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It is similar to China in the time of Sun Tzu.
As Sun Tzu says, “Food is to be obtained from the enemy,” the idea is to procure food from the enemy. In other words, this concept is only possible if the country is rich enough to procure food.
As one might expect, an army of more than 10,000 cavalry could not be supplied with food and fodder requisitioned from the enemy, but an army of 1,000 cavalry would be easy enough to provide food and fodder. However, if food is procured from the enemy – or plundered from the perspective of the enemy’s people – it would have a major impact on the subsequent occupation policy. This is probably due to the fact that no politician thinks that far ahead.
Not for Clausewitz, war is merely a means to a political end. It is clear from the examples of the past and present that military actions that lack a long-term perspective will not succeed.
The former Japanese military is a case in point. The defeat in mainland China was caused by a failure of “Policy” in the occupied territories.
The Imperial Japanese Army neglected the occupied territories policy too much.
It extended supply routes over such a large continent for such a long period of time, but it turned the people of the occupied territories against it. There may not have been the Nanking Massacre as propagated by the Chinese Communist Party, but at least they made no effort to win the people over to their side. This put a strain on the logistics and gradually wore them down.
To begin with, Japan’s overseas policy was terrible. It was not so much that the military went out of control, but rather that it was not a policy at all.
I admit that Japan would have been swallowed up by the powers of the world if it had not turned its attention overseas at that time. However, Japan forgot that it was basically a small country and that it should adopt a brinkmanship strategy against the major powers. [T/N: Brinkmanship means pushing a situation to the edge of disaster without going past the edge.]
It was essentially necessary to carefully assess the brink to see how far the U.S. would go to meditate. However, the politicians and military personnel at the time of the Manchurian Incident misjudged this.
What was needed at that time were resources and a place for the people to go who had become blocked. Then, they should have made Manchuria completely independent, let it claim to be a democracy, and then trade and immigration would have been the way to go. That alone would have kept the U.S. out of it, as it continued its Monroe policy and isolationist policies.
The alliance with Germany was a fool’s errand, but still, if they had been anti-Communist, they could have even gained interests in Manchuria under the guise of halting Soviet expansion.
If there had been military personnel in that era who sensibly understood that war was a means to achieve political objectives, the result would not have been as abject as it was.
(The army should have followed the Prussian flow, but why did it fail? Because there were many elites who were just wielding desk theory, the limit was that, but the commander-in-chief’s plan also included operational requirements. It should have been written about that in the ordinance as well…) (Zack)
To return to the subject of supply, this is a rich world, and some military operations are possible if food is forcibly requisitioned. But that is limited to marching through relatively populated areas.
In the wars between the Caelum Empire and neighboring countries, and the wars with the Holy Kingdom of Lux and the Kingdom of Lacus, it may have been possible to get by. However, this would not work in a war against the Demon Folks.
The invasion route of the demon folks is around the unexplored Aquila Mountains in the east, and there is little hope of securing enough food.
(I’m not Admiral Yi, but starving soldiers can’t go to war. Considering that, I think the importance of logistics, including supplies, is clear…) [T/N: Admiral Yi is a Korean commander in the 1500s famous for his victories against the Japanese.]
When I thought this far, I remembered that I never aspired to be a soldier or a politician.
(Come to think of it, it’s strange for me to think about war… I should straighten myself and start thinking about magic…) (Zack)
Instead of discussing pseudo “strategy theory,” I began to think about tactics with magic.
First of all, regarding the magician corps, there is a wide range of abilities among the magician corps in this world, from high-ranking magician of more than level 80, such as Professor Ruspede, to graduates of the academy of about level 15.
Regardless of level, one of the common characteristics of magic is its short range. Even high-level magicians do not have a very large range of fire.
Even at the professor level, the effective range of powerful offensive magic is about 100 meters, and even if the magician specializes in extending the range, it is said that the limit is 300 meters. In other words, the range of magic is not much different from that of a good archer.
Then, what are the advantages of magic?
The greatest advantage is its power.
Magic is capable of ranged attacks. I often use wide range attacks such as [Firestorm] and [Tornado Slasher], which can inflict damage within a certain range. This is a magician’s advantage.
If I fire a firestorm into a dense formation, a single magician can damage a dozen people at once. The only way to attack with such efficiency is with large-scale traps.
Furthermore, even a powerful single magic can knock out a warrior in heavy armor with a single blow.
If we were to compare them to modern weapons, ranged magic would be equivalent to a machine gun, and powerful single magic would be equivalent to an anti-tank rifle.
The problem with the power is that the more powerful the magic, the longer it takes to activate. With a range of 100 meters, a cavalry charge would be able to get close to the target in about 10 seconds. Powerful magic takes about 30 seconds to activate, so if there is no horse-proof fence, they can easily be overrun.
