December 4, 914 Jules, the day before the Western Front Army launched its counteroffensive, in front of the former Civil War Exhibition Hall at St. Ye Katerina Fortress.
Wang Zhong’s car was originally intended to enter through the main gate, but when it reached No. 10 Peace Road where the exhibition hall was located, he saw that the entire road was jam-packed.
The Judge leading the way stopped the car and sent someone to knock on Wang Zhong’s window.
Wang Zhong rolled down the window, only for the north wind to pour in.
He had to squint his eyes and ask the Judge, “What’s the situation?”
“It’s recommended to take the additional entrance through the underground passage, Your Excellency the General,” the Judge suggested.
Wang Zhong: “Lead the way.”
————
The entrance to the underground fortifications was inside an unremarkable civilian house three blocks away.
Directly in the cellar of the house was a large iron door, beside which were jars of pickled sauerkraut and cucumbers.
Wang Zhong had thought there would be some advanced way of calling at the door, but the leading Judge simply knocked on the iron door. Then, a small window opened on the door, and someone peeked out from inside.
Then came the sound of a door bolt being slid open from within—not a mechanical noise.
One shouldn’t have too high expectations for Ante’s technical level.
On the other hand, it’s reliable!
After entering, there was an extremely long corridor, and this corridor was shaped like a W, with machine guns at every corner.
This thing looked like it was built to the standards of a doomsday fortress, right at home as a final level in a video game.
After walking through the long passageway, Wang Zhong entered a place resembling an underground command center, but now it was filled with archives and exhibits taken down from landmarks.
Wang Zhong: “I hadn’t toured the underground structure yesterday, but seeing it today, this place seems rather well-equipped.”
The Judge who led the way immediately introduced, “This was originally intended as a shelter and command center in the event of a disaster at Ye Fort.”
Wang Zhong: “You mean the command center after the Prosen Army entered Ye Fort and engaged in street fighting, right. I understand.”
Judge: “Thanks to your efforts, it is now a warehouse.”
Wang Zhong: “No, it was the result of all the soldiers fighting unitedly and resolutely that we could hold off the Prussians.”
With that, Wang Zhong saw the elevator and promptly stepped forward to press the button.
The group then went straight up to the fifth floor, heading towards Wang Zhong’s office.
In the large room next to the office, the click-clack of typewriters was already in full swing.
Upon opening the door to his office, Wang Zhong saw Ellie’s position was empty and quickly asked the lady organizing the papers on the desk, “Where is Ms. Ellie?”
“She’s downstairs overseeing the interviews for new hires,” the lady lifted her head, “Do you want coffee or tea?”
Wang Zhong nodded: “Tea, please.”
The lady nodded, picked up a tray, and walked towards the pantry.
The Judges stopped at the door and did not proceed further, while Grigori sat down on the sofa.
Wang Zhong: “Think about Aksinya, don’t mess with someone else’s wife.”
All the secretaries hired by Ms. Ellie were married ladies with husbands.
Grigori: “I do have some standards for women’s appearance, rest assured, General.”
Wang Zhong entered the office, took off his coat and military cap, and handed them to Vasily.
As Vasily hung them on the clothes rack, he complained, “You could have brought Nelly to do this. She did it back at the division headquarters!”
Wang Zhong: “This is precisely the adjutant’s job! As for having Nelly work here too—it’s not a bad idea, I’m almost tired of the aunties Ms. Ellie brought in.”
Vasily: “Yes, yes! Let Nelly come! But there’s a problem if she does… she probably can’t reach the place to put the hats, we would need to prepare a box for her to stand on.”
Wang Zhong also laughed: “Indeed.”
Then the two of them laughed thoughtlessly together—after all, Wang Zhong’s physical age wasn’t much older than Vasily’s, they were well within the range of becoming buddies.
Wang Zhong went to the office window that faced the main gate square and looked down, the dense crowd reminding him of various tourist spots during the long holidays before he time-traveled.
“There are even more people coming for the job interviews than for conscription,” he muttered.
At that moment, the auntie opened the door, pushed in a cart with cups and teaware for making tea.
“Just leave it there, we’ll pour it ourselves when we’re ready to drink,” Wang Zhong instructed, and the auntie bowed and left the room.
Vasily waited until the auntie had left before teasing, “Your Majesty is making it too obvious, not even trying to hide it any longer.”
Wang Zhong forcibly continued the topic: “There are even more people coming for the job interviews than for conscription!”
Vasily: “A lot of girls wouldn’t be conscripted. After all, to be a nurse or medic, you need to be physically strong to carry the wounded. Female snipers and pilots also have requirements…”
At that point, the door opened and Ms. Ellie came in.
Wang Zhong: “How is the recruitment going?”
“I came to report on that,” Ms. Ellie gave Wang Zhong a meaningful look and then flipped open the roster she had brought, “My original plan was to recruit those ladies with nothing to do at home, along with the wives of clerks of various levels, but the reality is quite different from what I envisioned.”
Wang Zhong: “Different how?”
Lady Ellie: “The majority of those coming for the job interviews are female university students and graduates from professional technical schools with specializations in accounting. The good news is that most of them are proficient in using typewriters and have sufficient cultural level to carry out various clerical tasks.
“The bad news is that most of them have impure motives.”
Wang Zhong: “Place them in offices below the fourth floor, where they can’t get in touch with me, and that’s the end of it. From now on, I’ll take the elevator to move underground.”
