AN: Credits to gdstriker, PervySageChuck and TheBattleSage for the revisions.
Chapter 57 release will come after this rewrite. It's going to take a while as I've been busy with things and also need to finish reading the book "Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants" by John Drury Clark.
Original Chapter 9 is at the bottom of this chapter.
1943, November 25th, Berun:
"The Albish presented us with an unusual plan. A very unusual one." Chiune Sugihara, the recent new ambassador from Akitsushima Dominion, pushed an unfolded map of their plans towards me.
"Wait, they want to directly invade the CSR?" Visha blinked rapidly. "That's ambitious."
Time seemed to freeze as if the memories of what I remembered about the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War flooded back. Along with the horrors of that.
The other major difference is that the Japanese in my previous life had spent years chipping away at China. In this situation, it seems as if the Albish and their allies are just jumping off a cliff and into the water without checking to see what is waiting for them below the water surface.
"That would explain why the Allied Kingdom and their partners pulled out from the devastated Karachi," Lergen mused. "That still doesn't explain why they gave no warning to us, and now the North Bharatian reserve forces are rapidly redeploying south. General Romel will only have a short time to prepare his defenses along the northern front when there are still encircled communist forces in South Bharat that are resisting."
"It will be a bloodbath for everyone in the CSR," I breathlessly said without hesitation.
"You're saying that our military should remain focused in Bharat?" Sugihara looked confused.
"You can still provide shore bombardment and air support for the Albish invasion efforts. Just no boots on the ground."
"How are you so sure?"
I stared down into his eyes until he looked down out of discomfort and shame. "Trust me. And I'll apologize in person to your Emperor if my prediction turns out to be wrong."
I then turned to Lergen as Visha looked on with awe. "I will not have OZEV volunteers be sent into the Chinese slaughterhouse. But we still assist the Albish coalition by intensifying our efforts in Bharat. Rapidly liquidate the pockets of encircled communist forces. When the communist reserve forces from the north are exhausted after throwing themselves at our defense line, we will launch aggressive counterattacks to keep the CSR's attention on supporting North Bharat instead of sending everything back across the mountains to defend their homeland."
As Lergen comprehended what I just said, I let out a breath of relief. Kept my allies out of the path of disaster while still assisting others with their unhinged plans. The Albish would appreciate my support of their war effort, and I look forward to better relations with them in the future.
1943, December 7th, Londinium:
"The Akinese have allowed us to station forces on their mainland and Formosa, and will provide naval and air support. They are also sending us their entire archive of what they know about Joseon and the pre-revolution CSR." Guysborough hesitantly stated.
"But no ground forces?" Churbull chewed on his cigar in anticipation.
"No," Guysborough looked down. "Their excuse was that the presence of their soldiers on Chinese soil may inflame Chinese civilian resistance."
"As expected for a Germanian lackey," Churbull dismissively snided. "What about our Commonwealth partners and our colonies?"
"Some moderate success, we got the number of men needed to meet the estimated requirements." Color returned to Guysborough's face. "Aegyptus in particular has blown past our recruitment requirement, with a projection of about three times of what we asked for. They also formed numerous specialized 'shock battalions' specifically for high-risk, high-casualty operations. Their leadership wasn't interested in some of the modern weapons and equipment, but were more than happy to utilize old surplus that date back to the first Great War."
"So we won't be short on manpower for this. That is good to hear." Churbull then turned to Brook. "When are we starting our operation?"
Brook nervously tugged on his collar, while Graham interjected. "We still have not been able to confirm the size and locations of the CSR's homeland defense forces. Even a limited coastal raid strategy could run into problems if the CSR garrisons are ready for us. It could take us a few months to determine what we are going up against."
"Time is running out," Churbull put down his cigar. "I am not going to allow Germania to hog all of the victories while our forces are sitting idle on what would be yet another march to Nanjing like our predecessors have repeatedly done."
"There is something we could do," Brook cleared his throat. "We launch coastal raids in Joseon first, accompanied by heavy air reconnaissance, bombings, and naval bombardments. The first ground troops to be sent there would be the Aegyptian shock battalions. We make it appear as if we will be invading there to draw their garrison forces. We will put out the invitation to the Akinese for them to assist, and if the CSR ignores the threat in Joseon, then I expect the Akinese to consider reconquering Joseon."
He then pointed at Tientsin on the map. "This will be our next coastal raid target to continue persuading the CSR to send their garrisons north. We want to make it look like the landing at Tientsin is to cut off the Chinese reinforcements to Joseon."
Next, he pointed at Shanghai on the map. "If the CSR is unprepared here, then we can consider pushing towards Nanjing with Shanghai being our logistics foothold. If they still have a sizable garrison there, then we find other locations to raid and defer the march upon Nanjing to a future date."
"Now that I'm thinking about it, with us invading the CSR, that would mean Hongkong could be threatened by them." Guysborough nervously glanced at the map.
"We'll bolster its garrison and defenses before invading Joseon. If the situation turns desperate, a couple of our cruisers and battleships would be sent in for artillery support."
"Good. And the timeline for all of this?" Churbull smiled.
"We hit Joseon about two months from now. Then we go from there depending on the CSR's response.
Meanwhile in South Bharat:
"No," Subha Dutta stared at General Romel.
"I have my orders from above to build the defense line," an exasperated Romel sighed. "Even if you don't want to do it, I still have to do it."
"And I won't take orders from foreigners," Dutta got up from his chair. "You can build your cowardly fortifications to hide in, while I'll be leading the South Bharatians to Lucknow and Delhi. I already gave orders for them to begin their march to Lucknow as soon as the last pockets of my traitorous countrymen are crushed."
"This is madness," Romel tried to move to block Dutta, but Dutta pushed him away. "You're leading an army of recruits that just finished their training to conduct two major offensives when there is the risk of the CSR sending their reinforcements over the mountains."
"Then you will witness how much we are willing to endure to free this land," Dutta became increasingly enraged. "I don't think you seem to understand how my countrymen have reached their boiling point after it became public that the North Bharatians were using penal battalions made up of "enemies of the state", in other words, civilians and prisoners of war, for the manual mine clearing and human shield operation. The city name 'Hyderabad' has also become a rallying call after the communists deployed pesticide gas to put down the riots.
Romel stepped aside and reluctantly nodded as Dutta prepared to leave the room.
'Caldwell's investigations and interviews have struck people's nerves in Bharat and Europe. The power of information warfare.' Romel thought to himself.
Dutta turned around at the doorway to look at Romel one more time. "There won't be a North Bharat for the Chinese to 'save'. Not after what they've done."
1943, December 19th, Berun:
There was a knock on the door. I looked at the clock and my schedule. Zettour was here to discuss his resignation. I let out a deep sigh as I set aside General Romel's report on Subha Dutta's insistence on launching an aggressive offensive. The beginning of one era and the end of another.
"Come on in," I got up from my office chair to stand up.
Zettour stepped into my office with a folded paper in his hand.
"I know it was inevitable, but I'm happy for the years we worked together," he smiled as he walked toward me to hand me the paper.
I opened the paper and it was his resignation letter and a request to be just a part-time advisor. I looked at him, unsure of what to say. First, it was Rudersdorf, now it was him.
"I remember the first day we met at the war college," Zettour chuckled. "I would have been happy to let you marry my daughter if you were a young man at the time."
Curse you Being X and your sick sense of humor for making me a female.
"I was just doing my job for the Empire," I deflected.
"And you blew past everyone's expectations," Zettour nodded. "Rudersdorf had a good point of wanting you to work in Operations as your forward thinking would have been invaluable, but I was too afraid to let that happen when your 203rd mage battalion became the only effective tool the Empire had remaining in the late stage of the war. Even after you became Chancellor and then President, some of us had concerns and kept an eye on you as a precaution, but that proved to be irrelevant to what you've done. I could have never imagined a future where our country is truly safe in Europe."
I did not need that reminder of missing my chance at a safe posting in a rear position.
Zettour continued on. "The only regret I have is not speaking out for you when you proposed that the Empire seek a peace treaty. Even if the Emperor and the rest of the generals still pressed on ahead for victory at any cost and I lost my career right there, I shouldn't have left you to the wolves."
I shrugged my shoulders. "It was a learning experience, that's for sure. I got ahead of myself and didn't read the room."
"If you did consider that as a learning experience, well, I hope you're ready to become Kaiserin."
What? No. No. NO!
"I don't understand. I can be removed from the next elections or if the Diet decides to go for a vote of no confidence."
Zettour chuckled. "You've always been humble in the private setting. But at least one of my colleagues let it slip by calling you Kaiserin instead of Chancellor."
"...Kaiserin? No, this isn't right!"
"It's all right," Zettour put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm relieved for this country to be in such capable hands."
That was almost exactly what Rudersdorf said on that fateful night when he ruined my carefully planned retirement plans by leaving me stuck in charge. I was about to say something when Zettour spoke again.
"Don't stress too much, I'll still be around if something is bothering you."
I spent several minutes or so in my office calming myself down and thinking through how to deal with this mess. There's always the next election to wait for. I just need some good wedge issues to split the party so I don't get another landslide victory.
There was another knock on the door, which I briskly walked over to open it, revealing Elya.
"Ah, are you available to look over the information I have on the Foreign Minister candidates?"
"You didn't spy on them, right?" I closed the door after Elya walked in.
"Nonsense, this was all open source gathering." Elya huffed as she set the folders on my desk. "Although we did pay journalists to ask the candidates specific questions on topics that we couldn't find information on."
"Elya…" I tapped my foot.
"But it was all legal!" She protested.
I could have sworn Elya gave me the puppy eyes.
"The BND is not to be used as a political weapon to spy or suppress political candidates that aren't doing anything illegal." I sighed as I opened the first folder, revealing a picture of George Dertinge and a summary sheet, along with additional papers and photos under it.
"No formal diplomatic experience, was a member of the conservative Germanian National People's Party and part of the previous Chancellor's inner circle." Elya pointed at the newspaper clippings of his political activities. "After that Chancellor fell, he established a news agency that provided local newspapers with translated foreign news and foreign media companies with readily translated information so they didn't have to import raw information to translate it themselves. And there are a lot of foreign media companies that use his services."
"What is this 'Germanian Democratic Union' that he formed with Conrad Adenaue? I wasn't aware of this political party." I pointed at a set of photos.
"They formed that party after you became Chancellor, and have been a minor political player the whole time," Elya smirked. "Although that hasn't stopped them from inviting prominent GWP members to dinners."
"Why wasn't I told about the GDU making moves on the GWP?"
Elya rolled her eyes. "You just told me to not spy on political parties and candidates. Besides, there wasn't anything suspicious. Just them discussing policies and voting matters, which the GDU has generally voted in lockstep with the GWP."
"And who is this other co-founder, Conrad Adenaue?"
"He was an unusual one," Elya had a slight hesitation in her voice as opened up another folder. "He has been the mayor of Cologne for decades dating back to before the first European War and compared to other cities, Cologne did very well under his administration even in the final years of the war and during the early years of Germania. He initially considered running for Chancellorship when the GWP was on the rise, but had family problems which he decided had to take priority. His political views are a bit different from Dertinge, but it looks like they had enough common ground and personal friendship to work together."
I glanced through his summary sheet. "A deeply religious man. Initially anti-war and accused me of pushing Germania into an unwinnable war. Now he's been quite active with campaigning for a lasting reconciliation with the Francois Republic, and the expansion and further integration of OZEV to stop future wars in Europe. And it looks like Dertinge has publicly come to the defense of Adenaue on that issue against the skeptics."
I shuffled through the next candidate's folder as Elya looked on. Fritz Weber was the more conventional choice. An ambassador to the Unified States with many years of prior foreign diplomatic service. His political views were also more conventional, such as remaining deeply skeptical of Francois Republic and had expressed his view of OZEV simply being a "correction of what had been done to the Empire".
There were other candidates as well, but none of them interested me.
I leaned back into my chair to contemplate my options.
