Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 150 Satan has a Lelouch tattoo on his body
Faced with Duke Rupprecht's almost habitual questioning of his strategy, Lelouch calmly considered for a moment:

"Or, we could further exploit the enemy's land and sea conflicts, incite them to become more suspicious of each other, and profit from it? As long as the trick works, we don't have to worry about repeating it, and we should strike while the iron is hot."

We spread rumors that the Romanian front suffered such a crushing defeat because of traitors within the Black Sea Fleet. We claimed that the Black Sea Fleet was riddled with traitors from top to bottom, and that they were all opposed to the Tsar.

Even if there are still loyalists to the Tsar in the navy, they will be forced into a difficult position. Moreover, when Admiral Spee annihilated the Black Sea Fleet, he also captured several enemy escape boats, and their fleet commander, Admiral Eberhardt, was also captured by us.

I checked his resume; his full name is Andre Augusto Eberhardt. As is well known, Eberhardt is a surname in Demand—of course, Eberhardt himself has never lived in Demand; he was born in Sweden and is of German descent.

When the Russo people were building their navy in their early years, their foundation was too weak and their start was too slow, so they absorbed a large number of German-born talents. There was a similar situation in the high command of the Baltic Fleet, for example, Admiral Nikolai Otovich von Essen, who was even more thorough than Admiral Eberhard, with "von" in his name. It is said that he was related to the family of Tsarina Feodorovna, belonging to the Volga-Manian ethnic group.

"If we can incite the Russa leadership to further distrust the Navy and the Germans, we can certainly try to win some people over. Even if we can't win them over, we can at least prevent the truly loyal ones from being given important positions, and the Russa will face even more serious infighting before the war!"

The "Volga Demanians" mentioned by Lelouch are a rather special group in Lusa. They are actually Demanians who were brought to Lusa by intermarriages between feudal emperors throughout history.

The most obvious example is the current Tsar's wife, Feodorovna, whose family is from Demania. Moreover, strictly speaking, the current German Emperor and the Tsar are cousins.

The earliest large-scale Volga Germans were actually the relatives of Catherine the Great's mother who came 150 years ago—don't be fooled by the fact that Catherine the Great was a female Tsar, she was originally an Empress, and her bloodline was Demanian.

Her rise to power was somewhat similar to that of Empress Wu Zetian in the East, but she was even more ruthless. While Wu Zetian at least didn't kill Emperor Gaozong (Li Zhi), Catherine the Great directly murdered her husband, Peter III, to seize the throne. Fearing resistance from her own people, she brought in many of her Demanian relatives to assist in her rule or to form a royal guard.

Over the next 150 years, there were many similar examples. But gradually, the Russa people also began to reject the widespread presence of Germans in their country. To avoid friction, the Tsar organized a migration, gathering the descendants of Dmanian immigrants within the territory to the lower Volga River and the Caspian Sea coast. This later became known as Tsaritsyn to Astrakhan.

This group didn't suffer much during the Tsarist era, as they were the Empress's maternal family. But by the time of the USSR, they were in serious trouble. Once the USSR went to war with Demacia, these people were all confined to camps and forced into hard labor.

The majority of the generals in the Lusa Navy who bear the surname Demania are actually Volga Demanians.

Lelouch felt it was entirely possible to utilize this group before the enemy became suspicious of them—this wasn't framing them, but rather an act of kindness. Because if history were to unfold as it should, these people would inevitably suffer from the suspicion of "those who are not of our kind must have different intentions." Lelouch was simply giving them a heads-up, letting them see the problem a few years earlier.

"Hiss... What exactly are you going to do?" The Duke had another bad feeling. He always felt a little worried whenever Lelouch came up with such a grand narrative.

The Duke is such a contradictory person. He usually hopes Lelouch will offer more advice. But when things get serious, he sometimes hopes Lelouch will hold back a bit and not be too cunning.

Lelouch: "Currently, Admiral Spee's fleet has not yet docked. For the past few days, it has been adrift, carrying out fire support missions on the opposite shore. Therefore, no one knows whether we have rescued the Black Sea Fleet officers who fell into the water, nor is there any evidence."

All I need is your authorization to dispose of the prisoners. If they're too stubborn and uncooperative, we'll just pretend we never retrieved them in the first place—don't worry, I won't drown them, I'll just send them back to where they were and give them their lifeboats so they can row back to Sevastopol themselves.”

The Duke sighed: "Don't go too far."

……

The siege of Odessa began in earnest the following day.

