Munitions Empire

"I will only ask once...who shot and killed our negotiation patrol team leader... If my patience runs out, I will kill everyone." Standing in front of the captives, Tagg, with his hands clasped behind his back in a contrived manner, looked coldly at these panic-stricken wretches.

And the result did not disappoint him, almost everyone instinctively looked towards the shifty Housen amid the crowd.

The commander, with blood still not fully clotted above his eyebrow and his face smeared with blood as if he had not yet wiped away his snivel, didn't seem so composed.

"Was it him?" Tagg asked the captive closest to him.

The captive hurriedly nodded: "Yes, it was him, he personally killed that negotiating officer..."

Tagg nodded slightly, judging from the expressions on the faces of a few captives, they were all telling the truth—almost all the soldiers who landed from the Taren Kingdom had seen Housen shoot; many even took this matter as gossip, chattering about it all the way.

Ultimately, the walk turned into a tragedy, with the people knowing that it was Housen, the officer, who ruthlessly killed the officer from the enemy who came to negotiate, turning out to be in the minority.

At that time, many soldiers thought of Housen as a commander who fit the image of a strong soldier, believing Housen to be very heroic and domineering.

But now, it seemed Housen's act of shooting and killing was definitely an atrocity that should be condemned, and he should face the judgment of justice...

It's funny how it was decided whether a person seemed cool or idiotic could be down to whether they had money or not, irrelevant of other factors.

And whether a country is truly free could often come down to how many nuclear bombs they have or how many tons of gold bricks lie in their banks...

"So, Mister..." Tagg walked in front of Housen; the captives on either side opened up a path, stepping aside.

"I am Housen! A commander from the Taren Kingdom!" Housen, thinking that Tagg, in his neat uniform and impeccably polished boots, must be a reasonable noble, thus spoke with more confidence: "I demand to enjoy the treatment due to a captured officer."

"Mister Housen, do you admit that you were the one who shot and killed our patrol team leader?" Tagg, looking at Housen's bloodied face, asked.

"That was an act of war! Sir! You haven't introduced yourself... I admit I shot and killed your man, but that doesn't affect my right to be treated as a prisoner of war," Housen brazenly confessed his crime.

He didn't think he would be retaliated against just for killing an enemy pawn; after all, casualties were a given in war.

Anyway, when it came to compensation, it would be the state that pays, having nothing to do with him, the commander. And he, like the other captives, would eventually be ransomed back to his country and needn't worry about anything.

"Since you've admitted it, then send him to Mister Roger for judgment, and then hang him," Tagg said, casting another glance at Housen, who stood there stunned, apparently admiring his courage.

Then he cleared a path and calmly said, "At least you have kept your military honor by honestly admitting your crime; I admire your character."

"Wait, wait a minute! What did you just say? What judgment? What hanging?" Housen, in a panic, shoved away the soldiers about to escort him to Dragon City and stared at Tagg.

Tagg still explained very amiably: "Given that you killed our patrol team captain, we plan to put you on trial and hang you, to appease the soul of the patrol team captain so that he may find eternal peace."

"You, you... can't treat an officer like this! I surrendered! I should be given preferential treatment, I should be protected!" Housen once again shook his shoulders forcefully, breaking free from the soldiers who were pulling him away: "I am an officer of the Taren Kingdom! I... "

"Even if you were the king of the Taren Kingdom, you can only be hanged here... unfortunately," Tagg calmly signaled the soldiers to take Housen away.

This time the soldiers weren't polite, giving Housen's stomach a blow with the butt of a gun. When he curled up in pain like a shrimp, two soldiers grabbed his arms from either side, dragging him away like a dead dog.

"Alright, gentlemen! As for you... to compensate for the losses of this war, you will be subjected to three years of forced labor here, and one year of compensated labor. Does anyone object?" Tagg looked towards the remaining captives and asked loudly.

After waiting a few seconds and not hearing any voices of dissent, Tagg nodded in satisfaction and gestured for the soldiers to take the captives back to camp as planned: "Since no one objects, let's go."

...

Time rewound an entire night, to a few hours before Tagg's troops annihilated the Taren Kingdom's landing force of 450 men, the Brunas No. 4 warship, on the sea, spotted the enemy fleet at anchor.

Without the slightest bit of surprise, the remaining warship was directly blasted in two by cannon fire, and the rest of the transport ships obediently raised their white flags.

