Chapter 42: 42 Leverage
Chapter 42 42 Leverage
He stretched out his arms and aimed at the scenery outside the window, feeling more comfortable than ever before. Because this is the first time he has created a truly "modern" weapon after traveling through time and coming to this world.
This is a weapon he is familiar with, a weapon he understands! The previous ones, including his own mass-produced needle guns, were actually just vague memories in his mind and data retrieved by the system computer.
Only the revolver in front of him has a familiar design and a familiar way of using it!
After playing with his new secret weapon for a while, Tang Mo began to lower his head at his desk and draw new machines and equipment.
He wanted to get the steam engine to drive more equipment as soon as possible, so that the entire factory could operate at night - therefore, he also needed a new energy source: "electricity".
With electric energy, many industrial products can be developed, such as electrolytic aluminum, electroplating technology, even lighting technology, radio technology, etc.
With electricity, Tang Mo can also more conveniently use motors and other equipment to drive machine tools, making machine tool production more convenient.
In short, he wants to produce electricity as soon as possible. Electricity represents a brighter and more efficient future for any factory and anyone!
With electricity, Tang Mo can use telegraph to communicate with Beiling in real time, and quickly allocate and raise production materials... All of this is extremely important to him.
However, motors are not that easy to produce, and a complete set of power generation equipment is also extremely complex. The more advanced and powerful modern industrial civilization is, the more supporting production technologies are required, which seriously restricts Tang Mo's development.
To give the simplest example - if Tang Mo wants to use electricity to supplement his lighting system, he needs something like a light bulb. But in addition to electricity, light bulbs also need the support of supporting factories such as glass factories. Tang Mo must I want to build a glass factory myself.
He cannot even sell advanced technologies to existing factories because he alone needs them. It is impossible for those workshops and factories that survive in this era to spend a lot of money for unused technology.
So, Tang Mo could only complete his industrial system bit by bit. This was the main reason why he spent a lot of money but made slow progress.
However, many of Tang Mo’s technologies cannot be relied upon entirely by himself. He is currently in contact with a building materials businessman in Bunas, preparing to sell the cement technology to the other party so that the other party can improve his masonry bonding. agent.
The negotiations have made some progress, and the other party is indeed willing to pay Tang Mo 200 gold coins. However, Tang Mo hoped that the other party would give priority to supplying 200 tons of cement to Tang's weapons workshop at a fair price, but the other party was unwilling to nod.
This is also easy to understand. After improving the technology, giving priority to the nobles and letting them spend more gold coins to buy new cement is the most convenient option to recover funds. As a result, the negotiations between the two parties reached a deadlock, and Tang Mo still has not received the 200 gold coins.
Things can be so frustrating sometimes, and not all developments go in the best direction as planned.
With no other option, Tang Mo had to sell more advanced sea salt drying manufacturing technology to the salt merchants in Bunas, in exchange for a technology transfer fee of 70 gold coins.
Moreover, the other party required that Tang Mo would not be allowed to enter the sea salt manufacturing industry in the next 10 years. The price was that they would provide Tang Mo with some salt products for free.
In this way, Tang Mo calculated in his mind how much money he could get and what he could do with the money. When he realized that time was passing, it was completely dark.
“Dang-dang-dang...” Matthews knocked on the door of Tang Mo’s laboratory. He was holding a tray in his hand, which contained today’s dinner that was still warm.
"I forgot the time." Tang Mo put down the revolver in his hand with some embarrassment and said to Matthews.
"Well, anyone who plays with an epoch-making weapon will lose track of time." Matthews smiled and put the food in his hand on Tang Mo's table, looking at the metal bullets scattered on the table. Said to Tang Mo.
“How is it?” Tang Mo grabbed the spoon, suddenly raised his head, and asked Matthews in a confused manner.
Matthews knew what Tang Mo was asking and immediately answered: "The production is going very smoothly. Tiger will be able to leave with 60 K1 guns tomorrow morning."
As he spoke, he pulled a chair over and sat next to Tang Mo: "Tomorrow afternoon, we will almost use up the barrels we have accumulated before and get back to normal production speed."
“What are we using for ourselves?” Tang Mo continued to ask while chewing the dinner cooked by Aunt Trish, which was not too delicious.
Matthews pouted: "Well, by tomorrow afternoon, Bernard and Loew's people will be equipped with K1 guns. According to your arrangement, after Tiger leaves, each of them can still receive to a revolver."
Although revolvers are not currently mass-produced on a large scale, they are no longer difficult to manufacture by hand.
