I became a witch, but I started the industrial revolution

Surya King Dumgrim

Bratt looked at the frontline battle report in his hand with bloodshot eyes, and crumpled the letter with his fingers. At last he sighed softly: "Has the alliance's reinforcements not arrived yet?"

He felt heartache whenever he saw the army's battle reports on material consumption. The Seris Alliance provided Surya with a large amount of weapons assistance, including but not limited to light and medium tanks and 75-152 artillery, and the artillery delivery shifts had never been interrupted.

But the soldiers of the Surya Kingdom seemed to just use whatever aid the alliance provided, and would not bring any more.

Patriotic war? Charge forward with a gun? What the hell are you dreaming of! I have so much money that I can't spend it all. Are you asking me to die for my wife and property?

Surya has some powerful troops but not many of them, less than 10 in total. They are basically Blatt's trusted troops, always at the forefront of the battle lines of both sides.

But other troops were not so brave. They all expanded into the city and used artillery to bombard the outside world. Even the tanks were used as fixed artillery positions.

Under such super-standard firepower coverage, the Allied troops on both wings didn't want to touch them and have a taste of artillery fire, and they didn't go out of the city to fight, so most of the pressure was concentrated on the central defense line.

As time went on, the coalition commanders continued to withdraw troops from both wings to concentrate in the middle, further increasing the pressure on Blatt's ace army, and the two sides fell into a tug-of-war.

But Blatt did not dare to weaken the material supply on the two wings too much, for fear that they would be broken through and the central army would be surrounded and the situation would collapse. The two sides were in a stalemate.

The reason why the Allied forces of 500,000 were unable to break through the defense line of Surya's army of less than 300,000 was mainly due to the intensity of their firepower.

But the cost of artillery shells consumed every day was astronomical. Bratt's heart was bleeding in the royal capital, and he wanted to bite his handkerchief and cry.

No matter what the future holds, after this battle, Surya will have to use most of the wealth he had accumulated to pay for the weapons aided by Seris. He is so poor that he can only afford his pants. Therefore, he urgently hopes that the Alliance can intervene as soon as possible to end this stalemate and difficult war.

"No, Your Majesty... The answer given by the Seris Alliance is that the nearest army group has been transferred to the western defense line to recapture the occupied lands such as Kavavental. We only need to delay the main force of the coalition forces."

"As long as our frontal defenses are not breached, the siege will collapse within a month."

"One month! How much money would that be!!!"

Chapter 256: The Last Resort of Gambling on the National Destiny

'Snapped! '

"Future wars will be unprecedented in scale and will be life-and-death struggles. Mobilization capabilities are our last resort in gambling on our national destiny."

"I don't want to see words like trying my best in the report. If you don't have the strength, get down quickly and stop taking up space!"

Medea threw the document on the desk in annoyance. Anna picked up a pen and wanted to add this sentence, ready to dismiss the other party on the spot.

"Wait...never mind."

Medea stopped Anna's actions. The whole country is now under high pressure. There is no need to continue to increase the pressure, which may easily have a counterproductive effect.

According to Media's standards, in a country with a well-developed military industry, there should be approximately 4-5 workers supporting each soldier in the army.

Seris is now basically at the level of 11-1, which is why Medea feels angry that the opponent has done his best.

The most extreme situation of a country can bring the difference ratio to the brink of collapse at 3-1, which means that the total number of soldiers accounts for about 20% of the total population.

This proportion is not low and can even be said to be extremely exaggerated.

Excluding women and the elderly, children and other young people from the total population, adult males of military age basically account for less than 30% of the country's total population. In other words, if the 3:1 military-civilian ratio is to be met, more than 85% of males of military age must stay in the army.

If you calm down and think about it, you can't blame the people under your command. There is only one country with such a mobilization rate.

It's just that they are now fighting a war to protect their country. Both the world situation and the war situation they are facing will not allow Seres to transform slowly. This window period will pass very quickly, and it is inevitable that they will be a little impatient.

Instead of being upset, it is better to think about how to optimize the configuration to make basic preparations for the future.

In fact, Seris is far from reaching such an extreme point of exploding its potential. You must know that if the main continental kingdom empire has not completed industrial reform and development, it can mobilize 2%-5% at most, and that is the limit.

In the past, there was only one country in history that achieved a mobilization rate of 7% and unified the six kingdoms. This was achieved under an optimized system.

In other words, even if Seris could only achieve a 10% mobilization rate, which is the standard of an industrial country, it would already be a ceiling that the feudal monarchy could never reach.

