AN: Edited by Gremin Jack, perfect_shade and Nla Eid
1943, August 22nd:
The frontlines have become relatively stagnant. Based on the aerial reconnaissance reports, they decided to build up their supplies, forces and even some defenses. Which is understandable now that the Allied Kingdom had dragged a whole bunch more countries into the fight. Why risk losing it all when you can reinforce your gains? The fact that they had to use their mages cautiously in case I make an appearance was a major handicap as well.
Nepal and Bhutan had publicly declared their "neutrality" and the CSR stated that they would guarantee those two countries' sovereignty. I can't blame them when they're completely surrounded by communist countries and are watching South Bharat collapsing. A shame that they picked the worst timing to finally decide which side to back. I wonder if Nepal has to provide Gurkhas in exchange for their treaty with the CSR?
As I got on the plane to fly back to Berun, I turned around to smile at the photographers. Miss Caldwell was among one of them, she had agreed to an arrangement where she would be flown out to our fleet afterwards to "observe a fleet exercise", she had no idea that we were about to start Operation Turnstile. It was a good thing that the rivers are all at a high level from the heavy monsoon rain, and the navy had finished lightening up their destroyers to sail without running aground as soon as they entered the mouth of the river.
When I did arrive back in Berun, I had a hero's welcome. I'm not sure why they are celebrating because South Bharat had been getting their rear end kicked the whole time no matter what I've been doing. I spent most of my time just doing paperwork while hovering in the air, instead of repeating what I did when I served for the Empire.
An aide handed me a short report, an envelope and a newspaper when I stopped by my office to catch up on more paperwork. According to the first report, commie mages had been probing to see if it was true that I left the subcontinent for good, and now they're launching all-out attacks with me being out of the way. Just as planned.
The newspaper's front page brought a smile to my face. A US destroyer had struck a mine and then suffered a secondary explosion that left very few survivors in the aftermath. North Bharat argued that it was impossible for them to place a mine that far out into the ocean and away from the warning buoys.
The only mine related activity that I was aware of my navy doing was clearing the mines, so either the destroyer sailed into the danger zone, someone accidentally left a mine floating freely after cutting the chain or North Bharat should have used better quality chains that don't break from the ocean current. But that didn't stop the newspaper companies and politicians in the US from bringing back the "Remember the Maine" warcry and also criticizing North Bharat for threatening neutral shipping with their mines. This time the enemy was more hated than the late 19th century Ispagna because North Bharat was a communist country trying to snuff out a brand new democracy in its cradle while receiving backing from the distrusted CSR and the hated Rus. Meanwhile Millie's photos, films and articles continue to flow from South Bharat to the Unified States. Now they can drop the pretense of "volunteers" and "observers" being in the conflict. Reminds me of how the Unified States was drawn into the war against the Empire. A familiar experience from an welcomed unfamiliar perspective.
And for the envelope, it was from the Bundesnachrichtendienst with the top secret stamp on it. The Federal Intelligence Service, or BND for short, had identified one of the executives at the Allied Kingdom's Gloster Aero Company that had marriage problems thanks to some tip from our "cult", and sent in an agent to become his mistress. They also found a chief engineer that had some debt problems, and helped him wipe those away for some favors.
I'm going to have to remind Elya to do a better job of tightly controlling information sources. I didn't need to know all of those unsavory details, and the more people who know about them, the more likely it's going to be leaked. But also congratulate her agency for getting information about the Allied Kingdom developing their own jet engines and jet aircraft. The Albish had started on their jet development as far back as 1936, and it likely accelerated after they saw us use jet planes in the final weeks of the Second Europan War. They had already successfully flown six or seven prototypes of their Gloster Meteor jet plane and were even working on carrier models, so it's only a matter of time before they finalize the designs for mass production. Perhaps I could sell the jet engine technology to the Unified States to help pay for our war effort and to deny the Albish a sales opportunity as we have the more mature technology.
Visha was nowhere to be found though.
When I came back to my residence, I smelled food from the dining room. I walked over and saw Visha seated at the table. It looked like she had put her best effort into the food, but her face had a blank stare. And I suspect she is quite upset. I can't remember when was the last time I saw her furious at me.
"Tanya, take a seat. I think we should talk.."
...I think I should have bought some flowers.
In the Bay of Bengal:
Miss Caldwell found herself on a Germania destroyer with an officer assigned as her liaison. From the amount of large riverine combat boats tied together while being filled with men, even for her with no formal military background, her extensive frontline reporting aside, it was obvious to her that they were planning on an amphibious landing. Men scrambling over each other into jam packed boats and a nervous energy in the air that spoke of something big. She expended multiple rolls of film just documenting the preparations of whatever was to come. Curiously, some of those boats had tarps over their weapons for some reason. Her local contacts were giving reports about how North Bharat had intensified their mage operations, and when they confirmed that the Chancellor was no longer on their subcontinent, that was when they launched their offensive to take advantage of having control of the lower altitude sky for once.
There were also intel reports given to her by the liaison officer that indicated North Bharat had drawn down their garrison forces to throw them into the final push to knock out South Bharat. South Bharat's army was crumbling from the unrestrained attacks, which was forcing the new volunteer army that the Chancellor personally created to deploy their reserves to plug the gaps.
From her own investigation into South Bharat's military corruption, it was no surprise that their army was having trouble recruiting and training people to replace their losses or even retaining them, which meant the Chancellor's personal army had been picking up an increasingly larger share of the combat. She wonders if the Chancellor had seen South Bharat's military as irredeemable, or had been plotting to have it replaced with a pro-Germania military all along.
