Chapter 256 : The Final Gamble on National Fate

Smack!

"The wars of the future will inevitably reach an unprecedented scale—a fight to the death. Mobilization capability is our final means of gambling the nation's fate."

"I don't want to see words like 'we did our best' in another report. If you've got no strength left, then get out of the position and stop occupying it!"

Mitia irritably tossed the document onto her desk.

Anna picked up her pen, intending to add those remarks to the record before dismissing the official on the spot.

"Wait..."

"...Forget it."

Mitia stopped Anna.

The entire nation was already under enormous pressure.

There was no need to pile on even more.

Doing so would only produce the opposite effect.

By Mitia's standards, in a nation with a fully developed military-industrial sector, every frontline soldier required the support of roughly four to five workers behind him.

At present, however, Seris had essentially reached a ratio of eleven to one.

That was precisely why she became so angry when someone claimed they had already "done their best."

In theory, the absolute limit before a nation's structure approached collapse was roughly a three-to-one ratio—

In other words, when military personnel accounted for around twenty percent of the total population.

That proportion was already astonishingly high.

After excluding women, children, and the elderly, adult men of military age generally comprised less than thirty percent of a nation's population.

In other words, to sustain a three-to-one military-to-civilian ratio, more than eighty-five percent of all military-age men would have to remain in the armed forces.

After calming down, she realized she couldn't entirely blame those beneath her.

Throughout history, only one nation had ever achieved that level of mobilization.

The problem was that Seris was currently fighting a War of National Defense.

Whether considering the international situation or the military circumstances it faced, neither allowed Seris the luxury of slowly transforming itself.

That window of opportunity would disappear very quickly.

It was only natural that she occasionally became impatient.

Rather than sitting there sulking, she might as well think about how to optimize resource allocation and lay the groundwork for the future.

In truth, Seris had not even begun pushing itself to such an extreme.

On the Main Continent, kingdoms and empires that had yet to complete industrialization could at most mobilize between two and five percent of their populations.

That was already their absolute limit.

Meanwhile, in her previous life, the nation that had achieved a seven percent mobilization rate had gone on to unify six rival states.

There had only ever been one such example in history.

And even then, it had only become possible after extensive institutional reforms.

In other words, even if Seris managed only a ten percent mobilization rate—the standard expected of an industrial nation—it would already surpass the absolute ceiling that feudal imperial systems could never hope to reach.

However, whether she chose to do it and whether she possessed the capability to do it were two entirely different questions.

Preparations had to begin early.

This wasn't simply a matter of recruiting more soldiers.

If all she wanted was to encourage enlistment, then given Mitia's prestige throughout the Alliance, doing so would hardly be difficult.

But manpower alone meant nothing in modern warfare.

Against the standardized defensive positions Seris had constructed—complete with trenches, artillery-resistant fortifications, and barbed wire—even if traditional infantry somehow maintained one hundred percent morale without breaking, they still couldn't charge through.

The more they charged,

the more they died.

Thus, the standards for mobilization had become fundamentally different from those of the past.

Previously, someone carrying nothing more than a spear could already be considered a soldier.

Now, however, a soldier required complete equipment and professional military training.

And by equipment, she wasn't referring to rifles.

She meant the heavy weapons capable of breaking through trench defenses while minimizing casualties and reducing losses to friendly forces as much as possible.

Armored vehicles.

Tanks.

Mecha.

Aircraft.

Warships.

They all shared one common advantage—

Strong protection combined with excellent firepower projection.

Yet behind every piece of equipment operated by a soldier stood an entire industrial chain.

And behind that industrial chain stood enough food production to sustain both the military and the civilian population.

These three pillars constantly constrained one another.

More soldiers meant fewer workers in the rear.

More soldiers and more workers meant fewer people producing food.

It was an entire interconnected system.

If you couldn't sustain it, then you simply couldn't.

Attempting forced mobilization would only cause the nation's structure to collapse rapidly.

Unless...

You chose to maintain only one or two of those three pillars.

For example—

If you compensated for labor shortages by enslaving the populations of occupied territories, organizing them into labor forces that worked for nothing more than a single daily meal...

