Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 639: The Tuotuo Formation of Wu Hou's Eight Formations
Guo Kang didn't know much about the formations in naval battles. He couldn't see what was happening on the front line from where he was. On the ship, he didn't even know what orders to give, so he just looked around.

The situation on the surrounding ships was similar to his. However, ahead of them, the Eighth Legion's troop transport ship had already started to get busy.

When he was in Damietta before, Guo Kang had seen them preparing various equipment, which seemed to be used for siege. At that time, he was still a little confused, because in theory Alexandria was in the hands of friendly forces. But after thinking about it, the enemy should also build fortifications, and there might be some needs at that time. After landing, the Eighth Legion will take the lead in the attack, and will definitely have to consider these issues more.

As for him, he also considered whether to prepare it, but after asking around, he found that it was impossible.

The engineering capabilities of the legion were also developed through years of training. Although the Russians under his command were also farmers and craftsmen, their experience and the construction capabilities required in combat were completely different.

When it comes to engineering work, the most important thing is not even strength, but organization. For example, when setting up camp every day, you need to dig trenches. This is a daily job and does not even require special command. But even for this kind of thing, the Russians can't do it.

It's not that they don't know how to dig. If they were left alone, they would definitely be able to do it. But if there were more people, and they all dug together, they wouldn't be able to dig out the required shape.

Captain Lucas said that this group of people has a "rule of five", which seems to be a habit they developed in the village community: if there are only one or two people, they will check on their progress from time to time, and they will still work. But if there are more people working together, no matter how many people there are in the group, there will always be at most five people working. Others often just watch from the sidelines, or even literally lie down and bask in the sun.

Moreover, whether they were working or lying down, they all took it for granted. Sometimes they would even take turns to ensure that no one was too tired. Even if they were given 20 people to work, only four or five of them would be able to do the job.

As a response, they could only promote some of the hard-working people to manage others, but their management ability was also very limited. In the team, there was a centurion named Dmitri, who had fought bravely during the previous turmoil and worked hard in every training. Captain Lucas thought he was a reliable person, so he let him lead half a century of Ross recruits to do some daily work.

As a result, he found that Deuteronomy Dmitri could only manage five people: he could go out with a large group of people, but when he arrived at the wood pile and started chopping wood, he and the five people next to him were the only ones working. When Deuteronomy Dmitri ran to urge others to start working, the five people who were working would automatically stop and lie down - as a result, no matter how long he ran around and worked, there were only five people working at the same time.

Captain Lucas observed that the previous rules needed to be changed, and those who were responsible and proactive should be promoted. Because the current situation was not even a problem of management ability, but that they had no motivation to do anything and did not know what they were supposed to do. It would only make sense to teach them specific techniques when they had enough people and could work.

This kind of thing can't be rushed. Because many things that Guo Kang thought were common sense were actually new to them. For example, Roman soldiers could dig trenches without any instruction because when they were still children, they often saw their fathers gathering together to dig canals and maintain dams. Organized civil engineering work is a basic skill that people learn from childhood. However, most Russians have never been exposed to work like digging canals, and they really don't know how to dig a straight ditch...

Under such circumstances, it was naturally impossible for them to manufacture and operate machinery. The only countermeasure Guo Kang could think of was to bring more gunpowder. Of course, such high-risk items must not be allowed to be touched by the Russians, otherwise they would be blown away. Therefore, they were always placed on a special ship, and the chief centurion Lu Yougong personally led people to guard it.

The Nile water rushed down from the river mouth, and the offshore wind caused the ships of both sides to move sideways while fighting. As the fleet moved forward, the drumbeats in front became more and more frequent, and the shouts and collisions became louder. On both sides of the ship, wood fragments, corpses and various debris began to appear. After a while, Guo Kang even saw a small half of the ship, slowly sinking and drifting over. It brushed against their cargo ship, made a short friction sound, and drifted away again. It looked like a small rowing boat that was directly broken by the warship in the front row.

The people on the boat heard the collision and visibly tensed up.

"You should give the orders," Joanna whispered to him, "Everyone is getting nervous. We need to give them something to do."

"Hey?" Guo Kang was stunned, and subconsciously turned his head to look at the captain behind him. The captain saw his reaction and turned his head, looking at him blankly. The two of them just stared at each other for a moment.

Their ship had a very high side and a poop deck at the stern. The platform on the roof was the highest point of the entire ship. Guo Kang and Joanna were currently in front of the platform, overlooking the entire deck.

Before, the crew had built a temporary hut on the platform for Guo Kang to live in, as was customary. Although the hut was very flimsy, it even leaked air at night, and the sound insulation was almost non-existent, it was already a treatment only for VIPs in the harsh conditions at sea. However, during the battle, the hut was routinely dismantled to leave space for combat. The unloaded panels were piled up next to it for protection, and could also be kept for emergency use.

