Chapter 15: I Want to Drain the Blood of the Fontainians

In truth, General Allenby had not wanted Ning Luo to meet General Asfled.

This wasn’t hard to understand.

Even setting aside Ning Luo’s identity, just based on his capability alone, Allenby wanted to keep a tight grip on him.

Now that General Allenby had risen to his current position, he was already one of the Empire’s top decision-makers. To go even higher would require elevation to nobility or appointment as Chief of General Staff.

If they lost this war, General Asfled would bear the brunt of the responsibility. Resigning would be considered a lenient outcome.

Likewise—

If they won the war, General Asfled would be the chief architect of victory. He would be promoted to Marshal and hailed as a hero of the Empire.

After that came the distribution of rewards and honors. As Quartermaster Director, General Allenby would naturally receive credit for the logistical success.

But if he took Ning Luo to General Asfled, the merits that Ning Luo earned would not benefit Allenby.

However—

At this point, the course of the war was no longer something General Allenby could control.

In the face of a war of such enormous scale, in the tidal wave of such a grand era, even the Empire itself could be crushed by time. A high-ranking officer like the Quartermaster Director—normally far beyond the reach of an ordinary person’s imagination—

Meant nothing.

...

The Albion Empire.

Brittany Fortress.

Frontline Army General Staff Conference Room.

At this moment, there were over a dozen people gathered in the room, most of whom belonged to General Asfled’s advisory group and several frontline generals. Among them, the lowest military rank was Lieutenant Colonel.

Someone like Captain Ning Luo simply wouldn’t be permitted here. If someone of that rank appeared, it would only be to relay orders—not to participate in the strategic discussions of the General Staff.

However—

Those present in the conference room held access to all military intelligence. Naturally, they were well aware of who Ning Luo was.

Seated at the head of the room was, of course, General Asfled, the Chief of General Staff.

In the span of just over a month, General Asfled looked as though he had aged ten years. When he looked at Ning Luo, he didn’t get up—in truth, he no longer had the strength to stand.

General Asfled got straight to the point.

“I’ve already heard the details from General Allenby. Thank you for what you’ve done for the Empire.”

“I’m an Albion citizen. This is my duty.”

“I won’t beat around the bush. Captain, what are your thoughts on the current situation?”

Ning Luo didn’t answer right away.

He first walked to General Asfled’s side, pressing a stack of documents down on the table with both hands and exhaled deeply.

“Before I share my thoughts, I must emphasize one thing: there is only one optimal solution to break the deadlock in Brittany—and that is to abandon the Brittany Fortress. Only after recognizing this premise can I present my analysis.”

“I understand. Go on.”

General Asfled did understand what Ning Luo meant.

Being the Chief of General Staff wasn’t a job anyone could just assume. It meant taking full responsibility for the war. Everyone in that room knew that abandoning the Brittany Fortress was the best course of action—and they also knew that Brittany could not be abandoned.

Ning Luo was reminding General Asfled—

That the new plan carried tremendous risk. If it failed, even General Asfled wouldn’t be able to bear the consequences.

But General Asfled had no other choice.

Ning Luo continued.

“I must warn everyone here: as long as this war drags on, the situation will only worsen. The measures we take will become increasingly extreme. Just like the logistical optimization plan we previously employed—it was an extremely radical solution that could very well trigger a cascading collapse of the supply system.”

“But given the current state of the war, even logistical reforms can’t bring a breakthrough on the battlefield. We’re being forced to seek even more extreme solutions to counter Fontaine’s relentless offensives. And such extreme measures will bring consequences beyond imagination for the Empire.”

Ning Luo’s words were terrifying.

Everyone present knew he wasn’t exaggerating. Even without resorting to more extreme measures, this war alone was already enough to destroy the Empire.

And once the Empire fell, nothing would matter anymore. Under such a premise, no method could truly be considered "too extreme."

After Ning Luo finished speaking—

Priscilla Cavendish Pe Beaufort-Fitzroy entered the room, distributing documents to everyone present.

It was a thick dossier. All the staff officers here were professionals—no one understood the realities of war better than they did. They could recite every unit designation by heart. Any plan handed to them had to be detailed to the point of exhaustion.

But after carefully reviewing Ning Luo’s proposal, every face in the room—including that of General Asfled—began to tighten with a frown.

