Munitions Empire

Wes didn't immediately turn around to leave. Instead, he looked at Tang Mo and asked, "I don't understand. With Beiji's cunning, he won't leave today or tomorrow. He will secretly observe you, collect all your information, then..."

"There's no need for that much trouble. An hour after you depart, I will immediately take action. He won't be able to stay here and will have to find a way back to King City," Tang Mo said, confidently smiling at Wes.

Wes didn't catch on and asked Tang Mo in confusion, "Huh? How can you be sure that he will definitely leave here and return to King City?"

"I will gather all the remaining recruit troops and launch a comprehensive search nearby! You guess, will he be a bit nervous?" Tang Mo gave his answer.

As he walked back, he continued, "In fact, I will give him a choice. If he's innocent or willing to meet with me, we can still talk. I'm willing to sell my weapons, blueprints included, to the Shireck Consortium. As long as both parties are happy with the cooperation, that Beiji can leave Brunas safely."

Tang Mo hadn't planned to kill Beiji right off the bat. If the other party wanted to cooperate, Tang Mo wouldn't mind going to war with Shireck right away.

Over a month ago, he had put out the rifle as bait to trap the Shireck Consortium.

Since it was a trap, he wasn't afraid of Shireck stepping into it. That's why he was willing to use this bait to lure the other party's resources in this direction.

This was a safety mechanism, so he wasn't worried about Beiji's arrival. In fact, he knew that sooner or later Shireck would send someone over.

In fact, according to his earlier thoughts, Shireck's delay in sending someone over at this time was actually a sign of slow reaction and was a bit late.

According to his plan, Shireck would have sent someone half a month ago to negotiate, and he would have tearfully made tens of thousands of Gold Coins by handing over the blueprints for the steam engine and rifle in one go.

However, although the Shireck Consortium was completely unqualified in terms of reaction speed, when it came to shamelessness, Shireck clearly exceeded Tang Mo's expectations by a large margin.

The other party clearly did not come with an attitude of cooperation. Otherwise, they would have come to the door directly to cooperate using money, rather than sneakily making other moves.

That's why Tang Mo spoke the way he did, and why Wes replied with disdain, "But they won't choose that. They are used to their own way of doing things. They will capture you and take over your factory, bringing everything back to square one."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not a good person." Tang Mo shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently, "So, before they come to capture me, I'll bury them in the ground."

"Hahahaha! I love it! I find myself liking this place more and more. Now there's just one thing left, which path he will take." That sentence from Tang Mo, where he said he was not a good person, really struck a chord with Wes. He followed Tang Mo, laughing heartily before asking another question.

At that moment, he felt that Tang Mo was very much to his taste, even his way of speaking and acting felt extremely comfortable.

Laughing along, Tang Mo laid out his plan, "You and Tagg, with two teams, no matter which path he takes, he will be blocked by you."

"I'm setting out now. By nightfall, you will see Beiji, the whole of him, or his head," Wes promised.

Tang Mo stopped walking and looked at Wes, "We are civilized people... Wes... What do we need a head for? You just need to make sure that he won't bring back any messy news to disrupt my plans."

Wes nodded as if it were a matter of course, "I understand."

A few minutes later, in the Great Tang Group's barracks near the sea, Wes and Tagg stood in front of twenty Northern Ridge Legion soldiers who had gathered.

Wes explained the mission in a seemingly casual manner, "We may have to kill... Don't be too hopeful, because the other side won't show mercy! The slightest mistake and you could be done for... Of course, that's not important. What's important is that if you mess up Lord Tang's plan, that would be a grave error."

After Wes finished explaining Tang Mo's mission, Tagg then asked, "Did you hear that? Lord Earl sent us here to protect Lord Tang, and now we're being asked to go out and kill... so it has to be completely voluntary."

These soldiers of the Northern Ridge were Lord Earl's soldiers; theoretically, they were not Tang Mo's hired guns. Therefore, they had the right to refuse such a mission; as long as they protected Tang Mo's factory from destruction, they would have completed Lord Earl's orders.

However, it was clear that these soldiers, who had been trained here, showed little resistance to Tang Mo's commands. A young soldier looked at Tagg and asked in a low voice, "So Captain, are you going?"

"I can only speak for myself," Tagg turned to the young soldier, and after a moment's thought, reminded him.

