Once the dust had settled, Tang Mo knew that the war had truly come to an end. The Spring Festival had also passed, and the weather wasn't as cold as before.
In the days that followed, Tang Mo was extremely busy. He was busy integrating the slaves who had been brought back, arranging their accommodations, their food, and their jobs.
Then, he busied himself with expanding the troops, growing the existing battalion of soldiers to the scale of two battalions.
But because of the lack of manpower, his expansion essentially meant that he had added roughly 100 people to his troops.
It appeared that Tang Mo now had two battalions at his disposal, but in reality, one battalion was just a shell, having a command structure but no soldiers to support it. always on m|vl|e|mp|y|r
After all, Brunas was too small; it seemed incapable of sustaining Tang Mo's endless expansion. Compared to the entire scale of Brunas, the Great Tang Group seemed larger in size and volume...
Nowadays, the Great Tang Group had almost swallowed up half of Brunas: its industries, its population, and even its officials were all working for the operation of Tang Mo's large factory.
The last day of January in the 114th year of the Leite Kingdom had passed, and on the morning of the first day of February, when Tang Mo stepped out of his room to have breakfast, Silver Fox Tavern delivered a message that caught his attention.
The Kingdom's envoy was inspecting the surrounding small towns and cities of Brunas, removing quite a number of officials for neglect of duty and corruption.
This message also specifically compared with other places and discovered that this time, it seemed the Kingdom was only reorganizing the bureaucracy in the Brunas area.
"Now that's interesting," Tang Mo, holding the report, narrowed his eyes, "After all the maneuvering, they're finally targeting me, are they?"
He knew it was only a matter of time before this happened, and felt that Shireck's reaction was somewhat slow. With their moves already negated, Tang Mo was no longer afraid of Shireck, the colossal entity, in a direct conflict.
After all, if the other party got rough, it might well turn into a civil war within Leite Kingdom, and what held Shireck back was the Northern Ridge's already sizable 3,000 iron troops!
It was the same old problem: once Northern Ridge truly got involved, who would stop Fisheo's 1,500 Northern Ridge Legion from advancing south?
To this day, the problems Shireck needed to solve were not one, but two, in two directions.
One was Northern Ridge, which had become uncontrollable and sizable; the other was Brunas, enigmatic and seemingly always shrouded in a layer of mist.
Gis was sitting in his office, and on the desk before him lay a Tang's K1 Quick Gun.
The gun looked somewhat old, bearing marks of wear and tear, and within one of the scratches, indelible bloodstains were faintly visible.
Now, Northern Ridge had been equipped with more than 3,000 of Tang's K1 Quick Guns. With Shireck's influence and financial power, getting their hands on such a weapon wasn't too difficult a task.
During the past month, Shireck had not been idle; first and foremost, they needed to understand what exactly had helped Northern Ridge win the war!
It was known that Northern Ridge had only 1,500 soldiers, yet these 1,500 miraculously swept through 15,000 Suthers troops, defeating them disgracefully until they were forced to seek a humiliating peace.
Such an occurrence would have been impossible in the past, yet this impossibility had become reality. All signs indicated that the weaponry in the hands of Northern Ridge's troops was significantly better than the Shireck Flintlock Guns!
The war could be lost, and Suthers Kingdom could be easily let go to secure a good price, but the one thing Shireck couldn't tolerate was the presence of weapons on the battlefield that were superior to those they manufactured!
Thus, they did everything they could, taking advantage of Fisheo's recent annexation of the vast area south of the Ice Crystal River, where management couldn't catch up immediately, they found a loophole and got their hands on one of Tang Mo's needle guns.
In the quiet room stood a row of anxious craftsmen, heads bowed, not daring to look at Gis who was seated at the desk.
"This is a breechloader…" Gis caressed the spotty marks on the second-hand needle gun without glancing at the craftsmen, speaking to himself.
He opened up the breech, observing the sharp, slender firing pin, squinting and frowning as though trying to get a clearer view.
He picked up a matching paper cartridge from the table, inserted it into the chamber, and closed the breech, "Remember what you said?"
The craftsman on the far left, trembling like a leaf, hurriedly explained, "I've tried countless methods! You've seen it with your own eyes, my lord!"
After moving the gun aside, Gis stared coldly at the head craftsman, "That's correct, a few months ago, you assured me, full of conviction, that a breechloader was impossible."
