“Elements of the Asanaian 1st Armored Division ‘Midori’ have now advanced thirty kilometers close to the fortress city of Lijeng, threatening to outflank the Ginzhu Metropolitan Area, and potentially besiege it if the city is fully outflanked. Already, Pozneki and Larissan troops have arrived to quickly plug the rapidly developing gap, but it is noted that they are struggling hard to hope for this, as MN aerial supremacy continues to persist.”

  - Geopol Press

  +++

  Federal Republic of Orland

  State of Wuringen

  Eirhow

  January 14, 2026

  Federal President Sullivan Rimpler arrived with disciplined steps toward the room where the third cabinet of his presidency would meet for the first time. After the struggles he faced trying to herd and organize the second cabinet for nearly a year by now, he had no choice but to once again conduct a mass sacking of his officials.

  This is all starting to get old.

  Unfortunately, for his revolution to survive, Rimpler couldn’t truly allow incompetence and insubordination within his ranks. Truthfully, while a lot of his picks were certainly bastards that followed the revolution with ‘loyalty’, a lot of them were simply awful. The only one that truly remained consistent was General Heindh?ff of the Defense Ministry and his lackey at the Orlish Intelligence Agency—Director Alfonso Bluch.

  The soldiers guarding the sides of the door briefly saluted him, before opening the door. Sullivan fixed his tie a bit, as he entered the room. The new members of the third cabinet all stood up, including Director Bluch and General Heindh?ff.

  Why is it that only the two militarists are always useful? An annoyed smile graced his face. While they were his rivals in the internal struggle for the new republic, they certainly were worthy of their positions, largely. Can’t I have someone decent to run the economy and everything else for once?

  “Gentlemen,” Sullivan greeted as he continued to his seat. “No need for further formalities. Let’s get down to our agenda immediately.”

  The various ministers of his government all nodded and took their seats when Sullivan sat on his chair. An aide went to Sullivan’s side, handing him a folder alongside other documents necessary for today’s meeting, and Sullivan gave the aide a thankful nod.

  Straightening himself, Sullivan turned back to his gathered officials.

  He flipped through the pages on the folder that he placed on the table. With a deep breath, he started.

  “Alright. The first on our agenda today is the question of internal unity. Minister of the Interior, would you please give me your first preliminary report about the internal developments that you have noted since you were appointed last week?”

  The Minister of the Interior, Colonel Martin Bierman fumbled with his papers. Like nearly all of Sullivan’s picks, the man was from the Federal Army. It was simply the reality that most of the useful nutheads available to him were military men. There was almost zero talent that he could see that was remotely useful from civilians, unfortunately.

  “Mr. President,” Minister Bierman started. “I’ve been checking the work of my predecessor, and indeed, it has been starkly awful. The way he executed your directives about…erm, pacifying the ‘disloyal territories’ have not been effective…”

  “How so?”

  “The reports about sabotages, guerilla attacks, and other suspected resistance activities had an uptick of thirty-nine percent in 2025 compared to 2024,” he looked up to Sullivan, his eyes somewhat disappointed. “I am still figuring out whether it’s because we’ve been too heavy-handed, or we haven’t been heavy-handed enough.”

  “Ridiculous,” General Hein?ff said, crossing his arms. “We’ve shot tens of thousands of random civilians already under the Liquidation Corps. I tell you what, gentlemen—we’re not getting the mandate of the people with these acts.”

  “Funny coming from you general,” Sullivan laughed as he looked down at his papers. “Considering how you’ve always advocated for using every means in our arsenal, I wonder why this isn’t included.”

  “But it’s not working, isn’t it?” the general asked, turning into the Interior Minister. “I’m not saying we should disband the Liquidation Corps. What we need however is less arbitrary killings. We should show these fools, terror, yes. But terror that is fair and consistent. Under the current policies, it doesn’t matter if you cooperate with the regime or not. The Federal Guard can shoot you anyway.”

  “He has a fair point, Mr. President,” the Interior Minister cautiously said. “The Federal Guard has been…very arbitrary at applying their rules on the civilians outside of Wuringen. I’ve seen reports about noble households that gave up their magical items beforehand, only to be visited again by a different unit and being shot up during altercations.”

  “So it is a discipline and coordination problem,” Sullivan said, nodding a bit. “The previous Interior Minister has mentioned that indeed, but he attributed the rise in attacks to the Queen’s intelligence agencies meddling deep in our ranks instead.”

  “It could be both,” Director Bluch calmly declared. “Our population is becoming disloyal because we are shooting them randomly, and those from the RIU are encouraging resistance by smuggling weapons, magical items, intel, and propaganda.”

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  “What about internal resistance in their ranks?” the Minister of the Economy, Lars Tiebert, angrily croaked at the side. The old man was the singular civilian in the room, a leader of one of the worker’s unions under the Confederation of Orlish Unions. Sullivan picked him for a simple reason—he needed someone who could get his workers motivated and organized for the fight.

  “...Err,” Director Bluch frowned. “We’re in a bit of a struggle in that one.”

  “Why? Are there no men with balls to rise up in their ranks?” Minister Tiebert ranted. “Can you not send weapons and propaganda to cause mutiny and insurgency in their lands? This is ridiculous. Our plants are exploding left-and-right, while theirs remain untouched.”

