Chapter 1686: Wisdom, Will, Budget
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
From that moment on, the storm caused by Meng Chao’s wings pushed the Red Dragon Army onto a completely different path from their previous life.
The Red Dragon Army became more and more powerful and gained more independent combat abilities. Naturally, they grew eager to have a budget and status that matched their own strength.
In short, the Red Dragon Army hoped to evolve from a purely defensive city defense army, garrison army, and public security army. After going through a lot of tempering, the army would evolve into an independent global strike force. At the very least, it would be an expeditionary army with the ability to quickly strike across continents.
Switching from a city defense army to an expeditionary army required a complete transformation and great destruction. It was, of course, not something that could be accomplished overnight. It would require an astronomical number of resources and an extremely heavy price. It also required them to face unimaginable difficulties.
However, any army, in the normal sense, would put in 100% effort when faced with the sacred mission of “conquering the world” as long as there was a 1% chance of success. They would fight and even risk everything.
!!
To evolve into a real army as soon as possible and not just be a va.s.sal of the peerless experts, the Red Dragon Army worked tirelessly to reform its organizational structure, equipment system, and military doctrine. All of them had undergone drastic changes.
Long before Meng Chao went to Picturesque Orchid Lake, the Red Dragon Army had firmly pushed forward the disarmament and reorganization plan on the grounds of a great victory in the Monster War.
The expected goal of the first round of disarmament was to reduce the Red Dragon Army’s size by at least one-third and carry out a comprehensive reform of the overly bloated army structure to form a new type of rapid strike force with brigades as units.
According to the a.s.sessment of the military’s upper echelons, this disarmament would not reduce the Red Dragon Army’s overall combat ability. Instead, it would greatly increase the army’s combat effectiveness, and for the first time, it would be able to quickly attack enemies in the depths of the Other World, far away from Dragon City.
In the past, the Red Dragon Army had fought on its own land. To resist the overwhelming beast horde, it had to rely on its numbers.
Too many low-quality soldiers not only consumed a huge budget but also made the Red Dragon Army’s basic units of attack too large and clumsy. They lacked large-scale, long-distance mobility, hence they could not venture farther into the Other World, thousands of kilometers away from Dragon City.
Besides, simply piling up numbers was useless against the mysterious force that occupied the temperate, as well as subtropical regions most suitable for living in the Other World, and drove all the monsters to the southern part of the continent.
Although the Red Dragon Army, which had been disarmed and reorganized, was smaller in size as a whole, due to the large increase in the number of superhumans among the basic officers, as well as the popularity of spirit martial arts and rune machines and the emergence of various unmanned combat systems based on the monster neural network, such a “rapid response brigade” was enough to contend with the mysterious enemy who possessed extraordinary strength.
At the same time, with the determination of a brave warrior, the high-level military also adjusted the past Red Dragon Army with the railway gun at the core of their operations. They placed too much emphasis on the military doctrine of artillery.
In the final a.n.a.lysis, the railway gun, which seemed to have unparalleled firepower, was only a defensive weapon.
Due to its shocking size and weight, the railway gun could only move along the pre-laid railway tracks.
While the Red Dragon Army had first-cla.s.s engineers who could lay tracks in all directions under almost any harsh terrain and climate, enemies with extraordinary strength, whether they were monsters or even more terrifying existences, could easily destroy the railway tracks.
Not to mention, the railway gun’s huge size made it impossible to hide. It was easy to become the target of the enemy’s attacks.
In addition, every time it was fired, an astronomical amount of ammunition was consumed. The combat concept with the railway gun at the core relied heavily on logistical supplies. It was destined to only be suitable for the inner lines of the railway network. It could not adapt to the Red Dragon Army’s brand-new “global attack” concept.
Therefore, after Meng Chao helped the ancient ruins research center to replicate the “short-distance transmigration system on the planet’s surface,” commonly known as the transmigration array, using the ancient technology from the ancient ruins, the Red Dragon Army soon set its sights on this epoch-making piece of cutting-edge equipment.
The original budget for the research, development, and manufacturing of railway guns was fully invested in the transmigration array. Then, the ultra-long-endurance heavy-armored airships were used to form modular units of transmigration arrays that would airdrop them behind the enemy’s front line.
Once a.s.sembled, the Red Dragon Army’s elite tactical a.s.sault force would constantly emerge from behind the enemy. If the Red Dragon Army wanted to play a more important role in future wars of conquest, it was necessary to carry out such a strategy.
However, it was not so easy to evolve from a regional defensive force to a global strike force.
Wisdom, will, and a huge budget were all indispensable.
The Red Dragon Army did not lack generals with foresight.
Those generals who had fought to the death with monsters, each carrying dozens of scars and missing three to five organs, did not lack the will to walk through fire and water or shatter their bones to complete their sacred mission.
Unfortunately, the budget was not something that they could conjure out of thin air.
Although the Dragon City civilization inherited a rich legacy from the monster civilization, they needed to invest a lot of money and a lot of time to utilize it to its fullest.
Meanwhile, the abnormal expansion of the nine mega corporations, including the overall transformation and expansion of Dragon City itself, and all kinds of exaggerated projects that seemed like profiteering, had been like bottomless holes. Plenty of precious and non-renewable resources had been consumed.
Dragon City’s annual financial budget and annual amount of crystals mined were fixed.
The nine mega corporations’ new projects cost a penny more, so the Red Dragon Army’s military budget would be a penny less.
The superhumans from the nine mega corporations’ wealthy families would consume one gram more of crystals, whereas the Red Dragon Army’s military experts could only consume one gram less of crystals.
On top of that, the nine mega corporations had always held reservations about the Red Dragon Army’s change.
In the eyes of the mega corporations’ upper echelons and the peerless experts who could summon wind and rain, move mountains, and overturn seas, the Red Dragon Army had used dozens of years to grow into an excellent defensive force.
There was no need to go to great lengths to pursue intercontinental rapid offense that they could not possess.
It was the duty of the peerless experts, as well as the corporate armed forces directly under their command, to be resolute in their attacks.
As long as the Red Dragon Army could do their duty and help them stabilize the rear, protect their supplies, and maintain law and order in the newly-conquered regions, it would be fine. Why waste resources and take unnecessary action?