Munitions Empire

"Bolton has sent a rather strange telegram." When Luff hurriedly found Tang Mo, Tang Mo was busy enjoying lunch with Yue'er.

With the departure of Dragon Spirit from Dragon Island, Tang Mo naturally felt he was free again, and teasing Yue'er, who was learning, became his little hobby.

Tang Mo cut the beef for Yue'er, skewered a piece with a fork, and brought it to Yue'er's mouth, then he turned to look at a somewhat embarrassed Luff and asked, "What's the matter?"

"Gobur has deployed tanks!" Luff replied to Tang Mo's question with a worried tone, "The southern defenses of Dorne are hanging by a thread!"

"Huh? Tanks?" Tang Mo was slightly taken aback; he had not expected that the new weapon, which the Great Tang Group was still keeping secret, had somehow been produced by the Shireck side as well.

Never underestimate the heroes of the world! Thinking this, Tang Mo shook his head and chuckled bitterly, "Ever since I started to manage my own kingdom, I seem to have relaxed my control over the world's weapon technology quite a bit."

Although it would be wishful thinking for the enemy to surpass Great Tang in weapons technology, playing catch-up with technology and bullying the little brothers of the Great Tang Group who were still in the past was indeed possible.

"Interesting, really interesting," Tang Mo applauded and laughed, "It seems I truly underestimated Sofia as an opponent."

Great Tang has its own secrets that cannot be fully revealed to Sofia; clearly, Sofia too has her own little secrets she does not intend to share with Tang Mo...

"Our spy in Gobur has seen a large number of airships moving to the front line, over fifty in number," Luff continued to add.

Airships were different from tanks; tanks could be kept secret using tarpaulins and martial law at railway stations, so the probability of discovery was somewhat smaller.

However, airships could only fly in the skies, and even if they operated from dusk till dawn, they were still easily detected.

Therefore, Great Tang's espionage agents planted in the Gobur Kingdom detected the airship army rushing to the front line at the first opportunity, and sent a warning to Tang Mo.

"First, let's figure out how to help Bolton deal with the tanks... After all, if we lose Bolton, there will be problems with the supply of rubber from the direction of Jade City," Tang Mo said, his main concern actually being the special industrial resource of rubber.

There was no way around it; he could import oil from the Ice Cold Empire, Songmu Kingdom, Suthers Kingdom, and the Empire of Nanla. The oil reserves on Dragon Island could also supply, and the production capacity was quite high.

Steel and rare metals were not a big problem for Tang Country, given its vast territory, and could also be imported from elsewhere.

Only rubber, which could only be produced in the south, was an indispensable resource, which is why Tang Mo placed particular importance on it. This was also the reason he positioned Bolton and Strauss in important positions in Dorne.

"From the direction of Jade City, we only have one infantry division... and it's a newly expanded unit with actually not very strong combat capability... If they move south..." Luff reminded Tang Mo with some trepidation.

Great Tang Kingdom had not yet completed the expansion of its troops; although there were divisions with their numbers, not many were fully staffed and combat-ready.

Moreover, according to Nangong Hong's design, the main forces were all within the territory of the Great Tang Kingdom, while the troops stationed in places like Jade City and Brunas were actually second-line skeleton divisions, whose combat power was not really impressive.

Although by the world's standards, the second-line troops of Great Tang Kingdom were certainly formidable, if it really came to a war of attrition, Tang Mo might not be willing to let them take part.

In the past, he would sit back and watch two groups fight to the death, unconcerned about the scale of the chaos. But now, if he had to commit his own people, that was a different matter altogether.

"What a joke, why should we get involved ourselves?" Tang Mo looked at a somewhat nervous Luff and quickly waved his hand.

Luff also heaved a sigh of relief. As long as the troops that were not yet ready were not pushed to the front lines to send valuable soldiers to their death, he felt there was nothing to be nervous about.

"Since Shireck isn't taking the field, we'll just continue to watch the play! But we do need to give Bolton some support, at least to ensure he can hold off Gobur's offensive," Tang Mo said, catching the beef Yue'er passed to him with his mouth, swallowing it in one bite, and then speaking.

Ever since Tang Mo's trade caravans brought back spices from all over the world, the food on Dragon Island could truly be said to be the best of what the world had to offer.

To make his own stomach more content, Tang Mo really put in a great deal of effort. Though he liked to cook, he was a novice and belonged to that category who wasted a lot on high-quality ingredients as they played around in the kitchen.

Despite his lacking cooking skills, Tang Mo was definitely a gourmet, a top-tier foodie whose eating prowess was unmatched in the world.

He kept dozens of chefs just to busily cater to his own needs every day, a lifestyle that was utterly luxurious to the extreme.

But no one would ever think Tang Mo was being wasteful because he truly was the richest man in the world.

