Munitions Empire

Three directors from the Shireck Consortium had personally arrived, and the Dwarf craftsman sensed the extraordinary nature of the situation. Thus, he scrutinized the item he had been examining for a long time once more before he finally spoke his inability to fulfill the task.

Upon hearing the request, the Dwarf craftsman shook his head seriously once again and explained, "My lord, I\'ve been studying this item for three whole days now, and every day the moment I open my eyes, I\'m working on this thing!"

The elderly director frowned upon hearing what the Dwarf had to say; the female director beside him also looked despondently as she fiddled with her fingernails.

The old Dwarf craftsman glanced at the three people and continued, "To me, this is no longer a printed product but a work of art! I can\'t understand how such printing technology exists that could produce such... such exquisitely beautiful work."

"Is it that... exaggerated?" the fat director asked incredulously.

The Dwarf held the red banknote towards the light of the gas lamp and, in the deliberately left blank space, he saw a clear impression of an ancient Dwarf-cast gold coin.

He sighed and admired, "In my opinion, it must have gone through many production processes and used at least two kinds of special pulp, which is why you can see the shadow of the gold coin when it\'s held up to the light."

The old craftsman pointed to some wooden barrels piled up in the corner of the wall, looking very weary, "In fact, just to replicate this special pulp, I have already conducted 29 experiments, and regretfully, with my level of skill, I cannot reverse engineer this material."

As a seasoned expert in the printing industry, his reputation was not unearned. Many of the pulps he developed were considered the finest paper materials of this era...n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

But unfortunately, recently, paper from Brunas had completely destroyed the market, with new technologies and new raw materials for paper making completely overrunning traditional papermaking.

The old Dwarf knew this was a new type of paper currency, and he understood that if it started to spread, those capable of forging it would make a fortune.

Even more, counterfeiting could destroy this type of money and completely devastate the local economy and finance of the area where the currency had circulated, leading to utter ruin.

In truth, from a purely technical standpoint, the old Dwarf craftsman also wanted to try his hand at replicating such banknotes, but the other party\'s technology was just too advanced, so advanced he felt utterly powerless.

Therefore, he could only helplessly say, "The other party has great confidence, which is why they dare to use this thing in place of real Gold Coins. In fact, if you were to counterfeit Gold Coins, it might even be easier than to make this kind of paper money."

There were techniques for counterfeiting Gold Coins in this era, although very imperfect—as a metal currency, mixing in other metals makes it easy to detect.

Of course, the most common method involved faking the purity of the Gold Coins, which indeed could be hard to distinguish. However, the necessary equipment like furnaces for such counterfeiting were extensive and could easily be traced back.

At least most of the time, countries would strictly investigate currency fraud, yet they would secretly produce some adulterated Gold Coins, substituting inferior goods for quality, to reap some benefits.

But these operations would not be too large, because after all, credibility is an asset. Frequent counterfeiting once exposed could bring negative impacts to a country\'s economy, and no one could afford that.

So, the spread of new paper currency in regions influenced by the Great Tang Group gave the people at Shireck Consortium some other bold ideas.

"Continue," the elderly director of the board instructed, squinting his eyes.

"The printing technology is also different from our traditional methods. We can\'t print such exquisite patterns. It\'s simply impossible..." the Dwarf craftsman said as he caressed the beautiful banknote, as though he were caressing a woman\'s skin.

Of course, he didn\'t know this was the latest printing technology, where the Great Tang Group had utilized a new energy source like electricity to transform the printing process, resulting in much more precise and clean prints.

It was obviously beyond the reach of traditional printing technology. The difference in printing precision between the two was like night and day, absolutely incomparable.

The Dwarf flipped over the banknote and pointed at the series of digits. "Moreover, it uses a rather troublesome printing code... I don\'t understand its meaning," he said, "but the code is extensive, with each one being unique."

This was another anti-forgery technology employed by the Great Tang Group, making it easier to trace the flow of the banknotes, assess the frequency of circulation, and monitor the approximate spread of the currency within a certain area, among other things.

For this era, such technology was overly advanced, far exceeding the comprehension of these people, so they were fundamentally unable to grasp why the Great Tang Group had gone to such lengths to pile on technologies onto their banknotes.

