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Chapter 16 - Crimean War 2/11

The opening months of the war proved brutal but strangely decisive in their simplicity.

The Ottomans had crossed the Danube with fire in their blood, intent on driving the Russians from Wallachia before winter.

The Russians, dug in and stubborn, yielded ground only when compelled.

Both sides bled heavily for their efforts.

And in the midst of it all, the Iron Hand had carved its legend.

Nearly ten percent of Elias' force lay dead or maimed, their lives poured into the soil of Calafat and the roads beyond.

Yet the losses paled beside the boons.

For every legionnaire buried, at least twenty Ottomans had fallen.

For every crate of supplies spent, three more had been seized from the battlefield.

His soldiers fought as ghosts in another army's war—never claiming the glory, but always reaping the spoils.

Elias studied the tallies late into the night, lit by the warm orange glow of oil lamps.

His ledgers no longer resembled the dull account books of a Montenegrin clerk.

They brimmed with figures that spoke of blood and iron, of empire in embryo:

[Daily Credit Income: 612 → 1,115]

[Resource Stockpile: Stable]

[System Alert: Reinforcements Available]

He had more than doubled his income since the war began.

Every slain Ottoman convoy, every captured Russian storehouse trickled back into his coffers.

The system's strange alchemy transformed spoils into credits, and credits into strength.

Elias did not hesitate.

He summoned another thousand riflemen, hardened Slavic faces conjured fully equipped and drilled.

Alongside them came medics with their strange antiseptic knowledge, and engineers laden with the skill to raise earthworks overnight.

Within days, the fresh battalions were marching east to join the Iron Hand, swelling his hidden army to around three thousand men.

Three thousand.

Enough to stand against whole Ottoman divisions in the right terrain.

Enough to strike terror into columns twice their number, thanks to their needle rifle-muskets rather than simple ball muskets, due to the rate of fire being more than 2x allowing for 6-8 shots per minute as opposed to 2-3 and that was by experienced veterans.

Enough, Elias thought privately, to tip the balance of a theater if wielded wisely.

And yet, still too few.

Always too few to effect real change just yet.

Even if he continued to grow, the outcome of this war would not be in his hands to change outright, hundreds of thousands would be fielded to fight and his forces were but a single drop in the bucket, able to change minor outcomes but not major events.

Winter arrived early, sharp winds sweeping down from the Carpathians to gnaw the bones of soldiers on both sides.

Campaigns slowed to a crawl.

The Danube froze in places, and armies that had clashed ferociously through October now huddled in muddy camps, tending frostbite as much as wounds.

For Elias, the lull was both a blessing and a challenge.

The Iron Hand, though battered, had proven its worth.

Russian generals wrote glowing reports of their "volunteer auxiliaries," men who neither broke under fire nor succumbed to the sickness sweeping through the ranks.

A mystery force, quiet and disciplined, their loyalty to Russia beyond question, and drove the spirit of nationalism in their own forces to even greater heights.

It was exactly the cover Elias needed.

Yet the strain on his logistics was real.

Three thousand men required constant supplies—though thanks to the system their only real requirement was food, since his mens guns never seemed to wear out, the same was said for their uniforms which would repair so long as they were not dead, meanwhile worries about their weapons falling into enemy hands for reverse engineering were unnecessar as the guns would simple evaporate upon the soldiers death and in the chaos of battle anyone would assume their companions took the gun away with them.

A professional fighting force with access to infinite amounts of ammunition made them a very deadly force though cover was always required to explain their near inexhaustible supplies, so while damage was high, the iron hand was working on a balance beam to not draw unncessessary attention.

His engineers had begun fabricating work to 'repair' the mens weapons and bayonets while really just sharing war stories, while they worked away tirelessly to do nothing more than just polish the rifles.

But even still the nagging feeling of being useless to affect history as he wanted made his desire to furhter expand the bases economy to support a larger force, one that could change the tide of history.

So Elias set the winter to work.

In Zabljak, miners struck a deeper vein of silver, rich enough to justify doubling the workforce.

Caravans rolled west into the mountains daily, wagons laden with ore disguised as mundane Montenegrin trade.

The second base grew cavernous, its storage vaults filling with sacks of grain and other long time storable goods.

