The Great War of the Quartet (The Imperial Timeline Book 1) (8 page)

After a total of three hours
the meeting came to a close, and the rows of men stood up to bow their heads in silence while the Emperor took His leave after thanking them “for their diligent patriotic work.” Only when the sovereign had left did the officials scurry to leave the palace to get out to the vehicles in the wide courtyard. Sugahito got into a car together with his direct superior Deputy General Hoshi as well as Supreme General Shirokuchi, Supreme General Count Uchida of Sanada, and a couple of other senior delegates who represented the central group of men charged with laying the foundations of the land war. It was a little cramped in the back of the car, but the men managed to squeeze together on the two opposing benches behind the driver and a junior adjutant.

As part of the representation of the General Staff
’s Operational Department, Sugahito felt privileged to be allowed to sit with Shirokuchi and Uchida of Sanada, both being intelligent and important military leaders. Although he belonged to General Planning, General Planning had been semi-subordinated to the Operational Department as the primary organizations for the purpose of planning and directing the war. The African Military Ministry and the Imperial Navy’s Admiralty were the other two principal independent military governing bodies beside the Imperial General Staff, with the “Africans” prosecuting the land war in the French territories adjacent to Japanese Africa, and the Admiralty overseeing the overseas naval war, such as the occupation of French assets in the Pacific Ocean and the ongoing campaign to occupy Madagascar and other minor colonies and possessions.

“Do you really think that it would be possible to launch offensive operations tha
t soon?” asked Shirokuchi after Hoshi had made the quiet announcement that he in fact suspected that the large operation could be begun ahead of schedule, perhaps as soon as March when he asked him about it just now.

“I think that an increased offensive posture in the Tenshan Mountains
as well as a forceful push on Irkutsk could perhaps be carried out by early next week,” Hoshi carefully answered, as always hedging himself.

“The ice is still no
t melting,” said the supreme general, having seen that the weather would be bad for more than two months.

“
I do not think that we can count on moving after thaw. And since we will rely on overland movement, it is just as well. Frozen ground is superior to wet mud. The roads are horrible, if you remember the study from the old offensive, my lord.”

The serious study of the failed first invasion of Turkestan had been an exemplary collaborative work with an abridged single volume tome that summarized the causes of the failures which in their entirety spanned dozens of volumes of opinions and raw data. The final product from the study group had put a great emphasis on the failure not just in terms of too few soldiers and the poor equipment of the troops in the prewar Shinkyou Military District, but also on the bad roads and the lack of available airfields.

The other supreme general in the car—Count Uchida of Sanada—was a very silent man who did little more than smoke. He was quite young for a supreme general, not more than about forty and a very accomplished man for his age. He was not a formal member of the delegation, but he had tagged along Shirokuchi who had been Uchida of Sanada’s mentor before he had distinguished himself as one of Governor Shitsuji’s military apostles in Africa. Although his enemies had been savage barbarians, there was no end to the legends and stories about the Death Demon who had spread Shitsuji’s “kimonos or bullets” policy far from Somaliland and into the Great Lakes Region where some savage tribes had harassed and killed settlers and officials. It was his work in Africa that had distinguished him with a noble house of his own, so rather than remaining just another Lord Sanada from the old ducal line, the young supreme general had been made Count Uchida in his own right and had become quite possibly the most cherished samurai alive whose exploits against darkie tribes was the stuff of war gods.

The city
was dark outside as the black car drove towards the nearby General Staff. The “Imperial City” of Hokukei had been the capital of the old regime, but it had continued to be a vital city under its new name as an industrial city. Hokukei rivaled Osaka, Nankei, and any other city for the title of the second city after the undisputed de facto capital Edo as it had become an important administrative and financial hub even before the government proclaimed it the nation’s war capital. Its location in the North Chuuka Industrial Belt and the nearby industrial belts in Mongolia and Manchuria left it a bustling metropolitan region with factories and offices of all sorts of businesses that had grown up since the city started its first electric boom some decades ago when the old workshop industrial economy of the old cities was replaced by mass-production, steel, and coal power. Sugahito had fallen in love with the city’s palatial center since moving here, and he would not mind staying in the city after the war rather than return to Edo which bored him. Perhaps he should be looking for a home and think about summoning his wife and family to the city.

“You’re in Planning
too,” Shirokuchi said, looking over at Sugahito, which took him by complete surprise. “Do you think that it would be prudent to change our plans?”

It was hard to know what the man wanted to hear, and naturally Sugahito was not completely at ease to speak to such an extremely senior officer. The supreme general was an old man who had been an influential military man for years, and in the cutthroat politics of the General Staff, he had managed to reach the summit, certainly through both tact and intelligence rather than to retire to grow mushrooms and reminisce about the good old days.

“From what I have seen, sir, I believe that the eastern flank should not require the large forces that we have granted it in our plan. If I may be honest...”

He stopped to wait for a wry smi
le from the old supreme general before he continued. He wouldn’t wish to seem impertinent about other officers’ decisions, such as the sobering prudent spirit and lack of confidence that had taken hold after the failed invasion, which frankly had been much too feeble and relied too heavily on cavalry to outmaneuver the Russians. The chaotic retreat had been devastating, and the fact that both the commander of the central army group and his chief of staff had committed suicide underlined the great feeling of failure that the invasion had instilled in the Army itself.

“I suspect that the planners have been a bit more prudent th
an I believe would be necessary,” Sugahito said. “The Russians in Turkestan are weak.”

“That is
the ghost of the previous campaign into Kazakhia,” Deputy General Hoshi said on behalf of the Staff’s decision to plan much more meticulously than the failed invasion of Central Turkestan. “We are all concerned about dislodging the Russians.”

