Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 497: Overstaffed battle group and depleted military department

The subsequent development of events actually exceeded everyone's expectations. In the end, no one could tell clearly what the best thing to do was. What the Ministry of War and the Marshal's Mansion can do is to send out personnel over and over again to inquire about the situation and find out what's going on.

Qie Xue, who stayed behind in the palace, first gave them a formal response, telling them that there would be no military operations here tonight. If someone is using their name, it's absolutely guaranteed to be a fake. The Ministry of War and the Marshal's Mansion can disarm and arrest them. It is also acceptable for fighting to occur during the period and to cause casualties to these people, as long as evidence is left.

But the problem now is that no one knows who the enemy is and what he wants to do. It would be easier to handle if we could find out who those people were and what their crimes were. However, Qie Xue obviously did not know the situation, or was unable to characterize it on his own, so the progress of the matter could only be stuck at this step.

After another half an hour, several other military camps also contacted him.

The teaching group is stationed in the south of the city, close to the city wall. It is the farthest away, but it recovers the fastest. They said they could also see unrest in the city there, but they didn't know what it was. In fact, because of the celebrations a few days ago, they didn't take the commotion in the city seriously at first, and they didn't react until the commotion there got louder and louder.

However, they were stationed in this part of the city and were not many in number and not much armed. Because these days, the most cutting-edge weapons are firearms, and these experimental troops have made a lot of them in the early years. But this thing makes too much noise during drills. Every time it is fired for training, nearby citizens complain to the government every day, which makes both parties extremely annoyed. In the end, they simply moved the main camp outside the city, and everyone was now clean. Currently, those who remain in the city are basically civilian staff who handle various logistics, personnel and other matters.

Therefore, this group of people now has to find a way to protect themselves first, and the few guards dare not send out casually. After receiving the news from the Ministry of War and the Marshal's Mansion, they naturally realized that something had happened and immediately sent people out of the city to contact the battle group command organization outside the city to make preparations. But they also bluntly said that they can only do so much here.

The large force of the teaching regiment is indeed just outside the city, and it also has many heavy-armed troops and firearms troops. However, they are not under the control of the Ministry of War and the Marshal's Mansion. Secondly, they cannot just enter the city with arms, otherwise the problem will be even greater. Although the chaos is getting worse now, the few people in the city dare not abandon the camp and run out to join the main force. The main force outside the city is not determined to rush in directly to save people. The overall situation is even more embarrassing than the Ministry of War. All they can do now is help keep an eye on the situation and keep in touch with everyone.

Several other armies basically have various problems.

The Imperial Wall Chapter that guards the city walls and gates is capable of action, but they keep asking if they are sure that there is a rebellion. If so, it is okay to ask the Marshal's Office to issue a document to urgently recruit them into the city. .

But neither the Ministry of War nor the Marshal's Office could explain the details themselves. Who is rebelling, what are the slogans and demands, how many people have been mobilized, and how they are taking action - no one has a clear idea of ​​these. They were brought in and they didn't even know who to beat. In this case, I don’t know how to explain it.

In this regard, the Ministry of War is also in a mess. Some people have even begun to complain that they usually don't pay enough attention to these problems and just make do with whatever they can. As a result, when things happen now, they don't even have an effective procedure to follow.

Theoretically speaking, it is not impossible for them to deploy troops to quell the chaos. In the current military system of the Purple Horde Khanate, the standing field army is indeed under the control of the Marshal's Office, including parts inside and outside the city, such as Basil's Hammer and the Wall of the Empire. This system is actually a relic of the early military system. It can be regarded as a shadow left by the powerful marshal's office when half of the country was under his control.

Although, with the development of the times, the imperial system has become increasingly perfect, making many affairs more detailed and professional, resulting in the divestment of many functions that were concurrently handled by marshals in the past. But on the other hand, the professionalization of the military has actually increased the jurisdiction of this department, which can be regarded as strengthening their functions.

The reason for this phenomenon is that maintaining a standing army is not a simple matter - the regression of the barbarians does not mean that everyone will regress. Generally speaking, the command art and armament technology around the world are constantly moving forward. These days, maintaining a combat-effective army is actually more difficult than in the past. These standing armies are all at the level of gold-swallowing beasts.

