The supply convoy went back threatening to report the 109th to the military directorate. The 109th was not especially concerned.
Kian was managing the farming operation from the rear — organising the civilians, overseeing planting schedules — while keeping a vox operator monitoring the wider front constantly. The picture being assembled from the traffic was instructive.
The PDF advance had pushed over five hundred kilotres in two months. The rebel main forces were being beaten badly. On the map, it looked like the kind of montum that could end a war.
But the map was lying, because the internal situation had beco completely unmanageable.
High command had lost effective control of most of the PDF regints. The units didn't coordinate. They competed. When the order ca down to assign one regint to the main assault on a rebel city with two others in support, the result was all three regints attacking simultaneously in a disorganised rush, each trying to reach the food stores first.
Firefights between PDF units over target access were now routine. Two regints had opened fire on each other in front of a defended rebel position — hundreds dead on both sides before anyone engaged the actual enemy. The military directorate had sent disciplinary teams to the front. The disciplinary teams had suffered inexplicable mass casualty events.
High command had attempted three major discipline enforcent operations. All three had failed. They had stopped trying.
The PDF was winning battles and losing coherence simultaneously. An army that could no longer be commanded was not an army — it was a weather event.
Kian had read this clearly, which was why he felt comfortable running the road tax operation. Three bags per vehicle was not a provocative demand. He knew what chaos looked like, and he knew that chaos ant no one was coordinating a response to him.
That said, he kept pushing Rudolphson and Hans to reinforce their positions continuously. Trenches, bunkers, overlapping fields of fire. If a regint in a bad mood decided to solve the road tax problem with firepower, he wanted the defensive network to make that a costly calculation.
His other assessnt: the PDF offensive would stall.
War at this pace wasn't sustainable. The units burning through their aggression and energy in the first months were consuming sothing they couldn't replace quickly. As the front expanded and regints dispersed across hundreds of kilotres of occupied territory, the rebels' nurical advantage — they outnumbered the PDF several tis over, operated in familiar ground, had genuine popular support — would start asserting itself.
When the exhaustion ca, so would the reversal.
His farm compound had taken shape around the central garrison. Each morning the battalion commanders reported to him.
"My lord — First Battalion's fifty thousand acres of potato cultivation is developing well. Harvest in approximately twenty days."
"My lord — Tenth Battalion has completed seeding on the newly broken ground. We're short four hundred workers for the managent workload. Additional personnel would be very welco."
Kian worked through the reports thodically, issuing decisions on each.
At the end of the eting, he addressed the assembled farm leaders:
"You understand the situation outside our periter. What we have here is unusual and it requires everyone's cooperation to maintain.
If anyone in your group is connected to rebel networks planning operations — tell them to leave. I'm sheltering over ten thousand people here. If sothing happens that gives my superiors a reason to dissolve this arrangent, that's on you. I can't protect people who give problems I can't manage."
The farm leaders fell over each other with reassurances. All farrs. All law-abiding. Anyone suspicious would be identified and removed imdiately.
Kian waved a hand.
"Don't arrest them — I have nowhere to put them and nothing to gain from the paperwork. Just get them out. Quietly."
He dismissed the group and sat with his plans.
The farmland was nearly fully broken and seeded. The managent structure was functional. Another month or two and the first harvest would co in — after which the system could run itself.
He was thinking about using that window to take his household soldiers forward and see what the front looked like from the ground. Abandoned weapons and equipnt were scattered across the contested territory. Bringing so of it back would be considerably more efficient than buying through official channels.
A soldier appeared at the tent entrance.
"Sir — ssage from Battalion Commander Hans. A five-vehicle supply convoy declined to pay the road rate and is taking a detour."
Kian's eyes narrowed.
Three bags per vehicle. A hundred-plus bags per vehicle capacity. The math on this was not complicated, and anyone who looked at it honestly would conclude that three bags was a reasonable service charge.
The PDF had stopped functioning as a unified force. Every unit operated independently. Fine. But independent operation ca with expectations — you supported the people doing the unglamorous work, or the unglamorous work stopped getting done.
Three bags was respect. It was also food. Declining to pay it was a statent about what you thought of the people holding the road you were using.
Statents had consequences.
"Where are they detouring?"
"West. And sir — it's the 81st again."
Of course it is.
"Get both the Kae company commanders. Six cargo haulers, and bring the command Chira."
[End of Chapter 220]
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