Munitions Empire-Chapter 1022 - : 944 trades are just trades

Chapter 1022: 944 trades are just trades

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tang Empire, in the office of Nangong Hong, a diplomat from the Laines Empire sat nervously facing Nangong Hong, waiting for his response to a question many were eager to know the answer to.

“Sir, I understand the intent behind your question, and I can only tell you that the Tang Empire does not have a strong demand for territory; currently, we have no plans to invade other countries.” Nangong Hong provided a very clear response.

Upon hearing this, the diplomat let out a sigh of relief and then continued, “If that is the case, then why has the Tang Empire been so active in the Dahua Empire’s civil war?”

“I think you have misunderstood. Our active involvement is due to our interests being affected. The civil war in the Dahua Empire has cost us a lot of money and has also destabilized our borders,” explained Nangong Hong officially.

“You see, the root cause of the civil war in the Dahua Empire is related to Prince Zhao Yu, who has been treated unfairly within the Dahua Empire despite his good relations with the Tang Empire. If we don’t support His Highness Zhao Yu, whom we have good relations with, we stand to face severe losses in our various investments in the Dahua Empire,” he elaborated as though everything were indeed happening that way.

In fact, as one of the world’s top military powers, even if Zhao Kai wins the civil war in the Dahua Empire, they would hardly dare to seize the investments of the Great Tang Group.

“So, may I ask when your country plans to help end this civil war in the Dahua Empire? As you know, relying solely on mercenaries, this war cannot continue indefinitely,” the Laines Empire’s envoy asked Nangong Hong, concerned about when the war would end.

Nangong Hong sighed and then with a worried look, replied, “We actually also hope that this civil war will end soon, but ultimately, the developments on the battlefield are not for us to decide; everything depends on the performance of both sides in the Dahua Empire’s civil war.”

The envoy from the Laines Empire, having traveled a long distance, thought for a moment and then asked his final concern, “One last concern of my country, does this war affect the trade between the Tang Empire and other countries?”

He didn’t ask if the Tang Empire would be drawn into the war, because the answer was quite obvious. The Tang Empire could become involved in the war at any time; in fact, in some respects, the Tang Empire has already been involved.

However, on the surface, the Tang Empire still maintains neutrality, even willing to sell weapons to delegations from the Dahua Empire at the ongoing expo.

On the surface, the Tang Empire seems very fair, but in reality, this stance of neutrality itself is an attitude. Treating Fengjiang’s rebels as a force on par with the official Dahua Empire government stands as a clear statement.

Nangong Hong naturally shook his head, denying, “Of course not, how could you entertain such an absurd idea. Our empire’s biggest consideration for not getting involved in the war is to ensure that our trade with other nations remains unaffected. Rest assured, everything is normal, and trade between countries will not be affected.”

These days at the expo, Nangong Hong had met envoys from many countries, all concerned about the civil war in the Dahua Empire and also with the issue of the Tang Empire selling new weaponry.

This expo hosted by the Tang Empire showcased unprecedented advanced technology, including cutting-edge technology like helicopters, making all countries eye-opening. They had never seen such generous technology transfers, nor had they seen such powerful weaponry.

Here not only did they see advanced helicopters, tanks, rocket artillery, and torpedoes from the Tang Empire, but they also encountered many light weapons.

Here there were not only the old Maxim heavy machine guns but also various machine guns from other countries from the World War II era, all featuring brand new designs that were extremely enticing.

No joke, the militaries of countries around the world had been using old models of machine guns for far too many years, either making do with Maxims or having to use various disorderly modified machine guns from Shireck.

Now, the Tang Empire has introduced many new model machine guns never before seen in this world, such as the complex and exquisitely beautiful Taisho Year 11 machine gun… Hmm, a gun of astonishing structure and remarkable power, definitely a fine weapon.

Then there’s the infamous DP-28 light machine gun, known as the “Dish Plate.” Its design is also uniquely distinctive, and its performance is certainly much better than the aforementioned Taisho machine gun.

Of course, aside from these two machine guns, another famous light machine gun is the Czech ZB-26. That’s right! This is a war artifact, a legendary gun with a magazine mounted on top, its performance crushing the Taisho Year 11 light machine gun.

