Principality of Que-Toyne

10/11 March 1640 of the Central Calendar Year/ Anno Domini 2021.

1st Marine Division

11th Tank Battalion

A thick night had already fallen, not a single star could be seen in the sky, not even the moon could break through the clouds, despite this, the battle, which had already begun before the second breakfast, was in full swing. The marching columns of Louria's army were hit by surprise by the combined forces of the 1st Marine Infantry Regiment, the 11th Tank Battalion and two banners of the Que-Toyne Knights supported by peasant contingents brought by their masters and rearmed with Polish weapons.

"Got it!" shouted Grupowy (Corporal) Karsten Blau, commander of the 33TP light tank. It was a nimble little machine, armed with a powerful 120-millimeter smoothbore cannon, one laser cannon and three large-caliber machine guns. It could easily accelerate to over 80 km/h regardless of the terrain.

The 33TP itself was a special vehicle, used exclusively by naval and airborne infantry as a tank substitute, fulfilling its role as fire support although, unlike the monster that was the 70TP, it can also carry more than four landing troops inside its hull like a thoroughbred armored personnel carrier.

Depending on the type of formation it is to go into, it may also have the ability to float or to land from the air with a crew inside the vehicle. All at the cost of relative average resistance to attacks as well as the cramped crew compartment. Of course, the armor can be increased by adding additional armor plates as well as reactive armor, making it capable of fighting a basic tank as an equal. Unfortunately, then you lose the advantage of low weight and thus speed, as well as the ability to float and air-drop.

The solution to this pain is the new version of the 33TP, the 33(7)TP created in 2020. Unlike the 33 it is made not of steel but of graphene, being by the way the first tank made of this material. In this way the weight was whittled down from 33 tons to more than 7 hence the seven in parentheses, for the full name is of course Thirty-three Polish Ton. Almost all of the weight is made up of the tank's components, ammunition and crew, graphene itself is barely 1 percent of the total weight.

Unfortunately for the 11th Battalion, they are forced to get around the taste. So far, intentions to retire the current 33TPs in their unit have not been heard. Hardly surprising, the 33TP has been in mass production for 5 years, and the first prototype was built in 2010! These tanks are like new, barely worn out and already tankers want to replace them with a new version of the same toy that differ mainly in the material it is made of.

Besides, the Cwana Helga (Clever Helga), as her crew called her, is barely three years old since she came out of the factory. Replacing her with a new version would not be fair to her, especially since she performs well and the current battle is proof of that.

Although Blau himself wouldn't call what he sees a battle, at his command center of the universe, as the commander's position in the 33TP is commonly called due to the fact that the commander is surrounded by monitors showing him images from the cameras of the unmanned tower. For him, it was a one-sided massacre, brutally beating the victim so long that he lost his eyesight and yet he is still under attack.

Nevertheless, an order is an order, and by the way, there is no justice in war. He would have to be a complete idiot to try to fight the Lourians fairly. He's not such a sucker to go for it, he still loves his life. He's a tankman, not a knight, and it's easier to become the former than the latter.

"Contact! Infantry, 500 meters azimuth 50 degrees." quickly threw Blau noticing another formation of infantry trying to escape from the steel monsters.

"Roger, infantry, 500 meters, azimuth 50 degrees." countered the tank gunner, Private Alwin Stauss who began to take aim immediately after the commander turned the turret toward the enemy.

"Fire!" ordered Blau

Barely a moment later, he pulled the trigger and the cannon fired. The muffled sound of a gunshot and an explosion quickly reached the gunner's ears, at which time in the background the automatic loading machine loaded another fragmentation-destruction shell.

As soon as he sounded the sound confirming that he was ready to fire, he again put his eye to the sight. All covered in the bicolor of black and white, he again aimed at the surviving column and fired on the commander's order, and so once more before the commander confirmed the destruction of the enemy unit.

"None of this is a challenge." Alwin spoke up.

"Are you complaining?" driver Stefan Mossor asked him.

"No, I'm stating the obvious." Alwin replied.

"That's good, you'd still be bringing us trouble." stated Stefan

"Less chatter gentlemen, Stefan move Helga forward we are to pursue the enemy." Karsten interjected.

"Yes, sir." Stefan replied, and after a moment the tank's engine whined louder moving the thirty-three ton beast out of the way. Next to the Helga rode three other machines pursuing the enemy, from time to time the armored post fired at more Lourian troops on the move.

It was not too difficult, the opponents fled in compact groups without order and composition, they did not have much chance with a tank, even a light one! Doesn't mean that they didn't try to stop the tankers pursuing them.

Another rumbling sounded inside the hull of the Helga, the enemy mages threw whatever they could at the vehicles. Fireballs, cutting wind or simply chunks of earth pressed into the vehicles with tremendous force. It didn't help, the armor designed for IFV and APC cannons was more than enough to take such blows without a problem. And the side aprons hiding the tracks shielded against attempts to put anything between the wheels to stop the 33TP.

Not that they wouldn't try to put anything in anyway, Helga's crew can personally attest to that.

