Chapter 2101: Chinks In The Armor

Now that he had secured the cooperation of the Martial Union, Emperor Rael was a lot more confident about his plan. It would have been extremely difficult to go through with it if the Martial Union did not support him. Thankfully, he had managed to reel them over to his side.

The treasures that his son had brought home were so precious that even Martial Sages were willing to wage war to defend them.

However, they alone were far from enough. It would be up to him to protect the Kandrian Empire with an extraordinarily effective political and military strategy.

FLAP

He read through intelligence reports on the military and Martial developments of the other three powerhouses of East Panama. There was much to be covered.

Understanding the changes in the military profile of the three powerhouses was extremely important and was going to be central to his plan. He had had his Bureau of Intelligence produce a meta-analysis of their recent developments and their current net military power, as well as model the most probabilistic future militaristic and Martial developments.

Then, he would create many of long-term strategies designed for each plausible scenario as far as plausible outcomes went.

He was a man who planned for everything.

Such was the Emperor of Harmony.

"...The Republic of Gorteau has invested more in its long-range siege weapons," he narrowed his eyes.

Of the four powerhouses of East Panama, the Republic of Gorteau had the highest amount of weapons of mass destruction and the least number of Martial Artists of the Upper Realms. Technologically, they were a cut above the rest of their peers, while they lagged behind Martially.

Emperor Rael found this to be the most troubling.

Weapons of mass destruction against Martial Sages was something that had never been tested all too often in the field.

After all, Sage-level powerhouses did not wage war with each other lightly or frequently, the large variance in the number of times it had happened also made the comparison tricky and difficult.

In other words, Emperor Rael lacked the empirical data to statistically evaluate the outcomes of this particular paradigm too well.

This was troubling.

His considerations needed to be precise.

The lower the resolution of his strategy, the greater the probability that something would go wrong.

Of course, conventional wisdom in military and Martial circles had long come to the consensus that while each a singular siege weapon of mass destruction possessed net energy output similar to that of a Martial Sage, the latter was vast astronomically and exponentially superior in every regard.

Thus, only a large number of destructive siege weapons could push back a Martial Sage.

Yet, in all of recorded history, not once had they taken down a Martial Sage, while Martial Sages had most certainly eradicated entire arrays of siege weapons. That was perhaps the greatest relief of Emperor Rael.

In the past four years, President Raymond of the National Libertarian Party, in conjugation with Congress, had increased the amount of defense spendings on destructive siege weapons while the former riled up the Gorteau voter base about the so-called oppressive tyrant that Emperor Rael was.

His eyes shifted, returning to the statement that President Raymond had released shortly after Emperor Rael recovered.

[The Republic of Gorteau condemns Emperor Rael for his fascist regime. In the past three centuries, the Kandrian Empire has suffered at the hands of a power-hungry madman. His unfortunate recovery is a threat to democracy...] It had taken Emperor Rael one look to see through the man.

He had fancied Kandria as the weakest of the four after Emperor Rael's decline, causing him to rile a massive war to please the military and Martial industrial complex in Gorteau. And now that Emperor Rael had returned, he had no choice but to go through with his plan even if he was inwardly dreading it.

"A greedy, glory-hungering, power-mongering fool who thought he was dealing with an easy target."

Emperor Rael's evaluation was remarkably accurate.

The system of the Republic of Gorteau was such that any elected leader was necessarily inexperienced. Of the four states, they had the weakest leadership. Each president could only serve three terms, after all. By the time they gathered enough experience to remedy their shortcomings, it was already time for them to leave. It was why the Republic of Gorteau was the slowest and clumsiest of the four powerhouses. Another weakness of the state was its deep internal divisions and elaborate systems of checks and balances.

There was no unilateral decision-making without constraints, consequences, and oversight, including that of the president himself, who could be impeached or even criminally prosecuted.

Emperor Rael recognized the many merits of such a system for its citizens; after all, it meant that leaders were at least a little accountable and not authoritarian. However, it also meant that during times of war, the nation was sluggish compared to the Kandrian Empire, the Britannian Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Sekigahara Confederate.

Of course, Rael intended to use that against them.

Checks and balances were a weakness in war.

They could be turned into shackles and stakes if they were compromised, corrupted, extorted, or blackmailed. In addition, no set of laws were ever absolutely invulnerable and had their own legal chinks. Those chinks didn't mean much in the other three powerhouses, but in the Republic of Gorteau, they could completely paralyze the government.

His eyes fell on another profile in the analytical report he had received.

[Democratic Socialist Party]

It was the second part of the bi-party system of the Republic of Gorteau, the opposition to the current government and administration in power, and would be competing against the National Libertarian Party in a year's time in the general and presidential elections of the Republic of Gorteau.

A smile cracked at the edge of his mouth. "Contact my chief of staff."

He had found a good opening through which he could incapacitate the power of the Republic of Gorteau, among others. KNOCK KNOCK

Emperor Rael's eyes shifted to the person who had entered his office.

His eyes widened as he saw his son, of all people, standing in his office.

"Hey, Dad," Rui smiled eerily, waving at him as he closed the door behind him.