If your armies simply looted, pillaged, and murdered to obtain food supplies locally...

Then, at least for a short period, your income and expenditure might barely balance.

But that was merely the ideal scenario.

In reality, excessive exploitation inevitably bred widespread resentment and endless uprisings.

You would then be forced to station enormous numbers of troops behind the frontlines merely to maintain public order and suppress sabotage.

Meanwhile, your reputation would become infamous across the world.

And once large numbers of soldiers became trapped in occupation duties...

Your actual mobilized military strength was effectively reduced all over again.

The gains simply weren't worth it.

If she abandoned all those heavy weapons and instead relied solely on sending ordinary citizens into battle with their own bodies...

Then, shameless as it might be, leveraging the prestige she had accumulated over all these years, she could easily mobilize twenty or even thirty million soldiers from the Alliance's population of one hundred and twenty million to wage a People's War.

There wouldn't be the slightest problem.

But after the war...

Both the nation...

And she herself...

would be finished.

If the generation possessing the strongest ideals and greatest willingness to sacrifice all died...

How many problems would that create?

How could she compensate those families?

After losing their breadwinners, would those families still enjoy respectable positions in society?

If those loyal supporters never received the rewards they deserved—

If entire family lines disappeared forever—

If they could no longer occupy mainstream positions within society—

Then who would become the dominant voice?

How many people would begin doubting their faith in her?

And if that happened...

What meaning would her own existence still hold?

Therefore...

That path could never be chosen.

Thus, the Alliance's greatest challenge became transforming its newly mobilized manpower into effective combat power—

Efficiently organizing them into Mechanized Infantry Divisions, armored forces, and air forces.

To address this problem, Mitia worked through the entire night drafting a preliminary framework.

The following day, she convened an internal conference linking the central government with every state governor.

As for ordinary mobilized soldiers, the Alliance's existing State Defense Zone System could already provide an endless stream of fresh reinforcements.

That was not the issue requiring immediate attention.

The true priority lay in rapidly training future armored troops and air force personnel into qualified technical specialists.

Mass conscription inevitably meant that average soldier quality would decline.

Therefore, maintaining combat effectiveness required greater numbers of tanks, aircraft, and artillery to compensate for that reduction.

Once the rear production lines completed their restructuring and integration, the new pulsed production lines would increase annual output of aircraft and tanks from roughly three thousand units to well over six thousand.

Overall production capacity would double.

And that only accounted for the newly established facilities.

Combined with increased efficiency from the mature production lines already operating near the front, the Alliance expected annual production of armored vehicles and aviation equipment to exceed ten thousand units by the middle of next year.

That still wouldn't represent peak production.

Once the transformation was fully completed by year's end, total output might very well double again.

But there remained one serious problem.

The Alliance could very well find itself in the awkward position of possessing weapons...

Yet having no one qualified to operate them.

Whether armored troops or air force personnel, both required highly specialized training.

Training cycles generally lasted around six months.

During peacetime, that wasn't particularly significant.

In wartime...

It became fatal.

Combat losses constantly required replacement personnel.

Should heavy casualties occur, an entire generation of trained specialists could disappear before new ones finished training.

Fortunately, the problem wasn't without a solution.

And this was precisely where the advantages of the state-owned land system became apparent.

Since all land belonged to the state and was publicly allocated to farmers for cultivation,

Seris had consistently employed a system whereby state-owned enterprises purchased grain at floating market prices.

It had also previously launched nationwide programs sending agricultural machinery into rural communities.

Under the coordination of the Farmers' Associations, mechanized farming had already been implemented throughout most agricultural regions.

Mechanization rates generally exceeded fifty percent.

Although farming remained hard work for Alliance farmers,

they were by no means poor.

The Alliance achieved its industrial-agricultural scissors-gap through foreign trade rather than imposing its negative effects upon its own people.

The resulting surplus income gave farmers the confidence to lease machinery from the Farmers' Associations, allowing them to cultivate land far more efficiently.

Which meant...

Across the countryside,

Alliance tractor operators were everywhere.

And they constituted an outstanding source of future armored vehicle and tank drivers.