The chase continued at its best despite attempts to escape, the tanks driving relatively slowly so as not to outrun the fleeing men. As time passed, more and more escapees fell out of the formation. First one at a time, then small groups of two-three, and eventually whole squads began to fall to the ground or stop.

"Leave them alone!" shouted Karsten to Alwin as he tried to fire at one of the larger groups that fell away. "We're taking them as prisoners." he explained to the gunman.

"I know! It's a habit." retorted Alwin

Karsten only rolled his eyes, Alwin could not respond normally in such situations.

"Who's going to catch them?" asked Stefan for whom the whole chase was tedious, he was going barely 20 km/h without much effort overcoming obstacles.

"Infantry behind us." replied Blau

"That's where the infantry is?" quipped Alwin

"Yes, Toynian peasants with knights."

"Well, that explains why I don't see them on Topaz," he said. interjected Stefan who, as a driver, had a separate panel on Topaz to see where the other tanks were in case of emergency.

"And don't they by any chance have liaison officers?" pointed out Alwin

"They have they have, it's just that Stefan as the driver has Topaz set to post level so he doesn't see them."

Stefan tapped his hand against his head "Well, yes!" then switched the level to general. After a while, markers of allied units popped up. Thanks to which he could see that allied infantry was pulling behind them. By the way, he noticed that the other two postets from the rota similarly pursued or more correctly chased the Lourian straight to the Marine infantry positions in the forest.

"We are herding them like game into an ambush." stated Stefan

"Yes that's right, we are to drive this group straight under the barrels of the fourth rota from the third squad." confirmed Karsten

"And then what?" asked Stefan

"We will try to force them to surrender." replied the commander

"What if it doesn't work out?" asked Stefan but Karsten left it unanswered. "I see, there will be a scramble." he muttered more quietly.

Alwin decided to change the subject to "Fourth Rota, fourth Rota. Aren't they the ones from the Gate and the Lymians?"

"Yes it's you." confirmed Karsten

"Well it's time for us to have our Carnage too. I wonder what the Nipponese will call it? Carnage of the Glade of the Moon?" joked Alwin, referring to the rumors spreading at lightning speed among the 1st Regiment.

"Nipponese? Where would the Nipponese come from?" quipped Stefan

"And why shouldn't they go there? A gate is a gate!"

4 Rota

Forest

"Why the hell are we here?" asked Kuribayashi in such a virulent tone that if listening to it was poisonous, death would be instantaneous. Hardly surprising, for her summer uniform she had a borrowed coat from the Prussians. Her winter cap i.e ushanka with a military eagle on it that is a black eagle holding a sword in a human hand and gloves that were a size too big were also borrowed.

"We are conducting reconnaissance beyond the Gate." replied Itami succinctly completely unfazed by the tone of his subordinate.

"But probably not for this one!" growled Shino

Itami shrugged him shoulders "A gate is a gate." Shino waited a moment to see if Itami was trying to add something but to her disappointment for her commander it was an exhaustive answer. Annoyed, she growled something inarticulate and began to stare at the clearing in front of her.

Sitting with them, one of the Prussians from the neighboring team giggled then said something in German to his colleagues. The rest of the team burst out laughing after a while.

"And what does he say!" growled an angry and frozen Shino, the coat as well as the gloves too big hardly surprising, the only copies the Prussian quartermaster had were men's and in the army of the Commonwealth women are almost non-existent and if they are, they perform auxiliary roles away from the front.

"He tells you to cool down and take the example of your commander who is stoic about new developments." Itami said.

"How do you know?" quipped Shino

"I'm ranting." said Itami easily while keeping a serious face. Shino with all her willpower refrained from bashing her superior. And given that we are talking about Kuribayashi here, we know for obvious reason that it would not be a light blow.

Fortunately for the good relations in the Third Reconnaissance Squad, they heard shouts in an unfamiliar language and a distant thud against the frozen and snow-covered ground. The whirring of engines could be heard far in the background behind them.

"They're coming!" cried Kurata first, the Japanese squad quickly went into readiness. Everyone checked their weapons in anticipation of possible danger. Officially, they were sent on a reconnaissance mission beyond the Polish Gate, they were to get a look at the Poles in action, get to know nominally the Roderius Continent before returning and reporting back to the command in the Special Region.

Another less official mission was simply to help defend this side of the Polish Gate, the command of the 1st Marine Division sent an unofficial request for Japanese assistance on their side of the Gate, the force of natives in the area was huge and the Prussians too few to fulfill all tasks.

General Hazama agreed to this unofficial request and sent a few troops to help. The rationale for this action was obviously to ensure the safety of Ginza, the Lourians may not be Saderians, no less if they discovered the Gate and broke through the Polish defenses they could threaten the defense of the Japanese beachhead in the Special Region.

Thus, Itami's unit was between the Prussians of the 4th Rota and right next to it stood the second Post of Captain Mutig the same one he met at the very beginning. And the soldier who first giggled was, of course, Florian Tenner.

