Chapter 276, Mobilization
In Weixing City, Ossena was inspecting the factory construction accompanied by Patel.
"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, please look." Patel pointed to the workers moving the machines and the engineers directing them, and said, "This company originally manufactured electrical appliances. According to instructions, it is expected to be converted to produce electrical components for the Lion tank soon."
After a pause, Patel continued, "There are many more reconstructions like this. We estimate that we can complete the first phase of the civilian-to-military project within a month."
Ossena nodded.
This progress was roughly within her expectations.
However, Patel next to him was still a little hesitant. He thought for a moment and asked, "Isn't it a bit of an exaggeration to convert so many factories from civilian to military? It's okay here. Most of them are basic heavy industries and military industries. I heard that the changes in Fuxing City are bigger. Many consumer goods and civilian factories have turned to military industries... Especially those agricultural machinery and engineering machinery. The reduction in production of these things has a great impact. I am really worried that this will slow down the development of the alliance."
Ossena's expression did not change.
She comforted him, "Just follow through with your instructions. This is the Governor's order. Also, don't worry too much. The production capacity change from civilian to military is not done all at once. The government and the Ministry of Military Affairs have discussed and set up a multi-level mobilization order, which includes a plan to convert civilian factories to military use. This is initiated one level at a time, and not all will be converted at once."
"War is still our top priority. We must ensure our survival first."
"But...isn't Blackbird Heavy Industries thousands of miles away? They haven't posed any threat to the Alliance so far. It seems that we don't have to take action against them now, right? The Alliance's various construction projects are in full swing. Is it going to be interrupted just like that?"
Ossena turned and looked at Patel.
Patel also looked the Prime Minister in the eye.
He asked himself that he was loyal, dedicated to the public, and had no selfish motives, so what was there to be afraid of?
Ossena sighed inwardly.
This is probably not just Patel's own idea, but the idea of the entire alliance.
The residents of the alliance - at least most of them - still love the alliance and the governor. The governor never lied about what he promised. As long as they are included in the alliance system and their ranks are determined, they will be given corresponding treatment and no longer have to live a precarious life.
This alone is enough to make the majority of civilians who have emerged from chaos into peace pledge their allegiance to the Alliance and the Governor-General wholeheartedly.
Not to mention, the league's rank system, which has been running for a year or two, seems to be relatively dynamic, with greater opportunities for mobility up and down the hierarchy.
Even an alliance is not a utopia. In order to develop, the alliance must collect income, and corruption is inevitable under the alliance system. But even so, it is much better than life in the past.
Under this premise, a small number of people with bad intentions cannot cause any trouble.
However, those who oppose the Alliance's move against Blackbird Heavy Industries are not necessarily those who hold grudges.
The general public who support the Governor and feel a sense of belonging to the Alliance are working hard to build their homes, looking forward to a better life in the future, and watching that better life being realized step by step and coming into their own hands.
In this case, why did they suddenly start a war? Or did they take the initiative?
Of course, Ossena herself knew the reason.
It would have been fine if we didn't know before, but now that we know that Blackbird Heavy Industries has violated the ban on omnics, of course we have to deal with them. The omnic crisis cannot be allowed to continue to develop. It seems that there is no threat now, and Blackbird Heavy Industries is staying in the west honestly, but if we don't do anything about it now, when they start to make trouble, it is very likely that their scale will expand to a point that the Alliance cannot stop.
It is true that this reason is difficult to explain directly, but it does not mean that there are no other ways to avoid it.
Blackbird Heavy Industries is a real threat to the Alliance. Leaving aside the information about the intelligent machines that is not easy to disclose to the public, it is enough to justify the war and publicize that Blackbird Heavy Industries has a serious impact on the good lives of tens of millions of residents in the Alliance and has brought disasters.
In fact, the relevant external publicity work had already been underway when the decision was made.
But now it seems that it is not doing well enough, and even a high-ranking official like Patel has not been dealt with.
