Munitions Empire

They had hefty salaries, which allowed them to purchase things they never dared dream of before: many workers even got new clothes, the first time in their lives they distinguished between work clothes and regular clothes.

Almost all workers had been assigned dormitories, which had their walls thickened with mud just before the winter snows, making them barely adequate for use.

Tang Mo even purchased 200 cows and 100 sheep, ensuring that every worker's family received meat for the festival.

Although, in Tang Mo's view, these were trivial matters, to these workers, Tang Mo was the one who brought them a happy life.

In fact, Tang Mo was earning money much slower than he was spending it, and his gold coin reserves were significantly shrinking, but his tangible enterprises were visibly expanding.

Despite the snowy and icy conditions, Tang Mo's factory was still being expanded frantically. Seven or eight factory buildings were under construction, just at a noticeably slower pace.

The railway work indeed had to be suspended, but the new factory's lumbering work was still ongoing.

"I hope everyone has a good Welcoming Spring festival, and then when spring arrives with blooming flowers, let us..." After watching the carriages bound for Northern Ridge disappear, Tang Mo turned back, ready to discuss the future with his confidants.

But before he could finish his speech, Dino rushed over, panting. The kid was panting heavily, dressed in thick cotton clothes, his little face beet red from the heat.

He ran up to Tang Mo and spoke with some nervousness, "Sir, there's a person, who looks like a monster, coming to find you!"

Tang Mo was taken aback, then subconsciously thought of John, but John was an attractive member of the Elf Race, and quite obviously different from a monster.

Then he considered Orcs or the Demon Race, but he quickly felt that it was unlikely for these races to seek him out at this time.

The kingdoms of these other races were mostly on further continents, or separated by thousands of miles of mountains, or vast abyssal oceans. Coming here to find him would definitely not be an easy task.

So he waved his hand and followed Dino, trudging through the dirty snow, and headed back to his shabby office. chapter hosted on m,vle-mpyr

The new office building had been planned out, but unfortunately, construction could only begin next spring. This building would be four stories tall, making it the tallest in Brunas.

Standing at the entrance to his shabby office, Tang Mo saw the so-called monster of a man. In fact, he was a human, just... rather ugly.

He weighed over four hundred pounds, had an undetectable neck yet stood at one meter ninety tall. Even Tang Mo, who was one meter eighty, felt completely overshadowed in his presence.

The man's arms were nearly as thick as Wes's legs. He stood there like a tank parked outside Tang Mo's room.

What made Tang Mo speechless was the man's face, tattooed with patterns as he had seen with the Maori people in a past life. The tattoos were ripped apart by scars, making his face appear ferocious and terrifying.

No wonder Dino said a monster had come; Tang Mo looked at the man and also thought he was a horrifying creature.

In the severe cold, the man was dressed in a heavy fur coat, which made him look like a wild boar become spirit, or an orangutan that had just learned to walk on two feet.

"My name is Qiumuluo..." The man adjusted his stance as he saw Tang Mo, and only then did Tang Mo notice the four Shireck Firearms tucked into Qiumuluo's chest.

The relatively large flintlock firearms, when placed on Qiumulo's chest, looked as cute as a set of toy guns.

Hearing the name Qiumuluo, Wes, who had been following behind Tang Mo, silently placed his hand on the revolver at his waist. He adjusted his stance and stared unwaveringly at the mountain in front of him.

"I've heard from others... that you're very rich?" Qiumuluo didn't spare Wes a glance but stared at Tang Mo with his deep voice.

"So what?" Tang Mo looked up slightly at the towering figure in front of him, unafraid as he retorted.

What a joke! Just because he looked like a tank, he thought he was one? As long as you're a carbon-based life form, my bullets can send you to heaven! Even if you really had impenetrable skin, I still have RPG shaped charges and the Red Truth!

In this world since Tang Mo's appearance, the old theory of basing combat ability on height and weight had already been discarded.

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What's the matter? Can't a short person use a machine gun? Can't a skinny kid fly a drone? Is the nuclear button pressed by a child not a nuclear button anymore?

"I have some stuff I'd like to get off my hands, wondering if you might be interested," Qiumuluo licked his lips like a pig foraging for food.

"Let's hear it, maybe I'll be interested," said Tang Mo, with no intention of inviting the guy into his room, even though it was icy and snowy outside.