Dertinge's position would pave the way for a European Union that I knew about in my previous world. But I'm not exactly sure about Dertinge's foreign diplomacy prowess. But then again, he has contacts with many foreign media companies, which would be helpful in diplomacy if he controls what information they see and can reach out to them for personal discussions about certain topics.
Wait… If I pick Dertinge, it could potentially fracture the GWP as the GDU is a competing political party, and his reconciliation policy would anger some of the GWP supporters. The GWP and GDU would be fighting each other. This could be a good wedge issue to get me out of office by the next election and help establish the European Union.
I felt a smile from across my face, now that's a win-win!
"You already decided who will be your Foreign Minister?" Elya blinked.
"Yes, I've decided." I got up from my chair, still grinning. "I'll be writing a letter for their appointment."
One step closer to retirement!
A few days later, at the Usedom Island research and testing facility:
The old staff was still here. Dr. Max Kramer, the head researcher, and Otto Lutz, the site's administrator. General Lergen and a few other high-ranking military officials such as Admiral Albrecht, and Air Force Generals Weiss and von Richtoffer were also present. Admiral Albrecht was confused as to why I requested that he attend the first helicopter demonstration, but I knew that the Navy and Coast Guard forces in my previous world made extensive use of helicopters.
"Good morning President," Otto Lutz held out his hand for a handshake.
As I gripped his hand for the shake, he hit me with a direct question. "If I may ask, I am not sure why you took an interest in this project. Even the Americans and Albish turned away Mr. Sikorsky."
"It will be an important asset for our military and eventually the civilian aviation industry as well," I beamed with a smile.
He was briefly taken aback by my comment before regaining his composure. "Everyone, please follow me to the testing site."
We were escorted to a concrete lot that was next to the water. In the middle of it was the prototype helicopter. I had to pretend to not be bored because I knew how modern helicopters fly, so I had to feign interest to show my support for this proof of concept.
"Where is Mr. Sikorsky?" I asked no one in particular as the pilot started the engine and began checking off something on his clipboard.
"He said he's flying it himself," Lutz uncomfortably pointed at the said pilot.
"Oh…" I muttered as the engine backfired and sputtered to a stop, causing the helicopter to glide back down to the concrete lot briefly. Undeterred, Mr. Sikorsky proceeded to restart the engine immediately.
A scientist testing something on themselves. Maybe Dr. Schugel would have considered valuing safety more if he had the magic potential to test the orbs himself. Although with his religious insanity, he probably would have plowed ahead with the Type 95 research if it worked on him and would have mocked the other mages for not being able to figure out how to use the death device.
As the engine reached a steady state speed, the helicopter slowly took off and hovered around the concrete lot.
"Did he mention anything about the speed and altitude it can achieve?" I looked at Dr. Max Kramer.
"He said he'll worry about that after he finishes working out how to control the helicopter," Dr. Max Kramer scoffed with a hint of skepticism. "It took a lot of effort from him to even get the thing to hover for more than a few minutes. His current plan is to break the record for hovering in one spot without magic or cable anchoring, which was last set by hot air balloons on a windless day."
The helicopter began to ascend upward vertically for an altitude of about 50 meters before it descended back to about 20 meters.
General Weiss cleared his throat. "I'm still trying to understand the use of this helicopter when we have mages."
"How many mage battalions do we have?" I raised an eyebrow while still focusing on the helicopter flight.
"About 10 in active combat, ready status, or in a training cycle. About another 15 in the mage civil defense." Weiss nonchalantly replied, to which I suspected he wasn't making the connection.
I then turned to him with a deeper tone. "And if we were scraping the barrel including conscripting mages as young as eight, how many more mage battalions could we get?"
General Weiss hesitated when I set the parameters to the age that I was enrolled into OCS, but he chewed on the question nonetheless. "Maybe 20?" He eventually answered.
"And what happens if they take attrition from another war, how would we replace them?" I hit him with another rhetorical question, to which it seemed to click in his mind. "You saw what happened to the Francois Republic when they invaded us. They had to scrape the barrel to get enough mages to threaten us, and those colonial mages were meat shields for their few skilled mages. Even then they had a finite number of mages."
I turned back to Dr. Max Kramer. "Did Mr. Sikorsky say what are the requirements for being a helicopter pilot?"
"He's not a mage, so I'm assuming anyone that meets the requirements to begin training as a plane pilot could also be a helicopter pilot."
"This is why I want the development of a vertical or short takeoff aircraft to succeed," I snapped to get everyone's attention. "We can mass produce helicopters and train thousands of helicopter pilots. They won't make mages unemployed though, because there are still many uses for them. Such as special operations behind enemy lines."
The helicopter stopped hovering in one location, flew backward for some distance, and then it shifted direction to hover around us in a circle with Igor facing towards us the whole time.
"I'm assuming you wanted me here because you wanted me to observe a substitute for marine mages?" Admiral Albrecht finally ended his silence.
"Of course," I smiled. "You could have a helicopter with every destroyer. And a squadron on a carrier. Or even build a miniature carrier that exclusively deploys helicopters. Far more than the current allotment of marine mages that the navy has. You could also equip those helicopters with torpedoes or anti-ship missiles to extend your strike range, or depth charges to hunt enemy submarines which would have to come up to the surface to shoot back at the helicopters. Or have it carry a dozen passengers or some cargo."
The helicopter then hovered just a few meters off the ground, weaved through a few trees, and ducked behind a building.
"Fly at low altitude. Pop up. Fire off rockets. Then dive back down behind a hill or trees." von Richtoffer mused as he rubbed his chin. "Fascinating."
"And another way for paratroopers to enter an area," I quipped. "Rocket pod helicopters would be useful for providing fire support for air-deployed infantry."
I turned to General Lergen, "What do you think?"
He had a pensive expression on his face before speaking; "If I may, President, I've never expected a mage to be so interested in putting other mages out of work, but I think once we see more advanced versions of this helicopter, I might have a better idea of how to make use of it."
"You said the helicopter also has civilian uses?" Lutz curiously asked.
"Medical transport, search and rescue, tracking down criminals that are fleeing in a vehicle or on foot, power line inspection, news reporting, transporting people when there are no nearby airfields, and so on." I waved my hand dismissively.
"News reporting?"
"Mount a film camera on the helicopter," I nonchalantly shrugged. "I'm sure TV watchers would appreciate having a bird's eye view of an event. There will always be a use for the C-tier mages after all."
Then we all heard a loud bang as the helicopter climbed past 70 meters in altitude and saw a trail of black smoke spewing from the helicopter engine. I immediately fired up my orb and blasted off, leaving the rest of the group in the dust. When I came up next to Sikorsky, he kept his eyes forward.
"Don't bother me, I've always wanted to try out the autorotation concept. Just let me know if there's a fire behind me."
"What?" I ask, my mind too worried about losing a valuable engineer to comprehend his words.
He ignored me and kept his hands on the controls as the helicopter descended. The helicopter came to a rough landing on the grass and nearly tipped it over had I not activated my physical strength spell to push back on it. He unbuckled his restraints and hopped out of the seat to take a look at the engine as the rest of the group came running over.
I turned to everyone else.
"I see a bright future for helicopters. Igor Sikorsky has my support."
1944, January 1st, Berun:
I quietly chewed on the delicious breakfast cooked by Visha, trying to ignore the throbbing pain from the hangover of yesterday's party. The fact that she woke up before me to cook was a good sign that she was warming up to me again, and that she remains a better drinker than I am.
I picked up the newspaper and almost spat out the sausage pieces in my mouth.
The front page photos showed the GDU party throwing a massive celebration with a couple prominent GWP party members being invited for Dertinge announcing that he accepted his nomination to the Foreign Minister post and was ecstatic to work for me. A stunned Conrad was seen standing off in the corner.
So much for hoping that I could fracture the GWP. Instead, it looked like all I did was help the two political parties form closer ties.
Visha walked into the dining room with a platter and winked at me, "Oh, I see you're up."
"Good morning darling," I mumbled while taking a drink of coffee.
"Hangover really got to you, didn't it?" Visha chuckled as she set down the platter.
"I guess…"
"Say, what do you think of General Ugar's boasting about Germania soon being able to build a nuclear power plant?"
I blinked for a moment, trying to get through the fogginess in my head. "What made him so confident again?"
"The experimental reactor obtained over 100 hours of continuous high-power operation without any issues," Visha then tsked while pouring more coffee into my cup. "My, you are quite hungover."
"Mhhh…" I grunted as something didn't feel right. "I don't want him to get ahead of himself too much. I won't take any chances with nuclear power plants. In the event of a major failure, and there will be one, I want to be certain that any accidents will be contained so that there are no radiation threats to the outside of the power plant."
She then pulled a notebook and pen from her pocket to jot down what I said as I looked back at the newspaper and flipped it.
"A major counteroffensive in South Bharat… from the South Bharatians." I dropped the newspaper. "I thought Defense Minister Lergen told General Romel to stay on the defensive?! Why am I finding out about this now?"
"I guess you didn't remember that conversation from last night either," Visha laughed as she sat down. "Lergen mentioned that a South Bharatian nationalist in charge of the Bharatian volunteers had disregarded General Romel's plans to conduct a counter-offensive against the North Bharatian reserve army's southward offensive. And it looks like the South Bharatian counteroffensive is working as it caught the North Bharatian reserve forces off-balanced. It looks like everything is going well for us!"
"I hope the Albish doesn't think we're trying to steal their former crown jewel…" I absentmindedly mumbled.
"You didn't want South Bharat?" Visha seemed shocked at what I just said.
I rubbed my forehead in agony. How could this have gone so wrong? I never wanted South Bharat as a colony. Angering the Allied Kingdom and getting into the colonial game when everyone is losing is just dumb.
"Where did you get that idea?"
"It was when you were in South Bharat forming an army using their draftees that volunteered to join you, putting them on our payroll and having them trained by our volunteers. And then there was your intervention in the civilian government."
I slammed my head on the table, startling her.
"I just wanted to stop the spread of communism! They were mass executing their citizens, including children who were as young as me when I was going through OCS! I couldn't let that happen on my watch! Besides, how could I trust the South Bharati military command with our arms shipment or hold the line when they were stealing food from their own men?!"
Visha didn't say anything as I pulled my head back up, now rubbing my forehead in pain.
"Why did things go so wrong?" I asked.
"You didn't notice South Bharatians in Berun during the evenings and weekends? Or the newspaper articles about the new guests?"
That was when I realized it's been a long time since I've actually wandered around in public and got a sense of the day-to-day life, instead of spending all of my time on official government work. "I should probably get out more often," I absently concluded, "Just to see what is happening in Germania."
"...Do you want us to go out together?" Visha asked apprehensively.
I paused, considering her idea before frowning and then shaking my head apologetically, "I'm sorry, Visha but I don't want the attention while out for a casual stroll. I know it's already public, but if I want to do a casual stroll of the city, I don't want to be mobbed by the crowds." I sigh, "A shame that Neumann is still in the Bharati subcontinent instead of being here to pretend to be my older brother for my disguise."
Visha smiles back half-heartedly before her eyes widen, "We could disguise ourselves to pretend to be sisters." She giggled as she suggested that, though a hint of disappointment is still there.
"Maybe." I chuckled, "Let's save that discussion when the next weekend approaches. Is there anything else to report?"
She then got up from her chair and walked up to me. Very close to me.
"Do you have a headache from your hangover?" She tilted her head.
"Yes?..."
"Well I know the perfect physical cure for it," She winked, then embraced me as she deeply kissed me.
It didn't take long for us to exchange more than just kisses.
1944, January 17th, Nanjing:
"Our fishermen have reported Albish warships loitering in Akinese waters and next to Formosa," Kang gritted his teeth as he rolled out a map marking the observed warships. "There is no reason for their warships to be so close to us as we have no naval power, and the Akinese already has a large fleet if we made any overseas attempts."
"Perhaps they're just posturing? Or just seeking a blockade?" Li nervously suggested, gripping his hands together.
