When the assembly whistle pierced the night sky, Mo Lin’s mind went blank for an instant.
It was like someone who had stayed up all night, eyelids fighting to stay open, had just let his head touch the pillow—only to be told that the company had made a last-minute decision for everyone to work overtime, and even breakfast would have to be dealt with on the road.
That sense of powerlessness, of having no choice but to accept his fate—
Mo Lin adapted to it completely at once~
He rubbed his aching temples and looked up at Klaus, who had poked his head in. “Is the whole company moving out?”
“I asked the runner. It should be the whole battalion,” Klaus replied.
“Got it.”
Since there was no sleep to be had, Mo Lin stopped struggling.
He sat up from the field cot—the only one in the entire platoon, issued solely to the platoon commander—and the military instincts belonging to this body began to operate automatically in his mind.
“Klaus, go hurry the whole platoon. Strike the tents immediately. All supplies inconvenient for marching are to be sent together to the company baggage train.”
One of the most important duties of the two heavy wagons drawn by draft horses at company headquarters was to carry the field tents and miscellaneous equipment of the company’s more than two hundred and fifty men, including the dozen-odd personnel of company headquarters, during marches.
“Yes, sir!” Klaus accepted the order and left, his figure quickly vanishing beyond the tent.
Mo Lin’s young orderly also worked swiftly, bringing over the equipment left behind by the previous platoon commander—a brightly polished rifle, a somewhat heavy pistol with its matching leather holster, and a leather spiked helmet in a style unmistakably characteristic of the Saxony Empire.
Because he had previously been captured, aside from this uniform, everything else on him had been plundered clean by the Britannians. Even his officer’s identification would have to wait to be reissued from the rear.
So for the moment, he could only take over the equipment left by his predecessor.
Mo Lin recognized at a glance that the long, heavy rifle was the classic and precise Gew.98.
And the pistol issued to officers was the P08, even more sought after by weapon collectors in his previous life.
This also meant that the history and technological development of this world differed quite a bit from the world before his transmigration, yet many things were still “universal.”
For Mo Lin, this was naturally good news. It greatly reduced the learning cost for adapting to this world and understanding the relevant knowledge.
Only, at the moment, Mo Lin had no mood to fiddle with these weapons. In silence, he hung the pistol and ammunition pouch on his combat belt, then put the spiked helmet on his head and adjusted the tightness of the chin strap.
When the cold leather and metal touched his skin, a strange sense of familiarity welled up in his heart.
He picked up the Gew.98 rifle and pulled the bolt. The crisp click echoed through the small tent, dispelling the last traces of drowsiness.
After finishing his preparations, Mo Lin walked out of the tent.
The orderly immediately called over two soldiers, who swiftly folded up the single tent belonging to the platoon commander and carried it away together with the field cot.
The sight before him lifted Mo Lin’s spirits.
The once-scattered camp had already changed completely. The tents of each squad had vanished, leaving only faint traces on the ground.
Apart from a small number of soldiers who were sending bundled tents and miscellaneous equipment to the rear of the company, everyone else had already shouldered their packs and rifles, completing assembly under the command of their respective squad leaders.
On the open ground nearby, the other two platoons of 3rd Company had likewise formed neat ranks beneath the night sky. The commands of officers and noncommissioned officers rose and fell one after another, chaotic yet orderly.
By moonlight, Mo Lin cast his gaze farther away. The entire encampment of the 1st Battalion had come alive.
Countless swaying points of oil-lamp light connected into one expanse, like some colossal beast startled awake from slumber, slowly stretching its limbs and letting out a low roar.
That solemn, murderous, yet efficient atmosphere made Mo Lin truly realize that he had taken another step closer to the cruel stage known as war.
……
At the same time, at the headquarters of the 16th Infantry Brigade in the rear.
The central command tent was brightly lit, and the atmosphere was, unsurprisingly, filled with the particular tension and oppression that preceded battle.
Lieutenant General Mackensen stood before an unfurled operational map. Though he was still wounded, his ramrod-straight posture was like a javelin.
Around him stood a circle of staff officers from brigade headquarters. Everyone’s eyes were focused on the city marked on the map as Seville.
After being rescued, the old general’s first reaction had been to counterattack immediately—to bite hard while the Britannians had yet to react.
