Central calendar Year 1640, 12th of March
Holy Milishial Empire, Imperial Capital Runepolis
Runepolis Imperial City is the capital of Holy Milishial Empire which located in the Northwest of the Holy Milishial Empire. It is considered as the largest and most developed city in the world, the place where all the world's elite converge. The city itself nicknamed as "Sleepless Magical City" due to the widespread use of electricity that illuminates day and night in the city.
Inside the Albion castle where the emperor resides, multiple figures are having tense atmosphere.
"So you're telling me some barbarians brought harm to my people? Our beloved people of Holy Milishial Empire? Agra who dares to do that?..." With a fearsome and dignified tone, the people inside the room shrunken in fear. He is seated on the highest position in the Holy Milishial Empire, an old man with white long hair and long beard which is the current reigning emperor, Milishial VIII.
"Your Excellency, it is the from the east, south of Philades, the ASEAN." Agra, the head of ministry of national defense of HME answers the question.
"ASEAN? The one's who defeated the bio weapon of ancient sorcerous empire"
"Yes Your Excellency. The country that supposedly have many similarities with the ancient sorcerous empire."
"Are those confirmed?"
"Yes, the attackers of Esthirant are none other than the ASEAN Your Excellency. They deliberately launched magical attack that would gave some sorts of intense hearing pain and it's subsequently hearing problems."
"So these are nothing but runaway barbarians?"
"I assumed that would be the case so if we ever set foot in third civilization I would like to suggest a gunboat diplomacy to let those barbarians know their place." Unbeknownst to the Milishial's this will be a bad move. Any way the talks goes on as the emperor ask for further clarification.
"The ASEAN is a emerging country was it said from the reports right? Then how could they possess such sophisticated armaments for a short span of time?"
"We are still verifying but we can't really pinpoint what is the truth... there's too many variables to consider and none of them applies to ASEAN virtually it's like they popped out of nowhere as if they don't belong to this world" While before Mu and ASEAN officially established diplomatic ties, the Muish operatives gathered enough information to understand how dangerous and mysterious this country is, and deducted the possibility of them--a transfer country.
"Too many mystery huh? You have my permission on conducting the gunboat diplomacy against ASEAN, send the zeroth and first fleet to warn them if they do that in Esthirant ever again, they will know the weight of taken a wrath of the world's most powerful country then extract our citizens out of Esthirant."
"Wait Your Excellency." Another person immediately cut in. It was Liage the foreign affairs supervisor of HME. Milishial VIII directed his gaze of Liage then muttered "What it is Liage?"
"I would like to avoid any possible armed confrontation towards ASEAN, Your Excellency"
"Tell me the reason...make it satisfactory considering those barbarians hurts my people "
"Yes of course, the reason is once the war in Philades ends, a superpower will likely gonna fall and we need a replacement which the ASEAN is one of the best candidate considering they shove the forces of parpaldia multiple times and we have yet to hear any major casualties on their side" The Emperor's nodded in understanding and questions back "So the total picture is?"
"There's almost no difference in the proposal of Sir Agra other than we will have to be prudent with them in a justification of a war is happening nearby so we are unfortunately forced to bring a fleet to protect our dignitaries which the one's who will invite them in eleven country conference. An international stunt, Your Excellency. of course we won't let them scott free just because we will gonna invite them to be on the ranks of superpowers..." Liage opened a bundled paper. Then gave it to the emperor "This is..."
The Emperor reads it over and over again then take a sigh. "I see so that's it... supporting the parpaldia behind the scenes but the question Liage, what benefits it will bring to us? Don't tell me we will just gonna support them for nothing other than delaying the ascension of ASEAN as a superpower?" The Emperor phrase it as if the Parpaldia will definitely gonna fall or simply the Parpaldia aren't worth an attention.
"Of course there is Your Excellency! A very, very advantageous materials was sent by the Parpaldian ambassador to me yesterday in exchange of a backing in their war against ASEAN which could boast our country's already enormous national might, a very tempting deal" Liage grins and continues "They recovered multiple unexploded arrow of lights of ASEAN" the room was dominated by silence before the Emperor speaks up. "Are you sure it is arrows of lights?"