The true star of the entire venue was actually the MG42 general-purpose machine gun from the Tang Empire. This is a well-studied, excellent piece from the Tang military; just from the performance alone, it’s apparent this gun is far more formidable than the previous models…

In fact, this is a kind of faith endorsement, because, in reality, even the MG-42 machine gun has many issues, and is not such a perfect weapon.

Not a joke, the MG42 machine gun’s firing rate is too fast, which results in its bullets being consumed more rapidly than other machine guns, thereby increasing logistical supply pressure.

In a country like the Great Tang Empire with strong logistical support, such a flaw isn’t much of an issue, but in those countries with poor logistical support, this flaw could be fatal.

However, to many people, regardless of these issues, as long as it’s a weapon used by the Great Tang Empire, it is powerful and worth purchasing.

This is actually a kind of psychological need, like the generation influenced by the films Super Space Fortress and the television series Aspiring Sky, which are obsessed with variable-sweep wings, stubbornly believing that the “Tomcat” fighter jet is the coolest and has a special combat effectiveness bonus.

And those contemporaries who watched Transformers also fell in love with the red Spider’s transformation of the F-15 fighter jet. These fighter jets, once used by the United States Air Force, stood out in wars where they fought against nursing homes and kicked kindergartens around, and later became the darlings of the arms trade.

The Great Tang Empire’s sale of MG-42 machine guns, as well as featuring stars like the DP-28 and ZB-26, is actually making use of waste.

As they started to popularize the Type 56 assault rifle, the machine gun replacements in the Great Tang Empire also commenced—the original 42 machine guns were entirely retired, replaced by the famous Type 56 squad machine gun.

Such replacements also signify a strategic transformation: the tactical formations of the Great Tang Empire’s squads, transitioning from revolving around general-purpose machine guns to an approach of averaging firepower.

Changing from tactics centered around one or two machine gun points to fully automatic, amply armed, stronger firepower, and more flexibly deployed dispersed tactics.

Such tactics are actually transition tactics to bridge to infantry fighting vehicles, although the Great Tang Empire doesn’t have suitable infantry fighting vehicles yet, but it is a fact that infantry firepower is already excessive.

Because the Tang Army is fully automatic, there’s no longer a concept of a “rifleman” helping the machine gun team to carry ammunition. Everyone carries around 400 rounds of their personal ammunition, including five or six personal magazines, which is already quite a heavy load.

In this situation, carrying the massive number of machine gun belts needed by the machine gun team is clearly unfeasible. Thus, the fast-firing and wasteful MG-42 machine guns are not suitable; the drum-fed, more ammunition-efficient Type 56 squad machine guns are obviously more appropriate.

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

This is how changes in weapons equipment bring about significant changes in tactics, directly demonstrating one point: before other equipment changes occur, forcibly promoting some seemingly advanced future weapons is actually incorrect.

Tang Mo daring to discard the MG-42 machine gun and adopting the less continuously firing capable Type 56 squad machine gun, is already preparing to equip infantry fighting vehicles, planning to use larger-caliber vehicle-mounted machine guns to address the lack of firepower in the infantry squads.

So, on the surface, the squad firepower of the Great Tang Empire seems to have decreased slightly, but from a long-term perspective, the Great Tang Empire has always been finding ways to enhance the firepower for each military unit. This idea has never changed, from the Brunas Era until now!

“So, the weapons and equipment we are purchasing, including machine guns and helicopters… and other equipment, can they all be delivered on time?” The emissary from the Laines Empire asked eagerly.

“Absolutely, they can be delivered on time. We have never delayed the delivery of any equipment,” replied Nangong Hong confidently.

He paused, then half-jokingly continued, “Even if you were to declare war on our Great Tang Empire tomorrow, we would only detain this batch of weapons, and then deliver them to you after your defeat.”

Hearing Nangong Hong’s words, the emissary from the Laines Empire looked as uncomfortable as if he had swallowed a fly. He believed that the Great Tang Empire was indeed capable of such actions and also had to admit that this indeed demonstrated the Great Tang Empire’s integrity to some extent.

So, he awkwardly smiled and said, “Mr. Nangong is joking. Our Laines Empire always loves peace and would never casually declare war on a friendly nation.”

“Oh? Is that so? That’s really reassuring. I hope our two countries can always remain friendly like this,” Nangong Hong said sincerely.

Although his tone sounded very sincere, to the emissary of the Laines Empire, it somehow had a harrowing feel.

——

Today there are two updates, no need to wait anymore.