Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 184 Found a Treasure Without Even Knowing
After capturing Zaporizhia and completely annihilating more than 30 enemy troops encircled in the Great Bend of the lower Dnieper River.

The most dramatic and thrilling phase of the first stage of the Kievan Rus' campaign has come to an end.

The troops have just experienced bloody battles, encirclement and annihilation, and a rapid advance, and need time to rest and recover.

Putting aside other things, some infantry units advanced nearly 300 kilometers in 16 days (from Kherson to Zaporozhye, if advancing diagonally).

This distance might not be considered tiring for armored units, but for infantry, on average, they have to march 20 kilometers a day just carrying their guns, and they have to fight repeatedly in between, so they are already exhausted.

Therefore, at least half of the troops need to rest for at least three to five days after completing their initial objectives in order to recover their strength.

Besides troop rest and reorganization, a considerable number of personnel must be immediately deployed to the salvage and repair of the newly occupied territories. This is because the Rusa army carried out extensive sabotage during its collapse and retreat.

Other forms of destruction are one thing, but the suffering is mainly felt by ordinary local people, and has nothing to do with the military.

However, cities such as Krivorog, Nikopol, and Zaporozhye, after being destroyed by the war, had to be rescued immediately, and the fires set by the fleeing soldiers before they fled had to be extinguished.

Because Krivorrog is home to Europe's largest iron ore mine, occupying it would bring immense industrial value.

In the USSR era, in later times, Stalin's two five-year plans for heavy industry mainly focused on integrating the industrial resources around the Dnieper River bend. Krivorog, on the west bank of this stretch of the Dnieper, had Europe's largest iron ore mine, while the Donbas on the east bank had Europe's largest coal mine.

The two projects were combined to build the largest steel plant in the continent at Zaporizhzhia, and then a reservoir was built between Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia upstream to create the largest hydroelectric power station in Europe, the Dnieper River Hydroelectric Power Station. Finally, the massive amount of electricity generated was used to build the largest electrolytic aluminum plant in Europe at this location.

All of this enabled the USSR to eventually surpass Demania and become the European country with the largest heavy industrial base.

However, it was still 1915, during the reign of Lusa, and neither of the two five-year plans existed yet. There was no overall plan to move the steel mills in this area to Zaporizhzhia.

The ore transported from the Krivoroğlu iron ore mine was directly transported via an 80-kilometer railway line to Nikopol on the banks of the Dnieper River. There, in Nikopol, there was a steel plant, which was already the largest in the entire country.

Unfortunately, when the Lusa people collapsed and retreated, they directly used explosives to blow up many facilities in the steel plant, and they also blew up many mining equipment in the nearby Krivorog iron mine.

So, the day after eating the dumpling filling, when Duke Rupprecht personally arrived at Krivorrog, a city recently captured by von Bock, to inspect the work, he was heartbroken.

"Why did you advance so slowly back then! How did you give the enemy the opportunity to plant explosives and blow up the mines and steel mills! If you had advanced just one or two days earlier, maybe..."

The Duke couldn't help but give von Bock a few harsh criticisms, and von Bock could only swallow his pride and accept it. No matter what the Commander said, he promised to work even harder in the future.

In the end, Lelouch, being the more knowledgeable one, quickly stepped in to mediate:

"Your Highness, this matter cannot be blamed on Brigadier General Bock. No matter how fast or early our army arrives, as long as they receive the news and know that our army is approaching, they will definitely plant explosives to blow up the mines and steel plants."

However, fortunately, the Lussa people's industrial base was originally weak, and their small steel mill is nothing to speak of. We can have Krupp or Rheinmetall come and build another branch plant, or even have the Dunkirk Electric Steel Plant open a branch here. Within six months, we can restore them to their original production scale, and within two or three years, we might even build one larger than the original one!"

The duke felt somewhat better after hearing this advice. He also developed greed and did not want to hand over such a large iron mine and steel plant directly to the state, but hoped that the Baria royal family would also control more of the profits.

If all else fails, we can find some reliable domestic capital and cooperate with the Grand Duke of Baden's brother in the Occupied Territories Affairs Department. In short, we must do everything we can to use the coal and steel resources here to protect our military-industrial complex.

The Duke, who hadn't done much research on this topic before, took the opportunity to ask Lelouch, "Just how large is this Krivorrog Iron Mine? I have no idea."

Lelouch had indeed read relevant materials, mainly because he knew about the future industrial potential of the USSR in his previous life, so he was very interested in the resources of the Kievan Rus' region, and thus he was able to answer in response:
"The Krivorro iron ore mine has reserves of approximately 160 billion tons—Your Highness, you see, that highland south of the city covers over 300 square kilometers. Even the mountains are red, that's the color of rust. You can just dig directly from the exposed ground. It's a mountain 30 kilometers long from east to west and 12 kilometers wide from north to south, and the entire area is rust-colored. Moreover, the ore here has an iron content of 55% to 60%, which is already quite good. To smelt steel here, you don't even need specially blended coking coal; you can smelt high-quality steel just by using ordinary coal to coke."

