Steel of a New Era

In fact, even when I first dropped communism on the North, I never expected the flames to spread this far.

All I wanted was the confusion caused by the protests, along with the resulting decline in production.

Suppress workers by force, and they rise up. And once workers have risen up, they can never be crushed by force.

To me, having seen the history of communism in the twenty-first century, that was simply common sense.

But...

"What? They buried the entire Krasnova Mine shaft just to cover up the company's mistake?"

"And they shot dead the protesters who objected?"

The Northern Grand Duke's response had gone far beyond anything I could have imagined.

He had shot the protesters, gunned down every worker who rose up in response, and begun crushing the workers under a reign of terror.

Watching that, I had no choice but to admit it.

This time, it seemed, my judgment had been wrong.

Even as I thought that no one worthy of being called the Northern Grand Duke could make such a foolish choice, I must have briefly forgotten how Imperial Russia had fallen.

The Lena Gold Mine Massacre of April 17, 1912.

The Lena Mine exploited its workers for sixteen hours a day, giving them shoddy food coupons instead of wages.

The result was inevitable: a protest. The Russian Imperial Army opened fire on the marching workers, killing nearly 500.

Makarov, who was serving as Interior Minister at the time, left behind the outrageous remark, "It has always been this way, and it always will be."

Looking at that, perhaps violently suppressing protests was simply the instinctive response of leaders who had never experienced the red.

The people of this era still had no idea what such actions would lead to.

The Lena Gold Mine Massacre had the effect of increasing the number of strikes and protests from 400 in 1911 to 2,000 over the course of 1912.

The North would be no different.

The Krasnova Mine Collapse Incident was a grave matter: the Northern Grand Ducal Household had personally buried the survivors and even opened fire on the workers.

At this rate, the North would never recover its original production levels by the time the war began three years from now—the date I had in mind.

It was a far stronger effect than I had predicted.

"William, divert as much of the Intelligence Bureau's capacity as possible toward the North, and make sure the Northern Grand Ducal Household's atrocities do not get buried."

"Understood. However... if we redirect the Bureau's resources toward the North, we will lack the ability to monitor secret talks between the foreign powers and the Center."

"That doesn't matter. It would be more dangerous for the North and the Center to join forces than for the Center to make contact with the foreign powers."

"I'll take care of it immediately."

For now, we had no ability to invade the North. The Arbel Mountains were an excellent natural shield, but at the same time, they were a prison that trapped the West.

The sheer mountains that reached the clouds could never be crossed by heavy tanks.

So this was the best measure we could take against the North for now.

Rather than lamenting that we could do no more, it was right to focus on what we could do.

Like manufacturing tanks, for instance.

***

"This is the VL-500 engine, completed through collaboration between Valen Engine Works and our Design Bureau."

The engine itself looked little different from the engines of World War I and World War II tanks. It had been heavily influenced by blueprints from those eras in the first place.

But it was not exactly the same.

Each piston, moving with powerful force, glowed blue. It was the pure blue light produced by the magic circles in operation.

Its heat output was also distinctly different from that of an ordinary engine.

Since its underlying principle was different, it produced almost no heat, meaning no separate cooling system was necessary.

"What about the mana-stone runaway problem you said was an issue last time?"

"Our mages constructed a separate mana circuit. Now, instead of running wild, the mana stone will discharge its mana externally along the circuit and operate normally."

"What about the cost-effectiveness?"

"This model has been optimized as much as possible for cost-effectiveness. The engine itself took about half a year to develop, but we've continued researching until now to bring it up to mass-production specifications."

In other words, it could be installed in a tank immediately.

The various companies' research was about to start bearing fruit as well, so by now, all I really needed were the blueprints.

That was why, as soon as I returned to the Southern Grand Duchy, I took out the blueprints I had prepared.

The T-34, the very embodiment of mass warfare.

I had spent some time wavering between the Sherman and the T-34. Their production costs were similar, after all.

But similar prices did not necessarily mean similar manufacturing difficulty.

