"I hope you didn't expect us to have a warm, harmonious, and moving heart-to-heart like a teacher and student or father and son before starting this topic,"
Shiller put down his cutlery again, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said, "If you are looking for that kind of feeling, I suggest you go find Harvey or Gordon. They would both visibly make good fathers."
"Do you know why our conversations always end in a most unpleasant atmosphere?" Shiller posed a question, and then answered himself: "Because you equally doubt everyone in the world, including me, and I equally hate everyone in the world, including you."
"Then..." Batman slowly began: "If I no longer doubt everyone in the world, will you no longer hate everyone in the world?"
"What did you say?" Shiller squinted his eyes, suddenly, Batman saw him reveal a frenzied smile, but soon, Shiller stretched out his hands, pulling down the corners of his own mouth, and shook his head hard.
"Damn it!" Shiller cursed, he continued muttering: "Do you really believe it? Do you think Batman will stop doubting others? Be less serious... no... your smile really looks terrible..."
Shiller fought as if against thin air, "clatter" a sound, the dinner knife fell to the ground. He gritted his teeth and said to the demon beside him, "Claude! Get him out! Throw him out of the castle!"
The formidable demon moved towards Batman, Batman did not want to clash with him. He got up and walked towards the castle exit.
As he was about to leave the castle, he saw that Shiller bent down to pick up the dinner knife. Like someone who had gone a long time without eating, he began to tear into the food on his plate.
Batman knew this was not normal, but he knew he could not provoke Shiller any more. So, he left with a heavy heart. He then found Alfred, intending to ask him about his views on the structure and system of the mine.
"Did Professor Shearer discuss communism with you? He should have told you that you are a capitalist and no matter how you lead the mine, you are exploiting these slaves."
Just as Alfred opened his mouth, Batman was a bit surprised, but what he said next surprised Batman even more.
"You thought I would tell you to give up your leadership now, let all the demons vote, exercise their democratic rights, and do the same for the leadership of other departments."
"But, Batman, the theoretical books you've read should have told you that everything must be based on the actual situation. You can't be fanciful, you can't force things."
"You can't directly adopt the Soviet model, nor can you bring a certain system over and force it onto the current situation... what is the current situation?"
Alfred answered his own question: "We are still within Beelzebub's territory. Within three days, news of the mine dispute will reach his ears, and Beelzebub's elite army is even more elite than the Rotten Heart General's Demon Army."
"Even if it takes him some time to move a large army here, we and all the slaves here are still in a life-and-death situation. You must first make sure that we can survive before we can talk about other things."
"There is no time to educate the public, select talents, organize elections, or arrange departments. We are not even a temporary victory right now, we can only say that we are one step out of the mire."
"You've certainly read in history books, in the initial stage, you don't need to pursue too much procedural justice, survival is the most important thing. If someone tells you that your procedure is unjust at this time, so everything is meaningless, then you should punch them."
"Nothing is more meaningful than survival,"
Seeing Batman's expression, Alfred laughed and said, "Are you surprised? I told you before, we are not the extremist fanatics you imagine. In fact, if we do not understand how to decisively choose and flexibly change, our cause cannot advance."
"So, you can fully display your abilities, or rather, if you give up your leadership position and don't make use of your abilities now, then all our previous efforts will have been wasted."
After hearing Alfred's words, Batman stood in place and nodded, admitting that he still held some stereotypes about the KGB. After all, he is a born and bred American. No matter how wise and clear-headed he is, he is still somewhat influenced.
Batman with one hand, gently touched the edge of his cloak, and then he said: "In my discussion with Shiller, we mentioned a method to stimulate war potential in a short period of time, and I think he meant a planned economy. Do you think it can be implemented here?"
But Alfred shook his head: "It's not as simple as you think. The Soviet model succeeded because the Communist International served as the blood vessels, and the industrial production of various countries provided blood for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, as the heart, continuously digested and transformed this blood into nutrients, and then sent it back, leading everyone forward."
"However, this model also sowed the seeds of hidden troubles for later... but of course, let's not mention those for now. To use this model, the prerequisite is that the volume must be large enough, and we are now…"
"So, we are back to that problem. We need to win a battle first to expand the volume, but to win, we need to expand the volume…" Batman fell silent for a while, as if he was thinking.
