Volume 2 chapter 70
Spring, Year 10,114 of the Glorious Era.
This spring was colder than years past.
The Alliance armies, having rested and recuperated through the winter, were beating the war drums once again. The Demons, however, had not been idle. Over the last three months, they had upgraded their armaments, equipping every demon soldier with standard-issue rifles.
In the dead silence of spring, the two sides faced off across trenches and minefields, adding a grim shade of grey to the season.
But in the newly established Seres Territory, the color of spring was different. It was the color of fire and industry.
People worked with fervor. Children walked into schools on the spring breeze. And Charlo, dressed in a black military uniform, walked into a conference room.
Back when the land was still known as Ironwood, Charlo had guided Davis through sweeping military reforms, abolishing the archaic feudal positions and replacing them with a modern rank system.
The Seres Officer Corps was now organized into a clear triad of authority: Company Grade officers (Lieutenants and Captains) formed the foundation, Field Grade officers (Majors through Senior Colonels) managed operations, and the General Grade (Major Generals through Generals) commanded the grand strategy.
Beneath this command structure, Charlo dismantled the old feudal levies and rebuilt the army into a precise, interlocking machine.
At the foundation was the Squad, a tight-knit unit of 10 men. These combined to form a Platoon of 33, which then integrated into a Company of 120 soldiers. As the scale increased, the structure remained rigid: 500 men formed a Battalion, 2,000 comprised a Regiment, and 5,000 stood as a Brigade. The pinnacle of this structure was the Division, a massive, self-sufficient force of 15,000 troops.
Beyond the Division, the charter theoretically designated Corps and Army Groups, though Seres did not yet possess the industrial capacity to field such colossi.
For the enlisted men, Charlo introduced a clear path of progression. A raw recruit entered as a Private, earning the stripe of Private First Class after three months of training, and eventually becoming a Specialist after two years of service.
For those who chose to make the military their life after mandatory service, the path of the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) awaited. This ladder climbed from Corporal all the way to the esteemed Command Sergeant Major. To reach those dizzying heights, Charlo instituted strict assessments; one had to serve a minimum of ten years and master complex tactics. Failure meant a mandatory five-year wait before retaking the exam.
Thanks to the conscription system—and the fact that most of the population was working-age labor—Seres could field an army of 100,000 from a population of over 800,000. If fully mobilized, they could easily raise that number to 200,000.
However, Command Span has a limit.
Even with radio communications, an ordinary human commander can effectively manage only about 30,000 troops on a single battlefield. Any more, and the information overload leads to chaos.
While Supernatural beings possessed superior cognitive processing, Charlo's experience suggested that below the High-Ranks, 100,000 was the hard limit. Even High-Rankers capped out between 200,000 and 500,000.
Therefore, to manage superior strategic command, Charlo established the Seres General Staff, modeled after the legendary German General Staff.
The Conference Room.
Twenty-five men sat inside. They wore different uniforms: the pale yellow of the Army, the deep blue of the Navy, and the white of the Air Force.
But they shared one thing in common: they were all Field Grade officers, ranging from Major to Colonel.
"You knew before you came here. This is the General Staff Department, the highest military institution in Seres! You will not directly command troops in battle. Instead, you will be the helmsmen of the Seres Military, guiding its direction! In peacetime, you are responsible for internal supervision, logistics, senior officer promotion assessments, and the education of mid-level officers!"
Charlo spoke directly, cutting to the chase.
Currently, Seres had few Generals. Charlo was a General (Full). Davis was a Lieutenant General. The rest were Major Generals commanding divisions—veterans who had followed Charlo from the beginning.
But Charlo had to plan for the future. There needed to be an institution responsible for the systematic production of competent commanders. Since no one in this world understood what a "General Staff" did, Charlo had to teach them personally.
"I don't care which branch you came from. Once you walk through these doors, you must view war from the perspective of Total Warfare! You are the elite. I expect you to study hard and stop limiting yourselves to a single branch."
"Yes! We will not fail your heavy trust!" The twenty-five young officers, roughly Charlo's age, shouted in unison.
"Good! Excellent energy!!"
"Now, I will divide you into groups. Five per group!" Charlo sorted them quickly. "Next, you will study four major subjects: Strategic Planning, Logistics & Supply, Cartography, and Military Discipline Construction!"
"I will serve as your instructor. I will dedicate two hours every day to teaching you. The cycle is one month. At the end of each month, there will be a written exam. The group with the lowest average score across all four subjects will have 30% of their salary deducted!"
"Every three months, I will arrange a Wargame. This will test your practical operational skills. The group with the lowest score... will have their Military Rank reduced by one grade!"
Hearing this, the faces of the twenty-five officers turned grave. They had fought hard for their current ranks; no one wanted to be demoted.
And so, the prototype of the Seres General Staff began to take shape...
Crescent Port.
While Charlo drilled his officers, Davis stood at the newly completed naval shipyard, staring up at a steel beast.
It sat on the slipway, unfinished, yet its sheer presence was oppressive. Its keel alone promised a leviathan exceeding 270 meters in length—significantly longer than the Dreadnought.
After the success of their first ironclad, the Seres Admiralty had gained enough experience—and confidence—to skip a generation entirely, aiming straight for a Super-Dreadnought.
It was a true monster of the seas. Widening to a beam of over 35 meters and requiring a draft of 10 meters just to float, it was designed to have a standard displacement of over 50,000 tons. It dwarfed even the Aircraft Carrier being designed nearby, which displaced a mere 35,000 tons by comparison.
"Are the four main turrets for my baby ready yet? I can't wait to see them installed!" Davis asked a technician excitedly.
"Regarding the Triple-Mounted 400mm Cannons... we are still developing the barrels," the technician replied, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Our current technology isn't quite sufficient to manufacture 50-caliber length barrels yet. Please wait a little longer!"
As a leap-frog design, this battleship was slated to use triple turrets, referencing the Iowa-class (MK7) layout. However, Seres' artillery technology had hit a bottleneck.
The metallurgy and machining required for large-caliber, long-barrel guns hadn't been fully mastered. This was the pain of trying to build advanced tech with a lagging industrial base.
"Fine. The hull isn't finished yet anyway. I'll be patient!" Davis sighed with regret, patting the cold steel of the hull.
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