As you know, according to basic chemistry, the molecular weight of iron oxide is 160, with two iron atoms accounting for 112 and three oxygen atoms for 48. Therefore, the theoretical maximum iron content of pure iron oxide is exactly 70%. The fact that this iron ore has an iron content of 55-60% indicates that the iron oxide content in the ore is already above 85%.

In contrast, you can refer to a point of reference—the core pillar upon which the Empire relies to sustain its wars, the Lorraine Iron Mine, with a total proven reserve of 105 billion tons. However, it has been mined for many years, consuming about 3000 million tons of ore annually. Over the past century, it has been mined down to just over 80 billion tons of reserves, about half the reserves of Krivorrog.

Furthermore, the iron content of the Lorraine iron ore is 35%, significantly lower than the 55% found here. This is the main reason why the Imperial steel industry is extremely reliant on imported coal for coking.

The Duke and the generals beside him were only concerned with military affairs and knew nothing about politics and economics. They were all invigorated after listening to Lelouch speak so eloquently.

None of them expected that such a small piece of land, covering only 30,000 square kilometers, would contain such a vast amount of resources.

The Duke couldn't help but gasp: "How come the Lussa people are still so poor? Their steel production seems to be far inferior to that of the Empire, right? Fortunately, the Empire struck first and eliminated those warmongers, otherwise, if they had developed, it would have been disastrous!"

Lelouch: "That's natural, because the Russa people are rich in natural resources, but their development and industrial construction are too backward. Before the 1880s, no iron ore was found here. At that time, the Russa people were used to metallurgy in the traditional old industrial area of ​​the Ural Mountains, where there was also iron ore, but there was a lack of coal mines. So the Russa people relied on logging and burning charcoal to make steel."

The iron ore was discovered here in 1888, and its development proceeded slowly for more than a decade until ten years ago when the defeat of the Russo-Japanese War spurred the Stolypin Reforms in Japan, and the iron ore here began to be valued. Later, until the outbreak of the war, they introduced French capital to mine and smelt steel for eight consecutive years.

By 1913, the annual iron ore production here had reached more than 1000 million tons, but the local area could only consume 480 million tons of ore, and more than 600 million tons were directly shipped to the Frankish allies.

Local steel production was 3 million tons per year, while Rosa's national steel production at the time was 4.2 million tons per year. To give you a reference, in 1913, the Empire's steel production was 18.8 million tons, which is 4.5 times that of Rosa.

China receives 3000 million tons of iron ore annually from the Lorraine iron ore mine, of which 75% comes from the portion of the Lorraine iron ore mine located within my country's territory, and the remaining 25% comes from the portion of the Lorraine iron ore mine that extends into Luxembourg, which my country imports from Luxembourg.

The Lorraine iron ore mine and other domestic mines provided the Empire with the ore needed to smelt 1100 million tons of steel. The remaining 700 million tons of steel ore shortfall was met by importing rich ore from Sweden. Swedish ore had a higher iron content, approaching 70%, almost pure iron oxide, so importing 1000 million tons of iron ore from Sweden was sufficient to produce 700 million tons of steel.

Lelouch's detailed explanation finally made everyone understand clearly and intuitively the value of the Krivorro iron ore mine and the surrounding steel mills.

Marshal Rupprecht was both surprised and delighted after hearing the whole story, because he not only discovered the immense value of this place to the Empire, but he also realized that he had just severely weakened the Lussa people's war potential.

"You mean... in 1913, the Lusa people only had a total steel production of 420 million tons? And when we took this place, the Lusa people lost a full 300 million tons of production? Doesn't that mean that we cut off almost 70% of their national steel industry?"
How much steel does the Tsar's arsenal in St. Petersburg still have to make guns and cannons! As long as we hold this place, the Russo people will bleed to death!

During the Tsarist era, the industrial layout in the southern Kievan Rus' Plain region was characterized by a well-developed heavy industry, but it was limited to "raw material supply and rough processing." In other words, there were only steel mills and coking plants, but a lack of machinery manufacturing.

Both machine factories and arsenals were concentrated in the northern area around St. Petersburg, making it easier for the Tsar to centralize control.

But if the raw materials from the south are cut off, Lusa's war machine will immediately run out of blood.

If 70% of a country's steel is destroyed, what will they use to fight a protracted war?

Seeing that the Duke was getting a little cocky, Lelouch quickly reminded him, "Your Highness, you can't be arrogant yet. We've only secured the largest iron ore mine in Europe, and we can't fully utilize its potential yet."

To truly seize control and cut off the enemy's lifeline, we need to advance eastward and capture the Donbas coal mine, Europe's largest coal mine, located 150 kilometers east of Zaporizhzhia. Only with coal and iron can we then produce steel. We also need to advance northward to Kiev and capture the largest black soil plain and granary in Europe. Only then will we have truly cut off the Lussa people's throat.

Duke Rupprecht slapped his thigh: "Then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and work on the battle plan! Get all those places you mentioned earlier! Don't waste any more time."

(End of this chapter)