Munitions Empire

The military parade the day before was incredibly spectacular, and although there was no live broadcast, the grandeur of Tang Nation's parade quickly became known worldwide.

Guests from various countries who came to Tang Country to attend the ceremony truly witnessed the country's strength. They were overwhelmed by the sheer number of planes covering the sky to the extent that they forgot to look at the Rocket Artillery covered in canvas, following the towed artillery.

Tang Country displayed a plethora of weapons for the entire world, and there was a strong interest to buy many of them. However, it was the Tang Nation Air Force that had shone brilliantly in the Anti-Tang War.

This was the first time in the world that air forces were truly considered at a strategic level, and it was discovered that establishing a strong air force was the only standard to solve increasingly fragile supply line problems.

The reasoning was actually quite simple: to support a huge, powerful military, a nation had to industrialize and elevate its military logistics to an unprecedented level.

But protecting these industrial facilities became a huge challenge, as modern factories indeed increased vast production capacities but also required numerous workers, who in turn needed housing and various supporting facilities.

Water supply, electricity, markets, hospitals, and schools, as well as the government agencies to serve these places... It can be said that factories can only rely on cities, or rather, cities exist primarily to serve one or several factories.

Such cities are vast in scale but weak in defense. Should any part be destroyed by an air force, then production would halt, and the capacity would vanish.

For modern warfare, this is undoubtedly a disaster: without rear production, the losses on the front line cannot be compensated, and even the largest military would collapse without ammunition and fuel.

Similarly, to transport the massive amount of weapons and equipment produced in the rear, along with the mobilized personnel, roads are also crucial.

These roads, like veins, supply the national giant with nutrients. Yet, these roads can't be defended and are easily destroyed by an air force.

It is even more so for trains and railways; the vast carrying capacity relies on the railway support, and the train symbolizes and sustains a nation's transport capabilities.

Once destroyed by an air force, even if rear factories continue production, the front line troops would suffer from supply cut-offs.

While factories could possibly relocate beyond bomber ranges for self-protection, roads will inevitably be near conflict zones, making the defense of these crucial arteries even more challenging.

Besides these, another link also faces great challenges from the air: the military's supply troops are large and vulnerable. Their established supply depots at the front, vehicles required to distribute materials, and the personnel operating it all, are fragile targets for attacks.

By destroying these supply forces, an air force could also achieve the fundamental goal of cutting off the enemy's material transportation and mobilization.

To accomplish this goal, it was necessary to build an air force of considerable scale and advanced capability. By the same token, to prevent the enemy from doing so, one could only establish a vast air force to achieve the objective.

Countries had previously contributed one billion Gold Coin each to purchase plane technology, primarily to establish their own air forces.

But although they had each built tens of thousands of planes and trained a large number of pilots, they could only deter each other and couldn't reach the heights of the Tang Nation Air Force.

Their planes were simply too inferior, unable to match the equipment of the Tang Army or prevent the Tang Nation Air Force from destroying their intended targets.

So, after the parade and victory procession, nations were frantically contacting officials from Tang Country, expressing their desires to purchase various planes.

For the least restricted civilian planes, the countries were purchasing desperately, afraid of missing out on something.

On the Tang Country's side, there was also a need for exports: not just for anything, but to establish international standards for aviation equipment and to grasp the right to draft standards for civilian aviation equipment was highly profitable.

How profitable was this? A closer look would reveal that it's an incredibly lucrative business, almost akin to minting money.

First, exporting planes was good business: Want to establish a civilian aviation company? Sure, buy our planes! Fair price, excellent performance, honest trading!

But as everyone knows, the cost of purchasing a civilian plane might even need the exportation of hundreds of millions of shirts to make back. The problem is, many people around the world can produce shirts, but very few can manufacture planes.

Secondly, buying someone else's planes means accepting their certification standards, including ground crew training, crew training, plane maintenance procedures... all of these must be learned from them.

These seemingly unobtrusive support services are astonishingly expensive, sometimes reaching several times or even dozens of times the price of the plane itself.

In extreme cases, a single new large plane from an airplane manufacturing factory can obsolete over half of another country's airport facilities overnight.

Furthermore, after establishing a monopoly, safety certifications evolve from quality labels into barriers to entry. Any nation wishing to manufacture its own planes must face numerous challenges.