The most intuitive difference is the number of people.

For example, the "Hammer of Basil" who was at the forefront during the previous victory was nominally a war group, but in fact it was much more than that. Because they are engaged in siege missions, they always store and carry a huge amount of equipment and ammunition, and related work requires a large number of manpower.

Nominally, they have eight centurions of infantry, but in order to complete the offensive mission, these infantry are actually just front-line assault forces.

In other battle groups, a centurion may only carry a relatively portable crossbow to provide longer-range heavy firepower - on the battlefield, this can compress the enemy's action space and provide many advantages in tactical choices. Moreover, this thing is relatively easy to use. The Centurion detaches a few soldiers themselves and recruits a few support staff to perform simple daily maintenance. As for when major repairs are needed, just leave it to the battle group to solve it.

But the centurions of Basil's Hammer did not carry such scorpion-level weapons, but serious ballistas and trebuchets, used to suppress the enemies behind the fortress. With more weapons, the number of personnel required for daily operations must also increase. Some of the maintenance and overhaul functions that were originally the responsibility of the battle group must also be delegated to the centurions.

As weapons became larger and the various functions surrounding the weapons increased, the number of camels needed also increased. Not only are these animals difficult to maintain, they are also far more edible than humans. Therefore, in order to maintain the camel team, another group of professionals must be added...

In this way, it was originally just an upgrade of firepower, but within the army organization, it affected the whole body, causing the size of the entire team to expand rapidly. In this regard, there are only two options: either reduce the proportion of front-line infantry, or increase the size of the entire team to include these people. In fact, everyone generally chooses the latter.

This is also the embarrassment of this era: on the one hand, new ordnance and equipment can indeed improve the overall combat effectiveness of the army; but on the other hand, these fancy equipment do not have the final say on the battlefield. In most battles, there are still Soldiers must be thrown in to fight with swords and guns. Therefore, the households in charge of troop arrangements are often unwilling to reduce the number of front-line infantry.

According to experience, seventy or eighty people is a "just right" level. This has not changed much since the classical era. If there are fewer people, the "resilience" of the Centurion will be significantly reduced, and many tasks will not be carried out.

The ideal centurion of a battle group would consist of about seventy or eighty regular infantrymen, and one third, or twenty or thirty accompanying auxiliary personnel. In fact, due to the development of the times, logistics pressure has only increased. There will only be more logistics personnel than this, not less than this, and some can reach about half.

As for the "Hammer of Bashir", it simply needs to be more than doubled: apart from the dozens of front-line heavy infantry, there must be two or three weapons groups, and each group must include users and maintenance personnel. There were nearly ten more people. There are also grooms, masons who make cannonballs, carpenters and blacksmiths who repair weapons, and various craftsmen and apprentices who help them... A hundred-man team can fit 200 people into it, and it is normal for there to be more support staff than soldiers. Condition.

Ordinary battle groups only have one hundred-man team composed of engineers, but they have five here: one to dig tunnels, one to manage gunpowder, one to be in charge of ballistae, and two to be in charge of various firearms. of. This kind of "Hundred Team" only has the name "Hundred People". In fact, even the organization method is different, it just indicates their level.

For example, the centurion in charge of firearms manages more than a dozen types of weapons, many of which seem strange to others, and only professionals like them can handle them.

Transporting these weapons is also a technical job, and ordinary horse teams may not be able to do it. So they had their own horse teams and transportation and management personnel. After all, they were transporting gunpowder and the like. It was cheaper to catch some Slavs to work as coolies, and it did not occupy the establishment quota. But one day they thought about it and decided to use these unknown black particles to make a living. , then there will be no place to cry. Therefore, in this kind of unit, even the hard work of carrying things must be done by well-established and trained people.

A so-called hundred-man team like this could be as big as a regiment. And with all these siege teams added together, plus the huge regiment-affiliated workshop of their battle group, the number of the entire battle group is maintained at about four to five thousand people all year round, which is comparable to a small legion.

