Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 454 Decision-making sessions

Finally, Claude's post-war concluding remarks on the war, he said a lot that the Thunder Corps had never suffered such heavy casualties since its inception and that almost half of its strength had been lost. However, they were able to withstand the final victory of the Hicks' rebellion and were qualified to grow into a strong legion, such a loss of war would become the glorious history of the legion and the honorable legacy of the Iron Blood Soul.

Claude talked about the difference between projectiles in attack and defense, and about the replenishment of new rifles. With regard to the presence of sniper rifles and landmines, just to name a few, these two new types of weapons were not truly proven in this war, mainly because they were too few in number and not widely used.

Claude talked most about the mixed war and the bloodbath, which he experienced and witnessed firsthand. Even in front of the crowd attending the meeting, when he was excited, he called General Bolognick a cheap bastard, made General Bolognick cry and couldn't compare him to Claude.

Because Claude is telling the truth, General Bolognick understands Claude's grief at the heavy casualties of his men, especially the regret of later discovery that such heavy casualties could have been avoided...

Claude said the Thunder Regiment could have lost at least a few thousand troops in the Great Mixed Wars if it had equipped all the grassroots officers of both Regiments with a handheld revolver before the war began. Claude felt a tremendous heartache when so many good grassroots officers sacrificed, many of them without sacrificing if they had revolvers...

But before the war, General Bolognick only offered the price of five Golden Kroner revolvers, so that the price could not even reach the cost, at least double the price to ten Golden Kroner, so the order for the revolvers was cancelled in the war zone...

Was it so difficult to increase the cost of 50,000 gold kroner compared to the lives of the 20,000 disabled soldiers and the pensions to be paid in the war zone? That's also why Claude slapped General Bolognick at the table, and General Bolognick was absolutely right.

It was not that General Bolognick was petty, but that he did not realize that revolvers could play an important role in close combat. He believed that with a new type of rifle, enemies could be eliminated at a distance, so that a close-range revolver would become an accessory. In the midst of a tight war zone, and unaware of the tremendous gains to be made from cleaning up the hinterland colonies of the Hicks kingdom, a copper coin made him cancel his order for a revolver...

Claude then turned to the performance of the Legion of Thunder's forces, who agreed with General Bitchklin that a group of veterans should be recruited to replenish the army and play a strong role at the grass-roots level to better help those recruits grow. On the battlefield, the presence of veterans will allow recruits to play better, and they will learn more combat experience from veterans.

After Claude had finished his speech, General Bolognick had said a few more words, namely, that the senior officers of the theatre who had participated in the conference would do their part in the following days and complete the tasks entrusted to them in the theatre would be adjourned. It was only Claude that they could not leave, and then there was the decision meeting of the five giants in theatre to discuss the follow-up to the colonial war.

Or, to a certain extent, what this decision-making session is really about is the question of whether or not the partnership between theatre and the Nikanca nation against the Hicks should continue. At the beginning of the meeting, Claude, General Albert and General Bitchcline all said in unison that there was no way to continue working together.

General Bitchicklin said bitterly that he was putting more energy on the Nikans than the Hicks when he defended himself against the Hicks, and even had to guard against the Nikans causing trouble for themselves. Disobedience to orders to violate military discipline is no longer worth mentioning. The most important thing is that the Nikancas have been watching out for troops in theatre equipped with new rifles, which is the most intolerable thing for General Bitchklin...

General Albert has been obsessed with those Nikanca camps stationed in the northern frontier hills, especially their refusal to participate in the attack on the Hicks' camp during the Great Mixed War. He shared the view that cooperation with the Nikancas would be of little benefit to the theatre, but would instead drag the theatre and even cause greater losses to the theatre's troops in the ensuing war, particularly in the transportation of logistical supplies.

