After more than half a year of construction, the industrial park now had three operating factories: there were two steam engine production plants and a bullet processing plant. The number of workers in the first plant had also expanded from the 10 blacksmiths at its opening to the 100 people it now had. The follow-up workers were mainly natives — which was also something he wanted to see, a group of apprentices would gradually grow into craftsmen, who would then provided the foundation needed to raise the next group of apprentices.
The workers of the second plant were the artisans belonging to the Crescent Moon Bay Caravan. Just during this one month, they had already grasped a roughly understanding of the machine tool’s usage, even though their yield was still quite bad, but compared with the blacksmith of the first plant, the first-month performance of these craftsmen was obviously better. According to the previously signed contract, all of their produced steam engines were owned by Roland. With those two factories Border Town could now manufacture almost eight to ten steam engines per month, which was also the town’s primary means of income.
As for the bullets factory, after its establishment, it had been directly handed over to the First Army, who not only placed a lookout post at its entrance, but also arranged for patrols all around the factory, and even the production was the responsibility of the soldiers. After a week of trial operation, nowadays, they had already begun the mass production of a new generation of bullets.
Roland plan for the assembly line couldn’t achieve full mechanical production, no matter if it were the primer, gunpowder or warheads, they all needed manpower for the filling compaction. The main processing tools were the two mechanical stamping machines. The one could press the thin copper pieces previously cut by Anna into the shape of the cartridge case, while the second was used to push the primer towards the bottom.
The soldiers only needed to place the mercury fulminate evenly between two thin pieces of paper, glue the edges of the two papers together, press the primer towards the lower part of the cartridge then finally place the cartridge with the primer’s end at the bottom into the ring-shaped ammunition case, before the entire process was complete. As for the process of loading and compacting the black powder and putting on the projectile, it was still done in exactly the same way as the previous practice.
There were only a small number of people working in the factory around forty people, which could still almost produce more than 500 bullets every day. For the future, Roland intended on turning these forty people into his full-time processing personnel to maintain the standard operation of the bullet production factory.
The next step on Roland’s to-do list was to open a soap factory, and a perfume factory — the former would play a very important part in the military industry, while the later might be able to open up a new income channel for the town. As for the bicycle factory, its opening could still be delayed, it would be opened early enough as long as it went into full production by the time the Kingdom Avenue was finished.
“Your Highness,” Nightingale said, pushing open the doorway, “Maggie and Lightning are here.”
Both girls run over from Nightingale’s side, and after stopping in front of the desk, they pointedly asked. “Were you looking for us?”
“Tomorrow is the start of the final month of summer,” Roland pulled his formerly written reply to Tilly out of the drawer and placed it in front of Maggie, “When you return to the Fjord, remember to help me hand this over to Tilly.”
“Ah…” For a moment Maggie froze, only able to look at the message with blinking eyes, before she took the envelope and carefully placed it into her personal bag, “No problem,
Seeing an expression of sudden understanding from the other side, Roland feared that she had already forgotten the important matter of her monthly reports. Restraining the smile within his heart, he thought of the town’s charm which seemed to be really powerful.
“I have entirely forgotten that tomorrow is the beginning of a new month,” Lightning tapped against her forehead. “Does it mean that we will be unable to see each other for a long time?”
“Tilly’s plan to sweep the Fjords clean of the Church had delayed my plan to come back last time, this time I will be back as soon as possible,” Maggie shook her white hair that was about to reach the ground, “Wait for me to come back to explore the eagle nest together…
“I got it,” the other little girl said, curling her lips, “It’s a promise.”
“You have your own mission,” Roland spread out a map of the region south of the town. “This is the map you had previously drawn, do you still remember the location of the shoal near the mountains?”
“I remember,” Lightning pointed at a place on the map, “Probably around this area.”