Because of the great failures that could have cost the country dearly if the Russians had made a serious effort to invade, the minds of the Army had since become infested with the demon of excessive caution.

“I understand that, sir, but I believe that the foreign minister has made an important point. The Russians have been arrogant and far more generous than anyone would deserve on our front, but if the Austrians break it will not make our duty to crush Russia any easier. We may win the battle easier if we wait, but waiting could lose us the war.”

“I agree that we sho
uld not wait,” the supreme general said, “but I am worried that we will set off a dangerous reaction if we are careless. So far we can take great joy in the enemy’s arrogance. But if we prove that we intend on defeating the enemy, we may trigger a renewed Russian focus in the east.”

“I think
that we are all of one mind,” Hoshi said.

Deputy General Hoshi was a
beautiful man for someone his age. Despite being over fifty he had a very charming demeanor and the looks of a man who must have been very fair a few years back. However, he was a very bureaucratic man who favored collective decision-making and consensus, which added to the self-conscious spirit among Sugahito’s colleagues. There was always some expert meteorologist, intelligence officer, or engineer who asked for some particular consideration, and Hoshi was much too interested in obliging everyone rather than put his foot down and dispute the validity of anyone’s concerns. Although Sugahito had no interest to think poorly of his superior, he found Deputy General Hoshi too respectful of his inferiors. Sometimes great warlords would inevitably have to make bold decisions, and it was impossible to imagine a man like Hoshi being as bold and successful as Oda Nobunaga.

“I fear that we
may overestimate the troops,” the head of General Planning added, parroting similar concerns abundant within his department that Sugahito had heard so often before. “If we fail, then we have strengthened the enemy morale without giving our European allies the relief they need. An attack must be certain or near-certain to be at least partially successful. I believe that any meaningful attack on this side of April will be dangerous. To us and to the nation.”

Sugahito knew better than to try to embarrass Deputy General Hoshi, and he did not say anything that would dispute his concerns. Deputy General Hoshi would surely have been a great assistant, but as the chief of a department, he was simply too consensus-seeking.

“The Russians have allowed us to reconstitute our armies along the frontier,” the supreme general said as he accepted a cigarette from his quiet aide who treated the other officers in the car to cigarettes as well. “If we cannot break them after almost half a year of preparations, then we do not deserve to ever break them. We should all just die”

“Then you will order the attack?”
Hoshi asked.

Was he actually prodding the supreme general for an affirmative answer? It sure sounded like it.

“I am not your emperor, am I?” the old supreme general said with a smirk. “I am just a poor old soldier,” he said with an old man’s self-deprecating sense of humor.

“You are a great example of martial genius, my lord,” a junior colonel insisted.

“Tachibana?” the supreme general said, turning his gray, solemn face to look in Sugahito’s direction, ignoring the compliment. “Would you order the attack if you had the authority?”

Sugahito was proud to be asked such a direct question, and he instinctively decided to give his frank opinion to let the supreme general know what he felt about it. If he was being asked because he was a prince of the House of Tachibana that should not take any credit away—were not the descendants of great men often great as well?

“I’m not sure that waiting will be any more favorable than attacking as soon as possible,” Sugahito said. “In my attack it would be advisable to consider Deputy General Hoshi’s words.”

“Colonel Tachibana is a most aggressive man, my lord,” Hoshi said with a good-humored smirk.

“I suppose that is a relative characteristic,” Shirokuchi mumbled as he turned his head to look over at the far younger supreme general looking out the window right next to him. “You’re being very quiet,” he told the young supreme general, deciding to pull the young hero into the conversation.

Uchida of Sanada was indeed awfully quiet, and Sugahito had thought that a man fabled for decisive action would have been quite eager to deride the caution men like Hoshi had promoted. Yet the man only perhaps five to ten years older than Sugahito was just absentmindedly looking out the window and smoking. He was not nearly as handsome as he looked in patriotic paintings; he was youthful, but he looked quite undistinguished; common even. Had it not been for his supreme general insignia, he would have looked more like a bureaucrat than a samurai. No doubt his exploits were exaggerated, but it was indisputable that Supreme General Uchida was a remarkable man who had helped lay the foundations of a secure Numami Military Governorate in the Great Lake Region of Japan’s Africa Territory. If Governor Shitsuji had tamed the Mohammedans on the African coast, then Uchida had tamed the even fiercer tribes of the interior even more fiercely than Governor Shitsuji.

“I have no opinion,” Uchida said, shrugging his shoulders. “If the consensus is to attack, then attack. Is the consensus to wait, then wait.”

There was a brief couple of moments of silence, and Shirokuchi seemed to wait for Uchida to say something more, but the man just calmly took a long drag on his cigarette, apparently content with his evasive answer.

“Always so helpful,” Shirokuchi mumbled acidly.

“I am too unfamiliar with the state of the forces to have a meaningful opinion,” Uchida quietly added, perhaps to defend his lack of a proper answer.

“I think that it might be time to be decisive,” Shirokuchi said, looking over at Hoshi. “The Boys’ Club has been rather keen on getting something done.”

That was hardly surprising. Most of the Boys’ Club had been retired after the early debacles, and only a handful of the prewar elders remained. The Integrated Army Executive Advisory Board—the Boys’ Club—was the closest thing to representing the General Staff’s central cabal since they collectively advised the Emperor on matters related to the Imperial Army and then served as conduits of decisions going the other way—such as the powerful Personnel Department in charge of appointing and dismissing commanders. Not all cabal members were part of the Boys’ Club, but all members of the Boys’ Club were part of the senior leadership of the Imperial General Staff—as well as its subordinate Imperial Army and the semi-independent Admiralty and the even less independent Air Corps Command.