She noticed an American woman was standing very close to Neumann and occasionally they chatted. She knew Neumann was the commander of the OZEV mages that were partaking in the operation, and was confused of why an American mage was with Neumann. Birgit's mage uniform stuck out like a sore thumb, as there were no other Unified States personnel within the vicinity.
She walked up to the pair and the American woman turned to greet Millie, though Neumann, for some reason, seemed to be alarmed.
"Ah, Miss Caldwell!" The American mage nodded towards her, "I've read some of your publications before. You seemed to always be in the right spot at the right time to get the perfect pictures and films."
Millie smiled at the mage, it always feels good to know that her work reaches so many people. "It would seem so. But please, call me Mille, And if I may have your name...?"
"Birgit Johansson." Millie nodded at the mage's reply.
"It's nice to meet you. Although I'm a bit confused as to why you're here. I thought all of the American forces were on the other coastline?"
Birgit shrugged, "Previously a neutral observer until we got involved with the war." She then smiled. "Now just an armed observer."
Millie noticed Neumann looking away and appeared to be slightly uncomfortable.
"Umm… am I intruding on something?" She asks with a tight smile.
"No." Neumann said.
"Yes." Birgit said.
Neumann slowly backed away before Birgit grabbed his arm. Millie, confused, decided to not say anything to see where this would go.
"Can you give us a moment?" Neumann asked, but Birgit immediately interjected.
"To discuss about what? Millie already figured it out before she even asked us."
'Figured out what? Is there something going on here that I'm not... Wait! Are they…?'
Neumann was about to reply when his orb crackled something, and he immediately took off to link up with the formations of mages that were flying past the destroyer. Millie could hear a voice call out from Birgit's orb: "Minimal mana emissions, mage insertion is a go!"
The two watch on as the mages fly away from the ship until they eventually become distant dots over the horizon.
"...He seems a bit shy." Millie eventually says, "How did you two meet?"
"It was at a training exercise where Germania sent over their Type 97 orbs and their mages to train American mages. He was one of those instructors. And it was a happy coincidence that I was one of the few American mages to visit Germania's mage academy."
About half an hour passed by before another company mages flew past the destroyer and the two carrier's planes started taking off. Birgit's orb crackled, much like Neumann's
"...Well, I'm sorry Millie, but it seems like I have to go now - Neumann asked me to tag along with the reinforcement mages. They are falling back to prepare to tangle with some North Bharati and CSR mages." Birgit then gave her a curt nod before flying off to join the reinforcement mage company.
Sometime later, the first wave of planes returned after the second wave was launched. Millie and her liaison officer had moved to a platform next to the bridge now, and so she heard when "All ahead full" was announced from the bridge. The ship, along with the rest of the fleet, seems to pick up speed.
Millie turns to her liaison officer, "What's going on?"
"Our mages and aircraft dealt with the enemy mages, and destroyed enemy airfields, communications and coastal defenses. The first wave of mages are now retreating to rest and prepare for later operations. The second wave of fighter planes will be assisting in shooting down any pursuing enemy mages and the bombers will be targeting any ground forces that are trying to move towards us. We're going to be sailing into the river."
Millie saw a tired looking Birgit fly by, and she snapped photos of Birgit who then noticed the camera flashes and waved at her. Another group of mages flew from the ships to replace the exhausted group. As they approached the mouth of the Krishna River, there was a burst of radio chatter and she could see the 5 inch guns move to aim at something in the distance. A volley of shells fired off.
"What are we shooting at?" Miss Caldwell asked.
"One of our mages reported seeing an anti-tank gun that was concealed in the marshes."
More radio chatter was heard, followed by a continuous barrage for a few minutes.
"Looks like another anti-tank gun was revealed from the first volley destroying its concealment. Just shelling the entire area now just to be sure."
There were three flashes from another patch of vegetation. Two anti-tank rounds fell short in the water, and one round struck a destroyer. The patch of vegetation was turned into craters several seconds later.
A squadron of bombers flew overhead and dropped their payloads on targets marked by the mages. The targeted areas exploded into great masses of fire and thick smoke. Figures could be seen diving into the water and trying to get the sticky burning mixtures off of themselves before succumbing to being cooked at hundreds of Celsius or suffocating from the white phosphorus fumes and massive amount of carbon monoxide.
The Germanians kept firing until the landscape was so far away from how it looked mere minutes ago. Millie looked on in equal parts awe and horror, and she's only pulled out of it by a radio transmission that she overhears:
"Cease fire! Targets destroyed. Commencing amphibious phase!"
As the destroyers entered the river, that was when the riverine combat boats were untied from the destroyers and their motors roared to life to begin ferrying men to land.
"Enemy mage battalion inbound from 6 o'clock direction, coming in at low altitude and just over the trees!"
As soon as the mages came into view, all of the destroyers' and the riverine combat boats' anti-air guns opened fire. The sheer amount of flak thrown up in the air made it so that it only took a few seconds for the enemy battalion to rout.
A number of the riverine combat boats removed their tarp to reveal a strange turreted weapon, which were then revealed to be flamethrowers - the Germanians started spraying jets of burning mixture at targets and set the entire riverside on fire. Millie thinks she could hear the screams coming from the flames, and could see occasional burning figures dive into the water.
After about an hour passed with a few 5 inch shells fired here and there in support of sporadic skirmishes, an occasional burst of 37mm and 20mm shells and some more communists being set on fire. The destroyers cut their engines to drop anchors to avoid running aground in the shallower upstream. The mages returned again in full formations, this time to continue flying deeper in Bharat after their rest and recovery from the earlier operations to clear a way for the boats.
"End of the line for us, Miss Caldwell, I recommend that you board the next wave of the boats as they will be heading upstream."
The remaining boats that still had their tarp removed them to reveal their miniature rocket artillery system.
