Chapter 41: Quod Accipiter Vigilias Habentes
Atop the highest hill of the Plaskowyz Plateau, a man flanked by his 7000 or so subordinates watched the battle between the Porrish and the Drussians unfold atop his warhorse.
His purple cape and silver-hair were blown backwards by the wind, which made him seem like a larger than life figure despite how average his typical look appeared when one took his signature silver hair and purple hair out of the equation.
With one hand inside his pocket and the other gripping the reins of his horse, Maxwell continued to spectate the battle that was ultimately of his own making.
Once again he has succeeded.
Not only has he once again achieved a complete and utter victory against his foes but he would most likely shatter the worldview of the other nations by quashing Porrand in a relatively effortless manner.
Now all that was left for him to do was to quickly overwhelm the undermanned and under-defended Porrish cities until a consensus is made with the surviving Porrish royalty or all of Porrand is successfully annexed.
Maxwell didn't mind which path the Porrish will take, to him it will all end in the same way anyway.
Although no smile has formed on Maxwell's face, he continued to relish the sight of the battle.
To Maxwell's surprise, he found that he actually felt quite apathetic towards this particular battle. In specific, how he knew that victory already fell well within his grasp during the early stages of the battle with next to no resistance.
To him, they were nothing more than stepping stones on his road to glory.
...
"I see... You may leave."
Michelle immediately dismissed the knight once he finished recounting what has occurred so far during the Drussian invasion of Porrand. Soon Michelle once again cupped her chin as she fell into deep thought.
"What a rather interesting turn of events..."
While Michelle still had concerns about the constant threat of the Panish empire, their threat level has decreased ever since they lost a sizeable amount of their military power after several Panish nobles took their forces to Benice, most likely preparing to participate in the next crusade.
As such, Michelle was given a moment of relief which allowed her to refocus some of her attention back to the northeast of the mainland continent. In particular, she was able to check what the Imperium of Drussia and its emperor; Maxwell was up to.
Especially now that they virtually crushed the combined might of Porrand in one fell swoop, basically leaving the Kingdom of Porrand in the Imperium of Drussia's mercy.
However, Michelle was mostly unconcerned with whatever plans the Imperium and by extension Maxwell had for Porrand.
Instead, what she was actually concerned about was the implications that the Imperium's victory will have on the continent.
After all, it was very rare for an entire nation to be brought to its knees, not to mention being brought to its knees by an up and coming newcomer in a relatively quick and effortless manner.
Although she knew that Maxwell would attempt to use his position as monarch of a nation to make outrageous moves. What he has done was something that was out of even Michelle's expectations.
What Maxwell is attempting isn't even napoleonic warfare anymore. In Michelle's original world, the gatling gun was only invented during the Crimean-war era.
From the looks of things, it would seem that Maxwell is using his monopoly on modern knowledge in combination with his power as emperor of a nation to advance the age and nature of warfare at his own pace.
This of course meant that the Imperium of Drussia will reach unprecedented heights of power at a high speed which leaves other nations in the dust.
What makes this prospect even more terrifying is because of how Maxwell is able to dictate the use of advanced techniques and technologies in a way that could never be matched even in their original worlds.
In the original timeline, the full potential of the gatling gun took a substantially long time to be realised due to traditionalist generals not utilising the gatling guns to their fullest.
This was mainly due to the fact that by that point in time, most generals has already settled into a 'traditional' form of warfare, with the history of over 300 years worth of line warfare starting from the early renaissance era dictating generals' decision making when it came to the use of gatling guns.
However, in this timeline, since the advancement of warfare has become volatile no thanks to Maxwell, there were virtually no traditionalist generals or at least none within Drussia who were unable to see the values of new technological weapon advancements.
The gatling gun was no different.
Although, Michelle was still certain that there still existed traditionalist generals who are unable to adapt the new form of warfare whether they belonged to Drussia or not.
However, if the past few conflicts were anything to go by, then these aforementioned traditionalist generals would probably not last long in the upcoming conflicts. If Michelle had to compare her thoughts to a theory, she would compare it to-
"Natural selection..."
While Michelle already predicted that the nations which were unable to adapt to the new form of warfare will be crushed under the heel of a much more crueler and unforgiving form of warfare, she has yet to see her prediction become a reality.
Now, Porrand has become the prime example of this brutally cruel yet honest prediction.
Michelle knew that the recent successes of the Drussians would likely convince other nations to reevaluate or even reform their military doctrine and armies in order to match the Drussians.
With this in mind, Michelle was sure that there would be no shortage of poor imitations trying to replicate the Drussians in the future.