Claude, for his part, was discouraged by the ignorance of the Nikans, who asked themselves how good they had always been to the Nikans, who would not have sent troops to help them clean up and occupy the entire hinterland colony of the Hicks Kingdom, and to distribute the spoils of war to the Nikans who watched over the soy sauce. Post-war statistics are worth more than 4 million gold and silver ingots. General Scully, who knew about the news, was half dead, scolding Claude as a loser.

But this goodwill in the theatre did not come in exchange for the wholehearted assistance of the Nikankas during the war, which began to mobilize 100,000 Nikanka youthful men to command the theatre. Cooperating with the theatre in the clearing of the barrier was also purely in the face of the tremendous pressure from the massive attack of the Hicks. Without mentioning the escape and poor performance at the beginning of the war, it was easy for a hero to voluntarily go to his death to raise his morale. By the second half of the year, he regained his state of mind and began to make a scene again.

Without listening to the commands and claiming these small things against military orders, they are the ones who lose anyway. Logistics shipments somehow dropped so much at the bottom of the cliff for no reason, you can also close one eye and put it there. But the idea of launching new rifles for the two regiments went beyond allies and cooperation, and the Nikancas had crossed the border.

What pisses Claude off most is that he took the Legion of Thunder back to the northern mountains to rest, and those Nikancha camps stationed in the frontier mountainous areas dared to coerce him into handing over to them the iron pumpkins and throwers produced by the captured Kingdom of Hicks. After Claude refused their request three times and five times, the Nikancas abandoned the frontier mountains to say goodbye, thinking it would force Claude to van, and I don't know where they got this confidence.

Claude was really pissed off by these unknown, high-altitude Nikanchas, who directly ordered the Legion of Thunder to occupy the entire northern mountain region, both at the front and rear, without letting another Nikancha in. Now that you've given up, let's not say we didn't. Claude's orders were clear that the entire northern coastal mountainous area belonged to the theatre of battle since the day of the silent evacuation of the Nikanths...

General Bitchicklin believes that it would be easier to make the Nikanchas enemies of the theatre than to become allies of the theatre. Becoming enemies requires only one local guard corps to keep an eye on the Nikans and become allies, and every time a defensive combat plan is deployed, several missions need to be considered to protect them. Otherwise, if they collapse on the battlefield, they will affect defensive operations on the entire front.

General Albert, for his part, deplored the disobedience of the Nikans, who, in his view, had to learn to obey orders if they were allies in the direct territorial war zone. There's no need for them to be brave enough to fight, but at least be a qualified cannon dust. If you can't even use a qualified cannon ash, you don't need an ally like this in the war zone...

Claude simply meant that whether the war zone continued to cooperate with the Nikans or turned against the Nikans as enemies, the northern coastal mountainous areas occupied by the Legion of Thunder would not be handed over to the Nikans, which had become theatre of war and no longer the territory of that Nikan nation.

General Bolognick laughed so hard that he thought that even if we were to turn our backs on the Nikancas, we would at least wait for the end of the colonial war, where the war would take place and end the partnership with our allies in an hour and a half. The next attack by the Hicks would take at least six months, and he was prepared to wait for Colonel Boquer to return from the colony of the Gulf of Rhodes before sending him as his Special Envoy to the Nikanca nation to see what was going on, and now the issue was put on hold.

Of the five giants in theatre, General Skerry was the most contradictory, agreeing with the three Claudes and reluctantly abandoning his alliance with the Nikancas. After all, it was not easy to capture a wrongdoer in the theatre, and half a year before the war began, one third of the armaments produced in the theatre were sold to the Nikancha nation at high prices. Those previously seized garbage weapons from the Kingdom of Hicks were sold to them at twice the price, benefiting nearly two million gold kroner from the Nikanchas alone in the war zone.

The Nikantha Kay Big Client Ward like this should be dedicated to them all, especially the loser Claude, who sent troops to clean up the hinterland colonies of the Kingdom of the Hicks and distributed 30% of the Nikantha loot. Neither General Bolognick nor General Skerry cared much at first. They thought the so-called loot was nothing more than some mining tool, and it didn't matter if they gave it to the Nikanchas...