"There's also a heavy enemy air presence buzzing our coastal area to discourage our reconnaissance plane from flying over the ocean. Something is wrong." Peng rubbed his chin.
"Albish and their partners have completely pulled out of the Bharatian subcontinent. They may be seeking multiple simultaneous coastal raids or a direct naval invasion." Zhang stared at the map. "The question is where they would strike and how hard?"
"They devastated Karachi when withdrawing from it. It'll take well over a year for the North Bharatians to fully clean up the mess. We can't allow them to do that to our homeland." Peng's face hardened. "I suggest we station our garrisons at every coastal city, enough to deter or slow down a coastal raid for reinforcements to arrive. Allowing them to completely control a city is unacceptable."
"That does mean withholding our recently recruited forces from reinforcing North Bharat, due to the sheer size of our coastline…" Li tapped his pen. "Are the stealth marches across the mountains into North Bharat canceled?"
"What will our brethren say when much of their army is still trapped in South Bharat?" Kang turned to Zhang.
"The Rus and them prematurely pushed for this war. I only agreed to it for the Type 97 orbs. Our Great Leap Forward is indefinitely postponed to fuel our war effort. We have invested far more into this war than what we have been given. The encircled North Bharatians are far beyond saving at this point with how long the reserve North Bharatian army sat around Karachi." Zhang growled as he ratted off his grievances. "And now our homeland is at risk. So yes, the stealth marches will be canceled."
"We can't just…"
"Yes, we will!" Zhang slammed his fist onto the table. "I am not going to allow them to ruin Shanghai or other coastal cities like what they did to Karachi."
"We could preemptively attack them by invading Hongkong," Peng put his hand up to a furious Kang to motion him to stand down. "That will force them to reinforce the city."
"An interesting idea, but that city is surrounded on three sides by the ocean. We need to have a way to prevent the Albish and Akinese from just lining up their battleships and kinetically blocking our men from getting anywhere close to the city. I know we have the coastal railway artillery guns to be moved down to support an offensive against Hongkong, but that means leaving the rest of our coastline vulnerable."
"I can't believe we're doing this…" Kang was then silenced by Zhang's knife hand.
"North Bharat and the Rus made their own mess. Now they have to fix it themselves. I don't care for their claims of 'international communist revolution' when they could have maintained the status quo."
"As you wish…" Kang bitterly hissed.
1944, January 23rd, off the coast of Aki Dominion, on approach to Joseon:
"What the hell is Joseon?" Major Nasser stared at the map of the landing area, while Major Salem and Mohieddin were equally dismayed. "And what weather are we dealing with?"
"I asked about the climate and was only told that our winter gear would be sufficient," Colonel Anwar then continued speaking without a pause. "We are not going to be provided winter clothing, so we will need to immediately go about 'borrowing' additional clothing."
"They want us dead, don't they? Dead far away from home." Salem began to maniacally laugh. "They couldn't find a way to get us killed in North Bharat, so this is their second try."
"And I saw the news about the prince being put under house arrest," Mohieddin sighed. "It seems the Albish is liking whatever our king is doing, and allowed the king to do what he likes."
"All we can do is make the best of our situation," Anwar tried to calm down the situation.
Nasser slammed his fist onto the table. "They want us to be on the beaches, unlike the other officers who only demonstrated boot kissing. We're dead men walking. Even if we survive the initial landing, the Chinese will sooner or later arrive in full force. We only have a handful of machine guns and mortars, and just barely enough bolt action rifles that are older than you! The only thing we have in plentiful numbers are landmines that were manufactured during the first European War!"
"There is one advantage that we have…" Anwar smiled.
"What is that?"
"They gave us no clear objective or timeline. Nor do we have to follow a detailed micromanaged plan from General Abdel Sirri Amer, although that micromanaging is needed for other officers as you pointed out that they were only selected and promoted based on being obedient rather than to actually think for themselves."
"So what should we do?"
"I have absolutely no hint of a clue. Colonel Roberts from Kanata has ignored my telegrams so any coordination with the Kanatians that are landing in Joseon after us isn't going to happen. We will have to improvise on the go when we hit the beaches as there is little information of what we are going up against."
"Well, that's just dandy then, isn't it?"
1944, February 7th, CSR, coastal city of Tientsin, east of Peking (Beijing):
The loud shrill of a bagpipe playing the "The March of The Cameron Men" lyrics echoed across the harbor as the 2nd Commando Battalion and other Albish forces poured from their landing crafts and onto the shore.
Two bullets struck the bagpipe, silencing it. Visibly annoyed, Lieutenant Colonel John Churchill discarded his instrument and withdrew his longbow and an arrow.
"With all due respect sir, what are you doing?" Smith looked on with confusion, alongside an equally confused Edwards.
Churchill fired an arrow, which silenced the source of gunfire from a nearby building, before answering Smith.
"Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."
Before Smith could say anything in response, Churchill then drew his sword and screamed as he charged forward into the building's front entrance amidst the hail of gunfire, impaling a Chinese soldier that popped out from their cover at exactly
the wrong time.
"That absolute madman…" Edwards muttered.
The gunfire from the building soon silenced one by one, until a dozen surrendered Chinese soldiers emerged from the front entrance, with a smiling, blood drenched Churchill behind them.
A junior officer ran up to Churchill while the two soldiers continued to stare in amazement.
"Sir, most of the harbor will be secured soon and the only immediate enemy reinforcements are their city police. We can proceed onto the rest of the city, but we also received reports of arriving Chinese reinforcements throughout the region."
"I didn't make arrangements for the reallocation of riverine combat boats, extra vehicles, and the fuel for us, just to turn around and head back to the ships." Churchill growled in annoyance. "We're not going to just settle for Tientsin. No, we're also going to push for Peking over the river and land. That'll get the enemy's attention, and we'll have a real battle!"
Before the junior officer could protest, Smith shouted while pumping a fist into the air. "We'll follow that man into hell! LET'S GO!"
1944, February 14th, somewhere in Joseon:
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Nasser stared in disbelief at Anwar's briefing. "They gave only 24 hours for our brigade to be ready to immediately board the ships?"
"General Abdel Sirri Amer gave his orders for us to be redeployed across the sea to assist in holding the southern flank between Tientsin and Peking." Anwar sighed with a deep tone of exhaustion. "The alternative is us freezing and starving in the middle of nowhere because all of the reinforcements and supplies are now being diverted from Joseon to the northeast CSR after the Albish forces unexpectedly pushed inland towards Peking instead of just conducting a coastal raid."
"At least we aren't being shot at other than the occasional local Joseonian forces that seemed more curious about who we are than actually killing us," Mohieddin grumbled as he uncomfortably shuffled in his makeshift winter clothing.
"You mean the locals taking pity on our desperate conditions because we were more focused on surviving the winter with our meager supplies and fuel, and dealing with our weapons and equipment not working in the deep freeze, than actually conducting military operations?" Salem sneered, then sneezed. "The only reason the Albish are redeploying us is to send us into the butcher's shop, and we're the cattle and sheep!"
"We don't have a choice," Anwar prepared to exit the tent and had a flash of anger on his face. "But we will make them pay when we return home. For now, we need to focus on survival."
"This can't get any worse," Mohieddin coughed as Anwar walked out.
Later that evening:
Chen Shusheng was marching with his formation through the mountains. Actually, more like climbing over the ice covered rocky surfaces because the trail wasn't wide enough to get everyone through fast enough, and the enemy had sentries posted along the known roads. The only thing he could see was the white stripe on each soldiers' backpack in the moonlit light, and the occasional wooden post with a white paint or cloth on it.
'I'm so hungry right now, if only we could stop to eat something more than putting frozen hardtacks into our mouths to wait for them to soften up.'
He felt a rock shift under his feet and attempted to grab onto something, but instead he just tumbled off the path and the slope became rapidly steeper. The only thing waiting for him at the bottom was a long way down into a forest.
Suddenly, someone grabbed him and pulled him back up. He could see a glow of the mage's face from the orb and the spell she used to stop his fall.
"Interesting," The mage remarked as she adjusted her hold on him, "Every other person who went tumbling down a cliff had a panicked look on their face and often screamed. You looked like you were at peace."
Shusheng could only sigh, "I accepted my death." He muttered, though the mage is able to hear it still and she hums.
"You probably saw too many things in Sibyria, didn't you?"
Shusheng remained silent for a moment before hesitantly speaking: "It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him, and I'm not that person."
"Were you involved in…" Here Shusheng could guess that the mage bit her lip, even though he cannot see her, "What happened when winter set in?"
"Yes." He answered blankly.
The mage is silent for a moment, but then continues, "At least you're honest about what you did in Sibyria." She looked off to the side, though as to where there was something Shusheng didn't know. "I have to tell myself that it was just a necessity of survival and that I'm not a bad person. Every single day. It felt wrong to stealthily track Rus forces not to take them prisoner for interrogation, but as a hunt for food. Except for the Rus prisoners that offered to help us track their comrades down to save their own skin, that was also brutal. And it certainly didn't help that mages need lots of food which meant a failed hunt resulted in us going hungry." The mage unexpectedly vents out, leaving Shusheng unsure of exactly how to respond.
"...What's your name?" He eventually says.
"Yang Huimin, yours?"
"My name is Chen Shusheng."
"Chen Shusheng? Hopefully we don't meet again with you falling off a cliff." Her tone is playful, but it turned serious upon the next part: "Because when we get closer to the enemy, mages won't be allowed to fly until after we commence the attack."
She dropped him onto the ground, and for the first time since she rescued him, Shusheng finally got to see his rescuer's face before she flew off.
"Well, she is attractive…" he thought to himself.
And it was thoughts like that which kept his foot on the ledge instead of open air.
A few hours later:
"Get Major Mohieddin to the rear, I'm taking command!" Salem shouted at two soldiers, who nodded and carried an unconscious and bleeding Mohieddin away.
Salem pushed the dead machine gunner aside to take his spot in order to continue laying down fire, as flares continued to be launched into the night sky to illuminate the night. A stream of his bullets deflected off of a revealed ground mage.
"There it is!" Salem yelled before ducking behind a boulder, just as the abandoned machine gun was vaporized from the mage's hail of fire.
"I got it!" A soldier stood up with a PIAT launcher, and instantly lost his head to the same mage. Two other soldiers launched their anti-tank projectiles with the PIAT, missed and ceased to exist from the mage's return fire.
Salem crawled over to the headless corpse to pick up the launcher, waited for another hail of magic bullets to fly overhead at another unfortunate target that drew the mage's attention, and then popped up to launch the anti-tank projectile with a loud "SPONG" of the launcher's large spring being released while the mage was reloading.
He didn't have time to take satisfaction in the projectile shattering the mage's shield and reducing the mage into a cloud of flying body parts, as he ducked and ran to avoid another mage's gunfire. He then looked around and saw what was left of his two battalions now engaged in a fierce, and losing melee against the Chinese and Joseonians, and the occasional mages, before continuing to run.
"We're done planting the charges, fallback to the bluffs!" Nasser's voice shouted in the distance as Nasser ran across the now abandoned camp.
"Where's the rest of your battalions?" Nasser was shocked as Salem stumbled into the fallback cover.
"They're all dead, or about to be. Same with Mohieddin's two battalions." Salem panted for breath. "Blow our camp!"
"Not yet…" Nasser held up the detonator. "We had no time to retrieve our belongings and supplies from the camp, so I expect them to be slowed down by the looting."
Salem sniffed the air. "Why was our field kitchen cooking in the middle of this battle?"
Nasser grinned. "I made good use of the last of our fuel and food supplies. And all of our boxes of landmines that we piled the flour bags on top of to conceal them."
"Take no prisoners, kill them all!" Colonel Han Xianchu shouted, which the rest of his soldiers shouted in unison.
'This is easy. Almost too easy.' Xianchu walked over a barrier where piles of the enemy corpses were scattered about, a symbol of their futile resistance.
