CH 253

Warning: Discussions about Flora’s harsh, abusive childhood in this chapter. The author clearly has some strong feelings about proper child rearing and what counts as too harsh or not, so this may be upsetting to some readers what the story puts forth as the “right” answer.

Ah~……. I feel like I have a hole in my stomach… organization of units, securing supplies, details of strategy…

“Ugh~!”

I throw away the document I was reading with careless abandon, banzai. Can I even do this?! Too much work!

While thinking something like that, I catch the documents I threw in the air and rearrange everything in order. The documents that fluttered in the air for a moment then in a few seconds, were back in my hands as if nothing had happened.

“Haa……”

It doesn’t matter if it’s black work ethic. It won’t end if I don’t do anything. And this is a one-time job. That’s it! Unlike my daily paperwork, this was only during the war with the Kingdom of Polsky, and once it was over, I wouldn’t have to do the same job again.

Of course, once a town or fortress is lost to the enemy, it must be recaptured. But it’s not the same job. It’s just one of those jobs that change from time to time.

Thinking that made me feel a little better. Compared to a job where you have to stare at the same documents day after day, you can do your best if you think that once you get over it, it’s over. I’ve already decided what I have to do, so let’s finish it quickly. That sounds nice.

First of all, we basically divide the units into 100 men each. While invading many areas at the same time, we will only capture the enemy’s important bases and blocks roads to discourage the enemy’s fighting spirit.

Thanks to the reinforcements that came, the Caan Knights currently have about 300 members. Actually, it’s not enough to have 300 men, but some of them are borrowed from the House Carruthers units, and 300 men are organized into 3 units of 100 men each. And the Carruthers Army divides their 1,000 soldiers into 10 units of 100 men each. The rest will be used for various tasks such as reserve forces and base defense.

Then there are 500 volunteer soldiers sent from the Caanza Alliance. This is also divided into 5 corps of 100 men each, all of which will move blatantly in conjunction with the House Carruthers units. I say they’re volunteers, but they’re mostly amateurs. I’m grateful that they send me support, but there are almost no professional soldiers and their training is low. Above all, if you lose too many men, the economic strength of the free cities that sent them will drop. I want to avoid unnecessary sacrifices.

The navy consists of 4 galleons and 6 carracks, which form the core of the combat ships. There are many other caravel ships, cog ships, and transport ships sent from each city of the Caanza Alliance, but they can’t be calculated as a naval force.

And… the most important thing in this operation is the artillery unit… it’s a specialized field artillery model brought from the home territory of Caan, not the ship-mounted guns loaded on galleons. The number and technical proficiency are still low, and the limits of the guns’ power and range is well-known. Still, it would be a shock to the people of this world to be bombarded with cannonballs.

Originally, I planned the army would revolve around the artillery units to destroy the enemy’s fortresses and outer walls of walled cities then capture them all at once by storming into the breaches. Unfortunately, there are not enough guns and artillerymen for the total number of targets. That’s why this time, we’ll be distributing them to capture important bases and operating a small number of artillery units in various places.

Artillery is slow, to begin with. It takes time to move because they have to carry heavy guns. Therefore, this time, we will transport the artillery unit to the enemy’s rear at once through the rear assault landing ships. After capturing the first planned landing site, they will immediately advance to the target settlement of our invasion limit and have them concentrate on capturing it. We will not send artillery to towns along the way.

Our strategy is to destroy, seize, and blockade the headquarters and supply bases behind enemy lines. We use our mobility to invade deep into enemy territory, ignoring towns and forts along the way and capturing only the most strategically important locations. The important thing is to invade at a speed that the enemy’s response can’t keep up. In this era, messengers were mainly sent by horse, so we had to cut off the messengers or change the situations one after another before the messenger could arrive to report.

Transporting troops and artillery to the enemy rear is fine. The problem is movement and resupply after landing. The Wakesell River is big and it flows near Danzij, so there’s no problem. We will break the bridges on the way with magic. If we were in our territory, we would not be able to destroy the bridge just to let the ship pass through, but since we are currently in enemy territory, it would be the enemy who would be in trouble if they lost bridges.

