Chapter 704 — Tuition
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
What was missing...
An Luo met Roan Augustus's gaze. In the eyes of this empire's ruler she saw a depth and calm like a bottomless pool, and that gaze made her realize that she had not come here today to confess her crimes, nor to defend herself; she had come here to contribute value to the Empire.
Roan watched An Luo quietly.
The Winter Wolf Legion had come off the worse in this border confrontation. The diplomatic pressure it produced, the Emperor had borne for them; the lessons the commanders ought to draw up, Duke Pei Yi would complete together with them; and as for this moment, this place, what the young Wolf General ought to do was tell the Empire's ruler how he should strengthen his army and prepare for the next contest.
"First, communications," An Luo said after a brief silence.
"Our present means of communication are flawed. The Cecilians' arcane legions are ushering in a new form of warfare. Their long-range attack methods are abundant and flexible, and their forces can coordinate with one another and counterattack swiftly across an extraordinarily broad battlefield. This means the speed and scale of change in every sector of the battlefield will far exceed anything we have known...
"The relay towers transmit over great distances, enough to span a battlefield, but they require fixed installations to sustain the operation of large-scale arcane arrays, and can only serve as a means of liaison between fortresses. A mage's Sending spell is flexible and adaptable, but its range is under two kilometers, utterly insufficient for the scale of the battles to come. Moreover, Sending makes high demands on its caster, mid-rank mages are few, and those who have mastered Sending are almost all at the commander's level—they cannot possibly be used on the battlefield as relay runners.
"The arcane light a signal-mage casts is a means of communication that cannot be concealed. Useful though it is, under special circumstances its limits are too great—and we ran into precisely such 'special circumstances'...
"Second, our command system cannot keep pace with our legion structure. In particular, the role of the advisory scholars has not been fully brought into play. They ought to have the right to take part in formulating tactics, not merely to offer suggestions. Furthermore, there is no effective coordination among the advisory scholars themselves, specifically in that...
"Third, we need to update our equipment. Your Majesty, loath as I am to admit it, we are falling behind the Cecilians in equipment. Their transcendent legions are indeed formidable, but we still have far more ordinary soldiers, and the Cecilians' arcane weapons can decide the value an ordinary man can exert on the battlefield. If our vast numbers of ordinary soldiers are comprehensively outclassed by the enemy in arms and equipment, then no matter how great an advantage the transcendent legions hold in a local sector, on the overall battlefield the Cecilians will crush us...
"My scouting units have crossed swords with Cecil's scouts many times. Their scouts are ordinary men, yet they can hold their own against our shadow rangers and scouting mages in a contest. That is a very dangerous signal..."
"And the last point, the hardest of all to control, is our 'way of thinking'—or rather, our handling and understanding of war... it has its limits."
An Luo noticeably slowed her pace when she reached this last point. Clearly, even though she had sorted out her thoughts beforehand, what she had to sum up now was a thing difficult to put into words. Roan Augustus did not press her, only watching the young commander with a calm and even gaze, signaling her to speak boldly on.
Encouraged by the Emperor's silence, An Luo drew a light breath and began to tell where the Typhonians had taken their first and greatest tumble in this border contest.