The Demacian army launched a fierce barrage of fire against the French defenses outside the city, with cannons roaring overhead. The fleet at sea also continued to fire intermittently at the French lines, completely dismantling the fortified positions.

General Evert, commander of the Romanian Front, did not expect to fight a desperate urban battle, but instead set up his defenses in the suburbs outside the city and dug trenches layer by layer.

Perhaps he also knew that Odessa was the largest commercial port on the Black Sea coast, a city teeming with civilians, merchants, and wealth, and he didn't want a direct, mutually destructive conflict. It would be best if the problem could be resolved by soldiers in the suburbs.

This kind of bloody, head-on carnage wasn't Lelouch's forte, so he had already returned to the "Goben" via a light warship.

When General Spee saw him return, he greeted him warmly and couldn't help but tease him: "You're always the busiest one, giving pointers on the army, navy, and air force. You were only gone for three days, and the main force of the army has advanced from the city of Alziz to the outskirts of Odessa, advancing 80 kilometers in three days. What a feat! — By the way, how many enemies did you kill?"

Admiral Spee is from the Navy and not very familiar with the situation on land, so I hadn't asked him beforehand.

"12, I guess." Lelouch yawned, looking utterly exhausted and listless.

General Spee was taken aback: "12 is not enough to get you excited. I'm starting to believe that you really did kill a total of 170 million enemies during the Hungarian campaign."

Lelouch: "Actually, it wasn't that many. In Hungary, if you don't count the militia, it was at most 130 million. But let's not get into that. The Duke wants me to interrogate General Eberhard, as well as other captured key generals and officers—is it alright to hand them over to me?"

General Spee was a pure soldier who had no interest in politics or anything outside the battlefield.

So when he heard this request, he instinctively asked, "You won't use violence to coerce me, will you?"

Lelouch: "I only ever win people's hearts, I don't use those crude methods."

General Spee nodded, then had a guard lead him to a quiet cabin. A short while later, the captured General Eberhard was also brought in.

During the days that Eberhard was captured, he had not met with the high command of the Demacian fleet, so he did not recognize Spee and General Sushun, who had sunk him.

He was somewhat resentful when he saw that the person interrogating him was an incredibly young colonel.

Lelouch didn't care about these details and cut to the chase, immediately seeing through the other person's thoughts: "Do you think I'm too young to interrogate you?"

Eberhart did not answer.

Lelouch stood up, casually strolled a couple of steps, flicked a cigar over, and placed a lighter on the table, twirling it as he pushed it towards the table. He muttered dismissively to himself:

"I could have guessed it without you saying it. I've seen this kind of scene many times. When I captured Marshal John French, the commander-in-chief of the Britannian Expeditionary Force, half a year ago, he was just as unruly. What's a mere general?"

Eberhardt's pupils then contracted and dilated sharply a few times: "You're Lelouch von Hunt? Marshal French was also killed by your schemes?!"

Lelouch gave a very menacing grin:
"That was just one of my most respectable achievements in my life—if you're interested, I can also tell you how General Yudovich, the former commander of the Southwestern Front, died, how the country of Serbia was destroyed, and what kind of scheme Marshal Putnik, the commander-in-chief of the Serbian army, fell into to his death—and you, who are you to compare yourself to!"

Even though Eberhardt held the rank of general and was the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, he felt so powerless in front of this enemy colonel. He broke out in a cold sweat for no reason, and his spirit was completely suppressed.

Lelouch immediately pressed his advantage: "Want to know why my Demanian army was able to fight its way from the Romanian border all the way to Odessa and reclaim the entire Bessarabia region so quickly?"

Our army launched its offensive on July 29th, and now it's August 6th, which is only about a week. Within a week, we recovered the entire land between the Romanian border and the Dniester River (which is larger than the current territory of Moldova), and also launched a siege of Odessa.

Could a normal human army commander possibly achieve this speed? If the Lusha army hadn't completely collapsed, would three corps totaling nearly 200,000 men have crumbled in just a few days? You can look at these two photos; they are of the two corps commanders of your 6th Army. I believe you've seen them before.

Of the three armies originally deployed on the Romanian border that were defeated by the Demanian army that day, only one commander, Denikin, escaped on horseback with his cavalry. The other two commanders, who are not worthy of being recorded in history, were unfortunately captured.

Lelouch was very good at propaganda, so he would take photos after every major victory, just in case they came in handy for psychological warfare later. When von Bock brought the man back, Lelouch immediately had the photos taken and developed.

