I Became a Plutocrat in World War I: Starting with Saving France Chapter 352: Original text - Three Hundred Fifty-Two It’s Ti

Ever since his contact with Wells, owning his own steel factory had beco a persistent concern for Shire.

Although Shire could purchase special steel at a fair price through the U.S. military for tank production, this was not applicable for Wells’s shipyard and couldn’t lift the shackles off his head.

The reason was that tanks demanded far less steel compared to warships. Even if the special steel imported from the United States included transportation costs and tariffs, the expense was still within an acceptable range.

More importantly, tanks had higher technical thresholds and were protected by patents.

For instance, the "Shire A1" was unique and unmatched, with no other tank capable of defeating it; the French military could only purchase this model.

Shire also made improvents to the engine and planned to enhance the tank gun in the future.

It was foreseeable that as long as Shire was around, no company, including Schneider, could produce a more advanced tank.

In reality, Shire had monopolized the sector, transferring the steel costs perfectly onto the military, and even raising the prices.

But ships were different.

Wells could build destroyers, and so could Schneider.

Wells could build battleships, and so could Schneider.

Additionally, there were submarines, torpedo boats, minesweepers, and more.

There was no apparent technical gap between the two, and cost control primarily focused on the enormous consumption of steel.

If Wells’s steel was entirely dependent on imports from the United States, he would still be ensnared by the curse of "sa performance but more expensive".

Therefore, to entirely pull Wells to Shire’s side, he had to "help" him solve the steel issue.

Naturally, Shire’s attention turned to Germany-occupied, forrly French steel-industries, which comprised 68% of the industry.

If he could integrate these steel industries, even capturing only a small portion, around one-twentieth, it would be enough to free the Brest Shipyard from the control of other capitalists.

Of course, Shire’s goals extended beyond this. Any industrial developnt was closely tied to steel, so controlling more share was always better.

To Tijani, this felt tricky. He scanned the map and found a few steel factories, saying, "The key is, their ownership always remains with the capitalists. Even if we recapture these steel factories one day, the governnt will return them to the capitalists."

This was sowhat ironic; Shire was fighting at the front, risking his life to recover lost ground, only to hand over the hard-earned benefits to the capitalists waiting at the rear.

However, Shire had anticipated this and responded, "That’s why we must act early, General. Now is the ti!"

"Now is the ti?" Tijani looked at Shire in astonishnt, "What do you an?"

...

At Schneider Armory, Jas was in a eting room.

The eting’s topic was the mass production of the Shao Sha Machine Gun.

Jas was sowhat smug, as up to now, Shire and the "Saint-Etienne" Armory had yet to react, indicating that Schneider had finally won a battle.

"Our capacity is at most 2,000 units per month. It’s very difficult to increase this in the short term," reported Kasso, head of the Pito Armory, cautiously, "This is already our limit."

"Not enough, far from enough," Jas’s tone was indisputable, "We need at least 10,000 units."

Kasso turned pale with fear. Ten thousand units, a fivefold increase—it posed significant issues concerning workers, machines, and factory space.

But that wasn’t the worst. Jas thought for a mont and then imposed a ti limit:

"One month. It must be completed within one month."

"We must capture the market in the shortest ti. Even if Shire produces new, better-performing machine guns, the military will still be forced to choose ours because of production capacity."

This urgency was dictated by the battlefield.

Assuming Shire soon had a superior machine gun but could only produce less than 1,000 units per month.

Yet the battlefield demanded tens of thousands of units in a short period, thus eliminating Shire’s machine gun.

(Note: In modern formations, light machine guns are used as squad weapons. An infantry squad of 10 n is equipped with 1 or 2 machine guns. An army of over a million conservatively needs 100,000 units, not to ntion the potential for exports to the British Army, Russian Army, etc., indicating imnse demand.)

This showed Jas’s lack of confidence in the "Shao Sha" machine gun and also recognized Shire’s ability. Jas believed Shire would eventually invent a superior machine gun, so he could only defeat Shire in terms of production.

"But, sir," Kasso swallowed, "10,000 units—it’s unrealistic. Everything requires ti, including building factories, training workers..."

"We can adopt another model." Jas interrupted Kasso, "Delegate production rights to other capable enterprises."

During the war, France had done this. Motorcycle factories, automobile factories, and others, with so technological standards and operational foundations, were mobilized to produce machine guns and rifles to fill the warti gap.

"But this would affect the quality of the machine guns," Kasso was sowhat worried.

He had considered this approach, but given the current situation, guns produced by non-standard armories had significant quality issues.

This could be fatal for a new machine gun.

"The point isn’t that, Kasso," Jas said, tapping his fingers on the table, producing a "clack-clack" sound. "The point is production, production! It’s better for soldiers to have a machine gun that can at least fire bullets than none at all!"

At this mont, Paulina pushed the door open, leaning beside Jas and whispered, "Soone wants to see you, sir."

Jas turned his head to Paulina with a surprised look, "Now? Let them wait!"

Typically, anyone wishing to see him had to make an appointnt, especially during a eting. He couldn’t just leave everyone to see soone.

But Jas quickly realized that Paulina wouldn’t make such a basic mistake, so this person must be very important.

Indeed, Paulina whispered, "It’s Dejoka, Shire’s father."

Hearing "Dejoka" made Jas frown. He hadn’t heard this na before.

But hearing "Shire’s father" instantly changed Jas’s expression to one of shock. Shire’s father actually ca to find him?

What was going on?

Could it be that Shire sent him for negotiations?

Jas couldn’t sit still. He rose, glancing around, "Today’s eting concludes here. We’ll discuss specific details later."

He then nodded to Kasso, "Be prepared, Kasso. I need production!"

"As you wish, Mr. Jas," Kasso replied helplessly.

As the head of the Pito Armory, he knew the condition of the "Shao Sha" machine gun.

Even when produced by the armory, it had an unacceptably high failure rate. If handed over to other factories, the situation would undoubtedly worsen.