Chapter 93: Without Taking Down A Few Ministers, This Matter Won’t Pass
Lelouch was not yet an administrative official in the Empire’s Propaganda Department after all. This time, helping Minister Mark von Baden negotiate the surrender of prisoners of war was merely to set an example and make a demonstration.
In an era without amplified broadcasting, the efficiency of propaganda and persuasion work was very low; it was impossible to gather too many people at once to listen to a speech.
If leaflets were distributed, the prisoners of war might not see them, and even if they did, they might not read them carefully, or they might even be illiterate.
In the end, it still had to rely on the civil servants of the Prisoner of War Affairs Department to organize small-scale lectures and persuasions one by one.
Fortunately, with Lelouch’s original speech draft, they could just mass-copy it afterward, similar to how later companies conduct training sessions with sales scripts.
Minister Baden was very satisfied with his performance and valued him even more.
Soon it was time for Lelouch to return home for a visit and vacation. Minister Baden was reluctant to let him go and hoped this young genius could do more for the Prisoner of War Affairs Department and offer more advice, but for now, he could only let him leave first.
At the time of parting, Minister Baden had his driver take him part of the way and personally rode in the same car to the train station.
In the car, the minister seized every opportunity to chat, casually discussing and seeking advice from Lelouch on policy strategies.
“Do you think there are other areas in the Empire’s military propaganda work that can be improved? If you perform outstandingly in the External Propaganda office in the future, would you want to be promoted to director of the War Ministry Propaganda Bureau?
If you have this intention, I can help you when the time comes. However, your own rank must keep up; to hold a top position in a bureau under the War Department, your military rank must at least be promoted to major general.”
Lelouch: “I don’t have any ideas in this regard. I think the External Propaganda office of the War Ministry Propaganda Bureau is a very good stepping stone, but going further up offers no room for development.
If in the future I want to take on roles spanning both military and political affairs, I also don’t want to stay in propaganda anymore. Because we only have some room for improvement in external propaganda work.
As for internal affairs… regrettably, with the current internal affairs policies, what is there to quibble about? The points the enemy attacks us on are all ones we have genuinely committed.”
Minister Baden was momentarily stunned but had to admit that what Lelouch said was indeed reasonable, so he couldn’t force the matter.
Lelouch then sincerely analyzed: “For example, that day, to sincerely persuade Britannian prisoners of war to break with Britannia and fight for us, I exposed our own dirty laundry, saying our people have been restricted in wages, our material dispatch has been strictly rationed, and the rations aren’t even enough to eat—these are all facts, no need for the enemy to fabricate slanders against us.
The institutional differences between us and the Britannians doom us to only being able to stir up their soldiers, while they can stir up our workers and peasants—this problem is insoluble.
An overly free market has the problems of an overly free market, and an overly rigid plan has the problems of an overly rigid plan; there is no perfect economic management system in this world, and there will always be a class of people who relatively suffer.
I merely dug out the highlights we could have promoted before but ignored. But I can’t tell blatant lies with my eyes open; propaganda work must ultimately be truthful.
If we expect the people to unite under the Empire’s flag, grit their teeth and persist in a long war without second thoughts, what we need isn’t propaganda work, but real optimization of internal affairs.
Not like the current War Department and War Raw Materials Department（Kriegsrohstoffabteilung, KRA）, which allocated nearly 100% of IG Farben’s synthetic ammonia output to the explosives production department—those people never even considered that the war might last for several years and that some synthetic ammonia needed to be reserved for the fertilizer industry!
Those people also never considered allocating part of the steel output to intensively expand railways at key hubs, increase transport capacity, and build more locomotives and freight cars, so that more industrial raw materials could be exchanged and transported everywhere!
The Empire is not short of coal, but now, aside from the Ruhr Area, how many places have seen production efficiency drop because coal couldn’t be transported there? Yet the Ruhr’s coal is piling up with nowhere to go.
To speak bluntly, the senior leaders of the relevant departments now are too focused on short-term gains, only thinking about how to maximize combat power in the short term, sacrificing the Empire’s long-term stamina and the people’s livelihoods.
Therefore, in the future, I won’t get involved in the Empire’s internal propaganda, because there’s nothing to promote. It’s better to do real things and truly allow the people to survive sustainably than to expect propaganda to spin miracles.”
Lelouch’s remarks were lofty; to be honest, they were a bit overstepping for someone of his current level.