Who would have thought that within two years those Hicks mineral bases would have accumulated gold and silver ingots worth 1,700 gold kroner? General Bolognick and General Skerry finally understood where the financial resources of the Kingdom of Hicks came from and why, after three tragic defeats, 10 standing armies could be formed to continue the colonial war.

But then they started to regret it because Claude promised to divide it into 30% Nikancas. Fortunately, General Skerry bullied the Nikanchas into not understanding mathematics, ordering them to divide directly into two piles of gold and silver ingots worth 17 million gold and silver, one pile worth 13 million gold and one pile worth 4 million gold. And then point to the four million gold and silver ingots and say to the Nikanchas, that's 30% of what you get.

The Nikanchas calculated that thirty percent of the thirteen million gold and silver was 39.0 million gold, so the war zone also gave 100,000 gold and silver ingots, so Haze took away the four million gold and silver ingots, and thought General Skerry was very wary, not counting these small interest...

So General Skerry had no objection to turning his face over with the Nikans, but the prerequisite was to wait for the war zone to get the four million dollar gold and silver ingot in the hands of the Nikans. During this period, General Skerry was organizing a large number of officers of the Zone Logistics Department to sell various items of livelihood to the Nikancas, half of whom had placed orders for production workshops in the respective territories for the Nikancas.

The subject was eventually set aside by General Bolognick, who decided to see what the Nikancas had to say after the New Year's Eve. The next decision was to take over, which was soon to be taken, with six local guard teams drawn from each of the direct jurisdictions to the northern coastal mountainous and eastern mountainous areas to take over the frontier mountainous areas and the three defensive fronts.

There are six local guard regiments formed by the veterans to pick them up, and the troops of the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion deployed in the frontier mountains can be withdrawn for respite and reinforcement. At the very least, it is more reassuring to the theatre than the Nikancha camp, where the six local guard regiments will also assist the two regiments against the Hicks when the Thunder Regiment and the Rock Regiment return.

The third issue was revolvers, and General Bolognick accepted Claude's criticism in vain, deciding to install a revolver for all the grassroots officers in the theatre, at what Claude called a cost of 10 gold kroners each, with 30 rounds of ammunition. But Claude thought about it and refused to let the Blackstone Firearms Factory take the order.

Claude explained that the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop was doing its best to produce a new type of rifle, and there was really no energy or distraction to build another revolver production line. Claude means simply re-establishing a military industry that specializes in the production of projectiles and revolvers for theatre. Just as the production and development of the projectile also needed to be rectified, Claude decided to separate Mr. Viberon's iron ore workshop from the one where the projectile was produced and to build a revolver production line. Of course, you are welcome to join the military industry.

There was nothing more intimate than a community of interests, and Claude's suggestion was truly delightful. So each of the four generals in this room came out with 10,000 gold kroner, each accounting for 10 percent of the military industry to be established. Because Claude was the inventor of projectiles and revolvers, he also paid 10,000 gold kroner, 30 percent of the shares. The remaining 30 percent, to be given to Mr. Vibert, who is in charge of production management, is going to pay 10 percent, of course, and he's going to need 100 grand.

Twenty percent of the shares are reserved for those who invent new weapons in the future. General Bolonik, concerned about the lack of sufficient start-up funds for the new military industry to be established, gave Claude an interest-free loan guarantee in the name of the war zone to the Overseas Minsheng Bank of KK 500,000. At the time of the signing of the agreement, the order for revolvers had risen to 20,000, and the price had unwittingly changed to eighteen gold kroner.

Once all is in place, we will continue our discussions on the subject of Colonel Boquer's proposal to deliver a shipment of food to the colonies of the Gulf of Rodex for sale. Food prices have doubled tenfold over there, and selling a batch of food can yield rich gains in the war zone, even more than robbery.

