I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Ovinia III felt a torment that was exactly what Mitia had hoped to see.

War—launching a contact war—was something that sounded simple on paper, as if one could declare war and immediately fight, but when studied carefully it was a highly complex, systemic undertaking.

Mitia was able to strike out quickly, suppress enemy resistance, and put the resources hidden in occupied areas to use on the spot; beyond possessing superior arms and purging the nobility, the institutional advantages brought by industrialization were the absolute trump cards hidden beneath the surface.

Things like railways and trucks brought rapid transport capability; besides increasing speed, their larger hidden benefit was reduced consumption.

By Mitia’s calculations of the Kingdom of Ovinia’s transport capacity, gathering grain from the major fiefs and sending it to ports for shipping to Pue Lalor by sea incurred roughly an eight-to-nine-to-one loss.

In other words, to deliver one unit to the front, eight to nine units were consumed en route — that included what was eaten, and losses from mildew caused by melting snow and seawater.

If transported purely overland, that loss ratio could even reach one-to-fourteen.

Through the Astal territories’ railways and trucks, advantages in speed and load capacity could keep that loss ratio down to roughly one-to-five, meaning about twenty percent or so.

Of course, because of the adoption of firearms, consumption of shells, ammunition, and fuel had surged, and total transport capacity had not reached a qualitative leap.

Still, if one calculated only from the perspective of grain delivery, the gap was large.

The gap behind that was far greater than the difference in what reached soldiers at the front.

Because the Kingdom of Ovinia’s garrison in Pue Lalor numbered nearly 150,000, while Astal’s Pue Lalor field army, with reinforcements arriving over time, now totaled roughly forty thousand.

Mitia’s territories were state-owned, and mechanization meant less loss during transport.

Plus, the government had large grain reserves seized from the purged nobility and exercised planned controls; although civilian life was severely affected, it was not catastrophic — people could eat but had no surplus, while the remainder was strictly controlled as strategic material.

Ovinia had none of those high-capacity transport advantages, nor did its nobles selflessly hand over all their stores; they, too, had been armed and required ammunition and shell supplies.

Ovinia therefore needed to maintain massive baggage trains; aside from the inefficiency of mouths and horses consuming supplies, the harm to the rear civilians was enormous.

Although the Kingdom of Ovinia’s total population had once exceeded ten million, that was history; having lost nearly one-third of its territory, its population now peaked at six to seven hundred thousand, if one was generous.

Yet it still maintained around three hundred thousand regular troops split between the front and the royal capital; the logistical demands of a vast territorial depth required nearly a million porters and conscripts who could not engage in production.

Five million civilians had to feed over a million mouths through the winter that only consumed and did not produce — if the kingdom had not raised taxes and thrown everything it had into support, it would have exploded internally long ago.

Then the Pontiff’s forces swept through the rear, further devastating reproductive capacity and exhausting the last of the lower classes’ grain reserves.

Ovinia III probably still viewed the world with his old strategic lens, thinking whoever had more troops on paper would win, and that anything lost could be taken back from the enemy once victorious.

He might even still fantasize that Mitia would attack Pue Lalor and run face-first into disaster.

He believed Astal must also suffer severe logistical pressure; as the one launching a third-line long-distance expedition, Mitia should be at a greater disadvantage if she did not fight.

He could not have guessed how much good stuff was hidden in those damned noble warehouses, and he had no way to force them to hand everything over — whereas Mitia moved light, without a heavy baggage train dragging her down.

From Mitia’s perspective, the roles of offense and defense had long since reversed: as long as Pue Lalor did not take the initiative, she could wear him down in a war of attrition; if an attack could not break her army group’s defensive lines, and if Ovinia did not act against her now, his death watch had already begun.

All she had to do was wait quietly until the railway network crossed the whole territory, which would make subsequent troop movements much more flexible; Pue Lalor’s forty thousand defenders could at any time become eighty thousand, a hundred thousand!

At present the pressure of attack lay on enemies on the third line; except for the Hendak point, Mitia had already been able to shift other fronts to defense.

Although it was a bit embarrassing for a transmigrator, Mitia believed her best tactic now was to leverage the generation gap in mobility and firepower delivery her side and the enemy had formed, and fight a covering/relief strategy.

The enemy could not cut her supply lines — how could men and horses on snow outrun a half-track vehicle? The two sides’ mobility were not in the same class; if they dared divide their forces, they risked being picked apart by her gradually.

So long as they could not break through the army group’s transition-from-attack-to-defense line and delay until the rear railway was completed,

relying on permanent and semi-permanent fortifications and a continuous stream of support, she could make everyone who fought her suffer terribly.

If she could not hold, at worst she would move the people and withdraw to wage a scorched-earth defense; the Pontiff’s forces begging for food on the spot would only eat snow and nothing else.

Among them, the Kingdom of Ovinia felt the greatest and most urgent pressure — the war was being fought on its soil, and all the aftereffects would explode upon it.

Mitia’s most serious present hidden danger was the Hendak territory; its presence was like a nail lodged near the heart of Astal, and if it were not dealt with quickly something bad could happen.

It was too close, very near Astal’s railway network and sea ports; if the Hendak line were breached, the whole of Astal would be severed in two and strategic plans would instantly collapse.

Yet this was precisely the hardest bit to chew — the hardened frontier troops that had fought for years, combined with the zealous Pontiff’s forces and tough officers, made an iron tortoise.

But however tough it was, it had to be eaten; Mitia had to take it by force regardless of cost.

For that reason, the railway tracks and the sleepers and the paving stones near the Hendak defensive line were all specially made — high-strength steel, top-quality timber, and hard stone.

That was because two very special train sets she had made especially for Hendak were to be used there.

Steam locomotive guns! Caliber: 283 millimeters; muzzle length: 21,539 millimeters; total weight: three hundred tons; nickname: Hendak Express.

The long barrel brought ultra-long range; a 283 mm caliber delivered firepower far exceeding current field howitzers.

Most importantly, it could not be defended against by solid walls; it could strike over Hendak’s high ramparts and hit the interior.

Such a giant’s recoil when fired placed extremely high demands on the track’s load-bearing capacity, requiring specially made rail sections, and its actual power would still need testing in combat.