Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 717 - 670: Tender Allocation

No one knew about the secret meeting and conversations between Perfikot and Kallen; it would remain an absolute secret.

Half a month later, the tendering for the airship project began as scheduled.

Perfikot personally participated in the auditing and tendering of key projects as she really couldn't trust others to handle these critical matters.

However, her energy was ultimately limited, so the less important projects, which she deliberately subcontracted out, were handed over to a temporarily established bidding group to oversee and manage the entire tendering process.

The only part she was responsible for was the technical audit of the most crucial sections, to ensure that only direct manufacturers with adequate technical qualifications entered the core section bids.

These days, distributors or suppliers already exist, and they hoped to be involved in projects.

But for the stability of the supply chain and monitoring and controlling the quality, Perfikot chose to exclude these non-direct manufacturers from the bidding scope.

This decision drew some complaints from quite a few people.

After all, some of them were white gloves raised by the Empire's top echelon, while others were interests representatives being pushed out.

These people acquired products from manufacturers at low prices through their power and then sold them to the Empire at high prices, earning huge profits from it.

While it seemed fine, every step in this process was actually a bottomless pit.

Firstly, these people were not direct manufacturers; they might find manufacturers that did not meet the qualifications for production and would also force the manufacturers to lower prices to cut costs and increase profits.

In this process, if the manufacturers didn't want to operate at a loss, they could only similarly cut their own costs.

The result of this would be non-conforming products, cutting corners, or producing inferior quality goods as superior ones.

But this had nothing to do with the agents or suppliers who got the orders; they only cared about making enough profit for themselves. As for the quality or price of what they sold to the Empire, what did it matter to them?

Not getting projects or orders? Could their power and status be fake?

They initially looked forward to getting a share of this big project, but now Perfikot had directly blocked their channels of making money.

How could this not make them dissatisfied?

But in the face of the White Bear Knight Order summoned by Perfikot under the name of maintaining order, no one dared to speak out or express their dissatisfaction.

After all, even other knight orders equipped with steam armor had to show caution in front of the White Bear Knight Order, which had been upgraded to the latest steam knight armor, let alone ordinary people.

Perfikot spared no effort in her knight order; while ordinary Imperial knight orders were still equipped with the earliest models of steam knight armor, Perfikot had already upgraded the White Bear Knight to the third generation.

This was design inspiration Perfikot obtained while researching Godslaying Armor, and after acquiring omniscient abilities, she undertook a large-scale technological upgrade of steam knight armor based on this inspiration, resulting in the third generation.

Compared to the first generation of steam armor, Perfikot adopted a new energy core with principles similar to Godslaying Armor in the third generation. This technology had already been technically verified on the God Grace Knight, and now Perfikot finally applied it to steam knights by combining experimental and battle data from God Grace Knights.

With this technological upgrade, the current third generation of steam armor also possesses superhuman abilities.

At the cost of requiring major repairs after use, steam armor can operate in over-limit mode for three minutes, enhancing its mechanical performance by 300%.

This is a powerful trump card; for regular steam knights, it equates to having the ability to take a final shot or make a desperate strike against invincible enemies.

After all, the strength of ordinary steam knights is at best only at the level of grand knights, which isn't very useful on the increasingly exaggerated battlefields of today.

This was particularly evident in the Godslaying Battle that took place in Langton.

Ordinary steam knights were merely slightly more advanced cannon fodder on the Godslayer battlefield.

Meanwhile, the third generation of steam armor ensured that steam knights at least had the capability to bash the enemy's face or take a bite out of them.

Of course, for ordinary people, this was not particularly tangible.

But the third generation of steam armor appeared taller and larger, with none of the annoying coal smoke, exuding a mighty, intimidating aura that ordinary people could understand.

With the deterrence of the White Bear Knights, Perfikot's tendering plan proceeded very smoothly.

With the forceful intimidation, the vast majority of people, even if they were dissatisfied with the tendering results, did not dare to act recklessly.

Bear in mind this was akin to the era of the first Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, and especially since the entire Empire had just endured a cataclysmic upheaval, the surviving Empire nobles were by no means holy figures.

The real-world commercial wars could physically eliminate competitors, and one shouldn't think too highly of merchants' competitive methods in this world, either.

They are just deterred by Perfikot's intimidation, nothing else.

However, due to her intention to support the Royalist Party, Perfikot still allocated most of the projects to factories under the Royalist Party or their promoted interests representatives.

Of course, all of this was predicated on these people meeting her requirements and at least passing qualification assessments.

The Royalist Party was not initially aware of all this, but as the tendering proceeded, they quickly caught on.

The Royalists were somewhat distrustful of Perfikot's intentions; after all, the Royalist Party and the Northern Faction were not exactly at each other's throats, but they were definitely competing.

Under such circumstances, not only did Perfikot not side with the Northern Faction, but she also allocated the majority of the project's benefits to the Royalist Party. This seemed an unusual move.

However, the senior decision-makers of the Royalist Party didn't find this strange, especially the old advisors around Eldest Princess Annie. They saw through this matter more profoundly.

"The Northern Count is balancing things; she does not want the Royalist Party to be too weak, she wants to maintain a political equilibrium." A former colonial Governor pointed out the core reason behind Perfikot's actions with piercing insight.

Another advisor added further: "This is a good thing for us! If we can absorb the benefits brought by this project, the Royalist Party will secure a foothold in the Northern Territory, gaining the capital to compete with the Northern Faction!"