Youjo Senki - Volume 10 - Chapter Pr

[chapter] 0 Prologue

JULY 25, UNIFIED YEAR 1927, THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL

Any era where heroes are needed is bound to be a time of misfortune.

Cao Cao, for example, is hailed by many as a brilliant leader who brought China out of troubled times. The legend of his triumphs is quite the story, to say the least.

But what happens when his legacy is examined from a different angle? Say, through the lens of a peasant who lived as a subject of the Han dynasty.

Given the choice, would they willingly choose to live through the tumultuous times that made it possible for Cao Cao to etch his name in the annals of history? Surely most people would much rather prefer the stable times he created for many who lived under the dominion of the Han dynasty after he rose to power.

In the absence of problems that require heroic intervention, there simply is no need for a hero. Naturally, the reverse is true as well. The only reason people scream is because there is something to scream about.

The same can be said for the Empire.

Its citizens banded together for a common cause—the Heimat.

The Empire sent each of its territories the call to arms.

In service of this unifying cause, there was no substituting the Empire’s endless official propaganda, which caused its people to believe in more dangerous lies.

There was essentially no end to the war in sight without the Empire coming together.

Tanya von Degurechaff, lieutenant colonel for the Imperial Army, believes without a shadow of a doubt that there are far more calls for unity than could ever be supplied.

And what unity that could be found is far outstripped by how much is needed.

The delicate balance of supply and demand has been destroyed.

Any rational, logical person who believes in the market’s integrity would be furious at the current state of its imbalance.

“…We’re no longer in a position where we can let the free market determine what’s right.”

This sense of helplessness is met with a sigh Tanya can’t keep to herself. A mutually exclusive contradiction is building up inside of her.

The ideal market is a rational one curated under the rational supervision of rational people. When it comes to capitalism, the market’s integrity needs to be as absolute as one of the Ten Commandments.

I can understand the concept of bounded rationality.

I can also acknowledge that there are limits to rationality.

Even when taking this into account, one must respect the supremeness of rationality as a model.

But oh, how awesome the reality of this world!

Those who loudly claim they wish for peace have not the slightest idea of what they actually want to buy.

“The Empire is a chimera… The army desires peace, the government desires peace, the people wish for nothing but peace, and yet, the extent to which they’re all seeing different dreams while lying in the same bed is unbelievable.”

The mess that the Empire created for itself brings a wretched smile to Tanya’s face.

The Imperial Army is an instrument of violence subordinate to the nation-state known as the Empire. Therefore, in terms of its principal-agent relationship, the Imperial Army merely has to fulfill the Empire’s version of peace.

This issue is, the Empire doesn’t want peace. What it wants is “victory.”

Does it desire victory to draw peace out of the current armistice agreement? No.

A victory to create reconciliation as a pathway to peace? No.

A victory to satisfy the Empire? No.

The victory they desire is nothing more than winning for the sake of winning.

It no longer makes any sense. Using fire to fight fire can be logically sound depending on how the fire is used, but having the fire department dispatch a tank instead of a fire engine every single time is a colossal mistake.

It makes me want to scream. It’s obvious they’ve completely lost sight of their goal.

And they call this a country? There was no strategy to any of it—the war machine simply careens toward its next battle!

While the Empire’s utter lack of strategy should be the central focus of my concern, I’m completely taken aback by the straightforward manner in which we pitch ourselves toward more overt violence.

This may not make sense to those of you living in times of peace in the modern world. Let me explain.

Let’s say that you were hired to run a storefront for a fast-food chain. Let’s call it Reich’s.

One day, for whatever reason, the owners of the chain and its shareholders come along and instruct you to “maximize profits as quickly as you can,” without saying anything else. They have the utmost confidence that Reich’s is going to take off but don’t have any other information to offer: no plan, no goals, and no directions.

They also don’t grant you any additional budget or authority over how the shop is run.

Should the operation fall through, it would be the employees who find themselves in trouble. How could they lay such a task on their employees without any guidance?!

No worker could bring success to their company under these impossible conditions.

