Arc of Fire

Wang Zhong scanned again the ones who came down from the vehicle, “How come there are only four Hymn Monks? What are the Guardian Army doing?”

Sufang replied, “They are in charge of miscellaneous tasks in the ritual, as well as protecting it. Of course, they also take care of us after we have exhausted our strength from chanting.”

“Why are they all women!” Wang Zhong naturally asked, since he had already inquired of Brother Peter and Yeca Neiko, both of whom had said the Monks were half male and half female.

Sufang replied, “It just so happened that only female Monks were available, so they were assigned to us. As for the Guardian Army, since we are all women, it is more convenient to have all female Guardians. In short, it’s just a coincidence!”

“Ah, I see, I thought you were sent by the Grand Patriarch to test me!” Wang Zhong sighed with relief.

At that moment, Ludmila asked, “You will be staying with the headquarters from now on, right?”

“Of course, we are a crucial means of communication with higher-ups in an emergency!”

Then a staff officer came out from the headquarters, “Sufang Batu Wendusu, the Chief Hymn Monk!”

“Here I am! Here I am!” Sufang raised her right hand, “I’m here!”

The staff officer said, “I will take you and the ladies of the Guardian Army to the temporary sanctuary, and from now on, I will be responsible for helping you build sanctuaries.”

Wang Zhong asked, “Sanctuary?”

Although it seemed very ignorant to ask, he still did.

The staff officer immediately explained, “It’s a temporary chapel, not only for the choristers to conduct mass, but also to welcome the prayers of those with shell shock or other battlefield symptoms, to heal them with holy hymns.

“Normally, this would be the responsibility of the Priests, but there are always experienced Priests who can’t handle certain cases.”

Wang Zhong nodded and gestured with a “let’s go” to the staff officer, who immediately turned around and said to Sufang and the others, “This way, please.”

As the group walked away, Ludmila laughed, “Now Pavlov, the Chief of Staff, has people to order around too!”

Wang Zhong laughed, “Yeah, he’s finally a real ‘Chief’ of Staff!”

————

Upon entering the map room, Wang Zhong saw Chief Pavlov humming a tune while marking the map.

This morning, when Wang Zhong had been busy running around, there had been only a small map on the desk in the map room. Now the entire north wall was covered with six luxurious maps joined together, incomparable to the small map from the morning.

The entire map was filled with military symbols, almost reflecting the situation on the entire southern front.

Letting the key map aside, Pavlov had added curtains to the map, giving Wang Zhong the impression that his modest headquarters had suddenly transformed from a mud house on XX slope into the command headquarters of the anti-bandit suppression in Xuzhou.

Watching Pavlov stand in front of the map wall, Wang Zhong almost heard imaginary tactics, something about “pig tactics,” “snakes of Mount Chang,” “vibrant life in full bloom,” and so on.

Thinking it over, the Ante nobles did like to put on such displays, and since Pavlov was a noble, he naturally conformed to the custom.

Wang Zhong decided to discipline him a few words, “You’ve got people now, huh! Making such a big show of things, how much manpower is that wasting!”

Pavlov turned around, “Don’t get me wrong, the military markings on the map are the work of the staff officers; the room decoration was done by your housemaids.”

Wang Zhong asked, “How could you let housemaids into the map room, what if military secrets were leaked?”

Pavlov admitted, “Uh… my mistake.”

Vasily looked up, “The Chief of Staff is on night soil duty tonight!”

Wang Zhong frowned, “How did you end up among the staff officers?”

“I wanted to go back to being an infantry instructor,” Vasily said innocently, “but they wouldn’t let me. They said since I spent most of the combat in the forward command, I was ‘talent for headquarters’ and sent me back. So, you see, I continue to monitor the field telephone you captured. But now we’re too far from the front line to hear anything on it.”

“`

Wang Zhong was about to comment on Vasily when he suddenly thought of something and asked, “Why has the entire southern front been updated today? How long would it take to copy the maps from headquarters?”

Pavlov took three quick steps and came to the side door, gently pushing it open.

Then a dense beeping sound drifted out of the room.

