Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 186 Pacifying the Crimean Empire and Retaking Donbas

After the staff military meeting, it was already past 9 p.m. that day.

But Lelouch dared not rest. He summoned some captured financial officials from Zaporizhia overnight to verify historical data on the collection and transfer of supplies in the Kievan Rus' region, so as to provide a reference for the final decision.

Of course, his work does not affect the next step of military operations, only the next two steps—regardless of whether the next two steps lead west to Kiev or east to Donbas, the first step is the same for both: to march north from Zaporizhzhia and attack Yekaterina Slavs first.

Therefore, this first step can be deployed so that Rommel can execute it immediately and lead his armored forces to attack northward along the railway at daybreak tomorrow.

Lelouch, on the other hand, would use the time before Rommel reached Catherine the Slavs to complete his research and decision-making. This way, once Rommel arrived there, he would immediately know where to attack next.

Lelouch is now like a very mature top-level project manager, knowing how to advance multiple things in parallel while ensuring that the decision-making speed of the decision-making level does not become a bottleneck for the execution level.

……

10 p.m., inside the Zaporizhzhia City Hall.

Two former officials of the Lusa Empire were brought before Lelouch. One was in charge of tax collection, and the other was from the railway administration.

When the two were brought in, they were slightly surprised to find that they had to report to an incredibly young Demacian officer.

It was also quite late, and Lelouch was dressed in civilian clothes without his brigadier general's epaulets. However, the guards around Lelouch were all majors, which showed that he was definitely not an ordinary person.

"I have a few questions for you. In previous years, what months were the winter wheat harvested on the Kievan Rus' plains? What months were they dried and stored? What months were they collected by the grain requisitioning officials and then gathered in major cities to await transport to the north? I have other channels to verify this data, so don't try to pull any tricks."

Lelouch, too lazy to waste words with the other party, asked directly with a warning tone.

那名征粮官立刻怂了，把自己知道的全都知无不言：“基辅罗斯地区的冬小麦，都是7~8月收割的，最晚8月初。选种留种、脱粒晾晒等预加工至少是6周，算42天。最晚一批小麦可以入库时间大约是9月10~20日。

Then, from the end of September to the end of November, tax collectors and grain buyers were actually collecting grain. The whole process was quite long because there weren't enough grain collectors and grain merchants, so they had to collect it from place to place slowly.

The collected grain wouldn't wait until it was all collected before being transported north; it was usually transported in batches. The first batch might start being transported in mid-to-late October, and the latest might be delayed until February of the following year.

There's no rush. The demand for winter grain in the north is evenly distributed and will be gradually consumed throughout the winter. As long as grain arrives in Moscow and St. Petersburg between November and February, the supply will be more even, which will help stabilize grain prices and prevent a sudden influx of grain into the market and a subsequent drop in wheat prices.

Lelouch was very satisfied with his detailed answer. It seemed that this prisoner was well-intentioned to be a good prisoner and was already able to be completely open with his new master.

"Very good. Since you've been so cooperative, once everything is verified, you can continue to serve as the grain collection officer for the surrounding states. The empire needs pragmatic talents like you."

Lelouch then turned to the railway worker and asked him a few questions as well.

Seeing that the grain collection officer had been retained, the man was in high spirits and very cooperative:
"General, rest assured! Given the inefficiency of a tyrannical ruler like the Tsar, they couldn't possibly have moved the grain that quickly. You see, while the autumn rains and muddy conditions don't significantly impact railway transport, they greatly affect the distribution of mules, horses, and oxcarts across various regions."

Before the muddy season ended, grain from many places couldn't reach the train station. Even if it was necessary to get to the train station, it had to be on a day when it hadn't rained for several days in a row; otherwise, the grain carts that had just dried in the sun would get soaked and all the drying would be for nothing.

Kievan Rus' is not like your Dmania; much of the infrastructure there is very backward. Even the animal-drawn wagons used for transporting grain are poorly protected from rain and water, which severely impacts transportation in rainy weather.

Seeing how cooperative the other party was, Lelouch took the risk and asked a relatively sensitive question:

"What if we sabotage the railways, especially the railway from Kiev to Orsha in the north, or the railway from Kharkiv to Kursk in the north? How do you think the Tsar and the Russo military would interpret our intentions?"

Lelouch didn't want to ask too directly, nor did he want to remind the other party, "Do you think the Tsar will realize that we sabotaged the railway to stop the transport of coal and grain to the north?" He just wanted to see how an ordinary Lusa Railway official would judge the enemy's intentions without any preconceived notions.