Despite appearances, Itami guessed quite well what Tenner said, although the man himself put it in much less pleasant terms. He grumbled a bit about the very meaning of women in the army and especially in line positions before he prepared to defend himself along with the rest.

As soon as a significant number of those fleeing were more or less in the middle of the road to the forest, the ambush was set in motion. The first to go were the concussion grenades fired from grenade launchers, and after a while flares were fired. The surprise for those fleeing was total.

Before they knew what was happening a rifle salvo rang out, and a moment later 33TPs jumped out from behind a hill which began to cover Lourian with fire. How much time had passed since the opening of fire no one knew, for many the shooting had barely begun and the order to cease fire was already going through the ranks.

The last squad to carry out the order was Itami's squad, which, due to the language barrier, reacted the latest.

"What's going on?" asked Shino, surprised to see that she hadn't even changed the magazine. A quick glance allowed her to determine that she had about a third of the cartridges left.

"The Lourians have surrendered." Kurata explained.

"So fast? The Saderians marched to their death and these guys marched right away!"

"Well, the Saderians have not been maneuvered by us before and these ones have. The Poles made them run all the time." explained Itami to his subordinate.

"Really?" quipped Shino

"Yes, I saw everything on Topaz all the time. The Poles forced them to dance after which the enemy had to surrender."

"Dance?" this time Kurata quipped.

"Yes, a dance. It's harder to describe their maneuvering other than as dancing. They twirled around, going forward, then backward, and except for their designated places, they did not stay still. The Lourians must have been exhausted by this for an obvious reason." explained his observations to Itami

"Why did they do it?" asked Shino

"Because they are in a hurry and they need ammunition elsewhere, under some Gim where fierce fighting is going on." replied Itami

Shino furrowed her brow "Then they can't just bring her..." she paused when she remembered a thing. "Well yes, they have a very long way home! They don't have a city outside the Gate like we do!"

"That's right." agreed Itami "And now the best thing, we got new orders. We're going to Gim. The job here is finished, a large part of the Lourians have already surrendered."

"What about the rest?" asked Kurata

Here Kuwahara interjected, "The rest will either be caught by Poles and Natives or..."

"Or?" entered Kurata's words.

"Or they'll just flee." Kuwahara concluded

At the same time

Southern Highway

"The dog was fucking it," growled Adem "Free passage, fuck me. They won't get you because there aren't enough of them, motherfucker. And fuck your cockiness, the cockiness came out of it and not free passage. The whole army has gone to fuck, yet I won't just go home. What is a general who escaped with his life and while his army did not?"

Meanwhile, the sun slowly stood over the world, heralding another morning. Slowly the sunlight showed the scale of the destruction far in the distance. Adem, meanwhile, rode alone on horseback, by what miracle he got out of the carnage he himself had no idea. As soon as the enemy focused elsewhere, he moved with his staff to what he thought was a safe place.

He thought wrongly, they had barely set up again to continue coordinating units and something peppered his staff. When he woke up, it turned out that he was lying alive a few dozen meters from where the staff had been. In turn, where the staff had been, there was a hole and the remains of his subordinates were scattered around.

Seeing this, Adem, driven more by emotion than reason, simply took his feet by the waist. And when the fear began to subside, he started getting angry and cursing everything he could. Somewhere he found a lost horse that somehow miraculously survived while its master did not, got on it and headed ahead towards Louria.

"Well, it happened. Now you have to think how to keep your head here." began to ponder Adem, not yet realizing what would befall him. But that's a story for another future occasion.

Empire of Parpaldia

March 15, 1640 Year of the Central Calendar.

Esthirant

Imperial Palace

Nervous silence reigned in the office of His Imperial Highness Ludius VI. The Emperor himself was sitting in his comfortable chair behind his desk reading unabashedly a very long report on what was happening on the front in distant Roderius.

So far, the Lourians have been banging their heads against the wall, with three armies already lost, two more being wiped out, and one completely lost in time and space.

Everyone in the Imperial Palace as well as outside it in the upper echelons knew about the quiet fury that Ludius had been exuding for over a week. A certain annoying barbarian king called Harek had successfully played on His Imperial Majesty's nose and thrust the Empire into a war with Poland.

They had to answer, it was a matter of Parpaldian prestige as well as its reputation! If they showed weakness in the face of Polish actions then very soon any collaborations with the Parpaldians which the rulers of the conquered lands had undertaken in the hope of preserving the rest of their people would be called into question.

For if Poland can attack Louria with impunity, force the Empire to withdraw from its junior partner and protectorate. Then why can't Poland exactly help them to regain their independence, or worse, become an ally within the Anti-Parpadian coalition?

At the same time, it would not even have to take a direct part in the war in such a scenario! If you take the fact that the Poles began to sell their weapons to these savages from eastern Roderius their weapons without a problem unlike the Nipponese. It would be enough for the coalition to come with a shopping list to Poland. As well as they opened up to Polish and Nipponese companies. Very quickly from a desperate coalition defending itself against Parpaldia, they would become its oppressors.

