NationStates Jolt Archive

Sun Liu sat in his office. that such a man as himself refured to his work area as an office, and that it actually Was an office, in the most litteral sense of the word, only served to emphasis that this was an Emperor of a different cut.

currently, he was going over maps and figures, and two of his closest advisers were also with him.

"My lord. the army stands ready for whatever is needed, but we do not have the capacity to upgrade their equipment at the rates required if anyone we war with develops adequate counters." Grand General of the Armies, Zhang Wu, spoke first. "we have numbers on our side, but things will become unnecessarily difficult if this happens."

"humm. then we will need to increase our efforts to industrialize. Shen Jiao, what of the people? how fare they?"

Shen Jiao, Grand Minister of the Interior, consulted his notes for a moment "Sire, the rail-road construction proceeds apace. at this point the northern and southern borders, Heifei, Shanghai, and Yueyang. the west is still subject to unrest, however, so progress is slow. the line to the Japanese border is... well, completed, though it stops a couple of hundred kilometers back from the border proper.

regarding resources and general happiness... the bulk of the people are satisfied with their lot, and as a result production is satisfactory. we have enough supplies for all of the armies to march in different directions if necessary."

"interesting. i have had a plan in mind for some time. with the completion of the railways, we are finally ready to set it in motion. i have reports that the Russians are busy in the west. so. we shall do this, unless there is a reason it will not work:

two divisions and two thousand herons shall go east. we take Korea.

one shall remain on the southern border.

two shall advance north into Siberia.

three shall head west, the northern most possibly helping the Siberian force if needed. we shall finally and utterly crush the south west, and expand to take Mongolia, and on until we run into serious opposition, at which point we shall deal with whoever is providing it as appropriate.

one million of the levies are to be called up to secure borders and maintain military presence where needed, and the remaining three thousand herons shall continue their usual duties.

in this way, we shall strike before others develop counters to our weapons, and buy ourselves time to develop improved ones, as well as allowing us the opportunity to simply take them if we find them.

do you see any flaws?"

"none immediately sir. but i would suggest you allow a week for us to confirm that it will work" Shen spoke.

"you have it. in one week, unless you present a compelling reason for this plan not to be effected, we begin."

Prime Minister Phuoc Brown looked up - thanking his aide for the report that he'd been given. Effective long-range radio was still relatively uncommon in Australia, and even moreso in its Asian territories.

His parents had immigrated to Australia after the Great War, when he was just a child, changing their last name to Brown. Despite the unification of former French Indochina and Australia, there was still a large level of worry among the general Australian population that they would be replaced by their new compatriots from the north, who would destroy their way of living.

He had been elected on a platform of a militarily powerful and industrialized Federated Oceanic-Asian Republics, bettering both the standard of living and the military. Abolishing required union membership, he was unpopular with many of the mainland Australians, however, his popularity in the south-east Asian territories was unmatched.

Indeed, the new systems of a federal-esque government for each of the former countries, united under the main government, which had, in reality, less power than he would've liked.

However, that did not prevent him from taking new measures, to develop new technology, and to further industrialize the entire Federated Republics. The first order of business, however, was defense. China, although not unified, was still mammoth, and, indeed, could crush the Federated Republics' defense, should it choose to do so.

Obviously, it should not choose to do so. He looked at the paper on his desk, entitled "Decimetric Radar Warning Stations". Reading down the page, although he did not understand the technical explanations behind it.. it seemed that radio waves could be used to detect enemy troop movements, and allow them to counter accordingly. As it stood, they did not have half the troops they would need to guard the border, let alone defend it, so.. his eyes flickered down to the grant requested, and, momentarily, he swore.

The sum was.. more than considerable. And he wasn't even sure if the system would work in any case. However.. if the Chinese decided to turn their attentions south, they needed to be able to defend themselves. He scrawled a brief note, pinning it to the proposal.

Take a third of the funds requested, and build warning stations at vital points. Spend lesser amount of your requested research project. If you can have such a thing effective and operating within six months, I will grant the remainder of the money to you.

Prime Minister Phuoc Brown

He waved his aide over, and gave the note to the man. It was peculiar. He couldn't even remember his name.. what was it again? Joseph, yes. He couldn't remember the man's last name, which was strange, as he'd been his aide for three days now.

"Jospeh, send this back to the Minister for Defense. He can give it to whichever of his underlings masterminded this little gem."

He smiled. That was the first order of the day dealt with, of course. However.. it might be wise to order a few troops to the border. Just a few, of course. He did not want to appear overly aggressive. But, say, five, ten thousand more men? Enough to make the Chinese realise that they were not going to be intimidated, at the very least.

It was hard, the new construction of industries, and keeping his jurisdiction technologically competitive, as well as militarily competitive. Although they had the jump in radio-wave technology, their fleet was tiny and obsolete, and a single squadron of fighters made up their airforce, such as it was. He had, of course, ordered more funds to equip and train militia near the Chinese border, in the hopes that he'd be able to reinforce his army there within a few days if things came to the worst.

And, surprisingly, he was doing all this without a national deficit. Of course, the economy grew - but it was more fragile than ever, relying on the sea lands from Australia to Vietnam, and, if they should fail.. He shuddered. Luckily, the HMS Perth, a new cruiser, would be in service within a few months, revitalising their ailing navy.

Originally, the defense of Australia had merely required superior land forces, with no empire to defend, no, or little supplies required from the outside world. Now.. now things were different. Superior land forces were required to stem the tide of aggression in the north, but effective sea forces were required to ship supplies and arms from the Australian mainlaind, still the main holder of industries in the Republics. And, of course, air forces. None of which he could afford in great quantity until the Asian holdings were completely industrialized, consilidated, and the standard of living greatly improved.

Running a nation was standing on a knife-edge which was poised over a cliff - if you moved, you died quickly. If you didn't, you got cut. He sighed. Either way.. we'll, he'd succeed or he wouldn't. Time would tell.

a week had passed, and reports indicated that there were no problems and sufficient ammunition, fuel, and rations organized for the men for up to three months, if they didn't mind rice and water four days out of seven.

being aware of the problems caused for troops by winter, and the long distances from home that the armies would be going, they were issued winter clothing as well as their standard gear. it was hoped that the invasions of Korea and Siberia would be done with before winter set in, but it was all too likely this would not be the case.

using the railways and the locust chassis's high speed, all eight divisions would be in place within 20 days. civilian traffic would be disrupted during the deployment, which was unfortunate, but once it was done, the supply trains would simply be mixed in with the regular freight.

and so the countdown to invasion began.

His parents had immigrated to Australia after the Great War, when he was just a child, changing their last name to Brown. Despite the unification of former French Indochina and Australia, there was still a large level of worry among the general Australian population that they would be replaced by their new compatriots from the north, who would destroy their way of living.

ooc: Just a quick note, "Nguyễn" is a last name. Vietnamese names go Last-Middle-First. A first name would be something like Minh. This is a bit of a nitpick, yes, but it does kind of look funny for someone to have two last names.

OOC: Oops, my bad. I was just looking at a few names in a book - I didn't realise precisely how it was laid out. I'll change that right off.

OOC Lol....

Anyways, I'm gonna tell Ansu to put you on hold for a day. Need to find that nifty little factbook.

OCC- Exactly how many men are you invading Siberia with?

ooc: based on the number of men in a squad [there are less in an artillery vehical, but there are some irregular units + command staff etc etc.]

190 thousand. you know, give or take.

two of my divisions [they're over size due to the use of regiments between battalion and brigade levels as actual combat units, rather than just organizational units, or another word for battalion.]