He continued walking forward, only to come to a halt upon seeing something strange. He pulled out his binoculars to confirm his suspicions and grinded his teeth in frustration as he watched his forces be distracted by the looting of the camp and the field kitchen.
'I knew they were hungry from the week-long march, but I didn't expect them to stop to eat in the middle of a battle!'
He stared in disbelief at his soldiers carrying off what looked like flour bags.
'Enough of this nonsense…' Xianchu withdrew his pistol and aimed it into the air, intending to fire a shot to get people's attention. And if that didn't work, then into the unruly mob.
Someone knocked him over and into a snowbank on the side facing away from the camp and field kitchen. Before he could get up to identify who just earned themselves a whipping, suddenly the camp and field kitchen exploded, lighting up the night sky with a burning glow and pinning him further into the snowbank. The occasional mortar shells that didn't immediately detonate had instead rocketed into the sky or in random directions across the ground before exploding, with one of them screaming over Xianchu's head.
Along with the occasional charred body parts that were also sent flying in every direction.
Xianchu's ears rang as he struggled to get back up, amidst the chaos and the screams.
"Stay and fight you fools! They have no mages! Just one more push and they have nowhere to go except into the sea!" Xianchu screamed at the routing soldiers as he pushed aside a body that was gurgling from a shrapnel wound to their neck, barely hearing himself from his ringing ears.
The next day, onboard an Albish ship:
"You are all absolute morons! It is YOUR fault that the 13th Brigade fell victim to your incompetence! And because of the major setbacks in Joseon, the Akinese military used that to justify not sending their soldiers into the peninsula!" General Abdel Sirri Amer yelled, saliva droplets hitting Colonel Anwar in the face, while Major Salem and Major Nasser were standing off to the side. A dozen other soldiers were standing next to Amer's side, acting as his guard.
"And you withheld information about friendly forces that were also in Joseon, including your other brigades!? Those that could have helped us fend off the surprise attack." Colonel Anwar snapped back. "I only knew about the nearby Kanatian forces from conversations I heard onboard the landing ship before our deployment, and after deployment when I could see their camp with my binoculars."
"You didn't have the need to know about their activities," General Amer snorted as he pushed Anwar away with his left hand, then wiped his left hand with a handkerchief. "Your brigade had a single mission that I gave you after your beach landing, which was to move your lazy ass off the beach and march inland to search and destroy any communist forces that you find."
General Amer took a deep breath, trying and failing to maintain even a facade of calm, "I did not appreciate you telling me that was an impossible goal, claiming that the weather was well below freezing with strong winds, and that you lacked the fuel and winter gear to avoid excessive winter attrition losses. Upon seeing your continued insubordination, I had your brigade reassigned to the CSR.
Anwar looked in fascination as his superior's hair shook, dangerously off-balance even as the tirade continued, "clearly if you had followed my order without hesitation like a good officer, you would have found the Chinese forces and engaged them on your terms instead of being surprised at night."
Major Nasser raised an eyebrow at General Amer's gesture, while Major Salem blurted, "I saw that. You just called him unclean."
"He is worthless like dog shit, like the both of you." General Amer briefly looked at Salem, then turned his attention back at Colonel Anwar.
"Albish air reconnaissance reported no communist military activities for us to engage! And what happened to the other forces that were in Joseon?" Colonel Anwar breathed heavily. "Colonel Roberts refused to coordinate with us in the days prior. I radioed his command during and after the night battle, and all I got was static. I did see fires and explosions in the distance, at where his command encampment was located. The next morning I saw through my binoculars a CSR flag planted on the smoldering remains of his headquarters. The Kanatians were far better equipped than we were, and unlike us, they even had tanks and mages!"
"That doesn't matter! I still expected your brigade to do their job without questioning orders, and now I expect your brigade to hold the southern flank between Tientsin and Peking, using the equipment and supplies that you brought back onboard."
"Our brigade has been reduced from 6 battalions to about half a battalion from the night battle and the following exposure to the night time winter elements with no shelter or heating fuel, and almost all of our equipment and supplies were destroyed." Colonel Anwar continued standing at attention, barely containing his rage. "I've been told by Albish military advisors that a military unit that sustains more than 15% casualties in a short duration is combat ineffective until recovery and reformation, and we're closer to 90% casualties. The Albish doctors are arranging to have Major Mohieddin sent to a hospital in Akitsushima Dominion for medical treatment, while Major Salem and Major Nasser directly fought in the battle because almost everyone under their command was wounded or killed. What you're doing is telling a formation that now only exists on paper to conduct a critical role."
"Then you should have done a better job to not get overrun by some communists and resorting to blowing up your camp," Amer mockingly retorted. "There will be no deviation from the war plan. Your brigade will still execute my order to land at Tientsin's harbor and then march to your designated positions with what they have, or I will have all of you court-martialed right now aboard this ship, be shot for cowardice, and dump your corpses into the sea all in the same day, and then send your men to the CSR anyways with new officers."
"...What did you tell the Albish when you saw what was left of us?" Major Salem broke the silence as General Amer walked away, while his guards followed suit.
"I told them everything is fine, and that your brigade will help with their flank security. After all, it would be unusual for one of our proud brigades to report complete combat ineffectiveness when every single other brigade reported full readiness."
General Amer then slammed the door shut just as Major Salem screamed, "And you think the other brigades are telling you the truth?!"
'May Allah have mercy on our king and his lackeys when we return to Aegyptus, because we will show them the same mercy that we have been given…' Nasser thought to himself.
AN:
wiki/Chiune_Sugihara
Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝, Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986)[1] was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory, risking his career and the lives of his family.[2][3] The fleeing Jews were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland and Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania.
Where I got Georg Dertinge from: wiki/Georg_Dertinger
A more in-depth Wikipedia article on him: translate?hl=&sl=de&tl=en&u=https. .org_Dertinger
VS-300 helicopter video from 1941: watch?v=paWUTEsSSLQ
Context for Churill: wiki/Jack_Churchill
Winter warfare logistics video: watch?v=PI3PpsM3NOI
Reference to the anti-tank weapon that splattered a mage: wiki/PIAT
Reference to the battle where a "field kitchen distracted an attacking army, aka the "Sausage War": wiki/Battle_of_Varolampi_Pond
Reference to Roberts: wiki/John_Hamilton_Roberts
Roberts was put in charge of the ground troops for the raid against Dieppe, on August 19, 1942. His command post was aboard HMS Calpe, and due to poor communications he had no idea how his troops were managing, until they called for landing craft for immediate evacuation. Roberts was criticized for unnecessarily committing his reserve troops (Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal) and inadvertently increasing the casualties.
He was relieved of his command six months later.[4] It was Roberts's inept performance during a war-game codenamed Operation Spartan in March 1943 rather than the Dieppe raid, which ended Roberts's career.[5] Lieutenant General Harry Crerar, commanding I Canadian Corps (and under whose command Robert's 2nd Division fell), reprimanded Roberts for the poor co-ordination between the 2nd Division's artillery and infantry during Operation Spartan war-games, and that Roberts failed to have forces dig in after seizing a bridgehead despite having ample time to do so.[5] After Operation Spartan, Roberts was judged unfit to hold a combat command.
Reference to General Abdel Sirri Amer's behaviors, from the book "Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness". The behaviors of Anwar, Salem, Nasser and Mohieddin would have been considered atypical in the real life Egyptian military of the time, and probably rubbed senior commanders, peers and subordinates the wrong way.
Page 133:
After the Six-Day War, the Egyptian General Staff had conducted a number of extensive studies on the strengths and weaknesses of both the Egyptian and Israeli armed forces, which they had used to guide their preparations for the October War. One important conclusion of these studies was that many of the problems that had proven detrimental to Egyptian forces in past wars were the product of Egyptian cultural patterns and thus could not be solved quickly or easily. (An important Egyptian vote for the cultural explanation.) In particular, the Egyptians concluded that the constant deception and distortion of information they had experienced at all levels in their wars was derived from Arab cultural traits. Their response was to devise a way to skirt the problem altogether by building a massive signals intercept complex on Jebel Ataqah, a large hill west of the Suez Canal, and manning it with large numbers of Hebrew speakers. The Israelis were notorious for broadcasting even the most sensitive information in the clear in battle, and the Egyptians reasoned that they could get accurate reports on the situation at the front by intercepting Israeli situation reports, rather than having to rely on their own troops for the information they needed.
Page 137:
At first light, Israeli air and special forces units destroyed the Egyptian signals intercept facilities on Jebel Ataqah, depriving Cairo of its most reliable source of information on the fighting. Then, as could only be expected, without the advantages in numbers, surprise, and intelligence, or the benefit of carefully scripted and rehearsed orders that had made their initial attacks so successful, the Egyptian ground forces failed miserably.
Page 395:
Of course, the heavy injunctions against taking initiative by low- and mid-level personnel were interwoven with the cultural preference for heavily centralized hierarchies, both of which combine to furnish an obvious explanation for the rigidity and inflexibility of Arab militaries. Although the perverse civil-military relations of most Arab states may have played a role in this tendency toward over-centralization, the cultural tendencies of Arab society were at least as important if not more—the fact that the heavily politicized Argentine, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean, and South Vietnamese armies did not experience the same problems strongly suggests that it was far more Arab culture than politicization. Moreover, Arab militaries experienced the same over-centralization regardless of the political system they employed, or the degree of internal threat their leadership faced.
The same tendencies to avoid giving offense and to shift blame through secrecy, exaggeration, deception, or dissembling mimic the poor transmission of information along the chain of command displayed by one Arab military after another. As the cultural predilections would predict, Arab subordinates demonstrated a tendency to conceal, mislead, and even lie to their superiors about failures and reversals. At the same time, and again entirely consistent with the patterns of the dominant culture, superiors in Arab military chains of command were routinely reluctant to provide information to subordinates, preferring to retain the control that more extensive information bestowed.
Perun's videos on how corruption, self-deception and politics destroys armies. The third video from January 2023 has a section that explained how despite all of the military failures under Sergei Shoigu, he demonstrated excellent political navigation skills since 1991 to amass power and wealth:
watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4
watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik
watch?v=hx5mTslkUBs
OLD CHAPTER 9, IGNORE THE BELOW WRITING IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SEEING WHAT MY WRITING BACK IN 2021 LOOKS LIKE
AN: Edited by Gremlin Jack, perfect_shade and Nla Eid.
I would also like to thank Icura for their suggestions that prompted me to rework chapter 9 and 10.
1943, November 11th, Berun:
Lergen had been dreading this moment. He knew the Chancellor would be upset that thousands of coalition soldiers were being rendered combat ineffective from shell shock. General Patton in the Unified States' Army had slapped two soldiers at a field hospital for having shell shock symptoms and no physical injuries with the accusations of those soldiers trying to avoid front line duty. And slapping was far lighter punishment compared to the standard procedures for someone charged with dereliction of duty.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the Chancellor's office door.
"Come on in." she responded.
He slowly opened the door and saw her reading some papers as he stepped into her office.
"Chancellor, I have reports of the drastic uptick of service members suffering from shell shock symptoms in Bharat even if they hadn't been taking heavy fire. This will have a significant effect on the entire coalition force if we don't find a solution soon. The reports were sent by General Romel."
She set aside her papers as a cue to him to slide his report across her desk. A few tense moments passed while she skimmed through his report.
The Chancellor looked up from the report. "What are the high command's and the military medical department's opinions on this situation?"
He pushed up his glasses. "Deeply divided. I'm not exactly sure of what to do as I had never seen such a high number and severity of shell shock cases. General Romel stated that he was working with other coalition commanders to address the problems that they were all facing but opinions widely varied. The commanders from Kanata complained that they couldn't seem to find a training or recruit selection process to avoid having to deal with shell shock symptoms in the first place."
I nodded at General Lergen's answer. I could understand why as he would need my approval to authorize drastic disciplinary actions to force our soldiers back into combat.
"I'll let you know when I finish reading the report. We'll have a talk about this later."