The other party didn't seem to want to enter either, and immediately replied, "I'm a slave trader. I've heard you buy anything, so I came to ask if you... need slaves around here?"

At the mention of this, Wes and Tagg involuntarily frowned, because slaves were actually not that common these days.

Generally, the lower-deck sailors during voyages are slaves, probably the most widely used group of slaves in the world. The navies of each nation have slaves, most of whom are people left over from defeated nations, bought and used by the warring countries.

After all, the life of a lower-deck sailor, never seeing daylight, is extremely harsh. If not for slaves, ordinary people really wouldn't be able to bear such hardships.

Apart from these maritime slaves, some nobility keep a few slaves to do their work, maintaining private slaves as their sworn men, or simply owning some female slaves for a variety of purposes.

In any case, although countries do not outright ban slavery, they treat the word with considerable taboo and discuss the trade of slaves in a rather veiled manner.

However, this doesn't mean there aren't vicious people in this line of work, without any shame, too lazy to even cover up their disgrace.

Qiumuluo was clearly one of those scumbags, seizing people to sell as slaves and profiting from it.

"Why did you come to me?" Tang Mo didn't agree or decline but asked out of curiosity.

"These slaves were originally to be sold to Suthers' nobility, but now I can't find their people. I heard you buy anything, so I came to ask," Qiumuluo rubbed his nose with his carrot-like fingers, spat out a ball of phlegm, and spat it to the side.

Tang Mo saw the phlegm melt the snow, leaving a disgusting hole in the dark snow, he couldn't hide his look of disgust.

He raised his head, looking at Qiumuluo, and seriously warned, "I really hate people spitting all over the place, don't do it again!"

"..." Qiumuluo evidently did not expect someone to talk to him in such a tone about this issue. He was taken aback and then looked at Tang Mo again, his facial muscles seemed to be twitching.

"How many slaves do you have?" Tang Mo didn't wait for him to explode but diverted his attention with another question, "Thirty? Fifty?"

"I've got five hundred slaves! Old men and old women are the cheapest, 2 Gold Coins apiece! Men, women, children, all the same price! 5 Gold Coins each!" Qiumuluo suppressed his anger and answered coldly.

"I'll give you 3,000 Gold Coins! Remember! Never come here again!" Tang Mo waved his hand as if he was shooing away a fly.

"No need to be so eager to disassociate from me! We could have a long-term partnership! I can see you're a generous buyer, I'm willing to find you some better... women, female elves, cat women, female demi-humans..." Qiumuluo revealed a greedy smile, the previous anger swept away as soon as he began to bellow loudly.

"You may introduce people to me, civilians with nowhere to turn, homeless wanderers... But what do I need a bunch of slaves full of hatred for you ruining their lives for? What if they find out it was I who paid and you who did the deed that made them so miserable, and then they shoot me in the back of the head?" Tang Mo glared at Qiumuluo, his face grim and fierce as he spoke.

"Listen! What I want are people who can work, who can work with peace of mind, who are willing to strive for happiness, real people with flesh, brains, and thought! Normal people! Not slaves!" Tang Mo lowered his forehead, staring threateningly through the edge of his eyelids at Qiumuluo: "Whoever sent you, pass my message to them...

make sure to clean up a bit next time they come, or I'll chop off one of those carrot-like fingers of yours!... Scram!"

"You!" Qiumuluo's eyes, like bronze bells, flared with anger and with a shout, his hands pressed down on the butts of the two Shireck Firearms he wore on his chest.

But as soon as he got a grip on the two flintlock guns, Wes and Tagg simultaneously drew their revolvers from their waists, and four dark barrels were promptly aimed at Qiumuluo.

Qiumuluo instinctively sensed the danger. Judging by the speed at which the guns drew on him, both of the men holding the weapons were hard cases.

So, he dared not make another rash move; he did not want to fall over in this desolate place where even the snow was black.

"Don't force me to kill you!" Tang Mo stared into the other man's eyes and slightly tilted his head, signaling for the man to beat it, "Wes, take the men and bring those poor people back."

"Got it," Wes responded, his eyes filled with ill-intent as he sneered.

"We're not bandits, give him the money!" Tang Mo turned and headed towards his own house, apparently not wanting to linger there a moment longer: "But if I ever see him this disgusting again... remember to leave him one finger! He's so ugly, yet dares to go around scaring people!"

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