"Every country, like the Soviet Union, had a difficult start to its history. It's just how it goes," said Alfred to Batman, "The upcoming days are bound to be tough but always remember, you are not fighting in this battle alone."
Batman lifted his gaze to the distant sky, wondering if he would ever have such a precious opportunity again, to fully utilize his strategic prowess in such a large-scale war.
Even a small step forward would be an extra gain for him. With this in mind, why not give it his all?
Returning to the mine, Batman first sought Merkel to arrange the production issues. There was no smelting factory in the mine, but there were several smelting furnaces to smelt production tools.
The furnaces all used magma as energy and were highly efficient. Batman didn't have to start from scratch, but the hard part was, the furnaces only had molds for tools and parts of mine carts, whereas Batman needed equipment and weaponry now.
In other words, they needed to research the mineral ratios for smelting equipment from scratch, and also the enchantments for weapons.
Thankfully, not all of the Rotting Heart General's army had been wiped out. Many demon soldiers were captured, and they expressed their willingness to fight for Batman. Their armour and weapons could serve as a reference.
Batman headed the formation of a research team, with key members being Merkel, mages from the original Rotting Heart General's army, and soldiers from the logistical management department. Their main task was to forge the army's own armor using the minerals in the mine by analyzing the original equipment.
Batman's research abilities need no introduction, but there were other reasons the research progressed smoothly. For example, Seven Mountains Mine was the second-largest in Beelzebub's territory, yet it had the most diverse range of minerals.
Moreover, the Rotting Heart General was the cousin of the Queen. Although he hadn't participated in major wars in recent years, the demon soldiers under his command were of high quality and the mages were intelligent, saving Batman a lot of effort.
Soon enough, simple equipment casting production lines were set up – mining, transportation, smelting, were all in full swing.
Making some changes to the original ecology of the mine, Batman didn't distinguish between civilians, workers, and soldiers. Everyone was part of the assembly line. Everyone had to participate in production, in training, all striving for survival.
Merkel was responsible for military training. Batman didn't keep the old demon army establishment anymore, where bigger demons were heavyweight soldiers with heavy armour and smaller ones were lightweight soldiers with light armour. This categorization method was convenient but problematic.
Batman adopted a modern military establishment with some improvements, categorizing demons according to functionality. Different races would appear in different camps due to their different functionalities.
For instance, in the light infantry camp, there would be more smaller demons, but also bigger ones. The bigger demons were responsible for defense, carry, and build defense works in the camp, but when it comes to combat operations, smaller demons were deployed.
Of course, because different demons moved at different speeds, formations often resulted in the frontline troops arriving when the subsequent troops hadn't even covered a third of the distance. To address this issue, Batman started considering the creation of personnel carriers.
He had an existing reference at hand, the mine carts traveling through the mines, a great object of study.
In the human world, it's common for the rear to build while the front fights. But due to the restrictions of human constitution and era, it's hard to connect all occupied areas with railways after taking them. There are neither enough materials and workers nor much necessity.
But in Hell, such a railway network has a foundation to be implemented. On the one hand, Batman had taken over a mine, the place that was least short of minerals for smelting railway tracks or making mine carts.
On the other hand, demons required lesser resources to maintain their physiological needs and were stronger. Simply put, they worked faster. With proper arrangements, the speed of infrastructure construction was astonishing.
Most demon lords move their troops using teleportation portals. Batman's mages could use them, but such portals required many materials which they couldn't amass for now. Even if they could, the consumption was substantial, and Batman couldn't afford it.
Moreover, compared to a well-planned and highly constructed railway network, teleportation portals may not be superior. After all, portals are one-time use, consume a large amount of materials and require days of preparation in advance. If disrupted, personnel may get lost in the chaotic flows of space, never to return, let alone the loss of materials.
Even for someone as powerful as Beelzebub, 80% of the goods transportation in his territories is done by special races of demons, like the giant sandworms in the mine, a Camel Demon.
Batman hadn't forgotten about these sandworms. Previously, while preparing to deal with the Rotting Heart General, he carefully thought through the strategy to tackle these creatures.
But the Rotting Heart General didn't get the chance to employ his force and went to aid Shiller, so Batman got an entire sandworm team with full integrity on a silver platter.
This proved to be an enormous aid during the initial battles.