If Lelouch had said outright, “The Empire’s radio codes have been deciphered by Britannia,” Major General Karl would never have believed him.
A mere lieutenant—and one who had still been a corporal three days ago at that—had never had access to high-level secrets before. What standing did he have to make such an ironclad assertion?
But Lelouch had happened to approach the matter from the narrow patch of ground under his own responsibility, using the previous destruction of the undersea cable by enemy ships and the existence of a Britannian mole inside the Nederland Telegraph Company as his angle.
Then, by appropriately slipping in a little of his own agenda and inflating the possible risk and scope of the leak, Major General Karl had no choice but to believe him.
At present, Major General Karl could at least be certain of two things:
First, there definitely was a leak in communications intelligence.
Second, the extent of what had been leaked was still unclear.
But since this was wartime, when the situation was unclear, safety demanded that one overestimate the enemy and assume the worst as much as possible.
Therefore, for the operations they were about to face, they should avoid organizing things through telecommunications whenever possible, whether wired or wireless.
Traditional Germanian officers were generally not adept at intelligence work or deceptive stratagems, so Major General Karl could only continue to “trouble the same man twice” on this matter.
“Then how do you think we should persuade Major General Hipper? And what method of communication should we use to contact him? As for your idea of ‘turning their own trick against them to verify it’—how exactly would we verify it?”
It was good to have a cheat-like auxiliary brain. In any case, there was no harm in hearing him out first.
This question was rather broad, and Lelouch could not answer it immediately. He could only ponder it carefully for a long while before saying in a tone of discussion:
“At present, among the methods of contacting Major General Hipper, the safest would be to send an aircraft directly to Wilhelmshaven and speak with Major General Hipper face to face.
“If we want to ensure safety and avoid Nederland airspace, the flight distance would be about five hundred kilometers, but the aircraft should be able to arrive within three or four hours. However, if we want a face-to-face discussion, an important person will have to come forward in person, or at the very least there must be a handwritten letter of sufficient weight, bearing the seal of an important person.”
Before Lelouch could finish the rest, Major General Karl immediately thumped his chest. “That part is no problem. I can provide a handwritten letter. The plane can also make another stop along the way to obtain higher-level authorization from my royal brother, as long as the contents of the letter are sufficiently persuasive.”
Major General Karl also realized that his own powers of persuasion might not be enough, so he wanted to bring in his elder brother, the crown prince. The man was a general and had once been Major General Hipper’s old superior; that relationship would carry even greater persuasive weight.
After the means of contact had been decided, Lelouch continued explaining the part about turning the enemy’s trick against them:
“In addition, if we want to confirm whether the enemy can truly intercept our wired communications or decipher our wireless communications, we can, while physically sending the real intelligence by plane, use wired telegraph and wireless telegraph respectively to transmit two pieces of false intelligence.
“The content of the first can be used as cover for Major General Hipper. As you know, in the three months since the war began, Major General Hipper has led the First Raiding Squadron in shelling Britannian ports twice already. Each time, they destroyed some pier facilities, shipyards and docks, and moored merchant ships, then withdrew at high speed and immediately slipped away.
“Then this time, we can entirely use wired telegraph to send a message to Wilhelmshaven. Its content can be something like: ‘After investigation, the Britannian cruiser that previously took away the King of Bilijin has established another forward anchorage near De Panne…’ The exact wording is not important, because I am not a professional when it comes to the navy’s specific choice of tactical objectives. When the time comes, General Hipper can think of that himself.
“In short, we give the enemy a piece of false news: because the Britannian cruiser unexpectedly took away the King of Bilijin, the Empire has been ‘enraged from shame.’ Now we have discovered that a certain port is suspected to have become the new anchorage for this Britannian light cruiser patrol force, so we want revenge and hope to dispatch warships to bombard that anchorage. As for the specific method, it will still be hit-and-run.
“If this wired telegram is intercepted by the enemy, and the enemy therefore strengthens the naval defenses of this frontline port—or, in other words, if they directly choose to temporarily divert the bombardment fleet that might originally have been used to carry out a shelling mission against Nieuwpoort and have it assist with defense—then in the future the Empire must be careful. We can no longer contact the homeland through undersea cables that pass through Nederland. There must be spies leaking information at relay stations inside Nederland!
“As for the second telegram, it can be sent wirelessly. It can be a reply from the rear to us, with the content: ‘The above request has already been relayed to General Hipper’s forces, but the general has already put to sea and has another mission. He is currently maintaining radio silence. His fleet’s wireless stations are in “receive only” mode and cannot respond, lest the fleet’s position at sea be exposed.’ At the same time, the reply can vaguely mention in coded form that General Hipper’s original target was ‘one of several ports on Britannia’s east coast, to be shelled at random according to actual circumstances.’