Back in Berun:
I can't remember the last time I've seen Visha this angry before since the fact is, I've in fact never seen her this angry before.
"You promised that you would stay away from the frontline! And that you would be safe!"
I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down from panicking. Frankly, I had no idea what to do in this situation. The few 'romantic' relationships I've had in my previous life never panned out well, something about me was too cold, they said, and I don't think I've gotten around to improving on that.
"Visha, look, I was never in danger-"
"You put yourself in harm's way!" Visha yelled as she slid a newspaper clipping towards me. It was a picture of me doing paperwork in the air while two entire mage battalions were seen off in the distance. A description below said, "Instead of a fleet in being, a mage in being to deter communists. They are too afraid to attack the Chancellor even when she's filing papers."
"But... those battalions never shot at me?" I tried to justify.
She then slid another newspaper clipping towards me, one where I see an article of me baiting a battalion of commie mages into the destroyer's AA umbrella. I winced. That was an outright breach of what we agreed on right there.
"You made a promise." Visha says, her voice belying a hurt that makes me wince, "I understood that you had to go over there for the peace talks with Zettour needing rest. When the war broke out, I understood that South Bharat needed serious help to not get pushed out into the ocean or that little southern island. And I was happy that you put an end to the massacres. But then as your stay in Bharat dragged on for months, I started to get worried, and there wasn't anything that I could do about it since I was down in Berun doing almost all of the administrative work while you were off on your wild adventure!"
"Visha, I'm-"
I reached out to comfort her but she pushed away my hand, making me step back in shock.
That… hurt. It hurt far more than it physically should.
Normally, this would have been a straightforward problem for a competent HR manager, and if they believe they can't be impartial, then they find a superior to refer the matter to. Problem is, there's no way I can be impartial, and there are no superiors to refer to. I guess the president could have helped deal with the matter… except I'm also the president.
Frustration started to rise within me. I discouraged dating in the workplace in my previous life, and I knew the reason why: If the relationship turned sour, it was near impossible to keep it separate from the professional worklife, and all it did was just cause headaches for HR managers like me - and yet here I am, falling into the same trap.
...Why am I still the Chancellor? If I had retired quietly, this wouldn't have all blown up in my face. I wonder if Being X helped make the war possible just to mess with my relationship. The bastard just has to try and ruin everything that's good in my life, but he can try all he wants - I'm not letting him ruin this one good thing even if I'm dead!
I take another deep breath. Standing here, almost at attention, makes me feel like I'm being chastised. But I think it would be a bad idea to try and make contact with her again when she's still angry. "Visha, what do you want?" I ask softly.
Visha shakes her head, "It's not about me, it's about us! I don't see this working if you just run around and leave me alone to deal with the government budget, or to wrangle with the Diet's disagreements!" She pauses for a moment to take a deep breath, "I know you have confidence that I'll be able to handle things myself, but being constantly left to drift alone in the dark, taxes me far more than just stress from dealing with politicians - Tanya, I get worried sick about you too!"
I was silent for a moment, both to give Visha time to gather herself after her outburst and for me to digest her words. It's true that I have confidence in her abilities to run Germania while I'm away, being a capable woman is one of the things I admire about her, truth be told. But I suppose I'm the fool for failing to take into account my subordinate's... my partner's emotional wellbeing as well.
Eventually, the silence was broken when I spoke: "...Back at the beach when we first got the news regarding North Bharat, I didn't know how to say no or explain that I might have to go there depending on the situation." Visha looks at me in the eye as I continue: "I was afraid you would keep bothering me to change my mind."
Visha softened her face. "I don't want you to continue running off to the front line like what you did in the previous war..."
And neither do I, I reply in the privacy of my mind, but with Being X's accursed sights on me, there's no way I can promise Visha that I'll stay out of conflict.
Silence reigns as I think, which has me eventually taking a sample of the food Visha had prepared. It was good. The fact that I got a sample of her cooking right after coming back from a battlefield kind of reminds me of the time we were together in the front…
I was about to take another bite when the thought came: "...What if you came along with me?"
Visha looks at me for a moment and then bites her lower lip. She has made it clear that she would've preferred an outright promise from me to stay out of conflict, but I can see that she understands that the image that I've forged in the previous war, and the one that I've cemented in Bharat, will prevent me from doing that.
"...I guess you can't stay away from the action." She eventually says, and then makes an effort to smile a little, "At least I can keep you from charging straight into an enemy mage battalion... Maybe I'll even need to put a leash on you." She says, her small smile now having turned into a sly grin.
I choked on my food when I heard that last part and Visha giggled. She took a moment to sadistically enjoy me being flustered before her face turned serious again as she continued speaking. "But then who would run the government? You knew that vacation in the South Bharati Ocean was only possible because we had spent weeks planning for it ahead of time so that we wouldn't be coming back to a complete mess."
Hmm… now that I think about it, training Visha to take my place wasn't going to work. Even if she becomes Chancellor, I would still get roped into at least being involved in running Germania, despite how much I would like to retire.
Visha had a concerned look, maybe it's because my face was giving away what I was going to say. "Visha, what if we find and train someone who could act as a substitute? Like a deputy? And now that I think about it, we should start reforming Germania's government to be more autonomous without our input. Once we have fiber optic and satellite communi-"
I stopped myself when I noticed that Visha had a confused look on her face, "Where would we find such a person?" she asks,
And therein lies the problem with my idea, "...I suppose that's something that we and Elya are going to have to put some effort into."
Visha had a deep skeptical look on her face. "But what if this deputy seizes power from you?"
Well that would simplify my retirement situation, as long as they weren't going to do something incredibly stupid afterward, such as launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the CSR followed by a naval invasion or something like Operation Barbarossa against the Rus.
