Chapter 670 — The Gao Song Conjecture

It was as though she had set down some burden, and within moments she was back to her usual careless, devil-may-care self. Once this topic was closed, she asked Gao Yang about his next arrangements. "Order in San Sunil has largely stabilized now. The transfer of authority in every quarter and the formation of the new administrative structure are complete. Is it not time you considered your next step?"

"Yes..." Gao Yang leaned back, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. "We have lingered in Xuanyuan City long enough."

After a few more taps on the armrest, he turned to Amber. "How go things in the Eastern Reach?"

"The forces sent by Grand Duchess Victoria have joined General Ma Qi. The local nobles of the Eastern Reach are by and large cooperating with the reorganization; they have even scraped together a reserve army and, together with the Cecil Legion, consolidated the defense line at Changfeng Fortress."

"As expected," Gao Yan nodded. "The Eastern Reach nobles are probably the most salvageable among the many rotten nobles of the old Ansul kingdom. They have the full set of old-noble vices, but because they have faced the Typhon threat year in and year out, and because the Loren family has governed them effectively, the local nobles remain clear-headed when confronted with war. Still, the reserve army they scraped together will not be of much use... The true elite of the Eastern Reach were wiped out on the Holy Spirit Plain. Only the garrison corps at Changfeng Fortress can be relied upon for fighting strength; the reserve troops raised elsewhere and the nobles leading them will be little better than ordinary noble household troops. What else?"

Amber sorted through the intelligence she held and continued. "There seems to be no movement on the Typhon border, but Ma Qi worries the other side may be gathering strength in secret. He is now trying to collect intelligence and stay vigilant against a Typhon invasion at all times.

"The White Sand Mining Company has retaken the mines and begun repairing the railway wrecked by that giant deer. Meanwhile, per your orders, the engineering corps continues extending the former eastern line, striving to bring the Iron Throne near Changfeng Fortress by autumn. With an armored train, we need not worry so much about Typhon.

"As for repairs to the Iron Throne... about half a month more. It lost two arsenal cars, and its power spine and shield array suffered overload damage. The damage is quite severe. The two heavy factories in Gelan City and Xuanyao City are working overtime, trying to compress the schedule further."

"Regardless, the Iron Throne must be restored to fighting strength as soon as possible—even if only half a train reaches the border," Gao Che said in a loud voice. "After the war our forces are insufficient. Even with advanced weapons and equipment, the present garrison at Changfeng Fortress may not be able to hold off the Typhonians' full-formed transcendent legions."

Amber frowned. "Do you think the Typhonians really will go to war in this window?"

"They have waited a long time for this chance, but errors and delays in intelligence may yet make them miss it," Gao Dai said. "Royan Augustus is surely watching the war on the Holy Spirit Plain, but it is hard for him to grasp precisely how much we lost in the war—whether ours was a bitter victory or a great one. That directly affects whether he gives the order to attack."

The Typhonians were waiting for Ansul to bleed dry—Gao Yang had understood this long ago. And in fact the plans of that Emperor Royan had largely succeeded. Despite the rise of Cecil as an unforeseen variable, on the whole every region of Ansul save the Southern Reach had suffered grievously in this war: vast grain-producing lands reduced to scorched earth, great stores of grain contaminated or burned, a great number of young lives consumed. In such a situation, a thin Southern Reach—however elite—spread across this vast realm would find itself stretched to the limit.

That Typhon emperor had indeed waited for a state of profound Ansul decline. Were he to strike now, it would settle matters once and for all—but given the inefficiency and error of intelligence transmission in this age, he himself might not yet have realized it.

Gao Yu reflected that the man was a ruler sufficiently iron-willed and decisive, yet sufficiently cautious and cunning. His iron will ensured that the moment the emperor's order was given, the entire Typhon war machine would spring into motion and hurl itself at Changfeng Fortress with full force. But his caution... if properly exploited, might just win Cecil a life-saving breath of respite.

He said to Amber, "We must find a way to keep the Typhonians uncertain of Cecil's true situation—to make Royan Augustus overestimate the defenses of Changfeng Fortress, and overestimate the strength we have retained after the war."

Amber thought it over. "I will help General Ma Qi draw up a plan—let him put out the message of a 'great Cecil victory,' and make Changfeng Fortress appear as fully manned as possible..."

"That is not enough. Ophelia Augustus is a formidable opponent, and he will not keep his eyes fixed on Changfeng Fortress alone," Gao Che said in a low voice. "Our domestic messaging must be unified at once. The war on the Holy Spirit Plain must be framed as a great victory won at trifling cost. Our grain reserves are ample, our young men are inspired by victory and flocking to enlist, and the fall of the Ansu royal house must be presented with far more dignity. We absolutely cannot let it be reported that the royal knight orders were all but annihilated, or that barely one in ten of the Northern Legion survived.

"So far our propagandists have done reasonably well on these fronts, but the effort in the Eastern Region is far weaker than in the South... That must be corrected immediately.

"In addition, our trade with Typhon must be maintained. Not merely maintained—it must be expanded in scale. Now that Cecil has taken over this vast territory, both our needs and our output can only rise, never fall, and they must rise substantially... Only in this way can we keep Ophelia Augustus from guessing how many people we have lost.

"Do not worry that Cecil cannot absorb trade on such a scale—the throughput of the arcane-industrial sector is astonishing. Moreover, I have already arranged for Grand Duke Baiyu Franklin to negotiate with the Ogle tribal kingdom. The grey elves and dwarves there are much taken with our alchemical elixirs and textiles, and through trade with them we can shift more than half the pressure onto their shoulders..."

Gao Cen laid out his reasoning point by point, his objective perfectly clear: to mislead the ruler of Typhon.

So long as one grasped the rules by which information traveled in this age, and pinpointed its backwardness and every loophole, such an objective was within reach.

Of course, Ophelia Augustus was by no means lacking in intelligence, and Typhon had its own intelligence services. Even if such deception succeeded, it should not hold for long—but what Gao Yang wanted was precisely a short-lived deception. All he needed now was the postwar time to "catch his breath and recover." So long as the Iron Throne restored its fighting strength and reached the border, so long as this year's harvest came in, and so long as Cecil's next batch of recruits finished training and drew their equipment, he would have the confidence to withstand Typhon's offensive. And if he could deceive them a little longer—perhaps through this winter—so that the great emperor Ophelia did not react until next spring... then he would be all the more secure.