Chapter 670 — The Gao Song Conjecture
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 5
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.