Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 277

277. Chapter 276, Mobilization

In Weixing City, Ossena was inspecting the factory construction accompanied by Patel.

“Prime Minister, please look.” Patel pointed to the workers moving the machines and the engineers directing beside him, and said, “This factory was originally engaged in the production of electrical appliances. According to the instructions, it is expected to be converted into the production of electrical components for the Lion tank soon.”

After a pause, Patel continued, “There are many similar conversions. It is estimated that we can complete the first phase of the civilian-to-military project in one month.”

Ossena nodded.

This progress is roughly within her expectations.

However, Patel next to him was still a little hesitant. He thought about it and asked, “Is it a bit of an exaggeration to convert so many factories from civilian to military? It’s okay here. Most of them are basic heavy industries and military industries. I heard that the changes in Fuxing City are big. Many consumer goods and civilian factories have turned to military industries… Especially those agricultural machinery and engineering machinery. The reduction in production of these things has a great impact. I am really worried that this will slow down the development of the alliance.”

Ossena’s expression did not change much.

She comforted him, “Just do it with peace of mind. This is the order of the Governor. Also, don’t worry too much. The production capacity change from civilian to military is not carried out all at once. The government and the Ministry of Military Affairs have discussed and set up a multi-level mobilization order, which includes the plan to convert civilian factories to military use. This is launched one level at a time, and not all of them will be converted at once.”

“War is still the top priority. We have to ensure survival first.”

“But…isn’t the Blackbird Heavy Industry thousands of miles away? They have never posed any threat to the Alliance. It seems that we don’t have to take action against them now? All the construction of the Alliance is in full swing. Is the scene of prosperity being interrupted like this?”

Ossena turned around and looked at Patel.

Patel also looked at the Prime Minister calmly.

He asked himself that he was loyal, dedicated to the public, and had no selfish motives. What was he afraid of?

Ossena sighed in his heart.

This was probably not just Patel’s own idea, but the idea of the entire Alliance.

The residents of the Alliance, at least most of them, still love the Alliance and the Governor. The Governor never lied about what he promised. As long as they are included in the Alliance system and their ranks are determined, they will be treated accordingly and no longer have to live a precarious life.

This alone is enough to make the civilians, who make up the vast majority of the population, who have walked from chaos to peace, wholeheartedly pledge their loyalty to the Alliance and the Governor.

Not to mention, the Alliance’s rank system has been running for a year or two and it seems to be quite dynamic, with more opportunities for mobility between the upper and lower classes.

Even the Alliance is not a utopia. The Alliance needs to develop and collect income, and corruption is inevitable under the Alliance system, but even so, it is much better than the past life.

Under this premise, a small number of people with bad intentions cannot cause any trouble.

However, those who oppose the Alliance’s move against Blackbird Heavy Industry are not necessarily those who have grievances.

The general public who support the Governor and feel a sense of belonging to the Alliance are working hard to build their homes, looking forward to a better life in the future, and watching that better life being realized step by step and coming into their own hands.

In this case, why is there a sudden war? Or take the initiative.

Ossena knows the reason herself. It would have been fine if she

didn’t know before, but now that she knows that Blackbird Heavy Industries has violated the ban on omnics, she must of course deal with them. The omnic crisis cannot be allowed to continue to develop. It seems that there is no threat now, and Blackbird Heavy Industries is staying in the west honestly, but if we don’t care now, when they start to make trouble, it is very likely that the scale will expand to a point that the Alliance cannot stop. It is true that

this reason is not easy to say directly, but it is not that there is no other way to avoid it.

Blackbird Heavy Industries is a real threat to the Alliance. Putting aside the information about omnics that is not easy to announce to the public, it is enough to promote the legitimacy of the war and the fact that Blackbird Heavy Industries has brought serious impacts and disasters to the better lives of tens of millions of residents in the Alliance.

In fact, the relevant external propaganda work was already underway when the decision was made.