Had he not reacted, Parpaldia's fate would have been sealed. Parpaldia's neighbors would have very quickly taken advantage of this weakness by seeking protection from Poland. This one, of course, would have accepted the offer and Parpaldia would very quickly have been surrounded by enemies and increasingly nervous. He is absolutely certain that in such a scenario, the voices demanding a bloody crackdown on Poland and, above all, its neighbors would gain a majority forcing him to unleash some kind of war.

He does not know, maybe some kind of special military operation in a neighboring country such as Riem. Aimed at stopping the escape of Riem to the Polish sphere of influence which will obviously end in defeat and loss of all reputation for Parpaldia and thus the possibility of national liberation uprisings that will only kill the Empire.

The effect of this black scenario is also that, in such a situation, Parpaldia would not act as it does now, as a stabilizing factor in the fracture of international stability, but as the one that just shatters that order.

Going to war now, even if defeat is certain will be much less of a blow to Parpaldia for it acts as a defender of the order, even if non-ideal and geared under profit for the Empire. But nevertheless known and tolerated, and its defense is now more understandable than in the black scenario of an isolated Parpaldia.

Of course, this is not Ludius' dream scenario, a dream scenario is one that most likely would have come true had it not, an unexpected Black Swan in the form of those accursed Saderians.

Namely, he assumed that, Parpaldia would introduce Poland and Nippon to this world while trying to divide the cake in such a way that Parpaldia could, with the help of these two new players, upgrade itself to be a third major player. Louria would most likely end up handed on a silver platter for this Commonwealth, as an act of goodwill on the part of the Empire wanting to keep the peace in the third zone of civilization. That's why he sent his trusted man, Daemones Centius who was to untangle the now stubborn protectorate agreement with Louria.

In this way, he wanted, with the obvious farewell to the possibility of unifying the continent, to preserve what the Parpaldians had already conquered. Unfortunately, these damned savages from an unknown land had to arrive just then, in a time of wartime tension, and lead to the outbreak of war with their idiotic behavior.

Causing this bomb still designed by his father and inherited from him to explode in his face. Hardly a fun and pleasant thing to do. Add to this that Ludius is not blind, and he could well see how Hark was aiming from the very beginning of this unsuccessful brawl for Parpaldia to take part in it too.

It's hard not to be angry all the time, especially since this lengthy report confirmed his assumptions. No one in the third zone had absolutely no chance against Poland. He cursed those Saderians in spirit, wishing they also had a taste of Polish Military Technology. Make them pay for the mess they unleashed here.

Fortunately, this war had one very useful plus for Ludius. Ever since he realized the power of the two new players, he had been wondering how to eliminate the problem of the more blunt part of the officer and diplomatic corps who were raring to line up with the new "barbarians." It was impossible to explain to them that both new neighbors in the region are very dangerous.

That they should not be given an excuse to forcibly remodel the international order. He was afraid of expansionists, yes he had so far used them happily because they were a useful prop for his regime but like any good ruler. He didn't keep all the mushrooms in one basket. That way he could always have a margin for error and back out of a catastrophic path before it was too late.

And when it became apparent that a world change was imminent for the Third Zone, he immediately began using the other side of the political argument to prepare the Empire for the change. The only problem was precisely in getting rid of the politically inconvenient ones, who apparently didn't get the memo that the political winds had changed.

Of course, Ludius was not without regrets in abandoning his plan to pacify Altaras, that damned island had been getting in the Empire's way for too long. He himself, moreover, from his teenage years, after a certain history lesson, had begun to float plans to eradicate this problem, hence he had a fondness for this devised plan.

What is different is the plan with the subjugation of Roderius by means of Louria, this one no longer had such a charge of sentiment. Not surprisingly, it was his "beloved" father's plan to cut off Altaras from resources by eliminating its allies on Roderius. Ludius himself rather preferred to simply build a powerful fleet to overwhelm the defenders with its mass, but since the plan had already been working for many years and quite well, why not use it to weaken Altaras?

But this is not the time to reminisce about plans from two years ago, funny how one event can make what was not so long ago now sound like the distant past. Ludius smiled slightly at this thought, then immediately became serious and turned to his Supreme Commander Arde Gaius.

"How is our Expeditionary Force? Are they ready to march out?"

Arde reacted sluggishly, the poor man thought, Ludius had to switch overnight from being Commander-in-Chief of the Third Zone's most powerful army to being Commander-in-Chief of the most numerous army and nothing more. He had the opportunity to be invited by the Poles as an observer to the Donskoye Hetmanate, the Commonwealth's huge military training ground, for military maneuvers.

After what he saw there, he returned heartbroken as well as horrified. From being one of the proponents of showing the place to the Poles, he had become the biggest proponent of avoiding war with them. And now his worst nightmare was coming true. Normally Ludius would have fired him, but in such a state he was much easier to control and the army now was the least of his worries. He is happy to "get rid" of some of the "unnecessary" soldiers.

"Yes, your majesty. Field Marshal Edgardius Preator says he can leave at any time."

