Just as Tang Mo was feeling good about himself, convinced his handsome smile could charm thousands of young girls, Yulin, a young girl who helped in the factory because there was no school today, rushed over in a hurry.
"Principal! Mr. Tagg has returned!" The young girl stood in front of Tang Mo and spoke in a voice that was just a bit louder than the machinery next to her, looking somewhat unnatural.
"Oh? Have him sort the items first and deliver them to the corresponding warehouses. I'll head over... to see him in a bit," Tang Mo casually instructed without much concern.
"You... You better come and see..." The young girl didn't turn and leave as before but hesitated as she reminded Tang Mo.
Tang Mo looked at the young girl, feeling that the situation might not be as simple as it seemed. He stood up, dusted his hands, and said to Roger, "I'll go take a look! The place is in your hands."
As he walked out of the workshop, Wes followed him. He had always been by Tang Mo's side, diligently doing his duty as a bodyguard.
The two made their way to the factory gate and saw Tagg overseeing soldiers unloading items from the wagons.
What rendered Tang Mo somewhat incredulous was the number of Northern Ridge civilians helping with the unloading—it was overwhelmingly many.
He strode to Tagg, who was busy directing soldiers familiar with the place to move items to the warehouses, and tapped Tagg on the shoulder.
"My lord!" Tagg's face lit up with joy when he saw Tang Mo. He proudly pointed to the unloading convoy and boasted to Tang Mo, "I brought everything you wanted!"
As he spoke, he went on to introduce, "Look over there, those seven carts are all Northern Ridge leather! Boar bristles! Lord Earl has collected quite a lot for you!"
Then he pointed to the lively crowd that looked like beggars, taking luggage from the wagons, and said to Tang Mo, "Look! Look here! These are all workers! To support the expansion of your workshop, Lord Earl sold one of his own workshops and sent all its workers to you!"
"All, all of them were sent to me?" Tang Mo asked in alarm.
"And there's more! Our young lady has specially found you a group of craftsmen, some blacksmiths and some apprentices. In short, all are valuable hands that can directly contribute to production," Tagg boasted obliviously.
He pointed further away, "Their families have come along too. I told them about the rules here, and many craftsmen are willing to move here. Everyone is eager to work for you. Now I realize how clever your strategy was to build dormitories!"
"Their families came too?" Tang Mo looked at Tagg, torn between laughter and tears, feeling as if he had been sent by the heavens to torment him.
"Indeed! More than 700 craftsmen came, and along with relatives and children, there are roughly 1600! With so many people, your place can be directly promoted to a workshop!" Tagg thought Tang Mo's stunned expression must be out of sheer happiness.
In fact, Tang Mo was worried about taking in so many people all at once! He truly did not have enough food to support so many.
Then, as he stood there stupefied and frowning, Tagg announced something even more devastating to him.
"Hmm, Lord Earl heard about the school you're running and has sent you two teachers as support... and he thinks your idea is right, education is of paramount importance for development. He's decided to invest in your school," Tagg said, taking out a contract.
As he unfolded the contract, Tagg continued, "Lord Earl is ready to put in 300 Gold Coins... cough... to be paid in five installments, to fund your school and to send... 300 students to your school."
"You're joking," said Tang Mo, not intending to take in 2000 people all at once. He knew what kind of scale 2000 people were!
That was almost the population of a village! The total population! The monthly consumption of food and necessities for that many people was enough to bankrupt him.
Moreover, he had no way to increase his income in the short term, and obviously, supporting so many workers for free was irrational.
The situation was not developing in the direction Tang Mo had hoped for. What he really wanted was elite workers and a large amount of materials, as well as currency that would allow him to buy things at will.
But the reality turned out to be that Tang Mo hoped to eat a watermelon, but Lord Earl was ready to dump a cartload of apples on him...
"No joke! Over two thousand people! It was exhausting walking all this way here. You have no idea, I could have returned yesterday if I had only brought the convoy," Tagg twisted his neck and said with a serious expression.
"Two thousand people!?" Tang Mo's eyebrows danced, he could accommodate two thousand people here, but he certainly couldn't afford to keep two thousand people.
