Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 370: Horse Donkey and Iron Mine Workshop

Soon after, it has been six months since both the Rangers and Marshal Michel returned to the kingdom. It is May 589, the fifteenth year since the passage of Claude, and he is now thirty-one years old, Major General of the kingdom from the youngest civilian origins in the history of the Kingdom of Orvillas, Supreme Commander of the Overseas Territories Battlezone of the Nubian mainland and Commander of the Thunder Division.

Claude is very grateful to Marshal Michelle for appreciating and promoting himself to succeed him as the commander in chief of the war zone. At the same time, Marshal Michel helped him set up a shelf for the entire Forces nouvelles zone command, equipped with suitable deputies and subordinates. This enabled Claude to assume his duties smoothly upon the return of Marshal Michel to the kingdom and continued the orderly implementation of the established strategic plan throughout theatre command.

At present, 100,000 migrant families have arrived in the order of 80,000, with the last remaining migrants. And the first second arriving immigrant families have sown the seeds of hope on the fields allocated to them, waiting for the harvest in September. Likewise, no one would have expected so many problems in the process of resettling 100,000 immigrant families, and although most of the difficulties had been solved with the assistance of the Ministry of Civil Affairs headed by Sir Bennett, civil affairs in theatre still involved most of Claude's energies.

The Thunder Division is the first of the five reinforced divisions to supplement their full strength, followed by the Rock First, Second, and Third divisions to supplement their strength. Only the last Rock Fourth division is still a scaffold division, and they will have to wait until the last immigrants arrive to supplement their troops to complete the formation task.

Claude once asked Major General Abrenk and Major General Beechlin, who were supposed to be the Prep 1st and Prep 2nd Regiments, how did they change their names to the Rock 3rd and 4th Regiments? As a result, both of you and Claude were promoted to Major General of the Kingdom at the same time, saying that they thought it was a terrible name to prepare, and had a low head feeling, so they protested with Marshal Michelle and entwined the Marshal for half a day and couldn't help but change his name to rock...

Fortunately, several of Claude's younger brothers were very strong and did most of the work for training and discipline without Claude having to work hard for the Thunder Corps, and successfully completed a six-month training session. Muried and Berkelin, among others, are now leading most of the Thunder Division to Cromwell and Beringana for patrolling and terrain familiarization training, leaving only the all-veteran guerrilla camp led by Major McJackie in Lake Lang town.

“General, the biggest problems that plague us right now are horse riding, horse racing and mobility, most immigrant families need to buy a horse racing or farming, and horse riding for generations. But our battlefield and the three rear jurisdictions are simply unable to provide so many horses and hammers, the price of which has tripled over the past three months and is almost the same as that of the horses…" Sir Bennett's already grieving hair is half white for this.

Claude couldn't solve the problem either, and the five reinforced divisions in theatre were not equipped with enough horses themselves, speaking of more than 30,000 horses and more than 10,000 horses. But the Thunder Division alone is equipped with 30,000 horses and nearly a thousand horses, because the nature of the Thunder Division is offensive and mobile, imitating the former Rangers, which must have so many horses to guarantee mobility.

And the rest of the ponies and the kempeitai were divided into four divisions, and there was no excess. The Department has also been clamoring for insufficient capacity to purchase additional horses. But now there is no place to buy it, even if the price of the horse has tripled if it is shipped from the mainland of the Kingdom, it is still at a loss compared to the expensive cost of long distance transportation. Transporting horses is a risky business because there is no guarantee that there will be any problems at sea.

Three months ago, when Sir Bennett first raised the lack of transport horses in several newly established towns for immigrants, Claude drew nearly a thousand horses from the five division configurations and handed them over to the Civil Affairs Department to rent them out to those immigrant families. Fortunately for Claude, he had instructed the horses not to be sold, but to rent them, because Claude had always thought that immigrant families could not afford them.

Turns out Claude thinks too much. The horses were distributed out of supply or demand, or a cup of water truck salary. People in the world are familiar with horse farming, not cattle farming, which is used as a provider of meat, not as animal power for farming and pulling cars. Basically these immigrants don't use cattle to farm and pull cars...