This was the first good news for Ludius in days. Exceedingly quickly, the army reorganized to give a kick up the ass to the Poles for meddling in affairs that were not theirs. Ludius didn't even have to "help" move known supporters of the war against Poland into the expeditionary force. Almost everyone volunteered to be transferred with their units. Everyone wanted to punish the Poles for meddling in affairs that were not theirs.

Not hardly surprising, Marshal Edgardius was extremely popular in the army and his opinion that he would reach Warsaw in a week was widely known. He was even the main icon around whom all expansionist circles organized.

A lesser known fact is that he began to consider Ludius a cowardly weakling, after the latter did not try to enter a collision course with the new "barbarians." From what Ludius has heard Edgardius secretly dreams of the Imperial Crown and considers this war an opportunity to be able to get it.

In fact, this would not be the first time in the history of the Empire where an ambitious military commander, after a great triumph over a considered invincible opponent, comes to the capital to overthrow the cowardly Emperor.

Unfortunately for Edgdius, Ludius always set the deck under himself. There was no way this scenario would come true. At best, the Marshal would return to the Fatherland in disgrace, for letting himself be captured as well as destroying a large part of the Imperial army.

Of course, Ludius in such a scenario will do everything to break the Preator family and their supporters, because after all, he expected victory for the Empire. After all, the Emperor would not send the Marshal and the core of the Imperial Army to certain death, right?

Commonwealth

Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

Poland, a country widely regarded as one that constantly disappears and reappears, or at least in our world. This is not true, if Poland had disappeared from the maps so often, it would simply never have made it to our time. It would have shared the fate of many other extinct peoples, and yet despite what has been done over the past three centuries to erase Polishness, it has not succeeded.

In fact, this famous disappearance from the maps, only to be immediately reborn like a phoenix from the ashes is a myth, yes supported by a few events, but still a myth. To be more precise, Poland disappeared three times, in the 13th century, 18th century and 20th century. Broadening the definition of "disappearance", one can add one more event, the collapse of the first Piast monarchy in the 11th century, but that was short-lived and was more a breakdown of the existing structure pressed from outside and inside than a disappearance.

Broadening the definition even further, you can add two events from the 19th century, the abolition of the Duchy of Warsaw, a hulking Polish state that was a puppet of Napoleonic France, and the abolition of the autonomous Congress Kingdom, which had been in a real union with Russia since 1815. The latter, depending on who you ask, took place either in 1831 after the fall of the November Uprising or in 1864 after the fall of the January Uprising.

This brings the total using a very loose approach to about six erasures of Poland from the maps. You could say that's quite a lot, on the other hand how many peoples were able to recover from even one such attempt?

Nonetheless, it can be noted that the interval between the events, leaving aside the period commonly accepted that Poland was de facto not on the maps despite de jure saying otherwise, is about a hundred years between two close ones separated by more than four hundred years of continuous statehood.

Moreover, the time without a state of its own is in round numbers a hundred years before Poland returns. Given that the history of Poland is about a thousand years, plus or minus a thousand years should add another century, but since the only evidence claiming this can only be found in the ground does not count as "official" history, this means that of the thousand years only two hundred years were without a Polish state on the maps.

Pretty good for someone who keeps "disappearing" and coming back.

But this is the history of Poland as we know it, the one that was cruelly carried away by fate, the one that was brutally tortured, the one that was tried to be erased from the maps and that twice forever, that is after the partitions in which Prussia, Austria and Russia agreed among themselves that henceforth the title of the Polish Kingdom was to be erased fortunately they did not succeed, and a more widely known example from the 20th century that probably does not need to be presented.

That is, what this "SuperPoland" has not experienced, nor has anyone even tried to do so. Hardly surprising, after all we are talking about a power comparable to the United States. Realizing what Russia could have been, but fortunately for the Poles it collapsed before it became that threat thanks, of course, to the help of the intelligence of Imperial Germany who planted Lenin with his disease called communism.

This is not a mistake, Tsarist Russia before World War I was what China is to us today, the fastest growing country in the world with the potential to dominate it through development alone. The Germans themselves were seriously afraid of Russia, only World War I stopped this process, first the war turmoil took away Russia's best developed areas of the Empire undercutting the oxygen of the rest of the Empire, then the murderous war effort brought it to the brink of collapse.

All it took was a slight push for this to happen, and it did. The surprise February Revolution overthrew the unpopular Tsar, which obviously exacerbated the chaos, thus the Provisional Government accomplished the impossible and became so unpopular that when the Bolsheviks with a small force actually staged a coup, no one defended the government despite the fact that the government forces in St. Petersburg had a crushing advantage in everything but determination over Lenin and his gang.

This, of course, gave the October Revolution beginning the inexorable end of Russia, communism ditched the former Russian Empire, took the best out of what it had in the name of a worldwide communist revolution. Unfortunately for the Soviets and fortunately for the rest of the world, socialism, introduced as an "intermediate" stage and in reality as a desperate attempt to prolong the agony of the former Empire, finally accomplished what communism was supposed to do in a few years at most. It destroyed the country in which it was introduced, and the dream of Hegemony disappeared leaving the Nations devastated by the Union, led by the Russian Nation which rolled to the lowest stage of collapse.

