Empire Conquest
Chapter 63 - 59 Deep Plans and Far-Sighted Considerations

Chapter 63: Chapter 59 Deep Plans and Far-Sighted Considerations

Compared to that, the Eastern Advance strategy was an entirely different extreme.

Simply put, the core idea of the Eastern Advance strategy was that after the outbreak of war, forces would be concentrated on defeating the strongest enemy, namely the Newland Federation. Only after gaining control over the East Ocean would they consider moving southward. However, there was also a glaring problem, the difficulty was simply too great.

Furthermore, the Eastern Advance strategy looked appealing on the surface, but upon closer examination, many facets just didn’t hold up.

For example, at the beginning, including Zhu Shijian, barely anyone took the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom into account. Everyone thought it would suffices to deal with the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom while confronting the Newland Federation, and there was no need to separately enumerate them or even treat the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom as a competitor.

But what was the reality?

After the "Huacheng Treaty" and the "Luntai Treaty" were established, the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom leapt to become a true naval powerhouse, recognized by all.

According to the treaty specifications, the Saiyi Navy had a total tonnage, main battle ship tonnage, and mother ship tonnage that was seventy percent of the three top-tier Great Powers. In the domain of secondary main battle ships, which are the treaties’ regulated heavy cruisers, the Saiyi Navy even managed to secure a hundred percent allocation.

With developments up to the present day, the Saiyi Navy’s scale and potency had already achieved the fourth place globally and third place in the East Ocean.

Since the Newland Federation was across from the East Ocean, separated by over ten thousand kilometers, and Newland’s Navy mainly operated in the eastern part of the East Ocean, rarely coming to the west part of East Ocean, strictly speaking, the Saiyi Navy was actually the Empire Navy’s primary adversary, posing a tangible threat.

Should war break out, the Saiyi Navy would undoubtedly play the pawn for the Great Powers.

Continue to ignore the Saiyi Navy?

Clearly, that was deceiving oneself!

It was for this reason that after the New Calendar year of 95, the Saiyi Navy played a role in every fleet drill conducted, and on a few occasions, even played the main part.

After years of simulations, no one dared to overlook the Saiyi Navy anymore.

The crux of the matter was, if the Saiyi Navy was factored in, then even in the most ideal scenario, the Empire Navy wouldn’t be able to achieve a swift victory.

If it turned into a war of attrition, the consequences would be unthinkable!

Don’t forget, without taking control of Boss Bay, the Empire could hold out at most for two years. To be exact, it was actually just one year, because adjusting the strategy required one year.

To use just one year to defeat two evenly matched opponents, to sweep and control the East Ocean which covered half the Earth’s surface!?

If the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom and the Newland Federation were well-prepared in advance, being able to defeat the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom within a year, recapturing the vitally important North and South Sado Islands, then incidentally taking over Nanzhu Country controlled by the Newland Federation, and establishing a defensive line in the West East Ocean to fortify the Empire’s base, that would be quite an achievement.

Even in the eyes of the most optimistic individuals, it would still take three to five years to defeat the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom and the Newland Federation.

Secondly, the Eastern Advance strategy aim was for an absolute victory.

From a military standpoint, they certainly aimed to achieve an absolute victory; however, in the eyes of politicians, absolute victory was far too elusive.

Not to mention anything else, what does "absolute victory" mean?

Does it mean to defeat all enemies, to force all enemy nations to sign surrender treaties, or does it involve sending troops to conquer all enemy nations, maybe even to annex them altogether?

To put it bluntly, after defeating all enemy nations, then what?

Occupying and annexing an enemy nation was definitely not realistic, both politically and militarily. After the Atai Battle, it took the Empire nearly half a century to basically stabilize the occupied areas and effectively govern the place with only a few million residents. To put it more severely, during the last great war, the Army had never achieved a breakthrough on the western front lines, which related to the local sentiment.

Since annexation was not possible, then where did the notion of "complete victory" come from?

Fundamentally, after entering the Industrial Age, except for the development of uncivilized lands, territorial expansion had lost much of its significance. In recent decades, no Great Power had waged war with the objective of expanding territory; instead, they were all diligently avoiding falling into the pattern of territorial expansion.

The reason was simple: territorial expansion was economically a losing proposition, resulting in financial losses.

It was clear that from the start to the end, the Imperial Authority had never contemplated achieving complete victory in the next war, focusing more on how to preserve the existing structure.

Besides, successive Grand Secretaries after Tang Zude were all immersed in the post-war false prosperity, none of them truly felt an urgent threat of war, let alone were alert to it, and therefore didn’t give serious thought to whether the Empire would have any way out when war ignited once again.

If there was no way out, would there still be concerns for "total war"?

Fortunately, in the twenty years after the war, the Imperial Chief Minister changed several times, yet the Navy Commander-in-chief had not changed and was still Zhu Shijian.

It was precisely because Zhu Shijian held the helm that the Navy did not deviate from its course.

In some ways, only Zhu Shijian could steer the world’s largest battleship and make two factions with diametrically opposed directions submit.

Zhu Shijian’s command abilities were not just hot air.

Over the past decade and more, the officers and soldiers of the Domestic Fleet had always felt that the Commander-in-chief supported an eastward strategy; for this, he had even expanded the Navy’s strategic oil depots, increasing the strategic reserves several times. Why else would he spend a fortune building oil depots if not for a protracted war?

The officers and soldiers of the Southern Fleet also believed that the Commander-in-chief supported a southern strategy, as the Navy’s main force was primarily stationed with the Southern Fleet, even the Aviation Mixed Fleet under the direct command of the Navy headquarter was permanently based at the southern Military Port, and most of the time was active in the Flame Sea.

Furthermore, after the last two ships of the "Longjiang" class were commissioned, the annual Fleet exercises were conducted in the Flame Sea, with drills that definitely followed the procedures for an advance into the Fan Flame Ocean. If there were no intentions of heading south, was there a need to make such a big fuss, rehearsing one set of tactics over and over again?

So, which strategy did Zhu Shijian truly support?

Others might not know, but Bai Zhizhan knew very well.

Strictly speaking, Zhu Shijian held no definitive stance and harbored no illusions. Since the strategic direction of focusing on the southeast had been established, he had made preparations for both eventualities. In other words, for the past dozen years, Zhu Shijian had been preparing for the worst-case scenario.

At the end of each annual Fleet exercise during the summary meeting, Zhu Shijian would emphasize one point: the Navy must be prepared to take on and defeat all the Great Powers alone, they shouldn’t harbour any unrealistic fantasies, and in the next great war, not to expect external assistance.

This sounded like a slogan.

But it was definitely not as simple as a slogan.

For over a decade, the Navy had been moving forward under this guiding principle, toward the highest and yet the most realistic direction.

Now, Zhu Shijian was old.

Just before this year’s Fleet exercises began, he had celebrated his eightieth birthday.

At his birthday celebration, he personally mentioned that he would submit his resignation to the Grand Secretary at year’s end.

Before long, the Navy would test with action the strategic direction the Commander-in-chief had practiced for over a decade.

When the flames of war were lit once again, the Empire’s soldiers would prove with action whether twenty years of intense preparation could change the fate of their nation and people!

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