Chapter 491- Crazy Coal

Translator: ryangohsf

Editor: Nora

"Brother Liu Mo!"

Ouyang Shuo raised his head and saw Liu Mo standing by the door.

"Please enter!"

Ouyang Shuo stood up and brought Liu Mo to a seat. Although this thermal weapons specialist looked unassuming, in the future, he would act as the core of the territory’s weapons technology.

"This time, I called big brother over to discuss the steel factory construction." Ouyang Shuo did not need to put up any fake courtesy with Liu Mo, so he directly dived into the topic.

"Lord, you want to build one more steel factory?" Liu Mo looked calm, most technology researchers were like that. He replied, "The first one has mainly grasped the technology, and it has the ability to expand."

"No." Ouyang Shuo shook his head, as his left and right fingers intersected to form a cross, "Not one but ten."

"Ten?"

These words astonished Liu Mo, and he could not help but jump right up from his seat. Even the eyes of Cui Yingyu, who was at the side, widened in disbelief. She looked toward Ouyang Shuo, wondering if he had gone mad.

"For the current steel usage of the territory, adding one more is enough. Ten seems to be a bit exaggerated." Liu Mo looked at Ouyang Shuo, reminding him that he should not expand blindly.

Ouyang Shuo laughed slightly, as he pressed his hands down to ask Liu Mo to calm down. He smiled and said, "Let me finish first. Building ten steel factories at once is definitely not something I decided in the heat of the moment. It's something that has been planned for a long time."

Naturally, Ouyang Shuo had an idea in his heart about the territory’s need of iron. The reason he wanted to build ten more steel factories pertained to the next system update.

During the third system update, Gaia would completely remove the Super Trading Platform.

This also meant that players could not transport any items in the game through the system. All items must be transported through relays or the sea.

And what items did the steel factory need the most?

Iron and coal!

Shanhai Territory lacked these two resources the most. Especially coal, which the territory did not even have. For this particular resource, they had to purchase it from Fallen Phoenix City.

The moment the system removed the Super Auction Platform, it would pretty much require a utopia to transport hundreds and thousands of coal from Fallen Phoenix City to Shanhai.

At the very least, they could not complete such transactions in a short amount of time.

As a result, Ouyang Shuo decided to make use of these last two months to boldly build steel factories. At the same time, he would use funds to crazily purchase coal and iron ores.

Ouyang Shuo's ambition was to make a one-time purchase of coal that would last the territory for the next few years.

This act was similar to his large-scale purchase before the first system update. Only now, it was much crazier.

The gold involved reached hundreds of thousands and even millions.

However, he could not explain such matters to Liu Mo and Cui Yingyu. Now, he could rely on the prestige and trust he had built up over the times.

Especially in the eyes of Cui Yingyu, Ouyang Shuo was like the reincarnation of a god of foresight and knowledge.

Any territory decisions that he came up with and made were proven absolutely right and actions with great foresight.

For example, before the grain crisis, his large-scale purchase of grain. Like the leather in the adventure gamemode player's hands, buying all of it when it was not in demand.

Another example would be when everyone was looking at the wilderness. At that time, Ouyang Shuo had turned his attention to the sea to gain riches from there instead.

There were many different examples.

Hence, seeing Ouyang Shuo so resolute, Cui Yingyu kept her doubts to herself. She decided to give her vote of confidence and stand on his side.

When Liu Mo saw this exchange, he could only laugh awkwardly.

"Probably, to be able to become such an important leader in the world, one must have an unexplainable foresight. Although I do not understand it, as long as you are sure, No.7 Research Institute is willing to go along completely."

If they planned to build steel factories, it would naturally involve the No.7 Research Institute.

Without a doubt, if they wanted to build ten steel factories at once, all the researchers would have to stop their work for the next two months. They would need to go around to teach the artisans how to build the factories.

Steel factories were exceedingly professional buildings, and they included large amounts of steelmaking equipment and facilities. Without the building blueprints, they could only have the members of the research institute present to help out.

Telling them to stop their research for two months pretty much took the lives of these people. Without a doubt, the moment Liu Mo went back to announce this, Ouyang Shuo would be given the nickname ‘cold blooded funder.’

A shred of embarrassment appeared on his face.

He did not possess any special foresight; he only relied on his last life.

Ouyang Shuo felt warm in his heart from Liu Mo’s support. Although they had seldom come into contact, these two had already formed an untaintable brotherhood.