I waved my hand dismissively. "That's why having a strong rule of law system is important. Unlike absolute monarchies or dictatorships where an untimely death can trigger a brutal free-for-all fighting over the throne, a strong democracy can survive without having a leader or having a bad leader for an extended period of time. Besides, I don't want a blind loyalist, I want someone who can lead Germania to success regardless of political beliefs and a system that can ensure a steady stream of replacements even if both of us are no longer around. Except for communists of course."
Now her face showed confusion. "You don't want to rule Germania forever?"
If I tell her right now that I had never intended to rule Germania in the first place and was content with running around with a backwaters political party so I had a bed to sleep in and food to eat, she would think I am insane!
I cleared my throat. "I just want to avoid a single point of failure. A bus factor."
"Bus factor?"
Oh, right, that term is probably too new for this world. I remember hearing it being mentioned by employees from the IT department, and I found the concept to be interesting when I looked it up.
"Bus factor is how many people can be hit by a bus before the organization is unable to function." I explain to Visha, who listens in apt attention, "If the commies realize that killing us will barely harm Germania other than providing a perfect casus belli for our successor, then they won't."
Visha raised an eyebrow. "So, no running off unless it's also with me, and we have someone to run the place."
"And no more shattered promises." I raised my glass.
She also raised hers and we both took a drink.
"So about Miss Caldwell and you..." Visha asked with a cryptic smile tugging at her lips.
I look at her, confused. Why would she be worried about Millie?
In the CSR:
Zhang Wentian and the rest of the council were staring at a map. They all knew they were staring at a train that was loaded with burning dumpsters and derailing in slow motion.
Bombay's defenders defiantly refused to surrender and put up a brave resistance against the landing crafts. Right up until the battleships and cruisers anchored next to the waterfront area fired their main batteries, pulverizing entire city blocks with a single volley of barrages. The makeshift barricades and fortifications consisting of piled up vehicles, garbage and whatever construction material the defenders could scavenge were swept away from the shockwaves. Which was enough to force almost all of the defenders to capitulate or flee in a time span that rivaled the short Albish-Zanzibar War. The remaining holdouts were lynched or besieged by mobs who either hated North Bharat or were fearful of another barrage. Now the Allied Kingdom, Francois Republic, Ispagna, Lothiern, Kanata, and Unified States are all laying siege to Pune that is just southeast to Bombay..
On the opposite side, there was Germania that was turning the Krishna River into a barricade with their brown water navy, and the destroyers that were anchored in the deeper parts of the river. The destroyers and boats had damn good anti-air defenses as they had beaten back multiple mage attacks. Now they're snaking upstream of the river to establish strongpoints along the way. There were rumors that Germania had a new type of a flamethrower and North Bharati soldiers were now afraid of attacking the combat boats. And their riverine boats also had artillery capability for indirect fire support.
And further east was even worse: the rivers were deep enough for the Akitsushima Dominion to park almost their entire navy in it. Almost all of the eastern army was pinned between the wide rivers and the counter-attacking South Bharati forces. A tank company had attempted to engage a cruiser and a few destroyers, only for the entire company to cease to exist from the ships' return fire. There were reports of a few North Bharati soldiers going insane and trying to swim across the entire width of the Padma river, which was 4-8 kilometers wide. One infantry battalion attempted to board a destroyer with sail boats and row boats, which resulted in a complete disaster as the destroyer waited until they were too far from land to retreat before opening fire. The Commonwealth Australian forces landed on the western banks of the rivers to begin advancing with impunity against the few North Bharati forces that weren't encircled.
"So I have bad news and a minor good news." Kang Sheng said, The bad news is that the trapped North Bharati armies reported a massive uptick in rebellions when the news about their situation became public, especially in the Hyderabad State. Also, one of the Princely States that previously joined us had sent peace requests to South Bharat and their backers." He shakes his head, "The good news is that they won't be betraying us after our garrison force stationed at their palace terminated their monarchy. I put out instructions to increase the garrison numbers at the other Princely States to avoid more defections from us. The North Bharati field marshal in charge of the encircled army told our agents that they will be digging in and dragging on the fight for as long as possible to await rescue from us instead of trying to race north. He said he realized that they can't trust the backstabbing civilians, so they will be creating plans to do without them in order to ensure his army's survival. They will also be conducting scorched earth policy. sayingthat, "If the war is lost, the people will be lost also. We must deny the imperialists of all the resources we cannot take. It is not necessary to worry about what the unlawful combatants will need for elemental survival." Kang Sheng waits a moment for the words to sink into the others inside the room, "All they ask is that we and the NKVD help deal with any foriegn agents that are supporting the rebellions and the coalition's air power."
The rest of the council looked pensive about the message's wording.
"...If I'm understanding that correctly, they intend on starving civilians by extracting maximum possible resources from them like what the Rus did, and then shove those civilians into the path of the enemies to slow down their advances by having hundreds of thousands of mouths to feed? Possibly as human shields given that they will treat all civilians as disposable?" Peng Dehuai asked. "That's a publicity disaster in the making! Even if we win the war. If the encircled army is defeated before we can rescue them, I expect many executions or lynching in retaliation."
Zhang Wentian pounded his fist on the table, "Our responsibility is to take care of OUR people, not to worry about what North Bharat or the Russy Federation is doing to their people. We should only intervene if they mishandle their internal affairs so poorly that it threatens our well being. As Germania's Chancellor stated when Ildoan Kingdom was descending into civil war, countries should not interfere with other countries' internal affairs. My more pressing concern is if North Bharat has any reserves - Anything - to at least prevent their capital from being taken."