The plains under Amphiston are sparsely populated, without adequate transportation and road construction, and immigrant families are housed in the area for farming, so what they need most is step-by-step horses and pullers, as well as farming horses. The purchase of a camel was not a burden on them, as they were all paid for their homes by the emerging business aristocrats when they moved to the war zone. But the problem is that the war zone cannot provide a horse or a horse for each household, and the entire overseas jurisdiction of the Nubian mainland cannot do so...

“Perhaps we could buy donkeys from the Nikancas instead of horses to pull cars.” Major General Skerry, Head of the Department of Logistics, came up with an idea.

The Nikans here in the Nubian continent love to raise donkeys for riding and carrying things, sometimes describing the home of a Nikan as having several donkeys. Perhaps it would be a good idea to buy some donkeys from the Nikancas to pull the car. But Claude feared that immigrant families preferred to kill donkeys and eat meat, which in the kingdom of Orvillas had always been hailed as a delicious, nourishing meat food.

“A number of pastures in the three rear governorates are said to be ready for large-scale farming of grazing horses, and it appears that the increase in the price of horses has also given rise to hope for wealthy farmers. Major General Bolognick said," Several of my friends have been questioned, and the ranchers want some horses from our battlefield to be planted to improve the quality of the hybrid horses. ”

This is a solution, and the only problem is that it takes too long, at least two or three years for a growing horse to sell. The battlefield is facing a shortage of horses that urgently needs to be addressed, and 100,000 immigrant families, even a third of them, need 30,000 horses to buy. This is not a small number, it is a difficult need to address.

The final outcome of the meeting did not discuss much, but simply adopted Major General Skerry's suggestion that some donkeys should be purchased from the Nikancas to act as livestock for the pull, temporarily resolving the problems of transport and travel distress for immigrant families.

When Claude returned home, he discovered that Mr. Viberon had returned with his wife, this time in the name of visiting the newborn, and had sent a large quantity of baby supplies. More than a month ago, Kevin gave Claude another son, named Bargazi. In Gukherz it means blue lake, which is named after the beautiful Lake Lan next to the villa estate. Now Claude is also the father of two children.

After dinner, Claude came to the study with Mr. Viberon. Mr. Viberon took several documents from his briefcase and handed them to Claude, saying, "General, our association agrees that you have the surveyed iron ore in the East Mosilaga Mountains, where you can mine and build a workshop. At the same time, our Mining and Commerce Association will absorb you as a member of the Association and have all the privileges and mutual assistance rights that our members have. This is your mining licence and Iron Ore Ownership Certificate, as well as the deed to the mountainous area where the mine is located..."

Claude was happy to say, "Thank you, my friend, you've done me a great favor. ”

It's just that Mr. Viberon doesn't quite understand: “General, can I ask why? It is well known that iron ore is the least rewarding mineral for investment. The Kingdom itself produces the most iron ore, and the overseas territories have the least value for mining and investment. Our association owns only one iron ore, but the produce of agricultural tools and various household goods is sufficient to meet the needs of all overseas territories, with the lowest annual rate of return for all minerals.

That is, last year, the arrival of the first second group of immigrants, and the tools and tools they needed, as well as the orders for those household items, made the report look a little better. But at present, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the war zone has continued to give the iron ore of our association the orders needed by the immigrants below. General, you are the one who developed the iron ore, built the workshop, and couldn't possibly earn more money from the subsequent immigrant families, could you? After all, there can't be a lot of iron in every household... ”

Claude Haha laughed out loud: "Don't worry, my friend, tell your association owners of that iron ore, I don't want this iron ore to compete with them. I want this iron ore to produce military goods, not living goods, not agricultural tools and tools, but a weapon. So I turned down the help you were going to give me for free at the iron ore of your association. I insist on ownership of this iron ore, given the need for secrecy. ”

Mr. Viberon was relieved, but curiosity arose again: “As far as I know, the Kingdom has always imposed strict requirements and restrictions on the production of military goods and has preferred to deliver arms and armaments from the mainland of the Kingdom for the overseas territories of the Nubian mainland. How could they have promised you a workshop here in the war zone to produce weapons? ”

Claude shook his head: "They did not promise me to open a workshop here in the theatre to produce weapons. In the theatre, only a firearms repair workshop and a matching ammunition workshop were set up with the consent of the Kingdom and under close surveillance by the Royal Ministry of Armaments. I do not need the approval of the Kingdom, because the weapons that I am going to produce are invented by myself, not the weapons and equipment that are manufactured in our Kingdom. So I need an iron ore and run my own workshop to try out a batch of them to try out, and if I can increase the troop strength, the battlefield will be purchased on a massive scale..."

