To tell the truth, the improved delicacies in the Brunas restaurants, thanks to Tang Mo's suggestions, had indeed made a deep impression on Gis.
He had never imagined that seafood, enhanced by Tang Mo's touch, would taste so delightful, nor had he expected the Brunas-style fried chicken to be so stunning.
All in all, Gis thoroughly enjoyed this meal, and even felt that coming just for this dining experience was worth the trip.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin in a refined manner, and redirected the conversation back to their previous flattery-filled idle chat, "Mr. Tang, I heard from others that you have a rather remarkable military workshop?"
"Hmm? Mr. Gis, who told you that?" Tang Mo hadn't even put down his knife and fork, and looked at Gis with surprise, adding, "I almost forgot, I do have such a small workshop."
Neither of them had introduced themselves from the beginning, not even after Gis introduced the Minister of Construction Baus, did he take the initiative to introduce himself.
But it seemed as though both sides had known each other for a long time, or rather they had both thoroughly investigated the other's background; thus, neither asked questions nor offered self-introductions.
Tang Mo knew that Gis was one of the heads of the Shireck Consortium and a person of influence within the Leite Kingdom.
Gis also knew that Tang Mo was that secretive weapons manufacturer who had developed a weapon surpassing the Shireck Firearms, quite the irritant indeed.
It would be overly false to pretend to be meeting for the first time, given they were so well-acquainted; in reality, though they had never met face-to-face, their minds had certainly met long ago.
Now that the topic had turned to the workshop, Gis became very serious, "I heard that... the weapons produced by your workshop are significantly better than those manufactured by the Shireck Consortium?"
"You're making me blush with such comments... In truth... indeed, what you've said is accurate," Tang Mo said, seemingly embarrassed as he shyly admitted it.
"In half a year's time, you've provided Northern Ridge with 2000 of these firearms?" Gis, furrowing his brows, voiced his own confusion.
In fact, he wasn't confounded by advanced weaponry; Shireck Firearms had been mass-produced for a century, and it wasn't strange for a new type of weapon to emerge over such a long period.
Even Shireck themselves were engaged in this kind of research and revolution, but they simply hadn't succeeded yet.
What truly caused Shireck to lose complete control over the Northern Ridge issue this time was something that neither Gis nor the other heads of Shireck could fathom would occur within such a short span of half a year.
If not for their complacency, the critical intelligence that Tang Mo had re-equipped Northern Ridge with firearms would not have remained undelivered to Gis until the outbreak of the war.
It was Tang Mo's production methods, which were ahead of their time, that plunged Shireck into a blind spot and subsequently led to their defeat in the war.
From this perspective, what truly vanquished Shireck were not the 2000 breechloading rifles or the rear-loading field cannons, but rather Tang Mo's steam engines and the corresponding machine tool equipment.
"Er, actually, it was 3000 firearms," Tang Mo said, still with a modest and bashful demeanor, but his words made Gis tremble all over.
The capability to produce a total of 3000 firearms within half a year fascinated Gis more than Tang Mo's new model firearms.
At that moment, Gis felt his heartbeat quicken as countless possibilities flashed through his mind—possibilities that could change his life forever.
He thought of eliminating Tang Mo, then absorbing Tang Mo's assets to use as leverage, catapulting himself into becoming a new shareholder of the Shireck Consortium.
He also considered claiming Tang Mo's innovations for himself, then bargaining with Shireck, or even turning against them to become the next founding figure of Shireck Consortium.
In short, he contemplated many things, to the point where he even forgot to continue his conversation with Tang Mo. Not one to be rushed, Tang Mo continued to eat his meal, waiting for Gis to speak first.
Sure enough, after a long spell of distraction, Gis was the first to break the silence. Staring at Tang Mo, he began, "Your production technology has left a deep impression on me; now we can have a proper talk... What do you say? Name your price."
Tang Mo swallowed his bite of food, looked curious, and with a touch of disbelief asked, "What? Are you planning to buy everything?"
"Hmm, why not," Gis suddenly felt much more at ease, sensing that Tang Mo didn't seem to reject his proposal.
It appeared that Tang Mo feared the power of Shireck and intended to make a profit and leave. This was clearly a good turn of events, simplifying the whole matter significantly.
As long as Tang Mo wasn't set on opposing the Shireck Consortium, then there was ample room to maneuver. Money was just a number to Shireck after all; a hundred thousand Gold Coins? This young man called Tang Mo probably had never seen so much money in his life, right?