He turned to exit my office as I continued reading the report. I'll need to keep him in check to protect our soldiers. Elya had told me about General Patton slapping two shell shocked soldiers, and the last thing I need is Lergen to do something more drastic than that.
There were two things in General Romel's report that caught my attention. The first one was where the encircled North Bharatis had launched a counteroffensive to retake a strongpoint. Coalition intel predicted their operation ahead of time so the defenders had established a minefield and barbed wire fences using captured inventory from the previously retreating communists. It was sort of obvious as that was the last strongpoint between our Krishna River Salient and the coalition's southeast push from Pune, and the loss of the strongpoint meant the communists' pocket would be split into two pieces. The commies took one look at the defenses and backed off.
The North Bharatis' second attempt at retaking the strongpoint used thousands of civilians to "manually" sweep the minefield, cut through the barbed wires and act as human shields against the bullets. A coalition commander recognized that the defenders were struggling with shooting at the communists, and gave the order to blanket the area with artillery fire and bombing strikes which pulverized both the civilians and North Bharati soldiers. In the aftermath, many coalition soldiers including Germanians became combat ineffective due to "shell shock".
What made my blood boil was when the report mentioned North Bharati propaganda claiming that they had used a penal battalion made up of "enemies of the state" for the mine clearing and human shield operation. A colossal waste of human life, especially since there was no way they could be rescued unless the CSR's Sibyrian Army had arrived over the mountains before we had even started on the defensive line construction. There were radio broadcasts, flyers and posters in the occupied land stating that anyone attempting to undermine the Bharati government or military would be viewed as unlawful combatants and thus subjected to conscriptions to the penal battalions. Of course North Bharat would declare itself as the rightful government of the entire Bharati subcontinent with their continuing refusal to recognize South Bharat government's legitimacy.
I looked at the safe where my Type 95 orb was kept. Would it be worth the mental corruption and the loss of memory if it meant I could shatter the communists' will to fight, stop further war crimes against civilians, and put an end to all of the shell shock symptoms? If the encircled army and North Bharat surrendered right now, maybe we could fortify in the mountains in time for the CSR's arrival. It would be far less damaging in the long run compared to using nuclear weapons on what is still South Bharat's territory.
I shook my head. As much as I am tempted to go back to Bharat and make the commies pay for their spiteful, endless war crimes, all it took was the image of Visha's face after I came back from South Bharat at that unforgettable dinner conversation to convince me to not get personally involved with that mess. At least until we have a deputy chancellor that can handle the administrative tasks when both Visha and I are away from Berun. When this war is over, I'll be able to be away from Berun for a few days just to watch the war criminals hang or be shot after their trials.
The second part of Romel's report was a pending military court trial after an airstrike against a fortification resulted in hundreds of dead civilians. A psychologist reported that many of the soldiers exhibited "mentally disturbed" symptoms after surveying the burned out fortress, and recommended treatment instead of prison.
It clicked in my head. I need to start working on a healthcare plan to address those problems before the soldiers return home. Last thing I want is a repeat of the Vietnam War where the US had a large number of neglected, suffering veterans.
How to treat it though? I could push the military and the medical community to conduct intensive studies into identifying people suffering from it, and how to treat it. Although that is easier said than done as mental health treatment is still relatively a poorly understood field compared to my previous world. All I can do is remove the obstacles that are blocking psychologists and other medical researchers from doing their job.
There was a knock on the door. I looked at the clock and my schedule. Zettour was here to discuss his resignation. I let out a deep sigh as I set aside General Romel's report. The beginning of one era and the end of another.
"Come on in." I said.
Zettour stepped into my office with a folded paper in his hand.
"I know it was inevitable, but I'm happy for the years we worked together," he said as he walked toward me to hand me the paper. I got out of my office seat to walk toward him to receive the paper, which I had been dreading ever since I won yet another landslide victory of 64% of the votes compared to the previous election where I had over 70% of the votes. My popularity has gone down, but I need to find a way to accelerate it faster.
I opened the paper and it was clearly his resignation letter and a request to be just a part-time advisor. I looked at him, unsure of what to say. First it was Rudersdorf, now it was him.
"I remember the first day we met at the war college." Zettour said. "I would have been happy to let you marry my daughter if you were a young man at the time."
Curse you Being X and your sick sense of humor for making me a female. "I was just doing my job for the Empire."
"And you blew past everyone's expectations. Rudersdorf had a good point of wanting you to work in Operations as your forward thinking would have been invaluable, but I was too afraid to let that happen when your 203rd mage battalion became the only effective tool the Empire had remaining in the late stage of the war. Even after you became Chancellor, some of us had concerns and kept an eye on you as a precaution, but that proved to be irrelevant with what you've done. I could have never imagined a future where our country is truly safe in Europe."
I did not need that reminder of almost missing my chance at a safe posting in a rear position.
Zettour continued on. "The only regret I have is not speaking out for you when you proposed that the Empire seek a peace treaty. Even if the Emperor and the rest of the generals still pressed on ahead for victory at any cost and I lost my career right there, I shouldn't have left you to the wolves."
I shrugged my shoulders. "It was a learning experience, that's for sure. I got ahead of myself and didn't read the room."
"If you did consider that as a learning experience, well I hope you're ready to become Kaiserin."
What? No. No. NO!
"I don't understand. I'm a Chancellor that can be removed from the next elections or if the Diet decides to go for a vote of no confidence."
Zettour chuckled. "You've always been humble in the private setting. But at least one of my colleagues let it slip by calling you Kaiserin instead of Chancellor."
"...Kaiserin? No, this isn't right!"
"It's all right. I'm relieved for this country to be in such capable hands."
That was almost exactly what Rudersdorf said on that fateful night when he ruined my carefully planned retirement plans by leaving me stuck in charge. I was about to say something when Zettour spoke again.
"Don't stress too much, I'll still be around if there's something bothering you."
I spent several minutes or so in my office calming myself down and thinking through how to deal with this mess. There's always the next election to wait for. I just need some good wedge issues to split the party so I don't get another landslide victory.
Sometime later, Elya entered my office with a folder. "Chancellor, I have information about the candidates that are vying for the foreign Minister position."
After a lengthy discussion, I had a good understanding of what to expect if I appointed Georg Dertinge or Fritz Weber.
Georg Dertinge had a less traditional diplomatic work history. He was a member of the conservative Germanian National People's Party and was part of the previous Chancellor's inner circle. After the previous Chancellor's fall, he established a news agency that provided local newspapers with information and foreign media companies with readily translated information so they didn't have to import raw information to translate it themselves, or rely on existing publications from Germanian media companies. And there are a lot of foreign media companies that use his services. He later cofounded the Germanian Democratic Union with Conrad Adenaue in opposition to the Germania Workers' Party. Elya thinks that was after her agents had a talk with him and the future of his news agency. He's probably using his news agency as a way to get his message out to the international community, which might explain why he reacted by co-establishing a political party. If the information was already translated, why try to sift through the raw, untranslated information? A great way of injecting one's political viewpoints into the news without making it obvious.
As for the other cofounder, Conrad Adenaue, he was an unusual one. He has been the mayor of Cologne for decades dating back to before the first Europan War and compared to other cities, Cologne did very well under his administration even in the final years of the first Europan War and during the early years of Germania. He initially considered running for Chancellorship when the GWP was on the rise, but had family problems which he decided had to take priority. His public statements said that I would plunge Germania into an unwinnable war. All while still retaining his mayor position, which means he had to be very good at his job to not get ousted by the GWP supporters. He criticized the Francois Republic for trying to destroy Ildoan Kingdom's democracy, and the Allied Kingdom for being the enablers. After the defeat of the Francois Republic, he argued for a lasting reconciliation with the Francois Republic as the mortal threat was communism, and the Russy Federation. He favored further integration of OZEV including an unified military structure, and that they should also include the Francois Republic, Lothiern, Legadonia Entente, Ispagna, Allied Kingdom and Unified States in the fight against communism. His reason for a tighter integration with the Francois Republic was that there is no point in further rivalry when both of us are now faced with a resurgent Russy Confederation and the new superpower Chinese Soviet Republic.
The real interesting thing was that Elya had obtained some information about Conrad using that bid as a way to raise publicity and funding. I told her that she shouldn't be spying on non-communist political parties, but she argued that it was from "open source research" and "polling", and thus it was fair game.
Fritz Weber is still the ambassador to the US, and had years of foreign diplomatic service, so he certainly had the experience. And a sizable portion of the Germanian diplomatic staff was backing him as well.
There were other candidates as well, but while they had similar views as Fritz, they either do not have as much experience, or have views that I disagreed with, such as one that I would have considered a Euroskeptic and another that called for opening another front in the Bharat War by invading the Russy Confederation. Operation Barbarossa is a fool's dream, and the last thing I want to deal with is an unified Rus force and a horde of cannibalistic CSR "volunteers" when my soldiers are fighting in Sibyria during the winter.
Fritz's position is still what I would call "classical", and had criticized Dertinge's party for wanting to partner with untrustworthy neighbors. I wouldn't blame him as the Francois Republic had just been defeated, the Allied Kingdom dragged their feet in helping us fight against the Rus, and the Legadonia Entente currently has a complicated relationship with us, where it is apparent that they don't fully trust us, but aren't hostile anymore. Ispagna and Lothiern have been off doing their own things.
Dertinge's position would pave the way for an European Union that I knew about in my previous world. But I'm not exactly sure about Dertinge's foreign diplomacy prowess. But then again, he has contacts with many foreign media companies, which would be helpful in diplomacy if he controls what information they see and can reach out to them for personal discussions about certain topics. The one sticking point is that the GDU also has an anti-homosexuality stance and criticized my relationship with Visha, and Konrad himself is a deeply religious man. Although Dertinge has kept quiet on those anti-homosexuality issues for some reason.
Wait, if I pick Dertinge, it could potentially fracture the GWP as the GDU is a competing political party, and his reconciliation policy would anger some of the GWP supporters. The GWP and GDU would be fighting each other. This could be a good wedge issue to get me out of office by the next election, and help establish the European Union. I feel a smile from across my face, now that's a win-win!
In the CSR:
"Buying 12.7mm and 14.5mm magic bullets, DShK heavy machine guns, and PTRS-41 anti-tank rifles from Rus arms factories? And they are to be routed to Afghanistan?" Li Kenong asked himself as he read the order request. "And why would they need such heavy weapons?"
He figured if the Sibyrian Army's mages needed those before entering North Bharat for combat, there was probably a good reason for it. He started writing up an order for the logistics office in Rus to begin paying the arms factory for the weapons and ammunition.
1943, November 16th, Berun:
I was reading through the newspaper and saw that my plan of using Dertinge as a wedge issue wasn't working as intended. Elya reported that Conrad appeared astonished if not downright shocked when he was told about Dertinge's nomination. Sure, we lost a few members from the GWP, but not enough to allow me to get out of office.
There was a knock on my office door.
"Come in."
Visha walked in holding some papers and she had a smile on her face. It was good to see her warm up around me again.
"Hello, Visha, what do you have for me?" I greet her with a smile.
"Otto Lutz has two updates for you, Chancellor." She reads over one of the paper, "The first one is that Dr. Fischer's work on the Type 99 Block 2 Orb is complete. There's nothing too special about it, just various tweaks and optimizations, such as slightly improved stealth and shield spells. The biggest changes would be the reflex and other melee combat related spell improvements in response to the CSR mages' preference for close quarter combat. The orb will be starting production soon, so we might see their use in the Bharati War if the war drags on. As for the Type 100 Orb, Dr. Fischer had been working with the jet fighter researchers to understand the sound barrier aerodynamics phenomenon and developed a shield spell that would allow mages to safely reach up to 925 kilometers per hour, compared to the Type 99 orb's 644 kilometers per hour. He specifically referenced your Type 99 prototype test run as the final goal. He already has a prototype running."
"925 kilometers per hour for how long?"
"They said they're not sure how long the orb can withstand that speed and it might be just for a short duration sprint, but it was designed for a higher mana output compared to the Type 99 orb."