"Great, with both of your supports, let's do well." Ouyang Shuo collected his feelings and continued, "In regards to the ten steel factories, I am planning it like this. In Lianzhou Prefecture, along Friendship River and Qiushui River, build one at each location. Similar to the Shanhai City steel factory, we need to form a strong steel corporation."

No matter how the territory changed, Lianzhou Prefecture would always remain the heart of the territory and the prefecture that needed the most iron. Building three steel factories here, in the future, they would all come into use.

Building the steel factories by the river could solve the water source problem and make sea transportation easy. Especially after the territory upgraded, the rivers had expanded, allowing larger merchant ships to pass through.

Most recently, Old Sun and Zheng Dahai had started to research a freight ship specifically designed to transport iron ore and steel raw materials.

The moment they succeeded, they would solve the problem with iron ore transportation.

In terms of shipbuilding, Old Sun could not be more familiar with the subject. Under his instructions, the types of ships that the shipyard built exceeded that of the technical manual.

The types of ships in Shanhai City had further diversified, with tugboats in charge of consigning, fishing boats, and more.

Especially the modifications to the warships; there were many changes.

The new generation of turreted ships in Shanhai City had far exceeded the standards of the Ming Dynasty.

Some old modification ideas of Old Sun had utterly exploded out after he obtained the Ming Dynasty Shipbuilding Technical Manual.

One of the turreted ships, one of the warships had already been modified so much that they looked completely different.

After all, any idea must be tried out. The truth proved that some of his ideas were possible. There were other ideas that Gaia judged as too advanced, so it did not allow them.

……

"Apart from that, each one of the three shipyards will have a steel factory nearby. Beihai City will also have one. The remaining four would be in Zhaoqing Prefecture, Leizhou Prefecture, and Qiongzhou Prefecture."

Building a steel factory near the shipyard exemplified Ouyang Shuo's ambitions. In the future, if he wanted to research and produce armored warships, they would have a colossal demand for steel.

As a result, he wanted to build the steel factories near the sea.

Liu Mo was extremely sensitive to technical issues, so he could read Ouyang Shuo's intentions. Thinking up to this point, the sense of responsibility in his heart felt exceedingly heavy.

To produce the armored warships, the biggest bottleneck still laid with the No.7 Research Institute.

To build the armored warship, the movement system of the ship must jump past sails and toward the steam engine. Moreover, the steam engine had not even been born in the place where the industrial revolution happened—England.

Just relying on Magnus, this European, was far from enough.

The research speed of Shanhai City for steam engines was far behind that of England and even Europe in general.

The road in the future was an exceptionally long one.

Ouyang Shuo looked toward Cui Yingyu and instructed, "The Financial Department must tweak the budget for the next three months. We must take out funds to purchase iron ore and coal. Especially coal. Of the supply that we buy, we will separately store them in the ten steel factories."

When Cui Yingyu heard this command, her face revealed a bitter smile.

Ouyang Shuo’s move had messed up the previous plans of the Financial Department.

"Big brother, can you give me an idea of how much we should purchase?"

Ouyang Shuo resolutely said, "However much there is on the market. We will buy it all."

Siii!

Cui Yingyu could not help but let out a cold breath.

"If need be, we can borrow money from the various Chambers of Commerce." Ouyang Shuo added, showing that his plan must and would be fully executed.

In his mind, loaning money was never an embarrassing matter. To be able to loan money and use the borrowed money to make more money, that in itself was an incredible feat.

"I understand!"

Cui Yingyu nodded; she was already prepared to grind out the next few months. They would need to reduce the other expenses of the territory.

"Next, we need to try and sell all the large-scale items like salt and silk. We must try to get rid of them before the year end."

After they took down Qiongzhou Prefecture and Leizhou Prefecture, the territory had already become one of the largest food salt producers in the China region. The colored silk also pushed up production by ten times.

These two items could only be sold in Quanzhou through sea routes.

The problem was that Quanzhou was also located around the sea, so its sea salt market was always self-sufficient. In the future, the salt from Shanhai City would face a problem of not being able to sell.

Salt to Shanhai City held a deep meaning.

At the start of the territory’s development, they had relied on the profits from the Beimu Saltpans to maintain their growth.

Toward this problem, Ouyang Shuo temporarily could not think of any good solutions. He could only take it step by step. If they really could not sell it off, it would be a huge burden to the territory finances.

Cui Yingyu was not prepared to probe, so she just nodded to show that she understood.

At this point, Ouyang Shuo had spoken all that he had wanted to say.

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