Seven Seas Beacon Fire

"Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the Victorians hope to gain some practical benefits... such as the ports where those battlecruisers are docked, to extort money from them."

I need to take a break. Double update tomorrow.

I took an overnight train back on Sunday night and didn't get a good night's rest. I went straight to work after getting off the train in the morning and even worked overtime last night. I'm so tired today. I couldn't finish writing more than 1000 words. I'll finish it for you tomorrow.

Here's a quick look at the Ming Dynasty army's rank system. Also, please vote on whether the future Tang Dynasty army should continue this system or follow the more mainstream general, colonel, and lieutenant system.

Military rank – corresponding military position – Ming Dynasty military position – respectful title used by others

General (with the honorific title of General) – Army Group Commander – Commander-in-Chief – Grand General

Deputy General – Army Commander – Admiral – Grand General

Lieutenant General – Division Commander – Commander – Senior Military Advisor

Zhengdusi (正都司) – Regiment Commander – Battalion Commander – Grand Commander

Deputy Commander-in-Chief – Deputy Regiment Commander – Deputy Battalion Commander

Commander-in-Chief – Battalion Commander – Battalion Officer – Household Commander

Lieutenant - Company Commander - Squad Leader - Centurion

Lieutenant Colonel – Deputy Company Commander – Deputy Squad Officer

Assistant Colonel - Platoon Leader - Platoon Leader

Senior Officer - Sergeant

Deputy Officer - Sergeant

Assistant Director - Corporal

Standard soldier - Private First Class

A brave soldier - Private

Leave a comment here if you agree to keep this.

I prefer to leave a comment here in the future.

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Second and Third Brothers

As the roar of the M1917 howitzer gradually subsided, Li Renxu put down his binoculars and nodded with satisfaction to the officer below him who had been in charge of organizing the shelling.

These Gallic M1917 howitzers were captured by Li Zongdi's army after defeating the United States army in the previous Pyongyang campaign. The Federal Army was basically entirely Gallic in terms of everything from light and heavy machine guns to various field artillery, except for the Springfield rifles they were equipped with.

After all, since the end of the Civil War until the outbreak of this World War, the United States Army had not only been small in size but also had virtually no combat experience to speak of. Therefore, when the Union began to expand its military before the outbreak of the war, it chose... the Leitanian Army as a model to learn from.

Yes, of course it was the Leitanians. After all, the Leitanians swiftly and decisively defeated Gaul in the Legaul War. Why would they learn from the losers instead of the victors? Military exchanges between the Federation and Leitania actually began even before the Legaul War ended.

Sherman led a United States Army observation group to observe the Battle of Legau and gave the Leganian army a lot of advice. In short, he imparted the "combat experience" he had gained in the southern United States and suggested that the Leganians adopt the same all-out policy against the Gauls as he had in the south, so that they could quickly defeat the Gauls.

The Leitanians, upon hearing this, repeatedly expressed that the Federation people were being far too extreme.

After that, although the Union Army remained stagnant, it still had a stronger Leitanian flavor overall. After all, you could tell which rifle looked more like the Springfield rifle. However, as the Union decided to intervene in the World War and began to expand its military, the Union quickly realized that it had too many military shortcomings.

The unprecedentedly large industrial scale allowed the Commonwealth to serve as the "arsenal of the free world," but the Commonwealth did not have its own designs for many types of firearms and field artillery. Therefore, these were basically produced under license. Among the Allied powers, the Gauls were the most advanced in this regard. As a result, the United States Army in this World War was naturally equipped with many "Gallic weapons," such as these 155mm M1917 howitzers.

These heavy cannons were relatively rare for the Ming army in the past. Of course, this was not because the Ming army did not have cannons of the same specifications, but rather because the vast majority of Ming troops, even those at the army level, would not be equipped with cannons of this level.

Compared to the heavy artillery groups of the two sides on the western front of the European battlefield that had been bombarding each other for several years, the Ming army had to consider the mobility of its troops first. After all, the country's territory was what it was, especially in the northern border and western regions. Considering the transportation conditions in these places, the weight of the artillery could not be too large.

