Life of Being a Crown Prince in France

Chapter 1136: Chapter 1042: The Decisive Warlord

When more than 1,300 Cossack cavalry erupted with a sharp whistle, appearing at the rear flank of the Persian Holy War Knight Order, the outcome of the battle was already determined.

The Persian heavy cavalry, having just endured two full-force charges, were now exhausted, both man and horse, and were suddenly ambushed. They were quickly divided into several groups with almost no resistance and then each fled along various routes.

By the next afternoon, the Persian army, trapped on the northern side of the Kerchanski Hills, began to surrender after losing command and being heavily surrounded.

Aga Muhammad had ordered the main force to retreat at dawn.

That night, Tbilisi celebrated wildly, rejoicing in their alliance with the Tsar’s army in defeating the brutal Persians.

They had every reason to celebrate. Historically, by this time Tbilisi was already breached, and all adult males had been massacred by Aga Muhammad, their eyes gouged out and arranged in a pyramid outside the city.

But now, they were the victors.

At the banquet at the Georgian Royal Palace, Gudovich, in front of all the nobles and officers, first shouted “Long live the Emperor,” and then suddenly exclaimed, “Thank you to our eternal friend, France!”

Meanwhile, in the temporary camp of the Persian army, which had retreated south to the city of Ganja, two officers presented a bloody tray to Aga Muhammad, bowing, “Great Shah, the execution has been completed.”

The latter glanced at the pair of eyeballs in the tray and gestured for them to withdraw.

The eyes belonged to Bozorge. Although he was one of Aga Muhammad’s bravest generals, he failed to break the Russian army’s line and returned alive.

Therefore, he had to face military justice.

Aga Muhammad looked at the Turkic cavalry commander beside him, “Have you figured out the situation with the Russians?”

“Not yet, Your Majesty…” the officer wiped a cold sweat, hastily adding, “However, it can be confirmed that they have at least twenty thousand men and carry a large number of cannons, clearly not just having arrived.”

Aga Muhammad’s expression grew darker, and he swept all the flags off the newly laid-out sand table onto the ground, saying in a deep voice, “Order the entire army to immediately retreat to Tabriz tomorrow morning.”

He had never admitted defeat in his life on the battlefield, but this time in just two days, his army had lost more than 13,000 men, and even the elite Holy War Knight Order was almost entirely annihilated.

Though he still had about 26,000 men under his command, the formidable combat power displayed by the Russian army today made him have to be cautious.

As a heroic figure, he was not lacking in decisiveness.

Tabriz was located 400 kilometers south of Tbilisi. His order just now meant not only abandoning the contest for Transcaucasia but even forgoing Armenia.

But Tabriz had a strong fortress where he could hold off the Russian army, then gather strength for a counterattack.

Over the following month, Valerian Zubov led the army triumphantly, occupying over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land along the way, stopping only at the fortress before Tabriz.

Subsequently, all the Transcaucasian states, including Georgia, as well as Armenia and Karabakh, sent envoys to Saint Petersburg, expressing their willingness to become protectorates of Russia.

…

France’s province Liege in the Southern Netherlands.

In the workshop of the Namu Royal Iron Refinery, Joseph flipped through the technical materials compiled over this period, tirelessly reminding the chief technician, Wandell:

“So, don’t worry about waste; the amounts of manganese and nickel added must be continuously adjusted and tested at 0.01% increments.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Wandell nodded earnestly.

Initially, he thought the Crown Prince was merely inspecting the progress on Bessemer steelmaking, not imagining His Highness was more concerned about the technicians’ understanding of steelmaking knowledge.

Fortunately, they had previously studied His Highness’s “Principles of Steelmaking” manuscript repeatedly, becoming well-versed in concepts like “desulfurization and desiliconization,” “refractory degradation,” and “preventing phosphorus return,” among others.

Of course, the manuscript’s most precious part was its exposition on “lattice structure.”

His Highness innovatively proposed that during the steelmaking process, carbon and iron elements form a special spatial structure, significantly affecting the performance of steel.

The technicians previously knew that varying carbon content could make steel harder or more brittle and that steel products needed quenching and annealing, but the underlying principles only became clear after seeing the manuscript.

This allowed them, when designing steel processes, to transition from relying solely on experience to having scientific theoretical guidance.

In fact, Joseph only provided them with an overview of the principles—he didn’t know the details himself—but for the top technicians, this was the most challenging step in development.

As long as someone pointed them in the right direction, the remaining task was merely refining the technology through extensive experimentation.

It was after receiving His Highness’s “Principles of Steelmaking” manuscript that the steel quality at the Namu Royal Iron Refinery showed noticeable improvement.

This time, the Crown Prince also brought them a new steelmaking technology—the principles of alloy steel.

Yes, the technology was so significant that Joseph did not include it in the “Principles of Steelmaking” but instead personally conveyed it orally to the core technical staff.

This Namu Royal Iron Refinery was also wholly owned by the French Government, with all key positions staffed with Royal Guard and Intelligence Bureau personnel.

Joseph actually only learned last year from Le Roy, the president of the French Academy of Sciences, that as early as 40 years ago, the Swede Kronstein had used the carbon reduction method to separate metallic nickel from red arsenic nickel ore.

Twenty years ago, also Swedes and also by carbon reduction, metallic manganese was obtained from pyrolusite.

Although these laboratory preparation methods could only yield small amounts of nickel and manganese, fortunately, not much was needed to be added during steelmaking, sparking his idea to start alloy steelmaking.

It must be known that manganese steel, nickel steel, and ordinary steel are practically two different substances!

Of course, he also knew that determining exactly how much manganese and nickel to add, at what stages, and how to adjust the steelmaking process, still required extensive experimentation to conclude.

Thus, taking the opportunity of this inspection of the steel plant, he tasked Wandell with starting on alloy steelmaking.

In fact, Joseph initially didn’t want this matter to divert Wandell’s attention—Wandell was still responsible for developing Bessemer steelmaking technology.

However, after confirming that Bessemer technology was still far from being realized, he decided it was wise to pursue both pathways.

The United Steam Engine Company’s development had hit a bottleneck—the 100-horsepower steam engine had repeatedly suffered pipe rupture issues.

This required improving boiler pressure control, but also strengthening the steel could resolve it.

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