Chapter 17: Uncover Hipper’s Lone Wolf Traits
If Lelouch directly said, “The Empire’s radio cipher has been deciphered by Britain,” Major General Karl would absolutely not believe it.
A mere lieutenant, and one who was a corporal just three days ago, who has never before accessed top-secret information, what standing does he have to make such ironclad assertions?
But Lelouch instead approached it from the patch of land he was responsible for, using the angle that the submarine cable had previously been damaged by enemy ships and that there was a Britannian traitor in the Netherlands Telegraph Company.
Then, by appropriately mixing in some personal agenda and exaggerating the possible risks and scope of the leak, Major General Karl had no choice but to believe it.
Now Major General Karl could at least confirm two points:
First, there is definitely a communications intelligence leak.
Second, the scope of the leaked content is currently unclear.
But since it is wartime, when the situation is unclear, for safety’s sake, they must assume the enemy is at full strength and think of things in the worst possible way.
So for the current operation they face, they should avoid using telecommunications methods as much as possible, whether wired or wireless.
Germania traditional officers are generally not versed in intelligence work and deceptive maneuvers, so Major General Karl could only continue to “not bother a second master with one matter.”
“So what do you think, how should we convince Major General Hipper? And what communications method should we use to contact him? How exactly do you envision ‘turning the plot against them to verify’?”
Having an external auxiliary brain is great; listening first is never a loss anyway.
This question was quite substantial, and Lelouch couldn’t answer on the spot; he could only ponder carefully for a long time before speaking in an exploratory tone:
“At present, the safest way to contact Major General Hipper is to directly dispatch an airplane to Wilhelmshaven for a face-to-face meeting with him.
If they want to ensure safety and avoid Netherlands airspace, the flight distance is about 500 kilometers, but the airplane should be able to arrive within three or four hours. However, to have a face-to-face meeting, an important person must personally step forward, or at least there must be a handwritten letter of sufficient weight, sealed with that person’s seal.”
Before Lelouch could finish the follow-up, Major General Karl immediately patted his chest: “No problem on that front; I can provide the handwritten letter, and the airplane can make a stop en route to get higher-level authorization from my royal brother, as long as the letter’s content is convincing enough.”
Major General Karl also realized his own persuasiveness might not be sufficient, so he wanted to bring in his older brother, the crown prince. He is a general and was once Major General Hipper’s old commanding officer, so that connection would be more persuasive.
After settling the contact method, Lelouch continued to explain the “turning the plot against them” part:
“Additionally, to confirm whether the enemy can intercept our wired communications or decipher our wireless communications, we can notify the true intelligence via airplane in person while separately sending two pieces of false intelligence via wired telegram and radio telegram.
The content of the first one can be to provide cover for Major General Hipper. As you know, in the three months since the war began, Major General Hipper has led the First Raid Fleet to bombard Britannian ports twice, each time destroying some dock facilities, shipyard docks, and moored merchant ships before withdrawing at high speed and slipping away immediately.
So this time, we can fully use a wired telegram to send a message to Wilhelmshaven with content like ‘After investigation, the Britannian cruiser that previously picked up the King Belgian has established a new outpost anchorage near De Panne…’, the exact wording doesn’t matter because I’m not expert in specific naval tactical target selection; General Hipper can figure that out later.
In short, it’s telling the enemy a false message: the Empire, furious because Britain’s cruiser unexpectedly took away King Belgian before, has now discovered that a certain port seems to have become a new anchorage for this British light cruiser patrol group, so they want revenge and hope to dispatch warships to bombard that anchorage, with the specific tactic being hit and run.
If this wired telegram is intercepted by the enemy, and they therefore strengthen the maritime defenses of this front-line port, or directly divert the bombardment fleet originally intended for bombarding Nieuwpoort to also handle defense, then in the future the Empire must take note not to contact the homeland via submarine cables passing through the Netherlands—there must definitely be spies leaking information from relay stations within Netherlands territory!
As for the content of the second telegram, it can be sent wirelessly, as a reply from the rear to us, stating ‘The above request has been forwarded to General Hipper’s unit, but the general has already put to sea on another mission and is currently in radio silence, with his fleet’s radio in ‘receive-only’ mode, unable to reply to avoid exposing the fleet’s position at sea’; at the same time, the reply can subtly mention in ciphered text that General Hipper’s original target was ‘to randomly bombard one of several ports on the Britannian east coast depending on the situation.’
