The first thing Morin did after retreating to his own trenches was to have Klaus notify the 1st Company of the Instruction Assault Battalion to temporarily withdraw from the combat sequence and rest where they were, awaiting his new orders.
What kind of joke was that? Knowing full well that the First Army Group’s tactic for attacking the enemy trenches was simply to sacrifice lives, and yet he should send his men up to die?
That would make him a completely heartless battalion commander.
The fine young men of the Instruction Assault Battalion were his prized recruits, led by him personally. He would be devastated if he lost even one of them.
“Klaus, go call the company commanders of the other three companies, and Kleist and Manstein as well,” Morin instructed while wringing the muddy, waterlogged hem of his uniform.
“Tell them about the situation of today’s attack later. The Gauls’ position is much tougher than we imagined. Give them a heads-up. I need to go to the First Army Group Headquarters.”
“Yes, Battalion Commander.”
Klaus acknowledged the order and turned to relay the message.
Morin himself prepared to head to the First Army Group Headquarters. He needed to find General Mackensen and clearly explain the true situation on the front line and his own thoughts.
The relationship they shared was too valuable not to use.
It was certainly better than letting the soldiers of the Instruction Assault Battalion and the First Army Group continue to die in vain in the mud of Creil.
He walked along the communication trench toward the rear. The muddy, waterlogged ditch was crowded with wounded and retreating soldiers. The air was filled with the smell of blood, gunpowder, and an atmosphere named despair.
“So this is trench warfare…”
Morin had just walked out of the last trench along the long communication trench, and before he could find a vehicle to take him to the rear, a Mercedes 1913 Staff Car screeched to a halt in front of him.
Judging by the number on the car door, it seemed to be a vehicle from the Army Group Headquarters.
The car door opened, and a young liaison officer jumped out of the passenger seat. Seeing Morin, who was covered in mud, he was momentarily stunned, then his face broke into an expression of unexpected pleasant surprise.
“Are you Captain Friedrich Morin, sir?”
“I am,” Morin replied, feeling a bit strange. How did someone from the Army Group Headquarters find him here?
“That’s excellent! Captain Morin, General Mackensen wishes to see you. Please come with me to the headquarters immediately,” the liaison officer’s tone was urgent.
Morin was even more puzzled. He was preparing to look for General Mackensen, but the General had sent someone to find him first?
“Perfect, I was planning to see the General anyway.”
Morin didn’t ask any more questions. He simply pulled open the car door and got in.
The driver glanced at Morin’s muddy trousers, sighed, and said nothing.
The car started and sped toward the rear on the bumpy dirt road.
The First Army Group Headquarters was set up in a temporary camp located about twelve kilometers from the front line.
The liaison officer in the car seemed to be a very skilled and tactful person. He actively chatted with Morin the whole way, but maintained a good sense of propriety.
He first complimented the heroic performance of the Instruction Assault Battalion in many previous battles, saying that their deeds had spread throughout the headquarters. Then, he appropriately asked some questions about the new weapons, but never touched on core secrets.
“Captain, I heard that the automatic weapons your battalion is equipped with are particularly effective in close-quarters combat?”
“They’re alright, they just shoot a bit faster and consume ammunition quickly,” Morin answered casually.
“It’s more than just a bit faster!” the officer laughed.
“I heard the returning soldiers say that you guys are like flushing a city street with a water hose. The Gauls and the Britannians in the urban warfare couldn’t even lift their heads. It’s truly incredible!”
Morin secretly mused that this person, young as he was, must be very capable to be a liaison officer in the Army Group Headquarters. His art of conversation was far superior to that of the average person.
He made you feel comfortable without making you think he was deliberately flattering you, and he could still manage to subtly extract information he wanted to know.
And they say “Westerners” have no social tact?
Chatting along the way, the car quickly arrived at the camp housing the temporary headquarters of the First Army Group.
The security here was tight. Staff officers and dispatch riders were bustling everywhere, and the atmosphere was tense and busy.
The liaison officer led Morin through a few tents, finally stopping in front of the largest one.
“Captain, the General and the Grand Master Fortis are waiting for you inside.”
Grand Master Fortis?
Morin’s heart skipped a beat, and he then realized the officer must be referring to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.
He straightened his not-so-clean uniform with a hint of doubt and followed the liaison officer into the camp tent.