To put it bluntly, this is precisely what the Empire’s doing when it demands victory from its people.

Any employee at that fast-food place with even an inkling of common sense would immediately start looking for a new job.

It’s not as if employees live for the corporation. They only work there to pay the bills.

Why should they pledge their allegiance to a restaurant chain? Who in their right mind would do such a thing?

Practically every human being with a brain can agree on the above.

However, some organizations operate on the premise that their members are inseparable from the group. This mirage of unity is the essence of what a nation is, and it is fully capable of deluding even the most intelligent, most civil, and most educated of citizens.

Love and hatred, good and evil. Or the greatest, most evil creation of the human race—the modern conception of the nation-state.

For Tanya, the mighty Leviathan from the parable would have been a cuter foe. It’s tragic really. The Empire’s version of the Leviathan is a chimera with three heads.

It’s a system with three branches. The royal family and parliament dictate prestige and tradition, the bureaucrats ensure the nation continues to operate, and the Imperial Army firmly enforces the will of the other two branches.

The army, the bureaucrats, and the politicians form their own scrum.

This scrum acted as the word of God during the dawn of this nation. Despite this—nay, due to precisely this, the nation’s founders eventually made a single, elementary mistake.

From the way Tanya sees it, her predecessors were wise and rational. This is what made their mistake inevitable.

Their mistake? Putting far too much in the hands of their successors. You see, intelligent people often operate on the simple premise that their successors will be just as wise and capable as they were.

The permanence of the system, in which its three heads work together to make it as robust as possible, is unconditionally defined by the Imperial system as “a given for excellent human resources.”

Left to its own devices, a system that meets these requirements should grow into the most powerful nation in the world.

Fortunately and unfortunately for the later echelons of the Empire, the three heads indeed pursue their sole purpose during their “rapid rise to power.” The knowledge and institutional traditions established by their predecessors were out of reach for the Empire, but the shackles that weighed it down were also light.

The chimera then sought to leapfrog its shortcomings with a system that relied on the talent and drive of individuals, who in turn—for better or worse—oversaw its rise to superpower.

As a result, the three heads each began to pursue their own goals. This can only end in one way: Each of the heads unconsciously believes that they are the “brains” that move the single shared body, and thus, each tries to pull it in their own direction.

It’s a classic case of there being too many cooks in the kitchen.

What the country needs right now is unity.

The Empire cannot afford to waste even the slightest amount of time or resources on infighting with the number of fronts they are fighting wars on. Tanya isn’t the only one who thinks this way, either. Any logical soldier fighting for the Imperial Army would have the same cold recognition of what is transpiring.

Tanya laments to herself the misfortune of the situation.

“The army is the only head that has unity… To be fair, this unity only extends to the realm of warfare.”

Looking at it from a different angle, the army has maintained its sanctity by making itself an independent organization that exists within the Empire instead of acting as a member of the Empire.

What happens when each head of our chimera tries to assume absolute control over its own part of the body?

Each part will split up, break apart, and wander off on their own accord.

They each call for unity, but none of the heads show any intent of cooperating. The people may be united, but the beast surely isn’t.

This may suffice during times of peace, but a country that can succeed under such governance in times of adversity does not exist anywhere.

This poses a dilemma for soldiers who are ardent patriots.

Foreign invaders need to be met with unity—that much is a given.

The question is, what constitutes unity?

There are too many heads on this chimera.

This sort of governance is something the army loathes. When it comes to thinking up strategies, the more heads the merrier. The issue is, once a singular goal is set, there can be only one head that commands the beast. The chain of command must be absolute to head off any confusion and eliminate all chaos.

This principle couldn’t be more evident from a purely militaristic standpoint. It’s imperative that battles are fought as one cohesive whole and not divided.

A second chain of command is nothing more than fuel for confusion—let alone a third.

This should be painfully obvious to anyone who cares to study how the Empire has lasted this long in a war waged against the world. A mere glance at the grandiose treaty that binds the armies of the Federation and the Commonwealth is only further confirmation of this self-evident truth.