"Yes..." The craftsman leader almost knelt on the ground, admitting with a cry.
Gis re-aimed the gun at the man, his tone still icy cold, and his pitch rose higher with his questioning, "But now, this gun lies right in front of me... Fisheo used this thing to defeat an army of Suthers ten times its size! And you! You told me it couldn't be produced!"
"My Lord..." The craftsman leader wanted to speak again.
"Bang!" The gunshot interrupted him, and an unpleasant smell of gunpowder filled the once clean office.
"Shut up!" Scolding the body that had collapsed on the ground and was still twitching, Gis said disdainfully, "Do you know how much money you took from Shireck? Three hundred Gold Coins a year! And yet, you failed the money!"
As he spoke, he pulled the bolt of the gun, meticulously, as though admiring it, cleaning the barrel with a brush: "Truly... a fine gun!"
"My Lord! I've seen the design of this thing! It's really not difficult! We can replicate it! We can replicate it!" Glancing at the body lying at his feet, the second craftsman hurriedly promised.
After loading the second paper cartridge into the chamber, Gis closed the bolt, skipped over the man who had spoken, and aimed at the third craftsman: "He says it can be replicated, with no difficulty, what about you?"
"My Lord..." The third craftsman knelt on the floor all at once, crying as he explained, "We, dozens of craftsmen, analyzed the bullets used by this thing."
"Everything else isn't difficult, the paper cartridge, gunpowder, bullet... we can actually make those, but, but... nobody knows the composition of the thing in the middle. It... we don't even know what it is..." The craftsman struggled to describe what Tang Mo had invented, the percussion cap.
Reverse engineering sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't. At least the craftsmen of Shireck couldn't figure out how to make mercury fulminate.
They couldn't just lick it, and then, like a sommelier, confidently nod their heads, then write down the composition and production steps on paper, right? Mmm, it's from '82, distilled, stirred not shaken...
"Bang!" The second shot fired, and the craftsman kneeling on the ground fell backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
"Click!" Gis pulled the bolt back and looked at his subordinate beside him.
The subordinate took the hint, walked over and pushed open the window. A chill instantly swept into the room, stoking the fire in the fireplace to burn more fiercely.
The smoke spreading through the room was thinned by the cold wind, and Gis continued to load the Tang's K1 Quick Gun: "It's simply perfect... faster rate of fire, easier to load."
"I've heard... Lord Earl's Personal Guard, and his officers... are also equipped with a new type of pistol that can fire continuously?" He blew into the barrel, pushed in the bullet, closed the bolt and aimed at the fourth craftsman: "Hmm?"
"I swear!" The craftsman swallowed, not daring to look at the blood that had pooled by his shoes, and managed to say, "Please... don't kill me..."
"I remember there was a Dwarf... what was his name...?" Gis pointed the gun at him, trying hard to recall the name that was close to being forgotten.
"Mathews..." The craftsman being pointed at with a gun, eventually reminded him with his eyes closed.
"Bang!" The sound of the gun, and the craftsman dropped in response.
"Right! Mathews!" Gis raised his head and looked at the fifth craftsman: "You said Mathews had gone mad! But now everything he said has come true! So it's not that Mathews was mad, but you all are... right?"
As he spoke, he continued to work the bolt: "If I hadn't trusted you back then, and instead had chased you out, then maybe... we wouldn't be facing this defeat today, would we?"
He was so angry he ground his teeth, and after reloading, he didn't wait for the other to explain and shot down the fifth craftsman too.
"Find Mathews! Tell him, I'll give him 400 Gold Coins a month! Let him lead the effort to replicate these rifles!" Gis finally stopped reloading, resting the rifle across his desk, and commanded fiercely.
"But... my Lord, no one knows where he's gone..." A subordinate reminded in a low voice.
"Go find him!" Gis suddenly shouted sharply, startling everyone.
"Find out as soon as possible what exactly the ignition mechanism inside is... As long as we figure that out, we can replicate this new type of weapon!" Gis looked at the rifle in front of him, his eyes shining: "The whole world is going to rearm... This will be Shireck's opportunity! If we seize this chance, we... will reach an unprecedented height!"
"Millions of orders for new weapons... Hahaha! Hahahahahaha!" His mad laughter mixed with the rolling gunpowder smoke in the room, brushing over the bodies that were beginning to cool.
Dragon Spirit is stockpiling manuscripts, there's been a recent surge... mmm, inside news...