The name of the plan was simple:

The Rotation System.

The concept wasn’t complicated either: divide the army into three tiers of operational units.

These were: Frontline Units, Reserve Units, and Rear Units.

As the name implied, Frontline Units would engage directly in combat. They were required to hold the line for up to three weeks, or until they suffered unsustainable casualties—at which point, they would be rotated into the Reserve Units.

Reserve Units would be stationed in rear areas away from the most intense combat. Troops here could undergo short-term rest and retraining. But they wouldn’t be removed from battle entirely—they needed to be ready at a moment’s notice to replace frontline forces or quickly reinforce if the enemy launched an attack. After six weeks in the reserves, they would be cycled into the Rear Units.

Rear Units would be located further back, in safer zones far from the front. This was where troops could get longer periods of rest and rehabilitation. After nine to twelve weeks of recovery, they would be cycled back to the front lines.

If it had stopped at that, the plan wouldn’t have seemed so difficult. Implementing it might even have been feasible—if they had enough manpower, which they didn’t.

What made the plan truly staggering was this—

Ning Luo intended to place all of the Empire’s Western, Central, and Eastern Armies into this massive rotational framework.

That alone was enough to make everyone’s scalp tingle.

Ning Luo had reasons for proposing this plan.

In terms of tactics, Ning Luo didn’t hold a deep understanding. Compared to the generals and staff officers present, he would be completely out of his depth in battlefield command—especially in a war that had lasted over thirty years, where experience mattered far more than theory.

And this rotation plan wasn’t even originally his.

It came from the memories of his past life.

In those memories, there had been a great war—one said to end all wars. One nation’s Marshal, in order to sustain a total war of annihilation against an enemy power, had implemented this very system of rotation and logistics.

Of course—

The price was that the war wiped out an entire generation of his country.

Ning Luo had spent over a month at Brittany Fortress working to optimize this rotational system. Copying a plan was one thing—executing it was another matter entirely.

Especially when magic had merged with warfare, evolving military technology into something absurd and unpredictable.

...

After two full hours of discussion and debate—

General Asfled fully understood what the Rotation System implied. But if they didn’t implement it, there were no other viable options left.

In the end—

General Asfled spoke.

“Captain, are you confident this can be done?”

“I’m not confident. If I had two more months, I’d be more certain.”

Ning Luo answered truthfully.

But it wasn’t a matter of whether General Asfled was willing to give Ning Luo two months—it was whether Fontaine would allow them that time. In just over a month since the Battle of Brittany began, it had already been enough to bring Brittany Fortress to the brink of collapse.

General Asfled turned his gaze toward the staff officers present.

All of them fell silent.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to oppose Ning Luo’s plan—if nothing else, that would prove that the collective insight of all of them combined wasn’t even equal to one boy barely twenty years old. But the issue wasn’t just about voicing opposition—they would also need to offer a better plan.

And if asked to come up with something superior to the Rotation System, they knew they couldn’t.

General Asfled let out a helpless breath.

“Captain, are you saying I should wager the Empire’s fate… on you?”

“I’ve said it before, General—the best course of action is to retreat from Brittany Fortress.”

“Captain!”

General Allenby immediately interjected from the side.

Ning Luo’s wording was essentially giving General Asfled no room for dignity at all.

But General Asfled didn’t mind that. He understood clearly that, at times like this, there were simply no choices left.

“Who do you think should be in charge of implementing this?”

“I should.”

“It can’t be you.”

“It has to be me. No one else can carry out this plan!”

Ning Luo insisted.

The Rotation System wasn’t some trivial plan. Unlike the logistical optimization scheme, which could be independently executed by the logistics department, this system would involve every facet of the Empire’s military.

To grant Ning Luo command over its implementation would be tantamount to handing him full personnel authority over the Empire’s entire armed forces. Which general commanded which unit—Ning Luo would have the final say.

That kind of terrifying power—impossible to give him.

Of course—

There was a deeper implication as well.

The Rotation System wasn’t a matter of simple success or failure. As General Asfled had said, the plan meant wagering the entire fate of the Empire.

If they won, all problems would cease to matter.

But if they failed—it could cost General Asfled his life. And frankly, he had no intention of escaping.

If Brittany Fortress fell, General Asfled would die with it.

