Youth World

Chapter 9 – Results of the Second Day

"In a battle, if all spearmen are involved, Julius' first line of troops will engage the enemy while Arnold's second line of troops will be held in reserve. However, if Julius requests reinforcements, Arnold's troops will support him. Got it?"

"So what you're saying is that I shouldn't attack and just stay there until Julius is in trouble? But wouldn't using our full force right off the bat be a better strategy?"

"That does work sometimes, usually against numerically superior forces. However, since we're doing so much drilling and training, and our equipment is superior, using only half our troops to lure the enemy in while only sending the other half if they are absolutely needed would make our enemies less tired."

"What about your triple hammock strategy? Could you explain that to us?"

"Yeah, that's a pretty confusing one. It is only used for supreme mobility, when we need an army deployed far away without any horses or wagons. Two men will carry a hammock while the third man lies on the hammock and rests, and when one man is tired, they swap out. This will continue until they have reached the destination. Using this strategy, an army can move at double the speed as the opponent, giving us a great advantage on the field."

"I think I understand it now. However, your military strategies are pretty confusing."

"It is quite confusing but extremely effective. I know you two don't really listen in history class, but the romans used the maniple, the strategy I mentioned it to conquer half the Mediterranean. And the Vietnamese used the triple hammock strategy to sneak attack the enemy while they were distracted. Well, looks like we're back at the camp now. And would you look at that? Dinner is being served!"

"Well, that was a nice talk, Alexander. See you later!"

"Bye! I'll elaborate on these later!"

I had finally finished training the spearmen for the day, and they were now in good hands. Like usual, I would be the last to eat. However, I wouldn't help serve the food right now. Instead, I'd check up on the progress made around the camp. Besides, the culinary kids were speeding up the efficiency of their cooking, so they didn't need me to help them anymore.

Hmm, so where should I check first? I never got the opportunity to talk with the metallurgists, so I'd check on them first.

Since most of the people in the camp were waiting in line for dinner, it didn't take me very long to get to the metallurgists' shelters. Once I saw how much progress they made, I was absolutely astonished.

There were giant hollow clay cylinders which were presumably there to heat up the iron ore. Turns out, instead of using parts of termite nests, they used the good old clay construction method. Dozens of these cylinders were littered across the landscape. Furthermore, there was a giant building made of sticks and mud that housed a bunch of ores, including what appeared to be iron, copper and zinc. There were a bunch more that were sprinkled in there, but I couldn't really identify them unless I did some further inspection.

Next to this building, there were a lot of tools that I could only ȧssume would be used in the steelmaking process. There were also trays of small rocks, which were probably chunks of ore. There were also chunks of bamboo lying around. Bamboo wasn't endemic to the area, but it was grown by a decent amount of people, mainly as a decorative plant. The plant was extremely valuable for primitive civilizations, since it could also be used for aqueducts. That reminds me…

I should go to the center of the camp to check up on the clay water stills. Maybe they used bamboo to make pipes to make them more efficient? Besides, I could really go for some dinner right now. All that exercise I did earlier had me famished.

As I approached the center of the camp, I could see that there was no line. The culinary staff had successfully served thousands of meals in a very short time period. Impressive.

Since I was extremely hungry, I walked up to the culinary kids and asked them for a meal.

"Alexander! What's up!"

"Well, I have done a lot of stuff around the camp, for example training the spearmen. Could I get a meal? I see that you guys are cooking some roast meat with berries?"

"Yeah, we basically cook whatever the hunting and gathering parties bring back. We already served most of the food that we cooked, so there's only a few scraps left."

"Could I get some?"

"Yeah, sure!"

One of them dug around his bowl, trying to scrape some berries together. While he was preparing the meal, I decided to ask Anderson about something quite important.

"Do you guys have any way to preserve food?"

"Well, salt would be nice, but we don't have any. We asked the ceramics club to make us a giant metal cylinder so we could pasteurize food and drink, but they said that they're really backlogged at the moment and they only had so many members, so it'd take two weeks to deliver one to us even if they prioritized it."

"That certainly is a pickle. I'll try to solve that problem. Thanks for the food!"

I quickly devoured the meat, which tasted like venison. It seemed like the chefs were getting better by the day, but that was probably because they had better equipment. The berries also tasted better too. Don't know why.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot! I had to check on the water stills! They were located slightly west of here.

After walking a few dozen steps, I had arrived. And as I had predicted, there were bamboo tubes connected to the lake, but they weren't transporting water.

As I was embroiled in thought about why there wasn't water gushing out the end, I noticed a lever. These guys were geniuses. They developed a system that could shut off the water supply to not flood the camp by accident.

By this point, everybody was done with dinner, and they were hanging around the central part of the camp. A bunch of teenagers, mostly from the debate club, asked me to perform a speech.

Of course, I would oblige. I asked them to spread the word, and after a few minutes everybody was gathered around. If they really wanted to listen or not would be anybody's guess.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for gathering here tonight. This is the second night after the apocalypse so far, and we have made tremendous progress."

Larry was clapping in the background. Most of the people joined him, causing a thunderous noise to echo throughout the camp.

"Let me address some key achievements of the day. First of all, I don't know if this counts as an achievement or not, but nobody died. So that's good."

"Yay." A girl sarcastically commented.

"Besides that, we have accomplished some serious feats which I thought would take us nearly a week. We have excellent equipment, a proper supply of water, sufficient ore to begin constructing iron tools and weapons, and a well-established camp. I would like to thank the chefs for our meals, the archers, spearmen, slingers and other troops for their dedicated efforts to protect us, the hunters and gatherers for helping put food on our plates and bowls, the carpenters for chopping down trees to make wheels, the workers for building shelters and other buildings, and many more. I could go on and on about this, but we simply don't have time. If I failed to mention you earlier, know that I really appreciate your efforts towards sustaining our group's survival."

"Yeah! No problem, Alexander!"

A round of applause followed this statement.

"Now, I would like to explain the course of action for this following day. We need to launch an expedition to the Puget Sound to establish a steady supply of salt to preserve our food. I need a hundred brave volunteers as well as fifty spearmen and slingers to accompany them. If you want to participate, please raise your hands. Larry will lead the expedition."

A few hundred hands shot up upon my request.

"It seems that a lot of you are up for some adventure! Talk to Larry after the speech is over, and he'll make any further decisions. Some of you may ask why the equestrians aren't back yet, and that is because they're out taming horses in the Snoqualmie River Valley. I can guarantee that they'll make it out there and bring us back hundreds of horses."

I took a breath before continuing to speak.

"Now, we are brought to a predicament. We need to elect a leader. Although I've served as a de facto leader for the past day and a half, I believe it is best for you guys to select one yourselves. I nominate myself to remain the leader, and I believe that we should hold a vote to determine any further course of action. If you guys would like me to resume indefinite leadership of the group, please raise your hands and say aye."

"AYEEEEEEE!"

This show of support was so loud it sent birds dispersing across the night sky. Nearly everybody in the camp raised their hands. Be it carpenters or metallurgists, nerds or geeks, boys or girls, spearmen or workers, basically everybody wanted me to remain leader.

"That matter is settled. I will resume indefinite leadership of the group due to popular demand. For now, that is everything I need to address. If anybody has any concerns or questions for me, please ask me right now. I will answer every question to the best of my ability. We cannot tackle any further problems if we don't get everything sorted out and clarified."

There was a brief silence, and afterwards everybody started to converse with each other. After much debating, an eleventh grader bravely raised his hand high, waving it left to right.

"Leader Alexander, can I ask you a question?"

I pointed my finger at the guy and nodded my head.

"Yes.. You there. What is your question?"