“In this way, if the Britannians strengthen the defenses of those ports, or even detach warships from northern Scotland to head south and set an ambush, we can judge that our wireless codes have also been deciphered. Of course, with Minister Wodun’s old cunning, he might also deliberately leave them undefended, precisely in order to strengthen our belief that ‘the codes have not been cracked,’ making us feel at ease and thus not think of changing them.”
By this point, Major General Karl and Colonel List both felt that their brains were no longer quite functioning.
Why were there so many twists and turns? Listening to it was making them dizzy!
“Wait! You said we would use wired telegraph for one communication, but the reply would be wireless. Wouldn’t that seem too deliberate?” Major General Karl thought for a long time before finally finding a loophole and hurriedly asked for guidance.
“That is easy to handle. When we send the wired telegram, we can state: ‘The frontline battle situation is changing rapidly, and the position of the Sixth Army headquarters may change at any moment. Please do not reply by wired telegraph.’ As long as the headquarters’ position has moved, a wired telegram sent back along the original route naturally won’t find anyone.”
Lelouch casually plugged this loophole. From the perspective of a modern person like him, such a reason was far too easy to find.
It was just like when someone called another person, using a landline at first, but then asked the other party to call their mobile phone when calling back. Was that not perfectly reasonable? All one had to say was, “I’ll be leaving soon and won’t be here anymore. You won’t reach me by calling the landline.”
Anyone who had lived in the age of mobile communications could naturally think of similar excuses without using their brain. But people in 1914 did not necessarily always have the notion in their heads that “wireless communication is more flexible and mobile than wired communication,” so it was not strange that they could not think of it right away.
Major General Karl mulled over Lelouch’s wording. When he looked at him again, his gaze had become increasingly… awed.
This young man’s mind was far too sharp.
And Lelouch took the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot, adding the final piece:
“Of course, if all this intelligence deception of turning the enemy’s trick against them is to be perfectly realized, we will definitely need to add some follow-up actions to patch any remaining holes.
“For example, if General Hipper truly wins the upcoming naval clash, we must not become complacent after the battle. Otherwise, the Britannians will immediately ‘know that we know they know our codes.’
“We can even consider setting up a little play, luring the upper echelons of the Imperial Navy Ministry into reprimanding Major General Hipper and holding him accountable for ‘disobeying orders and acting independently,’ asking why he did not bombard the enemy port according to the Navy Ministry’s original plan. We portray General Hipper’s victory as his personal act of ‘boldly defying orders and recklessly advancing in pursuit of merit,’ rather than something the Imperial Navy Ministry had planned long ago.
“In that case, even if the Britannians suffer a hidden loss, they will feel that ‘it was not that our intelligence work was poor or that the intelligence we uncovered was wrong. Rather, a frontline commander within the enemy army disobeyed orders and acted independently, failing to do as the telegram from above had demanded.’”
Lelouch felt that this final point was also extremely crucial.
Because the event of “the Germanian Navy knowing that the enemy knew its wireless codes” was itself of enormous value.
If they exposed such a great secret merely for the sake of verifying it, then shelling a couple of ports and sinking some pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers, it would be far too great a loss.
In the original history, the main reason the High Seas Fleet had been sealed in place and rendered unable to accomplish anything was precisely that its wireless communications were transparent in only one direction, was it not? In the end, after they finally made up their minds to fight a great Battle of Jutland, the enemy still gained clairvoyance in advance, seeing the entire composition of their battle forces.
But what if the Germanians could know this and keep the secret until the Battle of Jutland before making use of it? Would that not allow them to take one great bite all at once?
This secret had to be carefully preserved. At present, they were only probing, so the aftermath of the probe was also extremely important.
They had to make the enemy form the understanding that “the battle plan the Britannian intelligence department uncovered was real; the reason they lost was merely that some hotheaded fool appeared among the enemy, privately disobeying orders and failing to carry out the agreed plan.”
By the time Major General Karl heard this, the way he looked at Lelouch was already as if he were looking at a ghost or a god.
This had to be God’s will!
It was God who wished to punish the wicked Britannians, and so He had sent revelation down through this sage!
With such a sage-like, divinely calculating genius on our army’s side, why should we worry that our great cause will not succeed?
Major General Karl stared fixedly into Lelouch’s eyes, wanting to discern sincerity or falsehood in the other man’s gaze.
Yet Lelouch’s eyes remained so sincere, so firm, without the slightest wavering.
When Major General Karl saw Lelouch’s blood-red left eye, which had been poisoned and injured by tear gas and still had not recovered its normal color, an inexplicable sense of reverence and trust rose in his heart.
That eye proved that this young man had risked life and limb for the Empire. He had no reason to doubt the other man’s loyalty.
In the world of 1914, there were still many remnants of mysticism. Among the upper echelons of many countries, especially the ignorant royal nobles, there were still many who believed in miracles.
For a certain instant, Major General Karl even suggested to himself: Lelouch’s blood-red left eye must possess the divine power to see through all schemes.
Therefore, believing him was the right choice.