I was silent for a moment, "...They don't need me to do a test-run on it, do they?"
Visha frowned. "I told them that they are not to give you a prototype orb. Remember when you melted the prototype Type 99 orb?"
I indeed did, and that nearly killed me. Although that was because I bypassed the safeties and overloaded it. But now I recall that I promised myself that I wouldn't be a test pilot again, and so I sigh in relief.
"Fine. Fine. Just tell them that I would rather have a good enough orb now, than to wait for several years for a "perfect" orb. If the 925 kilometers per hour can't be achieved safely, at least go for something that's more than 644 kilometers per hour. I don't want a repeat of the Type 95 orb's development where the Empire sunk endless resources and time into it." I say tiredly.
Visha frowns, probably either because of my sigh from earlier or just my tired tone of voice. She silently thinks for a second and then looks up with her face indicating that she just had an idea. "I think you're feeling a bit cooped up. When was the last time you had time for yourself?"
I try to think of an answer but come up blank. She had a good point - It's been a while since I had time for myself… but it can't be helped.
"Has Lieutenant Colonel Koenig come back from his adventures in the new republics?" I opt to ask instead.
Visha looks at me silently for a moment before opening a small notebook and flipped through a few pages in it. "He said he'll be in Berun next week to start teaching at the mage academy."
"Ah, excellent. I want to talk to him to catch up on all of the missions he has operated and see how he wants to adjust the curriculum at the academy. Anyways, what's the next report?" I ask Visha, who discards the notebook and pulls up a paper from the stack.
"The second one is that Igor Sikorsky's prototype helicopter, the VS-300, is ready for a hovering test. He requests that you observe the test run at the Usedom Island testing center and provide your input on the project. Apparently there has been a lot of pushback from the other R&D staff and the military, and especially from the aerial mages. They're all doubtful of how useful a helicopter would be. And personally… I should also mention that I'm also a bit confused about how we would use helicopters."
Ah, now I definitely understand why the Unified States and Allied Kingdom rejected the helicopter when even Visha was doubtful about it.
"Tell Lutz that I'll make the time to visit Usedom Island for the helicopter testing. I believe it will be an important asset for our military and eventually the civilian aviation industry as well."
"Civilian aviation industry?" One of her eyebrows raised in confusion.
"Medical transport, search and rescue, tracking down criminals that are fleeing in a vehicle or on foot, power line inspection, news reporting, transporting people when there are no nearby airfields, and so on." I waved my hand dismissively.
"News reporting?"
"Mount a film camera on the helicopter. I'm sure TV watchers would appreciate having a birds eye view of an event."
"A lot of that can be done by mages as well. We already have an orb in development that might allow a C-tier mage to hover for a short duration."
"But mages are finite. You saw what happened to the Francois Republic when they invaded us. They had to scrape the barrel to get enough mages to threaten us, and those colonial mages were meat shields for their few skilled mages. Whereas for helicopters, we have a far larger pool of regular people to train as pilots. As long as we have the raw material to build the helicopters and the fuel to keep them going, they will work well. And with helicopters replacing mages in some of those roles, we could restructure the mage academy's curriculum to be more focused on special operations instead of conventional warfare. We already have lieutenant colonel Koenig and the stealth orbs to make it a reality, and that needs to happen if the CSR and Rus keep up with their proxy wars."
Visha nodded and flipped to another set of papers.
"General Ugar reported that they were able to operate the reactor for over 100 hours straight with no significant problems, and can proceed with building the power plant. He did say that the scientists are still confused of why the reactor power fluctuates on its own even with constant temperature and no adjustment to the controls, and why the reactor still generates a measurable amount of heat even after a full shut down. There were also issues with starting the reactor, where it was determined that depending on the power level of the reactor and the duration of its power level before shut down, sometimes the reactor would not start until several hours later. There was a suggestion to pull all of the control rods out to see if that would allow the reactor to start, but General Ugar refused to allow that. Some of the scientists suspect that the nuclear fission's intermediate steps are generating elements that are contributing to the power fluctuation."
Intermediate elements. Reactor is still hot after shutting it down, and unable to start at times. Now I'm searching my mind hard for memories from the internet binging that I did decades ago at this point.
"Have them check for short lived intermediate elements. That might be causing those reaction behaviors."
Visha raised an eyebrow, but wrote in her notes.
"Have they also discussed reactor safety?"
"Other than a backup coolant pump, not really."
"Why?"
"In their notes, they believe that a reactor accident is unlikely to happen as long as the reactor is properly supervised and maintained."
Chernobyl didn't have a containment structure. Fukushima Daiichi's containment structure couldn't withstand a hydrogen explosion. I'll be damned if I let that happen again on my watch. The simplest safe solution for a first generation reactor where the scientists don't even fully understand why it has unstable power output, is to build an overkill containment structure that will contain molten material and leaked radioactive water from a reactor meltdown to avoid groundwater contamination and not allow any radioactive airborne particles from an explosion to escape. And also resist a bombing or mage attack. For the cooling and reactor safety, they will have to cover every single failure mode such as complete loss of power, pipe rupture, natural disaster, or human error.
"I'll be writing some requirements that I expect the nuclear scientists and power plant designers to meet. If they don't implement all of those, I won't allow them to build the power plant. If there are any shortcuts, I will force feed them radioactive waste! Also, any details of their reactor pressure vessel?"
"Um, they said they opted to not use a pressure vessel so they could replace fuel rods during full reactor operation for the plutonium extraction."
"How is that possible?"
"They plan on using removable steel blocks for the reactor lid."
I took a deep breath when I realized what they were doing. These suicidal scientists are recreating Chernobyl!
"Then I expect the containment structure to be an overkill if they want to use an easily removable reactor vessel lid. There will not be a nuclear disaster in Germania, ever, and if there is one, that containment structure will hold all of the radioactive shit inside."
Visha nodded and wrote some more in her notes. I waited for her to be done before she flipped to another report.
"We received combat performance documentation of South Bharati officers and mages that were trained in Germania after they had returned back to South Bharat, and they are impressive. Progress in tightening the encirclement around the trapped North Bharati army has been improving. Our South Bharati volunteer army is asking us to have more of their officers and mages trained by us. South Bharat's army command has been complaining to South Bharat's local government about the 'excessive' foreign influence and the 'potential instability', but I don't think their complaints will get anywhere with them underperforming compared to our volunteer army."
I had a blank stare at Visha for a few seconds.
"Who authorized their training in Germania?"
"General Lergen." Visha said with a confused look on her face. "Why?"
I knew I should have kept a closer eye on that war maniac! But using Elya to keep an eye on him would be crossing the line though. Last thing I wanted was to make the military feel that they're not trusted, and a quick way of being overthrown in a coup, which isn't an ideal retirement plan.
"If the Allied Kingdom finds out about our foreign training program, they will think that we're making a play for South Bharat. The last thing I need is a second anti-Germania coalition being formed with the Allied Kingdom leading it, when I'm busy dealing with the Russy Confederation's and the CSR's activities."
"You didn't want South Bharat?" Visha asked, with an even more confused look.
I rubbed my forehead in agony. How could this have gone so wrong? I never wanted South Bharat as a colony. Angering the Allied Kingdom and getting into the colonial game when everyone is losing is just dumb.
"Where did you get that idea?"
"It was when you were in South Bharat forming an army using their draftees to be led by our OZEV volunteers and Germania marines, then later had the draftees paid by us when South Bharat cut off their pay. Especially your intervention in the civilian government."
I slammed my head on the desk. Visha jumped back a bit.
"I just wanted to stop the spread of communism! They were mass executing their citizens, including children that were as young as me when I was going through OCS! I couldn't let that happen on my watch! Besides, how could I trust the South Bharati military command with our arms shipment or to hold the line when they were stealing food from their own men?!"
Visha didn't say anything as I pulled my head back up, now rubbing my forehead in pain.
"Why did things go so wrong?" I asked.
"You didn't notice South Bharatis in Berun during the evenings and weekends? Or the newspaper articles about the new guests?"
That was when I realized it's been a long time since I've actually wandered around in public and got a sense of the day-to-day life, instead of spending all of my time on official government work. "I should probably get out more often," I absently conclude, "Just to see what is happening in Germania."
"...Do you want us to go out together?" Visha asks apprehensively.
I pause, considering her idea before frowning and then shaking my head apologetically, "I'm sorry, Visha but I don't want the attention while out for a casual stroll. I sigh, "A shame that Neumann is still in the Bharati subcontinent instead of being here to pretend to be my older brother for my disguise."
Visha smiles back half-heartedly before her eyes widen, "We could disguise ourselves to pretend to be sisters." She giggles as she suggests that, though a hint of disappointment is still there.
"Maybe." I chuckle, "Let's save that discussion when it gets closer to the weekend. Is there anything else to report?"
"Well, on the positive note, the war in Bharat should be coming to an end." Visha said with a smile. "So maybe we don't need to keep training more South Bharatis on our soil."
"Oh?"
"The coalition just publicly announced that the war will be over by Christmas, and that the two Bharats will be reunified."
That was bad. They are doubling down on chasing the North Bharatis into the mountains when the CSR could be there waiting to spring an ambush.
"Then we'll need to train a lot more South Bharati officers and mages for the coming winter."
Visha stared at me in confusion. "I… I don't understand, you just said…"
"I know. I know. Had Elya and General Lergen not yet briefed you of the CSR's upcoming plans then?"
"No."
We carried on the conversation in my soundproof room with a noise blocking spell so I could brief her on everything about the CSR's inevitable assault through Afghanistan. That brief turned into us talking some more about official business - mostly on how things are in other countries, and that conversation then took a sudden turn when Visha, her wandering eyes making it obvious that she's only half-listening, suddenly asked: "This place is sound-proofed, right?"
I blinked and stopped in the middle of my assessment of the performance of Germanian products in the American market, "Uh… yes?" I replied with confusion, didn't I tell her that already?
Visha grinned, and the situation quickly escalated when she pushed aside some stack of papers and kissed me from across the desk. My eyes go wide at the sudden, but not unwelcome, action, which I then feel myself melting into within seconds. The feeling of her soft lips on mine, and the sweet taste of her lipstick causes an involuntary moan to escape me… which Visha seemed to have taken as a sign to push in with her tongue.
We both gasped when we eventually pulled back for air, the room somehow feeling hotter than it did before. I can hear the HR manager inside of me screaming at how unprofessional all of this is, but the blood pounding in my ear is even louder.
Still, that little part of me manages to push something out. "V-Visha, this is unprofessional!"
My red-faced Deputy Chancellor, who has her arms on my desk, raises an eyebrow, "Is that a no?"
Suddenly, I am a rookie who's trying to figure out why her flight spell failed mid-flight, "W-well, uh…" I tried to think up an excuse, but all I managed to do was look flustered until Visha rolled her eyes and pulled me up from my chair.
It didn't take long for us to exchange more than just kisses.
In Ludhiana, northwest of Delhi:
Han Xianchu sighed as he stared at the map of North Bharat.
"How am I going to explain this to my superior, who would definitely inform Luo Ronghuan?" he absently asked himself.
Karachi and Vadodara in the southwest of North Bharat have been captured by the coalition and they're advancing north now, especially with their combat boats sailing up the Indus River and replenishment barges helping those boats push forward. He was in disbelief of the rapid advancement.
There are battles raging just outside of Delhi and Agra, and both cities are expected to fall soon. Coalition forces were building makeshift airfields using steel mats to maintain their air superiority with their rapidly advancing ground forces. The local garrison in Lucknow surrendered after being encircled when his reinforcement army was diverted to try to salvage the situation in Delhi and Agra. North Bharat's government said they will be falling back to the Rajasthan and Punjab provinces, and the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh provinces will be abandoned. Any of their forces that couldn't make it to the two fallback provinces had been ordered to retreat to the Himalaya mountains.