  “Easier said than done,” Director Bluch replied, somewhat incensed. “The RIU is a force to be reckoned with. Even just sneaking agents into their territory is hard. The act of activating our cells alone is a major decision I can hardly do a lot. My casualties are already in the high eighteen thousand.”

  Sullivan sighed as the two spat at each other. That was one of his problems too. At this point, the OIA was truly struggling to keep a handle on things. The RIU’s agents and ‘flowery teams’ as their intelligence community called them had been a growing monster.

  Back then, they weren’t even a major problem outside of the most important missions being foiled due to their activities. Now, thousands of OIA personnel were dying quarterly even in day-to-day operations. The struggle to replace them with qualified personnel and get them to sneak into royalist ranks was turning into a slow-boiled nightmare.

  “Then we better make countermeasures,” the Economic Minister growled. “Those bastards can’t fight better weapons. I’ll even direct our industry to aid in that mission.”

  “There’s that question as well, actually,” Sullivan said. “The second agenda on our list today is industrial production. Gentlemen, I have no reason to tell you any further how bad it is that…the royalists are slowly catching up to us.”

  “They’re catching up on us in terms of blancs thrown into the war economy,” the Economic Minister admitted. “But they’re burning through their coffers less efficiently. They have fewer automated factories than we do. A hundred billion blancs of spending to them is a hundred fifty to us, our recent calculations suggested.”

  “How much of the economy again have we mobilized?”

  “We estimate that we’ve now mobilized close to twenty-two percent of our economy for the war effort. We’ve crossed a trillion blancs back in Q3 2024. We’ve added two hundred billion blancs since.”

  “What’s our order backlog at the moment?”

  General Heindh?ff answered.

  “We ordered a thousand five hundred more fixed-wing aircraft, alongside six thousand armored fighting vehicles on the ground. It should keep up with our equipment burn rate within the next two quarters at least.”

  Sullivan turned to the economic minister.

  “Can you meet that demand?”

  “Our factories are already trying to meet that order backlog,” the old man smiled. “Hopefully, with increased efficiency, we can finish the current production blocks in two or three quarters. Then we’ll proceed with the next rounds of procurement afterward.”

  “That demand’s only based on the idea that we’re not executing any risky offensive operations though,” General Heindh?ff warned. “Right now, the battle at L?t is starting to look ugly. We’re already losing ten tanks on average on that section of the front alone each day. Within two months, we would have lost the equivalent of a tank division’s numbers in that frontline.”

  “But we can absorb those losses, right?” Sullivan asked.

  “Yes. But, the expansion of the Army will be thus slower,” General Heindh?ff leaned back into his seat. “I fear that at this rate, the possibility of massing enough forces to conduct an ambitious offensive to retake the Free Confederation will be largely impossible for the foreseeable future.”

  “I still think the timetable to take it this year is realistic,” Sullivan countered. “We just…need to place more pressure on them. Surely, we’re at least causing them more casualties in L?t right now, right?”

  +++

  Kingdom of Orland

  Archduchy of L?t

  Thein

  “Two thousand casualties today alone,” Amelie collapsed on the sofa at General August Bohm’s office. The leader of the 10th Army, the same formation responsible for keeping Royalist control over the L?t front, on the other hand, remained stone-faced as he sat behind his table.

  “We’ve got guys coming in to replace them nice and fast,” General Bohm reassured. “While we struggled previously with getting reserves when you last visited us, the situation has now been largely fixed. We got lots of young women especially that we can throw at the frontline.”

  “Still…for the last few days, we’ve been suffering casualties above a thousand in this part of the frontline alone,” Amelie muttered. “That’s like…half a brigade each day being lost, no?”

  “Indeed. It’s a bloody struggle,” General Bohm said. “I expect this battle to last a month more. That means casualties can potentially rise to sixty to eighty thousand within that period before we can stabilize things neatly.”

  “I’m more concerned about today’s material losses,” William said, who was standing near the door of General Bohm’s office. “Fourteen tanks were lost yesterday, more than twice the losses the day beforehand. That crap isn't sustainable, considering replacements are earmarked to the Gallian and Hebeian fronts.”

  “Well, that’s why you two are here, right?” General Bohm smiled, turning to Amelie. “I truly hope that this visit has somewhat enlightened you, Your Majesty. If you can…somehow nudge the guys in the OHC to reprioritize us, I tell you, the soldiers out here will commend you for it.”

  “...There’s less strategic use in holding the threatened areas of L?t unfortunately,” William shook his head. “The OHC recognizes that reality. We can trade land here, not in Gallia, Hebei, or Kusari. Over there, we have to take land. Here, we just need to hold and bleed them.”

  Amelie remembered the way her soldiers here seemed to fight. While they were indeed suffering a lot of casualties, they were usually on the retreat before suffering as many casualties as the enemy usually sustained. Back then, she also advocated for the L?t axis to be deprioritized, believing that the Archduchy was nothing but rubble anyway.

  But still, a helping hand here can at least reduce casualties…

  “I’ll…try to see what I can do,” Amelie said to the general, smiling bitterly. “Our allies after all are in a more precarious situation, and I’ve already told you back then that your job here isn’t to necessarily hold land, but to bleed them out.”

  “I understand…”

  “But I’ll see what I can do. Maybe…a squadron or two of additional LF-20s being deployed here? I’m not sure yet,” Amelie sighed. “I still haven’t even started the next phase of Operation Eastern Jade after all…”

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