Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 644: You must be qualified on the battlefield!
Guo Kang and his crew did not have any large weapons on their ship. They did not even bring the two cannons down with them because they were difficult to hoist and install. They had not received any special training on how to land, so they could only ask everyone to get off the ship as quickly as possible and then line up on shore.

However, the army of that time also had no anti-landing training. The biggest obstacle they faced was a few Mamluks commanding the infantry to reach the beach and start shooting arrows. But there were many shelters on the ship, and the soldiers' armor was much better than that of the enemy. The Henan soldiers in front used the wood on both sides of the bow and the hanging shields to start shooting at the Egyptians.

The enemy's ability to withstand the attack seemed much worse. After several of them were shot down, the Egyptian infantry began to retreat one after another, refusing to obey even when the Mamluk whipped them.

The Mamluk officers' determination did not seem to be firm. Perhaps they realized that they could not stand their ground, so they just gave up and let them retreat to the high ground on the shore before reorganizing themselves.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Guo Kang quickly asked everyone to get off the boat and go ashore.

The coast here was probably formed by the alluvial deposits of a large river, so it was relatively flat. But there were still some obstacles on the shore. The bottom of the boat slid over the gravel, making a teeth-grinding sound, and then got stuck on a reef. No matter how hard everyone rowed, it would not move.

Fortunately, the water was not very deep here. Captain Lucas took a paddle, tested the water depth, and urged the soldiers to get off the boat. Everyone jumped over the side of the boat, jumped into the water, and then tried to walk to the shore.

The new recruits from Ross had just started armor training and were not very familiar with it. They had never practiced wading before. Most of them could still move, but some were still unstable and some even slipped as soon as they got down. Some of them were still carrying bows and arrows, and they dared not get wet, so they could only walk with their hands raised above their heads, looking like Frenchmen...

However, the enemy had been driven away by the vanguard, and retreated faster than they expected, running far away in a blink of an eye. Therefore, no one came to stop them. In this way, they were able to land smoothly and spent a few minutes to simply form a formation.

At the same time, several other hundred-man teams also landed nearby. Guo Kang saw that Li Xuanying was still leading a horse, followed by several riders. After seeing him, he greeted him and left quickly.

Their centurions were made up of servants from various families. They came from a variety of sources and had not undergone any training, but their quality was definitely much higher. Just looking at their equipment, they were more stylish than the veterans from Henan. Moreover, they brought a large number of horses and ships specifically for transporting horses. With the cover of several infantry centurions here, they had already moored the ship and led the horses down.

At this time, the legion raised the flag again and ordered Guo Kang and his men to continue advancing.

In the army, there are many ways to command, and Guo Kang had learned this before. The Purple Tent Army is very Central Plains in this regard, with three systems: flags, musical instruments, and messengers. Compared with European armies, even the visual effects are different - from a distance, you can see that their flags are densely packed, with one for every few people, and the colors and shapes are different. There are large and small, colorful ones, and they don't look majestic, but rather messy. There are also many kinds of musical instruments in the team, also of different specifications and types. Combined with those flags, it looks like a troupe.

However, these flags and musical instruments are directly related to the level of training. The more well-trained the team is, the more flags they have, and even every centurion has a pendant. Guo Kang's Ross recruits only have a flag of a hundred men and a drummer - because they have such a short training time, they are lucky to be able to stand in a team, and they can't recognize the meaning of flags at all levels, nor can they distinguish the requirements of different musical instruments. They can only follow the flags and drums... So, it looks like they are the most orderly.

Of course, even if flags and drums are specially designed and practiced, the meaning they can express is limited. In many cases, messengers are still needed to bring specific orders. But messengers are not fast enough, and the situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, so they may not be able to catch up. Therefore, junior officers must make their own judgments.

Now, Guo Kang had to decide how to execute this brief instruction based on the current situation. He quickly raised the flag and called all the centurions over.

"All the infantrymen who have disembarked, move forward." He looked at the terrain and said to Captain Lucas who had been standing beside him, "There is a sandbar over there. Captain Lu, take your 300th team over there, lean against that river branch, form a formation, and then wait. The Mamluk cavalry probably won't pass that place, but there are too many enemy infantrymen. You hold that place to prevent anyone from going around there. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" Captain Lucas nodded. "My troops will guard the sandbar and the river branch area, from the river to the path, and do our best to prevent the enemy from passing through."

