Cannon Fire Arc

Vasily raised his hands and gave a Carolingian-style salute, “I was just trying to crack a joke.”

Wang Zhong: “But Vasily’s words actually captured the essence of my new plan.”

Vasily: “Did I say it right? Then why were you scolding me just now?”

“It’s a habit,” Wang Zhong waved his hand, and said to the others, “Vasily used pickle jar lids to deceive the Prosens, paired with some real landmines, and directly stopped the enemy’s advance.”

Pavlov and Popov, the two bears, hadn’t guessed Wang Zhong’s meaning yet, and just looked at him puzzled.

Wang Zhong: “We once tried to deceive the Prosens with wooden tanks, leading them to misjudge our actions and successfully escape a situation where we were at risk of being annihilated.

“What we need to do now is to…”

Pavlov: “Make a bunch of wooden tanks?”

Vasily: “Without engines inside, and pushed by people?”

Wang Zhong: “No! What I mean is, we can deceive the enemy. Now, what is the enemy’s greatest weakness? Poor quality of troop personnel, with many elderly, children, and women.

“These people are surely less capable of enduring morale blows than regular soldiers, aren’t they?”

Vasily seemed to get hooked on playing the supporting role and said, “So how do we use deception to strike at the enemy’s morale?”

Wang Zhong pointed to himself.

Pavlov, by reflex, shouted, “I refuse!”

Wang Zhong: “Calm down, I’m not charging into battle myself, but to trick the enemy into thinking I am. My plan is as follows: First, let the main attack force participating in the operation change their flags to red flags.

“Second, place a full-size straw statue of me on top of the guiding heavy tank.”

Vasily: “Why straw?”

Wang Zhong: “Bullets passing through will carry away most of the energy. This way, when they shoot ‘me,’ they’ll find it’s no use, no matter how many bullets they fire.”

Vasily opened his mouth wide: “Oh, then their morale will collapse!”

Wang Zhong, growing more animated, continued: “Among the enemy, there are elderly people, and the Prosens have only recently begun to embrace science. We can target these elderly people by pasting pages of scripture on the tanks.”

Vasily: “This is getting more and more interesting!”

Wang Zhong: “In any case, our goal is to demoralize the enemy. If their morale collapses and they abandon their positions to flee, we can achieve results with minimal manpower and ammunition.

“In such a scenario, we don’t really need all our forces fully equipped, nor do we need to accumulate too much supply.”

Pavlov: “Scaring the enemy off is quite far-fetched, but as long as you don’t go to the front line in a small tank, it’s fine.”

Wang Zhong: “If I actually went, it wouldn’t be as effective because if I get killed, I die. But the straw dummy won’t. Of course, all of this must remain confidential, we can’t let the Prosens know it’s a straw dummy on top of the tank.”

Popov: “You can rest assured, the Tribunal will root out any enemy spies thoroughly.”

Wang Zhong looked at the Military Bishop and reminded him: “We are already technically on enemy territory now, so make sure not to harm any civilians. I mean civilians without guns.”

Popov: “Rest assured. But once we enter Prosen territory, will there still be civilians?”

Wang Zhong looked at the map: “I don’t know, but in such a vast area, there ought to be civilians, right? They couldn’t possibly have conscripted everyone into the People’s Self-defense Team, could they?”

No one answered, because no one knew the answer.

After confirming that no one had anything to say, Wang Zhong looked at Vasily: “I’m assigning you to this deceitful task, Vasily. Use your creativity and scare the enemy to death.”

Vasily pondered for a few seconds while holding his chin and said: “I think we could first investigate the local legends, maybe even consult some cultural and folklore experts, and first figure out what Prosen civilians fear.

“While using your dummy to trick the enemy, we can also employ Prosen myths.”

Wang Zhong: “Aren’t they proponents of Norse mythology? Like Valhalla and all that.”

“That was introduced by the Plathen Emperor from Northern Europe, but their citizens may not necessarily be interested,” Vasily said, “I’ll handle the investigation.”

Pavlov: “I only support trying this out, but not making it our main offense plan.”