Munitions Empire

"What are you making there?" Alice asked listlessly, watching Tang Mo who had be sitting still for over an hour, fiddling with the strange parts in his hand.

"If I really had to name it… you could call it… a fuze," Tang Mo replied without taking his eyes off the componts in his hands, with a steady gaze.

"A fuze? What's that?" Alice, who had never heard the term, continued to ask with a puzzled look on her face.

"Perhaps it's a switch for some kind of superweapon in the future," Tang Mo said with a smile, threading a part made by Mathews through a spring, carefully attaching it to a device.

What he was currtly working on was a percussion fuze, a crucial device for artillery shells, without which a shell would not be able to explode at the most needed time.

In fact, after developing fulminate, Tang Mo had begun working on this device. However, it was clear that the device was too intricate for his factory to mass-produce.

Mathews and a few sior technicians helped make some parts, and th Tang Mo himself made one fuze a day, managing to barely produce a few doz pottially usable artillery fuzes.

This was why Tang Mo was eager to start producing cannons; he truly had the capacity to create new artillery, which explained his rush to melt down half the cannons from the armed merchant ships, using the steel to manufacture his own cannons.

Tang Mo was aware that he couldn't accomplish everything at once, so the cannons he intded to make wer't exactly cutting-edge.

The blueprint he drew was of the rowned Krupp first-geration breech-loading cannon, specifically the C64 recoil gun.

The recoil gun indeed had many flaws and was an early artillery piece not considered advanced. However, this type of gun had the advantages of a relatively simple structure and lighter weight.

Of course, for Tang Mo, there was another significant advantage of this cannon: it had a low technical barrier to production, making it easier to manufacture!

This cannon used a breech-loading mechanism, which was much more advanced than the widely used front-loading Shireck Automatic Cannon.

Its main feature was the wedge breech block, which utilized a screw-driv wedge. Wh retracted, the breech block thinned, allowing for easy removal, and wh pushed forward, it thicked to achieve a seal.

Differt from modern cannons, this breech block was slid out from the side of the barrel, which looked quite strange.

Using breech-loading provided evidt advantages in terms of rate of fire and airtightness, so in terms of range, accuracy, and loading speed, Tang Mo's new cannons far surpassed contemporary standards.

According to the paper specs of the Krupp cannon, the C64 field recoil gun had a caliber of only 80 millimeters, or 78 millimeters excluding the rifling— not very large.

Yet, this cannon had an effective range of 3500 meters! That was indeed astonishing. Shireck Automatic Cannons, being front-loading guns, had poor airtightness, and to achieve a similar range, they needed a larger caliber and more propellant.

Moreover, Tang Mo's new artillery used an tirely new shell structure, employing real high-explosive grades, significantly hancing their power.

For a front-loading Shireck cannon to compete in range and power with Tang Mo's new artillery, it had to weigh at least two tons. Such heavy artillery had poor mobility and couldn't keep pace with the Troops' movemt speed.

Cannons of this size were typically fixed artillery in castle forts, akin to fort cannon. Field artillery that accompanied Infantry could not match the performance of the C64 cannon, no matter what.

Another reason Tang Mo chose this type of cannon was due to its transport mobility as field artillery.

At the very least, it was the type of field cannon he could produce that was most suitable in terms of weight and power.

The full weight of the Krupp C64 field cannon was . tons, which was an appropriate weight for horse-drawn transport.

Furthermore, this cannon came with a small cart for ammunition, which connected for easy transportation, marking a fairly successful early artillery design.

In a newly built factory, brand-new steam machines were creating new barrels. Tang Mo was preparing to manufacture a batch of new cannons before the war arrived to give those arrogant emies a big surprise.

With breech-loading cannons and the new grades, giv another month, Tang Mo could definitely form a powerful artillery force capable of changing the course of the war.

While relying solely on weaponry is not correct, if there is a gerational gap in weaponry, its power can indeed overwhelm the emy's bravery.

Named by Tang Mo as Type Cannon, the barrel lgth of this artillery was 930 millimeters, about 4 calibers long, and the weight of the tire barrel was 85 kilograms. Its elevation ranged from -6.5 to +0 degrees, with a traverse of 5 degrees.

The high-explosive shells it fired weighed 4.3 kilograms with 70 grams of propellant. As for another type, the shrapnel shell, Tang Mo had no inttion of manufacturing it, as just working on the grades had nearly exhausted him.