Peng Dehuai briefly looks at a piece of paper before sighing, "They don't. They already committed almost all of their combat ready forces that weren't doing garrison duties into the final offensive so any replacements are just going to yield wooden fences against a tank until they finish training. It'll take them months to rebuild their army, and that's not including the logistics of replacing the lost materiel either." Peng Dehuai waves a hand on the map's coastlines. "They gambled everything on the naval mines to hold their coastlines while trying to prepare for a knockout blow against South Bharat. That Germanian Chancellor messed up a lot of things by just showing up in Bharat, and then again by just leaving Bharat when our allies fell for that mouse trap. It seems like everything she touches turns into dog crap for us."
Kang Shen nods in agreement. "They still have no idea why large swathes of their naval mines disappeared or weren't functioning at those amphibious landing sites." He says, "But then again they're too busy trying to pull themselves out of the trap to do any detailed analysis. The NKVD reported that they sent agents over to Burma to ignite revolts against the Allied Kingdom in an attempt to open up another front. I instructed them to not make it as obvious as their previous attempts with North Bharat, and that while the situation is critical, stealth and plausible deniability is mandatory. We won't have our own agents in Burma to avoid escalating the war."
Li Kenong seems to have gotten an idea at that, "Could we have our Buddhist monks go to Burma to cause some chaos?" He asked.
Zhang Wentian thinks on the idea for a moment, ."That's... an interesting idea. As long as they make no mentions of communism, the Albish will find it difficult to use those monks to blame us for instigating revolts. Work with Kang Sheng to come up with a plan and brief me on it."
"I also see that as a good opportunity. The Albish would not expect it." Kang Shen agreed.
"Anyways, what forces can we muster to save North Bharat?" Zhang Wentian redirects the discussion to the trainwreck that is North Bharat. "I know I previously said we didn't need a full mobilization. I was too confident of North Bharat, and too blinded with the focus on the Great Leap Forward."
Peng Dehuai sifts through a few pages of paper before speaking up: "We can send maybe 40,000 infantrymen from the Tibet region to the northern part of the Bharat subcontinent within two weeks with the greatly improved mountain roads thanks to Li Kenong's construction projects." He then points at the map, "Although I'm afraid of drawing down the garrison too much because the locals in Tibet may choose to break the fragile peace treaty and rebel again. We can also send over 100,000 infantrymen from the Yunnan province to attack from the direct east, which would pin the eastern South Bharati army against the trapped eastern North Bharati army and our forces, if the North Bharati army can hold out for a few weeks. There are other forces we can muster, but they are much farther away and I don't have an exact timeline of when they can arrive in North Bharat. Full mobilization and then sending the armies to the front line will take a few months. The trained mages we have available will take much shorter time to respond. We can deploy a few hundred mages within two weeks, and another few hundred from the Russy Federation. The mages from the training grounds should only take a few days at most to arrive at the front line instead of marching over the mountains, although there will have to be discussions if we want to shorten the mage training cycles."
"If we directly invade Burma, the Allied Kingdom will panic at the potential loss of their rubber plantations, and so will the Francois Republic as their colony is right next door." Kang Sheng sighs and shakes his head, . "It would be an all-out war instead of just being a war in the Bharat subcontinent, and we can't sustain something like the Empire's 8 years long attritional war - and we know how that all turned out."
"Our infantry in the Yunnan province can be redeployed over to Tibet to attack from there, but it will add about a month of delay. I guess we'll just hope that the NKVD is successful in causing widespread disruption in Burma to pressure the eastern South Bharati army."
"We could also consider pulling our Sibyrian army from the Russy Federation and redeploy them south." Kang Sheng said. "But it will wreak havoc on our plans for stabilizing the Russy Federation and our ongoing support of the insurgents in the OZEV's republics."
Peng Dehuai takes a closer look at the map before speaking out: "We have a few corps and divisions that are relatively not too far away from Afghanistan's border." He says. "The ones that are in the middle of Sibyria and far away from the railroads will be much more difficult to get the new orders to them and for them to get out of the remote wilderness to head to the nearest train stations."
"Then we'll need to secure peace deals with and between the Rus factions to ensure that all of our gains won't evaporate as soon as we start redeploying our forces. And they should be picking up more of the insurgency support in those new republics for us anyways, instead of shooting each other." Zhang Wentian said. "If the Russy Federation has to be fragmented into separate countries because the factions won't agree with each other beyond allying with us, then so be it. It might take decades, but they'll reunite again sometime in the future."
"Wouldn't OZEV consider invading the Russy Federation?" Li Kenong asked. " If they take the Trans-Sibyrian railways, they could quickly advance against us."
"Well that would greatly simplify the peace deals because all of the Rus factions would be united against OZEV." Zhang Wentian said. "They might not put up as much of a fight compared to before their initial war with OZEV and other European countries, but it'll buy them and us time to move the industries eastward and blow up the railways as OZEV advances. If they want to advance across the entire Sibyria to get to us, I pity their soldiers."
"The direct road infrastructure between our forces that are besieging Moskva, and North Bharat, is almost non-existent." Li Kenong warned. "We would need lots of local guides to use mountain passes to march our forces directly south without losing too much to attrition. And then there's the question about the modernized divisions that are equipped with tanks, artillery and other vehicles that would be difficult to bring through Afghanistan."
"What about using the Trans-Sibyrian railways for transporting most of our army?"
Li Kenong shakes his head, "It would take too long as our current railroad scheduling is optimized around providing reinforcements to the Sibyrian army and any supplies or equipment they can't acquire in the Russy Federation. We don't have enough rolling stock to transport over two million men across several thousand kilometers within a year, not when we also need trains to transport our other forces within our borders to the Tibet region to begin their march."