A divided army is little more than rabble. Even if there is a great horde of them, dealing them a crushing blow is a simple matter.

When one hundred soldiers must confront a force twice their number in battle, the chances of them winning despite the number disadvantage are slim to none. However, if those same one hundred fight twenty separate battles against ten soldiers at a time, then there is little doubt the force of one hundred will carry the day.

This common sense is drilled into every military commander at a very early stage. Nearly anyone who has stepped foot on the battlefield has learned these rules from firsthand experience.

This is the line of thought that brings Aerial Magic Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff to where she is now, as she haplessly stares at the ceiling in frustration.

“The army is unified. I only hope the same can be said for the nation.”

So we have three heads on a single body.

Now here’s a question:

What is the quickest way to break out of this chimera predicament?

“Are they trying to justify their actions on the basis of necessity…?”

The first solution that naturally comes to mind is a surgical one.

You could simply snip off the two extraneous heads.

Sadly, this way of thinking is far too simplistic. Even if the surgery could be completed successfully, it would be a terrible joke if the patient dies right afterward. Only a fool would try a stunt like this. Unfortunately, the Imperial Army is not for want of fools who have no idea what they’re doing outside their realm of expertise.

What’s more, these fools have only ever been taught how to perform surgery.

In fact, they’ve never learned how to find any other kind of solution.

The question To snip or not to snip? never occurs to them. If they encounter a problem, their natural reaction is to reach for their bayonets and perform surgery. It’s simply a matter of when and where they operate, not if.

Perhaps worst of all, it’s almost admirable how well they perform elective surgeries.

Take a high-ranking general like Lieutenant General Rudersdorf. There isn’t a doubt in Tanya’s mind that he is perfectly capable of such a thing. Though it’s agonizing to criticize him and the rest of the brass as shortsighted, it’s simply a fact that they are incredibly good at waging war. Too good.

It goes without saying that their intelligence isn’t lacking.

The people who become staff officers all undergo a multitude of strict evaluations that scrutinize their ruthlessness, how calculating they are, and most importantly, how spiteful they can be—rigorous evaluations that Tanya has yet to undergo. It couldn’t be clearer that the lieutenant general always keeps surgical removal as an option in the back of his mind.

The thought wouldn’t crop up unless it was necessary.

But… Tanya shudders as a terrifying possibility crosses her mind.

People like the lieutenant general don’t act according to their personal desires; they act to do whatever needs to be done.

To put it more clearly, the sort of screwups that put the final peg in their failing company’s coffin tend to be made by exemplary employees who were most loyal to the company. What could possibly be more miserable than getting pulled down by the death throes of an organization’s failed attempt to salvage itself?

Which brings us to the present. It’s high time for Tanya von Degurechaff to take her patriotism and hurl it into the nearest rubbish bin.

It’s clearly outlived its usefulness.

“This is ridiculous.”

Is she getting paid enough for this?

Absolutely not.

Should she have to share her doomed country’s miserable fate?

Even entertaining the idea is absurd.

There’s no reason she should have to do work that’s clearly above her rank and pay grade. Talk about labor standards.

Insufficiencies in the military system, structural failures of state institutions, and worst of all, the loss of any chance of salvaging the strategic situation. The only options left are hardly worth considering.

As it is now, the Empire is like a business barely scraping by from month to month, and Tanya is one of its loyal employees.

People who do good work need to be given commensurate rewards. Another way you could look at it is that money is the truest sign of faith and sincerity. As a concept or an ideology for structuring a society, it’s perfectly reasonable. Tanya has no problem respecting her contract, either.

This social contract, however, is only legitimate if it can ensure stable employment and commensurate pay.

Now that it’s plain to see that the Imperial Army’s ship is in fact the Titanic, is there any reason she should have to stay aboard? If you want to live, then the only option is to run like mad for the lifeboats. This is the plank of Carneades in action.

In conclusion…

“I’m finished here… It looks like now is the time for a career change.”

Tanya feels absolutely no remorse in leaving, even if it’s considered defection. It’s only natural to flee a sinking ship. And just as important is securing a path to retirement!