The quantity of gold under his feet may not have increased much recently, but it still maintained a terrifying amount. Enjoy new chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

Don't even mention having a bite or a drink, frankly speaking, even if he went gambling, the family fortune could cover the losses for quite a while.

The taste of black pepper stimulated Tang Mo's taste buds. This Western meal, or rather, the Brunas Black Pepper Steak from the Tang family's grand feast, indeed tasted good.

With a complete set of grilling equipment in the kitchen, the delicate skills of the chef, and Tang Mo's precise recipe references, the restoration of this meal was quite high. Being able to taste familiar flavors in an alternate world was something Tang Mo did indeed miss dearly.

"Temporarily produce a batch of special bullets, just follow the previous blueprints... Send them to Bolton first! Besides..." Tang Mo paused, then continued, "Tell Bolton to directly modify some anti-aircraft guns for direct fire. Make do with that for now."

At this point, Tang Mo's face revealed a hint of a barely there smile: Rommel's big move, the old trick of the 88mm all-purpose gun—it was now up to Bolton to make this tactic shine in the alternate world.

Luff was taken aback, he hadn't expected Tang Mo to really not take the opponent's tanks seriously. In fact, he was wrong about Tang Mo; Tang Mo had even overestimated the performance of the opponent's tanks.

Because there were no photos, the description of the opponents' tanks in the telegrams sent by Bolton was not very precise, so Tang Mo thought that the completion level of the tanks they had produced was quite high.

If Tang Mo had known that what they had come up with was similar to the shoddy A7V tanks, he might have simply told Bolton to makeshift some anti-tank rifles.

However, Luff remained silent, simply nodding: "Understood, I will immediately send a telegram to Bolton!"

Tang Mo didn't intend to keep him around like a third wheel. If Luff hadn't come in to deliver the telegram, Tang Mo and Yue'er might have ended up eating all the way into the bedroom.

Unfortunately, his mood had been interrupted, and Tang Mo was no longer intent on dragging the novel into a 404 error, so he instructed the departing Luff, "By the way, stop by Roger's office and ask him to come to my office..."

"Oh right!" He had just finished speaking when he remembered the matter of the airships. He then added, "Also pass the airship intelligence to Bolton! Since he's already suffered a setback, we should help him make up for it a little. Otherwise, if he loses, wouldn't our Great Tang graduates' undefeated record be tarnished?"

"Yes!" Luff responded immediately after hearing this.

The Dragon's Den was now large in scale, with many peripheral offices. The Prime Minister's office was not far from the core building of the Dragon's Den, so asking Luff to pass a message was convenient.

Roger soon arrived at Tang Mo's office, just as Tang Mo had just had Yue'er sent back to school.

Wiping the lipstick from his cheek, Tang Mo casually tossed the silk scarf aside and said to the incoming Roger, "Shireck's new tanks have entered the fray, causing considerable trouble for Bolton at the Dorne southern front."

Roger was also slightly startled upon hearing this news, then realized the crux of the matter, "I hadn't expected them to gain the upper hand!"

"Indeed! With the war serving as an advertisement, their tanks will definitely sell well for a while. We've ultimately swallowed a dumb loss," Tang Mo said to Roger with a smile, "But, actually, it's not a big problem."

"Backed by a nation, we can no longer sell advanced weaponry recklessly like Shireck..." Roger said with some regret.

Many of Great Tang's higher-ups were accustomed to their previous merchant identities and had yet to make the transition, so Tang Mo found Roger's reaction unsurprising.

"Every advantage has its disadvantage; it's an unavoidable situation," Tang Mo waved his hand, "And we haven't truly been surpassed, so there's no need to worry."

He looked at Roger, paused for two seconds, and then continued, "I've already had someone telegram Harry, to quickly produce a batch of tanks in Jade City's automobile factory and Dragon City's tractor factory to compete with Shireck in the market!"

"Using our tanks to compete in the market? Isn't that an overkill?" Roger was still planning for Great Tang's tanks to make a big splash in the next war.

"Of course, we can't use our Model 4; that would be insanity," Tang Mo waved his hand dismissively, a cunning look on his face, "the Mark I...or perhaps the Mark IV... would do just fine."

In this world, the technology used by the Great Tang Kingdom itself was still too advanced, and Tang Mo felt that by fobbing off some outdated technology, he could make a good profit from a bunch of wealthy fools.

As for technological dominance, that was something to use when his own troops were beating others, not the other way around.

"Mark I? Mark IV?" Roger, who wasn't in charge of the technical aspects, was bewildered by these bizarre codenames—codenames that would be ambiguous even in the 21st century; who knew whether you were referring to the British World War I tanks or Iron Man's alloy armors?

"Don't worry about it, this task can be left to Harry," Tang Mo looked completely confident.

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Two chapters resume, thank you everyone for your concern, Dragon Spirit will strive to write diligently!