Chapter 51: Peshawar, The Far East

The railway tracks in Rasya are unique worldwide, wider than the international standard rails.

A few years ago, Rasya and Amato fought over the territory of Weiman, with Rasya losing the land to Amato, leading to the establishment of the Weiman Kingdom.

To this day, Weiman retains a significant portion of these wide-gauge tracks.

At first glance, Honda's strategy was flawless—building a railway for smooth supply lines, even designing train hubs capable of switching from standard gauge wheels to wide gauge. Once Red Tower City was captured, the Amato forces could connect via rail to the vast Berylia railway in the Far East, bringing supplies from Weiman all the way to Barofsk City.

This was not unprecedented: four years ago, to prepare for the invasion of Seris, Amato had already constructed railways across the plains within Weiman’s borders. With sufficient resources and personnel, the peak speed could reach 2 kilometers per day.

The grasslands south of Red Tower City are flat and free from large rivers or culverts, making railway construction genuinely convenient.

However...

“If you can come, why can’t I?” Zhang Shan thought, admiring the enemy’s generosity in building railways for him—General Honda was truly benevolent!

“Still, we have to wear down their elite forces first.”

Despite Amato’s confident posture of a small country challenging a great power, in essence, Amato is a small nation with limited resources and a small population. Even soldiers averaging 165 cm in height are not easily found.

If the calculations are correct, Amato’s elite consists of seventeen standing divisions. Excluding the immobile Imperial Guards, the mediocre 16th and 17th Divisions, and those stationed in other regions, only twelve top-tier divisions are truly deployed in the Far East and Seris.

Destroying these twelve elite divisions would cripple Amato’s army.

Moreover, the Northern Guan Army does not represent the entire Amato military; different regions have their own power bases.

At most, the Northern Guan Army could muster six elite divisions—not a single one more.

Incidentally, excluding the rebellious Fourth Division “Boundary,” which is mostly disloyal, only five elite divisions actually pose a threat to Zhang Shan.

Zhang Shan was determined to wear down these five elite divisions; once done, the Northern Guan Army would be at his mercy. Given the Northern Guan Army’s notorious tendency to offend others, not only would the Amato Navy ignore them, but the armies from central and southern Amato wouldn’t care either.

Zhang Shan just needed to be cautious—not to expand the scope of his attacks before he grew strong enough. He would focus on mercilessly beating the main forces of the Northern Guan Army.

Before drawing enough Northern Guan forces, he had no qualms about feigning submission on the surface.

Zhang Shan knew well that if he wanted to crush Amato’s homeland, it would inevitably be a lengthy campaign, requiring at least one to two years under the best circumstances. Considering a possible future invasion by the Asgardians, this could stretch into a protracted war lasting over seven years...

From the start, he openly purchased everywhere, waving Britannian checks and buying up the world; behind the scenes, he was tirelessly strengthening his country’s military industry.

Military factories of this era were a story unto themselves.

Car factories converted into tank factories were considered high-end and prestigious.

More challenging were the Seris-style workshops, manually replicating foreign firearms and artillery, using rudimentary metalworking tools to cobble together famous world weapons.

On the extreme end was the renowned South Asian firearms city of Peshawar.

There, one could see astonishingly accurate replicas of AKs, M4s, and even bizarre hybrids—like a rifle featuring a Mosin barrel, SKS bolt, AK stock, and M4 tactical accessories.

They looked like a drunken assembly of guns from the night before, emerging at dawn as a monstrous hybrid... enough to make any genuine firearms enthusiast’s fist clench in admiration.

Regardless of accuracy and durability, at least weapons produced in Peshawar were lethal.

Before crossing over, Zhang Shan had witnessed a world flooded with Soviet-style weapons, yet ironically, their own domestic products were never the best. The hierarchy of quality was: first-tier from the Rabbit Nation, second-tier from the Soviets, third-tier from former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe, fourth-tier South Asian high-quality copies, and finally, low-quality fakes.

Even bullets were ranked in tiers accordingly.

The worst ones, when disassembled, revealed uneven casings and powder charges inconsistently loaded by hand.

Firing such ammunition risked jamming and could easily cause the barrel to explode.

It was truly Rasya’s roulette—a six-shot cylinder with one bullet, several people taking turns pulling the trigger on themselves to see who would be hit.

That was how wild it was!

Zhang Shan never imagined he would one day have to grit his teeth and personally create a Far Eastern version of Peshawar.

Northeast of Barofsk City, an abandoned factory was repurposed.

Inside the 4,000-square-meter facility, the presence of children was unmistakable.

These children, around ten years old, were heartbreakingly mature. Some were assembling gun parts like playing with building blocks; others used tiny fingers to sand the rough edges off newly crafted Mosin rifle stocks.

When Zhang Shan came to inspect, for some reason, he recalled his great-grandfather. As a child, his great-grandmother often told him how his great-grandfather entered a factory at age seven, working in a matchstick factory to support himself...

He also thought of the children of this world, where a family might have seven or eight children, yet only two or three—or even just one—survived to adulthood. His nose tingled, and his eyes reddened.

Anna quietly stepped closer. “Your Highness, you pay these children two rubles a month and provide meals. That is already a great blessing for them. With war raging, men are at the front, and women must work the fields. Many women cannot support so many children.”

Zhang Shan sighed, “Ah, this damned world.”

There was no alternative. The duchy had only six million Rasyans; raising twenty-plus divisions meant conscripting almost every able-bodied man—either into the army or logistics.

Throughout the workshop, aside from a few critical mechanical workers who were men, the rest were women and children.

A boy of seven or eight carried a Mosin rifle, which with its bayonet was taller than he was, passing not far from Zhang Shan.

Yet this small boy, who before Zhang Shan’s transmigration was still in elementary school, single-handedly carried the rifle to a disabled veteran at the range by the entrance. Watching the veteran load rounds and fire two shots, stamping it as qualified, the boy took back the rifle and independently completed the entire process of packing and boxing.

In the neighboring factory, a scruffy old man punched metal discs from molds, while a Rasya woman nearby used a small hammer, similar to a sewing machine, to shape the discs into bullet casings.

Not far off, a child weighed powder charges on a scale. Another filled each 7.62mm cartridge with powder through a funnel, then handed rows of cartridges to a woman who inserted copper-nickel jacketed lead-tipped bullets.

Despite the crude and rough production facilities—seemingly mercilessly exploiting female and child labor—the factory could produce an average of 30 Mosin rifles and 1,000 rifle bullets daily.

And this was just the beginning; as skilled workers increased, production capacity would rise further.

Though it sounded like yet another “all roads lead to Rome” story, was it possible that in these chaotic times, even becoming a beast of burden was a luxury?

Many never even became beasts of burden before being sent to the trenches.

Be grateful you have a strong motherland!