The railway official thought for a moment, then replied naturally, "They'll probably assume your army is trying to cut off the Southwestern Army's supply of weapons and ammunition from the rear..."

Upon hearing this answer, Lelouch was quite inspired and realized that he had been somewhat blind to his own shortcomings.

Exactly! Why worry that "if we sabotage the railway connecting to the north, the enemy will think we are preventing the transport of grain and coal to the north"?

Railways are inherently bidirectional. During the Russo-Kievan Rus's era, the Kievan Rus' plains were merely a base for industrial raw materials and primary processed goods, but there were no machine factories or arsenals.

There is steel and coal here, but it cannot be processed into guns and ammunition. We have to rely on the arsenals around St. Petersburg to provide the processing and manufacturing links in the subsequent industrial chain.

Lelouch underestimated the enemy, already thinking about "how to collect the bodies after defeating them," but this was undoubtedly thinking too far ahead.

The enemy didn't realize they were already dead or needed to collect their bodies. They were still thinking about how to resist and how to continue their desperate defense.

Therefore, the act of bombing the railway was naturally interpreted as an attempt to "cut off the army's weapons and ammunition supply."

Lelouch was overthinking it.

Since that's the case, what's there to worry about! Let Rommel launch his next attack eastward and spend the next half month reaping the rewards.

In this era, taking Kyiv has only economic significance, not much political symbolism. So a month or two won't make a difference.

As long as the airships continue to disrupt the railway lines connecting Kiev and Kharkiv to the north, the enemy's transport capacity will be even more strained, leaving them with no time to consider "how to transport and plunder supplies from the Kievan Rus' plains to the north."

After figuring everything out and integrating it into his understanding, Lelouch finally sent away the captured Rusa officials and then buried himself in revising the staff plan.

After staying up all night, just before Rommel led his armored division out to attack early the next morning, I handed over my latest plan to Rommel with dark circles under my eyes, telling him to keep an eye on it during the next few days and to think about how to proceed.

Rommel accepted the plan and glanced at it, and couldn't help but feel a deep respect: Commander Lelouch's energy is truly boundless! It's good to be young; you can stay up all night planning and drafting proposals.

Of course, what was given to Rommel was only a draft; the final version would definitely have to be reviewed by Field Marshal Rupprecht. After reading Lelouch's plan and the detailed research and analysis data attached to it, the Field Marshal's eyes lit up:

"Good! Excellent! This plan is perfect! Execute it at this pace! All military resources will be allocated according to your needs! If there aren't enough troops to fill the line, I'll try to borrow Austria's 3rd Army to fill the line in the newly occupied area."

Iron ore, coal, and grain—we want them all! Moreover, as long as we can ensure the enemy doesn't have time to transport the grain, cutting off coal production first is the most appropriate course of action! Because coal is produced every month, cutting it off two months earlier will mean the enemy has two less months of coal production for heating this winter!
It's surprising that the Donbas coal mines accounted for such a high proportion of Luza's total coal production... In 1913, 87% of Luza's coal came from the Donbas! The Polish region accounted for 7%, the region east of Mosko accounted for 3%, and coal transported to the west from the Ural region accounted for about 3%.

We have now cut off 87% of the coal in Donbas, and of the 7% in Poland, 4% is located around Krakow. The Empire had already seized that part of the coalfield during the Galician campaign and the Gorlice breakthrough.

Therefore, as long as we capture Donbas, we will control 91% of the pre-war coal-producing areas of the Russo people, leaving them with only 9%, while Poland, Mosko, and the Urals will each have 3%. If we then attack Warsaw at the end of the year or early next year, the enemy will only have 6% left…”

……

With the full support of Marshal Rupprecht, Rommel's army temporarily assembled all two armored divisions and on the morning of October 12, they advanced northward in an attempt to capture Yekaterinaslav.

Meanwhile, Bock and Lundstätter were sent south to assist in the final assault on Sevastopol and Kerch—of course, they wouldn't be given direct command because they weren't high enough in rank.

The troops besieging Sevastopol are at least at the corps level, while Bok, a mere brigadier general, is not yet qualified to command a corps-level unit.

However, as one of the operations staff officers of the 6th Army, he could also be assigned by Marshal Rupprecht to go to Sevastopol to "guide operations" and could even lead several assault battalions there to practice and demonstrate assault tactics.

