Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 248 The Art of War
For Joanna's question, Guo Kang is actually not very easy to explain.

To be honest, he was not optimistic about the recruits Cao Jianla brought.Among other things, he talked to Joanna for a while, but there was no response from the other side, which meant that it was difficult for these people to march in line, and Cao Jian was probably in serious trouble right now.

However, he was embarrassed to say this.If Theodora was next to him, he might not be able to help complaining that even if these people were taken to Egypt, they could only be used as military labor.But the people here are not that familiar after all, so it’s not good for Cao Jian to hear about it later...

And this sentence is indeed very long.Even for a Serisian, it may not be easy to understand intuitively.

For example, why did the soldiers of the Purple Horde conduct training of this length?
Because according to the custom, legionnaires are mobilized from all over the country, and the requirements are quite strict.

After a male citizen becomes an adult, he will be registered by the local military region according to his household registration, and he will be engaged in non-production militia training every year, mastering the basic method of using weapons and understanding the simple rules of battle formation.Of course, the most important thing is to get used to the discipline and strict rules of collective life that Rome has been advocating.

After another two years, these young people will be engaged in a year of off-the-job training, and then join the local local regiment as a military garrison for a year.Due to the long border of the Purple Horde and enemies everywhere, almost everyone can actually fight a few battles this year.

After this year's garrison is over, ordinary soldiers are eligible to join the regular army.Before being formally enlisted, they have to go through half a year of additional training to ensure that they can have the various skills needed for combat in the army.

After passing the half-year training, he can be regarded as a "legion recruit" who has entered the door, and can serve in the main brigade of each military region for another three years.If there is a major war during the period and a legion needs to be formed, they will be ordered to organize and go out to fight.

This is also why it would be so troublesome for the Cyros people to join the legion. Only Zhu Kingdom would have to go out and open up all the joints to give a special case—because even ordinary citizens would have to work hard to join the legion.Legionnaires really look down on outsiders, but unfortunately, they do have the qualifications and confidence...

In Guo Gai's time, the difference between the legionnaires and the local garrison was not very obvious, because the Purple Horde basically fought defensive wars, and sometimes they took the initiative to attack, and generally everyone fought shoulder to shoulder, so it didn't matter so much.But now that the family background is stronger, it is possible to select people and improve the average quality, so since the establishment of the military region system, it has generally been this way.

Where does this training time come from? There are many theories.However, what Guo Kang believed in was his family's own ancestral statement—Guo Gai and others, but he didn't really understand it at the time.The rule of training for two years was copied directly from ancient history books...

It is said that during the Han Dynasty, the ancients recruited soldiers in this way.After two years of training, he can already serve as a pawn and the main body of the army.Under this model, the Han Dynasty could maintain the ratio of one hundred registered households supporting one soldier for a long time.The farming techniques of the Purple Horde Khanate were more advanced than then, and they were still affordable.

However, as the war intensified, these two-year-trained soldiers were not enough to meet the requirements, so the Han Dynasty later established recruits who served for a longer period of time.But these are not practical for the current situation.

Because in Europe, "training" is a very luxurious thing.For a long time, everyone has not had this concept.

The mercenary leaders usually just randomly recruit some people and stipulate some basic disciplines.All kinds of skills, at most rely on the veterans in the team to teach and teach them by themselves, and there is no unified standard.It was also believed that instead of wasting time and money on training, it would be better to bring recruits directly to the front lines.Anyway, as long as they survive a few games, they will become veterans.This is much easier than training.

Moreover, not only the past and present, but also the future is the same.

About 200 years later, Prince Maurice of the Netherlands formulated a set of drills to standardize the training of soldiers. Since then, the Western European army has unified normative requirements.But the actual effect of this matter is not as great as what later European military scientists said.

First of all, exercise code is not an unfamiliar concept.Not to mention the East, the East Rome next door also had exercises in those days; the Mamluks across the sea also had such things.This is not a new thing in the whole world, and only the Europeans themselves don't understand it, so they make a lot of fuss all day long.

Moreover, the focus of the Code of Operations is only "how soldiers should fight", not "how long and in what way, so that all soldiers can achieve this level."It's not that the latter is unimportant.In fact, Morris and others also had a lot of training skills, and there were also a number of related books at that time.But under the real conditions in Europe at that time, it was impossible to spread them out in a standardized way.

Europeans have long adopted the employment and contracting system, like Prince Maurice's own soldiers, everywhere in the world.In this case, driving them to obey orders and act in a more efficient array and combat method is already very good, and the other requirements cannot be too high.

In actual combat, although the Spanish enemy has been defeated many times, judging from the results, it is more likely to be a political victory and Morris's own command level is playing a role.

His soldiers were obviously inferior to the Spaniards in training. Morris knew this well and carefully avoided a decisive battle with the main army led by a famous Spanish general.However, in his later years, in order to save the important city of Breda, Maurice was forced to face the elite Flanders army.

Even with the support of the British, the two relief operations organized by Morris still ended in disastrous failures.In a hurry, Morris vomited blood and died, and the city of Breda surrendered to Spain more than a month later.

And what about the Spaniards?In fact, they do not have specific training rules.However, Spain has a very clever rotation system.

After recruits join the legion, they will first go to places like Italy and stay for about a year.Local combat is simpler, allowing recruits to familiarize themselves with warfare in an environment with relatively little danger.Wait for a year to abuse food, gain some experience, and then transfer to tricky places like the Netherlands.In this way, relatively reliable soldiers can be continuously provided.

Although it looks very simple, the Spanish army organized in this way was already the ceiling of Europe at that time-even the quality of soldiers was higher than that of the era after them.

Contrary to the traditional impression, since the late Middle Ages, the quality of European soldiers has not improved linearly.After the Spaniards, for a long time, the armies of European countries were closer to the "garbage sea" tactics, relying on the large number of people.In terms of quality and training, it continued to decline.

For example, many people think that infantry in the musket era could not just lie down and hide from bullets.And many officers at the time did think so.Because as long as they get down, the soldiers will not be happy to get up, so don't expect this army to perform normally.

But the Spanish army often uses this method, and there is a record of "kneeling to avoid bullets" more than once, and even so, they can still maintain the queue and stand up to fight again.

In 1634, the Spanish Legion fought against the Swedish army in Nördlingen, and once again used this method to avoid firepower. Finally, when allies were defeated, they reversed the situation and defeated each other.The Swedish army suffered heavy casualties, and the most elite "Yellow Army" was almost wiped out.

——This army is the guard army formed by Gustav, and it is also the most important of these Swedish troops named after their colors.It is roughly equivalent to the annihilation of the Zhenghuang Banner in Sweden, which shows the huge impact.After that, Sweden basically withdrew from the competition.

So let alone the East, even Europe itself is by no means as simple as a simple "linear evolution of different formations".

(End of this chapter)