Chapter 184: They Don’t Even Realize They’ve Found A Treasure
After capturing Zaporizhzhia and completely annihilating the over 300,000 enemies in the Dnieper River downstream great bay encirclement.
The most magnificent and thrilling phase of the first stage of the Kievan Rus’ Campaign could also be considered to have come to an end.
The troops had just gone through bloody battles and annihilation, as well as furious advance, and needed time to slowly recuperate and recover.
Not to mention anything else, some infantry troops alone, in 16 days, had advanced nearly 300 kilometers（ from Kherson to Zaporizhzhia, advancing diagonally）.
This distance might not be tiring for armored troops, but for infantry, it averaged 20 kilometers of marching per day just carrying rifles, with repeated fighting in between, and they were exhausted like dogs long ago.
So at least half or more of the troops, after completing the initial objectives, needed at least three to five days of rest to recover their strength.
In addition to troop recuperation, a considerable number of personnel had to be immediately put into emergency rescue and repair work in the newly occupied areas. Because the Lusha Army had carried out a lot of sabotage during their collapse and retreat.
Other sabotage was one thing, as it was the local civilians who suffered anyway, having nothing to do with the army.
But cities like Krivoy Rog, Nikopol, and Zaporizhzhia, after being damaged by the flames of war, had to be rescued immediately, extinguishing the large fires set by the fleeing soldiers before they escaped.
Because Krivoy Rog City is the location of Europe’s largest iron ore mine, and after occupying it, the industrial value is enormous—
In the later Earth during the USSR period, Stalin’s two heavy industry five-year plans mainly integrated the industrial resources around the Dnieper River great bend. This section of the Dnieper River west coast’s Krivoy Rog City has Europe’s largest iron ore mine, and the opposite east coast’s Donbas has Europe’s largest coal mine.
Combining the two, transporting them to Zaporizhzhia to build the continent’s largest steel mill, and then building Europe’s largest hydroelectric power station, the Dnieper River Hydroelectric Power Station, by damming water between upstream Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia, and then using massive electricity here to build Europe’s largest electrolytic aluminum plant.
With all this, it finally created the later USSR surpassing Germania to become Europe’s nation with the largest heavy industrial base scale.
But now it is still 1915, still the Lusha rule period, the two five-year plans do not exist yet, and the steel mills in this area have not been systematically planned to be moved to Zaporizhzhia.
The ore from the Krivoy Rog large iron ore mine is directly transported via an 80-kilometer railway line nearby to Nikopol on the Dnieper River, and there is a steel mill in Nikopol City, which is already the largest in Lusha nationwide.
Unfortunately, when the Lushans collapsed and retreated, they directly packed many facilities of the steel mill with explosives and blew them up, and many mining equipment of the nearby Krivoy Rog large iron ore mine were also blown up by them.
So, the next day after eating the dumpling filling, when Duke Rupprecht personally arrived dusty and weary at Krivoy Rog City, which had been captured by von Bock not long ago, to inspect the work here, he was simply heartbroken.
“Why did you advance so slowly at that time! How did you give the enemy the chance to pack explosives and blow up the mine and steel mill! If you had advanced just one or two days earlier…”
The duke couldn’t help but harshly criticize von Bock a few times, and von Bock could only pinch his nose and accept it, no matter what the commander said, he promised to double his efforts in the future.
In the end, Lelouch was more knowledgeable and hurriedly helped to mediate:
“Your Highness, this matter cannot blame Brigadier General Bock. Even if our army arrived faster and earlier, as long as they got the news and knew our army was approaching, they would definitely set explosives to blow up the mine and steel mill.
However, fortunately, the Lushans’ industrial base was poor to begin with, and this little steel mill of theirs is not worth mentioning. At that time, we can have Krupp or Rheinmetall people come over to rebuild a branch factory, or even have the Dunkirk electric steel mill open a branch here, and within half a year, we can recover to their original production scale, and in two or three years, we might even build it bigger than the Lushans’ original one!”
Hearing this persuasion, the duke felt a bit better. He also became greedy and did not want to hand over such a large iron ore mine and steel mill directly to the state, but hoped that the Baria Royal Family could control more of the profits.
If not, find some reliable domestic capital, and cooperate with his younger brother the Grand Duke of Baden in the Occupied Area Affairs Department, and in any case, find ways to use the coal and steel resources here to support his own military industry system.
The duke had not done much homework on this before, so he naturally asked Lelouch: “How large is this Krivoy Rog large iron ore mine exactly? I have no concept.”
Lelouch had specifically looked at relevant materials, mainly because he knew the USSR’s later industrial potential in his previous life, so he paid great attention to resources in the Kievan Rus’ region, and thus could answer promptly:
“The Krivoy Rog large iron ore mine has reserves of about 16 billion tons—Your Highness, look at that high ground south of the city, over 300 square kilometers, even the mountains are red, that’s the color of iron rust, directly exposed on the surface ready to be dug.
