The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2813, The Empire Shocks Again

The Twelfth Army's defeat can only be described as absurd, and it completely disrupted all of the Galactic Empire's strategic plans!
According to their original plan, the Galactic Empire maintained a force advantage of approximately four times in the Eastern Territory, and should have taken the initiative to attack and contain the forces of the Dawn Kingdom.

Moreover, the Galactic Empire had high hopes for the Eastern Frontier, and they very much hoped that the Eastern Frontier could tie down most of the Dawn Kingdom's logistical support forces, and even most of its mobile fleet.

This will alleviate the pressure on other fronts of the Galactic Empire.

For example, in the northern region, the repeated back-and-forth battles along the Bilblin-Palancy line resulted in heavy losses for the Imperial fleet, and the northern gateway to the core area was in grave danger.

Moreover, in the southern gateway of the core circle, the fortress personally guarded by Darth Vader—the Dron system—is also facing enormous pressure.

With the fall of the industrial core planet Fangduo, the defense system of the Delon system was forced to contract, and the supply lines of Vida's fleet were continuously harassed by the Dawn Kingdom's task force. Because Fangduo was already on the outer edge of the core area, the Dawn Kingdom's stealth special operations ships could now sneak up behind Delon.

It can be said that the Galactic Empire is feeling increasing pressure from both the north and south, so the only chance lies in the eastern territory.

Why the Eastern Border?

A glance at the star map reveals this. The Dawn Kingdom's controlled areas are primarily in the outer and middle star sectors; to reinforce the Eastern Frontier, they would have to traverse almost the entire Milky Way.

Even with a stargate, this is still a transportation line with enormous costs.

After so long of fighting, the Galactic Empire still had some understanding of stargates. At least they knew that stargates were not point-to-point travel in the absolute sense, but rather the opening of a phase channel. In other words, the farther the distance, the longer the travel time would be, and that was unavoidable.

Therefore, even with the use of stargates, it would still take a very long time to travel from Dawn to Losar.

In contrast, the Galactic Empire, which occupies the center of the Milky Way, finds it much easier and cheaper to send reinforcements to any part of its territory.

Therefore, in the eyes of the Imperial Supreme Strategic Command, the Eastern Frontier was a battlefield that combined superior forces and had a huge advantage in logistical support.

What? You're bringing up rebels with me? Didn't you see how they fought the Dawn Kingdom to the point of brain damage on Jabim?

Furthermore, due to the rebels' activities, intelligence between the Kingdom of Dawn and the Galactic Empire was completely transparent. In other words, it was extremely rare for the Galactic Empire to engage in war with the Kingdom of Dawn while maintaining complete transparency!
Therefore, they knew very well that the fleet that the Dawn Kingdom had deployed in the eastern border was not of high quality.

Aside from the five Prophet-class battleships and 30 Typhoon-class battlecruisers, which were equipped with cutting-edge weaponry, there were also 20 Hells Angel-class battleships equipped with the Split Beam, making them relatively advanced. The rest were second-tier warships! Or rather, not quite second-tier, but at least 5 tier.

Therefore, summarizing the overall intelligence, the Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command believed that the Eastern Territory should maintain its offensive, and frankly, they were absolutely right; their judgment was flawless.

According to the Supreme Strategic Command, once the Eastern Frontier can break through and repel the Dawn Kingdom's fleet, it will force the Dawn Kingdom to support this costly war across the entire galaxy.

Moreover, this offensive must be swift! Since the Quaruns took control of Dark, this massive industrial planet has been rapidly integrated into the Dawn Kingdom's war machine. Parmant Port, once the largest shipbuilding center of the Independent Star System Federation, is also recovering. Once both sides are fully integrated, the Dawn Kingdom will find it much easier to sustain the war in the East.

The Galactic Empire's plan to engage in a war of attrition with the Kingdom of Dawn in the East was thus thwarted.

So what's the plan? Launch an attack from the Eastern Frontier, which has the advantage of timing, location, and popular support. First, establish a passage to the planet Jabim and win over Otto-Stratos, since he doesn't seem to have any ill intentions towards the Empire. Then, using Jabim's relatively strong industrial base as a forward base, further threaten the planet Dark.

At the same time, it can also support the Monkalamari rebels, working together from within and without. Even if they cannot take over Dak, they can still cause Dak's industrial capacity to continue to decline.

At this point, they could threaten the planet Losar, where the stargate is located!

What about the planet Losar? There's an opportunity there too!

For some unknown reason, the Kingdom of Dawn sent the Jiwen people there to forcibly occupy the territory of the natives, which led to a fierce conflict between the two sides—a conflict between races over living space that was completely irreconcilable.

Once the Empire begins its campaign on Losar, the native inhabitants will undoubtedly side with the Empire.

What's even more ingenious is that once the Givens fail to establish a foothold on Losar, they will undoubtedly turn to the Kingdom of Dawn for help in stabilizing their position. The Kingdom of Dawn will then have to continue traversing the entire galaxy to provide reinforcements—which is exactly what the Empire wants: to keep the Kingdom of Dawn's forces and resources constantly idling and exhausted in distant star systems.

If they don't reinforce Losar, and the planet falls, the Given people, who risked turning their home planet Yago-Dur into a battlefield and nearly destroyed it in order to defend the northern defenses of the Dawn Kingdom, will be utterly disappointed and there is a high probability that they will leave the Dawn Kingdom.

So, abandoning the God's-eye view and purely from the perspective of the Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command, what is the Eastern Territory like? Were they wrong to force Gideon Tarkin to attack?

Gideon Tarkin's reluctance to take the field is actually understandable.

Even setting aside the Tarkin family's ambitions for the Imperial Twelfth Army, Gideon Tarkin knew the Kingdom of Dawn all too well. He knew that the Kingdom of Dawn's research team was practically superhuman, constantly coming up with new equipment every few days. And every time a new piece of equipment appeared, they would always design a trap based on it, invariably inflicting heavy casualties on the Empire.

Strictly speaking, this defeat in the Eastern Territory was actually a "new equipment trap," and his assessment wasn't wrong. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Dawn was indeed unwilling to linger in the Eastern Territory for too long—Gideon Tarkin's entrenched defenses were putting the Kingdom of Dawn in a difficult position.

Therefore, Gideon Tarkin's strategy cannot be said to be wrong.

So what's wrong?

At the wrong time and in the wrong place, a wrong offensive was launched.

With almost all intelligence on both sides being completely public, General Grievous used the limited intelligence gaps to create this massive defeat for the Galactic Empire in the East!
For a general of his caliber, there's really no need to reveal any major flaws. Even the slightest mistake can be magnified and used to cause a devastating defeat that affects the entire game!
The defeat in the Second Battle of Sarukami completely disrupted the Galactic Empire's plans. They were forced to redeploy their defenses at what they considered their "strongest strategic point," because if the eastern gateway were left wide open, the Kingdom of Dawn, once it resolved its logistical issues, could threaten the Deron system's defenses from another direction!
Darth Vader will be under even more pressure!
Furthermore, if Wilhuff Tarkin's Fourth Army were attacked, it would also affect the construction of the Death Star project he was in charge of! (End of Chapter)