Scavenged Restoration
Chapter 3
-VB-
Getting my sister Candace settled into her new position as the minister of the newly created Ministry of Citizens took some time. In fact, the ministry's creation alone took me a month, losing me precious time that I didn't have. But it was necessary to ensure that the ruling family of the Capellan Confederation remained united.
It wasn't like I didn't have people doing my bidding at the same time as the ministry was getting made.
This was also when I put my first unofficial act into motion by assembling the best of the Zang Shu Jian to infiltrate the Free Worlds League, specifically the FWL world of Helm, and to find a Castle Brian that had yet to be found there in the Nagayan Mountain.
Yes, I sent my best black ops agents to find the Helm Memory Core, because if I didn't get that, then there was no way for me to prevent the collapse of the confederation, and I swore them to utmost secrecy. No HPG messages and no messages to any other agencies.
Helm Memory Core would have all of the technological secrets needed to restart factories, modernize the dying industries, and give me more political power.
-VB-
In the Capellan Confederation, the Chancellor was the final word that dictated everything.
My second official act as the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation … was to radically alter the military doctrine of the state.
I walked into the Strategy Chamber of the Strategios, the high command of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces, and took my seat at the head of the table. With a gesture, the senior colonels and a variety of government representatives all bowed to me instead of sitting down.
"We greet the Chancellor."
"And Chancellor greets you. Sit. We have matters to discuss."
They all sat down.
"It has come to my attention long before my Chancellorship that the state of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces … lack behind our neighboring rivals," I opened up, and this caused everyone to tense up. Words like these often led to purges as someone up at the top looked for scapegoats to blame. Fortunately for them, this wasn't the case. I couldn't afford to lose even a single veteran officer without a just cause. "Does anyone here know why that might be?"
Everyone hesitated to speak up.
Then one man stood up and bowed to me.
"And you are?"
"Celestial Wisdom, I am Lin Jiaoxin of the Ministry of Development."
"Speak, Representative Lin."
He bowed again.
I wondered if I got people to stop bowing between every other sentence I could save a lot of hours in a day. An experiment for another day.
"It is the opinion of this humble servant that the state of the CCAF may be due to inadequate supply given to non-officer and non-mechwarrior soldiers."
This was new. "Elaborate."
"I have personally inspected over a dozen worlds along the border and in the core of our glorious state. St. Ives, New Sagan, Sarna, Raballa, Campertown, Bithinia, Eom, Jasmine, Krin, Sian, Bentley, Frondas, Carmen, Housekarle, Ito, Latice, and Wright are the worlds I've inspected. Of these seventeen worlds, I have noted that nine of them have subpar, if not outright malfunctioning equipment, Your Grace. I became extremely worried on the worlds of Ito and Housekarle in particular because the Home Guard of those worlds were severely ill-equipped!"
"Housekarle and Ito…" I muttered before pausing.
Those two worlds were the current lynchpin of the confederation's territorial integrity, connecting the rimward half of Sian Commonality to the central St. Ives Commonality and the coreward half of Sian Commonality. Outside of Sian itself, all of Sian Commonality's industrial worlds were on the other side of those two worlds from Sian.
On top of that, the rimward half of the Sian Commonality was where the majority of base material refineries were.
"How bad?" I asked.
He actually looked a little sick. "If it had not been for the strength of their neighboring worlds, then they would not survive an invasion force. In their current state, they cannot survive a concentrated invasion, Celestial Wisdom!"
"You lie!"
My eyes snapped towards a senior colonel. By the mark he wore, I saw that he was the senior colonel in charge of the Sian Commonality's defense.
He flinched when he saw my eyes landing squarely on him.
"Representative Lin, you have report to back yourself up, yes?" I asked as I turned back to stare at Lin.
"I do, Celestial Wisdom. May I…?"
I gestured for him to do so.
He walked over to the edge of the room where a group of servants stood, and got one of them to follow him up to the head of the table where I sat. The servant, with trembling hands, presented a computer tablet to me. I took the bulky thing and looked down at the plastiglass* screen.
Using the buttons on the right side, I moved through the report, which came with pictures of the equipment examples.
My hands nearly crushed the tablet when I saw rusting Wasp battlemech used by Ito's militia.
I took a brief breath, let it out, and continued to read.
Housekarle wasn't as bad as Ito's Home Guard was, but it was still bad. At the same time, the report also detailed the number of infantry, vehicles, fighters, and mechs were on each world.
And what I saw was mercenaries everywhere.
In fact, I could even go so far as to say that a good third of the defenses across all Capellan worlds were dependent on mercenaries because local militia didn't exist on some of them.
I thought I needed to make drastic changes at the top.
I was wrong.
I needed to make changes everywhere.
This … this was a bigger problem than I thought. There were problems everywhere.
"I see."
It was true. I finally saw the scale of the damages I needed to fix for the confederation to survive the upcoming wars and crises.