General Eberhardt knew all the army generals stationed in Odessa; they'd at least become acquainted at parties during peacetime. So, after just a glance at the photo, he admitted that the other side hadn't arrested the wrong person. "We were able to break the morale of the border guards so quickly because they believed many in the navy had betrayed their country! They gave us the Black Sea minefield map, which allowed our warships to bypass the danger zone, take the safe route to land at the mouth of the Dniester River, and then directly approach Odessa to bombard it!"

But actually, I have another way of doing this. It's just that those Lussa people won't understand for at least a few months. They'll just be led astray, blaming everything on the navy to deflect responsibility for the army's defeat—especially on a general like you with a Demanian surname!

Do you think that just because you immigrated to Lusa, the people of Lusa will genuinely trust you? There's an old saying in the East: "Those who are not of our kind will surely have different hearts." Lusa still has a Tsar; can you really expect to maintain your dignity through connections with the upper echelons?

But in this war, I'm not saying Lusa will definitely perish, but at least the Tsar will definitely perish! If Lusa survives, in the future, it will be the righteous people who are dissatisfied with the Tsar who will kill her, and then representatives supported by the people will come to negotiate with Demacia!
Once Lusha becomes a new nation united not by a monarch, but by national consciousness, you who bear the Demanian name will surely meet a terrible end!

Lelouch's attack at this moment is seven or eight parts like the humiliation tactics used by people in the East after capturing the traitor Gao Hua, but the details are slightly different.

Those who don't understand this principle only need to consider the stereotypes about Asian Americans in the U.S. in later generations. This is a kind of "convert effect," where those in the U.S. high-ranking positions who are most eager to prove their loyalty to the U.S. are often those of Asian descent.

Admiral Eberhardt, within the Lusa Navy, was always "eager to prove to his Lusa masters that he was more ruthless towards Demania than the Lusa people themselves."

However, these two are different.

The U.S. can, after all, portray itself as a nation without ethnicities, a melting pot, a characteristic that can deceive many converts. It often takes a long time for these converts to realize that the U.S. does actually have its own ethnic groups, and those from other ethnic backgrounds who convert will still encounter a "glass ceiling" in their careers.

Lusa cannot claim to be a nation without ethnicity. The reason the people of Lusa are currently tolerant of converts from other ethnic groups is because Lusa is still a backward nation with a strong traditional aristocratic political atmosphere. In a country where the monarch wields great power, anyone can be promoted; ethnicity is less important.

But once Russa is defeated, and the Tsar's aristocratic politics transforms into a future nation-state, the Demanians within its borders will certainly not fare well.

By then, even if one wanted to become a convert, it would be impossible—

This wasn't something Lelouch made up; he was simply describing in advance what would happen on Earth in about twenty years, which is why his deductions were so detailed and realistic.

General Eberhardt was indeed slightly sweating from what he was being told.

These Volgamanians were not entirely the same as the later Ugly Kingdom of Gaohua. They did not object to their bloodline and could be reasoned with to some extent.

If Lelouch were to scare him by saying that Demania could completely destroy Lusa because Lusa was being beaten so badly, Eberhard would definitely not believe it—could the current state of misery be as bad as the Napoleonic era a hundred years ago?

The Demacians now have just as many enemies as they did during the Napoleonic era.

But Lelouch was very realistic; he didn't say he could destroy Rusa, but only that he could kill the Tsar and end aristocratic politics. This possibility deeply shook Eberhard.

The Demacians have won too many battles on the Eastern Front, and now they have mine-clearing technology at their disposal, which could allow them to time their attacks and completely annihilate the Russa Navy.

Just as Eberhardt was imagining this, Lelouch pressed on, saying:

"I know you have great confidence in Rosa's depth and resilience, but what if we just want to destroy Rosa's navy, then completely blockade Rosa's foreign trade, or even occupy Rosa's southern grain-producing areas and wage a protracted war, waiting for it to self-destruct? If we go that far, do you think the Tsar will still have a chance to live? It was the Tsar who first turned this war from a bilateral war into a multilateral war!"

"Stop talking!" General Eberhart was trembling all over. He felt that the young man in front of him was a devil who had returned from the abyss of hell. He gasped for breath and said with difficulty, "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to confess, or..."

Lelouch: "Let's start with a small pledge of allegiance—you can give us all the minefield deployment maps of the Black Sea Fleet, so we know the safe routes to Nikolaev, Yevpatoria, Sevastopol, and the Kerch Strait."