Although these words were all correct, incorporating the insights of countless later military enthusiasts and historians, all derived from reviewing the Empire’s postmortem report.
However, considering that Lelouch had just contributed a plan that could potentially negotiate the surrender of tens of thousands of prisoners of war, and had indeed achieved outstanding results.
Although Minister Baden was stunned as he listened, he was still willing to patiently hear him out.
He hadn’t expected this young man to have such deep insights into the Empire’s problems, even spotting the hidden issues in the economic and industrial coordination departments.
Moreover, much of what he said was truly insightful. The minister had vaguely felt this way inside but couldn’t articulate it himself.
After Lelouch spelled it out, it was like clouds parting to reveal the sun; the minister suddenly saw the light and fully comprehended.
The Empire’s industrial coordination departments were truly depleting the well for short-term gains.
In the terms of later gamers, it was like playing《Age of Empires》 without farming and just rushing soldiers. Or like《Hearts of Iron》 starting with no civilians, all-in on military industry.
In games, you might really hope for a soldier rush fast attack quick victory. But in the real world, once quick victory fails, you must plan for war of attrition capability.
Sometimes, war of attrition capability is like nuclear weapons—you don’t necessarily have to use it, but you can’t be without it. If you lack war of attrition capability, the enemy won’t seek peace no matter how badly they’re faring on the battlefield. Only when you have war of attrition capability, and both sides can endure long-term, letting the enemy know prolonged fighting is pointless, will they return to the ceasefire negotiation table.
“You still see things so clearly; sometimes I really don’t know how your brain works. Discovering a genius like you is the Empire’s fortune.”
Minister Baden sighed deeply, completely convinced,
“In the future, once you achieve results in external propaganda and qualify for promotion, I will do everything to help you get assigned to a department handling military supplies or wartime economy coordination.
But you must work hard yourself, and I must too. Right now, I can only manage prisoner of war affairs and some occupied area affairs; my department’s importance is far below that of the economic supervision department. If I can’t even reach out myself, I can’t talk about promoting you.”
Hearing this sigh from his mentor-friend, Lelouch felt a slight stir inside and kindly offered another suggestion:
“Prisoner of war affairs, with me helping you strategize and negotiate more prisoners of war to serve the Empire, will easily produce results. Why worry about not rising to more important departments and gaining greater influence in the future?
As for occupied area affairs, I think it’s also easy to achieve results. The Empire’s current governance methods are too rigid, easily sparking resistance from the occupied populations and causing a decline in economic vitality in the occupied areas.
With the Battle of Ypres ended, the entire Belgian territory is now under Empire control, the former king is dead, but some of his cabinet members didn’t escape onto that Britannian cruiser at the time and thus weren’t killed. I think we should gather these people and support the restoration of a legal Belgian administrative body.
Economically, we still require them to fully cooperate with the Empire’s wartime economy, and agricultural products can continue to be requisitioned, but there’s no need to immediately dismantle and relocate factories back home—that causes too much loss. Better to utilize existing equipment and organize production on-site.
If you can advance such economic policies, in the future I can also persuade Duke Rupprecht to develop suitable industrial categories in appropriate places in Belgium or even the northernmost Frankish regions. As long as you achieve good economic results in the occupied areas that can support the Empire’s military industry and supplies, your voice in economic planning will naturally grow stronger.”
Historically, Germania’s occupation policies on the Western Front were somewhat rigid, all direct military rule without supporting local collaborators.
Local economic efficiency was also very low; many factories were directly dismantled, machines shipped back within Germania, a crude approach that severely damaged productivity.
On the Eastern Front, however, the Empire allowed Polish self-governance to compete with Lusha for local Polish support, with both Germania and Lusha escalating welfare benefits for locals. In the end, both sides exhausted themselves, allowing the victor to cheaply establish a Polish state.
Of course, historically, Germania couldn’t implement local self-governance on the Western Front due to unavoidable reasons—they never fully occupied Belgian territory. The king remained in Ypres, holding the last 5% of national territory with the British Army, so he always legally represented Belgium.
But now the situation is different; Belgium’s original ruling structure no longer exists, only a Britannian-backed Eton schoolboy.
Therefore, Minister Baden, in charge of prisoner of war and Western Front occupied area governance affairs, can fully petition the cabinet. For better economic efficiency and deeper cooperation with the surrendered Belgian Army divisions, the captured Belgian high-level officials should be released to reorganize the cabinet.
