Reinforcements
It hadn't been long since our army had truly begun arming itself in earnest. Naturally, the tasks that needed doing towered like a mountain.
Even considering only the navy, countless issues sprang to mind: developing anti-submarine measures, expanding the fleet, designing new classes of ships. On top of that, the manpower required to modernize the West was staggering.
The Industrial Revolution did not advance simply by scattering factories across the land. Skilled workers and experienced managers were essential. More manpower was needed, and of course that manpower was drawn from our South.
Railways? We tried to make maximum use of local labor, yet even there our own people were required. Moreover, it was our high-caliber personnel who were currently filling the vacuum in the Western administration.
The countless vacancies left behind by the vanished corrupt nobles could not be filled by the incompetent West, so our people bore that burden. In effect, it was our South that kept the West running—a region that was little more than a vegetative state.
The advantage was that the West had now become our own backyard colony. As living conditions improved, the common people grew content, while the upper class could no longer function without our personnel.
If things continued this way, absorbing the West would proceed without major trouble. The only problem was the resulting severe manpower shortage.
“In a situation like this, you’re telling me we also have to consider the relationships between the native tribes of the West?”
Yet that was exactly what we were being asked to do. Some tribes plundered heavily, while others barely raided at all. Some maintained blood ties with the West; others had formed something like mutual defense pacts.
Responses had therefore differed according to the situation. It wasn’t an incomprehensible approach. With corrupt nobles and a military whose discipline had collapsed, it had been impossible to stop every native wave. They had apparently only blocked the most lethal attacks.
The real issue was that most of the nobles who had set the standards for those responses were now gone. And we were supposed to pour manpower and administrative effort into investigating and reorganizing everything from scratch? When we were already teetering on the edge of a manpower crisis?
“Is there any need to show such consideration to bastards who raid our borders?”
The incompetent old West had been forced to block attacks that way. We were under no such obligation.
“Regard every barbarian tribe that approaches our territories as an enemy and open fire.”
Would that earn us the natives’ wrath? It didn’t matter. In fact, that was precisely what I wanted. The more we struck them, the more they would come? Let’s see just how many they could send. Whether the natives had more heads or we had more bullets would become clear once we counted them ourselves.
“How do you intend to deploy the troops, sir?”
“Hmm. For now, send roughly a hundred men to each region. The first support force’s objective is territorial defense, not striking enemy strongholds.”
At present, our army had far more guns than soldiers. The wartime economy kept the munitions factories running at full capacity, so weapons poured forth without end, yet the men to wield them remained limited.
So why continue mass-producing weapons? Because once we fully absorbed the West, we would have to arm the Western army with them as well.
We would first dispatch forces of about a hundred men and have them conduct joint operations with the Western troops.
After building trust through several such operations, we would then hand over our weapons. A hundred men were therefore sufficient. Any shortfall in numbers could be made up by giving weapons to the local forces.
“Let’s use this opportunity to train the Western army little by little as well.”
Weapons capable of efficiently slaughtering barbarians? The soldiers stationed on the Western border would probably go mad with joy.
Once they had adapted to our equipment, we would launch joint operations under the banner of subjugating the savages. What could the central government possibly say when we were eliminating barbarians who harmed the Empire?
Through perfectly legal joint operations we would integrate the command structure, train modern tactics, and cultivate the awareness that they fought on the same side. All of it for the future that would one day march on the imperial heartland.
The bitter history between the West and the natives beyond the border stretched back a very long time.
In the beginning, many tribes had lived in the West, but one stood above the rest in strength. That strongest tribe united the others under its banner and forged a single nation.
The tribes that had agreed to the union and entered its fold became the ancestors of the current Western nobility. Those who opposed unification and went their own way settled beyond the Western border.
Not long afterward, the Empire reached the zenith of its power. It offered the West broad autonomy, economic aid, technological transfer, cultural exchange, and more.