Lady Ellie: “Isn’t that a bit too roundabout?”
Wang Zhong: “Isn’t this to facilitate the completion of your mission?”
“Thank you for your understanding.” Lady Ellie bowed slightly and then flipped through the roster in her hand, “The conscription work for the men has been going smoothly, but most of the employees are on the older side. They are mostly evacuees from the occupied areas and due to their age, they are not yet eligible to join the army.”
Wang Zhong: “Isn’t that good? Middle-aged men come with rich experience.”
Lady Ellie: “They might not be able to adapt to high-intensity work.”
Wang Zhong: “Then increase the number of employees; under the current circumstances, employing more people will also benefit the stability of Ye Fort.”
Lady Ellie quickly wrote something in her notebook and continued, “Also, the volunteers from the Air Force have started to disassemble the letters received. Each person has been paired with a typist in order to convert their opinions into written documents as soon as possible. The first batch of documents should arrive today; do you want to read them all?”
Wang Zhong: “No, do a summary, and perform statistical analysis on the issues responded to. We’ll prioritize dealing with the issues most frequently raised by the front lines.”
Lady Ellie: “Then we’ll need to conscript students from the mathematics department.”
Wang Zhong: “The mathematics students have all been conscripted to crack the Prussians’ Enigma machine. Look among the students of accounting or auditing for someone to do the statistical analysis.”
“All right.” Having finished her shorthand, Lady Ellie looked at Wang Zhong, “Any other instructions?”
“No, bring me the documents that require my signature today; I’m going to give a lecture at the school this afternoon.”
“Understood.”
Lady Ellie saluted and left.
Vasily: “They should have delivered the captured Prosen Tanks to the school from Kubinka by now. I wonder how their own research is going.”
Wang Zhong: “This afternoon, let’s assess the students from the tank command specialty and see how perceptive they are.”
————
When Wang Zhong arrived at the school, the students from the tank command department were conducting a mock battle on the tank exercise field using Prosen Tanks and T34s, firing paint rounds.
Wang Zhong resolutely climbed up the observation tower next to the exercise field to watch the show.
He climbed the tower, lifted his binoculars, and saw the blue team, playing the role of Prussians, splitting into two groups to flank the T34 standard red team.
The T34’s response was to tighten their defense, manage their turret orientation well, and use the vehicles to cover each other’s blind spots.
However, most of the red team’s paint rounds hit the ground, while the blue team’s paint rounds consistently hit the T34’s turret rings and tracks with precision.
After watching for about half an hour, the mock combat officer fired a flare, presumably signaling the end of that round.
The students participating in the exercise drove their tanks back to the parking area.
Wang Zhong noticed several tanks had broken down in the middle of the exercise field, both the number three and T34s.
Seeing that the students were lined up ready for a debriefing, Wang Zhong came down from the tower with Vasily and walked towards the assembled troops.
The sharp-eyed instructor saw Wang Zhong from far away and gave the command to stand easy, then ran to Wang Zhong, stood at attention, and saluted, “Reporting to the principal, we have just finished the mock battle and are about to debrief.”
Wang Zhong: “How did the exercise go?”
Instructor: “The blue team won four out of five battles.”
Wang Zhong: “Not bad. How did the red team win their battle?”
Instructor: “It was the last one we played. The blue team used the same old tactics from the previous round, and the red team formed a dense formation, coordinating turret orientation through radio to watch each other’s blind spots.”
Wang Zhong hurriedly looked towards the T34s lined up in the parking lot and noticed they were all platoon leader tanks, equipped with radios.
Wang Zhong: “That won’t do; in the next exercise, only platoon leader tanks are allowed to use radios, non-leader tanks must turn off their radios, they can’t listen or speak.”
“Yes Sir!”
Wang Zhong then went straight to the students and asked loudly, “Have you realized the advantages of the Prosen Tanks?”
“Yes!” the students answered in unison.
Then Maslo Boyev said loudly, “But the T34s are only damaged; they can be repaired and put back into use!”
Wang Zhong: “Indeed. But on the battlefield, who can repair tanks depends on who controls the battlefield after the fight. Over the past six months, we’ve been mostly retreating, so those T34s with their turret rings jammed and tracks broken are completely lost.
“It’s very likely that they got captured by the Prussians, even painted with Prussian insignia, and joined the Prussian Army to fight against us.”
Wang Zhong paused and then asked, “I’m glad that the red team won a mock battle; who was the commander of the red team in that battle?”
Maslo Boyev raised his hand: “Me!”
Wang Zhong: “Good job! You found a solution to the T34’s poor visibility: allocating each tank’s vigilance zone. I did the same in the Orachi ambush. Regarding the Orachi ambush, I will write a booklet, print it, and distribute it to you.
“However, this formation of mutual vigilance has a huge flaw, Maslo, do you know it?”
Maslo answered: “Yes, the formation is too rigid, only suitable for defense; to use it for offense is too difficult.”
Wang Zhong added, “Especially when only the platoon leader tanks have radios. By the way, the radio quality from Ante is very poor; my adjutant Vasily has a lot to say about that.”
Vasily: “Eh? Do I have to speak? Uh, our radios mainly have poor batteries, and the reliability is also an issue.”
Wang Zhong: “Thank you for Vasily’s explanation. Next, all those who have used the Prosen Tanks, come forward and discuss the advantages of these tanks.”