Pavlov said, “We finally have our own communications battalion! This is the telegraph company, with a total of six telegraph machines, ready to receive and translate telegrams from all over at any time, and to update the maps according to the telegrams. Now our maps are as current as those at Front Army headquarters.”

As he was speaking, a cryptographer handed a telegram to a staff officer, who immediately went to the map to update the position and status of the 29th Army Group.

In fact, Wang Zhong had never known that the division headquarters operated in this manner; subconsciously, he thought of the distribution of enemy and friendly status on the maps as if they sprouted on their own, just like in a game—although he was aware that certainly wasn’t the case.

Looking at the six high-powered radios and listening to the beeping sound, Wang Zhong thought that his headquarters finally resembled a real headquarters.

At that moment, Ludmila asked, “What happened to the Judge who was in charge of the radios before?”

Pavlov replied, “A division would normally be equipped with a certain number of Judges responsible for apprehending spies, dissenters, and for shooting us if we were to plan treason. They’ve gone back to their original duties.”

When Pavlov mentioned “treason” and “shooting,” the young staff officers working alongside him flinched, pausing in their writing to look over.

Wang Zhong clicked his tongue in surprise: “I don’t know whether to be happy or to fall silent. Hey, where’s your level six clerk? I haven’t seen him around!”

Pavlov made a “please” gesture, leading Wang Zhong and Ludmila to the other side of the map room, where he opened the door with a snap.

As soon as the door to the telegraph room was opened, there was a continuous beeping sound; as soon as this door opened, there was a “thud-thud” sound as if a hammer was hitting wood.

Wang Zhong looked closely and realized they were stamping seals.

It was just like when Harry Potter entered Gringotts for the first time, a bunch of goblins were there stamping seals; the room had a similar atmosphere.

The level six clerk was shouting, “What have you done! When compiling the roster, you must make two types of directories! What is this you’ve made? Print it again!”

After scolding a clerk, the former educational committee member looked towards Wang Zhong: “General, your arrival is timely! I have something to discuss with you! Look, this is the roster of the Fifth Bishenks Regiment; the officers were almost wiped out, and many units as well. In reality, the remaining 81 people are mostly from the third battalion.

“Normally, such a regimental system would have been disbanded, and the people would have been integrated into other units. If you want to maintain the structure of the Fifth Bishenks Regiment, you need to replenish officers, clerks—yes, the regiment’s clerks!

“This is very troublesome!”

Wang Zhong: “Can’t we promote the surviving 81 directly from the ranks? Privates to sergeants, second lieutenants to colonel regimental commanders…”

“It’s not possible! I’ve checked the regulations; you can’t be promoted directly like that. Based on my experience in dealing with bureaucratic institutions, it definitely won’t be approved. Do you really want a unit led by a second lieutenant as the regimental commander?”

Wang Zhong: “Is it not possible? Before, the Third Rear Amur Group was also reconstituted after on-site promotions.”

The level six clerk said, “That’s because the Third Rear Amur Group had a better preservation of senior officers! NCOs can be promoted by promoting experienced veterans. But with the Fifth Bishenks Regiment, it’s impossible to restore the system.

“My suggestion is to change the number of the 105th Infantry Regiment of the Guardian Army that was supplemented to the Fifth Bishenks Regiment, and conversely insert the 81 surviving Bishenks soldiers as mid- to lower-level officers into the original 105th Infantry.”

Wang Zhong: “Are you suggesting that we make some adjustments in the clerical work? Deceive the higher-ups?”

The old clerk said, “Right! It would be much simpler to handle this way, and you wouldn’t need to submit a bunch of rush promotion applications to the Front Army all at once.”

Wang Zhong nodded: “Alright, let’s do it this way! But… is the rank of the commander of the 105th Guardian Army sufficient?”

The old clerk replied, “Enough, he’s an officer transferred from the civil service according to conversion rules, lacking combat experience but with no issues regarding documentation and procedures.”

So the Ante Empire still had a system to convert clerks to military positions according to rank. Without a level six clerk, one would never know this!

Wang Zhong patted Pavlov on the shoulder: “See the talent I found for you! Don’t talk about not being able to conjure supplies and troops anymore!”