Arc of Fire

April 13th, Ekaterinburg Fortress, High Command map room.

Wang Zhong put down the report from the Third Front Army of Kazarlia and looked at Marshal Gorky: “Things are going so smoothly it almost feels unreal, Moravia just switched sides like that.”

Marshal Gorky: “You should ask the Church’s external affairs department, they have been in contact with the King of Moravia since last year.”

Wang Zhong: “The Church? Doesn’t Moravia know the Church’s stance towards the Royal Family and the nobility?”

Marshal Gorky: “They might not know, but they do know your stance towards the Tsar.”

Wang Zhong glanced at Gorky and decided within a second not to tell him that he had already built a villa in the location chosen by Olga.

That’s most likely where His Majesty the Tsar will spend the rest of his life.

Of course, she might occasionally cameo in some movie roles, playing herself just like that map-headed person on Earth.

As Wang Zhong was thinking, the Ceremonial Officer outside shouted loudly: “His Majesty the Tsar has arrived!”

All the generals stood up, held their heads high, and looked straight ahead.

Olga entered the room and nodded at everyone: “Good day gentlemen, has there been any noteworthy news while I was asleep?”

Marshal Gorky: “As of early yesterday morning, Moravia has declared its opposition to the Empire of Prosen’s aggression and occupation of other countries, stating they will stand on the side of justice.”

"Hmph,” Olga scoffed coldly, “When they were flaunting their power before, why didn’t they criticize the Empire of Prosen? Haven’t the Moravians done plenty of bad deeds in our country?”

Marshal Gorky: “Indeed, but now we need to conserve our forces. The Third Front Army of Kazarlia actually only has three hundred thousand troops, though they claim to have seven hundred thousand. We need those extra three hundred thousand Moravians.”

Olga pouted: “I know, I know, but just because we need their help, we let them pick up such a great deal, I’m not satisfied.”

Wang Zhong: “Don’t worry, the Secular faction is already expanding its influence in Moravia, and after the war, we can publicly try the Moravian Emperor.”

"Good,” Olga immediately cheered up, “Anyway, now that they’ve surrendered because the Church still supports me as the Tsar, they’ll have a hard time voicing their grievances once I’m no longer the Tsar!”

The generals all showed an expression of “What the hell did I just hear?”

Olga pushed the topic forward nonchalantly: “What about the other fronts? Kashuk isn’t here, does that mean his Front Army has taken action?”

Marshal Gorky: “His Front Army has been in action, but the Chief of Staff called yesterday, apparently they ran into some trouble, so he flew back.”

Wang Zhong: “It seems that Prosen’s 502nd Heavy Armor Battalion has been causing him quite the trouble.”

Olga: “Can’t we find a way to eliminate that battalion?”

Wang Zhong: “The enemy has changed their use of the Heavy Armor Battalion compared to before, they now don’t gather the entire battalion together for a head-on clash with us—of course, this is also related to the terrain of the northern front; the northern front can’t deploy so many heavy tanks.”

It’s actually still possible, but it would be very awkward to fight.

Just like that on Earth, Karl the ‘Tiger King’ recorded in his memoir “Tiger in Mud” the actions his heavy armor battalion took in a place called **man’s Nose. At that time, too many Tigers were deployed, directly causing a logjam.

Later, the 502nd Battalion often dispersed its troops, forming groups of two vehicles each, going around like a firefighting team.

On the northern front, which is abundant with swampy forests, this tactic of dispersal achieved quite good effects.

This space-time is probably doing the same thing with the 502nd Heavy Armor Battalion.

Wang Zhong explained all this in detail to Olga.

Olga: “I see, so the best way to annihilate the 502nd Battalion is to surround the entire Northern Group of Army Groups, right?”

"Right,” Wang Zhong and Marshal Gorky nodded together.

Olga: “When will the Beliyakov Front Army start their offensive?”

Wang Zhong: “They are still making swamp shoes and cutting trees, there’s an almost inexhaustible supply of timber nearby, but we need to allocate people to cut it down. So, based on the situation, we’ve adjusted the order of the offensive, Kiriyenko’s Western Front Army will make the first move, but it will be a feint.”

Marshal Gorky: “To prevent the enemy from realizing it’s a feint based on our casualties, we’ve scheduled this for the last week of April, and once Beliyakov’s Beliyakov Front Army starts in May, the enemy would be too occupied to discern whether the Western Front Army’s action was a feint.”

Olga curiously asked: “How would the enemy know about our casualties?”

"By the bodies and captured documents,” Marshal Gorky explained, “Like last year’s offensive that I launched, that got repelled and left behind a large number of bodies, including those of middle and lower-ranking officers.

"The enemy will only roughly estimate the total number of bodies, but they will definitely analyze the captured documents thoroughly. So in the end, they concluded that I had nearly ten million casualties in the offensive.”

Wang Zhong looked at Marshal Gorky: “Ten million casualties?”

"How could that be, that’s just bluffing. I fight badly, but not that badly,” Marshal Gorky said indignantly.

In fact, Marshal Gorky fought badly only relative to Wang Zhong; there are Army generals from the Federation and the United Kingdom who performed worse.

Wang Zhong: “Anyway, in another week, the Western Front Army will launch an offensive—or, let’s say, pretend to launch an offensive.”