Steel, Guns, and the Industrial Party in Another World

TL: Etude

As the tenth month of the Holy Calendar year 1993 arrived, most of the Kingdom of Ordo began to enter winter, including the capital, Crystal Shine Fortress.

“We must quell this rebellion before the end of the year!”

Inside the grand camp of the kingdom’s army, Princess Catherine spoke with a solemn expression to the commanding generals under her.

All the generals around her nodded heavily in agreement.

The rebellion that had begun in the spring of 1990 had lasted nearly three years, and the kingdom could no longer sustain such a drawn-out conflict.

With the year’s end not far off, and winter making the resupply of food and forage increasingly difficult, it implied that the decisive battle was imminent.

They had already agreed upon a date for the battle with their opponents—the Jars rebels.

This “duel” was initially proposed by the rebels, and the kingdom had agreed.

It wasn’t that either side was overly concerned with chivalric honor—over the past year, both parties had repeatedly resorted to underhanded tactics against each other, including flanking maneuvers, surprise attacks, feints… every conceivable method of warfare had been employed.

The battle line shifted back and forth, north to south, as if in a tug-of-war, with both sides exerting their full strength to gain the upper hand, yet despite their efforts, the focal point always returned to the Furel region.

When both sides were exhausted, it was only natural to stake their remaining forces on one final battle to the end.

Initially, many generals of the kingdom’s army were uneasy about this last stand because, by early autumn, Duke Viburen—the largest lord in the kingdom’s eastern territories—had finally taken action and officially sent troops to join Jars’ rebellion.

This old fox, unlike other lords who clearly took a stance in support of the royal family at the outset of the rebellion, only sent an emissary for a royal marriage proposal, but then recanted even before the royal family agreed. He issued a speech asserting that “Jars holds a measure of moral high ground”—a statement that was a palpable slap in the face to His Majesty the King.

The issue was that after declaring his support for Jars, he simply holed up in his own domain without dispatching a single soldier to aid Jars. Duke Viburen was known for being elusive and fickle; no one would be surprised if one day he once again professed loyalty to the royal family.

Yet, he indeed had the capital to be fickle. The Viburen family’s lands were situated in a large basin in the eastern part of the kingdom, surrounded by imposing mountains that made it easily defensible and hard to assault. Garrisoning troops in critical locations meant that any external attempt to invade would come at a significant cost.

At first, Viburen hoped to cooperate with Jars, attacking territories loyal to the royal family from the north while Jars attacked from the south. However, the eastern army, perhaps better at defense than offense, suffered significant losses in front of the very first fortress they encountered, despite their overwhelming numbers, becoming a laughing stock.

Given the geography, with mountains isolating the basin, the logistics of moving into and out of that area were problematic, not to mention the difficulty in transporting supplies. The frustrated Duke Viburen had no choice but to send troops south to join Jars’ rebellion.

This put considerable pressure on the royal army; fortunately, since the beginning of the year, there had been a significant improvement in the army’s equipment level, stabilizing the balance of the war which might have otherwise tipped in favor of the rebels.

This upgrade in equipment owed itself to the kingdom government’s large-scale procurement in the Northwest Bay. Following the establishment of “Northwest Industries,” weapon production in Northwest Bay had soared. Thanks to ground-breaking advancements in iron smelting technology, blast furnace ironworks built in Alda, Baylding, and Emden supplied a steady flow of iron ingots to various weapon workshops. Artisans worked in shifts, hammering tirelessly day and night. Swords, spears, arrows, and armors amassed from all over the territories at Port Fran. There, along with other kingdom procurement goods such as food, canned products, fabric, or clothing, they were loaded onto ships, transported to ports under the direct control of the southern kingdom government, and finally delivered to the frontline to equip new recruits or replace damaged old equipment.

The Northwest Bay received numerous orders, spurring the establishment of workshops following the Alda model in other territories, with people actively seeking all possible methods to increase production.

Other regions’ weapons suppliers were envious, but they were unable to compete. With equivalent quality, weapons from the Northwest Bay were always the cheapest, leading the kingdom government to prioritize orders to Northwest Industries.

Under such an impact, weapons producers in other areas were forced to take the high-end route—abandoning the production of common iron armor and focusing on plate armor, selling to knights and military commanders of various ranks.

Unlike common iron armor issued to ordinary soldiers, made of wrought iron, plate armor is made of steel plates and requires much more time to produce. A workshop of 26 could produce nearly 1,600 suits of chain mail armor in 5 months, but crafting a full suit of high-quality plate armor could take almost half a year. This meticulous craft, especially for small parts like gauntlets that require hand polishing, demanded high precision to avoid hindering the user’s movements.

The craftsmanship of artisans from Northwest Bay had not yet reached the level to produce such high-end armors, smooth enough to reflect one’s image and considered works of art in every aspect; however, in the realm of lower-end armor, they had achieved a definitive monopoly.

With the help of cheap but quality-assured military supplies, the kingdom assembled an enormous army. At present, the forces confronting the rebels in the south numbered over seventy thousand, with close to fifty thousand soldiers ready for frontline combat.

Princess Catherine and her generals placed great emphasis on the protection of the rank-and-file soldiers. The better protected the soldiers were, the higher their chances of survival. Veterans who had survived deadly battles were invaluable for their combat experience.

What vexed the other generals was that despite such formidable strength, they should have been able to crush the rebellion easily, but the war had not gone so smoothly.

Viburen’s involvement was not the main cause of their trouble—it was a mysterious legion within the rebel ranks that gave them headaches. Known to the captives as the “Undead Army,” this rebel force always appeared on the battlefield with exactly six thousand men, no more, no less. They always returned with their numbers fully restored after any conflict, as if no one had perished.

Of course, no one believed they were truly immortal or capable of resurrection. The puzzling question was how they could replenish their forces so swiftly. The soldiers in this legion were so distinct—notable for their immense strength and fearlessness, far from the average soldiers who could be replaced with a few days of training.

Even more exaggerated were the reports from the battlefield, detailing the unit’s extreme brutality, including troubling accounts of soldiers witnessing these men rending and chewing on the flesh of their combatants, behaving like obedient beasts.

Luckily, compared to this special unit, the other rebel forces were not as formidable. Only their elites were equipped with iron armor, with the regular units having leather armor at best, and the newest levies lacked proper protective gear altogether—a stark contrast to the king’s army’s extensive iron armor.

The supposed “Undead Army” could only be attributed to the “rebel sorcerers”—a rumor that had already spread through the military camps.

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