Empire Conquest-Chapter 735 - 41 Mobilization Mechanism

Given the political system of the Tiaoman Empire, with the full support of the Cabinet, it was certain to win majority support in the Empire’s Legislature.

The reason was quite simple: Reinhardt led a coalition government composed of multiple political parties.

Of the 27 Cabinet Ministers, 13 were from Reinhardt’s own "Tiaoman Democratic Revitalization Party," and the remaining 14 were from 6 other parties. Together, these seven parties held 78% of the seats in the Legislature, definitely providing Reinhardt with two-thirds of the vote for his war proposal.

In fact, Reinhardt only needed the support of 4 coalition parties to wage war.

What concerned Reinhardt was not whether he could secure authorization for war but whether he had the means to win it, or rather, to achieve his predetermined objectives.

That was why, after sending off the Cabinet Ministers, Reinhardt had his secretary arrange for military commanders to come and discuss war plans.

Fundamentally, Reinhardt did not expect to win on the battlefield.

Clearly, he still had that bit of self-awareness.

Let alone the Tiaoman Empire, even if the entire West Continent were to come together, it couldn’t compare with the Liangxia Empire. Moreover, there was the vast, virtually insurmountable Giant Continent lying between the West Continent group and the Liangxia Empire. From a military perspective, the probability of defeating the Liangxia Empire through ground warfare was almost nil.

This was definitely not a statement intended to exaggerate the enemy’s strength.

If anything, the position of the Liangxia Empire on the Giant Continent was many times better than before the outbreak of the last great war. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The key was that they had pushed their "sphere of influence" boundary westward thousands of kilometers, all the way to the east bank of the Volga River.

Any Western foe advancing eastward first had to cross the Volga River and then climb the rugged Ural Mountains before attacking the famously well-defended Leaf Castle. Next, they would have to traverse thousands of kilometers of plains and deserts to reach Liangxia’s homeland. Even if they managed to reach there, victory was still far away, for there were still thousands of kilometers to Liangxia Empire’s core regions!

Truthfully, no ground force could carry out an expedition spanning nearly 10,000 kilometers during a single war!

Even the Mongolian Cavalry, which had conquered the World Island, took decades and fought hundreds, if not thousands, of battles.

Even just crossing the Volga River was fraught with difficulties.

Before the end of the last great war, or more precisely, before the Luosha Federation surrendered, the Liangxia Empire spared no expense in resources and sacrifices of soldiers to advance to the east bank of the Volga River, ahead of the Tiaoman’s forces crossing it, all for the sake of controlling the land west of the Ural Mountains.

Simply put, it was to make the Ural Mountains into a real strategic defense line.

From a military standpoint, to turn the Ural Mountains into a strategic barrier, one had to push westward to control the plain on the river’s western side.

Simply put, to turn the plains to the east of the Volga River into a buffer zone for strategic defense.

Thus, any enemy from the west would have to cross the Volga River first, then push eastward hundreds of kilometers to even reach the western base of the Ural Mountains.

Actually, a change in perspective makes this easier to understand.

If the east bank plain of the Volga River was abandoned, the Tiaoman Empire’s army could directly face the Ural Mountains with no need to first cross the river.

For the defending party, this meant guarding the entire mountain range, at a minimum, deploying along the Urals.

With the east bank plain of the Volga River, the defense forces could initially fortify places like Leaf Castle, and then adjust their positioning according to the actual situation when the enemy attacked.

For the past few decades, this defense strategy had been consistently employed by the Liangxia Army.

The entire east bank region of the Volga River was a defensive buffer zone for the Liangxia Army, and this defensive tactic had a significant impact on the Liangxia Empire’s military equipment build-up.

The most representative were the helicopters’ range and combat radius.

With average distances of about 300 kilometers from the forward bases on the western side of the Ural to the Volga River, the combat radius of Liangxia Army’s armed helicopters was exactly 300 kilometers. The range of general-purpose helicopters under full load was not less than 300 kilometers, and the design benchmark for large helicopters was even 600 kilometers.

As soon as war broke out, the Liangxia Army Air Force could strike the enemy from across the Volga River, basing their attacks from forward bases on the western side of the Ural Mountains.

Moreover, the Liangxia Army’s only long-range support fire weapon, namely the tactical ballistic missile, had a maximum range of just 300 kilometers.

This geographical factor did not even spare the Liangxia Air Force.

The main force attack aircraft of the Liangxia Air Force had operational radii of 500 to 700 kilometers because the forward bases were on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. Taking off from these bases, attack aircraft needed to fly over the Ural Mountains, thus consuming more fuel and necessitating a longer combat radius.

In terms of defensive deployment, the entire east bank of the Volga River as well as the northern plains of the Broad Sea were all strategic buffer areas.

According to exercises by the Tiaoman General Staff Department and the West Continent Allied Army Headquarter, with current troop strength, even if they committed fully, they could at most advance to the Ural Mountains.

To continue pushing eastward would require more troop deployments, which in turn would leave the rear defense lines vulnerable.

Simply put, should the Liangxia Army launch a reprisal, the West Continent group might even struggle to defend their homeland.

That is why, among the various strategic plans drafted by the West Continent group, they all, in fact, primarily aimed at sweeping through the Lusha Federation Republic.