"Indeed Your Excellency. If we study and reverse engineered those we will attain power comparable to ancient sorcerous empire"
With this the emperor also grinned "Did they ask for a backing right? Tell them I'll accept it if they bring every single equipments of ASEAN they've recovered or destroyed like magic cars, aircraft or more of this arrows of light if not we will take it for ourselves. But much better to have them fight the ASEAN to bitter end so we could extract some revenge on those conceited barbarians"
"I'll take care of it, Your Excellency!"
"So the next is the report in the ongoing war happening in the border of Mu and Leifor?"
"About the ongoing clashes between Muish and Gra Valkan forces which started at the night of March 10 and still raging on until now. We can't really grasp anything other than today's reports relayed by our spies that there's at least more than a thousand casualties on muish side after a day of infighting... It's a hell it seems but the most shocking part is... The hidden specifications of the armaments of Mu that we don't know at all and maybe they still hiding more....."
"What do you mean?" The Emperor was puzzled there's no way the mechanical country of Mu will surpass the magic based country of Holy Milishial Empire. So what's the big deal of some oversized mechanical country that have hardly deployed magical weaponries.
"The thing is Your Excellency. The Muish next generation mechanical aircraft, the Supermarin. It's specifications exceeded our estimations and it's already comparable to our alpha 4 with a top speed of around 490 to 530 kilometers per hour. Additionally, they reported multiple medium sized cannons that seems figured as anti-aircraft guns in the border firing at astonishing rate which unthinkable for a muish equipment and the most notable part is, the ammunitions of those said AA batteries are exploding mid air and scattering debris that increased it's effectiveness."
"How Mu improved it's armaments without us knowing? How they could possess those? Just how cleverly confi..." They don't know, Mu literally scrapping every useful technology that they could hoard from ASEAN which ranging from ordinary household appliances upto licensing of some certain aircraft engines (non-turboprop) which dated from 50's and 60's or even older being WW2 era types. The ASEAN on the otherhand, happily supplied those as the trade normalized and their stagnated fleet of commercial vessels finally set sailed towards a decent country with proper ports to dock and for them the Muish government is reasonable partner as they pay reasonable price for the goods they offered.
"We don't have any ideas, Your Excellency. As when the Muish government released it's specifications we already know they nerfed it for confidentiality, they stated the top speed is 430 KPH, but our Intelligence estimated it should be around 430 to 450 but in reality it is comparable to our state of the art Alpha 4, about 490 to 530 as for the new ground weapons of Muish National Army we are relatively clueless of those... A rapid firing angled tube like cannon that could be carried by infantry, uparmored cars with cannons or machine guns, and the throwing type of some sort of firebombs called 'Grenade' that been equipped every Muish Infantrymen. Lastly, the newest and most recognizable threat is the type of new AA batteries they commissioned, and the battle still rage on so we might learn more about the hidden and sophisticated muish armaments but our spies are having trouble due to how dangerous the battlefield there "
"How about this Gra Valkan forces? And the forecast of the conflict in the border?"
"Your Excellency. Like ASEAN and new Muish forces, we don't have any information on them at all. But our spies seems witnessed that they have comparable armaments with Mu and they fighting in what it seems a stalemate. It's nothing but a battle of attrition on our analysis if none of either side step up to stop the infighting."
"I see... Continue the observation on the ongoing battles in the second and third civilization area, gather every ounce of Informations that you could squeeze....and Liage";
"Yes Your Excellency?"
"I'll leave on you the matters about these imbeciles called ASEAN"
"At your will!"
And thus JSDF fought there.
Parpaldian Embassy, Runepolis, Holy Milishial Empire
Klin, The Parpaldian ambassador to Milishial, currently waiting in a room in the hope of getting the backing of Milishial in the ongoing war between ASEAN and Parpaldia. The situation is dire for the Parpaldia, they needed a strong backing. It's close to Impossible defeating the impervious and infamous ASEAN that didn't bat an eyelid when they annihilated the capital defense forces in Esthirant nor harming it's civilians, he don't know what kind of attack it is but seems the people there suffers some hearing problems.