But even if he was going to die—

He had to give the Empire an answer.

And what would that answer be? That the defeat at Brittany was because the Chief of General Staff of the Empire entrusted the fate of the war to the plan of a captain not yet twenty years old—and gave that same young officer full authority to implement it, resulting in the failure of an entire campaign?

In a way—

This was also General Asfled’s way of protecting Ning Luo. As long as Ning Luo was here, he was Asfled’s soldier. He couldn’t let Ning Luo carry the burden of defeat.

General Asfled turned his head to look directly at Ning Luo.

“I hereby promote you to Major, and award you the Silver Dragon Cross.”

The Silver Dragon Cross was one of the Empire’s highest honors.

It was usually only bestowed upon generals on the front lines.

In addition to that, there was the rank of Major, granted to someone not even twenty years old. Normally, a promotion at such a young age would be purely honorary, devoid of real command power. But clearly, what General Asfled had just given him—

Was a full and active commission.

General Asfled’s meaning was also clear: regardless of victory or defeat, regardless of the outcome—

He was awarding Ning Luo his merits in advance.

However—

“General, I’ll repeat myself once more. No one but me can implement this plan!”

Ning Luo pressed both hands firmly on the table, stressing every word.

The reason he demanded such authority wasn’t because he wanted to control the military—the army would never allow someone not even twenty to have control over them. In truth, the method General Asfled had taken was the best possible outcome for Ning Luo. With the Silver Dragon Cross and a promotion to Major, there was no longer even a need to say Ning Luo had a promising future—he already had one.

But what Ning Luo wanted—

Was to win this war.

Though the Empire now appeared to be on the back foot, it was still an unimaginably vast behemoth. Just altering the logistics system had been a monumental challenge—let alone changing the way the entire army operated.

Only with absolute authority could Ning Luo shake this massive war machine into action.

General Asfled furrowed his brow deeply.

He had already reached the point of having no other options. Under normal circumstances, he would never even have considered Ning Luo’s plan—in fact, under normal circumstances, it never would have even reached his desk. That it had landed before him now meant one thing:

The situation was already on the brink of collapse.

He took a deep breath.

“Colonel Cavaillé.”

“Present!”

One of the staff officers stood up from the group.

General Asfled gave the order:

“The Empire will establish the Imperial Military Operations Coordination Office. You are to serve as the Director of Coordination, with Captain Ning Luo as Deputy Director.”

“Understood!”

That was as far as General Asfled was willing to compromise.

Colonel Cavaillé was both the most capable and the most trusted officer under General Asfled.

Nominally, Cavaillé would serve as Director and Ning Luo as Deputy. But everyone in the room knew the truth: Ning Luo was the real person in charge. Colonel Cavaillé’s role was mostly for show—if they truly put a teenager as Director of Military Coordination, it would terrify people and sow too much discontent within the ranks.

There was no choice.

According to Ning Luo’s plan, the Coordination Office’s powers would be near-terrifying in scope. It would report directly to General Asfled, hold authority over all military unit rotations, decide the priority of logistical resources, and even allocate frontline reinforcements.

Appointing Colonel Cavaillé as Director was a safeguard—to keep Ning Luo from going out of control. If they were going to give someone such enormous power, there needed to be someone capable to monitor him.

Ning Luo didn’t argue further. He said bluntly:

“I have no objections, General. Now, I must inspect the front lines.”

With that—

Ning Luo turned and left.

General Asfled no longer cared about Ning Luo’s attitude. As long as he could carry out the plan, things like respect or courtesy were meaningless.

After Ning Luo left, Colonel Cavaillé saluted General Asfled, then followed after Ning Luo. The two of them had a mountain of work ahead of them.

At that moment—

General Allenby, the Quartermaster Director, suddenly remembered something and rushed out of the conference room.

But there was no sign of Ning Luo or Colonel Cavaillé.

Allenby, after all, remembered quite clearly that Ning Luo had killed a director from the Finance Department—and that was without any formal authorization. Now that Ning Luo had official approval from General Asfled, who knew who he might dare to kill next?

Of course—

General Allenby shook his head. At the very least, Colonel Cavaillé would be watching him. No matter how extreme Ning Luo might get, surely he wouldn’t do anything too outrageous.

…Probably?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.