But she felt that whether to do so was one thing, and whether she could do so was another, and she had to prepare early.

Because it is not simply a matter of increasing or decreasing the number of troops and recruiting more people. If it is just a call for soldiers to join the army, it is not difficult considering Media's reputation in the alliance.

But numbers mean nothing in modern warfare.

The standard trench warfare defense position currently constructed by Iseris, which is composed of anti-artillery and barbed wire, is so large that even if traditional soldiers have 100% morale and will not collapse, they will not be able to break through, and as many as they try to break through will die.

In other words, the mobilization qualification standards are completely different now than before. In the past, as long as you had a spear, you would be considered a soldier, but now you need to be equipped with a full set of weapons and receive professional military training.

This equipment does not refer to firearms, but heavy weapons that can break through trenches and significantly reduce casualties among soldiers, thereby minimizing losses in one's own personnel.

For example, armored vehicles, tanks, mechas, fighter jets, and warships.

They all have one common advantage, which is that they have good firepower projection and killing capabilities while providing protection.

But the equipment used by soldiers must be supported by a complete industrial chain and sufficient food for the country's army and people to survive.

The three are pulling at each other. If there are more soldiers, there will not be enough workers in the rear. If there are more soldiers and more workers, there will not be enough manpower for food production.

This is a complete system. If you can't do it, you just can't do it. Forced mobilization will only cause the national structure to collapse quickly.

Unless you only do one or two of these three, for example, you make up for the shortage of workers by plundering the population in the occupied areas and organizing them into good brother laborers who do not need wages but only have one meal a day, and simply burn and plunder the food supplies on the spot, you can barely achieve a balance between income and expenditure in a short period of time.

But this is an ideal situation.

In fact, because excessive exploitation will inevitably lead to public resentment and uprisings, you must maintain a large number of manpower in the area to maintain stability and prevent sabotage activities, and your reputation will be tarnished far and wide.

If a large number of troops are involved in security battles, it will actually weaken the troops you mobilized in disguise, which is not very meaningful.

If she removed these equipments and used them to recruit citizens to sacrifice their lives for the country, she felt that she would be shameless. She thought it would be no problem to use the reputation she had accumulated over the years to recruit 1.2 million alliance members to recruit to million people to fight the people's war.

But after the war, both the country and she will be ruined. How many problems will arise if the most faithful and sacrificial generation dies?

How can she make up for these families? Can these families who have lost their pillars still have a good social status in the future society?

If these supporters do not receive the rewards they deserve, or even if a family member dies and the inheritance and continuation is cut off, and they cannot occupy the mainstream voice in society, then who will be in control of the society?

How many people have wavered in their faith in her? Is there still any meaning for her existence?

Therefore, this route is not an option at all.

Therefore, how to convert the recruited troops into cash and efficiently organize mechanized infantry, armored forces, and air forces has become the biggest challenge facing the alliance.

To this end, Mitia rushed out a rough charter overnight and held an internal video conference the next day with the attendance of all central and local governors.

Ordinary mobilized soldiers can rely on the alliance's existing defense state conscription system to continuously obtain new forces, but this is not a goal they need to consider at the moment.

The focus is on how to quickly train subsequent armored forces and aviation forces to cultivate qualified technical forces.

Large-scale conscription of ordinary people into the army means that the quality of soldiers will inevitably decline, so in order to ensure combat effectiveness, more tanks, aircraft and artillery must be available to fill the problem of decreased combat effectiveness.

Once the rear production lines are reorganized, merged and updated, the speed at which aircraft and tanks roll off the new Pulse production line will jump from the previous annual output of 3000 to more than 6000, doubling the overall scale.

This is a newly established unit, and with the efficiency enhancement of the old mature production lines on the front line, the production scale of the Alliance's armored vehicles and aviation weapons is expected to exceed 10,000 by the middle of next year.

This is not the peak yet, and the number may continue to double after the transformation is completely completed by the end of the year.

But the problem is that with a large number of heavy equipment being taken offline, the Alliance may face the dilemma of having weapons but no one to use them in the future.

The training of both armored and air force must be quite professional, and the cycle is usually about six months. This is nothing in peacetime, but it is very deadly in wartime.

Because wartime losses require new personnel to fill vacancies at any time, if there are large-scale losses, it is very likely that there will be a gap in talent replenishment.

However, this problem is not without a solution. This is the advantage of the state-owned land system, because all land is under the state-owned public account and handed over to farmers for cultivation.