The Wakesell River is so big that even a galleon can easily pass through it if we can manage to destroy the bridges. It would be easy to transport large forces and accumulate supplies to the target Glaudens. Galleons can also carry horses. I don’t have to worry too much about it because all I have to do is transport the horses for the artillery and land them on solid ground. If there were any problems, it would be the river Plegora and Instelburg.

Water transportation is popular here, and it is possible to move everything by waterway, but those rivers are small and the flow rate is low. Only small boats can pass through, so transportation is a bit difficult. Even if the ships that had been evacuated to Koenigsvelg and Zimmelbude were rented and used, resupply would be unreliable. We were planning to requisition cog ships, but we didn’t have many small or medium-sized ships of our own…

As for the overall picture of the operation, it is divided into 2 stages: the 1st operation to capture the south, and the 2nd operation to capture the north. By the way, we plan to dispatch fleets to Memburg and Windou first to secure and control the sea superiority before the completion of the 1st operation. Well, the 2nd operation can be done later, but the 1st operation should be the priority.

As I said earlier, I’ll be riding a galleon ship going up the Wakesell River from Danzij. This is because there is a bridge on the way and our galleon ship can’t pass as it is. It’s designed to be able to let smaller ships pass, but it’s not enough to replenish here and there with small ships.

While securing a waterway that even a galleon can pass through, Glaudens will be quickly taken down, as it is an important base for the southern strategy. Also, our combined forces probably don’t know how to wage a blitzkrieg or use artillery, so I need to show them an example first. Once you experience it, everyone will be able to apply it on their own. We have a lot of talented people, after all.

If I capture Glaudens, I’ll go east and capture important bases like Ostelode and Alrenstein. We should do our best and hurry up compared to the troops off to capture Instelburg and invade from the opposite direction as us. As I said earlier, it’s difficult to replenish supplies behind enemy lines, and since I can’t show them a model before me, there’s a possibility that they have a poor understanding of the strategy.

With this, if Glaudens, Ostelode, Alrenstein, Instelburg, and the inland area were captured to the limit of the invasion and blockaded, all of the coastal cities and forts to the north would all be surrounded on a large scale. After that, the Caan-Carruthers Army in the north should work together with the Carruthers-Caanza Forces coming from the south coast to narrow the siege lines and make pincer attacks.

The troops moving southward from the coastal area will rendezvous with the Carruthers Army, which will assist them with all the Caanza Alliance Forces. The Caanza Alliance Army is nothing more than amateurs, so it would be better to ask the veteran Carruthers Army for guidance. The units for the inland blockade are part of the Caan-Carruthers Armies. The victor will be determined by how quickly the inland blockade can be completed.

All artillery units will be transported inland and concentrated in the towns of important bases to be captured. There aren’t many of them, but even so, if you suddenly get bombarded in this world with enough artillery to destroy the castle walls, it’ll be useful to discourage the enemy’s fighting spirit. No need to actually destroy them completely. We will have to occupy and maintain it later, so if we destroy it too much, it will affect our defenses once we’re trying to hold them against recapture.

Then there’s supply… transporting weapons and ammunition, transporting supplies, horses, and wagons to move them…

While I was thinking and processing various things, there was a knocking at the door. Who would visit me at a time like this?

“Come in,” I said.

“Were you busy with work?” my guest asked.

“Lord Carruthers… my apologies for remaining seated. What’s wrong?” I asked.

I didn’t expect my father to come, so I kept sitting and greeted him while still working. I thought it was news from Katharina and Helmut, so it was a blunder. I stand up and rush to greet him properly.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Father said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry for interrupting your work. Please, continue.”

“Okay…” I said.

Hmm? What happened? This is the first time my father has said such a thing to me. When I entered the room, my father didn’t sit on the sofa, but for some reason, he was standing there staring at my work… it’s really hard to do… I can’t do my job with him there, and it would be better to stop and finish my father’s business.

“Um… did you need something?” I asked.

“Is it necessary for a father to have reason to visit his daughter?” Father asked.

“Huh…?”

