Zhong Xiaoxia thought a moment, then said, "If I were the three Sovereigns, before knowing the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's real operational aim, I'd make good use of my own advantages. My advantages are fighting on home ground, rich resources, deep reserves, great numbers of interstellar warships. And I'd find a way, at this moment, to swallow more of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's interstellar warships, to get ready for striking back at the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's universe in future. So I couldn't make all my star systems one iron plate. If they were all one iron plate, the Owl Dragon interstellar legion fleets might very well cut back how many fleets they commit, or even end this military operation outright. So I'd need to make a choice in between. First, some high-value strategic star systems can't be lost; those naturally need more interstellar warships stationed in them. And the rest, star systems of some value but not very important, mustn't be badly damaged, yet they'd need to serve as bait, drawing the Owl Dragon interstellar legion fleets to commit more and more without end. Then, at some moment, deal this part of the Owl Dragon legion fleets a heavy blow at one stroke, or even wipe it out!"
Zhong Xiaoxia set out her thinking in one long string.
Then she looked at Grand Marshal Charlotte across from her somewhat nervously, not knowing whether the other would be satisfied with her answer.
Charlotte said calmly, "Carry on with your work."
"Yes," Zhong Xiaoxia answered without thinking; just as she meant to ask the Grand Marshal what she thought of her answer,
Charlotte had already begun giving her newest orders to the secretary-officers and others beside her.
"Prepare to send the second batch of legion fleets. To the twenty battlefields from eleven to thirty, send one more legion fleet's worth of forces each," Charlotte ordered.
Zhong Xiaoxia heard this order too.
She looked at Grand Marshal Charlotte in some surprise; by the analysis she had just given, this deployment of the Grand Marshal's now was walking straight into the three Sovereigns' trap.
Feeding interstellar legion fleets in bit by bit like this could never achieve any strategic aim.
"Marshal… won't this……" Zhong Xiaoxia could not help asking.
But Charlotte cut her off outright: "Xiaoxia, do you know this phrase: turn the enemy's plan against him."
Zhong Xiaoxia was taken aback, then seemed to understand, and looked at Grand Marshal Charlotte in surprise.
Charlotte went on, "You said it yourself: the Devourer Civilization hasn't shown any real opening yet. So if we want to achieve our original operational aim, naturally we need to find the Devourer Civilization's opening. But what if the enemy has no opening? Then first we turn their plan against them, and let the enemy think we've fallen for it; the enemy will make more moves. With more moves, naturally the chance of an opening appearing rises. And then will be the time for us to truly strike."
The Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's second batch of reinforcements very soon hurried onto the battlefields.
Twenty star-system battlefields, a million interstellar warships committed in all.
With that, the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's interstellar warships sent into the Devourer Civilization's universe came to two and a half million.
The Devourer Civilization's answer to this was very direct.
Close on its heels, the Devourer Civilization added interstellar warships to these twenty star systems too, bringing the garrisons of the twenty star systems to a million interstellar warships each.
At the same time, for the other ten important strategic star systems, though the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's side had sent no more troops,
the three Sovereigns of the Devourer Civilization still sent a million more interstellar warships to each of these ten star systems, bringing each garrison to two million interstellar warships.
At this moment, the Devourer Civilization had committed nearly forty million interstellar warships to the thirty star-system battlefields.
As things looked so far, with the Devourer Civilization deployed like this, these thirty star systems of theirs could be said to have no opening or weakness at all.
But the situation was very deadlocked.
This lasted until the fourth day of the campaign.
The Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire made a new move.
The Rakshasa-Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought · the bridge
Marshal Charlotte stared at the interstellar battlefield before her like a god from heaven.
Then her fingers moved over it without pause as she spoke her orders: "Battlefields eleven, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen and twenty-three: send two more legion fleets each. Battlefields thirteen, eighteen and twenty-six: send three more legion fleets each. Battlefield thirty: send four more legion fleets. The other battlefields keep their numbers and go on fighting."
Under Marshal Charlotte's orders and deployments,
another twenty-three Owl Dragon legion fleets, a million one hundred fifty thousand interstellar warships, were committed to the battlefields of the Devourer Civilization's universe.
That brought the interstellar warships the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire had committed to this campaign to three million six hundred fifty thousand,
sixty percent of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's main interstellar warships in service as publicly known!
And facing this reinforcement by the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire,
the three Sovereigns of the Devourer Civilization did not send their own interstellar warships evenly as before.
