Chapter 186: Purge Crimea, Reoccupy Donbas
After the staff military meeting ended, it was already past 9 p.m. that evening.
But Lelouch did not dare to rest and had to summon some captured local fiscal civil officials from Zaporizhzhia overnight to verify the historical data on material levies and transports in the Kievan Rus’ region, in order to provide reference for the final decision making.
Of course, his work did not affect the next military action, only the two steps after that—regardless of whether after those two steps it was to turn west toward Kyiv or east toward Donbas, but their first step was the same, which was to go north from Zaporizhzhia and first attack Yekaterinoslav.
So this first step could have Rommel deployed immediately to execute it, advancing north along the railway with the armored troops at dawn tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Lelouch would use the time before Rommel reached Yekaterinoslav to complete his own research and decision making. This way, once Rommel arrived there, he could immediately know where to attack next.
Lelouch now acted like a very mature top project manager, knowing how to advance multiple things in parallel while ensuring that the decision-making speed at the decision layer would not become a bottleneck for the execution layer.
……
At 10 p.m. late at night, inside Zaporizhzhia city hall.
Two former Lusha Empire officials were brought before Lelouch. One handled fiscal levies, the other was from the railway administration.
When the two were brought in, they were slightly surprised to see that they had to report to an improbably young Germania officer.
Mainly because it was too late, Lelouch was wearing casual clothes and not wearing his brigadier general shoulder insignia. However, the guard officers around Lelouch were all majors, so it was clear he was no ordinary man.
“I have a few questions to ask you. In previous years, the winter wheat on the Kievan Rus’ Great Plain— in which months was the harvest completed each year, in which month was it dried and stored, and in which month was it collected by the grain levy officials, then concentrated in major cities awaiting northbound transport. I have other channels to verify this data, so don’t try any tricks.”
Lelouch did not bother with small talk and asked directly with a warning tone.
The grain levy official immediately caved and told everything he knew without reservation: “The winter wheat in the Kievan Rus’ region is harvested in July to August, latest early August. Seed selection, threshing, drying, and other pre-processing takes at least 6 weeks, or 42 days. The latest batch of wheat can be stored around September 10-20.
Then tax officials and grain procurement merchants start collecting from late September until late November; the whole process is quite long because there aren’t enough levy officials and merchants, so they have to go place by place slowly.
The levied grain is not waited until all is gathered before northbound transport; it’s usually shipped in batches. The first batch might start in mid-to-late October, and the latest might drag into February of the next year.
Because there’s no rush anyway; the North’s demand for winter grain is evenly generated and consumed slowly throughout the winter. As long as grain arrives steadily in Moscow and Saint Petersburg from November to February next year, with even supply, it can also stabilize grain prices and avoid a price drop from too much wheat flooding the market at once.”
Lelouch was very satisfied with his detailed answer; this captive clearly had the awareness to be a good captive and was already completely forthcoming to his new master:
“Very good. In appreciation for your cooperation, as long as everything checks out, you can continue serving as the grain levy official for the surrounding states afterward. The Empire needs sensible talents like you.”
Then Lelouch turned to the railway administration fellow and asked him a few questions.
Seeing the grain levy official being retained, that man was also energized and extremely cooperative:
“General, rest assured! With the Tsar’s incompetent governance efficiency, they can’t move that fast to transport the grain away. Think about it: although the autumn rainy muddy season has little impact on railway transport, it greatly affects the collection of mules and horses and ox carts from various places.
Before the muddy season ends, grain from many places can’t reach the train station. Even to get to the train station, they have to pick days of continuous no rain; otherwise, freshly dried grain carts getting rained on would ruin the drying.
The Kievan Rus’ region is not like your Germania; much of the infrastructure is very backward, and the rainproofing on grain transport animal carts is poorly done, so rainy days greatly affect transport.”
In appreciation for his cooperation, Lelouch risked asking a relatively sensitive question:
“So if we destroyed the railway, especially the railway from Kyiv to the north Orsha, or from Kharkiv to the north Kursk, what do you think the Tsar and Lusha military would guess our intentions to be?”
Lelouch did not want to ask too bluntly, did not want to remind him “do you think the Tsar would realize we’re destroying the railway to stop coal and grain from being transported north.” He just wanted to see how an ordinary Lusha railway official, without preconceptions, would judge the enemy’s intentions.
