Munitions Empire

It was a foundation first padded with broken stones, and then every once in a while, long, plank-shaped boards were laid down, similar to those used for building wooden houses.

Then, the long, I-beam shaped rails were laid on top of these sleepers—these construction workers didn't even know that these long pieces of wood were called sleepers.

They just did the same work every day, even eating casually, dining on simple fare provided by the canteen staff right beside the railway tracks.

The most common was a vegetable burger, followed by large pancakes stuffed with minced meat and vegetable leaves. In short, they prepared whatever was most convenient.

Every few days, they would have a decent meal, with an extra serving of soup and potatoes, along with a sauce called "soy sauce."

This thick, black liquid was very salty and couldn't be eaten directly, but when mixed into the potatoes, the taste was pretty good.

Anyway, life on the construction site was actually very hard, but everyone was fairly satisfied, at least they could sleep inside tents.

As Toby was hammering the nail with his hammer, some ashes fell on his head, as if a drizzle of fine rain was falling incessantly from the sky.

In the far distance, in the direction of the Vicious Forest, the thick smoke rising from the burning flames had not yet dissipated; these days, they had witnessed such a scene every day.

Yes, every day, it had been like that since twenty-odd days ago until a few days ago when the thick smoke gradually began to clear. But even until today, the smoke had not completely dispersed, and it was visible at a glance.

Even from such a distance, they could see it clearly. It must have been a very large forest fire, so massive that it was frightening.

Along with this fire, the air quality in Brunas had fallen another magnitude. People walking on the streets would soon find their shoes covered in dust, which made Brunas seem nothing like a seaside city.

The rolling black smoke in the sky could be seen clearly in Brunas; the fire was started by Tang Mo's construction team, as they were burning vast expanses of forest.

The speed of cutting down trees was just too slow, so Tang Mo decided to take advantage of the dry weather in spring and do something more straightforward and brutal.

His construction team only created a circular "firebreak" around the factory site, and then they couldn't wait to start a big fire.

With recent developments, Brunas had grown into a city where every inch of land was precious—it had truly become a city, with a population that had now surpassed one hundred thousand, definitely qualifying it as a real city.

Before, the population of Brunas had always hovered around seventy thousand and had never been able to grow.

But as Tang Mo's factories attracted more and more workers, and their families followed, Brunas finally became a city.

After the population census, the mayor of Brunas happily sent his achievements to the King City, and King City happily promoted him from mayor to the local Lord of the City.

This had also become an unwritten rule; after all, expanding a town's size was definitely one of the greatest achievements a local administrator could boast.

If a town was upgraded to a city and its local mayor, sheriff, and others were transferred away immediately, who would be willing to seriously work on developing the local population and economy?

Tang Mo naturally congratulated the newly promoted mayor and the Solon Sheriff. And the Brunas tax officer, Simon, who had originally been the least noticeable old bureaucrat, had thrown his lot in with Tang Mo early, becoming Tang Mo's "subordinate."

This old man had vision and courage. After Tang Mo and Shireck signed the cooperation agreement, he bet everything on Tang Mo's side.

In his words, "In my lifetime, I have never seen a contract that could make Shireck pinch his nose and sign to his own disadvantage, so betting on this, I won't lose!"

Then, the day after he swore allegiance to Tang Mo, the forest fire in the Vicious Forest started, covering the entire Brunas City in a haze of dust.

"Hurry up and work! Stop dawdling!" a foreman carrying a wooden stick walked past everyone—not that he used the wooden stick to beat the disobedient, but rather he simply used it as a walking cane.

Because he had to patrol this special road back and forth every day, he had to walk a very long distance, so he prepared a cane for himself.

Everyone worked with high enthusiasm, because the conditions provided by Tang Mo were actually very good.

On one hand, there were the wages provided by Tang Mo, which, along with various other messy benefits, were far superior to those of other workshops at the time, as there weren't many bosses as wealthy as Tang Mo.