But under the earnest persuasion of his staff, he had ultimately restrained his temper and agreed to first send a telegram to the General Staff back home.
Aside from a detailed report of the attack on the military observer mission, the most important matter was requesting authorization to launch a retaliatory offensive.
However, although there were telegraph lines laid all the way along the Saxony–Aragon railway, even a round trip by telegram would take three or four hours at the fastest.
And now, with that authorization still not yet arrived, Mackensen and his staff could only anxiously wait for the final decision from Potsdam while wargaming various offensive plans.
“Seville previously had no city defenses whatsoever, but from the looks of it, after the ‘Kingdom Army’ seized the initiative and moved in first, they have already begun constructing temporary positions.”
“According to the intelligence we currently possess, the ‘Kingdom Army’ has already deployed the 24th Infantry Division there. As for the Britannians, at least two battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers are present. We believe there will also be no small number of cavalry units cooperating with their operations.”
A major on the staff pointed at the map and analyzed:
“In terms of conventional forces, the enemy already has numerical superiority, and they are also the defending side. By now, they are most likely on guard against our attack as well. If we launch a frontal assault, the casualties may be very heavy.”
Hearing the staff officer’s words, Mackensen shook his head, then tapped the markings on both flanks of the 16th Brigade on the operational map.
“It is not as if we have no allies. The ‘National Army’ and the International Brigades each have one brigade on our two wings. Adding in our 16th Infantry Brigade, in theory, we will not be at a disadvantage in manpower.”
The old general looked at the symbols on the map representing their enemy—the units of the “Kingdom Army”—and gave a cold laugh.
“What’s more, the ‘Kingdom Army’ is lacking in both equipment and fighting will. If they face our troops head-on—even if they face the ‘National Army’ or the ‘International Brigades’—it can be said they have no chance of victory at all!”
“But we must pay close attention to the Britannians.”
Another staff officer suddenly spoke:
“Based on some current intelligence, in addition to the two battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers, a task force composed of the Highland Mage Corps and the Guard Knights may also have already arrived in Seville.”
The moment these words were spoken, especially after everyone heard the names “Highland Mage Corps” and “Guard Knights,” they all fell silent.
And when he thought of the archmages in the Highland Mage Corps, even Mackensen calmed down considerably in an instant.
Mackensen had always been full of confidence in the combat strength of the Saxony Imperial Army.
A large number of high-quality junior officers and noncommissioned officers, coupled with the soldiers’ long-term strict training, formed the foundation that allowed the Saxony Imperial Army to maintain its fighting strength and compete for supremacy on this continent surrounded by formidable rivals.
Moreover, after taking the lead in industrialization, the Saxony Empire had advanced by leaps and bounds in military technology.
Not only had it begun the large-scale popularization of various mass-producible heavy artillery pieces, even the “armored knights” that had originally belonged solely to the Britannians and the Gauls had been developed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences into modified versions that greatly reduced the requirements for “magitech.”
Even so, Lieutenant General Mackensen knew that the Britannians’ mage corps and knightly order were absolutely not entities to be underestimated.
In battles in the empire’s overseas colonies, they had already suffered heavy losses many times because of the enemy’s accompanying archmages.
Those were existences that, in the truest sense, could change the course of a battle with only a handful of people.
Not to mention the Guard Knights, which gathered elite “armored knights”—these true iron cans were also existences that could take on a hundred, even a thousand, on the battlefield.
Mackensen’s thoughts drifted uncontrollably to the scorching lands of North Africa many years ago.
It had been a colonial conflict.
At first, the war had gone smoothly beyond imagination.
The North African Corps under his command, together with the Saxony colonial troops and the loyal native auxiliary forces, had advanced triumphantly all the way, uprooting one Britannian outpost and stronghold after another.
Reports of victory flew back home like snowflakes. Everyone believed that the rich land was about to change masters.
Until the Britannian reinforcements arrived.
A small detachment of the Guard Knights, and merely three archmages from the Highland Mage Corps.
Mackensen would never forget the sight of that day.
At the time, he had led his troops into a head-on encounter with the main force of the Britannian expeditionary army. Everyone realized that this would be the battle that decided the direction of the North African campaign.
The battle did not begin with the roar of artillery.