And it was only going to get worse. Informats in South Bharat reported that millions of unemployed farmers were working on road, highway, railroad and other infrastructure constructions overseen by mostly Germanian engineers, and fed by massive food imports from the Unified States. Which was an unintended consequence of North Bharat's trapped southern army destroying everything as they retreated deeper into their pocket, including the farms which put those men out of work. Considering that the coalition forces were beginning to deploy an increasing number of vehicles, the war was going to transition to a full blown conventional one once they finished improving their logistics instead of primarily relying on boats and planes. And North Bharat was losing anti-tank guns faster than they could replace them from using them both for anti-boat and anti-vehicle operations, while South Bharat's local industry just kept building more boats with parts shipped in from overseas.
The promised Type 97 orbs were still only trickling in after the Rus opened up their stockpile. Apparently they were difficult to manufacture, and he was told the production would only be able to significantly scale up when the simplified orb design entered production.
Training the mages to use the Type 97 orb was also its own annoyance with the high rate of failures, although for now all he could do was keep cycling through a large number of mages to find competent users for the scarce orbs. According to Peng Dehuai, the Chairman had stated "I have no patience with mages that have water filled heads and only know how to eat, when our enemies are many and our friends that are only with us until we show weakness."
An aide, one whose dusty and sweaty appearance makes it apparent that he's been rushing around camp, came up to him with a report as he was trying to decide where to send a reinforcement army that had just arrived in the Nepal province after their march through Tibet. "The coalition forces are already sailing into Hyderabad. General Hong Xuezhi was captured or killed after enemy tanks led by General George Smith Patton drove through his command headquarters. He was last seen in a hand to hand combat against General Patton after shouting something at the American general, which convinced the American to get off of their tank for the fight."
...Great. Now he just had another front line dumped on him to manage until a replacement general could take Hong Xuezhi's spot.
He looked at the map again, and his brows furrowed as his mind tried to pull up all the implications of this brand-new mess. "Not possible. There are numerous anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft batteries, artillery and DShK heavy machine guns along that river. Chains to block their path. And mines booby trapped to deal with any tampering from the divers and underwater mages. How did they even get the tanks that far into North Bharat?"
"Local commanders reported that General Henry Law is in command of their riverine fleet, and General Douglas McArthur is also present."
Those two were leading this offensive? "Weren't General Patton and McArthur leading the offensive against Delhi and Agra?"
The aide shook his head, "Multiple eyewitnesses report that they definitely saw both American generals. Especially Patton. That commander is hard to miss with his highly polished helmet."
If nothing else, at least that's two of the biggest problems in one place. The other one though..."Where is General Romel then? We know he isn't in the area around Delhi and Agra."
"We have no idea."
He tsks,"Tell the NKVD that either they have double agents in their employment, or some of their informants have already been identified and now the coalition is just using them to feed false information. If General Romel isn't part of either of the offensives, then something strange is going on."
The aide nodded and left the report before saluting and running out of the tent.
He flipped through the report and saw how they countered the defenses. They had been building new boat designs, and held them off until it came time to smash through the kill zone that Hong Xuezhi had prepared and he had personally signed off on.
The mines? They had radio controlled boats with underwater nets to trigger the mines ahead of the main fleet, and some had thermite charges mounted in front to melt the chains. Coalition's air support and rocket artillery made a mess of any defenders that revealed themselves to fire on the boats.
The DShK machine guns? Almost useless against uparmored large boats that are now equipped with multi-barrelled recoilless rifles for return fire to silence the heavy machine guns.
The small boats? All of them packed with their own heavy caliber machine guns.
The dreaded flamethrower boats? Upgraded pumps to send the burning liquid over a larger distance.
How did they get the tanks so far inland to flank the river defenses and run down his mortars and artillery guns? The Unified States brought in their old First Europan War era landing crafts.
He looked at the map again, fingers tracing over the contours and symbols. There had to be a location where he could try to halt the coalition's advance again. Every kilometer that the coalition takes means the trapped North Bharati army in the south has to fight for an extra day to be rescued.
His fingers stop.
Sukkur. It had multiple canals and railroads all converging towards it, and the rail lines connected to Hyderabad to the south, Quetta to the northwest - which was next to Afghanistan - and all the way to Multan, Lahore, Islamabad and Delhi to the northeast. The city might not be on the most defensible terrain, but it was definitely the logistics hub that the coalition would be strongly interested in capturing. As long as he can prevent encirclements around the city, he would have the logistics advantage with the coalition forces being stretched thin by the time they arrive at Sukkur. If he could hold on just long enough for the promised reinforcements to arrive, it would be worth it no matter the cost.
He immediately began his work on writing to the North Bharati home army of the new fallback position. They are to conscript the locals to turn the city into a fortress, and to instruct all of his forces in the river valley area to either converge on the city or perform a fighting retreat to delay the enemy.
In the CSR:
Zhang Wentian rubbed his head at the reports from General Han Xianchu, and the updated map reflecting those new information. "Is there any good news?"
"For our advances through Afghanistan, we have met minimal local Afghan resistance." Peng Dehuai said as he flipped through a set of papers. "According to Kang's reports, the coalition forces have increased their aerial reconnaissance of the Himalayas, including occasionally violating Afghanistan's airspace. To avoid losing our element of surprise, I ordered the Sibyrian Army to cease building roads as they approached the mountain ranges and switch to night time marching. Since we won't be attacking anytime soon, I also had most of our mages head back north to assist with the railway construction, especially for bridges and tunnels. Once the army is almost ready for their counteroffensive, the mages will fly back south and fly between the mountains as they approach North Bharat and then proceed on foot in their last leg of their journey. Even the best magic detectors can't see through mountains."
"Speaking of the railway construction to Afghanistan, we are making steady progress with multiple simultaneous starting points for the construction." Li Kenong said as he passed out the drawings of the railway construction progress. "There is still a shortage of track material, but I'm expecting that by the time we complete the tunnels, bridges and other hard parts of the route, we should have enough track material to build the railway. The Rus has also been helpful. Apparently they like the opportunity to be able to conduct direct trade with North Bharat after the war is over as they no longer have access to the Baltic Sea or Black Sea for international trade. They also want to conduct geological exploration in Afghanistan."
"Anything about the coalition?" Zhang Wentian asked.
"The coalition announced that they want to win the war by Christmas." Kang Sheng said. "Yet at the same time, the ones with rebellious oversea colonies are slowly pulling their forces out, most notably the Allied Kingdom as the Buddhist monks in Burma are exceeding our expectations. If the Albish is unable to stop losing control of the northern part of Burma, we could proceed with our plans of hiring locals to build roads and a railway through that region, and move supplies through the region to support North Bharat . Peng Dehaui has something to say regarding what we should be doing."
"Given how aggressive they are pushing, a strong counter attack is all that is needed to reverse their momentum. Especially as they approach the mountains where there aren't as many roads." Peng Dehuai added.
Kang Sheng continued. "Something concerns me is that our informants in South Bharat reported South Bharati officers and mages traveling to Germania. The ones that have returned have demonstrated excellent performance against North Bharat's trapped army. I'm afraid that the army might collapse before we can rescue them."
"We could send additional mages to help reinforce their positions." Peng Dehuai said as he pointed at the encircled army's position. "But that would jeopardize our fighting retreats further up north and would result in us having to cover more distances to rescue the trapped army after our counteroffensive. And should the trapped army be defeated, the mage reinforcements are unlikely to escape."
"And we need mages to help speed up the road constructions and the Afghanistan railway for the Sibyrian Army's logistic support." Li Kenong said. "Without those, the Sibyrian Army's ability to conduct their counteroffensive will likely be constrained."
Zhang Wentian slumped in his chair and went silent to consider the options, while everyone else looked at him, awaiting his response.
At the Usedom Island research and testing facility:
The old staff was still here. Dr. Max Kramer, the head researcher, and Otto Lutz, the site's administrator. General Lergen and a few other high ranking military officials such as Admiral Albrecht, and air force Generals Weiss and von Richtoffer were also present. Admiral Albrecht was confused as to why I requested that he attend the first helicopter demonstration, but I definitely knew that the navy and coast guard forces in my previous world made extensive use of helicopters.
After some brief pleasantries between everyone, we were escorted to a concrete lot that was next to the water. In the middle of it was the prototype helicopter. I had to pretend to not be bored because I knew how modern helicopters fly, so I have to feign interest to show my support for this proof of concept.
"Where is Mr. Sikorsky?" I asked as the pilot started the engine and began checking off something in his clipboard.
"He said he's flying it himself." Lutz said.
A scientist testing something on themselves. Maybe Dr. Schugel would have considered valuing safety more if he had magic potential to test the orbs himself. Although with his religious insanity, he probably would have plowed ahead with the Type 95 research if it worked on him and would have mocked the other mages for not being able to figure out how to use the death device.
As the engine reached a steady state speed, the helicopter slowly took off and hovered around the concrete lot.
"Did he mention anything about the speed and altitude it can achieve?" I asked.
"He said he'll worry about that after he finishes working out how to control the helicopter." Dr. Max Kramer said. "It took a lot of effort from him to even get the thing to hover for more than a few minutes. His current plan is to break the record for hovering in one spot without magic or cable anchoring, which was last set by hot air balloons on a windless day."
The helicopter began to ascend upward vertically for an altitude of about 50 meters, before it descended back to about 20 meters.
Generals Weiss spoke up. "I'm still trying to understand the use of this helicopter when we have mages."
"How many mage battalions do we have?"
"About 10 in active combat, ready status or in a training cycle. About another 15 in the mage civil defense."
"And if we were scraping the barrel including conscripting mages as young as eight, how many more mage battalions could we get?"
General Weiss hesitated when I set the parameters to the age that I was enrolled into OCS, but he chewed on the question nonetheless. "Maybe 20?" He eventually answered.
"And what happens if they take attrition from another war, how would we replace them?"
"We won't be able to except for waiting for the next generation, or pulling a repeat of the Francois Republic's colonial mage recruitment."
I turned to Dr. Max Kramer. "Did Igor Sikorsky say what are the requirements for being a helicopter pilot?"
"He's not a mage, so I'm assuming anyone that meets the requirements to begin training as a plane pilot could also be a helicopter pilot."
I turned back to Generals Weiss. "We can mass produce helicopters and train thousands of helicopter pilots. They won't make mages unemployed though, because there are still many uses for them. Such as special operations behind enemy lines."
The helicopter stopped hovering in one location, flew backward for some distance, and then it shifted direction to hover around us in a circle with Igor facing towards us the whole time.
"I'm assuming you wanted me here because you wanted me to observe a substitute for marine mages?" Admiral Albrecht asked.
"You could have a helicopter with every destroyer. And a squadron on a carrier. Or even build a miniature carrier that exclusively deploys helicopters. Far more than the current allotment of marine mages that the navy has. You could also equip those helicopters with torpedoes or anti-ship missiles to extend your strike range, or depth charges to hunt enemy submarines which would have to come up to the surface to shoot back at the helicopters. Or have it carry a dozen passengers or some cargo."
The helicopter then hovered just a few meters off the ground, weaved through a few trees, and ducked behind a building.
"Fly at low altitude. Pop up. Fire off rockets. Then dive back down behind a hill or trees." von Richtoffer said. "Fascinating."
"And another way for paratroopers to enter an area." I said. "Rocket pod helicopters would be useful for providing fire support for air deployed infantry."
I turned to General Lergen. "What do you think?"
He had a pensive expression on his face before speaking; "If I may, Chancellor, I've never expected a mage to be so interested in putting other mages out of work, but I think once we see more advanced versions of this helicopter, I might have a better idea of how to make use of it."
Then we all heard a loud bang as the helicopter climbed past 70 meters in altitude and saw a trail of black smoke spewing from the helicopter engine. I immediately fired up my orb and blasted off, leaving the rest of the group in the dust. When I came up next to Sikorsky, he kept his eyes forward.
"Don't bother me, I've always wanted to try out the autorotation concept. Just let me know if there's a fire behind me."
"What?" I ask, my mind too worried about losing a valuable engineer to comprehend his words.