On the other hand, Tang Mo's comprehensive welfare packages, including education, indeed surpassed the standards of the era by far too much.

And it was the second point that was the main reason all the workers saw a hopeful future in their lives and were willing to work their lives away for Tang Mo.

They saw that Tang Mo would hire doctors, establish factory hospitals, and earnestly treat soldiers wounded in war as well as workers injured on the job. Even more, once a workplace injury was confirmed, Tang Mo would provide full coverage for the treatment costs, which was nearly unimaginable at the time.

Besides the hospitals, the construction of schools was also evident to everyone, for Tang Mo's office wasn't yet complete, so the school became the tallest building within the entire factory.

Within this building, students were receiving new knowledge every day, which was gradually making a name for itself in Brunas.

In the laboratory inside the teaching building, Tang Mo had already taught many children the most basic knowledge of chemistry, thus immediately advancing these apprentices beyond the city's alchemists to become complete chemical "scholars" with a thorough theoretical foundation.

The children who learned mathematics could intern in various shops around the city, where they calculated revenue, balanced costs, and greatly assisted many business owners. These students were now very popular, with each one in high demand.

Through learning and Tang Mo's military training education, most of Brunas's children had become far stronger than other children of their age. The girls were becoming more and more graceful, and the boys too were growing strong and robust.

With an improved diet providing ample meat, eggs, and milk, and their families becoming wealthier thanks to stable employment, these children all exceeded the height and weight averages of the era.

They were about 3 centimeters taller on average than other city children and had broader shoulders. They also spoke more logically.

Seeing their children grow up strong and healthy, Brunas's parents were naturally more willing to work for Tang Mo—after all, who wouldn't want a capable person to emerge from their household?

Even those who were not yet married and without children had something to look forward to: If they had children in the future, they could be sent to school to receive the best education.

Yes, the best education! These parents had no doubt that Tang Mo was providing their children with the best education of the era.

Because in less than a year's time, the changes in these children could be described as nothing short of tremendous.

Dressed in quasi-military school uniforms, the students, resembling soldiers, had begun to feel that they were different from children elsewhere. They felt they were people from a different world than children who had not studied in school.

Similarly, the officers who were studying in the military academy also discovered that their horizons far surpassed those of their peers.

They could now easily calculate artillery firing data and were just a few days away from conducting field investigations in the Vicious Forest.

These officers could glance at a location and determine where to deploy Rangers to assassinate enemy high-ranking officers, and with a mere inspection, they could pick out the best positions for artillery deployment.

These officers had visited Tang Mo's modern factories, witnessed the latest developments in industrial technology, and even personally manufactured or repaired the most advanced weapons and equipment.

Their tactics had become cunning and unpredictable; in military exercises, they could utterly demolish newcomers who had just started training.

Every few days, they had to devise combat plans and understand the supply situation of the troops. They knew how much food each company needed every day, how many wagons a battalion required, and how far an army corps could advance in a single day.

These were all things they had learned through firsthand experiments, practicing cross-country drills of over five kilometers daily while carrying a full set of soldier's equipment and supplies.

What delighted them even more was that their predecessors in the Northern Ridge military had seen their ranks soar, with several artillery commanders becoming the new favorites of Lord Earl.

They were appointed commanders of new units, these new battalion and artillery captains immediately thought of their "juniors" sent to study in Brunas.

Thus, the Northern Ridge officers still studying in Brunas were promoted and got raises even before they graduated.

Two new army corps vied for their service, either promising officer positions in letters or having leaders personally reaching out to establish warm relationships.

In short, the message was clear: once you graduate and join us, you'll be the darling of our battalion! And when I, your big brother, become a corps commander, you'll be a battalion commander, and so on...

Never before in this world had there been a school where the students were in such high demand by employers even while they were still in school.

So, in March of the year 114 of the Leite Kingdom, the factory school established by Tang Mo was officially renamed "Great Tang Military Academy," which included an affiliated "Preparatory Military Science Academy" for the junior cadets.