait; the Great Tang Group would soon be able to build them—after all, they were civilian-standard hulls with a few guns added, and small tonnage made them easy to produce.

No waiting meant that customers could start production as soon as they placed their orders, which was far more desirable to the navies in urgent need of phasing out sailship warships than waiting in line for the Brunas-class Ironclad Warships.

The reason Great Tang Group launched these small warships was that Tang Mo had no choice but to step down and compete with the Shireck Consortium for market share.

Because the production capacity was squeezed, the Brunas-class Ironclad Warship wasn't a big moneymaker project. It was neither fish nor fowl for Great Tang Group and had become a mere burden.

The shipyard that produced Brunas-class Ironclad Warships could also build Wolf-class Cruisers, so continuing to produce Brunas-class Ironclad Warships was simply not worth the loss.

But the warship market could not be easily abandoned, so Tang Mo utilized the remaining small shipyards in places like Osa and Hotwind Port, made some minor modifications, and designed and built this nearshore destroyer with "thin skin but a big filling."

The power used in this thing was adapted from the power used on the Brunas-class, and the technology was actually quite outdated.

The cannons it used were also the same as those on the Brunas-class, equally outdated. Even its optical sighting system was from the Brunas-class and was already out of date.

But none of that mattered! What mattered was that it could still outfight sailships, still challenging several or even more than a dozen frigates.

To the navies of various countries, it remained a better warship than Shireck's hot-selling Ming Wheel Ship, and similarly, a more appropriate choice for their situation.

In the eyes of the naval commanders and the high-level decision-makers of the countries, even if they bought Brunas-class Ironclad Warships, they would not have the capability to challenge the Great Tang Group's naval power. Thus, for them, the Brunas-class warships were somewhat... excessive in performance!

They had neither the ambition to challenge Great Tang's maritime dominance nor the desire to wage war against equally powerful adversaries. So in the short term, everyone actually just wanted to expand their fleets, accumulate experience using Ironclad Warships, and maintain their navy's size.

Thus, the cheaper and more economically feasible destroyer became their better choice.

Consequently, on that day, Great Tang Group's destroyers were a huge success, with each navy buying at least ten ships, some even purchasing twenty in one go!

In just one morning, Great Tang Group secured orders for 100 destroyers, and another round of naval arms race commenced.

It was also on this day that Great Tang Group's Jade City-class Battleship, Jade City 1, was launched, ushering the world's navies into the era of battleships.

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Next update will be later, everyone can read it tomorrow morning.