Seris has always adopted the floating repurchase of grain by state-owned enterprises. At the beginning, it also implemented the activities of sending civilian machinery to the countryside. Under the integration of farmers' associations, mechanized farming methods have been implemented in farmland in most areas, and the general mechanization rate is over 50%.

Although the Alliance farmers work hard in farming, they are not poor, because the Alliance's industrial and agricultural scissors gap is achieved through foreign trade and does not impose side effects on their own people.

The surplus income gives farmers the confidence to rent machinery from farmers’ associations to improve their farming efficiency.

In other words, there are tractor drivers everywhere in the civilian alliance, and this is the source of very good combat vehicle and tank drivers.

Chapter 257: Quantity! Quantity! Still Quantity!

Although it sounds a bit funny, the fact is that there is no essential difference between driving a tank and driving a tractor...

This is still the reason why the two light and medium tanks, the Tiger and Sherman, are more difficult to operate. The latest Tiger heavy tank is even equipped with a steering wheel, so anyone who can drive can drive it.

The tractor drivers under the farmers' association are counted and trained on a large scale through the method of old employees training new ones. Combined with the alliance military's own tank training system, the most basic tank and tank soldier replenishment in the future will not be a problem.

But in the air force field, the problem is more complicated, and the air force has higher requirements on the quality of its personnel.

To this end, Mediah's plan was to quickly expand the existing flight school, lower the admission threshold, offer free tuition, and even provide subsidies in the form of a certain amount of money and material quotas.

At the same time, the recruitment threshold for candidate civilian pilots is set at 14-20 years old, because this is not a short-term project and it will take a long time to complete and enrich the pilot training system.

At present, the big guys still have to be trained by the Air Force itself.

Fortunately, Media has always paid great attention to the development efficiency of the navy and air force, and a large number of bomber crew members are basically considered half pilots.

They are all air force soldiers who joined the army very early and have received sufficient education and training. With emergency training, they can become relatively qualified fighter pilots.

Except for professional crew pilots and rangefinder observers, all other members of the bomber fleet are recruited from the civilian population. It doesn't matter if the missile is not accurate, as long as it can be thrown without blowing up the cabin, it is considered qualified.

At the conference, governors of various states stood up one after another to report on the current progress of their work, and specialized statisticians wrote down the numbers on the blackboard.

Apart from old industrial provinces such as Astar, the new provinces in the inner ring have also built a large number of supporting industrial factories under the technical guidance of technical workers and experts transferred from within, and at the same time, skilled workers such as old technicians have been relocated to safer areas.

During the three months, more than one million trains were used, and the transport airships in the sky never stopped from morning to night.

The result was that thousands of factories sprang up in the rear resource areas, but this was not enough.

In order to resolve the contradiction between the gap in military mobilization and the need for manpower in industrial production, Media redistributed the proportion of factory technicians to further tap into potential labor.

The quota of female workers in heavy industrial factories, which was originally less than 10%, was raised to 50% through quota mobilization, and a large number of men who were unfit for service, disabled soldiers and citizens were recruited and mobilized to enter factory production.

At the same time, holidays were cancelled, and overtime work was required under the labor red flag policy, which extended working hours. The time when people had to stop machines but production did not stop, and human intervention had to be increased by more than one-third.

The large-scale expansion of factories will inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of military products, and this problem cannot be avoided by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

To this end, all the original groups of senior technical workers were centrally allocated and managed, focusing on the production links with the highest technical and quality standards.

For example, the engines of tanks, combat vehicles and aircraft, fire control aiming equipment, chemical etching inscription arrays, gearbox transmissions and other precision equipment with fine processing levels are all produced and manufactured by experienced technical workers.

Other things such as the body casting of aircraft, tanks, and mechas, outer armor, artillery barrels, rubber products, metal ammunition, etc. were all simplified and assigned to low-skilled workers to manufacture. It doesn't matter if they are ugly, as long as they can be driven, they are considered qualified.

The same is true in the field of firearms production. The technical workers who produce the latest people's submachine gun, the PPSh BBS-1 with a large magazine capacity, are all concentrated in the field of precision accessories such as barrel manufacturing.

The outer handguard, stamped outer barrel, magazine and other items were all produced by the women of the Alliance, and the same technical standard was that they just had to be usable.

All industrial equipment and machine tools are the latest, using the latest technical standards, and are operated in a familiar-your-own-new manner.

The total number of industrial machine tools in the alliance increased rapidly from 1 before the war to 3 to units per month.

The freed-up workers can take over the newly produced industrial equipment, and the surplus workers can be used to open more factories to expand production.