Munitions Empire

At Flame Castle, Sofia closed the ledger and tiredly massaged her temples. She had recently emerged victorious in the wave of internal mergers at Shireck, having almost completely acquired all the industries under the old smiley tiger's name.

In addition, she had also bought over a few other directors and expanded her power, almost truly turning Shireck into her personal echo chamber.

During this process, she upgraded many of her factories and invested in building many new-style factories, almost completing the modernization and industrial transformation of her industries.

To be able to accomplish industry transformation with such high efficiency and to embrace the countless new technologies from Great Tang Group, one must admit that Sofia was exceptional.

Not just that, she also almost single-handedly spearheaded Shireck's automotive industry. Even though the car brand was now called Gobur, its sales were finally picking up.

Shen Country and Zheng Country, which did not get along with Great Tang Group, both purchased some cars from Shireck. Although the performance of these cars was average, the prices were also modest, appealing to the masses; naturally, they sold well.

Ice Cold Cars had always been competing with Gobur Cars; both brands took the same approach. The automotive technology from the Dwarves was better, but Gobur Cars were a bit cheaper.

Overall, both had become the new popular cars, crazily contesting the mass automotive market alongside Brunas's People's Car.

"Giving me the airship technology so easily... It looks like Tang Mo is up to no good," Sofia played with her red hair by her ear and sighed before speaking out.

The Marquise sitting beside her sniffed dismissively and said, "There's nothing strange about that, we did pay for it after all..."

"Do you think money solves everything?" After giving her confidante a glance, Sofia leaned back in her chair to rest with her eyes closed and said, "Do you know how long I begged, and Mr. Tang from Great Tang Group was still reluctant to share the propeller sealing technology with me?"

"Wasn't it... two months later?" The Marquise was taken aback by this, then instinctively asked.

"That's exactly what I'm concerned about," Sofia pointed to the telegram on her table and explained, agitated, "He stalled me for half a year on the battleship propulsion technology and gave it begrudgingly, but when it came to airship technology including gas filling preparation, factory equipment, and staff training, he didn't even think before he just bundled it all up and gave it to me..."

Pausing, she frowned and added, "All in all, considering his character, I always feel like there's some trick he's pulled behind our backs with this airship transfer that we are unaware of!"

"So we reject it?" The Marquise asked unwillingly. She was aware of the airship market prices; even if the prices dropped slightly, selling one for 100,000 would still make them a fortune.

"Reject it? That's out of the question... I just want to anticipate and take countermeasures in advance, to avoid being caught off guard when Tang Mo targets us," Sofia said, fingers resting on the edge of the telegram on the table and staring at the paper.

This was a telegram sent back by her maid; similar telegrams had been increasing recently, and the news was getting heavier and heavier for Sofia.

Some telegrams were about some of the technological innovations of Great Tang Group. They seemed unremarkable, but these things were genuinely changing everything.

Take for instance, everyone produced steel plates, but the width of the steel plates produced by Great Tang Group was noticeably improving, with the widest plates even nearing 3 meters, and this wasn't even their most advanced work.

Similarly, the area of glass produced by Great Tang Group was also gradually improving, and a new type of skyscraper with floor-to-ceiling windows had appeared on Dragon Island, significantly enhancing the indoor lighting effect.

For Sofia, these details were not funny in the slightest; they directly reflected a reality: even though Shireck was making endless efforts to catch up, the fact was the technological gap between Shireck and Great Tang Group was not closing but was instead rapidly widening.

Modern science and technology is just like rolling a snowball; it's tough when starting with your hands to make a snowball, but once you roll it on the ground, it gets bigger and bigger. And as it rolls, the larger it becomes, the easier it is to grow.

Great Tang Group's development followed the same principle. In the beginning, it was not easy for Tang Mo to produce a piece of machinery; it was done relying on manual cutting by workers, bit by bit, painfully aligning pieces until it was barely usable.

But now, various machine tools are quite perfected and producing more precise machinery is, in fact, easier.

That's because Great Tang Group had accumulated more skilled workers and had formulated production experiences that were more in tune with reality.

The small gaps between Tang Mo's design blueprints and actual construction were being filled in through practice, and Great Tang Group's technological progress became even more pleasant.

Now, although Shireck could produce cars more advanced than the T model, Great Tang Group's new People's Car Model 2 already had more advanced and powerful technology.