General Albert and General Beechlin categorically opposed it as an act of enmity. At the same time, they also believe that if the Hicks are rejuvenated to sell food to their enemies for profit, and they are likely to strike before the war zone is ready, it is likely that the war zone will lift stones and smash its feet, and regret will not be able to do so.

General Skerry thinks it should be sold, but the war zone will not provide much food, and small quantities of smuggling should be fine. He believed that selling food would not only benefit the war zones, but would also increase the confidence of the Hicks and intelligence gathering among agents of the bison dealership.

General Bolognick is a difficult man, and he thinks everyone has a point. Finally, he asked Claude if he should sell food to the colony of Rodex Bay.

Claude had thought about it, and Colonel Fordless of the Intelligence Service had mentioned that the colonies of the Gulf of Rodex were currently suffering from food insecurity and that the Hicks had gone to colonies on the western continent to procure food urgently, although it would take time to buy it and return it, and it was estimated that one month later they would have food delivered back. And during the month, whether residents of Rodex Bay City or the Hicks Kingdom's Standing Army, they had to fill their bellies with wheat wine and seafood to survive the month.

Since the Hicks will not starve to death in this month, we will sell them the food they consume for a month, counting that the Hicks in Garrodex Bay City have a total of 100,000 inhabitants, three kilograms of food a day per person is 300,000 kilograms, up to 10 million kilograms of food a month, I do not believe that the Hicks will be able to regain their energy with this 10 million kilograms of food, are they just saving the next half, half the food is half full, where do they get the courage to attack us...

So it was decided to sell 10 million kilos of food to the colony of Rodex Bay in the name of smuggling. General Skerry was pleased that ten times the price and the battlefield earned 40,000 gold kroner. The 40,000 gold kroner seemed insignificant, but for the battlefield, it was no small complement. Unfortunately, this was the same time the high price was sold...

The next five generals discussed and decided on the amount of pensions, disability allowances, and then came up with the difficult question of what to do with the promotion of the soldiers who were neutral in this war. Previously, it was generally reported to the Royal Ministry of the Army, for approval, after the end of the war, that the list of officers and soldiers who needed to be promoted for the establishment of war merits was verified by the Royal Ministry of the Army before being issued a list of officers and soldiers who were allowed to be promoted.

Rewards are not difficult. The war zone is financially autonomous and can be awarded directly. At the same time, the funds received by the troops after selling spoils will be distributed to the troops themselves. After the triumph of the previous three colonial wars, when the promotion list came down, the Royal Army Department would also allocate a sum of money as a bonus, so a lot of veterans had no money, so they looked forward to the war, and if they won, they would come naturally...

It is only now that the Overseas Territories war zone and the Kingdom's mainland have cut off maritime traffic. It is unclear to what extent the Kingdom's civil war has taken place in the Overseas Territories war zone, and it is unclear who the two princes can laugh at in the end. In this case, it is certainly impossible to submit the promotion list to the Royal Army Ministry, so what about the sergeant who made the battle this time, can he be promoted or not?

For Claude and his five generals, it doesn't matter if they get promoted or not, but for the Corps' grassroots officers, promotion is about their future. The morale of the troops is likely to be undermined if only rewards are awarded for non-promotion, but it would appear to be a little overbearing if the theatre decides to promote them, when General Bolognick, General Skrey and General Bitchklin hesitate.

Finally, Claude filmed the board, the promotion, from the sergeant to the lieutenant colonel, according to the merits of the promotion, the reward. If the Colonel has any war merit, he remembers that, after all, promotion from an officer to a general war zone is not determinable and requires the approval of the Royal Ministry of the Army and the King. The remainder are handled in accordance with the normal promotion procedure, and it is important to contact the mainland of the Kingdom at a later stage before completing a supplementary reporting procedure.

During the war, the victory of the war was a priority, and the others were left out for the time being. The other four generals considered it repeated, eventually agreeing to do as Claude said...