The door immediately opens and he saw Liage, The Milishial's foreign affairs supervisor. They greeted and Liage cut the chase instantly
"Once again I would like to confirm your request about the parpaldia asking for support in your war against this country called ASEAN? Is this correct?"
"Yes, Sir Liage"
"I see... The upper echelon of Milishial decided to support the Parpaldian efforts as long as conditions are met which includes all the possible equipments of ASEAN you've recovered in the war EVERYTHING and ANYTHING either intact or destroyed, send it to our side"
Klin thinked a little, those scraps that gonna be recovered are not worth in possession of parpaldia considering they don't have ability to operate, maintain or reversed engineered those so the conclusion he could made is "Of course... We gladly to do that"
"So we've reached an understanding and good luck for the upcoming war against those barbarians we will send all possible and necessary equipments including some instructors and military attaches in Parpaldian ports after our fleet set out to extract our citizens out of parpaldia lastly we think we could delay the invasion of ASEAN a while longer."
The conclusion, Parpaldia managed to get the support and much needed supplies to fend off the invasion of ASEAN in Philades. Unknowingly for Milishial side they antagonize something they shouldn't. The Milishial fleet departed a day after, setting sail towards the third civilization.
Central Calendar Year 1640, 17th of March
Aboard at AFNS/HTMS Chakri Naruebet
The battle that erupted and spanned for almost 120 kilometers in border of Mu and former Leifor ended in a stalemate thus both side decidedly called a ceasefire. It is just a truce there's no formal peace treaty like in the initial border battle between Mu and Gra Valkas Empire. The truce where both sides agreed is 6 months long ceasefire, the said conclusion is when the ceasefire ends--a possible battle will likely gonna erupt once again thus both side reinforced and transport more personnels and materials in the frontline.
Myrus on otherhand is scratching his head. The initial air skirmishes above the border according to the reports he gathered from his motherland is going well for Mu with their Supermarin Mk. 2, 3 and much newer and more powerful Mk. 4. They've deployed as many as 80 Mk. 2 and 3 and 10 Mk. 4 which put them in near equal terms with the hostiles aircrafts with their anti-zero tactics they've learn from ASEAN, albeit there's several but small differences between Antares and Zero it still helps them to cope up with their belligerents despite their inferiority however a new Gra Valkan unit arrived in the battlefield with a ridiculous specs that wreck havoc on the state of the art Supermarin of Muish army air corps. It has outstanding speed of over 650 kilometers per hour and a hundred kilometers more faster than Mk. 4 Which on have a top speed of barely 540 kilometers per hour despite having licensed and imported powerful aircraft engines from ASEAN.
"The ASEAN doesn't have any information about the IJN deploying a powerful zero copycat of Gra Valkan forces... Maybe the IJN have this types of unkown powerful Zero, it's just they are too late to be commissioned in the war...damn we are more cautious in them deploying reppu or shiden copycat but an improved zero huh?"
The Muish government as they hoard all they've seemed useful in them, began multiple deals with ASEAN which includes a 10 year lease on one of the ports of Lauria for military purposes, a non-aggression pact, a trade deal which won't hurt their domestic productions and will support it to some extent by making deals with small and medium enterprises in ASEAN to operate in Mu, and a request to buy or rent books that associated with the imperial Japanese forces of world war 2 as they clearly mirrored the Gra Valkan imperial forces and after several negotiations, they managed to gathered as many as 500 books according to their preferences about the IJN and IJA which ranging from ships, organization, armaments, aircrafts, vehicles, and the possible conflict between Gra Valkan Imperial Navy and the Gra Valkan Imperial Army which they might exploit in the near future.
Myrus and his colleagues are busily browsing for additional information aboard the ASEAN ship about the Gra Valkan forces which they thought one of the weird ways of learning valuable intelligence from the enemies.