Not to mention that although the East has cultivated a number of decent cavalry and warhorses over the past few decades, the training of heavy draft horses is still significantly behind that of the West. If artillery is too heavy, it will be too difficult to maneuver once it leaves the railway line. This is why when Li Zongdi led his army into Silla, the most important long-range artillery for suppression was only 105mm cannons.

However, the smaller but more maneuverable Ming artillery defeated the Federation's heavy artillery in Silla. The Ming army captured more than 50 M1917 howitzers and a large amount of ammunition around Pyongyang alone. Now these heavy howitzers have become the death knell for the United States forces in the encirclement.

Unlike his frail older brother, Li Renxu was interested in martial arts from a young age. Before he was even an adult, he joined his father in the army. Later, he was admitted to Changshan Infantry Academy. After graduation, he started as a junior officer and gradually distinguished himself in the army. Even Li Zongdi once praised his son in public, saying, "He is as brave and decisive as I am."

Therefore, when the King of Jin led his eldest son to "raise an army to quell the rebellion," he entrusted the large Silla army to Yi In-hee for command.

"I think we've practically turned over the entire earth around Wenchuan with our cannons. Second brother, why don't you let me take men and take this place? If we take Wenchuan, we can move these captured Gallic cannons there and bombard Yuanshan Port directly." After witnessing the power of these heavy howitzers once again, the third brother, Li Rensui, was deeply impressed and once again suggested to his second brother that they take Wenchuan in one fell swoop.

"Do you know why Father put me in charge of the remaining troops after he raised the army to quell the rebellion, instead of letting someone else take over, like you?" Li Renxu rolled his eyes at his third brother and asked.

"You're older than me, so what?" Li Rensui snorted. "If I were older than you, Dad would definitely have given this job to me. He led the troops into Beijing, and if the rest of the troops weren't handed over to us two brothers, would he feel at ease?"

"You're truly hopeless... Your only talent in this life is to be a commander." Li Renxu looked at him with disappointment and frustration: "Father sent me to take over the army because, apart from him, I am the strongest in terms of military command and combat among the people of Silla. Look at the deputy generals and adjutants below, are any of them dissatisfied with their troops?"

"Wang Po selling melons..." Li Rensui, who had been hung up, turned his head and murmured softly.

"What did you say?"

“I say, Second Brother, you are truly brilliant and valiant.” Li Rensui accepted the assessment that he could only command “at most one division”: “So why don’t we take Wenchuan?”

Li Renxu pointed to a pile of goods under a tree in the distance. Li Rensui followed his gaze and discovered that the goods were lifebuoys that had been transported there.

"Second brother, what do you mean?"

"If you can carry that thing, with a bomb in your pocket, and blow up all the Federation's warships at sea, I'll take down Wen Chuan today."

"You're making fun of me again!"

"Because you've done something stupid again!" Li Renxu glared at him. "Didn't you read the telegram Dad sent? My nephew is working with the navy to figure something out. There are still half a month until the plan is completed. Don't you have even half a month's patience?"

"Of course I saw it. Didn't they say the Victorians sent another fleet a few days ago?" Li Rensui had a "don't always treat me like an idiot" look on his face. "That's why I asked you if we should attack Wenchuan now. My nephew is still young and inexperienced, so he's not reliable. He's smart, but I've heard that these battlecruisers are having a huge impact on his plan. It's like Sun Wukong's golden cudgel meeting the Green Ox Demon's diamond ring. It's questionable whether his plan can even be implemented now."

"You actually know how to ask others?" Li Renxu cast a scrutinizing glance at him.

"Didn't the navy just send a few liaison officers to our side? Their plan to attack the landing site will require communication and coordination. I'm asking the commander in charge, otherwise how would I know?"

“The navy doesn’t have a commander; that person is a rear admiral.” Li Renxu shook his head, but after a moment he still pressed on, “What exactly did the navy say? Are they sure it will affect us?”

"Well, not really... It seems the biggest impact will be on the south sending cruisers out to sea to ambush Federation merchant ships. He didn't mention the impact on our side, but I think the situation at sea could easily escalate into a major conflict."