A transport ship attempted to flee, but after witnessing the speed of the Brunas No. 4 warship, it too sheepishly abandoned its foolish plan.

Over a thousand workers, who had just set up a camp and pitched tents at the landing point, watched with wide eyes as the transport ships raised white flags.

They heard the cannon fire and saw the sinking of their own warships, and, terrified to the extreme, they waited anxiously on shore for about an hour until they finally received a result.

The fleet sent out a small boat, on which sat an officer from the Taren Kingdom's expeditionary troops, responsible for managing the logistics of the team.

This officer returned to shore with several men and then ordered the troops there to lay down their arms and surrender.

Subsequently, the brown flag of the Taren Kingdom that had just been raised was replaced, and a white sheet, hastily repurposed as a flag, was hoisted on the camp's flagpole.

It is said that this was to avoid friendly fire, according to the commander on the ironclad warship, and soon ground troops would come here to take over the camp and then assign new tasks to these artisans.

By the next day, when the telegraph officer on the Brunas No. 4 warship delivered the wire from Dragon City announcing the end of the battle to the first mate's hands, the war initiated by the Taren Kingdom's pioneering team was essentially 99.9% over.

For on this island, there was one Taren Kingdom soldier who had not surrendered; he was battling his way through the dense forest, trying to get back to the landing point to report to his nation's artisans and immigrants the bad news that Commander Housen and his troops had been completely wiped out.

This sailor miraculously survived six days in the jungle, actually found his way back to the camp at the landing point, and in the end even saw Tagg's special task force that came to recruit the artisans and immigrants, having them build the "Dragon's Den."

When this wild-man-like sailor burst out of the bushes and stumbled to the ground outside the camp, he was nearly shot dead by a sentry.

As he emerged from the forest and saw the Dragon Banner of the camp, he kneeled down in disbelief on the ground, preventing the Tang Group's security department sentry from pulling the trigger.

The sailor, who originally intended to come back with the news, broke down in tears as soon as he saw the familiar figure in gray-green military uniform and steel helmet.

The determination that had sustained him crumbled in that second, and the man who had avoided pythons and wild beasts and didn't know how he was still alive completely collapsed.

Seeing this wild-man who seemed to have gone completely mad, the duty guard was baffled and could only take him into the camp first.

The emaciated sailor with a face full of beard, whose trousers were beyond recognition, received meticulous care, and then he recounted his harrowing journey.

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Everyone found it hard to believe that this brother could actually survive alone in the wilderness for seven whole days (he had spent another night in the forest after his warship was sunk), so he was treated like a lucky mascot.

This true survivor of the deserted island eventually made it through without the courage to struggle or deliver the news anymore, and compliantly joined the crew to become a laborer building castles.

So in theory, the battle for Dragon Island lasted only two days and one night, but in reality, it didn't truly end until a week later.

Even more astonishingly, the tale of the sailor reached Brunas, and because of it, Tang Mo decided to build a railway and a road on Dragon Island to ensure complete control over the entire island.

At the landing point discovered by the Taren Kingdom, the Great Tang Group began constructing a brand-new town. The Great Tang Group planned to connect this new town with Dragon City through roads and railways, to firmly hold the entire island in their grasp.

"What was that sailor's name again?" Tang Mo, suddenly curious after the meeting on funding the transportation network of Dragon Island ended, asked Harry, who was organizing the meeting materials beside him.

Harry paused, searched through his notes, and then found the legendary sailor's name: "Master, his name is Bell."

"Bell? Bell Grills?" Tang Mo couldn't help but feel a mix of amusement and exasperation— it seemed he really would have a parliament building, and indeed a basement too...

"Grills? Master, normally, sailors like me don't have a first and last name; I'm just called Harry, and this Bell probably only has the single name Bell as well."

"Alright! I was overthinking it." Tang Mo laughed sheepishly, touching his philtrum which was still smooth without a hint of a mustache, and suddenly felt a bit less like he was in the shoes of an empire ruler: "Have there been any problems with the issuance of paper currency?"

"So far, it doesn't seem like there are any problems. To curry favor with us, countries that trade with us have exchanged a batch of paper currency… but I guess, in the end, they will probably want to convert it back to gold and take it away," Harry responded.

"No problem, we can take our time…" Tang Mo smiled, full of confidence in his currency.

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