"Captain look at this..." One his subordinates called him and reads the book he carried "Apparently, the forces of Gra Valkan Navy should be around 600 to 700 ships. About a dozen of battleships, 20 carriers, 60 Cruisers and about 200 destroyers and submarines respectively and remaining is miscellaneous ships that would be my guess captain."
"We are referencing the IJN huh? About their Army air corps?"
"We don't know at least around 3000 to 4000 aircrafts that shouldn't be different on our forces as they've been woefully outnumbered by us in the border wars we fought"
"I see for the ground forces of Gra Valkas they shouldn't be much of a problem... Heavy artilleries and even mortars to some extent could penetrate the armors of their tanks but while our heavy artilleries are capable of destroying them, they are simply bulky and heavy which makes them useless in mobile warfare. We don't have dedicated light anti tank guns other than the heavy makeshift one's" Myrus are reading more in a computer which temporarily provided by ASEAN. Then something catches his interest "Well this self propelled gun doesn't need to be armoured? This might be proved useful"
Myrus just stumbled on a M3 75mm Gun motor carriage used by US army during world war 2. A versatile armoured fighting vehicles that proved effective against the Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go and Type 97 Chi-Ha tanks which mainstay of IJA during the pacific war at the same time mirrored the current equipments used by Gra Valkan forces.
"We might able to divert some transport trucks then convert them into a fixed forward firing gun motor carriage... A 105mm cannon should be a fine choice but I doubt if we could make it as half trucks tsk..., Either way I'll definitely gonna recommend it on our upper echelons, aside from that seems it could be mounted with anti aircraft guns what a catch we've got here...." myrus grinned if this get approved the burden of frontline troops when facing tanks would be lessen.
The Muish military already made a heavy use of technicals and improvised fighting vehicles, civilian trucks that fitted weilded armors and a simple mounts of machine guns and howitzers but the downside is they are basically could only fire when the vehicles stopped or virtually need to expose their side in a possible hostile fire, they've yet to get an idea of forward firing self propelled guns which proved a very useful weapon in a frontal attack without exposing it's vulnerable sides.
"But man.... Milishial and their lackeys are sure stupid...." The one who said that is Lassan Devilin. He is currently getting hooked on the tactics that the outdated trench warfare they've employed might be useful again like riddle the perimeter with land mines, barb wires and even ancient to their eyes--the punji sticks that been camouflaged and coated with poison might be useful against Gra Valkan Infantry. While the original matter is how to counter the ever growing threat of Gra Valkan Imperial forces in the border, Lassan changed the topic.
"Yeah, I'm looking forward on how the ASEAN forces overwhelmed and conquer the Esthirant but unexpectedly the Milishial's and their underlings intervened in the conflict." What they've mean intervened, the Milishial and their allied countries protested against the ASEAN invasion of parpaldia due to the indiscriminate act of certain ASEAN pilots towards the people of Esthirant thus ordering their citizens to dangerously go out of their residence in Esthirant and dared the ASEAN to attack the Esthirant once again which made the ASEAN back down as they don't want to fight multiple front at the same time another thing is their limit is only a 10 month long conflict which they've already expended about 180 anti-ship/surface/air missiles, 6,000 76mm, 1,500 all class of autocannons and several thousands for machine gun level ammunitions from their naval force, on the otherhand in the air force they've expended over 300 air to air missiles, hundreds of rockets and over 1,700 bombs Which is already a heavy on the side of ASEAN to the point considering converting mortars to be mounted on aircrafts. The burden on their pockets are simply too enormous to take thus the government of ASEAN wanted a short war with the Parpaldia and avoid any possible third party that will join the conflict.
"Does the Milishial knows what they are dealing with?"
"Possibly not. If they are, they shouldn't interfered with the conflict here but considering they are a bit of... or Maybe"
"Maybe? What?
"Nothing, by the way Lassan. How would the ASEAN overcome the defenses in Esthirant?"
"I don't know, these countries are simply a mystery for us at the moment. But I think they will first softened up the defenses in the Esthirant by a naval bombardment or air strikes next is finding a nice beachheads before eyeing for the imperial capital then..." Lassan paused which continued by Myrus "It would be a bloody hell"
"Yeah, agree. A hellish urban warfare, a freaking house to house combat and tedious mopping operation in the aftermath. It should be today but damn Milishial dudes made our job here a bit longer."