This was a matter of two thousand people! He wasn't a philanthropist, was he crazy? To take care of two thousand people! Moreover, with his current production capacity, even if he truly took in two thousand people, and the entire Leite Kingdom came to purchase Tang's K1 Quick Guns, he could barely manage to sustain his own factory.
Tang Mo had ways to increase the production capacity of his factory, he also had countless new weapons that could be produced, that could become flagship products, ensuring that these weapons were the most advanced in the world.
But what he couldn't guarantee was how many customers would show up at any given time; he couldn't be certain that after increasing his production capacity, he would be able to sell the weapons promptly.
Without being in contact with definite buyers, he didn't dare to expand the production capacity to a level beyond his control.
The earlier expansion was based on investing in the Earl, on the prediction that the Earl would win the battle at Northern Ridge, which was different from the present situation.
In fact, Tang Mo had already increased the production capacity to a level he was quite satisfied with. To stretch it any higher would be courting disaster.
"How am I supposed to feed these two thousand people?" Tang Mo, somewhat annoyed, looked at Tagg and questioned, "Not to mention providing housing for them, just finding food for them, do you know how much that would cost?"
He didn't wait for Tagg to respond and continued, "The problem is, so much food at once, Brunas may not even be able to buy it…"
"You don't have to worry about that!" Tagg said with a smile. "The food reserves in Northern Ridge are quite abundant because Lord Earl values agricultural production and doesn't impose high taxes on farmers, so we have always been exporting our food."
"Recently, the King targeted Lord Earl by purchasing a large amount of food from other Kingdoms and the Shireck Consortium, deliberately suppressing Northern Ridge's food selling price, resulting in a massive surplus of food," Tagg recited the message Alice had instructed him to deliver: "Therefore, the young mistress has directly brought the food to you along with everything else…"
As he spoke, more people and more carts poured into the yard, the noisy scene frightening a group of children who had come to see what was happening.
They had truly never seen so many people all at once. Although Brunas City, as a port city, was bustling, it was rare to see such a crowd in the suburbs.
With an ample food supply, Tang Mo breathed a sigh of relief—he saw dozens of carts belonging to Northern Ridge, which were likely reserved for troop deployment and transport of supplies. Now these carts had all been brought out ahead of time to bring a large amount of supplies to Tang Mo.
When Tang Mo received the list of supplies from Tagg and saw the figures, he abruptly looked up at the dust-covered Tagg: "What is Lord Earl up to? He's sent me all his reserve supplies?"
"No!" Tagg lowered his voice. After Wes wisely took a few steps back, he spoke to Tang Mo: "We raided a steel convoy of the Shireck Consortium…"
"…" Tang Mo, looking at Tagg who had always been honest, was nearly tempted to reach out and see if he could peel off a latex mask from the other's face. He had no idea this loyal soldier could actually commit an act akin to highway robbery.
"We didn't kill the Guards; they were all our own people. We set it up in advance, so that's how we managed to deliver so many carts undetected here," Tagg knew what Tang Mo was thinking and explained with a wry smile: "For this purpose, we've exposed the spies we had planted; we can only do this once..."
"Once is enough, how many times do you think you want to do it?" Tang Mo laughed and patted Tagg's shoulder: "When these convoys go back, they can take an additional 170 newly made K1 Quick Guns! Our production speed is very fast! But the raw materials are also used up quickly."
He gestured Tagg to follow him to a slightly quieter corner, looking at the crowded crowd in the yard, he said: "But you have brought enough steel, so delivering more K1 Quick Guns on time will certainly be no problem."
"Lord Earl has already given more than enough, far surpassing the payment he owed! Now, can we talk? What is it exactly that Lord Earl… wants to take from us?" Tang Mo's smile grew wider as he asked, not bothering to conceal it.
Tagg was nervous because this time he indeed had come with a request to buy more things—the request of Miss Alice.
This included the most core machinery used by Tang Mo to produce new weapons, the power system as big as a house: the steam engine.
According to Tagg and Fisheo's thinking, the steam engine was definitely something Tang Mo would be least willing to sell. It was Tang Mo's capital, the core technology of his development. To buy such technology was challenging Tang Mo in every possible way…
So, after considering for a moment, he looked at Tang Mo and struggled to speak, testing the waters by asking, "We, we would like… the steam engine."