Even in a world with magic, I could not distribute throughout the country the level of skilled labor and automated equipment that existed in World War II America.

Our skilled workers had another tank to build. I planned to decide after seeing how far development of the T-34 progressed.

In the end, mass-produced tanks would be made in factories with low-skilled workers and inadequate equipment. Expecting such factories to have automated machinery, high-quality bearings, and precision welding was unreasonable.

The Sherman tank was a symbol of America's overwhelming industrial might. It was beyond our ability to imitate while our industry was still far from that level.

I took out the tank blueprints and handed them to Lucilla.

"Take these to the Design Bureau."

Now it was time to show the important people what the 'water tank' I had said I would make actually was.

***

Until now, the Design Bureau had done whatever Kyle Leopold told them to do.

That was because the direction they wanted to pursue and the destination Kyle Leopold envisioned were the same.

The people of the Design Bureau had gathered to advance technology, while Kyle Leopold was someone who envisioned a world where magic and human technology coexisted.

Their goals had always been aligned, so the Design Bureau had carried out his orders without a single complaint.

It was a dream workplace: they were paid well, treated well, and continually given work they actually wanted to do.

Whenever a new order came down, they merely voiced their curiosity about what he intended to make.

"Welding technology? We developed it, but what are you planning to use it for? Why did you ask us to make something like this?"

"Exactly. We're already building battleships and submarines just fine with riveted joints, aren't we?"

"A new engine...? We've finished it, but how are you planning to use it?"

"Could you be planning to make a new military vehicle?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think the military vehicles we have now need that much power."

"Could it be some kind of land battleship? A land battleship that can block the enemy's shelling and fight back directly on land?"

Amid all those guesses, Kyle Leopold finally unveiled the tank blueprints.

The first blueprints revealed were for a mass-production tank.

The weapon designated the T-34 was the sort of weapon perfectly tailored to the limits of what the Southern factories could mass-produce.

A considerable part of the production process involved manual labor. It was designed to keep running even with considerable manufacturing tolerances, and rough finishing was said to be acceptable as well.

On the blueprints, the T-34 was a crude instrument of war, built by efficiently joining enormous steel plates.

And the sight of that crude instrument of war moved the hearts of the Design Bureau's engineers.

"After battleships, a land battleship this time!"

"Great! Let's copy the blueprints and study them! Let's not fight over them like last time!"

"Right. First, we need to understand why this blueprint works the way it does."

Fortunately, the Design Bureau's engineers were clever people who did not repeat their previous mistake. Unlike before, when they had bickered over who would study the blueprints first, they copied them and distributed them to each department.

As a result of their research, the engineers learned one thing.

"This tank seems to have been designed for maximum mass production within the limits of our technology."

"Yes. The same goes for the electric arc-welding technology, the turret-motor technology, and the high-output engine."

"So that's why you had us develop those things over the past few years...!"

Southern industry had now reached precisely the level required to produce the T-34.

Thanks to that, building the prototype itself did not take long. About half a year later, the researchers produced a tank matching the blueprints.

At the arsenal under the Design Bureau, the first T-34 tank, which had not yet undergone a single test run, was completed.

It was still only a half-finished tank, with no way of knowing what problems might arise in actual combat.

But everyone who saw the finished product could feel one thing.

A new era's steel had been born—steel that would replace the heavy cavalry that had thundered across battlefields for a thousand years.

On one of the South's many islands, a T-34 test run was held at one of the Design Bureau's secret testing grounds, absent from even the maps.

Only a few completely trusted military generals, Kyle Leopold, and several technicians were present.

"Then, we will begin the test!"

With that voice, countless gunshots rang out across the testing grounds. Weapons ranging from 7.62mm heavy machine guns to 20mm autocannons opened fire.

Yet no attack could leave a scratch on the T-34's frontal sloped armor.

When the eerie barrage finally passed, all that remained were the intact T-34 hull and bullets that had ricocheted and bounced away.