Anyone who’s played《Hearts of Iron》 knows that after conquering and occupying, releasing a “commission area/puppet state” is far more efficient than direct occupation or military rule, extracting more local resources and industrial capacity.
“These suggestions are quite standard; I was already considering this. Since you see potential too, I’ll accelerate the push.”
After fully hearing the opinions, Minister Baden readily agreed to adopt them as much as possible and told Lelouch not to hold back any future ideas.
“With your far-sighted wisdom, you must have thought of this long ago. I just got lucky and happened to remind you. I wish Belgium and the Western Front occupied areas will get better and better under your governance.”
Lelouch didn’t take credit; he knew Minister Baden was insightful himself and could handle these matters well—Lelouch just gave a gentle push.
……
After sending Lelouch to the station, Minister Baden personally watched him board the train and had the driver help with the luggage, hauling it back and forth until the driver’s back and waist ached, mainly because there were too many gold coins in the luggage.
After the train departed, it headed southeast, with the final destination being the allied capital Vienna, where Lelouch would visit family and bring back some relatives.
After watching the train leave, Minister Baden spent the following days focused on preparing and constructing Belgium’s new administrative body, as well as accelerating persuasion of Britannian prisoners of war.
The persuasion materials left by Lelouch weren’t just the one he personally delivered that day; there were many targeted, categorized scripts. For example, for Lord Canna, for the ANZAC Corps, for South Asian Indians.
Minister Baden had them all tried and found the persuasion scripts for Indians quite effective—
During this war, Britannia persuaded Indians to fight for them firstly because Indians were poor and indeed needed to enlist or work for a living. Secondly, promises were made to Indian leaders: “As long as Indians help them fight, after victory, Indians would be granted independence.”
But Lelouch of course knew that Britannia, that kind of scoundrel, never kept its word. All their big pies were fake, whether to the Irish, Indians, or Middle East tribes—purely to exploit them, with not a single promise fulfilled.
Instead, they sowed discord worldwide, sustainably stirring up local tribes to kill each other for a century without peace.
Although Lelouch couldn’t produce ironclad proof yet, he could at least teach Minister Baden to repeatedly emphasize this possibility to the prisoners of war, planting as many seeds of doubt in their hearts as possible.
This way, accumulated gradually, it could persuade at least a few to believe.
Minister Baden indeed followed through, and as a result, every day dozens to hundreds of Indian prisoners of war awoke from Britannia’s brainwashing rhetoric, realizing “those promises are unreliable anyway; whether laboring for Britannia or Germania, it’s the same.”
In comparison, the Lord Canna and ANZAC Corps prisoners of war remained the most stubborn—
Mainly because people from these places, unlike Britannia itself, hadn’t clearly suffered from “mass conscription causing rear labor shortages, free market driving up rear wages, front-rear wage inversion.”
Currently, Canada’s and ANZACs’ labor markets are still relatively stable; soldiers earn a bit more than workers, so they willingly fight to the death.
Especially Lord Canna’s people were the most stubborn; their loyalty to Britannia exceeded even that of Britannians themselves. They were completely unmoved by Minister Baden’s calls to surrender, leaving him no choice but to send them all to mine as forced labor.
Minister Baden deeply understood that action must combine real work with propaganda, so while preparing Belgium’s collaboration government, he also loudly publicized it.
For those surrendered British Army soldiers, especially those without family ties, and the surrendered cooperative Indians, Minister Baden arranged newspaper reporters for interviews, then widely reported them.
Once the news spread, within Germania, these cases of “enemies seeing the light and switching sides” were of course very welcome, boosting morale and making more people firm in believing they stood on the side of victory through war.
But when the reports reached London, they caused a huge uproar within Britannia.
The string of defeats with the army annihilated and navy heavily damaged still hadn’t found scapegoats; parliament had been arguing nonstop for the past ten days.
Now even entire captured units were cooperating with the enemy en masse, and Indian soldiers defecting for money.
Britannia domestic affairs couldn’t pass without a few ministers stepping down.
——
PS: Plot’s here; next update has to cover Britannian domestic chain reactions unavoidably.
Tomorrow back to protagonist perspective: returning home in glory, pulling together more industrial teams.
Thanks everyone for your patience with the side story.