"No problem - you're better at summarizing than me..." Guo Kang muttered, "Let's go."

"Yes!" Captain Lucas responded again, and without saying anything more, he left with his subordinates.

"Captain Wang!" Guo Kang turned around and shouted.

"Here!" Wang Hongru, the grandson of Prime Minister Wang and an old acquaintance of Guo Po Nu, immediately trotted over.

"Take your 200-man team and move forward along that path. Do you see the bend?" Guo Kang learned it right away and began to imitate Captain Lucas, using markers to more accurately determine the location: "I will assign the 400-man team to you as well. Have the other captains follow you and go to the bend to set up defenses."

"They are all new soldiers, and the terrain over there is too flat. I don't know if they can withstand the enemy's charge. So, let them dig trenches first." Guo Kang urged: "You cover them first, and when they have deployed their defenses, let them guard the ground, and you go and try to attack the high ground. Don't force yourself, if it's difficult, just defend first and wait for us to arrive."

"It's okay, big brother." Wang Hongru patted his chest and said, "You mean, you want to drive those people away? Don't worry, my brothers can fight very well. But that hill is a bit far away. If the fourth team is deployed at the bend of the road, it can't actually cover us. It's better to let them move forward a little bit, at... oh, that big rock."

"Eh? Not far, right?" Guo Kang was a little surprised. "The foot of the mound is about fifty steps away from the bend in the road."

"No, the terrain here is low, so it looks very close, but it's actually farther away." Wang Hongru shook his head: "When my father and I go hunting, we often encounter this kind of scene. It looks close, but it will take a lot of effort to run over. Look at the people on the mountain-" He pointed: "It's probably about 150 steps further."

"Is that so?" Although Guo Kang was often asked to learn the ability to lead troops in battle, his experience in on-site command was at most taking part in drills. He had never paid attention to such details before. After thinking about it, he probably thought that the assistant arranged by his family had done it for him silently. After Wang Hongru said this, he realized it.

"Then we won't attack. It's too far. We have limited manpower and can't stretch that far." He changed his mind decisively: "You just stay outside the enemy's arrow range and defend with the fourth team. It's best to stay on their left, keep an eye on the enemy, and see if those people on the hilltop make any moves." "Okay, big brother!" Wang Hongru nodded immediately and turned to leave. The fourth team's other captains also followed behind and left.

"Don't call him big brother in the army. Call him captain." Guo Kang corrected quickly.

"Okay, Captain...Captain!" Wang Hongru shouted again while turning back and jogging.

"..."

Guo Kang had no time to care about him and started shouting again: "Captain Li! Captain Li! Hey? Where is the captain of the sixth team? Where is Li Xuanying? I saw him just now, where did he go?"

"Report to big brother, Brother Xuanying has gone to investigate!" Before he finished speaking, his cousin Guo Xianliang stepped forward and said, "I am in charge now. Big brother, just give me your instructions."

"Don't call me big brother in the army. Call me captain!" Guo Kang had to repeat: "Hey, you guys are really... Then don't wait for him. You take the sixth team and go to the left wing."

He pointed to the wide beach on the left and the large and small ships that were landing there. "The third battalion next door will line up on our left, but I don't know exactly where they are going to advance to. Your team is full of veterans, so I'll give you a heavier task. I'll give you the 500th Squadron and the Auxiliary Squadron. From the small hill where the enemy is stationed to the flank of the third battalion, you will deploy your own defenses according to the situation. Can you do it?"

"No problem!" Guo Xianliang also answered confidently: "Brother, you can keep the auxiliary troops yourself. We don't need so many people. Moreover, their training level is too poor. If I let them take charge of a section, I'm afraid they will miss people and expose our flank. If I don't let them take charge, it's useless to put them in the back. It's better to keep them here and help you move things."

"...Okay." Guo Kang didn't waste any time and nodded directly: "Then let's do it, go ahead."

"yes, Sir!"

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"I've already said it..." Guo Kang was speechless, but Guo Xianliang ran faster than the fat boy Wang Hongru and disappeared in a flash. Guo Kang had no choice but to hold back his words and wait until next time.