While verbally comforting Patel and asking him to focus on his work, Ossena also secretly took note of it in her heart.
When she gets back, she will summon the people from the Propaganda Department, urge them to do their job well, and even impose some penalties on some people with management responsibilities.
…
Weixing City was only the first stop of Ossena's inspection. Later, she rode the Fengshun to visit several surrounding industrial bases.
In other areas of the Central Province, the Central North Province, the Gaota Province... all localities' work of converting civilians to the military is being carried out in an orderly manner.
It's not a big deal, but it's a preview.
Now is not the time to fully unleash the potential for war. Just as Patel said, as the Prime Minister of the Alliance, Ossena does not want to interrupt the current prosperous development trend of the Alliance because of a war.
However, the alliance must have this mobilization capability.
Currently it is the second-level mobilization order, which should not have much impact on the lives of residents. The corresponding welfare and allowances will not be cut. The corresponding consumer goods market and food industry market will be affected to a certain extent, but not significantly, and there will be fewer types.
But if the next level of mobilization order is reached, it will be difficult to remain unaffected.
By then, I am afraid that there will be large-scale conscription; a wartime economy will be launched, welfare and allowances will be cut; and civilian factories will be further converted into military factories.
If the general mobilization order is issued, it means that the entire alliance will respond to the war with all its strength. All population, all production and life will revolve around the war. Almost most young and middle-aged men, and even a considerable number of women, will be conscripted into the army; the remaining population, from the old to the young, will do war-related work, and it is good to have an extra bullet; all non-war consumption will be compressed to the extreme...
Since the establishment of the alliance, there has never been a general mobilization of this level. But Ossena is confident that the system she has built according to the Governor's general expectations can achieve that level and unleash huge war potential.
This was her masterpiece, but she would rather never use it. She knew very well that if the alliance was mobilized to that extent, the damage to economic development would be too great.
She returned to Fuxing City worriedly. She was going to find Governor Gu to report the situation. When she arrived at the door of the meeting room, it was just the scheduled time.
The alliance focuses on practical matters and does not care about empty talk. Even if you come to see the governor, you don’t even need to make an appointment when it is not busy. When it is busy, they will tell you a good time so you don’t have to wait for a long time or come early.
When Ossena arrived at the designated place, she learned that the Governor was meeting with Generals Yan Fangxu and Thadius. Their appointment was before Ossena's, so they should have finished talking by now, but perhaps because of some unexpected events or some topics that were not discussed thoroughly or completely, they were delayed.
She waited outside peacefully, but she didn't expect a voice to ring in her mind:
"Come in, listen together and share your views."
This is the voice of the Governor.
Ossena quickly collected her thoughts and moved forward.
The guards outside did not stop him, and it was obvious that they had also received the message.
Entering the house, two men were arguing about something. The Governor, who was sitting at the top, did not participate in the discussion, but just listened attentively.
Ossena did not rush to speak. She found a seat and sat down, listening carefully.
After listening for a while, I roughly understood what was going on.
The overall mobilization of the alliance is in preparation for war, and war, of course, is fought by the army.
At present, the Raging Bear Legion, which was established by the alliance and was about to be officially named the Star Army, had already been mobilized. The 140,000-man army had marched westward from the original gathering place, the Central Province, a distance of 500 kilometers, to the Western Desert.
The Central Army Group also went there.
Of course, this Central Army Group was no longer the same one that had fought in the three eastern provinces. The original Central Army Group was split into three parts. One part was formed into the Black Arrow Star Army Group and went to guard the colonies; the other part was assigned to the Angry Bear Legion.
Only the 1st Brigade remained, and together with the newly created 46th-50th Divisions, a new Central Army Group was formed.
And recently, the newly established 39th and 40th garrison divisions of the former Eastern Army Group and the 21st to 25th garrison divisions of the former Qinggu Army Group have all been incorporated.
