Chapter 20: The Advantage Is Mine!

“Your Highness! Do you realize what you’re saying? Hongta City is the core hub of the Boria Grand Railway, the lifeline of the entire Far East. Losing Hongta City…” Mikhail began, only to see Zhang Shan raise his right index finger and shake his head.

“If you keep the land but lose the people, both land and people are lost; if you keep the people but lose the land, both will be preserved.”

Zhang Shan’s words were like a sudden enlightenment to all the generals and staff officers present.

Indeed!

The Far East had such a sparse population; the core Rasian people numbered just over six million, and they had to control more than ten million Mongol-affiliated subordinate peoples. If they were to fight the Yamato to the last man, what would they have left to maintain order?

“But…” Mikhail’s lips twitched, unwilling to accept this.

Zhang Shan, however, spoke earnestly: “Then I ask you, General, if we commit all our forces to a battle of attrition with the enemy in the salient of Hongta City, exhausting our elite troops, what are the odds of victory?”

“Not great,” Mikhail admitted with a sigh. “Even if we win, it will be a costly victory.”

Another general, Dmitri, gathered his courage to speak: “So, are we just going to retreat? Not only will the main railway line be severed, but it will also deal a heavy blow to the morale of our principality.”

A cold light flashed in Zhang Shan’s eyes. “I never said we wouldn’t hold…”

Suddenly, the entire General Staff fell silent, as those who guessed what Zhang Shan intended to say immediately stopped speaking.

…

Thousands of miles away, in the imperial palace of the Rasian Empire’s capital, Constantine XVIII was raging with fury.

“How dare the Boria family do this? Ignoring my authority, directly seeking help from the Asgardians and Britanians?!” In his anger, he even smashed an Easter egg left by a previous emperor onto the floor.

The guards instinctively shrank back.

Prince Yusupov, seeing the emperor calm his heavy breathing somewhat, stepped forward and said, “The principality does have this autonomy, Your Majesty, but the Boria principality alone cannot resist the Yamato. Your Majesty need only forbid the other electors from sending troops to support them, and soon that reckless boy will be kneeling before you, begging for mercy and aid.”

“Leave it to you. I do not want a single Cossack trooper sent to the Far East!”

The Cossack cavalry were infamous throughout the Rasian Empire for their bravery, savagery, and poor discipline, yet they were also renowned mercenaries. Ever since the Rasian emperor conquered the Komi Khanate and the Lower Caucasus region three centuries ago, these Cossack horsemen had become mercenaries anyone among the Rasian nobility could hire for war.

Prince Yusupov sighed. “Your Majesty, to keep them from deploying requires a hefty sum. Otherwise, they won’t refuse imperial marks or British pounds offered by a great Rasian noble.”

…

“Paid!” The emperor was in a foul mood.

Why should I withhold support? And yet, I’m supposed to pay those bloodsuckers just to break that boy’s spine?

But reality was such: the Boria Grand Principality, backed financially by two great powers, was at least on paper better funded than the emperor himself.

The absurdity was that the emperor’s orders were carried out.

Prince Yusupov soon received unexpected news—Andrei Boriaski had no intention of hiring the Cossack cavalry. Not only had he not placed an order, he hadn’t even sent a greeting. The only contact he had made was to warn several electorates along the Boria Grand Railway not to hoard his family’s arms.

Naturally, other electors wouldn’t commit the foolish act of stealing weapons.

One can pick a little off the top, but timing is everything.

A cornered rabbit will bite.

Now, with the Boriaski family under attack, if you hoarded their weapons and provoked young Andrei, he might turn and seek alliance with the Yamato, striking back at the electorates along the route. That would be a disaster.

Old noble families understand interests.

But a young man in his early twenties is at his most reckless and impulsive. Any elector with a shred of sense would avoid provoking trouble in such a matter.

Constantine XVIII was stunned. “Does Andrei Boriaski really think he can overturn the Yamato with his own forces? Impossible!”

Interestingly, Yamato spies and informants near the Rasian capital relayed the same report.

Apparently, the Boria Grand Principality was naively treating this localized war as a mere ‘border skirmish,’ just as their emperor believed.

This was utterly laughable.

General Honda, commander of the Yamato Northern Pass army, laughed heartily upon receiving the news, eventually wiping tears from his eyes.

“That foolish boy! The internal assassination by our intelligence bureau really worked! Several leading members of the Boria family are dead or incapacitated. Only that brat remains, truly believing his small force can resist our Northern Pass army’s invasion? Ha! He’s still too naive.”

His subordinates and staff all laughed along.

At last, one cautious staff officer reminded him, “General Honda, the Boria Grand Principality can still muster six hundred thousand troops without disrupting society’s normal function.”

“Hmph! So what? Whenever I want, the Northern Pass army can swell to eight hundred thousand! Six hundred thousand against eight hundred thousand—advantage is mine!”

For some reason, General Honda seemed to receive an otherworldly signal, uttering a rather classic line.

His remarks naturally earned applause from his men.

He was speaking the truth.

As the core of the Yamato army, the Northern Pass army indeed controlled substantial resources. If they wanted to, mobilizing eight hundred thousand troops was not impossible—though the quality of those troops would be diluted, effectively watered down.

Meanwhile, in Barovsky, Mikhail also conveyed the figure of six hundred thousand to Zhang Shan.

“This is our maximum mobilization. If we lose them, we must bow before His Majesty the Emperor.”

Don’t think that conscripting six hundred thousand from a population of twenty million is a small number.

Times have changed.

In the era of cold weapons, a tenth of the population might be soldiers at maximum.

Modern warfare makes that impossible.

The more agricultural the country, the more people are needed to serve in logistics and supply roles.

Moreover, in the entire Far East, Rasian people are not even the majority—just over eight million—with more than twelve million Mongol-affiliated peoples under their subjugation.

If too many Rasian subjects directly under the principality die, it will severely affect subsequent governance.

Excluding women, the elderly, the weak, and the sick, the principality can barely muster four hundred thousand troops; the remaining two hundred thousand must come from vassal states.

Don’t be fooled by the dozen cavalry divisions each nation threw into the fray—anyone who’s seen those cavalry units knows how inflated their combat effectiveness really is.

“Mikhail, I propose dispatching the Eighth Division along with the newly formed Thirteenth and Fourteenth Divisions to reinforce Hongta City.”