Li Renxu shook his head after hearing this: "If the enemy navy can draw more attention to the south, although it is not good news in the long run, it may be a good thing for us to annihilate the enemy in Yuanshan in the short term."

"Second brother, you said it yourself, it's uncertain. What if it has an impact? And..." Li Rensui glanced around to make sure no one was there before lowering his voice and whispering in Li Renxu's ear, "Second brother, if we fight this battle according to plan, the credit for winning it all will be split between you and your nephew. So it's best if we fight it ourselves."

“We are not the same as before. Father was a prince before, but who knows what will happen in the future? If Father really reaches that point, the world might have to be called the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Taizong of Tang was not the eldest son.”

Li Renxu turned his head and gave the third brother a strange look, which made the third brother feel uneasy: "Second brother, we've always been closer since we were little, of course I'd prefer you to..."

"Third brother, I'll pretend I didn't hear what you said today. But if you say something like that again, I'll teach you a lesson on behalf of your elder brother." Li Renxu pointed at Li Rensui's eyes, staring at him. "I wouldn't dare to think of myself as Li Shimin. You think your elder brother is weak and frail, and that's like Li Jiancheng? You've misjudged him. Even if he becomes the crown prince in the future, he'll still be Crown Prince Yiwen!"

Li Rensui realized he couldn't see through the depths of his second brother's eyes. He quickly lowered his head and admitted his mistake: "I was wrong, second brother. I didn't mean to disrespect you, I just felt that at this critical juncture, our country needs a more valiant leader..."

"Shut your mouth now and go back to leading your troops!"

Chapter Twenty-Five: Secrecy Guarantees Victory (1)

"I think that Crown Prince is simply insane. He changes the key and codebook every week... From the Silla troops to the corresponding naval troops, so many places, so many people, so much energy have been wasted on the code. Is it really necessary to be so careful? Even if the Victorians were gods, they couldn't possibly decipher our code so frequently."

A naval radio operator lamented after receiving the new codebook and keys, saying that they felt like children constantly learning to walk, only to be forced to forget how to walk and learn a different way of walking each time they had just learned it.

This process is extremely tedious and painful.

Until the end of World War I, all codes were coded by hand, simply put – with pencil and paper.

Manual encoding presents numerous inconveniences for the user of the cipher. First, it makes sending information extremely inefficient. Plaintext (the unencrypted raw text) must be manually converted into ciphertext word by word by an ciphermaster.

Considering that the same plaintext-to-ciphertext conversion method cannot be repeated multiple times—otherwise, it would be easy for the enemy to guess the conversion method.

However, just as the telegraph operator was about to complain, his colleague sitting next to him kicked his calf under the table. It was then that the man realized that the grandson had somehow entered their telegraph room without him noticing, and he hadn't even noticed the unusual quietness of his colleagues that day.

Ruined!

Judging from the way the grandson looked at him, it was clear that the other party had heard what he said. Speaking ill of the leader in front of the leader, his naval career was probably coming to an end. He would probably be stripped of his military status tomorrow because he stepped into the gate with his left foot first.

Li Che didn't care much about his subordinates' complaints. In a way, he was like a boss who implemented the 996 work schedule. Most bosses who make their employees work 996 know that their employees will never speak well of them behind their backs. He was like one of those unscrupulous bosses, treating his subordinates like cattle and horses.

Even with the addition of extra manpower, the telegram decryption work remains extremely demanding, with 12 to 14 hours of decryption work per day being quite normal.

The reason he was so busy was naturally due to his repeated demands—to use more complex encryption methods and to change passwords and keys more frequently.

There was no other way; it was a necessary guarantee for victory.

In Li Che's view, the doubts surrounding the Navy's loss in the Battle of the Java Sea are not limited to those summarized by the Navy itself. One very important aspect is likely related to the leakage of codes.

After all, based on Li Che's stereotypes about the Victorians' performance on the intelligence front during the two World Wars in another world, the idea that the Victorians' intelligence agencies were incredibly powerful was deeply ingrained in his mind. The Victorians had cracked the codes of the Lytanians during both World Wars. What does it mean to be professional? This is what it means to be professional.