The railway administration fellow thought seriously for a moment, then answered naturally: “They would definitely think your army is trying to cut off the Southwestern Front from getting weapons, ammunition, and supplies from the rear…”
Hearing this answer, Lelouch was quite inspired and realized he had been a bit blind to what was under his nose.
Right! Why worry that “if we destroy the railway connecting to the north, the enemy will think we’re stopping grain and coal from being transported north”?
Railways are bidirectional; during the Lusha Empire period, the Kievan Rus’ Great Plain region was just a base for industrial raw materials and primary processed goods, but had no machinery factories or arsenals.
There is steel and coal here, but they can’t be processed into guns and cannons and ammunition; that relies on arsenals around Petersburg for the subsequent industrial chain processing and manufacturing.
Lelouch had thought the enemy too weak, already pondering “how to clean up after defeating them,” but undoubtedly that was thinking too far ahead.
The enemy did not think itself already dead or in need of cleanup. The enemy was still thinking about how to resist and continue holding out.
So destroying the railway would naturally be interpreted as an attempt to “cut off the army’s weapons and ammunition supplies.”
It was Lelouch who had overthought it.
Since that was the case, what was there to worry about! Just have Rommel turn east next and spend half a month or more harvesting a wave first.
Anyway, in this era, taking Kyiv had only economic significance, not much political symbolism. So there was no harm in this one-month time difference.
As long as during this time they kept airships destroying the railway lines connecting Kyiv and Kharkiv to the north, the enemy’s transport capacity would be even more stretched thin; where would they have the energy to think about “how to transport and snatch materials north from the Kievan Rus’ Great Plain region.”
After figuring everything out and integrating it all, Lelouch finally sent away those captured Lusha officials, then buried himself in revising the staff plan.
Staying up all night, finally just before dawn the next day when Rommel set out with the armored division, with two big black circles under his eyes, he handed his latest plan to Rommel, telling him to study it on the road these few days when he had time, and think about how to fight next.
Rommel took the plan and glanced at it, also unable to help but feel deep respect: Officer Lelouch had such vigorous energy! Youth was truly wonderful, able to stay up all night planning a staff plan.
Of course, what was given to Rommel was just a draft; the formal finalized version definitely still needed to be shown to Marshal Rupprecht.
After the Marshal read Lelouch’s plan and the detailed research and analysis data attached at the end, his eyes also lit up:
“Good! Very good! This plan is perfect! Execute at this pace! All military resources dispatched according to your needs! If troops for filling the line defense are insufficient, I’ll find a way to borrow their 3rd Army Group from Austria to fill the line in the newly occupied areas.
Iron ore mines, coal mines, grain—we want it all! And as long as we ensure the enemy can’t transport the grain away in time, cutting off coal first is most appropriate! Because coal is produced every month; cutting it off two months early means the enemy has two months less coal production for heating this winter!
I didn’t expect Donbas coal mines to account for such a high proportion of Lusha’s national coal production… In 1913, 87% of Lusha’s national coal came from Donbas! Poland region output 7%, Moscow east production area 3%, Ural region coal shipped west about 3%.
Now we’ve choked off Donbas’s 87% coal, and of Poland’s 7%, 4% is around Krakow, which the Empire already occupied in the Galicia campaign and Gorlice Breakthrough Battle.
So, as long as we take Donbas, we’ll control 91% of the Lushans’ pre-war coal production areas; they’ll have only 9% left, divided equally into 3% each for Poland, Moscow, and Urals. By year-end or early next year when we attack Warsaw, the enemy will have only 6% left…”
……
With Marshal Rupprecht’s full support, Rommel’s force temporarily assembled all 2 armored divisions and advanced north at dawn on October 12 to attempt seizing Yekaterinoslav.
While Bock and Rundstedt were sent south to assist in the final assault cleanup battles for Sevastopol and Kerch—of course, they would not be directly commanding, as their rank was insufficient.
The troops besieging Sevastopol were at least army-level establishment; Bock, a mere brigadier general, did not yet qualify to command army-level units.
However, as one of the operations staff officers of the 6th Army Group, he could be assigned by Marshal Rupprecht to go to Sevastopol to “guide operations” and bring a few assault battalions to demonstrate assault tactics.