Today we see the latest act of this in Ukraine, where the Russians are singing their swan song.

But this is our world, in the world of Super Poland called the Commonwealth nothing of this catastrophe happened. What's more, there is not even such a thing as Russia, there is instead Ruthenia, the real Ruthenia.

This Ruthenia is, of course, divided into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the closest counterpart to Russia as we know it, although it differs sharply from it, in a positive way. The Principality of Belarus, which is a condominium of Lithuania and Moscow, and contrary to our habits this Principality lies not where we know it, but where Russia is today. More precisely, in the area called by Poles the Smolensk Gate, that is, the area where the Dźwina (Dvina) and the Dniepr (Dnieper) have their sources but which do not directly connect, forming a narrow strip of land between the rivers and, incidentally, the only route in Eastern Europe allowing without crossing the rivers to get to Russia/Moscow.

The capital of this Gate, in accordance with its name, is Smoleńsk, which also serves as the capital of the Principality. In the old days, most of the Polish-Moscow wars were fought over this very city and this region, for whoever controls Smoleńsk de facto controls the lands between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

The third country is the Grand Duchy of Ruthenia, the equivalent of what we know as Ukraine. While it is much further east than Ukraine, what we know as Western Ukraine is part of the Polish Crown, i.e. those lands belonging to the Red Ruthenia and inherited by Casimir III the Great in the 14th century.

The westernmost major city is not until Żytomierz (Zhytomyr), which is somewhere in the center of our Ukraine. What we know as Chersoń (Kherson) they call Bilchowicze and is the main port city of Ruthenia, further east directly on the Dniepr we have Sicz the capital of the Dzikie Pola (Wild Fields) or autonomous part of Ruthenia where the Zaporozhian Cossacks who form an extremely militarized society rule.

Moreover, both cities i.e. Bilchowicze (Bilchovichi) and Sicz (Sich) are also border towns, south of the Dniepr River the Crimean Khanate begins and the river itself is the internal border of the Commonwealth. With the Crimean-Ruthenian border mostly ironically coinciding with the course of the line of the southern Ukrainian-Russian front as of January 2023. Bakhmut itself is a border town with Crimea.

Further north we have Charków (Kharkov) which here is not a border city, moreover, it is the easternmost large city of Central Ruthenia! The last big cities are Czernichów (Chernihiv) which is also not as close to the border as the Ukrainian one, and Kursk and Woroneż (Voronezh) lying some two hundred kilometers from the Ruthenian-Moscow border.

The last Ruthenia state, or at least by virtue of the fact that most of its territory is Ruthenia, is Lithuania. It occupies virtually all of the territory of known Belarus aka White Ruthenia, which obviously makes it more Ruthenia than a Baltic state.

That's the way it is, Lithuanian, true Lithuanian is extinct, only remnants have survived in remote civilizations. Everywhere else, Polish or Ruthenian is spoken. Of the Lithuanian remnants, only single words and an accent remain, distinguishing Lithuanians from the rest of the Poles. At the same time, the Ruthenians in Lithuania are more Polonized than elsewhere. Their language sounds more like a dialect of Polish than Ruthenian, even the alphabet is taken from Polish.

Although only Muscovites can boast that they speak an independent language, and not relegated to the level of a dialect or semi-dialect of Polish. Despite this, it seems to be only a matter of time until the last of the Russian languages will also be degraded like Kashubian to the level of a dialect.

But let's leave that, let's return to the Crown, to this Poland proper.

This one, thanks to much better decisions made by the Polish Kings, avoided most of the misfortunes of known Poland. Prussia was never let out of the hands of the Prussians, moreover, at the request of the Prussians themselves, the tragedy of the Swedish Deluge or the Chmielnicki uprising never occurred. Because of which, instead of boasting three hundred years without hostilities on its territory, the Crown was able to add another two hundred to the Revolutionary Wars fought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Which, of course, greatly benefited the development of the area.

Administratively, the Crown is divided into five provinces, these provinces signify the legal and administrative division of the Kingdom. That is, to put it in human terms, each province has its own exclusively dedicated statutes or sets of laws. For the most part, they reflect the fact that Poland consists of several parts annexed at different times and thus having laws evolved in a different direction. More precisely, they have their origin in the Polish feudal split, which over time was consolidated as an administrative division.

These five provinces are Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Silesia, Pomerania and Madagascar. The first two, contrary to expectations, are much larger than the geographic land, Greater Poland consists of Prussia, Mazovia and Kuyavia in addition to Greater Poland proper.

In addition to the usual Małopolska, Małopolska also includes Red Ruthenia, and the land of Lublin.

Silesia, only annexed in the 20th century, consists of 25 provinces that before the annexation were Silesian principalities and an additional two in the New March.

Pomerania, on the other hand, encompasses the entire land of that name, that is, both the Front part lying in our Poland and the Back part lying in Germany.