The muzzle velocity of the cannon's ammunition was 357 m/s, with fairly standard specifications. Due to manufacturing tolerances, Tang Mo estimated this cannon's maximum range to be about 3300 meters, not reaching Krupp's claimed 3500 meter maximum range. Nonetheless, this was an intimidating distance of over three kilometers.

Tang Mo estimated that, while suring the production quantity of the K Quick Gun and the Revolver, he could produce six C64 recoil field cannons in a month.

These cannons would allow him to form an artillery company capable of effectively supporting his new recruits in combat. With these cannons and K Quick Gun revolvers, his new recruits had no problem trouncing opponts three times their number.

"What kind of mess are you up to now... Forget it if you don't want to tell me." Alice asked for disappointmt, her voice tinged with a touch of restmt.

"It just so happs that this mess is what saved your beloved Northern Ridge." Tang Mo didn't indulge the beauty, setting aside an assembled fuse he had be working on and shaking his slightly sore fingers.

Having said that, he turned to Alice: "Speaking of which, you've be here for 5 days already. Why hav't you gone back to Northern Ridge?"

John and his remaining four ships had left Brunas two days ago, their departure marked by tearful reluctance.

If one didn't know about his relationship with Tang Mo, they might actually believe the two of them were close frids who had shared many hardships together over the years.

Before leaving, John had reassured Tang Mo that he would return to Brunas with ev more Gold Coin within four months at the latest, to settle the debt betwe them.

Of course, what truly brought John to tears were the contts of those four armed merchant ships: parts for two steam gines, one fully assembled steam gine for mining use, 0 K Quick Guns, 00 revolvers, and their respective ammunition.

Additionally, there were the most valuable items: the design blueprints for the steam gines and their associated machine tools, the design blueprints and material parameters for the K Quick Guns and revolvers, as well as a family of three full power technical represtatives dispatched by the Great Tang Group.

What he took with him was his hope for promotion and wealth, as well as his hope for the revival of the Poplar Kingdom! Meanwhile, the armed merchant ships he left behind, along with more than 400 Elf slave sailors and all the proceeds from this sea trade, were Tang Mo's hope...

"What, you're not happy to have me?" Alice had grown accustomed to Tang Mo, the man of steel, in the past two days, hce she wasn't as puffed up with anger. On the contrary, she played to her natural female advantages, feigning ignorance and acting cute, which had Tang Mo somewhat at a loss.

Seeing that Tang Mo was determined not to talk, she continued: "Actually, I'll be leaving soon too. The 0 steam gines you promised me have already be delivered in batches, with 5 shipped out. I've writt to my father telling him that I'll follow the last batch back to Northern Ridge."

"You're leaving?" Hearing that the clingy and beautiful girl was going back to Northern Ridge, Tang Mo suddly felt a sse of joy as if he were being released from a stce.

"You seem very pleased." His joy was so obvious that after he spoke, Alice detected a hint in his words that irked her.

Tang Mo quickly feigned a dejected look: "No, of course not, I'm very regretful. I won't be able to see a beautiful girl like you anymore; I'll be very despondt."

"Your acting is really terrible!" Alice complained dissatisfied.

"I'm not acting." Tang Mo argued.

Alice angrily prested her evidce: "The corners of your mouth are almost split up to your ears!"

"How is that possible, I'm not a snake." Tang Mo was unfazed by her accusation and continued to refute.

"You're still laughing!" Alice pretded to be angry.

Tang Mo persisted in his dial, which was one of his ultimate tactics against Alice: "No, it's just because I remembered something funny."

"Don't get too happy too soon!" Alice revealed a mischievous smile.

"Why?" Tang Mo was tak aback, instinctively ssing danger.

Sure ough, Alice suddly began speaking with a triumphant tone: "Because I lied to you! I didn't write to my father! I'm going to stay here and see what kind of mess you're really up to."

Tang Mo slapped his hand onto his face, covering his eyes—he knew that the most difficult thing to deal with in the world was not the F Raptor Fighter trailing behind his own aircraft, but wom.

Before his transport to this world, he had many wom, all kinds: beautiful, chanting, sexy, wild. But the woman who left a scar that could not heal for a long time, was only one.

Whever Tang Mo thought of that woman, he would have a momt of trance. There wer't many good wom in the world, and ev fewer who would willingly die for a man... Regrettably, Tang Mo had met one and lost her.

Just as Alice was making Tang Mo think of the blurry figure of the woman he could never meet again, a fast horse dashed through the streets of Brunas town like a bolt of lightning.

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7 updates today, Dragon Spirit needs a break. The remaining draft is a bit messy and needs to be sorted out, I'll continue posting tonight, aiming for updates today!

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