But now it seems that it is not done well enough, even Patel, who is considered a senior official, has not been dealt with.

While verbally comforting Patel and asking him to focus on his work, Ossena also secretly made a note in her heart.

When she returns, she will summon the people in the Propaganda Department to urge them to work well, and even punish some people who are responsible for management.

…

Weixing City is only the first stop of Ossena’s inspection work. Later, she took the Feng Falcon to visit several surrounding industrial bases.

Other areas of the Central Bank Province, the Central North Province, the Tower Province… All local civilian-to-military work is being carried out in an orderly manner.

The scale is not too large, but this is a rehearsal.

Now is not the time to fully release the war potential. As Patel said, as the Prime Minister of the Alliance, Ossena does not want to interrupt the current prosperous development trend of the Alliance too much because of a war.

However, the Alliance must have this mobilization ability.

At present, it is a second-level mobilization order, which should not affect the lives of residents. The corresponding welfare and allowances will not be reduced. The corresponding consumer goods market and food industry market will be affected to a certain extent, but not greatly, and the variety will be less.

But if it goes to the next level of the first-level mobilization order, it will be difficult to remain unaffected.

At that time, I am afraid that there will be a large-scale conscription; the wartime economy will be opened, welfare and allowances will be cut; and civilian factories will be further converted into military factories.

If it goes to the general mobilization order, it will be almost the entire alliance to deal with the war with all its strength. All the population, all production and life, all revolve around the war. Almost most young and middle-aged men, and even a considerable number of women, will be recruited into the army; the remaining population, from the old to the young, will do war-related work, and it is good to have an extra bullet; all non-war consumption will be compressed to the extreme…

Since the establishment of the alliance, this level of general mobilization has not been launched. But Ossena is confident that the system she has built according to the general expectations of the governor can achieve that level and exert huge war potential.

This was her masterpiece, but she would rather never use it. She knew very well that if the alliance mobilized to that extent, it would cause great damage to economic development.

She returned to Fuxing City with a heavy heart. She wanted to report the situation to Governor Gu. When she arrived at the door of the meeting room, it was just the scheduled time.

The alliance was practical and did not care about those empty things. Even if they came to see the governor, they would not even make an appointment when they were not busy; when they were busy, they would also agree on a time, so as not to keep people waiting for a long time and not to come early.

When Ossena arrived at the designated place, she learned that the Governor was meeting with Generals Yan Fangxu and Thadius. Their appointment was before Ossena’s, so they should have finished talking by now, but perhaps because of some unexpected events or some topics that were not discussed thoroughly or completely, they were delayed.

She waited outside peacefully, but she didn’t expect a voice to ring in her mind:

“Come in, listen together and tell us what you think.”

This was the voice of the Governor.

Ossena quickly put away her thoughts and went forward.

The guards outside did not stop her, and they obviously got the message.

Entering the house, the two men were arguing about something. The Governor sat at the top and did not participate in the discussion, but just listened carefully.

Ossena did not rush to speak, she found a seat and sat down, listening carefully.

After listening for a while, she roughly understood what was going on.

The overall mobilization of the alliance was to prepare for war, and war, of course, is fought by the army.

At present, the Angry Bear Legion established by the alliance and about to be officially named the Star Army has been mobilized. The 140,000-man army went all the way west from the original gathering place, the Central Province, and crossed a distance of 500 kilometers to the Western Desert.

The Central Army Group also went with them.

Of course, this Central Army Group is no longer the one that fought the three eastern provinces before. The original Central Army Group was split into three parts. One part was formed into the Black Arrow Star Army Group and went to the colonies to guard; the other part was assigned to the Angry Bear Legion.

Only the First Brigade remained, and together with the newly established 46-50th Divisions, a new Central Army Group was formed.

Recently, the newly established 39th and 40th Garrison Divisions of the former Eastern Army Group, as well as the 21st-25th Garrison Divisions of the former Qinggu Army Group, were also incorporated.