After all, the troops left besieging there before were second-line units lacking experience in tough assault battles.
These three forces all progressed quite smoothly.
On Rommel’s side, starting north on the 12th, they advanced 22 kilometers the first day and took a town along the way with a small enemy garrison at Mikhailivka.
On the 13th, progress was slow due to heavy rain; a tributary on the left bank of the Dnieper River en route had surging water levels, making river crossing difficult and forcing a detour. Rommel could not continue along the railway line, and once off the railway, road muddiness worsened geometrically.
In the end, they only advanced 10 kilometers the whole day, reaching Ternivka, but at least crossed the Dnieper tributary next to Ternivka.
On the 14th, Rommel had to rest a bit, waiting for the rain to stop and water levels to drop slightly, so he let the troops rest in the morning, hurried on in the afternoon when roads were slightly better, then attacked overnight. He had the armored cars march with lights on, breaking through any enemy blocks.
The well-rested troops advanced 30 kilometers in one afternoon plus the whole night by surprise, reaching Synelnykove by dawn on the 15th.
There it was only just over 20 kilometers left to Yekaterinoslav. Rommel thus turned from due north to northwest and launched the siege with one determined push.
Ultimately assembling 2 armored divisions and 2 infantry divisions, with overwhelming superiority in numbers they attacked head-on and broke into Yekaterinoslav city at dawn on October 18.
While General Evert, commander of the Lusha 6th Army Group garrisoning the city, knowing full well his forces were insufficient to hold, once again led his men to abandon and flee at the last moment.
He had only remnants of less than 2 divisions, with no will to fight and morale in panic; how could he hold against enemies three times their number, better equipped, and fierce as wolves and tigers.
After smoothly driving off General Evert, Rommel rested briefly two days in Yekaterinoslav and from October 20 began turning northbound advance into eastward advance, starting the next phase of the Donbas offensive plan.
The Lusha Army had not anticipated Rommel suddenly turning east; the east was very empty, with only some Cossack cavalry divisions to plug the gaps, so the subsequent push forward was extremely rapid, almost as fast as when Lelouch first broke through into the great steppe.
When Rommel’s battle results were reported to Army Group Headquarters in Zaporizhzhia, Lelouch was naturally the first to see the report.
He had always disliked the name “Yekaterinoslav” as unpleasant, with the Lusha Tsar’s name in it; better to go with the flow and rename it Dnepropetrovsk from now on, same as in later generations, easier to remember.
This trivial suggestion went to Marshal Rupprecht, who naturally nodded indifferently, so from then on the city finally reverted to its ancient and modern name.
……
While Rommel broke through block points and furiously advanced.
On the Southern Front Crimea battlefield, von Bock and Rundstedt also performed well.
Von Bock brought his reinforced assault battalions and engineer corps, took two days by train, and arrived in Sevastopol on October 15.
There were still 2 corps of Lusha troops besieged in the city, while the besieging Germania Army numbered less than half the defenders.
But fortunately, this encirclement had lasted over two months, and ammunition inside the city was very scarce.
After assessment, von Bock decided to request airship force for high-altitude bombing as fire support—now on other battlefields, airships bombing troop concentrations was suicidal, as fighter jets’ white phosphorus shells and machine guns could teach bomber airships a lesson in minutes.
But Sevastopol’s situation was special: it was already an isolated city cut off for two months, and there were no fighter jets deployed in Kerch to the east, only relying on airplanes from the Novorossiysk peninsula across the strait to reinforce.
Novorossiysk was 100 kilometers from Kerch, over 300 kilometers from Sevastopol.
1915 Lusha Air Force fighters had no 300-kilometer combat radius; thus, as long as maintaining high-altitude bombing without pursuing accuracy and avoiding ground anti-aircraft guns, they could deal free damage.
Bock’s request reached Marshal Rupprecht, who had Lelouch review it. Lelouch read Bock’s analysis and found it reasonable, supporting the request.
Thus the air force shifted the just-assembled airship group of about 20 ships, originally prepared to bomb railway lines north of Kyiv and Kharkiv, to the Southern Front for a few days first.
Lelouch trusted von Bock’s abilities; with airship help, he was sure to resolve this Sevastopol hard nut quickly.