Madagascar, on the other hand, is a strange province, consisting of course only of the island of that name, formally it is an Autonomous Crown Colony, although compared to many other Crown colonies, it does not have de facto more autonomy than an ordinary province. Madagascar is the result of a personal union turned into a real one, as Ranavalona III married the Polish electoral king Władyslaw V Czartoryski in an attempt to protect Madagascar from the more ambitious colonial powers. Mainly France sharpening its teeth on the island.

In a somewhat surprising way, history came full circle, Ranavalona herself was chosen from the local nobility to be the ruler, she pulled (at the insistence of the local nobility) to the political advantage of the ruler of another country as her husband to thus create a strong alliance that eventually became a union. To complete the irony, Ranavalona converted to Catholicism from Protestantism by taking the name Jadwiga.

In this way, the ruling stratum of Madagascar accidentally repeated what Poland did in the 13th century by pulling the Jagiellons to the throne. At the same time, it should be noted that the Czartoryskis are cousins of the Jagiellons; Ladislaus II Jagiello himself was the cousin of the founder of the family, Konstantin Czartoryski.

The result of this history is its dual status as a Crown Colony for formality as well as a direct part of the Polish Crown. All other colonies are an independent entity.

Madagascar itself came with other colonies to this world, being the southernmost part of the Commonwealth. It was located far from what was known as the civilized part of the world. Not far from the island is a continent ignored by the local powers, it was too far away for anyone to be interested in conquering it. In the absence of a name, the Poles called it Lechia.

Another colony was the Morska Wolna (Maritime Will), a piece of Brazil bought from Portugal in the 19th century. This colony was located in the southern part of Brazil near the border with Argentina and was the source of all kinds of exotic fruits and vegetables. Although the main specialty is chocolate, all the respected Corporations headed by the Fabryka Czekolady E. Wendel (E. Wendel Chocolate Factory) that produce candy have plantations there or import it from the locals.

Like Cameroon, the Morska Wolna was annexed to the continent but not Roderius but the one to the west of it, Westal called Sarmatia by the Poles. While Lechia remains rather in the sphere of interest of the Madagascans themselves, Sarmatia is being considered as a continent to be colonized by almost everyone in the Commonwealth.

The last Crown Colonies are Dalian which is a Polish Hong Kong by the Poles called Dalekie, this region is known thanks to Port Arthur located to the west the former base of the Russian Imperial Navy, although the Poles themselves called it Nowy Gdańsk (New Danzig) and like Port Arthur it is a base of the Navy only that Crown.

And, of course, the Crown Colony of Alaska which, contrary to what we know by this term, occupies the area of Alaska, almost half of Canada up to the city of Regina, and the American states of Washington, Montana which by Poles are respectively called Nowa Polska, and the Gória and northern part of the state of Idaho which is, of course, here divided among neighbors.

Alaska itself, on the other hand, is right next to unknown land, which, for obvious reasons, that is, important matters to the west of the Empire i.e. right under its nose constitutes Terra Incognita for the time being. This is not much of a problem, as the entire former border with the Union of American Workers' Republic is fortified and heavily militarized. Anything trying to get into Alaska would have to pass through a killing field.

Therefore, His Majesty Witold II, for the time being, could deal with more pressing and attention-demanding matters.

Such as this one.

Wawel Royal Castle

Kraków

Witold loved Wawel, it was spacious, opulent and you could feel the history of the old ages of the Commonwealth and its golden era of the 16th century. And the fact that it was not located next to one of the city's main thoroughfares, like the Royal Castle in Warsaw, was also an advantage.

Well, and most importantly, he didn't have to deal here with the deputies of the Sejm of the Commonwealth whose permanent seat of session is precisely the Warsaw Royal Castle. In Cracow, which, although it is the real capital of the Crown, the Crown Sejm does not hold its sessions, instead, in accordance with tradition, it meets wherever it wants, although these are mainly Radom, Piotrków, Toruń, Lublin, Sandomierz, Bydgoszcz, Parczew and from time to time Warsaw, i.e. cities where the Sejm traditionally met.

At the same time it should be added that the Sejm literally convenes, because it is not constantly working like the modern parliaments we know, but convenes from time to time, usually once every two years, or in important matters such as the Transfer and the War on Roderius, which required the convening of a General Assembly to discuss the situation and agree on a common direction of march. Of course, the King was not obliged in such a case to follow the instructions of the Sejm, they were not binding on him because they were not law.

A side effect of this solution, of course, is that there is no epidemic of lawmaking, because deputies do not feel that they have to necessarily show that they are working by passing some new, often dumb law. If a new law was going to be passed, the groundwork was laid before the Sejm convened, which was often a poll of public opinion as to whether there was support or not, as well as a way to see if a new law was so necessary.

Kings, by definition, preferred to convene the Sejm as infrequently as possible, for many times it turned into a grubby brawl between deputies from different provinces as well as a litany of wishes against the ruler. For it should be remembered that although the Sejm tried to usurp executive power many times, real executive power all the time belonged to the King and the Senat (Senate) supporting him.

What, in turn, was the Senat? In a nutshell, it is the Polish equivalent of the House of Lords acting as an advisory council and the Sejm when necessary, thus bypassing the Sejm in governing, allowing in critical situations such as the first days after the transfer to act instantly without waiting for the Sejm to convene, for the Senat was permanent and more than 28 senators were always to be on hand for the King.