What is even more problematic is that the attack power of low-level magicians is small.
This is indicative of the varying performance of the “weapon” called magic. Since the magician corps is composed of a very small number of high-level magicians and a large majority of low-level magicians, the combat unit of the magician corps is the same as treating an anti-tank rifle and a short-barreled pistol as the same type of weapon.
However, magic has advantages in addition to its power. It has a psychological effect on the opponent. Especially flashy magic such as flame magic has a large psychologically intimidating effect. Anyone would instinctively be frightened if a ball of flame were to fly toward their face. If used properly, its effect will be the same as suppressive fire.
If we consider how to operate the unit after properly grasping these characteristics, we can say that a magician unit is a very powerful type of soldier.
Back to the operation method of the magician unit.
The advantages of the magician units are its powerful firepower, wide attack range, and suppression effect. On the other hand, their disadvantages are long attack intervals, short range, and wide variation in performance.
When I thought about these characteristics, I came up with the idea of concentrated operation of low-level magicians.
There are only a few magicians who can use powerful magic, and it is rare to deploy high-level magicians, who can be called the tiger’s cubs, on the battlefield. Conversely, low-level magicians are relatively easy to deploy. If this is the case, then by concentrating on firepower, they may be able to stop the enemy’s advance by suppressing the variation in performance and taking advantage of the suppression effect.
If dozens of people shoot fireballs at the same spot with relatively easy-to-use magic, for example, [Fireball] under the fire attribute, the appearance will be flashy, and the suppression effect alone will be worth enough. Furthermore, it will hopefully compensate for the lack of firepower, so it should be enough to be used as a force.
If the hypothetical enemy is considered to be cavalry, if no countermeasures are taken, they will be overrun just as easily as artillery that is allowed to be approached. However, if they are stopped by horse fences, or if they make good use of the terrain, for example, by using obstacles such as rivers, they could be as effective as heavy machine guns protected by barbed wire and trenches. Even if the firepower is not that strong, a large number of flames can cause a horse to panic if they are all fired at the same time.
The question now is how to combine the attributes.
Rather than having magic flying everywhere, it would be more intimidating to have a large number of the same type of magic, even if they are not as powerful. If this is the case, it would be effective to form a group according to each attribute and attack with the same magic simultaneously.
Furthermore, it would be possible to use earth and gold magicians as combat engineers.
Even if the level is low to some extent, magic is useful enough to set up simple defensive facilities. If they do not aim to construct permanent facilities, even graduates of the academy should be useful enough.
I have decided to put together a theory of the operation of magic on the battlefield and demonstrate its effectiveness.
~3rd Person Perspective~
Later, an unfinished paper titled “Introduction to Strategy” left by Zacharias Lockhart was discovered in the Great Library in Doctus.
When it was first discovered, although it was signed by Zacharias Lockhart, few believed that it was left by an academy student who was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time.
Deniers argued that its contents were too advanced. Their rationale was that the reports submitted by Zacharias and Sharon Jakes to the practical instructor, Joshua Metcalf, were too different in their arguments compared to the reports that were in existence.
The Academy investigated the deniers’ claims and found that the handwriting in the “Introduction to Strategy” had a certain characteristic. It was found that Zacharias often made mistakes in writing numbers–he often wrote simple numbers incorrectly in the same way–and further detailed handwriting comparison revealed that Zacharias’s handwriting was not as clear as that of his grandfather but was more like his father’s handwriting. A more detailed handwriting check revealed that the handwriting was definitely that of Zacharias.
Not only the deniers but everyone was astonished by this fact.
The paper, “Introduction to Strategy,” which came to be called “Lockhart’s Strategy Theory,” was a novel and rational theory that overturned military theory from the ground up.
According to the testimony of Kitley Elvine, a professor at the Tria Magic Academy, who knew the paper at the time, Zacharias himself was discarding it when she happened to pass by, and she took it over and put it in the Grand Library.
“That child knew how dangerous this paper he wrote was. He showed it to Dr. Ruspede, but he wasn’t going to show it to anyone else. If I hadn’t happened to be there when the paper was about to be thrown away, I wouldn’t have been able to read it. However, it was such a groundbreaking idea that I didn’t want it to disappear from the world. …So, I took it on the condition that it stays hidden in the back of the Grand Library. But I never thought it would get out into the world…” (Kitley)
According to Elvine’s testimony, Zacharias was near the incinerator in the back of the academy to dispose of the papers. Had Elvine not happened to pass by, the dissertation of the century would have been buried in the dark by its author.
How did he feel about destroying the paper? He left no comment about it.
However, the book he left behind, “Introduction to Strategy,” had a profound impact on the way the world has been shaped ever since. Whether this was the outcome that he, Zacharias Lockhart, wanted remains to be seen.
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