Now, in addition to Guo Kang and Joanna, there were several other personal soldiers following them. At the end of the platform, the captain also came to the platform over there to give orders.

Cargo ships of this era did not have such a perfect steering system. Sailors pushed a long pole in the cabin below to control the direction of the rudder. The captain observed from a high place and made adjustments based on instructions. Since there was no vision in the cabin, even after the battle, the captain had to stay at his post to observe the surrounding movements and give orders.

When Joanna said that she needed to give orders, Guo Kang naturally thought that they needed to prepare for a naval battle. Guo Kang knew nothing about this aspect - how the ship should move; at this distance between the two sides, should the soldiers shoot arrows and throw spears, use firearms, or prepare for fighting... He didn't quite understand. Therefore, the captain needed to step up and make professional judgments based on the current naval battle situation, command the ship to move to the appropriate position, and issue corresponding orders as a response.

However, judging from the other party's reaction, the captain obviously didn't quite understand what he needed to say now...

According to Joanna's previous statement, in Italy, it is the captain who commands the soldiers on board, including sailors and marines, in order to achieve the highest efficiency at sea. Therefore, an excellent captain is a valuable management and technical talent, and can be regarded as the essence of the city-state's military force.

However, their ship was actually a civilian ship; the captain and the sailors were not even real Romans who had served in the military, but native Venetians born in the Crimean settlement. The Romans always thought they were outsiders, and the citizens of the mother country always thought they were distant country bumpkins, thinking they were inferior. They actively participated in this action in order to take this opportunity to obtain citizenship treatment and get rid of the current situation where their parents did not love them, so they had never seen such a big battle before. Now, they were still able to stand in the open air and not run away, which was already very courageous. There was really no way to expect him to take on more.

"Then let's follow the army." Guo Kang had no choice but to continue to blame: "See if there are any orders from the flagship?"

"No." The captain looked up and told him, "It's still the same flag as before, telling everyone to keep going."

"I see the Eighth Legion is even more scattered." Guo Kang looked forward again: "Do we need to change our formation, or something?"

"There are no other orders on the flag..." The captain did not comment.

"Uh……"

"We are also the flagships of these ships, sir." Seeing this, the captain reminded: "The other ships should not have received any other orders. If you need, we can also convey instructions to them."

Guo Kang then remembered that, logically, he should not only command this one ship, but also the entire fleet, with more than a dozen ships of various types, all of which he had to manage...

"I see that the advance is getting slower and slower." He looked forward again for a while, thought for a while, and said, "I guess there are too many enemies. We can't break through the enemy formation at once. By the way, what is the formation of our brigade now?"

The captain turned around, looked at the large and small ships following behind, hesitated, and told him: "We are a circular formation, sir!"

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"Oh……"

Guo Kang also knew that the term "circle formation" was a euphemism. This state was obviously not the "circle formation" in Wu Hou's Eight Formations or Li Wei Gong's Six Formations. Because to put it bluntly, their current formation was just "a heap". Even if he didn't know how to fight a naval battle, he felt that this was not going to work.

"We need to organize our formation." He thought for a moment and said, "Everyone, spread out and form a horizontal line."

"No, our ships are too inflexible." Joanna objected rarely. "Even if we line up, we can't maintain it. The horizontal formation is used by their galleys when preparing for an attack. We are not ramming ships, so there is no point in maintaining the horizontal formation."

"Then let's draw a vertical line?" Guo Kang changed the topic.

"The vertical lines are meaningless, and they will make the queue too long, and we won't be able to support each other." Joanna shook her head and said, "It's still the same problem. Our ships are too stupid. When the ship in front encounters a threat, it will take a while for the ship behind to catch up. In order to facilitate mutual support, it's better to do it this way now."

"It seems so..." Guo Kang hesitated.

The weapons they had were only those cannons and crossbows, which had a slightly longer range. But there were too few cannons on the ship. If they lined up in a column and reduced the density, the firepower would be very sparse. And if they wanted to bring out the power of bows and muskets, then lining up in a column would leave the ships behind with nothing to do because the distance was too far. It would be better for everyone to huddle together and cover each other.

"Oh, forget it." Guo Kang simply gave up and pointed at Joanna: "You take charge."

"Ah? Me?" Joanna looked very surprised. "I was just helping to pass on the message and at most giving some advice. These are your soldiers. It would be wrong for me to give orders to them, right?"

"Then tell me and I'll pass on the message." Guo Kang said bluntly: "You can see that there are not many people on this ship who know the situation - I guess it's the same in the legion. Others don't know. Our legion commander is my cousin, and he has never fought in a naval battle. We are just a bunch of laymen, just making up the numbers."

"Since you said you would help me, you must help me to the end." He turned around and began to ask Joanna: "I don't know if you have any combat experience before, but at least you are better than us. Okay, now tell me where we should run - I will also raise a flag and report to the legion."

(End of this chapter)