"Oh come to think of it. Speaking of Milishial shouldn't today the estimated arrival of their fleet the western coast of parpaldia?" Myrus uninterestingly said while browsing on the internet which prompted Lassan to respond "Sure thing hopefully there's nothing will happened there"
Western coast of Parpaldian Empire, Task force 9.1 of west blockade runner fleet of ASEAN combined fleet.
The Vietnamese frigate Dinh Tien Hoang (HQ-011) together with Project 1265 minesweeper HQ-862 and a sole TT-400TP class gunboat sailing in the west of parpaldia. They've been dispatched to hunt down several Parpaldian ships that managed to slipped through the heavy surveillance and blockade of the main force of west blockade runner fleet which personally led by Admiral Nguyen Dac Kien, the reasons why the parpaldian ships managed to slipped through the tight blockade of ASEAN is simply their sheer numbers and their annoying tactics (for ASEAN) which they disguising their ship as ordinary sailing ships, they don't have IFF thus the ASEAN ships forced themselves to visually confirm by naked eyes or by drones before orders are given to sink any suspicious ships in the vicinity.
Tran, the captain of Vietnamese frigate are currently troubled, the reason is a fleet of unkown nationality appeared on the radar, they don't know who they are but at the very least they aren't Parpaldian considering they sailing at speed of 20 knots which unthinkable for the Parpaldia to attain. "Did the admiral or anyone on the main force answered our calls?"
"None captain. We can't connect with them at all"
"Keep contacting them" Tran heaved a sigh then continues "Does... can we use radio frequency to contact anyone on that fleet that currently sprinting here? They might be a friendly muish fleet that just happened to passed nearby"
"We already tried in open frequency but none of them answered." The Muish ships are equiped with portable low frequency radios imported from ASEAN in order to ease the communication problems of each nations as the Mu are heavily reliant on magic devices in communication thus there's some problems in coordinating with ASEAN fleet thus in order to solved that, one country should compromised on their current equipment but luckily the ASEAN have a variety of portable radios thus the Muish government chose to install these new types of convenient equipment on their ships. In conclusion, the likelihood of them being Muish ships are close to zero. "We should have some magic comms..."
"Umm captain what it is?"
"It's nothing. Just keep on eye on this unkown fleet......what the?" Tran currently Looking at the horizon using binoculars which he could see multiple silhouettes of large number of gigantic ships appearing on the horizon "Those are carriers and cruisers? battleships? And what the heck is that naval jack no--That was a Milishial flag right...?" Tran is thinking why a fleet of Milishial are currently sailing in a essentially remote frontier of the continent of Philades.
"Captain!"
"What?"
"Unkown fleet began to increased their speed!"
"Can't you still can get a hold on admiral or either that fleet?" Tran asked again but the subordinates only shooks their heads then one of the sailors holding a binoculars screamed "The turrets of unkown fleet began to swivel in this direction!" Then with a flash, the Milishial fleet opened fire with thunderous roar "They opened fire!"
"Wha?! Full speed evasive maneuver! Get our asses out of their range! and prepare to retaliate!" Then the 3 ship force of ASEAN immediately performed sharp evasive maneuver to lessen the probability of getting hit by hostile gun fire, a minute since the Milishial fleet opened fired on the vietnamese fleet, the sole gepard class locked on it's missiles on the carriers of the Milishial fleet but something wrong with the surroundings "Captain, there's no noticeable splashes" Everyone in the fleet is bewildered by the actions of foreign fleet that immediately opened fire on them then stops it's attack which made the sea silent.
"What the hell happening here? Why don't they continue what they've started?"
"Captain they might be doing something not hostile to us..."
"How it is?"
"I think I've read it in a book that during mid 17th to early 20th century that firing cannons outside the range means they don't have hostile intent rather it's like a recognized customary gun salutes which performed by the firing of cannons or artillery as a military honor."
"In short like modern 21 gun salute back on earth?"