Officially, these 28 were supposed to keep an eye on the ruler on behalf of the Sejm to ensure that he did not exceed the powers given to him by the Sejm, in practice, all this did was to increase the number of advisors and appointees of the King.

The Senat consisted of all governors, bishops, ministers and castellans throughout the Commonwealth. And given that, except for the Bishops, all the others are appointed by the King personally, this made the Senat always loyal to the monarch and acting in accordance with his wishes.

And here it is necessary to interject my three cents, contrary to the mistaken association, Poland even as an anarchist Commonwealth was a very centralized state when it came to administration. There were never elections or succession of positions from father to son, each time everyone was appointed personally by the king. Hence the lack of an analogous noble/aristocratic hierarchy as in the West, for there was no way to create one since there was a full-fledged civil-military administration!

That's why there are no counts or dukes and all the attendant entourage, since the Polish equivalents, that is, by analogy, castellans/starosts and voivods, were always appointed top-down and never managed to become independent of the monarch as happened in the West. Ironically, this authoritarian approach was the reason for the strongly egalitarian relations of the nobility in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.

And this strange mixture of authoritarianism and democracy became the foundation of the Polish system which continues to this day and Witold takes full advantage. For as long as he is within the limits of the law, he can do what he wants and the Sejm has nothing to do with it.

Hence, if he wants to officiate from Kraków, as long as he arrives for six weeks in Warsaw and Grodno for the biennial Great Sejm of the Commonwealth, he can do so despite the fact that the deputies dislike this behavior of Witold very much, especially those from the east because it means that they have to travel really far to see the ruler.

Which, of course, for Witold was a plus in itself because it sifted out those who want to poison his life from those who came with viable proposals. This was also the case now.

To Witold came a young Field Hetman from Alaszka (Alashka) or Teodor Rózwelt according to the Polish notation, in fact he is Theodore VI Roosevelt, great-grandson of the famous Teddy Roosevelt British-American politician who fought against the Communists as part of the New Continental Army during the American Revolution. When defeat seemed inevitable for White Americans, as all Non-Communists fighting in Old British America were commonly called, he gathered the surviving forces that had failed to flee to Newfoundland and broke through half a continent toward Polish Alaska and the territories occupied after the outbreak of the Communist Revolution.

There he eventually settled with his family and all the other refugees, creating a unique English-speaking enclave in the Commonwealth. These Free Americans, as they commonly refer to themselves, living on Poland's most dangerous border constituting the first line of defense against the communist invasion.

Teodor himself, who in many ways appears to be a copy of his famous great-grandfather Teddy, was the officer commanding the 101st Airborne Legion. Learning of the Parpaldian "problem," he came forward with a daring plan for an air assault on Esthirant to end the war in one blow.

"So you say your boys are enough to force Parpaldia to make peace?" said Witold getting up from behind his desk.

"Yes, Your Majesty. This is an operation that 101 has been preparing for for decades. In this way we will avoid unnecessary destruction, costs and deaths. At the same time, we will make it clear to the Parpaldians that we are playing in a completely different league from them." said Teodor without hesitation.

"I have the whole plan here in a folder." he punctuated his statement by pulling out a folder from behind his pocket. "This is the result of the work of my staff people over the past weeks."

Witold nodded his head appreciatively taking the folder from the Hetman's hands though he couldn't resist adding. "I'm guessing that you and your staffers have been bored for the past few months." He was referring to the fact that the Supreme Command had ordered troops in Alaska to hold the line instead of trying to penetrate a new unknown area.

Teodor slowly nodded, "Well, what can we do, Your Majesty, after all, for now, apart from the new frontier, we know nothing about these lands further. And yet it's a bit of a shame to sit on our asses like this and wait."

"I agree," replied Witold, reviewing the contents of the documents he had brought. The plan was not overly complicated, requiring only the transfer of the 101st Legion to any carrier from which they could take off with their equipment, drop on Esthirant and take the city with a decisive attack.

He had to admit that the 101st staffers had done their homework, they gave various possible options from where they could be dropped such as Altaras, Okinawa, Que-Toyne or even an aircraft carrier, attack locations and how many necessary forces would be needed for a given location. They also calculated the necessary supplies and air support.

But it wasn't the elaborate plan that made Witold happy, but rather the confidence and goal-orientation displayed by Rózwelt himself, and he felt the same in the plan itself as well. The plan itself was somehow not new, he had seen similar ones at the General Staff where the premise of Operation Imminent Storm as the plan for the war against Parpaldia was being developed.

"Good, very good." began Witold finishing the reading "You want to test yourself in action? Go ahead, I will present it at the next meeting of the Supreme Command. You can be sure that you and your 101st will go on the spearhead." Rózwelt smiled

"And if God grants," the King added after a moment, "the premise of your operation will be fulfilled."

Rózwelt hoped so, too, although he could not help the strange feeling that some quiet voice said in the background, "It will come true."