In fact some of these reforms and imitations were already happening. Ever since the Ostrian provisional force was obliterated by the Drussians, reports trickled into Breeton that more and more nations started incorporating more cannons into their standard armies when compared to before.
Previously, cannons were mostly only exclusively used in large numbers during sieges with only minimal numbers being used in open battles.
This was mainly due to the overall low accuracy and fire-rate of cannons making them mostly cost-ineffective during medieval battles which mostly ended in a brawl with only a relative short window of opportunity for cannons to fire.
However, the Drussians proved that with the correct military doctrine and army composition and drilling, artillery can be made into a force to be reckoned with once their numbers reach critical mass.
However, the imitation of the Drussian doctrine wasn't limited to mere army composition but in weapons development as well.
Although, the lack of reports detailing how other nations have successfully imitated Drussian heavy weapons told Michelle that these imitations were either still in development or were scrapped due to being complete failures.
If Michelle's memory wasn't faulty then not only did the Drussians utilise air-burst rounds but each and every one of their howitzers were breach-loaded. A closely guarded secret that not even the general populace of Drussia knew about.
It was because of their breach-loaded howitzers which made use of air-burst rounds that the Drussians were able to inflict such devastation upon their foes with their artillery.
On the other hand, the notion of other nations developing their own air-burst rounds was completely out of the question. As if they would be able to develop such rounds without even the basic understanding of the base concept.
The closest replica another nation has made to the air-burst round were the canister shots that was invented by Shweden. However, the Shwedish were allied to the Unified Kingdoms of Great Breeton which made them allies by proxy to the Imperium of Drussia.
Without breach-loading artillery or air-burst rounds, the artillery of other nations could never hope to even compare to their Drussian counterparts.
And that was just the artillery.
As far as Michelle was concerned, the news of the terrifying gatling guns were yet to spread across the continent due to the lack of Porrish survivors during the battle at the Plaskowyz Plateau.
However, that didn't mean that the other nations still wouldn't attempt to replicate the successful Drussian doctrine.
However, since they only had a vague idea of the Drussian doctrine based on what snippets of information they were able to obtain, the other countries were doomed to produce underwhelming replicas that paled in comparison to their Drussian counterparts.
Every single nation, but one.
The Unified Kingdoms of Great Breeton.
And that was all thanks to Michelle's efforts.
Although the other Breetish nobles detested her very existence, they can't deny that the doctrine that she 'learned' from Maxwell was sure to lead the Unified Kingdoms of Great Breeton to a new age of power and glory.
However, that did not mean that they would accept all forms of innovation. Out of a combination of both jealously and traditionalism, the Breetish nobles have consistently attempted to curb Michelle's hold within the Breetish military.
If it weren't for her past achievements and the fact that she held sway over a significant portion of the royal fleet, Michelle was sure she would have already been tossed to the wayside by the Breetish king.
In fact, Michelle actually uncovered a plot revealing that the Breetish nobles and the king himself only pledged support to her original endeavours in Drussia in order to set her up to fail.
Once she failed, they planned to usurp her house's lands after accusing not just Michelle but her entire noble family of misgovernance and misconduct.
What they did not expect was for Michelle to succeed, not only in securing an alliance with the newly established Imperium of Drussia, but 'introducing' ingenious reforms to the military that she 'learnt' from Maxwell.
However, even then, Michelle was aware that not even her past achievements will be enough for her to leverage the king or any other noble for that matter into investing in developing a weapon that sounded as outrageous as a gatling gun.
Because of this predicament, Michelle knew that she had to somehow find a way to counter the Drussian gatling guns in the case of the 'slight chance' that the relationships breakdown between the Breetish and the Drussians.
However, she also knew that it was highly unlikely for the Drussians to turn over military secrets regarding one of their trump cards no matter what the Breetish offered to the Drussians. As such, Michelle was severely limited in her list of possible options.
As dire as this may sound, Michelle has already found her solution to the gatling guns.
It was a division of soldiers who fought in an irregular open formation which was more spread out than a traditional line formation and excelled at manoeuvring about the battlefield as well as being expert marksmen.
They would be able to easily snipe the gatling gun crews while at the same time only taking minimal casualties due to the nature of how they fought.
To Michelle's convenience one such unit division already exists, both in her old world as well as in the past of this world.
Skirmishers.
With no time to waste, Michelle went to work on her plans on how to produce napoleonic skirmishers while at the same time, thinking ahead on how she convince the other Breetish nobles to invest into her endeavours.
It was because of such difficulties that Michelle would occasionally find herself being envious of Maxwell's position of emperor, basically giving him free reign over his nation's army when compared to Michelle's fairly limited grasp on the Breetish military.
While it would seem that Michelle was handicapped when compared to Maxwell, to her, it only served to make the game a lot more interesting.
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