Guo Kang's subordinates, the third, fourth, and fifth centurions, were all composed of Ross's new recruits. However, in the third squad, there was a group of veterans led by Captain Lucas. They were previously auxiliary troops on the northwest front and were recommended by Guo Kang's cousin Guo Zhaowen. So although they had not served in the regular army for a long time and were "new recruits" on paper, they were actually very experienced.

As early as when Prime Minister Guo was in office, the Purple Tent Khanate had learned from the lessons of the ancient times and summed up a set of experience on how to attract talents. Unlike the Central Plains, here, "Romans" is actually an onion-like concept. If you break it down, the Romans actually have various different origins, some newer, some older. But if you keep digging deeper, you will find that this onion does not actually have a fixed core - even when Rome was founded, it was a large group of Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans of unknown origin.

The situation is still similar today. Greeks, Serbs, Romanians, Armenians and various Slavs can all be "orthodox" Romans in theory, so much so that no one can be sure what the Roman language is. Therefore, it is impossible not to accept outsiders.

Prime Minister Guo believed that the problem of ancient Rome was not because of the absorption of barbarians, but because of the way of absorption. The Romans at that time were not very good compared with civilizations such as Greece and Egypt. Like the Qin State, their cultural level was very average, and they were even regarded as half barbarians.

Therefore, the Romans needed to learn a lot from other people's culture, and they did not do as well as the Qin Dynasty: in the process of digestion, they also absorbed a lot of dross, and they never cleaned it up. The ancients said, "Liao was destroyed by Buddhism, and Jin was destroyed by Confucianism", which is the symptom of this kind of hard learning but not learning well. Rome also learned from the Greeks and Persians in this way.

The result is that regardless of nationality or language, the more Roman people are, the weaker and more decadent they become, and they stay away from the army and war; those who are not Roman enough become the backbone of the army. The problem is not even that the barbarians serve as soldiers, but that among the barbarian military leaders, those who are more Roman cannot beat those who are not Roman enough. If this continues, won't it be a sure thing?

Moreover, the Romans were not good at politics, and they particularly liked to deal with barbarian chieftains and nobles, bribe them or even curry favor with them, and get their entire tribe to come to fight. These barbarian nobles were already powerful, so of course they would prioritize developing themselves rather than serving Rome.

On the contrary, those who have no noble status, no vested interests in the barbarians, and are even oppressed by other barbarians are the most loyal. Because everything they have is given by Rome, if Rome makes a profit, they can get a huge room for advancement; if Rome's interests are damaged, the value of what they can give will also depreciate. Only such people are reliable.

Therefore, from then on, the Khanate consciously linked the Roman spirit with the martial spirit, and denounced the frivolous culture and the tradition of loving idle talk and debate. When recruiting talents, they also particularly like to select capable people from the lower classes of society. Captain Lucas and his gang are almost all bankrupt knights and homeless mercenaries.

In Europe, their future was very limited; but in Rome, they could become generals or ministers. This participation in the war gave them a chance to become officers, so they were naturally very enthusiastic. The combat effectiveness of this century was greatly improved. And because there were many experienced non-commissioned officers, they performed well in previous exercises.

However, the fourth and fifth teams did not have so many backbones. So although they were trained similarly, they were relatively weaker. Guo Kang did not dare to let them take charge on their own, so he had to find the veteran team to lead them.

As for the auxiliary soldiers, they were actually Ross's new recruits. However, they came late and did not catch up with the extra training that Guo Kang specially arranged for people to do around the New Year, so they did not squeeze into the regular army.

This group of people was the largest, and it was impossible to bring all of them. But they were too enthusiastic, so Guo Kang had to have people carefully select them, and finally found a hundred people who looked very talented. Anyway, the team really needed helpers, so instead of hiring those who might not be reliable, it was better to bring them along. Just like that, they were also included.

But since Guo Xianliang clearly said no, Guo Kang thought it was okay. He asked the first team to stay as a reserve, and asked the auxiliary soldiers who got off the boat to help and quickly transport heavy objects such as cannons. Then, he began to observe everywhere, paying some nervous attention to the changes in the surrounding situation.

(End of this chapter)