I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution Chapter 76

However, the military composition that Mitia had envisioned was still not mechanized enough, because the infantry still did not have a proper vehicle in the strict sense.

The mobility effect of using wheeled trucks previously was actually not very good.

The heavy snow often caused the wheels to slip, the horsepower was insufficient, and the quality of the parts was unstable.

It was only because the opponents they encountered relied on walking with two legs, and cavalry had no room to maneuver in the snow.

Otherwise, if they had faced a unit capable of mobile operations, she would not have been able to pull off any sort of flanking maneuvers.

Now that winter had passed, the thawing season had begun, and the roads became slippery and muddy.

Moreover, after living here for so many years, Mitia had discovered that the soil of the great plains of the subcontinent was rather loose.

During the rainy season, when the soil became wet, unless one stuck to the main roads, in other areas, an ordinary person’s step could sink past their calves, making it impossible to even pull their feet back out.

This was also the reason Mitia had never paid much attention to the development of tanks.

With such terrible roads, with such lousy engines, and such heavy weight, once stuck on bad terrain, a tank would have to be abandoned—it couldn’t even be dragged back.

Therefore, in such road conditions, if one wanted to play at mechanized mobility, besides using tracked vehicles, there was also a need for a small, jeep-like infantry vehicle, preferably one that could handle all terrain.

It had to be very light, around two tons, with a load capacity of one ton, a speed of 50–70 km/h, a wading depth of about 30 millimeters, and an engine group of no more than four cylinders.

After weighing all the conditions, she had already thought of a very suitable design.

The vehicle would be compact, with nothing installed other than the frame unless necessary.

The only real difficulty would be the gearbox problem that needed to be solved.

The design was simple, the manufacturing difficulty was low, and the cost was not high.

It was entirely feasible to allocate two to three vehicles to each squad—two for transporting personnel and one for supplies.

Large-scale modular manufacturing could further reduce costs.

The engine group and other parts could also be mass-produced as modules to simplify maintenance.

Other accessories would be decided by the soldiers themselves, adapted to local conditions.

As for the name, she decided to call it the Cat-type All-terrain Vehicle—fitting, since she happened to have a little kitten.

Mitia had done similar things before.

The tracked armored vehicles followed a modular production model: the factory only produced the basic type, transported it to the field, and the local troops would then choose their own additional fittings.

They could only choose among basic options such as full-tracked, half-tracked, open or closed compartments.

As for whether to mount a machine gun or a cannon in the cargo bed, Mitia did not concern herself with it at all~

Such basic welding work could be done by any factory.

There was no need to waste the main manufacturing plants’ man-hours.

High standardization and efficiency were the core of explosive productivity.

With ample petroleum reserves, and the Ministry of Electronic Engineering having already succeeded in prototyping radios, if the universal replacement of small vehicles was added in, then Ceres would already be able to achieve coordinated mechanized mobility in the subcontinent.

On the civilian side, agricultural machinery plants were also being established across various states.

However, due to the limited skill level and number of workers, manufacturing efficiency was far below demand.

At present, production could only guarantee availability, but widespread adoption was still a long way off.

The tractors produced could only be handed over first to the local army, who would then go to the countryside to help families of martyrs, widows, and the disabled with plowing.

Only afterwards would villages be allowed to borrow them.

But even borrowing required someone who could drive.

In the end, it was decided that each village would send people to gather at the military camp for training.

“......”

After leaving the Ceres Navy and another half-month of sailing, Unica and the others finally succeeded in docking at Bonwich Port.

After reporting their identities, the soldiers of the Kingdom of Ovinia quickly invited them to rest in the luxurious reception hall of the city lord’s mansion.

The ponytail man looked at the groveling soldiers around them, crossed his legs, and grumbled: “Damn, finally we’ve met some normal people.”

“That so-called Kingdom of Ceres—what the hell was that? Ever since I became a pilot, I’ve never suffered such humiliation.”

‘Say less, would you? Luckily it was the captain who went out to negotiate back then.

If it had been you, I reckon we’d still be swimming in the sea right now.’ the burly man advised gruffly.

Hearing the burly man’s words, the ponytail man recalled that giant ship, twice the size of their own vessel.

A trace of dread rose in his eyes, but his mouth refused to admit defeat:

“What use are all those gun barrels? Can they even hit anyone? Let me get close, and I’d dismantle it into pieces in minutes—I’d even take your surname if I couldn’t.”

Unica sat upright in her chair, expressionless as she listened to her teammates’ chatter, completely without her usual lively demeanor.

She did not care about that steel ship.

After all, ships of such size were not uncommon in the Church’s fleet.

What they had sailed on this time was merely an ocean transport ship—not worth comparing.

What she was more interested in, rather, were the soldiers aboard that vessel.

It would have been one thing if they were just ordinary people, but those iron rods of various sizes in their hands gave her a faint but undeniable sense of danger.

That was the true reason she had chosen to retreat that day.

She had an innate trust in her instincts.

This was her greatest reliance, the reason she had survived numerous battlefields.

Therefore, she very much wanted information about those iron tubes—the more detailed, the better.

They did not have to wait long before the city lord hurried to the reception hall to entertain them.

After a round of flattery, he led the group toward Bonwich’s church.

Quite ‘coincidentally’, Pontiff Oligovich and the Saintess happened to be touring this very church, spreading blessings to the people.

As for why he had left the Ovinia Royal Capital to come to this port city, that remained unknown.

After brief greetings, Unica and the others brought their machines down from the ship, and together with the Pontiff paraded twice through the streets, receiving the worship of believers and letting the civilians feel the might of the Church.

Then they returned to the church to park.

The magical cores within their machines replenished magical energy extremely slowly in the subcontinent, so they dared not waste it.

That night, after the banquet ended and everyone had gone to rest, Unica knocked on the door of the Pontiff’s residence, where Oligovich and the Saintess had long been waiting.

When the door closed, Unica took out the badge given to her by the Cardinal.

The Pontiff and the Saintess knelt halfway to the ground.

Unica’s expression was cold.

She did not intend to let them rise, and directly asked: “What on earth is going on? The Church requires a reasonable explanation from you, Oligovich.”

Unica’s identity in the Demitria Diocese was, in truth, only mid-level.

But in the subcontinent, she was still equal in rank to the Pontiff, because the subcontinent’s Church was only a branch.

The subcontinent had once been nothing but a wilderness, a place where only the defeated and exiled from the main continent would risk storms to migrate—dwarves, elves, beastmen, as well as some human criminals.

To put it bluntly, the subcontinent was the exile land of all races’ losers.

Yet after a long period of development, they had risen again from that wilderness.

The Goddess of Light followed a path of broad-based faith.

Naturally, the growing population of the subcontinent also drew the Church’s attention, and they sent missionaries to spread belief here.

Taking advantage of the information gap, they even changed the Goddess of Light into the Goddess of Magic, treating the subcontinent entirely as the Church’s private reserve.

But now, this reserve had suffered a major upheaval.

They did not care whether a few countries believed in the Church or not—they had enough confidence in their grassroots foundation among the people.

But the fall of the Saint Spirit—this was a loss they could not accept.

For it could not be cultivated, nor replicated, and could only be found by sheer luck, like searching for a needle in the ocean.