Chapter 27: No Guns, No Cannons, the Enemy Shall Provide Them for Us

Upon arriving at the command headquarters, Zhang Shan received his first piece of good news.

Anna stepped forward, her expression unreadable. "Your Highness, the procurement agent sent to Arica has telegraphed back. He has secured three M1 Garand rifle production lines for 2 million Britannia pounds, and one Thompson submachine gun production line for 1 million pounds, along with the corresponding manufacturing licenses. One production line for each weapon, along with the installation technicians, has already been packed and loaded onto a ship at Golden Mountain Port and is en route to Barovsk. They are expected to arrive within two weeks."

"Excellent."

"Your Highness, if I may speak frankly, even if this is Britannia's money, borrowed funds must eventually be repaid. If you were not in such a rush, the price could have been negotiated further down."

Zhang Shan shook his right hand. "No. In the near future, production lines like these will be impossible to buy, even with money. Just look at the brick walls you’ve hit with the other Rasian electors."

Anna fell silent. The rules of this world were cruel. There were many things that no amount of money could purchase. The military foundation of the Far East was deliberately kept weak by successive Rasian emperors. Forget about tank production lines; even Mosin rifle production lines were scarce. Their so-called military factories were little more than large-scale workshops; to increase output, they had to rely on mass-training skilled laborers and piling up production through sheer manual labor.

Two million Britannia pounds was equivalent to 8 million Arican dollars—a staggering cost for production lines that, at this moment, had yet to be proven in actual combat. To others, this looked like Prince Andrei grasping at straws in a panic.

It was only because Arica was currently a strictly neutral nation that they would sell to anyone with money. Had it been any other nation already at war or harboring territorial ambitions against its neighbors, high-automation production lines would never have been put up for sale. Of course, this was only possible now; a little later, any freighter flying the Arican flag would likely have been intercepted by the Yamato Navy.

Fortunately, the Yamato Navy would never risk offending the Aricans at this juncture just to appease their own army—*your pathetic army wants to fight in the Rasian Far East? What does that have to do with the Navy? We’d be delighted if you lost; we’d fire our cannons in celebration!*

In a sense, Zhang Shan had successfully exploited a loophole. As for artillery production lines, that was out of the question; any mature artillery production line could not be acquired through civilian channels. Even the money-grubbing Aricans would require the approval of their congressmen for such a deal.

*Unfortunately, distant water cannot quench a nearby fire,* Zhang Shan mused to himself. Even if everything went smoothly with the arrival, installation, calibration, and training, the first M1 Garand would not roll off the line for at least a month. By then, the enemy’s Grade-A division would have already crushed them.

Meanwhile, the nobles of the Grand Duchy of Boria were still bickering over who would occupy which position. Hearing this, Zhang Shan felt his blood pressure—which hadn't even been high to begin with—suddenly stabilize.

"We must acquire more rifles."

Hearing Zhang Shan’s whisper, Natalie spoke up. "Your Highness, do not put too much pressure on yourself. You have already done very well." The adjutants and staff officers around her nodded in agreement.

Zhang Shan shook his head and replaced the map with a special one. "You don't understand. Once we lose Red Tower Province, half of our Grand Duchy's war potential will be severed."

Seeing the markings on the map, the people in the room barely dared to breathe. It was a mineral resource map. The surveyed mineral resources across the Far East were extremely uneven. Despite its vast territory, the North lacked the minerals required for war. The southern provinces near the border, however, held an abundance of them.

Red Tower Province, the focus of the current conflict, based its industry primarily on mining—gold, molybdenum, tin, lead, zinc, and coal—complemented by a vast array of machine factories. Red Tower City, the target of the main offensive, was not only a hub for the Great Boria Railway with a population of 380,000, but also the site of numerous heavy machinery plants.

It was precisely by relying on a series of reinforced concrete factory buildings—so sturdy that even 105mm howitzers couldn't easily penetrate them—that three Homeland Defense Brigades were able to lock two Yamato Grade-B divisions into a brutal war of attrition. Even the five-story makeshift apartment buildings where the miners lived were not structures that the Yamato 37mm field guns could easily destroy.

The people of Red Tower were fighting with their lives to hold the city. With the 8th Division arriving soon, it was foreseeable that even against a Grade-A division, they could hold out for a long time. The lack of rifles and artillery, however, remained the bottleneck preventing the rest of the Boria Grand Duchy’s forces from deploying.

Zhang Shan ordered another intelligence map of the Yamato army to be displayed. As he compared the unit designations of the Grade-C brigades stationed at the Yamato supply depots one by one, a special designation labeled "Boundary" caught his eye.

"That's the one! The 3rd Infantry Regiment under the Yamato 4th Division. They are responsible for the 6th Supply Depot..." Zhang Shan smiled. "Bring in our little vermin."

Before long, a cowering Yamato prisoner was dragged in by four Royal Guards. The wretched soldier, sporting a demonic horn on his forehead, immediately prostrated himself before Zhang Shan and began babbling incoherently. Zhang Shan couldn't be bothered to talk to him; he turned to the translator. "Tell him, if he gets the job done, I guarantee his future prosperity. Otherwise, tell him exactly what was written here."

"Understood!"

...

The following evening, on the vast grasslands, a sentry at the western side of the Yamato 6th Supply Depot was grumbling as he stood guard in a wooden watchtower. "Damn it! So many mosquitoes."

Suddenly, he heard the sound of hooves. Startled, he quickly shone his searchlight toward the perimeter. "Who goes there?!"

"Don't shoot! It's us!" came the reply in fluent Yamato.

Before long, the mysterious soldier, who introduced himself as Natsume Takashi, was brought before the regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto.

"Speak! Who sent you?" the middle-ranking commander barked, surrounded by his guards.

The short, wretched-looking Natsume was not intimidated; instead, he straightened his back. "I bring greetings from His Highness, Andrei Boriasky, the Third Prince of the Grand Duchy of Boria."

The statement caused Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto’s pupils to contract sharply. "You want to be a traitor, boy?"

"What traitor? At this moment, I represent the will of His Highness. As for whether it ends in 'destruction' or 'trade,' that depends entirely on your choice, Colonel."

"What do you mean?!" Sakamoto was suddenly struck by a sense of dread.

As if in response to Natsume’s words, a thunderous explosion suddenly echoed from the north. Before Sakamoto could even rush out of the makeshift bunker, he saw a massive fireball rising into the sky on the horizon.

A soldier shrieked, "Amaterasu preserve us! That’s the 5th Supply Depot!"

Behind Sakamoto, Natsume let out a sinister chuckle. "I assume you have seen the 'destruction,' Colonel. Now, might you consider the 'trade'?"