Once you hand this over to us, we can trust you. We can discuss the rest later. Don't try to pull any tricks or hold back, because we have technical means you can't understand to clear these mines.

Providing the blueprints now only saves us ten to fifteen days, allowing our subsequent actions to be more unpredictable. Even if you don't provide them, we can handle it gradually.

Eberhart swallowed hard, wanting to test the waters further: "What if I don't?"

Lelouch shrugged nonchalantly: "That's no big deal. But when the time comes, I'll find out that Commander Evert of the Romanian Front is the one who secretly defected to us, you Demanian. You'll be disgraced, and your relatives and people in Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan will be purged."

If you really surrender to us, the higher-ups at Lusa won't know you've surrendered. Instead, they'll think it's someone else who's actually stubbornly refusing to surrender to us who has—because we possess a secret weapon that the Tsar can't comprehend for quickly clearing mines.

Given the Tsar's imagination, he would surely find a traitor to take the blame. If you truly betrayed him, you wouldn't have to take the blame; if you didn't, I would make you take the blame instead.

I'm not afraid to tell you, last year in Ostend, I used this very tactic—a few words—to get two of the last three divisions of the Billy King Army to defect. In the end, the two surviving division commanders shifted the blame for the King's historical crime of demanding the destruction of the Isère Canal dike and the flooding of his own people onto the division commander who hadn't sided with us.

"I have plenty of ways to not only wipe out someone's entire family, but also ruin their reputation after death! I'm giving you this chance because you're also a Demanian. If you don't know what's good for you, I'm sure there are subordinates in the fleet who don't get along with you. They might get there first, and you'll have no chance. You'll be condemned in future history books, and your death will be in vain!"

This last sentence completely shattered General Eberhart's psychological defenses.

This is the most terrifying "verifiable record" in history—Lelouch really did manage to force the last few divisions of the Billy Kings to surrender with just a few words more than half a year ago.

With just a few words, he delivered the final blow that annihilated the entire Billy King Army!

A single tongue can be worth ten thousand soldiers!

Eberhardt also read newspapers and international news. He knew that Billy King's newly revised history book had now placed the historical blame for "the breaching of the Isel Canal and the flooding of their own people" on Lieutenant General Begham, who had refused to cooperate with the Demanians at the time!

This was countless times more severe than a typical prisoner's dilemma. Coupled with the numerous issues of "those who are not of our kind after the fall of the Tsar," the combined effect of these multiple factors finally caused Eberhardt to completely break down.

"I...I'm willing to cooperate with you, but I don't have the overall minefield deployment map, and I won't carry those things with me all the time. Besides, when my warship sank, even if it had the map, it would have sunk with it."

Lelouch: "That's not important! As long as you cooperate, we can get the sea chart after we enter the city. You can verbally describe some of the mine-laying information we need right now. Don't try to pull any tricks; I have the technical means to verify it."

Then, give me another name, preferably one from the Lusha clan. We'll subtly imply through other channels that he's the traitor, making him take the blame and ruin his reputation. You can rest assured that even if the truth comes out in the future, you won't be held responsible.

Even if you formally pledge allegiance to Demacia years later, history books will not say that you were a traitor who acted voluntarily, nor will they reveal the true date of your initial defection. They will only say that you abandoned darkness for light because you saw the Tsar's inability to distinguish between loyalty and treachery, his favoritism towards treacherous officials, and his persecution of loyal subjects.

In other words, I'll wait until those people you push out to take the blame have their entire families and friends killed by the Tsar, and then I will naturally reveal the technical truth about the destruction of the Russo Navy at an appropriate time.

Let the world know that it wasn't those people who betrayed the Tsar; it was only because Demacia possessed new mine-clearing technology that we were able to destroy Lusa's two fleets. This mine-clearing technology can only be kept secret for a short time, not for many years, so I didn't expect to keep this secret forever.

The historical records will not state that your betrayal of Russa occurred before the revelation of the affair, but only after. In other words, future history books will say: the Tsar wronged you first, and you wronged him in return; he was unjust first, and you were unrighteous then. The order of cause and effect will be reversed—of course, all of this is predicated on your obedience to my orders.”

Eberhard thought about it and felt that Lelouch's plan was incredibly feasible.

The treacherous and favored ministers who slandered the Tsar...

Such people are so easy to find; those charlatans like Rasbukin are tailor-made for them.
Once Lelouch's plan is completed, he can simply pin the blame on those guys, and everything will fall perfectly.

(End of this chapter)