Mr. Viberon suddenly found out what he understood. He looked up to Claude admirably, thinking that Claude was brilliant and had found himself an unquestionable way to pay. It's simple, even if Claude develops that iron ore and casts raw iron eggs in the workshop, if he smashes an enemy on the front line, the battlefield has to pinch its nose and acknowledge the extraordinary results. As commander in chief of the theatre, Claude was perfectly capable of ordering the theatre logistics department to procure large quantities of raw iron eggs from his factory, making good money.

Claude did not understand how dark Mr. Viberon thought of him in the heart, and he asked the Mining and Commerce Association to give him this iron ore, which had been surveyed for over 60 years and had not been developed by anyone, mainly to find a place where grenades could be produced in secrecy, and then to see if mines could be produced or not, which was his instrument against the next colonial war.

It's just that Claude asked her sister Anna to experiment with a security explosive that failed, or not entirely. The reason is simple: Anna finally succeeded in synthesizing a security explosive in the magic alchemy charm array, and she succeeded in passivating nitroglycerin to stability with a red clay from the continent of Nubian, making it a security explosive.

But the problem is that nitroglycerin, which can be synthesized in the magic alchemy charm array, cannot be produced in large quantities because of the need for cooling temperatures when nitroglycerin is synthesized. In the Magic Alchemy Character Array test, sister Anna can control the temperature and use a cryogenic technique for cooling. But in real-world, large-scale production, sister Anna had no idea how to design the cooling system, and there was nothing she could do, and Claude had no choice.

The amount of nitroglycerin that can be produced at a time in the magic alchemy charm array is very small, and the maximum amount of safe explosives produced at the end is three grenades, and it takes a long time, almost four or five hours to produce at a time. Claude couldn't have had his sister standing in front of the Alchemy Charms every day producing this safe explosive for herself, which was very inexpensive.

Since large-scale production of safe explosives is no longer a reality, it doesn't matter if the grenade is heavily focused on black powder, significantly changing the way it is hand-throwed. What is important is that the grenade can land in a flowering explosion, which will surprise the enemy greatly. The artillery of this era, with the exception of a dozen shotguns, fired solid bullets. Claude has decided that after the successful design of the mine, the next step will be for her sister Anna to see if she can design a flowering shell...

Changing the way grenades are invested is simple, and the average soldier can only throw 20 to 30 meters with all his energy, so Claude designed a throwing structure, which is to add an iron plate to the spring base plate for shock resistance in a carriage, assemble it into a very simple throwing structure, flatten the iron plate on the ground when used, break down the spring base plate, put the grenade into the throwing groove, release the spring base plate after pulling the string, and the grenade can fly 50 to 60 meters away.

After several experiments, Claude felt he could use it directly on the battlefield, which is why he asked the Mining and Commerce Association for that iron mine, which had been abandoned for more than six decades, to open his own workshop to manufacture grenades and mines. Mr. Viberon assisted him in submitting his request to the Mining and Commerce Association and completed all the formalities.

“My friend, I also need your help, and if I may, I would like you to join the stock and help me run this weapons factory because I lack a reliable manager..." Claude told the truth.

Mr. Viberon thought Claude was rewarding him for his help, after all, an iron ore factory that could make money by simply casting raw iron eggs did not require strict regulation. He humbled himself that he was helping Claude out of friendship and that he didn't need a reward. But with Claude's insistence, he offered 2,000 gold kroner to subscribe for 20% of the shares and signed a share agreement and a confidentiality agreement.

It's just that Mr. Viberon doesn't know what those 20 percent shares mean, and he doesn't think Claude should be offended if he's willing to share a cup with him. In his view, the two thousand gold kroner he offered would be able to summon people to develop the iron ore and build an iron ore foundry. Claude didn't need to pay anything, he just had to take care of the battlefield logistics department, and he could make money lying down...