"Yes captain"
"Troublesome outdated tradition... Aren't they a damn WW2 era level nation means they are a damn modern nation like us.... why the heck they still sticking on that ancient outdated mandate if it is earth--war would likely gonna start real quick...." Tran massages his temples as he gaze the fleet opposite from them. "Try to communicate with them using hand signals, light via signal lamps or anything conveying that we aren't hostile"
Few moments ago
A magnificent 49 ship force of the strongest fleet of the world the zeroth and first fleet of Milishial Imperial Navy, cutting through on the relatively calm sea of western parpaldia. They are ordered to evacuate their citizens out of the warzone. Additionally, some of them will going to detached from the fleet heading towards any nearest ASEAN controlled ports or meet with any ASEAN warships out the sea but fortunately they spotted a fleet of ship which bearing a flag they've never seen before "Fleet Admiral we spotted a flotilla bearing at 120, 30 kilometers away."
The Fleet Admiral Ultima of Holy Milishial Imperial Naval Force who heard it immediately responded "Shouldn't our magic radars are capable of detecting ships at 180 kilometers away?"
"They might possibly mechanical powered like Muish ships so our radars are relatively useless against them unless they are close enough."
"I see another inferior magicless nations appeared out of nowhere. Anyway, prepare the main guns, fire blank shots as paying homage on ASEAN." Then, entire bridge ordered on standby mode as the gunners and XO prepped for the initiation of gun salutations on nearby ASEAN fleet. "Main gun magic circuit, initiating fueling procedure... 40, 50 ... 90 and 100% main guns ready to fire, order Fleet Admiral?"
"Fire"
"Firing" In the words of the XO, a thunderous roar directed to the ASEAN fleet echoed in the calm sea. But they didn't expect what the ASEAN fleet done next "Admiral they are evading!"
"What do you mean? Our main guns doesn't have ammunition right?"
"We don't know why... they just immediately accelerated to 27 knots and doing some evasive maneuver it's incomprehensible as if they trying to escape here" The Milishial doesn't know that what they've done is treated as hostile approach on the side of ASEAN. Thus, misunderstanding of both sides occurred. Then, Ultima dawned with some realization that they possibly antagonized the fleet they trying to approach "Don't tell me... Retract the main guns away from the direction of that fleet now!" 'This is bad' he thought seems there's some misunderstanding happening here. He didn't expect the ASEAN doesn't have proper knowledge on naval tradition of new world, when a warship signifies its lack of hostile intent by firing its cannons out to sea.
Minutes later, the ASEAN fleet slowed down and began showing some unknown signal on them via light emissions or some banner signals which they can't translate at all. The meaningless approach of each fleet lasted for half an hour before a Milishial cruiser boldly closed the distance to clear the misunderstanding of both fleet. The ASEAN fleet on the other hand can't still communicate with their command due to some communication malfunction but later the entire place discovered as virtually deadzone for any radio transmissions, the reason is unkown, all the efforts to determine what's behind it or why that phenomenon happened came into a dead end for ASEAN research groups.
The fleet of ASEAN and Milishial converged peacefully with some unexpectedly bitter experience on their first contact.
_____________________________________________
Note*
Advance release means no update in Sunday-monday release schedule as I needed time to make up with my wasted time in January to keep up with writing on my reserved chapters
A filler chapter also technically a rush chapter.
Survey guys: I haven't finished it but as I said before I'll gonna add the conflict on organization here that quite upsetting to some people DEFINITELY while it's unthinkable but this is possible to happened in the real battlefield of multinational forces like Country A blamed country B due to their slow response to save country A troops, or Country G accidentally Bombed country E troops or something like that and lastly I don't plan to make them incompetent or something but those are common occurrence in the battlefield... So here it is:
A. Remove the conflict of the organization entirely
B. Tone down the conflict of organization
C. Proceed anyway
PS. Just a warning I don't hold any against grudge on the following country; Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore while the rest of SEA countries will receive some beatings but they aren't as heavy as those aforementioned before if it's conclusion that C. Will be a majority vote here.