Instead, in the nine star systems where the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire had added troops, they added five hundred thousand interstellar warships each, four and a half million interstellar warships moved in all.
With that, the interstellar warships the Devourer Civilization had moved came close to forty-five million.
And judging from the number of interstellar warships the Devourer Civilization had moved now,
it seemed to have reached the limit of the interstellar warships it could move.
The number of the Devourer Civilization's interstellar warships in service was no secret either:
roughly seventy or eighty million.
And mind you, this was the Devourer Civilization's home universe, which meant the Devourer Civilization had to see to the defense of its home ground.
It could surely not move every interstellar warship onto these thirty star-system battlefields.
It would have been one thing had the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire already used all its interstellar warships.
But mind you, there was still the Holy Elf Empire watching like a tiger; the Holy Elf Empire had not yet clearly declared it would join the war,
but the Holy Elf Empire's moves in its own universe all this while had never stopped.
No one knew what medicine the Holy Elf Empire was selling in its gourd.
And in such a case, the Devourer Civilization could surely not leave itself unguarded against the Holy Elf Empire, so it naturally needed to keep some interstellar fleets in hand in reserve.
And those watching this campaign all thought that the Devourer Civilization, short of a matter of life and death, would surely keep at least twenty million interstellar warships in hand.
So everyone also thought the Devourer Civilization would move no more than sixty million interstellar warships in this stage of the fighting.
And having already moved nearly forty-five million interstellar warships, it had only fifteen million interstellar warships left to work with.
Naturally it could not throw everything in; it had to wait for the Owl Dragon interstellar legion fleets' next move.
This lasted until the ninth day of the campaign.
The Rakshasa-Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought · the bridge
"How do things stand now?" From the other side of a video window, Zhao Chen was asking Charlotte how things stood at this moment.
Zhao Chen, who had gone to the Holy Elf Empire for the meeting, had come back by now,
and had naturally joined this campaign at once.
"As things stand, both sides are deadlocked. Neither is willing to show its hand first. Dragging it out will surely be bad for us. A month's time is now nearly a third gone. And in this time there have been some losses on the battlefields too." Charlotte paused and looked at her secretary-officer beside her. "Up to now, what are our losses and the enemy's over these few days?"
The secretary-officer stepped forward at once and answered, "Up to now, we've been fighting the enemy a full eight days, nearly two hundred hours of combat. On average, each day, on each star-system battlefield, we lose three to five thousand interstellar warships and destroy thirty to fifty thousand enemy interstellar warships; the loss ratio generally holds at about ten to one. Up to now we've lost nearly a hundred thousand interstellar warships in all, and fifty thousand interstellar warships have been damaged to varying degrees. A million enemy interstellar warships destroyed. As for how far the combat tasks in each star system have been completed: in the top ten star-system battlefields, apart from some defenses on the enemy's outer positions being destroyed, their actual production and industry haven't been affected. In the other twenty star-system battlefields, at most some basic industrial facilities on the outskirts of the star-system battlefield have been destroyed; nothing has struck to the bone yet. Besides that, of the enemy's thirty star systems, only three star-system star gates have been taken or destroyed by us, all in the bottom ten star-system battlefields; the enemy values its star-system star gates highly. While guarding industry and other key points in the star systems, they're guarding their star gates and star ports with heavy forces too. It's plain the enemy foresaw our intention to destroy star gates and wreck their logistics and resupply."
Eight days, and only a million enemy interstellar warships destroyed.
The intensity of the fighting had not reached what Zhao Chen had imagined.
He looked at Charlotte.
Charlotte, on the contrary, said with a calm expression, "We thought of fighting at this intensity long before. The Devourer Civilization's three Sovereigns are very patient; they never strengthen their defenses with more forces, and keep up their stance of circling with us all along. Apart from defending, they don't counterattack either."
Zhao Chen nodded in understanding.
In truth, a hundred thousand interstellar warships lost was not much against the three and a half million interstellar warships now committed to the battlefields.
"Then what do you mean to do next? You said yourself just now that time waits for no one; we can't drag this out here too long," Zhao Chen said.
Charlotte looked at the interstellar war holo-table. "Rest assured; very soon the real battlefield of this campaign will appear."
Zhao Chen looked at Charlotte as at a player before a board, about to set down her stone.
Very soon, Charlotte struck again.