My hand completely stopped at that. My father had never said anything like that before. Surprised, I looked up and met my father’s gaze as he looked at me.

“Do you hate me?” he asked.

“Huh? Do I hate you?”

What happened to my father since a while ago? I have no idea what he’s saying. Why would I hate him? I think I was brought up a little harshly, but that’s for the sake of my future. Raising children is not just about spoiling them and letting them do as they please. If you don’t raise them by scolding them sometimes and making them experience hardships, they won’t grow up to be decent adults.

In Japan, the number of stupid children has increased because adults no longer discipline children who do whatever they want with the freedoms and rights they’re given. Such stupid children are now parents themselves and are raising even more stupid children, so today’s modern Japan is a mess. Of course, it’s not just about Japan, it’s about the entire modern world, but…

My father raised me strictly without spoiling me more than necessary. But they’re not just strict, they listen to my opinion and if I’m right, they respond properly. There are a lot of times that they have taken my opinion and tried to accommodate or change the way they do things.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Father said. “Ever since you were little, I have thought you were quite creepy, Flora.”

“Ah…, ah…~”

Well… it’s not as if I don’t understand. I would be pretty creeped out if my kid was like this. It’s strange not to think it’s creepy if there’s a child who is too intelligent and talks fluently instead of babbling from her earliest years.

“And then the next thing I thought was, ‘I could use her,’” Father said. “You have that much intelligence, you work hard, and you keep coming up with new ideas. I thought that taking advantage of you Flora would be a great benefit to House Carruthers.”

“That’s… well…”

It’s true that my father listened to me a lot after I first got his investment and made a profit. After all, the best thing to have done there is to actually turn a profit. I got my father involved, thinking that if it became a profitable venture, he would do me a favor. That’s the story I went with, and my father was saying he took advantage of me.

“For me, you were a person that I shared mutual interest with, Flora,” Father said. “It’s not a relationship of a parent and daughter.”

“Yes… I agree……” I said.

But what’s wrong with that? In other words, my father did not take me lightly as a mere child and treated me as an equal partner. If you think about it as a parent and daughter, you may wonder how it could have been. But I can’t be dissatisfied with being treated as an equal to him.

“I haven’t been able to do anything father-like to you, Flora,” Father said. “And I will continue to be unable to do so. A normal girl would dress up in fancy clothes and go to night parties and live in a luxurious world of glitz and glamour. Yet, I’m pushing this much work on you, and even had the gall to put you on the battlefield before my sons…”

When I said that far, my father lowered his face with a slightly pained expression. Did he care about that? I thought he was a dignified father who always guided me strictly, but my father probably had trouble raising his children in his own way. I’ve never raised a child, so I don’t know the hardships, but… I accepted his feelings.

“I am grateful to you, Father,” I said. “It is thanks to you that I have been able to live without being a shame to others. It is exactly because of your strict upbringing that I can live my life proudly. You say we’re different from a normal parent-daughter relationship, but isn’t that also proof that you think highly of me as an equal?”

“Ah… I nee…”

Father sounded worried as he raised his voice, he raised his head and I met his eyes.

“Besides, I don’t think that you have done anything for me as your daughter,” I said. “I believe that you’ve raised me with care as your child. All this work and war are things I have voluntarily involved myself with. You say you regret treating me as an equal and not as your daughter, but I have no grudge against you.”

Ah… that’s right… not everything was what I wanted. However, the trading firm, the management of the territory, and the resulting war are all things I wanted to do. It doesn’t mean that I wanted war. Even if there is a war, there are things I want to protect, so I am standing on the battlefield myself if that’s what it takes. I finally remembered that.

“So will you forgive a father who sends his 15-year-old daughter to war on the battlefield?” Father asked.

“No,” I said.

At that, he made a blank face. But I will not forgive him. I cannot forgive him. That’s because…

“I should have said from the beginning that I hold no grudge against you,” I said. “Therefore, there is nothing to forgive. I have had no resentment or anger from the beginning. Okay?”

“… I see. Thank you.”

My father’s face was calm as I’d never seen it before, it was as if some kind of spirit haunting him had finally left him be.