The greatest difference between a grand war and a village brawl, besides the level of force employed and the scale of the battlefield, is that the latter only requires gathering a troop and issuing each person a Longsword to begin.
The former, however, is not just about the tens of millions of Radiant Gold Coins burned through daily. It also requires the foundational support of a population in the tens or even hundreds of billions, a complete military command structure, and the backing of massive agricultural and industrial production.
The outcome of a grand war can hardly be decided by just one or two overwhelmingly powerful individuals.
Even the power of a Sky Knight, whose full-strength strike could level a mountain range, is insufficient on the scale of the Cosmos to single-handedly suppress every theater of war.
Although the issue of supply in a grand war is an incredibly complex system, the report the Civil Affairs Department delivered to Koller had been simplified as much as possible.
It boiled down systemic problems into a single issue: men and money.
If there wasn’t enough money, payment could also be made with resources of equivalent value.
Koller set down the final sheet of parchment. The report’s level of detail, to be honest, far exceeded his expectations.
Back when he served in the Iberia Think Tank Group, he’d had more than his fair share of dealings with the Civil Affairs Department. To be able to calculate such detailed data within three days... well, it must have been quite a challenge for those inefficient ’old masters.’
Normally, calculating data on this scale would take three to five years, at the very least.
Now that they knew the Vengeful Angels were going to secure a huge amount of military funding for the Verne Front Line, just reading between the lines on the parchment made it clear the Civil Affairs Department was in a great hurry.
They were itching to move the money onto their Tax Collection Ships immediately.
According to the figures provided by the Civil Affairs Department, factoring in all ammunition and supplies, the Verne Front Line faced a colossal deficit of 3.2 billion Radiant Gold Coins and required over 77 million more troops.
Unlike locally and privately minted currencies, Radiant Gold Coins held immense purchasing power throughout the entire Imperial Holy Territory. Besides being minted from the rare Radiant Gold, they also served as the monetary anchor for the tens of millions of worlds within the Imperial Holy Territory.
A deficit of 3.2 billion Radiant Gold Coins... To put it bluntly, it was hard to say if you could even fill that gap by selling off all three hundred worlds of the Administrative Region as a package deal.
An agricultural planet was valued at 1.5 million Radiant Gold Coins at the absolute most.
However, Koller was very familiar with the Civil Affairs Department’s working style. Regarding this deficit, you couldn’t say it was free of padding. In fact, at least ninety percent of the stated deficit was pure padding.
Reports were passed up the chain of command, starting from the planetary level. You add a little, I add a little, everyone adds a little. By the time a rusty, decommissioned Iron Sword from a warehouse was reported to the Civil Affairs Department, it would be valued at a minimum of one Radiant Gold Coin.
And the purchasing power of a single Radiant Gold Coin, if used to buy Leather Armor and Iron Swords, could easily arm an old-fashioned army of ten thousand.
3.2 billion?
Thirty million was more like it.
RUMBLE—
The heavy, dark clouds of the rainy season gathered above Surt’s Stereoscopic City.
A thunderclap cracked, and a torrential rain poured down.
"...My Lord, based on my experience dealing with the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Administrative Region’s Civil Affairs Department, this number probably isn’t too far from the actual situation.
As for the 77-million-troop deficit, I believe we can shave off a third. Fifty million should be enough."
Spiritual Energy communication.
After hearing Koller’s report, Reinhardt was floored. ’Even though I don’t have a concrete understanding of the Administrative Region’s economic scale, a deficit of 3.2 billion Radiant Gold Coins? The officials from the Civil Affairs Department actually dared to report that to me?’
’The 100,000 Radiant Gold Coins Lady Catherine gifted me back then were enough to buy an entire continent on a feudal world and become a Local Lord.’
’With 3.2 billion, couldn’t I just buy all three hundred worlds of the Administrative Region outright?’
’If the Administrative Region were truly so wealthy, Lady Catherine and I wouldn’t have had to rack our brains and use every trick in the book just to find military funding for the war on the Verne Front Line.’
’If it weren’t for my responsibilities as Supreme Commander of this pacification war, given my way of doing things, every single one of these rebel leaders would have died after Claudius’s defeat!’
Lu Jia, who was serving as Reinhardt’s aide for this meeting, had also heard the figures Koller reported over the Spiritual Energy communication.
Honestly.
When she heard the figure of 3.2 billion, a faint sweat had already begun to form on her back.
She only managed a small sigh of relief when Koller gave his follow-up estimate. ’Thank goodness Lord Koller is here,’ she thought. ’Otherwise, this meeting would have been impossible to conclude gracefully.’
Although Koller had never spoken to her directly, as an Adjutant merely listening in, she felt she had truly been taught a valuable lesson.
A Battle Group Leader certainly had an extraordinary status, but holding such a high position meant one inevitably had to deal with the Empire’s various departments. The skills involved were sometimes more profound than killing enemies on the battlefield.
「Meanwhile.」
After receiving Reinhardt’s authorization, Koller used the Spiritual Energy communication to give a detailed report on the Verne Front Line’s supply deficit to the more than three hundred Local Lords and Knight Warlords in attendance.
Except for a few powerful Knights who knew of the existence of Psychics, everyone else’s expression changed when they heard Koller’s voice.
This was especially true for the ringleaders who had been secretly plotting their resistance.
They exchanged cautious glances, a wave of unease washing over them. They knew, of course, that the Vengeful Angels were monitoring them, but they had never expected that the one doing the monitoring was the Vengeful Angels Think Tank.
Forget what they had said; the other party likely knew their every thought.