To house all his new recruits he also created additional barracks at both bases to allow for a garrison of close to 1,000 men to exist at both.

Inside of Montengrin itself, the nobility were none the wiser, since all the mining operations were conducted in secret and the excavated ore and rock were processed in his refineries making them disappear into thin air, which did cause a momentary worry to rise in his heart since reasources are finite, but the system quelled this by stating mines in Command and conquer were endless, and while there would be a point when they would dry up, but given enough time they would be 'restocked' eventually.

By December, the war was stalemated along the Danube.

Calafat remained in Ottoman hands, but the cost of holding it grew unbearable.

Raids by the Iron Hand stripped their convoys bare, ambushes shattered their foraging parties.

Russian lines stiffened.

The river valley became a graveyard of half-buried corpses and burned wagons.

Still, both empires endured, and Europe watched with sharpened knives.

British newspapers shrieked against Russian aggression.

French pamphlets declared solidarity with the Sultan.

Austria remained silent, though its mobilization along the northern frontiers could no longer be hidden.

Elias read every report with detached satisfaction.

The noose was tightening, and the spring would bring fire enough to light the continent.

And in that fire, he would forge something greater.

At night, he paced the battlements of Cetinje, the winter wind cutting through his cloak.

He looked east, always east, imagining his men crouched in frozen trenches along the Danube, their rifles cradled in gloved hands, their breath rising in clouds.

He felt their presence through Eagle Vision as if they were extensions of himself.

He saw their patrols, their watchfires, the faces of the wounded as medics dressed them with clean bandages instead of filthy rags.

He heard the crack of rifles in small skirmishes, the dull thud of shovels as engineers dug new redoubts.

And he smiled, because he could feel it—this was working.

January 1854 loomed like a drawn blade.

The Russians were preparing to counterattack.

Intelligence whispered of columns massing beyond the Pruth, fresh regiments marching west despite the snow.

The Tsar had resolved to retake Wallachia before the Allies could intervene.

When the thaw came, his armies would cross the frozen Danube in fury.

The Iron Hand would be at the heart of it.

Elias poured more credits into preparation.

He summoned additional engineers, doubling their number.

He authorized the construction of mobile field hospitals—canvas tents packed with antiseptics, designed to be raised within hours of a battle's end.

He even experimented with primitive telegraph lines between his bases, crude copper strands hammered together by summoned technicians, their signals weak but functional.

Every improvement fed into the machine.

Every coin of silver dug from Zabljak's veins was transmuted into soldiers, powder, rifles, and knowledge.

In Cetinje, the nobles grew restless.

Supplies were scarcer, prices higher with foods and the like being bought up in bulk by the two empires to feed their armies.

The Baron railed against Turkish barbarism and demanded the Prince send aid to the Tsar even if only as a token force to show their stance as slav against the Ottoman invaders who previously had ruled over this region at the height of their empire.

Others countered with warnings of ruin.

The Prince, wise as ever, stalled them all.

And Elias?

Elias smiled politely, bowed when spoken to, scribbled notes as if tariffs and grain prices were his sole concern.

He had become invisible even in the center of the storm.

But in truth, he was orchestrating the storm.

On New Year's Eve, he stood alone in his chambers, a ledger open before him.

Outside, bells tolled for midnight, their sound mingling with drunken laughter from the streets.

The year had turned.

[Force Strength: 3,014]

[Credit Reserves: 32,529]

[Daily Growth: 1,185]

[Era Advancement Available – Pre-WW1]

 [Cost: 500,000 Credits]

Still far from the mark, but no longer impossible, at his current rate of growth he'd advance to pre-ww1 technology in the next thirty or so years, so right in line with the rest of the world.

At this rate, if the war widened as he expected, if Britain and France threw their fleets into the Black Sea and poured gold into the Sultan's coffers, the battlefield would become an endless fountain of spoils.

when the next war with the Ottomans erupted, Montenegro would be capable of shocking not only the Ottomans but also well and truly secure their independance forcing the rest of the world to recognize that they are no simply just an afterthought nation to be controlled and manipulated.

Elias closed the ledger, exhaling slowly.

The storm had only begun.

And in its heart, the Iron Hand waited, ready to strike.

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