At the same time, in Shostka
Pavlov: “I’ve just realized, after being bombarded for days, there aren’t many intact buildings left to hold the prisoners.”
Popov: “There’s no need to house them. The enemy is likely to reciprocate our artillery fire tonight. The bombardment could well kill off half of these prisoners. Just put them next to the train station, and when the supply train arrives tonight, we can unload the supplies and load them up immediately.”
Popov paused, then added, “If the enemy begins shelling during this process, we can say that the enemy deliberately killed these prisoners. We’ll use that for propaganda purposes.”
Pavlov thought about it and nodded, “Alright, let’s do that. There’s a large storage area right next to the train station. They can sunbathe there. It’s autumn, so they won’t get heatstroke.”
Having decided, Pavlov picked up the phone to issue orders, calling for a company from the reserves to deploy along the railway.
Suddenly, Popov said, “No! They can’t go along the railway!”
Pavlov, confused, held the microphone of the handset and looked at the Military Bishop, “What’s wrong?”
“First, if the train needs to retreat, it will be blocked by them. Second, only the civilians working by the railway will be able to see them. We need these prisoners to get off the railway bridge, walk down the city’s main thoroughfare, pass through the district on the east bank, and then turn towards the train station.
“That way, the entire Guardian Army and the labor force can see them. Even those laborers who are working will be able to see!”
Pavlov, enlightened by Popov’s words, exclaimed, “To boost everyone’s morale! Alright, I’ll make arrangements.”
He immediately amended the order, instructing the called-up company to spread out along the streets all the way to the train station.
————
In the afternoon, the common folks of Shostka gathered on the main thoroughfare, looking puzzled at the Imperial Guard soldiers lined up along it.
The Priest, with a metal megaphone, was shouting: “Please do not gather, please do not gather. The enemy could shell us at any moment, the enemy could shell us at any moment!”
But not a single person left.
Everyone was whispering among themselves.
“What’s going on here?”
“I heard that the general has just crossed to the opposite bank, maybe he has become a martyr!”
“Nonsense! Be careful lest the Judge hears you!”
“But why are they lined up like this?”
The crowd discussed back and forth to no avail, but more and more people gathered.
Suddenly, cheering erupted from the west end of the street: “Hurray!”
Curious, everyone pushed forward to see what was happening, but the lined-up Imperial Guards blocked them with their rifles held sideways.
“Don’t push, don’t push! You’ll all get to see!”
An old woman, curious, asked the leading lieutenant, “What’s going on? What’s there to see?”
“I don’t know either. They just asked me to line up. I’m even more curious than you, ma’am!”
As everyone was chatting away, the cheering gradually drew closer.
Then, a child who had climbed onto the roof shouted, “It’s the Prussians! The Prussians are entering the city!”
His mother immediately scolded him, “Nonsense, there hasn’t been any gunfire!”
“But really, there are people in gray uniforms coming this way!” the child protested.
Others too began to see: “Gray uniforms! They’re marching this way in formation!”
Had it not been for the people next to them starting to shout “Hurray,” some might have run away.
The gray-uniformed figures then came into everyone’s view.
The Prussians marched down the street in formation, all covered in rotten eggs and mud. They carried no weapons, walking with heads lowered in a dejected manner, while the proud soldiers in black strode alongside them.
“It’s the prisoners! The general has sent back prisoners!”
Someone shouted out.
As if awakened from a dream, everyone immediately cheered, “Hurray!”
In the next moment, all sorts of things were thrown at the prisoners.
One old lady, while throwing things, shouted, “You’ve been captured too! Serves you right! Serves you right!”
“Hand them all over to the Judge! Let them have a taste of our harshness!”
“Get out of our country!”
Facing the overwhelming rage, the prisoners wilted like overstored vegetables.
The crowd quickly tired though because they realized the line of prisoners was too long.
Someone muttered in surprise, “Just how many prisoners has the general captured?”
“There must be thousands of them, right?”
“No, look how long the line is—it must be tens of thousands! Remember, that’s General Rokossovsky! He blew up nine of the enemy’s generals!”
In the time it took for this conversation, the crowd added a zero to the number of prisoners and believed it to be accurate.
And the number of enemy generals that General Rokossovsky had killed had successfully risen to nine.
Just as everyone had grown tired of watching the prisoners, someone shouted, “Look! It’s the enemy officers!”
The crowd, having rested, immediately got excited again at the sight of the group wearing large caps and pelted them with rocks, flower pots, and mud as if in a violent storm.
An officer, wearing an aide’s aiguillette, was even used as a projectile at the highest-ranked among them, which incited even greater anger, and the rocks flew more abundantly.
At that moment, a Priest finally stepped forward, “Stop this! Injuring them will lower the effectiveness of the interrogation! Leave them to the Judges!”
The Priest shouted several times before the crowd’s fury gradually subsided, while the Prosen officers supported each other and quickly made their way through the angry mob.
Following close behind were the cannons pulled by mules, with the black-coated soldiers driving them looking proud and haughty.
Someone asked loudly, “Soldier, where did that cannon come from?”
“It’s a trophy of war!” the soldier said happily, “We captured more than a dozen of them! Tomorrow they will be firing shells onto the enemy’s heads!”
After the cannons came the ammunition carts, and other wagons full of various spoils of war, including all sorts of Prosen canned food.