Tang Mo gave Tiger 5 revolvers and prepared about 300 rounds of ammunition for these pistols.
Although it's not much, it just allows the earl to see weapons that can fire continuously. These bullets are enough.
So Tang Mo is now full of confidence and is waiting for the earl to ask Tiger to bring back enough supplies and a large order. "By the way, Wes is going to take another revolver. He has two of these pistols now." Matthews added.
Tang Mo was still devouring his food and asked vaguely: "Well, how was he teaching physical education at school? Are you serious?"
"Except for going to the new shooting range to practice shooting, he spends the rest of the time teaching in the school. Bernard, Loew, and all the mercenaries you are recruiting, including the children, are working with He learned swordsmanship." Matthews replied: "The results...are very good."
“Excellent value for money.” Tang Mo swallowed a mouthful of dinner and said excitedly to Matthews: “How is the research on the lever rifle going?”
“I tried making it, and this thing is simply a work of art. It’s really great! It’s unbelievable.” Matthews mentioned this with excitement in his eyes.
This is the first time he has seen such a sophisticated and efficient ammunition feeding mechanism. Once this kind of weapon appears on the battlefield, it will definitely be a nightmare for the opponent.
As if he was just talking about something ordinary, Tang Mo continued to eat and asked, "How is it? Is a lever rifle much better than a needle gun?"
In fact, the weapon in his hand, the lever rifle, is indeed just a common weapon, not even a regular mainstream weapon.
Because after being sifted through the waves on the battlefield, the lever rifle was eliminated by the bolt-action rifle and became a plaything in the field of hunting and collecting.
After all, this weapon has too many flaws, so it is difficult to become a real war favorite. But Matthews doesn't know this. He still thinks that the lever rifle is the ultimate weapon for Tang Mo's next generation of individual soldiers.
So, Matthews replied seriously: "It's totally different! If metal bullets become popular, then this kind of weapon can simply subvert war!"
In the past two days, Matthews has really been studying the lever rifle. In his opinion, this weapon can be described as perfect.
The extremely fast reloading speed and the powerful shooting ability of almost continuous fire make the advantages of this weapon very obvious.
Matthews became interested in this method of feeding ammunition immediately after trying to build a linkage mechanism for a lever rifle.
The more he studied this ammunition supply mechanism, the more he admired Tang Mo's whimsical ideas. For him, the combination of these institutions in front of him was simply a miracle.
He felt that being able to choose Tang Mo and accepting Tang Mo as his master was probably the most correct decision he had ever made in his life.
Therefore, he asked Tang Mo some of the questions he had thought about before entering the door: "In fact, metal fixed-loading ammunition will also become popular! But now, it seems that this thing is too..."
Tang Mo naturally knew Matthews' worries, because he had also worried about these things. So he nodded and agreed: "It's too advanced, isn't it? So it's only on our drawings, not mass-produced by us."
At this time, Tang's weapons workshop, which does not own the mines and does not have complete production capacity, is obviously unable to compete with the Cyric Consortium in terms of resources.
Because of this, coming up with more advanced weapon designs at this time is just digging a hole for yourself.
Thinking of this, Tang Mo felt helpless, but he could only continue: "We don't have a lot of metal mineral resources. These things are now in the hands of the kingdom's nobles and the Cyric consortium. Once metal customization becomes popular on a large scale, ammunition and new rifles, our weak disadvantages are even more obvious.”
"You are right, Master, we should stock up on some supplies first to deal with the future development of weapons..." Matthews suggested.
Tang Mo shook his head: "It's too late, the money we can earn now is still too little, and it is simply not enough to hoard supplies. All we can do now is to hug the count's thick legs tightly, and then strengthen ourselves as much as possible "
"Take control of our own destiny as soon as possible..." After he finished speaking, he put the spoon back into the empty bowl: "Arm ourselves to prevent us from being eaten in one bite by the extreme counterattack that Cyric may choose!"
"This is not easy. Relying on the dozen mercenaries recruited to fight against the tens of thousands of troops that Cyric may mobilize..." Matthews looked at Tang Mo with some worry and reminded him.
"Then there's no other way. We can only take it one step at a time, because we really don't have the money to invest in the armed forces." Tang Mo shrugged helplessly: "Every penny we earn now must be Invest as much as possible into production. We need chemical factories to produce new propellants, manufacturing plants for building materials, larger metallurgical factories, leather factories, breeding farms...schools, hospitals..."
He sighed and looked out the window: "There are too many places that need money, and what we lack most now is money! Gold coins, a lot of gold coins!"
(End of this chapter)