He ignored me and kept his hands on the controls as the helicopter descended. The helicopter came to a rough landing on the grass and nearly tipped it over had I not activated my physical strength spell to push back on it. He unbuckled his restraints and hopped out of the seat to take a look at the engine as the rest of the group came running over.
I turned to everyone else.
"I see a bright future for helicopters. Igor Sikorsky has my support."
In Berun, sometime later:
Visha had not forgotten about the interview proposal, and I would not be surprised if she had been working with Elya to find an interviewer while I was off in South Bharat or when Visha needed time to herself. I had been dreading this moment even though I had prepared the talking points, rehearsed my answers and answers for likely questions.
I decided to pick a setting I was familiar with when it came to difficult interviews. An executive suite in the football stadium where there would be a match in a few days. I recall General Lergen mentioning about the military being more selective with who to send over to South Bharat, and a few senior officers had decided to have professional athletes play and keep the public distracted from the war. Unlike our previous war against the Francois Republic and then the Russy Federation, even if South Bharat completely collapsed, Germania's existence wouldn't be directly threatened. Besides, it would be a shame if Carl Troeger was shot down over in Bharat when he could be keeping the populace entertained.
I did read some of Gunter Groz's work before this interview, and the impression I got was that he had a preference for investigative journalism while occasionally dabbling in tabloid stuff. He did draw the line when a previous employer fired him and he leaked his employer's memos instructing him to invade a celebrity's privacy before going freelance for a few years. I was reading a bit more while waiting for him to arrive when Visha spoke up.
"Tanya, you seem a bit nervous."
I looked at her and was a bit flustered. I need to work better on concealing my thoughts. Then again, Visha had spent well over a decade with me so she knew the little tells that I have.
"I still don't have a way to explain our relationship without offending the people. That's why I'm nervous."
"As you said previously, we have to control the narrative before others create a narrative for us." Visha winked.
There was a knock on the door. It's him.
I let out a small sigh. "Come in."
An aide opened the door and Gunter Groz stepped in. "Good afternoon Chancellor-President and Deputy Chancellor."
"Please, take a seat." I motioned to a couch. He walked over and sat down, and after a few minutes of pleasantries, that was when the interview kicked off.
His first first topic was our foreign policy. I laid out that my end goal for the Bharati War was a free and democratic South Bharat that is safe from North Bharat's interference. And while some may believe that South Bharat was the Allied Kingdom's responsibility, if South Bharat was reunited under the North Bharat's control, that would almost guarantee the rest of southeast Asia would be pressured to be communist or at least communist friendly. Should the CSR be the aggressor decades later, they would have tremendous reserves of manpower to utilize for war, and with that deep manpower reserves also come with a large number of communist aerial mages. Had the Russy Federation not purged their mages, the war against them would have been much more difficult.
I then shifted our discussion to talk about the new republics' future. I reiterated that I wanted them to be democratic and help them resist any attempts from the Russy Confederation to try to reclaim their lost lands, which also include building their infrastructure and economy. The reasoning for that is that when people have good jobs and a roof over their heads, they're less likely to join radical groups. When I was asked about Legadonia Entente and their influence over the Baltic states, I shrugged my shoulders and told him that I always welcomed help against the communists.
When he asked my opinion of the CSR, all I could say was that the country was still an information blackhole for me. But since they were backing another communist country to suffocate South Bharat's young democracy in its cradle, that was a direct threat to Germania's interest. I did mention pushing for a bill to provide benefits and care to veterans who helped Germania fight against the communist threat.
"I've read about your statements regarding veteran benefits and care." Gunter Groz started on his next question. "What gave you the idea to try something so… new?"
"With so many people returning from the Second Europan War and the need for our economy to shift back from war production focus to peace time, droves of service members would find themselves unemployed after post war drawdown while the industries readjust." I shook my head at the last part. "Back in the 18th century after the European powers had finished their great war with the Albish defeating the Frankish, many veterans found themselves unable to find work after they were discharged from the military. Some went down the path of crime or piracy to make ends meet. Instead, I want to give our service members the opportunities to get higher education or go to a trade school, and by the time they finish training, the economy would be ready to hire them."
"And for the veterans that will be returning from the Bharati War?"
Visha spoke up. "It would only be fair for us to extend the benefits to them. We are currently in the process of working on a bill for the veterans of the First Europan War, especially since many of them were left penniless and jobless after the Empire's collapse."
My face twitched at that last part, reminding me of the immediate post-war memories. Gunter Groz immediately picked up on that. "It seems your Deputy Chancellor's comment regarding the plight of the veterans after the Empire's defeat had touched a nerve."
I wasn't exactly prepared for this, but he had a very good point. If there are still people that would be opposed to helping veterans even after hearing about my immediate post-war experience, then I'm going to be taking a dim view of them.
I sighed. "When I woke up from my coma in the hospital, I was told that the war was over, the Empire lost, and I had no pension. When I went to the bank where all of my savings were kept, my account was also gone because the bank's assets were seized. I had no other applicable job skills other than war. That was why I went back to the orphanage, to work for food so that I wasn't left begging on the streets or turning to a life of crime."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
I shrugged my shoulders. "But that was a long time ago. Now all I can do is ensure that no one else has to experience what I went through."
He looked at his notes. "I'm assuming the veterans healthcare is also based on the same reasons that you laid out?"
"Broken people can't contribute to the economy, physically or mentally. And for those that are permanently disabled, it's not fair that we neglect them when they sacrificed so much for our country."
"Mentally?"
"It is Germania's responsibility to help veterans who simply saw too much on the front line. I've seen the reports of service members having combat fatigue from seeing the brutality of war, sometimes with entire companies or battalions being impacted. Especially with the communists showing no regard for the laws of war, such as using civilians for 'manual' mine clearing, bullet sponges, and building fortifications on the front lines where they will be taking fire."
Visha and Gunter Groz gave me a puzzled look. Did I say something completely out of the ordinary?
"Um, Chancellor, could you explain what is 'combat fatigue'? I never heard of that term."
Ah, that explains why. They are probably still thinking of shell shock. "It is a collection of a variety of symptoms caused by experiencing severe trauma. Thousand yard stares, debilitating flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, high stress, sense of guilt, depression, and other symptoms. Some might call those veterans 'weak willed', but I would be deeply concerned if someone was not bothered at all with watching thousands of civilians being needlessly slaughtered as bullet sponges or calling an airstrike on a fortress that turned out to be filled with hundreds of forced laborers. I certainly wouldn't want such a callous monster in the military like what the communists are doing."
"Would you say that you also had… issues with readjusting after the Empire's defeat?"
I just walked myself into a trap set by him! To tell him that I had problems would be admitting weakness. To tell him that I was perfectly fine could be seen as dishonest or be used to undermine my own platform for mental health treatment.
I looked at Visha. She smiled and took my hand. "Well she did say people need help. We've been with each other for about two decades now."
Well I wasn't sure how to bring up this topic that I would have to eventually talk about, but here we go.
Gunter Groz gave us an eager look. "How did you two first meet?"
"It was when the Chancellor was just a Lieutenant, and I was a corporal." Visha said. "During the first Europan War, I simply admired her. It wasn't until I watched her campaign for a political party when I started to have romantic feelings for her."
"What convinced you to turn those feelings into an actual romantic relationship?" he asked as he rapidly scribbled notes.
Visha blushed. "I was initially hesitant as homosexuality is generally frowned upon, but there were two events that convinced me to pursue. The first one was when the Chancellor asked if I was dating a guy, and when I said no, she then assumed it was with one of my female friends. She said she fully supported that sort of relationship, and seemed surprised when I also said no. The second one was when I talked with one of my friends and they suggested 'just let it happen'."
Now this was something I was unaware of.
"Was the Chancellor aware of your romantic feelings?"
Visha said "Maybe" and I said "No" at the same time. Gunter Groz seemed very interested in that as he said, "Ah, the classical one-sided relationship where one person is unaware of the other person's deep love. Chancellor, what were your thoughts during that time?"
I chewed on my lip. I don't think Visha is even aware of exactly why I was avoiding a relationship. I looked at her and she nodded, so I took that as a cue to tell the truth. "To be in love with a direct subordinate, in the military, politics or government, was something I was trying to avoid. I was keeping a distance out of professionalism."
"And what changed all of that?" Gunter Groz asked as he continued writing.
I continued on. "When OZEV was at war with four countries all at the same time, I was feeling very stressed. I mean the Empire had only dragged in countries one at a time, so I was concerned about us being defeated even faster than the Empire. Visha walked in and..."
"I kissed her." Visha giggled. "She was shocked, but it was like a switch was flipped and that was when she stopped trying to keep her distance."
"So with both of you being in love, are there future plans between the two of you? Marriage? Adopting kids?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Unlike war, politics or government matters, this is something I haven't been planning ahead."
Visha nodded and also added, "We still have much to learn from each other."
Gunter Groz pondered for a second, and asked the next question. "Do you think Germania should be open to homosexual relationships?"
"Should Germania's government be involved with dictating how people should live their lives? Judge their beliefs, culture and lifestyle?" I shot back with my own question. "How can we claim we are a democracy if we repress our own people? How can we tell our current and future OZEV members, South Bharat and Akitsushima Dominion that we respect them and that they should trust us, if we are quick to judge? At least the former Russy Federation didn't pretend when it came to dealing with anyone that had the slightest possibility of disagreeing with their government. If they hadn't lost the war, there would have been no more people left in Kieva to oppose the Rus."
Visha squeezed my hand. I paused for a moment to calm down and to allow Gunter Grotz to finish writing. "But I can understand why people would frown upon seeing different things that they aren't used to. Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence."
"In other words, it's about respecting differences and treating others with fairness?" Gunter Groz summarized my statement.
I smiled. "Yes."
In Afghanistan:
Chen Shusheng was marching with his formation through the mountains. Actually, more like climbing over the rocky surfaces because the trail wasn't wide enough to get everyone through fast enough, and road construction was called off. The only thing he could see was the white stripe on each soldiers' backpack in the moonlit light, and the occasional wooden post with a white paint or cloth on it.
He felt a rock shift under his feet and attempted to grab onto something, but instead he just tumbled off the path and the slope became rapidly steeper. The only thing waiting for him at the bottom was a dry creek bed full of rocks.
Suddenly, he felt someone grab him and pull him back up. He could see a glow of the mage's face from the orb and the spell she used to stop his fall.
"Interesting," The mage remarks as she adjusts her hold on him, "Every other person who went tumbling down a cliff had a panicked look on their face and often screamed. You looked like you were at peace."
Chen could only sigh, "I accepted my death." He mutters, though the mage is able to hear it still and she hums.
"You probably saw too much things in Sibyria, didn't you?"
Chen remains silent for a moment before hesitantly speaking: "It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him, and I'm not that person."
"Were you involved in…" Here Chen could guess that the mage is biting her lip, even though he cannot see her, "What happened when winter set in?"
"Yes." He answered blankly.
The mage is silent for a moment, but then continues, "At least you're honest about what you did in Sibyria." She looks off to the side, though as to where to is something Chen doesn't know. "I have to tell myself that it was just a necessity of survival and that I'm not a bad person. Every single day. It felt wrong to stealthily track Rus forces not to take them prisoner for interrogation, but as a hunt for food. Except for the Rus prisoners that offered to help us track their comrades down to save their own skin, that was also brutal. And it certainly didn't help that mages need lots of food which meant a failed hunt resulted in us going hungry." The mage unexpectedly vents out, leaving Chen unsure of exactly how to respond.
"...What's your name?" He eventually says.
"Yang Huimin, yours?"
"My name is Chen Shusheng."
"Chen Shusheng? Hopefully we don't meet again with you falling off a cliff." Her tone is playful, but it turned serious upon the next part: "Because when we get closer to Bharat, mages won't be allowed to fly."
She dropped him onto the ground, and for the first time since she rescued him, Chen finally got to see his rescuer's face before she flew off.
"Well, she is attractive…" he thought to himself.
And its thoughts like that kept his foot on the ledge instead of open air.