Wes glanced sideways at Tagg with a disdainful smile on his face. He thought Tagg was really too boring, always acting high and mighty, as though everything had to follow rules.

As a Ranger, his code of conduct was very simple. Whomever he liked, to whom he pledged allegiance, whom he was responsible for... those were all his own thoughts. As long as he followed his heart, there were no burdens.

Compared to the rigid Tagg, Wes preferred Tang Mo because there were fewer rules when working with him, giving him not the slightest feeling of being bound.

Just when Wes was incredibly satisfied with his decision to follow Tang Mo, soldiers from the Northern Ridge Legion asked Tagg, "What's your decision then?"

Tagg didn't hide anything and replied directly, "I'll go. I'm willing to deal with unnecessary trouble for Lord Tang Mo."

The Northern Ridge soldier in the crowd spoke to Tagg solemnly, "Then, that's my decision as well."

"Yes! That's my decision too!" "I'll go as well!" "Lord Tang Mo treats us well, we can't let him fall into danger!" The Northern Ridge soldiers clamored all at once.

"We don't need so many people. Those who are good with firearms and can ride a horse, step forward. Five people will do. Counting me and Tagg, seven is enough," said Wes, stretching out a hand with five fingers extended.

The soldiers looked at each other, and eventually, those who couldn't ride horses sadly hung their heads. Among the rest, after some mutual glances, five soldiers recognized for their good shooting stepped forward.

Tagg looked over his men and nodded, "Grab all your weapons and gear and prepare to set out."

"Wait a second, how do you know for sure that he will run away instead of staying hidden among us?" Tagg looked at Wes with some uncertainty, voicing his own doubts.

Wes teased a bit before glancing at the revolver at Tagg's waist and said, "That's for the lord to worry about, not you. What we have to do is block that Beiji who's trying to escape here."

"One more thing, are you sure you can recognize Beiji? The roads into the heartland of the Kingdom, though not overcrowded, aren't sparse either," Tagg confirmed as he followed Wes out of the barracks, "If you don't recognize him, or get it wrong... things will get complicated."

"Don't worry! I've seen him and even fought against him," Wes, resting his hand on the pistol at his waist, headed for the stables where his mount was, "He's cunning and formidable. You and your men should be careful... don't lose your lives."

"I will!" Tagg went to the other side of the stable, picked up the reins of his warhorse, and almost simultaneously, mounted his steed along with Wes.

"Actually, we don't need to go too far, we just need to wait for them at the crossroads west of Brunas. There's nowhere else for them to go," said Wes, clamping his legs around the horse's belly and pulling the reins toward the gate as he spurred his horse forward.

Tagg followed behind him, and then came the five mounted soldiers, all carrying their firearms, specifically the K1 Quick Guns produced by Tang Mo and issued to them.

Not long after these seven men left, Tang Mo ordered the new soldier commander Redman to lead three hundred soldiers to pour out and start a large-scale search and patrol.

The patrol teams, every twenty soldiers forming a group, each group having several members armed with K1 Quick Guns, repeatedly scoured the nearby wasteland.

"Damn it! How did he know I was here?" Beiji, hiding in a pit, narrowly avoided a patrol team carrying longswords and firearms, his face turning colors in frustration.

Originally, he came here just to secretly investigate and then was planning to gather forces before striking back a deadly blow to Tang Mo.

But who could've expected Tang Mo to preemptive them, suddenly sending out so many patrol teams to trouble him.

You should know, there was still a long way to go before nightfall, and escaping under the cover of darkness wasn't going to be so easy.

What frustrated him even more was that the horses he and his attendant rode were hidden not far away. If these patrols kept searching, they might or might not discover him and his attendant, but they would surely find those two warhorses.

So Beiji made a decision after glancing at his attendant: "Once this patrol team has gone far, we'll go back for the horses! Shake off these patrols on foot, and head straight back to King City!"

"Why not go to Brunas... to find someone to escort us..." The attendant felt that going to a more populated area would be safer.

"Shut up! It must have been Brunas that leaked our whereabouts! We're as good as dead if we go back now," Beiji cut off the attendant's suggestion and scolded, "Alright! Follow me! And run if we're spotted!"

Bent at the waist, they dashed out from their hiding place, heading straight for where they had hidden their horses, without looking back as they ran wildly.