So far, the current Central Army Group has 13 divisions and brigades, totaling 100,000 people.

These two army-level forces add up to 250,000 people.

This is the main mobile force that the alliance can mobilize without further mobilization and without affecting the defense of each region.

At the same time, the “new recruit camps” in various parts of the alliance have recruited about 100,000 people in total. They are receiving training and will be added to the front-line troops at any time according to the progress and needs of the war to ensure that the two western armies are always fully staffed.

These new recruits were brought by the mobilization order, and Ossena also knew about this. Although conscription is not her responsibility, it is the work of the conscription office under the Military and Political Department of Thadius, but after all, it requires close cooperation with the local government.

Under the second-level mobilization order, the number of reserve troops will continue to increase. The military manpower pool is estimated to be able to reach 5% of the total population, which means 1.25 million people. In addition to the more than 400,000 people already in service and the 100,000 in the recruit camp, there is still room for conscription of about 700,000 people.

If it is still not enough, it may be necessary to issue a first-level mobilization order, which will increase the total mobilization population to 10%.

And if it is still not enough, to the point of the alliance’s general mobilization order, the maximum can be pulled out 20% of the population, but that is exaggerated.

The first-stage strategic target of the 250,000-man army gathered in the west is the Western Desert. It is not to occupy the entire vast Western Desert, which is too large. More than 200,000 people are just watering the desert, which is meaningless.

The main goal is to control the “oasis” in the east of the Western Desert, which has had more contact with the Alliance, and especially to control the main road that crosses the Western Desert and leads directly to the west of the continent.

This main road should be left over from the pre-war era. It was originally a solid paved road. However, due to environmental changes, wars, and the collapse of the unified government, this main road is in a particularly poor condition due to lack of maintenance. It is only able to maintain traffic by relying on the self-maintenance of traveling merchants and oases along the way.

The most important thing is that if you don’t go here, there is no other way.

Although various heavy equipment and vehicles have excellent off-road capabilities, it is still too exaggerated to cross 10,000 kilometers of wilderness and go on an expedition to the west. This barely usable road must not only be occupied, but engineers must also be sent to further repair it.

At present, the troops are not far from the Western Desert.

The point of dispute between Yan Fangxu, the major general commander, and Thadius, the military and political chief, was how to deal with the many oasis forces in the Western Desert.

The Western Desert did not have a unified regime. Each oasis and the planting factories below were like independent city-states. They had their own political system and their own armed forces.

From a military perspective, Yan Fangxu did not want to conquer purely by force, which would put a great burden on the troops and make it difficult to complete the task of pushing the front line to the central area of the Western Desert and establishing the main defense line within a month and a half. His troops would spend a lot of time and energy on clearing out those resistance forces.

He hoped that through diplomatic means, as long as the oases to the east did not make trouble, it would be fine.

Thadius was worried that the planting factories under those oases were not sure at all. It would be very dangerous if too many third-party forces with their own armed forces stayed along the long supply line.

Both of them had their reasons.

Of course, it was not a quarrel, and everyone was not stupid. Everyone knew that the other party’s concerns were justified. They were constantly discussing some solutions.

From the strength of diplomatic means, to the handling methods of the local armed forces, to which strongholds along the way must be taken down for safety, which ones can be left alone, to how to arrange the deployment of troops and suppress…

Ossena listened and wrote down a lot of things.

She also knew why the governor asked her to come and listen.

The Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs is an institution relatively independent of the government, and has not been taken seriously – after all, there are not many places that need diplomacy.

On the contrary, the Union Commerce Department under Ossena can play a greater role in this regard.

She slowly joined the discussion, mainly participating in the discussion on the political attitudes of those oases, their relationship with the alliance, and what methods are available.

During the discussion, the plan gradually took shape.

During the process, Gu Hang rarely spoke, but only made a final decision on some unresolved issues.

This is exactly what Gu Hang wanted.

(End of this chapter)