A child called out to a black-coated soldier sitting on the wagon, “Can you give me a can? I want to try it!”
The soldier immediately fetched a can and tossed it to the child, “You’re welcome!”
He went home happily.
Soon after, there came a child’s wail from inside the house, “It’s so salty ahhh!”
The laughter of everybody on the street rose when they heard this crying.
—-
Wang Zhong watched as the Naval Infantry drove mule carts loaded with a large amount of war trophies past him, and he shouted, “If there’s a radio, give it to me, understand?”
The Naval Infantry driving the cart pointed back, “The communications company has been entirely captured by us, it’s in the back. There’s also a machine with lots of rotors!”
Wang Zhong, “An Enigma machine?”
Naval Infantry, “I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s a big box with a lot of rotors. At first, we thought it was a kind of gearbox, but then we found a keyboard, and it can type.”
Wang Zhong slapped the KV’s turret steel plate, “It’s the Enigma machine! What about the codebook? Did you capture the codebook?”
“It’s all in the back, General.”
Wang Zhong waved his hand to let the Naval Infantry drive the cart away.
Soon after, Wang Zhong saw a half-track vehicle approaching, covered with antennas, obviously a Prosen communications vehicle.
Wang Zhong, “Where’s the cipher machine you captured?”
A Naval Infantry inside the half-track lifted a box.
This was the first time Wang Zhong saw a real Enigma machine, and his first reaction was: isn’t it a bit small?
It looked like a slightly larger typewriter.
Wang Zhong, “Hand it over for me to look at.”
The Naval Infantry stood up, took a brisk step, and leapt from the half-track’s carriage onto the flatbed, then agilely climbed onto the KV’s hull, placing the Enigma machine in front of Wang Zhong.
Wang Zhong opened the case to inspect the machine inside.
The keyboard almost identical to that of a classic typewriter, where the rolls would normally be placed, there were five rotors, with a complex linkage mechanism nearby.
Additionally, there was a manual revolving knob next to the rotors, which seemed to be used to adjust the position of each disk.
Using the Enigma machine was simple; to encrypt information, one only needed to type on the keyboard, and it would automatically transform into an encrypted string.
To decode, one simply had to type in the string in reverse, and out would come the content of the information.
But to accomplish decryption, merely having an Enigma machine identical to the sender’s was not enough, it was essential to accurately know the initial position of each rotor during encryption, as well as the wiring pattern on the circuit board below.
Even if an Enigma machine was captured, based on the rotor positions one could decrypt messages for a day; but if the enemy changed the rotor positions the next day, decryption would no longer be possible.
Wang Zhong inspected the cipher machine closely, again recalling something he had once considered: creating an estate, gathering a group of mathematicians, and cracking the Prosen code.
During Earth’s World War II, that’s exactly what the British did at Bletchley Park. Once the Sturmtiger’s code was broken, the losses of the wolfpack tactics skyrocketed because the Royal Navy knew when the wolfpack was coming, where it would assemble, and where it would resupply.
Wang Zhong looked at the machine, closed the lid, and handed it back to the Navy, “Make sure to keep it safe, and ensure it’s delivered to the Judge intact. This machine is very important.”
“Hand it over to the Judge?”
Wang Zhong, “Yes, but we’re keeping this communications vehicle. Also, how many walkie-talkies did we capture? You know, the radios that a single person can carry.”
“Five, General.”
Wang Zhong was overjoyed, “Great, great! Deliver them all to the division headquarters! Once the battlefield cleanup is nearly done, we will begin to retreat.”
—-
On September 24th at 1500 hours, the Prosen Army’s Asgard Knights First Army Headquarters.
Giles looked at his watch, “The enemy hasn’t launched an armored assault. Could we have been deceived by the enemy?”
Feliz cursed, “This White Horse General, there will come a day when we won’t believe anything he says over the radio!”
Giles, “If that’s the case, won’t the enemy have succeeded? If we don’t believe anything he says, then he can simply call out his moves in clear text. No, we still need to monitor the enemy’s radio communication. The Ante People are poor at radio technology and prefer telegrams and telephones, but this White Horse General clearly favors radio.”
At that moment, the Chief of Staff came in, “We’ve clarified the situation. The White Horse General brought a division and an armored train, suddenly charged over, and then occupied our completed trenches.”
Giles frowned, “A division? Did High Command’s intelligence err again? Aren’t we supposed to have just one reinforced division on our front?”
The room fell into uneasy glances.
Giles shook his head, “No, there can’t be that many. The White Horse General conducted a surprise attack; it’s our troops who have mythologized him, turning into a case of startled birds. This can’t continue; order all units to emphasize to the soldiers that the White Horse General is just a man, he doesn’t have Divine Power, nor is he some Surtur!”
Feliz, “It seems, the problem lies in the continuous propaganda strategy we’ve used, claiming we are from the Aesir tribe. But in the mythology, the Aesir tribe ultimately faces Ragnarok. The Fire Giant Surtur brandishes a massive sword, challenging the gods…”
Giles, “Enough. Even though night is about to fall, we must launch an attack immediately. Our tank forces may not excel at attacking the fortified region across the river, but if we can’t take over the trenches on the plains, then it wouldn’t be fitting. Before night falls, I want full control of the positions!”