East Asian Army General Staff HQ, Canton
- This is madness, things used to be running much smoother not too long ago!
- This is AOG, Feldmarschal.
- Don't lecture me on what this is, Wulf!
Teufel was in very bad mood. He was just back from Board meeting and ever-present making of compromises with Triads was tiring him.
- Forgive me, Sir.
- Forget it, it's not your fault. I wish those people would be aware how fragile is the order which we have achieved with so many sacrafices. The burden I am bearing is so heavy...yet I am surrounded by fools who can't see anything beyond the tips of their money-sniffing noses!
- I don't think it's only the scent of money that attracts them though...that white stuff they like to put into banknotes has probably a big role in their thoughts as well.
- Don't tell me about it, I hear they are even rewarding their troops with various psychedelic herbs and powders on top of their wage. Sign up for Tigress Guard, stay forever for the pleasures. And the money they make with export! They are overflowing Europe, if only we could get our hands on some of those networks, there'd be so much dough to be made. Money, money, money! They have it all and we don't. This must change.
- They are playing beggar thy neighbour game on expense of Metropolis. Is this wise? I don't mind them corrupting Japan, Russia or North America, but the Kaiserreich?
- Don't be a fool, Wulf. German Empire won't collapse because few more people are getting high in Kiel or Dortmund. We need more strength to wrestle some of control back from Triads.
- We surely do. But what is that made you so angry before? Is it connected with ongoing union strikes?
- Indeed. But fortunately, I managed to push trough relatively acceptable solution. Triads wanted to smash some heads as usual. But far too many for desired effect. We can't afford mass of more or less qualified workforce to be thrown out of our well-oiled industrial machine in the middle of crucial recovery proces. We don't lack general manpower, but we can't afford constant replacement of good men behind machines or barracks' walls doing their current work just fine with inexperienced greenhorns. And in the end, even our quite impressive reserve pool of workforce would break at some point, should we risk everyone just trying to flee to places like Qing Empire, or just revolt. We couldn't survive another civil war. At least not at this point.
- Wise thinking, Sir.
- Thus, I have managed to convince our dear friends at Board of Directors, most of them are now fine gentlemen from Hong Kong and other former free coastal cities, to accept my reasonable middle ground proposal. According to that, a small bribe with amnesty was arranged for illegal strikers who return to work. As predicted, majority is already falling for the carrot. As for the rest, I left them to the heavy stick of security forces. This will both make an example of them, and also satisfy the bloodlust of our partners. I wouldn't be in the shoes of stubborn strike leaders and other fools who followed them and still fail to see what is good for them. I had to give free hands to Leang's Guards who will issue the punishments on their own discretion. Troublemakers will be dealt as enemies of the state disrupting public harmony and such charges don't need court hearings or anything. They'll pray the Police would have them in the custody instead, but they already made their choice by rejecting our deal. It's not that I'm sorry for them, but neither I'm too interested in punishing them myself. My hands are clean and it's good to have some scapegoats for Lao Ce and company to show off with their strength in society.
- Sir, I'm happy to present you situation in our military. Of course Guard Corps will be left out because they get direct funding from the Board...
- Yes, I know that. As soon as I secure more money I'll also start paying Presidential Guard on my own. I trust those men but I don't want the smell of foreign money luring their loyalty away from me. But we must do everything not to have East Asian Army fall behind the general forces of Triad-controlled Garde. Just look at what are they doing to foreign expeditionary forces. They are not only hiring at large home and abroad, but are also depleting allied foreign formations with loose restrictions of their staff. Saigon doesen't want trouble with monsters of Golden Triangle and is tolerating those defections. Fortunately we have professional army and our cadres are bound to its formations, if we had purely contracted force we'd run out of men by now.
- Indeed Sir, that's why we initiated new system that the crude concept you already improved in advance.
- And now I'll see the results.
- Indeed. As you already know, professional service in our army is still attracting enough job-seeking men in spite of Garde recruitment spree, for now. But it's true we're getting mostly leftovers who are still willing to serve in regular army in spite of being rejected by Garde. That's what we crafted a stimulation program to fix this. We could still initiate regular draft, but this wouldn't be too politically wise...
- Trully.
- We are deploying more troops at respectable pace, but not good enough concerning our rearmament plans. From what we are getting both out of manpower pool and armaments industry paired with purchases and donations, it's just enough to combine men and material into few regular units that are slowly increasing size of our army. If there wouldn't be Guard Corps, there'd be more men and material to spare for our needs.
- But they are here and we can't help it.
- The types we need the most are those of biggest utility in boudaries of our technical capacities. Apart from main battle tank forces in form of spearheads consisted of upgraded Leopard 1 models, the power of our mass formations lies in combination of motorized infantry and Spähpanzers that provide light armor support. In current situation, we can't even dream of large fully mechanized formations. We can't even issue mass deployment of existing types.
- I think so. I have constructed financial program that would stimulate interest for army career without need of issuing forceful draft.
- If it's about throwing more money at problem, this won't work for me.
- Totally opposite in fact. We would do it by imposing a special tax on all constituents under AOG jurisdiction. It should be large enough to make people interested in getting rid of it, but not too large to remain dead word on paper, cause ruin of entire families or even ignite revolt. Those who fear military life will muster resources to avoid it and provide us with more funds that will flow directly into own fund of East Asia Army. On the other hand, this will cut options for those lured by Garde prizes. You won't even have to push this trough Board as our army is entitled to collect resources from population in both home districts and areas of operations to provide undisrupted defence services. District commander for his area, or supreme command for jurisdiction of entire force, can issue general financial obligation with an order that includes justification from field of defence. If anyone will take an appeal against our justification, be it even all the way to Berlin, what can the Board do? Admit they are leeching away funds, arms and manpower that should rather serve the forces of which the Kaiser is supreme commander? And this path still looks better than just confiscating property from random ''enemies of the state'' what Guards enjoy to do so much.
- Damn your crazy head, this might even work! This looks nice, what's next?
- We'll have to put all this extra manpower to use. Funds will only start to trickle to our own army budget and it won't be really something big in first months, so we better stay modest and stock up something for the future. For the surplus of manpower we'll soon have I envisioned creation of light infantry formations that won't be too demanding in material. They will receive basic infantry armament with some special additions and will be transported on light trucks and terrain vehicles as we can't spare any more heavy trucks and armored personel carriers that regular motorized infantry is already using. This will make them soft targets on the road but when reaching their destination, they would be useful for many tasks. Garrisoning urban areas, performing anti-partisan duties, digging in fortified positions, supporting heavy units in fight and storming places where armor fears to thread. Those semi-shock troops would not be real special forces, but still specialized enough to fill the gaps in complex warfare we're facing those days. I'd suggest organized them in Assault Brigades altough they would be fast to dig in and hold the line when needed, or patrol the lands to protect safety in tense peacetime when terror threats need more attention.
- Perfect. Nice all-purpose formation to close the gaps in our lines. And when we'll have enough of that canon fodder, I mean light troops, can we spare some of those to form some new formation? I could use some Grenztruppen as well to take back control of our borders from Triads. Or at least to force them into giving us some concessions.
- I think all this can be arranged, Sir.
.........
Note: Those assault troops are actually garrison units but I slightly overhauled their look and meaning for AOG as this version of MDS for DH I'm using for this story made garrison brigades mobile, so I thought I might enlarge their tasks because of that.
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