Even more exaggerated, Great Tang Group's automobile production line has reached the level of producing several thousand cars each month — losing to Shireck not only in terms of quality but also in quantity, and losing thoroughly.

This is merely the automobile sector. If other areas were taken into account, the gap would be even wider.

Great Tang Group was not only making a fortune on anti-aircraft guns and airship projects but was also mass-producing more 155mm caliber howitzers, 150mm caliber long barrel naval guns, 120mm caliber naval guns, 75mm caliber field guns...

At the same time, Great Tang Group's shipyards were also starting construction of over 20 new-type destroyers, more than 10 Brunas-class ironclad warships, 5 wolf-class cruisers and 3 Jade City-class battleships.

Just this shipbuilding capability, in fact, was nearly on par with the British Empire before World War I. Today's Great Tang Group's shipbuilding industry was a complete production monster.

What Shireck didn't know was that Great Tang Group was actually also producing airplanes and tanks, more general-purpose machine guns, and more advanced six-wheeled military trucks.

The newly formed 1st Armored Division of Great Tang Group was entirely a product beyond its time; it was achieving motorization, a concept that had not yet appeared in this world.

Every time Sofia thought about these things, she would be utterly dejected. While Great Tang Group was concentrating all its efforts and racing down the fast lane of technology, her own lead enterprise, the Shireck Consortium, was still wasting time.

That fat man was still proud of his ability to produce the Shireck Type 1 bolt-action rifle and the Shireck semi-automatic pistol (Mauser Bolt-Action Rifle), while he and that flashy woman were still incessantly producing outdated Ming Wheel Ships.

Sofia was powerless to stop their wasteful practices of slow self-destruction because these projects did indeed bring profit to Shireck.

But everyone knew that these things were outdated, especially those damned Ming Wheel Ships! Everyone knew they stood no chance against propeller-driven warships, yet there were still fools who came with orders!

Shen Country made another purchase of 10 such Ming Wheel Ships, while Zheng Country astonishingly ordered 30 in one go, and it was said that they might even place additional orders... Even more absurdly, the Dahua Empire and Chu Country, which originally hadn't placed great emphasis on naval development, also purchased a batch of Ming Wheel Ships, ranging from ten to twenty each.

Sofia didn't know what words to use to describe these fools who spent money on Ming Wheel Ships. They would have been better off buying more expensive but clearly more advanced warships from Great Tang Group!

She wasn't ignorant of the fact that there must be personal connections, kickbacks, and bribes involved in this murky business, but such shady deals also diluted Shireck's profits and influenced, or rather delayed, Shireck's industrial upgrade.

The docks that should have been expanded and fitted with new equipment were now working overtime to produce useless Ming Wheel Ships, making Sofia incredibly anxious.

When Sofia said this, the Countess confirmed again, "So, do we still build the airship factory? The new factory that plans to produce more than three giant airships each month?"

"Of course! Even if just for the supporting chemical plant, this airship manufacturing factory should be established," Sofia replied immediately. "We should build it, and expand the production scale if necessary!"

"I understand," the Marquise nodded, indicating she would personally see to this matter: "Leave it to me."

"Additionally, we must not halt our secret weapon project!" Sofia continued to reiterate. "Our that... brand new 'War Vehicle Project'!"

"I understand!" The Marquise nodded again, her face showing a proud smile. This project had been proposed by one of her subordinates, a craftsman, and unexpectedly, it became incredibly significant at a critical moment.

Shireck wasn't lacking in talented individuals. After Tang Mo had inspired the world, there were those within Shireck who thought about and tried to explore a new future.

The "airplane inventor" who went to find Tang Mo before, the "War Vehicle craftsman" within Shireck, after being nudged by Tang Mo, many stumbled forward, walking or running. Sofia, panting and trying to keep up, followed in Tang Mo's footsteps yet couldn't even catch his exhaust fumes.

Of course, more people chose to stand still, and there was no helping it: you can never expect everyone to keep up with the pace of world development. On the contrary, most will be left far behind by that pace.

Like the decision-makers in Shireck who insisted on building Ming Wheel Ships, like those decision-makers who insisted on purchasing Ming Wheel Ships...

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Well, I won't make up for the missed updates today, rest and adjust.