After all, the troops left behind to besiege the city were mostly second-line units, lacking experience in fighting tough battles.

All three groups are making relatively smooth progress.

On Rommel's side, he began his northward advance on the 12th, advancing 22 kilometers on the first day and capturing Mihalifka, a town along the way with a small number of enemy troops stationed there.

On the 13th, progress was slow due to heavy rains that caused a swell in the water level of a left-bank tributary of the Dnieper River, making crossing difficult and forcing a detour. Rommel could no longer continue along the railway line, and once he left the railway, the muddy conditions on the roads would worsen exponentially.

In the end, they only advanced 10 kilometers throughout the day and reached Ternivka, but at least they crossed the Dnieper tributary next to Ternivka.

On the 14th, Rommel had to take a short rest, waiting for the rain to stop and the water level to drop slightly. He then ordered his troops to rest in the morning and resume their march in the afternoon when the roads were easier to travel, followed by an attack that night. He had the armored vehicles march with their headlights on, and to break through any enemy resistance they encountered.

The well-rested troops, working through the afternoon and the entire night, unexpectedly advanced 30 kilometers in one go, catching the enemy off guard, and arrived in Sinenikova at dawn on the 15th.

They were now only about 20 kilometers from Yekaterina Slav. Rommel then turned northwest from due north and launched a full-scale attack on the city.

They eventually assembled two armored divisions and two infantry divisions, launching a frontal assault with overwhelming force, and entered the city of Yekaterina Slav at dawn on October 18.

General Alexei Evert, commander of the 6th Army of the Russo-American Army stationed in the city, once again abandoned the city and fled at the last moment, knowing that his forces were insufficient to hold it.

With only the remnants of less than two divisions at his disposal, his soldiers were demoralized and filled with fear. How could he possibly hold out against a ferocious enemy three times his size and better equipped than him?

After successfully driving out General Evert, Rommel rested for two days in Yekaterina Slav and, starting on October 20, turned north and then east, beginning the next phase of his plan to attack the Donbas.

Lusa's army had no idea that Rommel would suddenly turn around. The east was very vulnerable, with only some Cossack cavalry divisions available to fill the gaps. As a result, their advance was extremely rapid, almost as fast as when Lelouch had just broken through into the steppe.

After Rommel's battle results were reported to the army group headquarters in Zaporozhye, Lelouch was naturally the first to see the report.

He always disliked the name "Catherine Slav," as it sounded like the name of Tsar Rusha. He figured it would be better to go with the flow and change it to "Dnepr," the same name as later generations, to avoid it being hard to remember.

When this innocuous suggestion reached Marshal Rupprecht, he naturally nodded indifferently, and so the city finally reverted to its original name.

……

Rommel broke through the bottlenecks and made rapid advances.

On the Crimean front in the south, von Bock and Lundstätter also performed well.

von Bock, with his reinforcements of assault battalions and engineering units, arrived in Sevastopol on October 15 after a two-day train journey.

Two corps of Lusa troops were surrounded inside the city, while the number of Demanian troops besieging the city was less than half that of the defenders.

Fortunately, the encirclement has been in place for more than two months, and the city is running out of ammunition.

After some assessment, von Bock decided to request the deployment of airship units to carry out high-altitude bombing as fire support—nowadays, on other battlefields, bombing densely populated military areas by airships was tantamount to suicide, as fighter jets' white phosphorus bombs and machine guns could teach bombing airships a lesson in no time.

However, the situation in Sevastopol is quite special, as it has been an isolated city for two months. There are no fighter jets deployed in Kerch to the east, and the only way to get reinforcements is for planes from the Novorossiysk Peninsula on the other side of the strait to cross the strait.

Novorossiysk is 100 kilometers from Kerch, but more than 300 kilometers from Sevastopol.

In 1915, the Lusa Air Force's fighter planes did not have a combat radius of 300 kilometers. Therefore, as long as they maintained high-altitude bombing, did not pursue accuracy, and avoided ground anti-aircraft guns, they could deal damage without any consequences.

Bock's application was sent to Marshal Rupprecht, who then had Lelouch review it. Lelouch read Bock's analysis, found it reasonable, and supported the request.

So the air force diverted about 20 airships, which had just been assembled and were originally intended to bomb the railway lines north of Kiev and Kharkiv, to the southern route for a few days.

Lelouch believed in von Burke's abilities; with the help of the airship, he was sure he could deal with the tough nut of Sevastopol in a short time.

(End of this chapter)