In their opinion, adopting one or two novel technologies should suffice to combat counterfeits, without the need to introduce so many new technologies at once for anti-forgery purposes.

"This means that each time they print such a banknote, they change the coding sequence," the elderly Dwarf craftsman continued. "I can\'t fathom why they would use such complex coding, but it must have some meaning."

"To me, this item seems like the ultimate product combining the most advanced technologies of this era, it\'s not just one component we can\'t replicate, but all of them that we\'re powerless against." As he spoke, he pressed the banknote from a distant region down on the table.

Then, he slid the banknote across the table toward the direction where three directors were seated, gesturing as if to return it to its rightful owner: "We have no way of reverse-engineering the paper pulp technology. I can\'t even begin to comprehend how they made the paper so flexible and durable."

While speaking, he pushed another banknote with a larger denomination toward them: "Even the printing ink technology is more advanced than any we know of, as it doesn\'t fade and even forms a protective layer over the paper, which is very... interesting."

Before he could finish, he unhesitantly pushed another identical note to a parallel position: "The cutting is meticulous as well; every banknote has the exact same weight, the same size, the same neat corners. That is easy enough to achieve, but mass production is not."

"As for the gold coin watermark inside the money, that\'s something we can\'t copy at all, although maybe with more experiments... perhaps in one year, maybe two... or perhaps ten... it could be possible to create something similar." After saying this, he picked up a bag of gold coins from his desk, peered inside it, and then tied it tightly.

After sealing the bag, he pushed it alongside the banknotes: "You should know that only something similar can be made; it\'s nearly impossible to make it exactly the same! Thus, I must say that the person who thought of this is truly a genius."

"Together with the precision printing technology I mentioned earlier, frankly speaking, our current printing equipment simply doesn\'t have such accuracy. Even if we were to print it forcibly, it would just be a joke." He shrugged helplessly: "I can\'t make any money from this... "

"No need for others to even look; they can distinguish the real from the fake with a simple touch, even a blind person could easily identify it," he said, shaking his head, "not to mention that inscrutable coding. If we also made each one different, the cost might be frightening... but if we made them all the same, then the likelihood of being inspected and caught would skyrocket."

"The most fatal issue," the old craftsman stood up and sighed, "is that printing such banknotes is basically losing money. Printing a one Gold Coin note might cost about two Gold Coins, which is a loss-making venture."

The rotund man swore bitterly, his face grim: "Damn it! Did the Great Tang Group anticipate even this?"

"This money is yours now!" The elder made no move to take back the gold coins or the banknotes and headed toward the door: "If you tell me they did all this unintentionally, I wouldn\'t believe it... The integration of all this anti-forgery technology into a small piece of paper clearly shows that they are acutely aware of the importance of security."

The woman also looked helpless: "It seems we still need to think of another way."

"What do you think, if we, under the name of the Great Tang Group... distribute inferior forgeries in certain areas, could we cause them trouble?" the fat man had a sudden idea.

The elder scoffed: "Don\'t even think about it, that\'s just looking for trouble for ourselves. Pushing this anywhere would lead to huge economic and trade issues, the local officials, including the nobility, the King, they\'d all have serious issues with us."

"Plus, disseminating this in territories we control would be destroying our own economic foundation, wouldn\'t it?" the woman felt the fat man had lost his mind.

"So what if we produce a batch and send it to areas under the control of the Great Tang Group... and then distribute it for free?" the fat man was still somewhat unwilling to give up.

"I spend money to print a bunch of waste paper, and then send it to others to distribute for free? Do you think that joke is funny? Or do you think I\'m an idiot?" the elder sneered disdainfully.

Yet the fat man was still reluctant to give up: "If we print enough, perhaps we can deceive some people and create chaos, right?"

The director, now irritated, retorted: "Did you just hear what I said? If I spend two Gold Coins, I can probably print one Gold Coin\'s worth of counterfeit! Even if the Great Tang Group bought the forgeries at face value, I\'d still go bankrupt first! Damn it... how can they afford to print money like this without fearing losses?"