Zhang Wentian thinks on the points raised for a moment before speaking: "Then we'll have our mages help build the roads and railways south. I don't expect to be able to have the entire Sibyrian army march to North Bharat immediately due to the poor infrastructure, so most of them will have to stay behind to build the roads and the railway to support the logistics effort and garrison the Russy Federation. I understand that building a railway through the mountains would be a... struggle, but at least we can reduce the distance of the baggage convoys over the roads by having the trains cover more of the distance. And also, hire locals to help with the construction supplies and work. For the modernized divisions, we can transfer them across the Trans-Sibyria railways and then south to attack through Tibet because we already have the roads there, and if we time it right, it would fool the coalition into thinking that would be our main attacking force instead of the one coming through Afghanistan.
"Where would we get the railroad construction supplies?" Li Kenong asked. "We don't have any underutilized railroad related industrial production capacity to meet the construction requirements."
"If we have to delay our domestic railroad construction projects to complete the Afghanistan railway, then so be it. Kang Sheng, find what railroad related industries are still operational in the Russy Federation. We will need to buy construction supplies from them so we don't have to ship all of the material across the entire length of the Trans-Sibyrian railways. If we have to rip up secondary rail lines to use their material, then so be it. Speaking of the Rus, what did the NKVD have to say?"
"I already have location lists of operational and lightly damaged factories in the Russy Federation. I'll instruct the NKVD and my agents to inquire about the railroad material. As for the NKVD, they are in full panic mode." Kang Sheng said. "They gave us the Type 97 Orb and other mage equipment production schematics, a stockpile of those equipment and are willing to greatly expand the training for the usage of them. And also gave other military and industrial technologies that our forces in the Russy Federation didn't find. Including some captured Germanian equipment and vehicles, an intact Germanian air-to air rocket that hit one of their bombers but its warhead failed to detonate, and information from their reverse engineering of other unexploded rockets that the Germanians used."
"Ah, so they finally stopped trying yank on our leash to make us do their bidding, after their original plan for North Bharat to reunite with the south by force failed completely. They broke the Weiqi board, and now they expect us to pick up the pieces."
"Our production of the Rus weapon and equipment designs that we had previously acquired are fully operational, so we can start equipping some of our reinforcements with them. It'll take time for our entire military to be equipped with the newer equipment." Li Kenong said. "Going from a bolt action rifle to a semi-automatic one is a big change by itself."
"Speaking of Afghanistan, how much do we know about that country?" Zhang Wentian asked.
"Not much right now, but I can do some research." Kang Sheng responded. "Though the worst I expect are just some nomadic tribes loosely ruled by a king."
"We'll march through Afghanistan then. We can't let North Bharat fall, because then we would have a staunch rival right on our doorstep, and Tibet would be the perfect location for them to stir unrest in." Zhang Wentian said. "And while our forces are marching through, if their king refuses to ally with us, we might as well replace Afghanistan's monarchy with a communist government. If Tibet and Xinjiang can be pacified, I'm sure Afghanistan shouldn't be that much harder."
In Berun:
General Lergen was reading a report from General Romel regarding the Bharat situation.
The encirclement operation is operating ahead of schedule and North Bharat's eastern army is completely trapped after they threw all of their artillery assets against Akitsushima Dominion's ships in an attempt to break the river blockade. They inflicted some damages on the ships, but lost almost all of their artillery assets in the process.
Unfortunately, North Bharat's southern army has decided to dig in instead of breaking out as expected. Lergen knew that considering the amount of land that the southern army had under its control before its encirclement, it could stage a sustained fighting retreat and continuously fall back to new defensive positions. And it could definitely repurpose local factories and workshops to support its last stand. How they would get the locals to work in the occupiers' war industry is a different question, but there were certainly unethical ways of forcing people to work against their will
At the southern army's northern front, they were waging guerrilla warfare to slow down the coalition's southern advance, which was likely just a delaying action for their fortification construction.
General Romel and the Germania Navy were arguing with each other over if they should attempt another amphibious assault, this time on the more southern Penna River when it became clear that North Bharat's army had no interest in recapturing the Krishna River. The monsoon season is coming to an end soon, and once the river levels return to normal, it would make it more difficult to sail the destroyers up the river. The Akitsushima Dominion's navy said they would only be able to assist once the North Bharat's eastern army had surrendered.
On the coalition's northern front, advancement has been slow due to the priority of liquidating the giant pocket before the encircled army could build a significant amount of fortifications, except for the Australanders who were making rapid westward advancements as they didn't have to worry about liquidating large pockets.
The very end of the report made Lergen stiffen, and made him look at his bottle of brandy in the back of his office. General Romel requested some of the South Bharati volunteer army members to come to Germania for Officer Candidate School as he needed a competent local army to also push against North Bharat. South Bharat's original army has been severely depleted and is struggling to recruit or retain its manpower, which meant the volunteer army had to increasingly take on more of the actions even though many of the original army's officers refused to join the volunteer army. There were no mentions of South Bharat's government approving of the OCS training.
Romel also requested to have some of South Bharat's mages sent to Germania to attend the mage academy.
If the Chancellor wanted to take over South Bharat, she would need a competent officer corps to lead her army, and she had already shown that she did not trust South Bharat's existing officer corps. Having mages loyal to her would make it far easier to overthrow South Bharat's government. He couldn't blame her for the lack of trust when one of their senior commanders tried executing her. He didn't like the idea of using the army as a tool to force policy changes, but to intentionally go against the Chancellor's policy would also be a bad idea.
Lergen walked over to the back of his office to pour himself a glass of brandy, and walked back to his desk to begin writing a letter to the OCS asking if they could accommodate recruits from South Bharat, and another letter to the mage academy for accommodating recruits from South Bharat as well.