They are not alone. It has long been discovered that the more professional an army is, the more support personnel it needs. Not only the siege regiments, but also the cavalry regiments were all severely overstaffed.

But the problem is that the reason why the standing army is a standing army and can make the Khan's court determined to pay high costs to maintain it for a long time is because they have special positioning and functions, which is impossible without complexity. Things like heavy artillery have to be raised by the whole country, and it is difficult for the war group to maintain it alone. During the war, there were special shogunate agencies to support it, but if it wanted to maintain it for a long time after the war, it would take a lot of effort.

As the backbone of the Purple Horde Army, they need to prepare for a decisive battle between the two countries, so the frequency of large-scale training is also high, and different units also conduct joint training. An exercise of this scale is also extremely demanding and must be organized by specialized people. Therefore, when there is no war, all the central armies maintained by the imperial court are under the unified management of the Marshal's Office.

However, the problem is that the existing system is inevitably a bit rough, and it is not very clear whether many "standing armies" are "standing armies".

The Imperial Wall Chapter guards the gates and walls of the capital city. To say that they are a standing army is true - although their name is ancient, they are actually a very new war group. They were only specially formed after fighting against the Ottoman raids, less than a generation ago.

Therefore, the old regulations at that time only declared that the "defense forces in the city" would not be under the control of the Marshal's Mansion, which was the teaching group and night watchmen that already existed at that time. As for whether the city wall counts as a city, and whether the later formed Empire Wall counts as a garrison, no one has questioned it in the past ten years.

During this period of time, the Imperial Wall Chapter has always been very cautious, so cautious that everyone has habitually ignored them. As a result, to this day, no one can remember whether the Marshal's Mansion can mobilize them to enter the city. Today, they have been pretending not to know. No matter how they ask, they just say that their responsibilities are important and they cannot leave the city gate, but they will not come in.

As for the last army nearby, it is the "Hammer of Basil". However, today the Khan's court held a celebration banquet, and most of the people who entered the city to make a triumphant victory followed the Khan to drink. Now I can't find anyone at all and I don't know what to do.

In the entanglement of laws and regulations, everyone waited for a while. Until finally, someone suddenly broke in.

The visitor was the War Marshal's wife. As soon as she entered the door, she went straight to the office of the Marshal's Mansion. The guards at the door all knew her, and no one stopped her. As a result, after entering, she started making a fuss there.

The atmosphere in the courtyard was already tense. When there was this movement, all the officials from the Marshal's Mansion, big and small, rushed to persuade him. Even the officials from the Ministry of War next door came to join in the fun.

In order to prevent chaos, the Minister of War Kubrat and other senior officials of the Ministry of War mobilized collectively to maintain order. It took a lot of effort to get everyone to settle down.

Now, the war commander and his wife are still arguing about something inside. However, all the officials have roughly understood the situation. According to them, Princess Theodora had returned to the city just now, dispatched Qixue, church guards, and guards from various Zhuguo clans, and was now rushing to the center of the incident because someone informed her that the son of the war commander's family Right there. The madam was so angry, it seemed because of this - she felt that the princess had gone to save people, and the war commander was still lingering here, and he was too careless about his children.

The officials of the Marshal's Mansion have spontaneously begun to gather. When the fire broke out before, everyone had already opened the warehouse and distributed all the long weapons, so there was no need to prepare anything else. As long as they wait for their final decision, they can take action.

The people in the Ministry of War are still doubtful. Several people came to Kubrat and asked him what to do next. Everyone knows that the Warmaster listens to his wife, and he is probably going to take action this time. Now, should we follow, or should we guard this side first?

Kubrat and others thought for a long time, but there was no good solution, and finally made a decision: people without military titles and soldiers to look after the house, high-ranking officials above the rank of doctor and officials with hidden titles will follow the war commander later. In this way, only a dozen people need to be removed, and most of them can still stay to look after the house. Moreover, the highest-ranking officials in the ministry are all here, so they can't say anything more, right?

Therefore, a dozen of them simply waited at the door with weapons in hand to see when they would set off.

(End of this chapter)