I set the computer down and closed my eyes.
"Senior Colonel Jackson."
The senior colonel of Sian Commonality froze.
"Yes, Celestial Wisdom."
"I give you three months to fix the problems listed here and all others," I said as I slid the computer. "Representative Lin, you do your ministry and your nation proud. I thank you for your service to the state and the people of the Capellan Confederation."
"I am unworthy!" Lin almost yelled in exaltation as he bowed.
"No, you are worthy. What is your rank within the ministry?"
"I am merely one of many vice directors of the Ministry of Development."
"No, you are no longer a vice director," I told him. "You are now Director of the newly created Ministry of Citizens, and you will work under my sister, Candace Liao, to raise the people of the confederation to new heights. For your work, you will receive two hundred thousand C-Bills, thirteen hectares of land here on Sian, and carry the title 'Inspector Director.'"
The man looked like he was going to cry.
Please don't cry.
"Now," I said as I turned to the rest of the Strategios. "What other problems are there in my state that my father ignored?"
Maybe it was the show of reward. Or the lack of beheading and executions. Whatever it was, the senior colonels, government officials, and world representatives all began to open up one by one.
In the Capellan Confederation, the Chancellor was the final word that dictated everything. But for the Chancellor to dictate everything as best as he could, he needed to know the true state of the confederation on the ground.
-VB-
My first session with the Strategios got me to understand five things about the state of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces.
One, my insane dad was a good military planner, because he managed to reverse a lot of losses the state suffered with only 45 mech regiments. This was more than double what we had after the Second Succession War. This was probably the only reason why we haven't been swallowed up by either side yet.
Two, my dad did his best but even he can't conjure experience out of nowhere. Out of the 45 mech regiments, less than a dozen were veteran, less than five were elite, and, on average, the rest was green, i.e. most officers and mechwarriors had less than half a dozen fights under their belts. This was probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem of the CCAF. I needed to bring up the average level of these regiments to low veterancy/high regular experience. I might have to disperse the Red Lancers to multiple regiments to bring them up to speed, even at the cost of my own safety.
Three, the reliance on light and medium mechs due to industrial concerns meant that, regiment to regiment, the CCAF was always out-tonnaged by the medium-heavy mech composition of the Free Worlds League Military and the medium-centric mech regiments of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. Had the individual, lance, company, battalion, and regiment skill levels of the CCAF been higher than that of the AFFS, this would not have been dire. It was dire because AFFS had more skilled mechwarriors, officers, and commanders than the CCAF.
Four, the narrow territory of the confederation was both a boon and a restriction. Much like how the Nile prevented Egypt from becoming truly linking itself up, the astropolitics of the confederation allowed its smaller and less well trained force to react quickly to enemy attacks with overwhelming force by quickly shifting large amounts of troops from one border to the other. This was the boon. The restriction was that as the League-Confederation and Confederation-Suns borders grew apart, that same overwhelming firepower would diminish and the confederation would inevitably lose more mechwarriors and metals until it reached the equilibrium again.
Five, all mech regiments were under seventy percent of their allowed maximum capacity. So not only were the mech regiments mostly green, they weren't even full.
Hardware issues could be solved once I had Helm Memory Core.
Experience and logistics… needed work. Lots of work.
To that end, I decided to do something that every Liao before me would have balked at.
On my second meeting with the Strategios some two months after my first meeting, I looked at them all in the eyes as i made my declaration.
"I have decided that there needs to be a change in the military doctrine of the confederation," I told them. "To that end, I intend to secure the future of that doctrine by moving the production line of our newest heavy mech, the Cataphract, from its place in Tikonov to Capella. Does anyone have objections to this?"
There were none.
"I desire to increase the number of heavy mechs in each regiment, especially those on the Marik border. Does anyone have objections to this?"
Some objections. But nothing truly substantial. I found their concerns unnecessary. If more training and doctrinal changes to include heavy mechs into the operation of the CCAF was what it took to have more heavy mechs, then that's what it will take.
"I will make a manufacturing company owned directly by the Liao Family and I intend to use any and all blueprints available to the confederation. Does anyone have objection to this?"
There were some from the Ministry of Resource about patents, but I found their concerns negligible.
"I intend to end servitors as a caste for the sake of the confederation. Does anyone have objection to this?"
There were many.
But ultimately…
I found their concerns negligible.
-VB-
3027 January: Chancellor William Liao abolishs the servitor slavery, instead raising them up to the status of "Residents." They are afforded some rights but ultimately are not citizens of the Capellan Confederation until they put in the work like everyone else. His sister, Candace Liao, and the new Ministry of Citizens work to integrate the Residents into the confederation's society through work programs, improved housing, and advocating for their new rights.
3027 January: Unknown to all but the Chancellor, his Maskirovka team returns from Helm with a SLDF Library memory core