A mountain 30 kilometers east-west long and 12 kilometers north-south wide, entirely iron-rust colored. And the ore here has an iron content of 55%~60%, which is already very good. Steelmaking from here doesn’t even need specially premium coking coal; ordinary coal can be coked to smelt premium steel.
As you know, according to chemical knowledge, iron oxide has a molecular weight of 160, with 2 iron atoms at 112 and 3 oxygen atoms at 48. So pure iron oxide has a theoretical maximum iron content of exactly 70%. This iron ore having 55~60% iron content means the ore already has over 85% iron oxide content.
By comparison, you can refer to the Empire’s core pillar for sustaining the war, the Lorraine iron ore mine, with total proven reserves of 10.5 billion tons, but it has been mined for many years, consuming about 30 million tons of ore annually, and over the past century or more, it has been mined down to just over 8 billion tons remaining, about half of this Krivoy Rog’s reserves.
Moreover, the Lorraine iron ore has 35% iron content, much lower than the 55% here, which is also the main reason the Empire’s steel industry extremely depends on foreign imported coal for blending and coking.”
The duke and the surrounding generals were all only concerned with military affairs, not understanding politics and economy, and hearing Lelouch explain so clearly, they became spirited one by one.
None of them had imagined that merely capturing this mere 30,000 square kilometers of land hid such massive resources underground.
The duke couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air: “Then why are the Lushans still so poor? Their steel output seems far less than the Empire’s, right? Fortunately, the Empire struck first and took out those war maniacs, otherwise if we let them develop, what would happen!”
Lelouch: “That’s natural, because the Lushans only have abundant natural resources, but their development and industrial construction are too backward. Before the 1880s, no iron ore had been discovered here, and the Lushans were already accustomed to metallurgy in the traditional old industrial zone of the Ural Mountains, which also has iron ore but lacks coal mines, so the Lushans relied on logging forest areas and burning charcoal for steelmaking.
The iron ore here was only discovered in 1888, and naturally developed slowly for over a decade, until ten years ago when Lusha lost the war against Fusang, sparking the domestic Stolypin reforms, and only then did the iron ore here start to be valued. Later until before the war broke out, they continuously introduced French capital for mining and steelmaking for 8 years.
By 1913, the annual mining volume of iron ore here reached over 10 million tons, but locally it could only digest 4.8 million tons of ore, with over 6 million tons directly shipped to their ally the Franks.
Local steel output was 3 million tons annually, while Lusha’s national steel output at that time was 4.2 million tons annually—I can give everyone a reference figure: in the same 1913, the Empire’s steel output was 18.8 million tons, 4.5 times that of Lusha.
Relying on iron ore from the Lorraine iron ore mine providing 30 million tons annually, of which 75% is from the part of the Lorraine iron ore mine within our national borders, and 25% from the part extending into Luxembourg territory, imported and purchased from Luxembourg by our country.
The Lorraine iron ore mine and other domestic iron ore mines provided ore for smelting 11 million tons of steel for the Empire. The ore shortfall for another 7 million tons of steel was met by importing rich ore from Sweden. Sweden’s ore has even better iron content than here, reaching nearly 70%, almost pure iron oxide level, so importing just 10 million tons of iron ore from Sweden can produce 7 million tons of steel.”
Lelouch’s detailed explanation finally made everyone clearly and intuitively understand the value of the Krivoy Rog large iron ore mine and the surrounding steel mills.
And after Marshal Rupprecht heard it all, he was both shocked and delighted, because not only did he discover its huge value to the Empire here, he also realized that he had just severely weakened the Lushans’ war potential.
“You mean… in 1913, the Lushans’ national steel output was only 4.2 million tons? And by taking here, the Lushans lose a full 3 million tons of output? Doesn’t that mean we’ve cut off nearly 70% of their national steel industry?
How much steel does the Tsar have left in the arsenals of Saint Petersburg to make guns and cannons! As long as we hold here, the Lushans will bleed to death themselves!”
In the Tsar era’s industrial layout, the southern Kievan Rus’ Plain region already had very developed heavy industry, but it was limited to “raw material supply and rough processing,” meaning there were only steel mills and coking plants here, but lacking machinery manufacturing.
Whether machinery factories or arsenals, they were still concentrated in the north around Petersburg, convenient for the Tsar to centrally control.
But once the southern raw materials are cut off, Lusha’s war machine will immediately run out of blood.
With 70% of a country’s steel knocked out, what can they use to fight a war of attrition.
Seeing the duke getting a bit carried away, Lelouch hurriedly reminded: “Your Highness, we can’t be proud yet. We’ve only taken Europe’s largest iron ore mine; we still can’t bring out its full strength now.
To truly utilize it and truly choke the enemy’s throat, we still need to advance east to take Europe’s largest coal mine, the Donbas coal mine 150 kilometers east of Zaporizhzhia. Only with coal and iron can we make steel. We also need to advance north to Kyiv, taking Europe’s largest black soil great plain granary. Only then will we have truly choked the Lushans’ throat.”
Duke Rupprecht slapped his thigh: “Then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and make the operations staff officer plan! Take all those places you just mentioned! Don’t delay time!”