In the CSR:
Zhang Guanghou was pacing back and forth in his office, strewn in papers, chalkboards covered in scribbles and attached pieces of papers, film recordings and computational orbs that also held recordings. The instruction from his superior, Wang Ming, was simple: Understand the Germanian Chancellor's psychology, habits and anything that would help the CSR anticipate how she would respond to scenarios or negotiations.
It's been a few years now, and the results he was getting didn't make any sense.
They had analyzed every single audio and video recording of her, dating back to the Empire, thanks to the efforts of the CSR students studying in the Francois Republic and the NKVD finding raw information to send back to the CSR. When they found the recording of her issuing the so-called warning in Dacia before blowing up their capital, that was when one of the linguists said "I've studied in Germania before. Her dialect does not match the dialect commonly spoken in the region that she grew up in."
That didn't make any sense. If it was the only thing that was abnormal, it could have been overlooked. But it got a lot more confusing as they dug deeper.
Then there was how the Chancellor always seemed to be more than a dozen steps ahead of everyone, and was never caught in a bad position in the long term, such as how the Francois Republic's attempt at debt collection against Germania using an army ended up in a complete disaster, and Germania getting almost all of the Treaty of Triano's restrictions lifted. There was no way the Francois Republic would have agreed to the dismantling of the Treaty of Triano, and based on the diplomatic fallout between them and the Allied Kingdom, the Chancellor definitely had struck some sort of a deal with the other countries for the renegociation that was favorable to them while also leaving Germania in a much better position and diplomatically isolating the Francois Republic. Germania's navy completely annihilated the Francois Republic's navy in a single battle, which was still difficult for the CSR's military to comprehend of how Germania could have been so many steps ahead of the Francois Republic, despite the information provided by the Frankis naval "advisors''. There was no way that the Chancellor didn't have a role in establishing her navy and how they would fight. He had performed a statistical analysis on all of the most influential leaders of the world, but the Chancellor's forward thinking and subsequent events that happened "just as planned" blew those leaders' track records out of the water. Even Ottone von Bismarck's records paled in comparison.
It was simply not possible. But it happened anyway.
He had other mathematicians calculate using the information. They had generally similar conclusions, so if there were errors, it had to be with the raw data that he used. But if there were such errors, where could they be?
And then there was the fact that a pre-teenage girl rapidly rose through the military officer ranks, published articles and other writings that would have been typical of an experienced military commander or business leader, created the best mage battalion that the world had ever met, and while many of the combat records are still classified, her actions were easily responsible for the Empire to drag on the war for at least a few more years.
Then worked her way through politics to rule Germania, and successfully played off the Franks, Albish, Americans and other European powers to recreate the Empire all but in name, and also added more countries in the process such as Dacia. There was a good reason why the Franks panicked when she was elected Chancellor. The Albish's "keep Europe divided" doctrine turned into a failure with OZEV being the dominant European power.
The first question is where in heaven does a pre-teenage girl gain the knowledge, experience and maturity to even graduate at the top of the Empire's War College, when other fellow students were in their 20s to 40s? Certainly not from the orphanage. Unfortunately the NKVD refuses to set foot in Germania for them to pay the orphanage a visit and interview the staff members there, saying something about attempting it being an exercise in futility.
The only thing he could think of was this person called "Doctor Adelaide von Schugel" where the Chancellor had participated in some orb testing. It was after that where her aerial mage performance went from "a damn good fighter" to "can anyone stop her?". But of course there was no way those R&D documents would be made publicly available at least for decades, and if the NKVD is afraid of visiting an orphanage in Germania, there was no way they were going to try to steal secret documents or meet the doctor.
He took a long drag on his cigarette.
Wait... if the Russy Federation had made breakthroughs in mage augmentation technology… maybe the Empire already had them beat by turning an already unusual young girl into a supersoldier with the doctor's experiments! What if the "raised in the orphanage" story was just a cover? Could the Empire have also beaten the CSR with mage breeding?
But if that was the case, then why hadn't the Empire created more of those super mages? Multiple versions of Tanya von Degurechaff, even if they were somewhat inferior, would have been a nightmare for the countries attacking the Empire. Maybe it was because the Chancellor was one-of-a-kind because only one of the experiments worked? But that alone wouldn't be enough. His friends involved with the mage breeding research had mentioned how intelligence could not be predicted just based on the traits of the family history. And besides, the knowledge and the social manipulations that the young girl showed was just strange and could not be accomplished with just breeding alone. After all, how often does a child revolutionize warfare?
He sat down, put out the cigarette, opened a bottle of painkillers, took a few tablets, and downed them with tea that had been sitting at room temperature for at least a few hours.
If there was one thing for certain, the Germanian Chancellor is likely not a natural being. Maybe an artificial creation of some sort.
Ah, well, all he could do now was write a report so he has something to show his superiors. All of this research required a lot of resources and time, and his boss would be demanding results.
Two weeks later:
"What is this?!" Wang Ming spat as he tossed the report at his desk. "How am I supposed to explain to the Director of Central Investigation with this nonsense rambling?!"
"But my calculations…" Zhang Guanghou muttered, who was summoned to explain the report, before Wang Ming interrupted.
"You should go see a doctor. Maybe you're just stressed from the overwork. I took a look at your office the other day and it was… unusual. Like you were trying to calculate the universe or something. The other staff members mentioned that you rarely left your office and often slept in your office."
"No, no, no, I can explain to you all of those calculations and work that you saw in my office." Zhang cried out. "It's not the chaotic mess that you think it is."
"Please don't make my headache worse." Wang as he put his hand on his forehead.
"But the other mathematicians…"
Wang cut him off. "You might have something wrong with your input in, garbage out."