The light inside the tent was not sufficient, so several Radiant Crystal oil lamps were hung to increase the brightness. A massive map was spread out on the field table in the center.
General Mackensen was standing in front of the map, his back to the door. Beside him stood a tall, upright woman.
As soon as Morin entered, his gaze was involuntarily drawn to the woman.
She had dazzling golden hair that seemed to be on fire under the light of the Radiant Crystal oil lamps. Her figure was astonishingly tall, nearly the same height as him, a man of one meter and eighty-three centimeters.
She wore a set of the Teutonic Knights’ standard knight armor, which was tailored to fit, and the tight-fitting material outlined a powerful, curved body shape.
It wasn’t the ‘muscular Barbie’ look that Morin had seen in his previous life, but a more balanced, restrained, and coiled power, like a leopard ready to spring.
Morin had no doubt that if she landed a punch on his stomach, he would probably be lying on the ground for a while.
“General, Grand Master!”
Morin withdrew his gaze, stood straight, and gave both of them a standard Saxon military salute.
Mackensen turned around. Seeing Morin, his normally stern face softened slightly.
“Captain Morin, you’ve arrived…”
He gestured to the blonde female knight beside him and introduced her:
“This is the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Her Excellency Leonia von Fortis.”
It was her indeed.
Morin thought to himself, Ludwig’s everyday description wasn’t inaccurate. This Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights was truly a dazzling ‘Golden Lion’ that people dared not look directly at.
“Grand Master, Your Excellency!” Morin immediately turned back to Leonia and saluted again.
“Captain Morin, I’ve heard much about you,” Leonia smiled and nodded at him. Her voice was clear and pleasant, carrying a unique magnetism.
“Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig has mentioned you often in the Knights Order, saying you are a once-in-a-century military genius of Saxony.”
“Your Excellency overpraises me. Ludwig was just joking with me,” Morin said with a modest smile.
“He didn’t seem to be joking.”
Leonia’s eyes swept over Morin. Her gaze was so sharp it seemed to be able to peer into the heart.
“Many in the Knights Order, including myself, have been very curious about you… We just haven’t had the chance to meet.”
After the brief exchange, the atmosphere in the tent quickly became serious again.
General Mackensen pointed to the map on the table, his face once again grim. Before Morin could even open his mouth to discuss the front line attack, he dropped a bombshell.
“Morin… we have encountered a very difficult problem.”
He picked up a telegram and handed it to Morin.
“See for yourself. It is highly likely that the Britannians have captured a complete set of our ‘Energy Armor-Piercing Weapon’.”
Morin took the telegram and quickly scanned it.
The content of the telegram was concise, describing how a patrol unit on the rear supply line, consisting of an infantry battalion and three ‘Siegfried Type 1’ Armored Knights, was ambushed by an elite Britannian force disguised as guerrillas.
The result was tragic: the infantry battalion suffered heavy losses, the three Armored Knights were incapacitated, and their drivers were brutally murdered.
The new weapons they carried, an ‘Armor-Piercing War Hammer’ and an ‘Armor-Piercing Lance’, had likely fallen intact into enemy hands.
“…”
After reading the telegram, Morin was silent for a moment.
To be honest, he wasn’t particularly surprised.
In his opinion, as long as any weapon was deployed on the battlefield, it was only a matter of time before it was ‘broken’ or captured by the enemy.
There was no weapon in the world that could remain a secret forever once it was put into actual combat.
However, he genuinely hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.
The shaped-charge anti-tank round was practically a crushing ‘super-weapon’ with a crushing advantage in the current confrontation between Armored Knights.
The Saxon Empire’s army being able to advance so quickly to the gates of Paris, largely owed its success to the Teutonic Knights’ use of this weapon to ‘can-open’ the Britannian and Gaulish Armored Knights on the front lines.
But for the Britannians to acquire a sample so early was both unexpected and problematic.
It seemed that Leonia, the Grand Master, who was standing nearby, sensed Morin’s thoughts. Her voice was cold and tinged with suppressed anger:
“Captain Morin, this was not a chance encounter, but a carefully planned ambush. According to the description of the surviving infantry, the Britannians used a previously unseen type of Armored Knight. Their goal was very clear from the start: to acquire our ‘Energy Armor-Piercing Weapon’.”