This way, if the Britannians strengthen the defenses of these ports or even detach warships from northern Scotland to set an ambush southward, it can be judged that our radio cipher has also been deciphered. Of course, given Minister Walton’s cunning, he might deliberately not set defenses to reinforce our belief that ‘the cipher hasn’t been deciphered,’ lulling us into not changing it.
Major General Karl and Colonel Lister, hearing this, already felt their brains weren’t working well.
So many twists and turns? They were getting dizzy listening!
“Wait! You say you use wired telegram for one communication, but the reply uses radio—won’t that seem too deliberate?” Major General Karl thought for a long time before spotting a flaw and quickly asked.
“That’s easy; when we send the wired telegram, we can state ‘front-line battle situation and lines are changing rapidly, Army Group Headquarters position may shift at any time, please do not reply via wired telegram.’ Once the headquarters position moves, sending the wired telegram back the same way definitely won’t find anyone.”
Lelouch casually plugged this loophole; to someone like him from the modern era, such a reason was too easy to come up with.
It’s like when someone calls another using a landline at first, but then asks them to call back on a mobile phone—isn’t that perfectly reasonable? Just say “I’m leaving soon and won’t be here; you won’t reach me on the landline.”
Anyone living in the mobile communications era can naturally think of similar excuses without thinking. But people in 1914 might not always have the string in their minds that “wireless communications are more flexible and mobile than wired ones,” so it’s not surprising they couldn’t think of it right away.
Major General Karl mulled over Lelouch’s words, and when he looked at him again, his gaze was increasingly… reverent.
This young man’s brain was too sharp.
And Lelouch struck while the iron was hot to finish: “Of course, to perfectly execute this ‘turning the plot against them’ intelligence deception, follow-up actions to fill gaps will definitely be needed.
For example, if General Hipper really wins this upcoming naval battle conflict, we can’t rest on our laurels afterward, or the Britannians will immediately ‘know that we know they know our cipher.’
We can even consider staging a setup to lure Imperial Naval Ministry high-ups into reprimanding Major General Hipper, questioning why he ‘disobeyed orders and acted alone’ by not bombarding enemy ports according to the Naval Ministry’s original plan. Frame General Hipper’s victory as his personal ‘bold defiance and reckless pursuit of glory,’ rather than something the Imperial Naval Ministry had planned long ago.
This way, even if the Britannians suffer a hidden loss, they’ll think ‘it wasn’t that our intelligence work was poor or the intelligence we obtained was wrong, but that an insubordinate front-line general in the enemy forces acted on his own without following the upper command’s telegram instructions.'”
Lelouch felt that this last point was also extremely crucial.
Because the event of “Germania Navy knowing the enemy has deciphered their radio cipher” in itself is of enormous value.
If they casually verify it, bombard a couple of ports, sink some pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers, and blow such a big secret, it would be far too unworthy.
In original history, the reason the High Seas Fleet was pinned down there doing nothing was mainly because of one-way transparency in radio; finally, they mustered the resolve for the Battle of Jutland, only for the enemy to have advance cheats, seeing the entire campaign’s force composition.
But if the Germanics could know this point and save the secret for the Battle of Jutland to cash it in? Wouldn’t they cash in big time all at once?
This secret must be carefully preserved; for now, it’s just a probe, so the cleanup after the probe is also extremely important.
They must make the enemy form the cognition that “the operational plan probed by Britannia intelligence department is real; the reason for defeat was only because a hotheaded one in the enemy acted privately against orders without executing the agreed plan.”
When Major General Karl heard this, his gaze toward Lelouch was now like looking at a ghost or god.
This must be the will of God!
It is God who wants to punish the evil Britannians, so He sent down this sage with divine revelation!
With such a sage-like divine strategist on our side, what is there to worry about in achieving great success!
Major General Karl stared fixedly into Lelouch’s eyes, trying to discern sincerity or hypocrisy in his gaze.
And Lelouch’s eyes remained so sincere, so resolute, without the slightest hesitation.
Seeing Lelouch’s left eye, still blood-red and not yet recovered to normal color after being poisoned by tear gas, Major General Karl inexplicably felt a surge of admiration and trust.
This eye proved that this young man had gone through life and death for the Empire; he had no reason to doubt his loyalty.
In the world of 1914, there was still much residual mysticism, and many high-level figures in countries, especially ignorant royal family nobles, still believed in miracles.
For a moment, Major General Karl even hypnotized himself: Lelouch’s blood-red left eye must possess divine power to see through all schemes. So believing him is right.