At this point, the Central Army Group now has 13 divisions and brigades, totaling 100,000 people.
These two army-level forces have a total of 250,000 people.
This is the main mobile force that the alliance can mobilize without launching further mobilization and without affecting the defense of the regions themselves.
At the same time, the "new recruit camps" across the alliance have recruited about 100,000 new soldiers. They are receiving training and will be added to the front-line troops at any time according to the progress and needs of the war to ensure that the two western armies are always well-staffed.
These new soldiers were brought by the mobilization order, and Ossena knew this. Although conscription was not her responsibility, it was the job of the conscription office under Taddius's military and political department, but after all, it required close cooperation with the local government.
Under the second-level mobilization order, the number of reserve troops will continue to increase. The military manpower pool is estimated to be able to reach 5% of the total population, which means 1.25 million people. In addition to the more than 400,000 already in service and the 100,000 in the recruit camp, there is still room for the recruitment of about 700,000 people.
If that is still not enough, then we may have to issue a level one mobilization order, which would increase the total mobilized population to 10%.
And if it is still not enough, the alliance will issue a general mobilization order, which can only pull out 20% of the population, but that would be exaggerated.
The first phase of the strategic goal of the 250,000-man army gathering in the west is the Western Desert. It is not to occupy the entire vast Western Desert, which is too large. More than 200,000 people are just to water the desert, which is meaningless.
The main goal is to control the "oasis" in the east of the Western Desert, which has had more contact with the Alliance, and especially to control the main road that crosses the Western Desert and leads directly to the west of the continent.
This main road should be a legacy of the pre-war era, and was originally a solid paved road. However, due to environmental changes, wars, and the collapse of the unified government, this main road is in a particularly poor condition due to lack of maintenance. It is only able to remain open to traffic thanks to the self-maintenance of merchants and oases along the way.
The most important thing is that if you don’t go here, there is no other way to go.
Although all kinds of heavy equipment and vehicles have excellent off-road capabilities, it is still too much to cross 10,000 kilometers of wilderness to go on an expedition to the west. This barely usable road must not only be occupied, but engineers must also be sent to further repair it.
At this moment, the troops are not far from the Western Desert.
The point of dispute between Major General Commander Yan Fangxu and the military and political chief Thadius was how to deal with the numerous oasis forces in the Western Desert.
There is no unified government in the Western Desert. Each oasis and the plantation factories below are like independent city-states, with their own political system and armed forces.
From a military perspective, Yan Fangxu did not want to conquer purely by force, as this would put a great burden on the troops and make it difficult to complete the task of pushing the front line to the central area of the Western Desert and establishing the main defense line within a month and a half. His troops would spend a lot of time and energy on clearing out the resistance forces.
He hoped that through diplomatic means, he could just stop the oases to the east from causing trouble.
Thadius was worried that the situation of the plantations under the oasis was uncertain. It would be very dangerous if too many third-party forces with their own armed forces stayed along the long supply line.
Both of them have a point.
Of course, it wasn't a quarrel that was too fierce. No one was stupid and everyone knew that the other party's concerns were justified. They kept discussing some solutions.
From the strength of diplomatic means, to the handling methods of local armed forces, to which strongholds along the way must be taken down for safety, which ones can be left alone, to how to arrange troop deployment and suppression...
Ossena listened and took note of many things.
She also knew why the Governor asked her to come and listen.
The Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs is an institution that is relatively independent of the government and has not been taken seriously - after all, there are not many places that need diplomacy at present.
On the contrary, the Union Commerce Department under Ossena can play a greater role in this regard.
She slowly joined the discussion, mainly focusing on the political attitudes of the Oasis, its relationship with the Alliance, and ways to get started.
During the discussion, the plan gradually took shape.
During the process, Gu Hang seldom spoke, but only made the final decision on some unresolved issues.
This is exactly the situation that Gu Hang wants.
(End of this chapter)
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