"But the linguists say that…"
Wang waved his hand dismissively. "An inconsequential thing. The dialect thing isn't important."
"But the NKVD…"
"When was the last time you went on a vacation and NOT think about this work?"
"Will you settle down and have another cup of tea? I can explain all of this!" Zhang raised his voice. "Something isn't right with this Germanian Chancellor!"
"Just go see a doctor." Wang sighed. His subordinate is clearly going to overwork himself to death at this rate. "That's an order. I would've said that you've lost your mind, but I want to believe that you're just stressed."
Two days later:
"What happened to the study on the Germanian Chancellor's psychology?" Kang Sheng asked.
"The entire analyst team had apparently gone insane." Wang Ming shrugged his shoulders. "I couldn't quite tell what the doctor's sloppy writing was, but either it said they recommended a few months of rest, or diagnosed him with insanity. Or both. One thing for certain was the doctor reported that my lead analyst had gone on a long rambling speech about the Chancellor's not being human or something. So I had him taken away for medical treatment, and that wasn't an easy decision to make because he was a valuable asset to our operations. When I talked to the rest of the analysts, it quickly became apparent that they were also convinced that the Chancellor was abnormal. Those lunatics actually chased me out of their office. The guards had to drag them away screaming."
Wang nodded as thought to himself, 'And they were more aligned with the Chairman's counter-revolutionary ideology than I would have liked, now I can justify getting replacements that have the correct ideology. Oh well, at least there are some good things I can get out of this mess.'
"What?" Kang sputtered. "How does that make any sense?"
"Reminds me of an old book that I read years ago, I think back to when I was studying in the Russy Federation. The quote 'And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.' seems to apply to this situation."
"I find it implausible that studying a young girl's political record could cause such insanity." Kang shakes his head in disbelief, "Anyway, how long would it take to assemble another team?"
Wang thought to himself, ''I could use this to keep purging staff members to ensure that when I finally make my move to force out this traitor, no one will support him, but that could start to look suspicious.'
"I don't know if I want to try to assemble another analyst team and risk having a repeat of this mess." Wang said. "Perhaps we should focus more on working with the NKVD for developing our intelligence networks in the Francois Republic. Some of the Franks that helped us with the naval technology acquisition are willing to keep helping us." Wang said as he pointed at the map. "It's physically the closest location we can get to the Chancellor without operating on her counter-intelligence's home territory, and there are still some anti-Germania attitudes among the Franks. If we can get the Franks to spy on Germania for the NKVD, it would give us another layer of plausible deniability in case Germania's counter-intelligence uproots them."
"That's a good point." Kang said as he scribbled in his notes. "Don't the Franks also dislike the Albish?"
"Have you seen their newspapers leading up to the Second Europan War?" Wang responded. "They all ranged from calling the Albish spineless to being complicit to Germania's rise."
"I have." Kang narrowed his eyes. "Maybe the Albish has some intelligence operations against Germania. After all, many of their actions were dancing between considering Germania as a threat or the Russy Federation as a threat. It was only with the NKVD forcing the Albish to give up on their Bharat colony that made the decision final. If we could leverage the Franks to tap into the Albish information feed, that would be great."
AN:
From the Wikipedia article on the Gloster Meteor:
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to achieve combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft began in 1940, although work on the engines had been under way since 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with No. 616 Squadron RAF.
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are relatively flat terrain. It seemed that there were some rail networks built before WW2:
wiki/Rail_transport_in_Turkmenistan#History
wiki/Trans-Aral_Railway
wiki/Trans-Caspian_railway
wiki/Turkestan_Railway
The US's first transcontinental railroad was about 3077 kilometers long and took 6 years to build, although that was slowed by the civil war and labor shortages even before/after the war.
Assuming the railway just needs to be built from Turkmenistan's city of Mary to Pakistan's city of Quetta, that's a distance of about 1300 kilometers, and less mountains need to be blasted through as the very western portion of Afghanistan seems to be far less mountainous than the rest of Afghanistan (and the US's Rocky Mountains). With a massive manpower, mages helping with construction, and the possibility of the Rus helping with the rail construction, that railway construction could end up setting world records for how fast it is built in that time period.
Regarding how tanks and anti-tank guns perform against even destroyers, well, not too good. There's a thread on the r/Warthunder subreddit where someone talked about one WW2 naval engagement where a US destroyer went up against German tanks and anti-tank guns. The destroyer could put out 80 rounds per minute and had an electromechanical computer to provide firing solution. The Germans were stuck with Mark I eyeballs and optical sights. The destroyer didn't need armor piercing shells as it could keep raining 5 inch shells on the enemy tanks to either land a direct hit on their roof or pound them into scrap metal.
For those who played Shogun 2, you might recall how high level monk and missionary agents can cause quite a bit of chaos from inciting revolts. And then get executed for failing a "96% success chance" revolt.
As for how the Rus got their hands on the unexploded rocket, there's a Wikipedia article about how they developed their K-13 infared homing short-range missile from an AIM-9 Sidewinder that was lodged into an aircraft:
On 28 September 1958,[3] a similar engagement resulted in one of the missiles becoming lodged in a MiG-17 without exploding, allowing it to be removed after landing. The Soviets later became aware that the Chinese had at least one Sidewinder, and after some wrangling, were able to persuade the Chinese to send them one of the captured missiles.[4] Gennadiy Sokolovskiy, later chief engineer at the Vympel team, said that "the Sidewinder missile was to us a university offering a course in missile construction technology which has upgraded our engineering education and updated our approach to production of future missiles."[5]
As for the rocket artillery, well, sometimes munitions just fail to detonate. Unexploded ordnance is a bane of any war and the aftermath of wars.