Empire Conquest

Chapter 653 - 4: Space Cat’s Eye

Liu Zunshan was a total fool.

Just like when he used to fight in his younger days, he fought with a reckless ferocity.

In fact, of the three of them, only Liu Zunshan had been on the battlefield.

It’s not that Liu Zunshan was more formidable, but that he had the support of the Marine Corps.

Initially, when the Army Air Force became independent to form the Air Force to prevent the Navy from becoming the biggest winner and to balance the military branches, the Marine Corps, originally a branch under the Navy, was promoted to an independent branch directly led by the Cabinet and nearly became an independent military service.

The Marine Corps couldn’t become a separate military service because it still depended on the Navy’s ships.

This event also led to the creation of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff Department, which nominally belonged to the Ministry of Defense but operated independently, led directly by the Cabinet Chief and answerable to the Privy Council.

At the time, no one anticipated that the Marine Corps would develop into a mini-triforce capable of ground, sea, and air operations.

This was all triggered by the Boi War.

During the later stages of this war, the Marine Corps almost single-handedly held their own. By the end of it, they had formed their own Armored Forces and Air Force, and even had a fleet composed of river gunboats. If not for strong opposition from the Navy, they might even have been allocated a few small carriers.

Today, the Marine Corps boasts a force of 400,000, with hundreds of ships, nearly a thousand combat aircraft, 2000 helicopters, and thousands of Main Battle Tanks, hundreds of self-propelled artillery guns, about 1500 amphibious combat vehicles, and nearly ten thousand various armored vehicles.

If the Empire’s Marine Corps were considered a national armed force, they would rank within the top 20 globally.

In terms of combat capability, the Empire’s Marine Corps is second only to a few superpowers and military-strong nations.

The key to the Marine Corps’ rapid growth and expansion was their direct leadership under the Cabinet, answering only to the Cabinet Chief, uncontrolled by the Privy Council or the legislative chambers.

Of course, the key was escaping the control of the legislative chambers.

To put it bluntly, whenever a sudden major event occurred that required military action or needed military intervention to protect the Empire’s interests, the Imperial Chief Minister’s first thought would always be of the Marine Corps, and it was the only force he could directly command.

That’s why, in several subsequent small-scale regional conflicts, the Marine Corps always played the role of the vanguard.

The most recent turmoil occurred four years ago.

At that time, in Sri Lanka, the Pro-Fanluo Youth Officer Corps staged a coup, seized control of the capital, Colombo, overnight, and then deployed troops to surround military bases like Trincomalee, demanding Liangxia Empire hand over the fugitive democratically elected President and unconditionally withdraw from Sri Lanka.

The situation was extremely dire, as the President’s family was under rebel control, and could have spiraled out of control at any moment.

After issuing three final ultimatums, and declaring diplomatic efforts a failure, the Imperial Authority had to acknowledge that military action was the only solution.

To avoid escalating the situation, the Imperial Authority did not mobilize the Army, but assigned all ground operations to the Marine Corps.

In just one night, using helicopters, the Marine Corps employed airborne assault tactics to secure Colombo International Airport, followed by the Air Force launching a strategic airlift.

By the next morning, as the Marine Corps’ Armored Forces entered the urban area, the operation to suppress the rebellion was declared over.

In this conflict, what stole the spotlight was the first combat deployment of the "Phantom" Attack-11 stealth attack aircraft, with few people paying attention to the role played by the Marine Corps.

The "Attack-11" was able to destroy the rebel headquarters with four laser-guided bombs, killing all the high-ranking officers, not because it wasn’t detected by radar, but because the Marine Corps’ Special Forces had been pre-deployed, confirmed the situation at the rebel headquarters, and targeted it with a laser indicator.

Sending the "Attack-11" on the bombing mission was merely to give this newly commissioned type of combat aircraft a real-world test.

Sri Lanka didn’t have many substantial air defense radars, so whether or not to send a stealth attack aircraft for the bombing mission wouldn’t have significantly impacted the outcome.

Clearly, the number one hero of the Sri Lanka operation was the Marine Corps.

At that time, the armored unit that escorted the democratically elected President back to the President Mansion was commanded by Liu Zunshan.

In his own words, the only battle in the entire operation was when they used tank cannons to blast through the street barricades the rebels had set up outside the President Mansion.

So, as long as the Marine Corps appeared, battle was imminent.

Liu Zunshan was straightforward; sitting down, he bluntly told Lian Mingyang and Bai Huawei that he had already received orders from the Marine Corps headquarters to fly to the capital Riyadh in Saudi Arabia the next morning. However, the specific mission had not yet been planned by the Marine Corps headquarters.

Nevertheless, this was enough to prove that the Imperial High Command was indeed considering the possibility of military action and was preparing for the situation to spiral out of control.

If Hussein wasn’t planning to pull back from the brink, the first priority was actually to protect Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait was too small and had no natural defenses; falling was inevitable.

If Hussein was bold enough, or if the Tiaoman Empire and Newland Republic were ready and planning to use this as a pretext to launch the Third Global War, then after sweeping through Kuwait, Iraq’s million-man army would surely continue to advance south into Saudi territory.

The issue was, the Empire was not prepared for this war.

Whether it was to be fought as a regional conflict or escalate into a global war, in the direction of Boss Bay, the Empire would need at least several months to mobilize and deploy troops, transport combat materials to the front lines, and call on allies to send troops.