Chapter 626 — Battle Plan, March on Red Maple
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 5
The tactical map hung before Gao Yang's eyes. Every marker, every place name, every river and mudflat was annotated precisely in its correct position.
The Gorgon River, Red Maple City, Boulder City, the zone boundary, the positions of the Cecil Legion's main force, the direction of advance... Advanced tactical doctrine and swift means of transmitting information gave this map an intelligence density that would have made the tacticians of this age boggle—and allowed Gao Yang to calculate most of the variables of a forced march in short order.
At the Cecil Legion's rate of advance—fast, extraordinarily fast, though it was—the main body of Gao Song's army could never reach Boulder City in time. Ground troops simply could not match the speed of Maggie, a flying unit; and even if they arrived within two days by forced march, an exhausted army could not fight the Crystal Cluster Legion, whose combat power was formidable to begin with. That place was already the deepest part of the contaminated zone, and the crystal giants entrenched there were all elites.
But he could strike Red Maple directly.
Red Maple lay due north of the main force. Between them remained only a stretch of fairly flat riverbank plain, the route along the way already scouted by reconnaissance units. At the same time, the entire route lay within the artillery support range of the Cecil river fleet—even Red Maple City itself stood relatively close to the Gorgon River. When the Pioneer reached the western channel of Red Maple, nearly a third of the city would fall within the bombardment range of the naval guns.
Given the peculiar organizational structure of the crystal giants, they would value a "command center" far more than a human army would. Once Red Maple City came under heavy assault, Gao Yang was absolutely certain that every crystal giant in the vicinity would turn back to relieve it—including the lot attacking Boulder City.
This was Gao Yang's version of "besieging Wei to rescue Zhao."
Maggie quickly grasped Gao Song's reasoning and realized that this was probably the most feasible plan available at present.
"When our shells land on Red Maple's walls, the Northern Legion is more than half safe—the crystal giants possess a degree of telepathic ability, and they will sense the danger to their home base at once and return to rescue it," Gao Yang said, standing before the map, his finger sweeping between Red Maple and Boulder City. "After that, two possibilities arise. If we can utterly destroy Red Maple's command hub before the returning enemy arrives, then the Crystal Cluster Legion, bereft of its commanders, will immediately fall into weakness and loss of control. They will return to their home base driven by their former fixation, but their combat power will be greatly diminished—we can prepare our positions and simply annihilate those beasts;
"If the enemy's relief force arrives before we break through Red Maple's defenses, then we shift to mobile warfare. Mechanized units surpass the crystal giants in mobility and endurance. We can exploit that, and with the fleet's artillery support, wipe those monsters out on the plain before Red Maple City."
Gao Yang finished outlining his tactics in brief, and then Philip and the staff officers began to revise and supplement the plan. Maggie watched the orderly scene in this command post somewhat dazedly, and it suddenly struck her that the Cecil people seemed to be waging this war the way one operates a machine: every action had a plan, every change had a contingency, and soldiers, weapons, supplies—even the enemy's resistance—every factor was reduced to a component and slotted into the vast war machine the Cecil people had built...
And the accidents and contingencies unavoidable in war, along with the flexible combat capability an army must possess, were supplied by these officers with clearly defined duties through their ingenuity.