Not to mention that the Ming Dynasty was allied with the Leitanians in this world war. Their military exchanges were not limited to military equipment, but also included aspects such as radio communication. Although the codes of the two armies were different, they would inevitably need to be translated during the process of communication and contact. If one side's code was cracked, the possibility of the other side's code being cracked would also increase greatly.

Now that the Lytanian code is known, and has been largely deciphered anyway, Li Che believes that the code system left by the Ming Dynasty is unreliable.

However, it is no longer realistic to create a complete cryptographic system now, especially since you can't make the cryptography extremely complex just for the sake of secrecy in this day and age.

Unlike civilian telegraph encoding and decoding, encryption personnel cannot memorize the conversion methods. Conversion is usually done by looking up tables, and the tables are different every day, so the decoding speed is extremely slow.

The receiving party must then convert the ciphertext back to plaintext in the same way. Furthermore, this inefficient manual process prevents many sophisticated and secure encryption methods from being practically applied, while simple encryption methods are simply no match for the power of decryption.

This is the contradiction in communication cryptography in this era: encryption methods with better security are too complicated to decipher. After all, even the most complex cryptography is essentially meant to serve the communication system. If the cryptography is so complex that it hinders communication efficiency even when used by one's own people, then it becomes irrelevant whether the enemy has cracked it.

Therefore, Li Che had people find the passwords and keys that had been prepared in the early Ming Dynasty but had not been used. Although these passwords and keys came from the same system as the passwords used before, and there were some similar patterns between them, from a security perspective, if we assume that the previous passwords have been cracked, then these passwords are not very secure now.

However, Li Che was preparing for a quick attack.

In an era where brute force is the primary method for breaking codes, this approach is indeed very effective. It takes time for an enemy to eavesdrop and attempt to break codes, and the current method is to exploit this time difference by constantly changing the password and key.

Li Che didn't bother explaining anything to the people below, which was something his grandfather had taught him—many things don't need to be explained so clearly. However, this made things difficult for the radio operators below.

However, this method is not a long-term solution. The number of backup passwords and keys left by the Ming Dynasty is ultimately limited. If they are replaced at the current rate, then in just over two months, all the backup passwords and keys will be used up.

Although the crucial Battle of Wonsan should have ended by then, the battles between the two sides at sea over escorting and disrupting commerce will intensify, and the security of codes will likely become a cornerstone that influences the course of the war.

Watching the telegraph operators diligently writing, Li Che racked his brains trying to figure out how to "reduce their workload." Unfortunately, in this other world, he didn't know much about cryptography either. Expecting him to create an efficient and secure cryptographic system was like expecting an ordinary math major to do it. His knowledge of cryptography was probably limited to knowing the story of Enigma during World War II.

Ok?

Enigma?

This thing seems to have been invented last year, right? At least that's how it is in another timeline.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Secrecy Guarantees Victory (2)

Li Che recalled the principle of the Enigma machine, but to his shame, he could only vaguely remember that it was encrypted by several rotors. It seemed that there were only two rotors in the earliest version, but later, by adding rotors, the cryptographic diversity of the entire machine could be pushed to a point that could not be calculated by simple exhaustive methods.

Unfortunately, in that other world, besides gaining a lot of knowledge from it, he did spend some of his energy on things that weren't necessarily useful—like becoming a slave for a Russian game.

Therefore, given his understanding of Enigma, it's impossible for him to instruct those around him to build one; otherwise, he could have written a thousand or two thousand words on the subject.

However, he did remember that the earliest prototype of Enigma appeared at the end of World War I, but unfortunately he also did not remember who invented Enigma. Therefore, although Li Che specially sent people to investigate, given the distance between the Ming Empire and Letania, and the fact that Letania was in a more chaotic situation than its old friend in the east after its defeat, it was obviously unrealistic to obtain the early prototype of Enigma in a short period of time.

To completely conceal the true operational intentions from the Federation's eyes, simply frequently changing the current codebook and keys is not enough.