After some contemplation, Tang Mo evaluated his enterprise seriously and finally stated a price he believed was acceptable, "Approximately... 6 million Gold Coins? Or maybe 6.5 million."
He felt that if the Shireck Consortium was truly willing to spend money to purchase all the industries here, he would still be willing to part with them.
He could take such a large sum of money to Northern Ridge and become a wealthy man, starting anew by setting up industries and creating a new factory.
Baus almost spat out the delicious fried chicken he was eating. He glanced at Tang Mo with an expression like he had just heard the King had been shot dead.
Then, he turned to look at Gis, who had choked on his words and hadn't spoken for a long while—on his face, Baus saw an expression not much different from his own.
"Are you joking?" Gis finally managed to squeeze out a sentence.
"You think it's not worth the price?" Tang Mo wore an incredulous look, surprised as he looked at Gis and retorted with a question.
"..." Gis really wanted to slam the table and yell at Tang Mo, "Do you have any idea how much 6 million Gold Coins is?"
The entire Leite Kingdom might not even be worth that much! If you offered the King 6 million Gold Coins, he might even consider allowing you to be the de facto ruler of half the kingdom!
What a joke, that's a fortune that would take hundreds of carriages to transport, a wealth that would make anyone rich enough to rival nations!
Even if Shireck was extraordinarily wealthy, it was impossible for them to come up with so much money at once. Because such a large sum could no longer be called a transaction.
Or, to put it another way, for a transaction worth a total of 6 million Gold Coins, Shireck might prefer to pay by other means—such as war.
Finally, Gis suppressed the urge to slam the table, adjusted his breathing, and said with a cold laugh, "I have to admit, you are a formidable businessman, a pure businessman... I'm starting to like you a bit."
"Thank you. So, does Shireck plan to pay me?" Tang Mo asked again with curiosity, as if he cared more about the deal itself.
Gis had already begun to contemplate getting rid of Tang Mo; he even thought that the young man sitting in front of him was a very, very dangerous figure.
In his mind, he had even started to calculate how to mobilize the troops and teach Tang Mo a vivid lesson after returning, "You better be realistic. If I had 6 million Gold Coins, I could mobilize 300,000 soldiers and crush everything you have."
"Well, you could try... I wouldn't mind," Tang Mo shrugged nonchalantly.
"I can't give you that much money. Think of something else," Gis said, feeling a headache coming on.
After some serious contemplation, Tang Mo very solemnly said to Gis, "Alright then, I want the Leite Kingdom."
"Hmm?" Gis was taken aback, unsure of what Tang Mo meant by wanting the Leite Kingdom.
On his part, Tang Mo didn't keep Gis waiting for long and smoothly began, "I want Shireck to exit the market of the Leite Kingdom, let me become the Kingdom's weapon supplier... Additionally, I want all the mining rights within the Kingdom, everything controlled by Shireck, to be transferred to me!"
"Aren't you a bit too greedy?" Gis did a rough calculation and felt that Tang Mo's demands were certainly not cheap.
The mineral deposits of the Leite Kingdom were not small, especially those in Northern Ridge, most of which were controlled by the Shireck Consortium and were definitely valuable when summed up.
Considering the price of a mining site at tens of thousands of Gold Coins, just this request of Tang Mo could be described as quite valuable.
If you also factor in the initial investment in mining equipment and personnel, plus Shireck's years of painstaking efforts in the Leite Kingdom, the connections, and all sorts of other messy details... the price would be even more considerable.
By Gis's estimate, everything added up would be worth over 3 million in actual value.
What made Gis even more pained was that the Kingdom's troops would have to be refitted with new weapons and equipment, which would also certainly amount to a large sum of money.
All things considered, it seemed that Tang Mo hadn't lowered the price by much, so Gis also felt it was unbearable.
"You see, there's a serious discrepancy between us on this matter..." Tang Mo said with a smile as he picked up his glass of wine, signaled Gis with a gesture, and after they respectfully toasted each other from a distance and each took a sip, Tang Mo continued speaking.
"Oh?" Gis looked at Tang Mo with interest and queried.
Tang Mo pointed at himself and said, "You Shireck think that the market you have now will always be yours. But in reality, that's not the case, the market could belong to Shireck, or it could be mine!"