In the end the West became one with the Empire. The Raymonds royal house that had once ruled the region became the Western Grand Dukes, and naturally the Empire’s culture flowed into the West. That was already centuries ago.
While the West mingled with the Empire and became “civilized,” the natives who continued living among the forests and plains preserved almost their original ways.
Naturally, a gap formed between the two groups. Hunter-gatherer nomads versus a centralized agricultural state—the difference in productivity was obvious. And when nomads and farmers meet, conflict is inevitable.
The natives frequently crossed the border to harass the West, plundering farmland and abducting its people, inflicting enormous damage. The situation had been manageable at least until the time of the iron-fisted Kaiser III.
The Empire before him had never tolerated such behavior. No matter that the incidents occurred beyond the Arbel Mountains, the central army would intervene directly to punish the nomads.
But after the era of iron rule, during the Empire’s dark age, things changed. Once a thirteen-year-old prince ascended the throne, the Empire began its rapid decline.
The nobility grew corrupt, the imperial army’s blades rusted, and the officer corps filled with political appointees who had never seen war.
For the past forty years the central government had been unable to spare any attention for the West. The nomads seized the opportunity and ran wild once more.
Recently Western Grand Duke Charles Raymonds had resumed fighting the natives, yet the situation in the West had not improved. Charles Raymonds had not waged war to protect the West. He simply loved war.
He had conscripted commoners indiscriminately and thrown them into battle. For Edwin, lord of the small border city of Eirene, it had been nothing but a headache.
“Charles Raymonds, that idiot.”
The West had lost a total of nearly fifty thousand troops during its conflict with the South. While the central reserves evaporated, the native offensives only grew fiercer. A few days earlier, a “proposal” had flown into his hands.
If you offer a certain amount of goods, we will not attack your domain.
The message completely disregarded him as a Western noble. Edwin had burned with fury. But he soon recognized reality.
The West, which had suffered a crushing defeat against the South, could not refuse the proposal. He had been about to sign it through gritted teeth when—
“My lord! A message from the South!”
“From the South?”
A sudden communication had arrived from the Southern ducal castle. It stated that, having received the Western government’s request for aid, they would dispatch support.
In the past he might have hesitated, but now was not the time to be picky. He knew all too well what happened once the barbarians marked you as weak. Besides, he had heard rumors about the South’s new weapons.
Full of expectation, Edwin asked his adjutant about the scale of the relief force.
“Well… that is…”
The adjutant hesitated a moment, then answered cautiously.
“They say… roughly one hundred men.”
“What?”
Edwin couldn’t help repeating the question. It was only natural. A mere hundred men could never hope to stop the Western natives’ onslaught. This wasn’t a question of superior technology or new weapons.
No matter how excellent the armaments, they were useless before the barbarians. The fault lay with the shamans’ spells.
Spells that prevented the feeling of pain. Spells that erased fear.
Barbarians who charged without fear were the terror of Western infantry. Even when run through with spears, they would laugh madly and keep coming.
There was no way to stop them. The only asymmetric force capable of countering them—the Wyvern Knights—had largely abandoned the West after its defeat.
“How exactly do they plan to stop a horde of fearless barbarians with only a hundred men…”
Edwin was not the only one thinking this. The chieftain of the Temelikan tribe—one of the larger native groups—threw back his head and roared with laughter after hearing his scout’s report.
“Kahahaha! Only a hundred? A hundred men, you say?”
“Yes. They have set up camp on the plain before the fortress and are digging in the ground.”
“It seems I misunderstood something about those Southern bastards.”
The plains were where Temelikan warriors fought best. On an open field with no cover whatsoever, there was no way to stop the charge of Temelikan fighters who felt no pain. And these fools thought a mere hundred men could block them?
“I heard they achieved victory against the West and assumed they must be quite capable, but they’re this stupid?”
The Temelikan chieftain, who knew little of the South’s “new technology,” dismissed the matter lightly and gave his command.
“Gather the warriors! It is time to make those who dared reject our merciful proposal pay the price!”