Fortunately, although Li Che did not fully understand the principles of the Enigma machine from the other world, he had many other experiences that he could draw upon at the moment—secrecy is never just a passive thing.

Keeping secrets is crucial for winning a battle, but sometimes leaking secrets can also ensure victory.

At the dock at the mouth of the Yangtze River, a group of six large torpedo boats and four old destroyers, all preparing to head north, were undergoing final checks before their departure.

The total tonnage of these six boats and four ships is only 4000 tons. These large torpedo boats were commissioned in 05, with a tonnage of only 300 tons, a speed of 27 knots, and three 50mm guns and three rotating 500mm torpedo tubes. The four destroyers were commissioned in 906, with a tonnage of only 570 tons, and are equipped with two 88mm guns and the same three 500mm rotating torpedo tubes.

These early destroyers and large ocean-going torpedo boats, with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons, were basically products of the late pre-dreadnought era. The update speed of light warships was much faster than that of capital ships. Generally speaking, after 8 to 10 years of service, capital ships could no longer be considered front-line combat ships, and at this time, there was a need for a successor model to replace them. In this era, the update frequency of light combat ships would be compressed to about 5 years.

In fact, within about 10 years, the tonnage of destroyers had generally increased to the thousand-ton class. By the end of the war, the tonnage of the new generation of destroyers in service with various countries was almost 2000 tons. In the face of these newer, stronger, faster and larger successors, these old, small and slow early technological martyrs had already had little opportunity or stage to play their part.

But now they have been regrouped and, after emergency maintenance of their propulsion systems, these torpedo boats and destroyers will continue to maintain their weapons and equipment en route as they sail north.

These old objects, with their mottled paint and weathered appearance, clearly show the marks of time. From the corners and even the rusted cannons, to the torpedo tubes that have been coated with layers of paint and cracked by the wind and waves, you can see the same profound sense of history that you would only see in the Russian Navy in the 21st century.

After all, these ships were originally warships that were almost ready to be decommissioned and scrapped. Now these old ships have actually gotten the opportunity to fight on the battlefield with their younger counterparts. However, most of the sailors on these old ships still look somewhat immature.

Most of them were excitedly cleaning the rust off the surface of the warships, or using paint to coat the conning towers and cannons with a layer of dark gray and light gray camouflage. However, compared to these young people, there were always some officers with beards who looked much older on these warships, either silently smoking or simply leaning against the railings without saying a word.

Most of these officers were veterans who had been re-enlisted after their military service. Some of them had even served on the Central Armored Fortress ironclad warship. Now, they were leading a group of young men who had just graduated from military academy into battle.

When Li Che passed by the dock today, he noticed the warships that were about to depart. Some of the young sailors even waved to him while he was sitting in the car. Li Che believed that the sailors probably did not know his specific identity. They were just greeting everyone they met with enthusiasm.

Their final destination will be Weihai and Qingdao in the north.

There, hundreds of torpedo boats and dozens of destroyers will also be assembled. Their mission is to launch the first attack on Busan, and the ultimate goal of all this is to attract the attention of the Federation.

After all, the ongoing land-based torpedo boat program requires the transport of more than 200 torpedo boats to Vladivostok. This, combined with the torpedo boats that Vladivostok already has, will bring the total to 300. It would be impossible to keep such a large-scale troop movement and concentration completely secret at that time, and the Federation would definitely be able to get some information from it.

Therefore, on the surface, Li Che decided to give the Federation a "comprehending explanation": Where did I concentrate so many torpedo boats? Of course, it was to prepare to cut off the Tsushima Strait and sever the shortest sea route between the Silla Peninsula and the Yingzhou Islands.

Logically, this is quite reasonable. After all, besides the nearly 10 Federation troops surrounded in the Wonsan area, the United States Army, which had retreated after the Battle of Pyongyang in the south, would need the sea route from Busan to Yeongju to either rebuild its forces and push back or abandon the Silla Peninsula and retreat to Yeongju.

As long as the Ming army cuts off this sea route, it will be disadvantageous to the Commonwealth people no matter how the war develops.