“It seems they were truly terrified by this thing,” Morin nodded in understanding.
The fact that the usually arrogant Britannians lowered themselves to use such methods to acquire the technology was enough to show the extent of the psychological trauma and actual damage the shaped-charge anti-tank round had inflicted upon them.
No, judging by the shamelessness of the Britannians, it was actually ‘reasonable’…
“The problem now is that they succeeded.”
General Mackensen’s voice carried a deep sense of worry:
“Morin, you are the inventor of this weapon. You know its technical principles best… Given the Britannians’ level of technology, if they got a complete weapon and reverse-engineered it, how long would it take them?”
This was the most critical question.
Leonia’s gaze was also fixed tightly on Morin. The Golden Lion Grand Master clearly understood the gravity of the situation.
Morin pondered for a moment, quickly reviewing the structure of the shaped-charge anti-tank round in his mind.
“General, Your Excellency Grand Master, to be honest, the situation might be more unfavorable than you imagine.”
He organized his words, trying to explain in a way they could understand:
“The core principle of the ‘Shaped-Charge Armor-Piercing Shell’—which the Imperial Academy of Science named the ‘Morin Effect’ —is not complicated in itself.”
“And the structure of the shell body was designed to be very simple for emergency use. The only difficult part, or the only precision component, is the [Magic Spark Detonating Fuze] at the front of the warhead.”
“The purpose of this fuze is to ensure the shaped-charge anti-tank round detonates the internal explosive synchronously, allowing the metal jet to achieve maximum penetration, but…”
Morin paused, looking at their increasingly solemn faces, and continued:
“The technical difficulty of this component is simply not a problem for the Britannians, whose level of magic guiding technology is higher than the Saxon Empire’s.”
“Therefore, with a complete sample in hand, allowing them to perform a one-to-one replica…”
Morin gave an answer that made both of them gasp in cold air.
“At the fastest, it might only take a few days for them to produce their own version.”
“Only a few days?!”
Mackensen and Leonia exclaimed almost simultaneously.
They had considered many possibilities: a month, or even two months.
But they never dreamed that the unit of time would be “days”…
“How could it be so fast?” Leonia’s voice was full of disbelief.
“Because this thing was an emergency product I rushed out in Seville. Its structure was simplified to the greatest extent possible. Everything was prioritized for simplicity, reliability, and rapid production,” Morin explained.
At the same time, he added in his heart: the hardest part of the shaped-charge anti-tank round has never been the shell body itself, but how to deliver it stably and accurately to the target.
Now that the most difficult delivery step had been skipped, having an Armored Knight simply use a large club to stab people meant there was very little technical complexity left.
It was like he had handed the Britannians the answer key to an open-book exam; all they had to do was copy it verbatim.
Hearing Morin’s explanation, Mackensen and Leonia exchanged glances, both seeing deep shock and solemnity in the other’s eyes.
The situation was far more serious than their worst-case scenario.
This meant that the technological advantage against Armored Knights that the Saxon Empire had worked so hard to establish could potentially vanish within a few days.
Once the Britannians equipped their ‘St. George Mark 3’ or even more advanced machines with similar weapons, the operational pressure on the Teutonic Knights would become extremely high.
At that point, both sides’ Armored Knights would return to the same starting line, or even worse, the Teutonic Knights would fall into a disadvantage due to the enemy’s superior machine performance.
The impact of this on the entire war situation will be disastrous.
The atmosphere in the headquarters was extremely oppressive for a while. The only sound was the slight ‘hissing’ of the Radiant Crystal oil lamps burning.
After a long silence, General Mackensen finally spoke again. He stared intently at Morin, as if trying to read something from his face.
He asked the core and most critical question for which Morin had been summoned today.
“Morin, since you are the inventor of the ‘Shaped-Charge Armor-Piercing Shell’… do you have a method to counter this weapon?”
At this question, Leonia’s breathing instantly paused. A faint but burning hope ignited in her ruby-like eyes.
Yes, the one who tied the bell must untie it.
Since Morin could create this invulnerable spear, did he also know how to forge a shield that could withstand it?
Facing the expectant gazes of the two Imperial bigwigs, Morin gave the answer without hesitation, decisively and cleanly.
“Yes, General. Yes, I do.”