That archmage of the school of evocation, hailed by the Britannians as a “legend,” stood behind their formation and raised the staff in his hand high toward the sky.
The color of the heavens changed abruptly. The clouds were torn apart, and countless burning meteors dragged long tails of flame as they screamed down toward the positions of the Saxony North African Corps.
Immediately afterward, where the meteors fell, firestorms that swept away everything surged into being.
A vast wall of flames pressed forward, devouring soldiers’ flesh and blood, twisting the steel barrels of rifles.
A full-strength infantry regiment with illustrious battle honors was wiped from the face of the earth in those few short minutes, without even complete corpses left behind.
Then, the armored knights of the Guard Knights launched their charge, shattering the formations of two other infantry regiments with a single attack.
That scene became a nightmare that Mackensen could never dispel from his heart.
If not for the accompanying Teutonic Knights charging forward in a desperate fight, using their numerical advantage to temporarily entangle the enemy’s armored knights, who employed pure magitech—
If not for Duke Ernst August of Brunswick personally leading the “Brunswick Death Hussars” in three death charges against the position of the Highland mages, heedless of casualties—
using the flesh and blood of the hussars to force those three archmages to interrupt their spellcasting in order to defend and retreat,
then in that battle, the entire North African Corps might have been completely left there.
“General?”
A staff officer’s soft call pulled Mackensen back from his painful memories.
He took a deep breath. The smell in the tent, a mixture of kerosene and tobacco, made him feel a surge of reality.
After a period of silence, Mackensen spoke again and asked, “Where are the armored knights of the Teutonic Knights now?”
“They are still on the military train at present, but at the fastest, they should arrive at the station behind us before dawn and complete assembly there.”
Mackensen said, “Mm. After they arrive, have them proceed directly to Seville and enter the battle. All units of the 16th Brigade and the brigade cavalry regiment will continue moving toward the attack assembly area according to plan. The brigade artillery regiment may also enter its bombardment positions.”
As soon as he said this, the staff officers in the tent exchanged glances. In the end, the staff officer closest to him looked at him cautiously.
“But General, the order from the General Staff has not yet come down.”
“That is only a matter of time.”
Mackensen waved his hand and continued:
“Whether it is His Majesty, the General Staff, or the Imperial Parliament, none of them can tolerate the Britannians reaching their tentacles right up to our doorstep. So this battle will inevitably be fought!”
He glanced at the somewhat tense staff officers around him. These relatively young staff officers mostly had no experience fighting in overseas colonies.
For them, the battle to come would also be their first.
Thinking of this, Lieutenant General Mackensen could not help but sigh.
As the old comrades who had truly experienced war took higher positions or retired to the second line, “youth” had already become an unstoppable trend within the Saxony Imperial Army.
Admittedly, the new generation of young staff officers, who had entered preparatory officer schools from middle school and grown up exposed to all kinds of operational theory, surpassed their predecessors in many respects.
But the most important thing—“combat experience”—was not something military academies or routine training could teach them.
[I hope this local war can train a new batch of experienced officers for the empire.]
This thought flashed through Mackensen’s mind. Then he looked at the commander of the 16th Brigade beside him.
“I will leave the specific combat deployment from here on to you. After all, that is your duty. Once the order from the General Staff back home is transmitted back, I will return to the expeditionary army headquarters.”
“Yes, General!”
After saying this, Mackensen sat down in a corner of the tent and quietly waited for the final order from home to be delivered.
As the commander of the entire expeditionary army within the Kingdom of Aragon, he ought at this moment to be at the expeditionary army headquarters closer to Saxony, overseeing the overall situation.
In his mind, the map of the entire Kingdom of Aragon slowly unfolded as well. The deployments of the Saxony Expeditionary Army, the National Army, and the International Brigades all appeared on the map.
He closed his eyes and pondered the arrangements for troop movements in other directions. After all, once the battle of Seville began, fighting would soon erupt across the entire front.
The other officers in the tent began making various plans for the battle that might soon break out.
Agile runners went in and out of the tent, and military orders were conveyed to the various units as they hurried back and forth.
Orders on paper became the marching steps of soldiers, became the ruts pressed into the ground by towed artillery.
Nearly three hours passed before an officer lifted the tent flap and strode quickly up to Mackensen, who was holding a pipe between his teeth.
“General! A reply from the General Staff!”