Munitions Empire

She obtained a new set of equipment from Brunas and commenced a major construction project, installing a steam engine boiler within the originally modest-looking Earl's Mansion.

That's right, she installed a steam engine in her own home, and now, after complete installation and tuning, it's being connected to new devices...

An officer, looking at the busy workers, stated with a sense of pain, "Steam engines are very expensive! Do you know how much it costs to use this thing specifically to drive that gadget?"

In fact, he had visited the bullet manufacturing factory at Northern Ridge. A single steam engine could make a huge quantity of bullets, and its production efficiency was far greater than manual labor.

Northern Ridge, with Tang Mo's full support as an industrial base, could obtain far more support than the distant Poplar Kingdom.

Tang Mo had almost no reservations when it came to technology, transferring nearly all technologies except the major weapon, the Maxim, to Northern Ridge.

There was no helping it, considering he shamelessly seduced the daughter of the former Earl during the funeral period... well, or maybe it's the current Lady Earl that he seduced... That's the gist of it anyway.

With this additional relationship, the industrialization process at Northern Ridge hit the fast track. Alice enjoyed writing letters to Tang Mo, always proudly referring to Northern Ridge as her dowry.

Anyway, she now requests anything she wants with full entitlement, ending with "after all, what's mine is mine, and mine is also yours"... Hence, Tang Mo could only obediently pay up.

Even the telegraph, which was scarce even in Brunas, was promptly sold to Northern Ridge by Tang Mo... albeit at a slightly expensive price.

That's not a problem. When the United States sells F35 fighter jets to Japan, the price is astronomical, and there are no discounts either! Only steadfast allies can buy them; no matter how rich the rabbits are, they won't sell to them...

Another officer, standing beside him, a burly man who pretended to be profound, nodded at the steam engine that was being test-run and said, "It should be about right. Maybe you have a better way, like... perhaps pedaling this bicycle yourself?"

That bicycle is now linked to the steam engine. As long as the steam engine operates, it will rotate as well.

Because Northern Ridge didn't have a real power plant yet, they had to use such a primitive method to drive the telegraph machine's power system.

In fact, upon learning that Alice had installed a steam engine specifically for power generation in her mansion, Tang Mo immediately sent over the light bulb equipment—though that's a story for later.

Tang Mo's own factory had already implemented electrical lighting, with all industrial buildings equipped with electric lights, allowing around-the-clock operations.

This efficiency boost was beyond remarkable, as the shifts of workers generated enormous profits for Tang Mo.

In the newly built Factory No. 2 in the Vicious Forest, several of Tang Mo's new bullet production lines were already operating at full speed, barely meeting his nearly insatiable demand for bullets.

The factories in the forest were of a new type, producing metallic cartridges, so Tang Mo could finally audaciously increase the number of Maxim guns he owned into the double digits.

This was already a tremendous achievement, as in this era, a factory capable of producing enough bullets to supply the firing rate of ten machine guns was considered to have an amazing capacity.

Therefore, with the support of the new factory, Tang Mo installed four Maxim guns on his new warship, allowing for the deck of approaching enemy ships to be swept with gunfire.

Remember the design standards for the new ships? Yes, the Navy's new warships were planned to use six Maxim guns, but in the end, only four were installed!

It was still due to production capacity issues that Tang Mo eventually decided to reduce the number by two and allocated the spared guns to the second warship.

There was no way around it. Even a landlord's house doesn't boast unlimited supplies. Although Tang Mo was lavish, his factory's capacity was already significant; however, he couldn't possibly invest all resources into the Navy.

The officer, who had never seen a telegraph machine, still expressed his pain, "What a joke! I just don't understand why you would use an entire, expensive steam engine just for this thing?"

After all, he had seen steam engines powering equipment and producing various weapons—if they had an additional steam engine to produce C64 field guns, wouldn't Northern Ridge be able to have even more field guns?

As a military man, he didn't care if Northern Ridge's three legions were already equipped with thirty C64 field guns! In his view, it wouldn't be too much even if a legion was issued twenty C64 field guns!

After all, he didn't handle logistics or artillery personnel management; he simply wanted more cannons! And... more shells!

Following Tang Mo's advice, after the new Lady Earl took office, Northern Ridge conducted military exercises to demonstrate its power to both Leite Kingdom and Suthers Kingdom.