Munitions Empire

Because of their pride, their descent into corruption was slow, and there were few willing to associate with such people, with most still holding higher expectations for their future.

Therefore, on a macro level, the bureaucratic system of the Great Tang Group, or rather, the Great Tang Kingdom, was still healthy, very clean, and efficient.

Establishing a kingdom is actually a very complex matter, involving compromises on interests from all sides, the establishment of a system, the distribution of resources...

However, Tang Mo had his own blueprint, a template that was almost mature enough to move people. By copying it, he could almost sort out a mature system that others might not be able to fathom in decades.

But even with a ready-made template, he still had a lot of work to do in many areas. The most complicated and most important of these was personnel arrangements.

Wanting to fill the entire administrative system of the Tang Kingdom in one go, to place the right candidates for each position, was actually a very large and very important task.

Tang Mo now understood just how many details, corners, and annoying trivial matters had to be considered to properly manage a country.

Such trivial matters... What Tang Mo had previously deemed insignificant had now become decisions that could impact the stability of the kingdom.

For instance, right now, Roger, Nangong Hong, Mathews, and John were seated together, discussing a very serious topic: benefits.

The Great Tang Kingdom could be said to have been born from the strategic planning of Nangong Hong, a brand-new country envisioned by Nangong Hong's strategic concept. This country was meant to be built around Tang Mo as the "Chinese" core, based on the "Chinese" or "Zheng people."

According to this strategic concept, the Great Tang Kingdom should naturally be dominated by "Chinese," with local people being given priority in the ratio of officials.

However, the Great Tang Kingdom had its own national conditions. When Tang Mo raised the flag of the Great Tang Group, there was no concept of a "Great Tang Kingdom," and the proportion of convicted citizens among his people was actually very low.

The real support for the Great Tang Group came from immigrants of various statuses from all corners of the world, including Dwarfs and Elves, with the largest part being the blond-haired, blue-eyed locals from Northern Ridge, Leite, Dorne, and other countries.

These locals now considered themselves Tang people because they lived in areas south of the Elf settlements and the Dwarf Empire, so they had a geographical name in the past: Nanla people.

The Empire of Nanla was actually officially called the Empire of Nanla People, but other Nanla people didn't want to acknowledge this name.

The university education system established by the Great Tang Group had trained the current staff, of which the Nanla people were the most numerous, a result determined by the development process and geographical location.

So, at the early stage of the establishment of the Great Tang Kingdom, an issue inevitably arose that the native residents of the old Zheng lands found very concerning: the Great Tang Kingdom seemed like a privileged newcomer, with almost all officials being foreign, severely reducing the sense of belonging among the local residents.

But even if they wanted to change this situation, the Great Tang Kingdom was powerless to do so: because only Tang Mo's students could understand the founding concepts he was ready to implement and enforce, only those who had been exposed to modern ideas were capable of executing them.

Thus, the appointment of officials entered a vicious cycle: appointing newcomers as officials led to local dissatisfaction, yet there were no local foundations to replace the newcomers.

What made Tang Mo even more uncomfortable was that what seemed to him a strategic decision to establish a country had become, in the eyes of others, a redistribution of benefits.

What was the reason for the Dragon's Vassals to fight to the death? Was it not to seek recognition of their support so that they could secure their due benefits in the subsequent distribution?

Now that there was a country, a countless number of new departments and positions were laid out. Should the people who had followed the King from the beginning not get promoted, should the positions be left to those ignorant and incompetent fools?

Therefore, from Tang Mo's perspective, even if it was just to pacify the people, he could not easily offer a portion of the positions for "Chinese" to take over.

"We can transfer some of the officials responsible for the household registration to other tasks, as we're short-staffed anyway, it's just that training them to use our standardized forms and to follow our work protocols will take some time," Roger said to Tang Mo.

He understood Tang Mo's difficulties, so he readily offered some concessions, but to Nangong Hong, such a compromise was virtually indistinguishable from standing still.

None of the truly authoritative positions were being reassigned, only jobs such as filling out forms, visiting the countryside for surveys, and compiling statistics. There was even no chance for locals to handle matters like tax collection.

Though he wanted to argue, he was out of options, as the officials from Zheng Country truly lacked the ability to handle these important tasks.

Thus, even though Nangong Hong wasn't completely satisfied, he could only express his grievances to Tang Mo, saying, "In this manner, with external officials overseeing the locals, it's difficult to unite the people's hearts. On normal days, there may only be resentment, but once mobilization is needed, it inevitably affects efficiency..."

This was precisely what frustrated Tang Mo the most: although relying on the combat power of the Tang Army and the administrative level of the Tang officials meant that problems were unlikely to arise on regular days,

when it came to critical moments and the need for swift responses, it was almost impossible to be as coordinated as one would want. For instance, mobilizing the military was now a big issue.

In theory, having a large population and being a sovereign state, Great Tang should be able to arm more troops, right?

But the reality was different, for as soon as the military was expanded, all the officer positions would need to be filled by pulling people from the lower ranks of the original forces—this meant that every officer in the new units would be from the Empire of Nanla...

All the soldiers would be Chinese, and all the officers from Nanla, an arrangement that was fraught with instability. With local advancement pathways blocked, the detachment between management and execution units was serious, and the mere thought was alarming.

This model, similar to that of the British Indian Army, was a sure path to chaos, and Tang Mo certainly didn't want to create such a troublesome situation for himself.

Therefore, he had already started intentionally cultivating the "Chinese" demographic, but this move couldn't be too aggressive; it had to be gradual—after all, the people from Nanla were currently his base, and he couldn't simply ignore the feelings of his old followers.

Moreover, since both Brunas and Dragon City, as well as the Great Tang Group itself, were built relying on immigration, a mix of various races existed among the population, not just the Human Race.

There were many Dwarf workers and immigrants, a considerable number of Elves, and although not as many, there were also Orcs present.

All of these needed to be taken into account. Mathews and John were brought to this meeting so that they would understand this very point.

Clearly, Mathews got the message. Speaking resoundingly, he addressed Tang Mo, "I've lived in the Great Tang Group for quite a while, and I haven't felt uncomfortable. As long as Your Majesty doesn't target Dwarves, we are willing to live freely and equally in Great Tang, and I can assure you of this.

If there are any who disobey the laws, just deal with them as usual, there's nothing special about that."

As a "minority group", the political demands of the Dwarves weren't high; many of them were immigrants whose main purpose was to make money and didn't wish to get too involved in administrative affairs.

Their national character, which saw many of them as craftsmen, also meant that their level of governance was comparable to that of a warrior race.

As for the Elves, John, who was in charge of the cultural department, sighed. What say did he have? Seriously, what say could he have?

He even felt that Tang Mo had pulled him over from the Great Tang Group to work in the Great Tang Kingdom just to show his magnanimity and to curry favor with the Elves...

As for his opinions... well, what opinions did he have... His views were probably something like: Elves are fine, yes, everything's fine...

Looking at his subordinates, Tang Mo knew that in the coming year, his primary job would almost be to stabilize his administrative machine so it could start running at full speed as soon as possible.

The bigger the operation got, the more inevitable such complications were.