plumnovel Chapter 35 Cossack Cavalry Specializing in Slaying Bandits
Chapter 35 Cossack Cavalry Specializing in Slaying Bandits
[Congratulations, player! You have earned a total of 45,000 taels of silver!]
Wow, gold is really valuable!
After depositing the several boxes of gold, Rock's funds instantly experienced explosive growth. With this increase in funds, he no longer hesitated and directly purchased another 100 population quotas from the system store.
He could still afford population quotas of one thousand taels and ten thousand taels.
But to be honest, he felt he couldn't afford the remaining 10 taels.
Putting aside the fact that he didn't have 10 taels of system funds at all, even if Luo Ke did have 10 taels of system funds, why would he spend those 10 taels on a population quota of 100?
Needless to say, if he simply used the 10 taels of silver as a birth reward to directly encourage childbirth in the villages under his jurisdiction, he estimated that it wouldn't be long before he could increase his population quota by more than 100 people through this method.
"Forget it, let's save it for emergency use in critical moments. Although I feel that in the future, we probably won't need to use this method to increase the population in an emergency."
Rock shook his head, then opened his system interface and began to replenish the troops at his disposal.
As his territory expands, he will definitely need more troops, and relying solely on cavalry will have limitations. Many terrains are not suitable for cavalry, and simply recruiting cavalry will actually restrict him in some areas.
Therefore, this time Rock chose to recruit infantry, and simply recruited a full-strength squad of young guards for himself.
These elite soldiers under Napoleon were exceptionally capable in combat, and possessed a high degree of loyalty and fervor. However, in addition to these qualities, what Rock valued most was the education these soldiers received.
Compared to ordinary soldiers, these soldiers generally have higher levels of education, and each of them could be used as a junior officer.
In normal times, he could easily use these soldiers as instructors to systematically train the militia.
As for the guerrillas, when he needs muskets, he can leave a few guerrillas behind and spend some money to refresh the muskets from them. Now that he has better conditions, he doesn't need to continue using guerrillas as instructors.
When the 160 fully armed French soldiers walked in from outside the mountain stronghold, the Queen's dragoons who had been following Roque suddenly had a glint in their eyes.
In their eyes, their competitor has arrived!
Although these men were infantry, not the more mobile cavalry, they were not suited to follow Rock on long-range raids against the enemy.
However, in terms of combat strength, the Queen's Dragoon felt that if he were to charge against these young guards, he might not be able to defeat them in the end, since these guys were practically the ultimate line infantry in normal conditions.
As for the old Imperial Guard?
Those guys don't count, because they were an exception among line infantry. Even Napoleon, who fought for so long, couldn't produce many old guards.
It's no exaggeration to say that every one of the old guards was a French superman in that era. Just the fact that they survived so many battles after Napoleon's reign shows how incredibly lucky they were, not to mention their experience and skills.
The young guards who had just arrived at Rock's place looked at the group of dismounted Queen Dragoons and their eyes also revealed a competitive spirit of eagerness.
Although these Empress Dragoons were not the most elite Imperial Guard Grenadiers, they were still Napoleon's elite cavalry, and the two sides were old acquaintances.
It remains to be seen who their new ruler will rely on more after coming under Rock's command.
After recruiting the Young Guards, Rock assigned them tasks.
The main task of these guards was to guard the village and train the militia. In most cases, they would not go out unless it was time for a major battle.
The Empress Dragoons were tasked with being used as a mobile force. Although these Dragoons were cavalry, their heavy warhorses were not suitable for long-distance raids, and these heavy warhorses were also more valuable.
Therefore, Rock's assessment of them is:
Whenever they spotted enemies, they would quickly ride over and join the battle.
If there are no enemies, they remain on standby and train on their own.
As for the daily patrols, this task was assigned by Rock to the 28 Cossack cavalrymen who had been converted into cavalrymen, letting these old Russians continue to be responsible for the daily patrols.
Because they were light cavalry, and their warhorses were more robust and durable, they were well-suited for running around everywhere on ordinary days.
Moreover, these Cossacks were often used by the Russians as border patrol cavalry, and they would occasionally harass other people's territories.
Rock strictly forbids them from harassing the villagers, but if they discover bandits somewhere, they can naturally go and fight them. If they can't win, they can come back and call for reinforcements. Rock is also preparing to clean up the bandits within his territory.
So for the next week, these Cossack cavalrymen wandered around, occasionally arriving at the gates of villages under Rock's protection to ask where the bandits were.
At first, the villagers were somewhat afraid of these fierce-looking foreign cavalrymen, but when they saw that these foreigners could not only speak fluent Chinese, but also did not harm them in any way, they gradually became familiar with these strange cavalrymen.
If that's all there is to it, the villagers might feel familiar with them, but they wouldn't feel any closeness to these guys.
However, during these days, some villages encountered bandits coming down from the mountains to rob and extort money. After all, it was not easy for everyone to get through the winter, and even the bandits had no surplus food.
What would these bandits do if they ran out of food?
Without a doubt, the best course of action is to go down the mountain and plunder first!
To the bandits' utter surprise, the villages that had always submitted to them and were willing to pay them security fees or offerings had somehow fallen under the control of another group.
And these guys even arrogantly promised that these villages would no longer be extorted by other bandits and bullies!
How can this be allowed? This is utterly despicable and shameless!
In the eyes of the bandits, it was already impolite enough that a bunch of outsiders came to our pot to steal food. But they didn't expect that not only would you come and steal food from our pot, but you would even try to take our pot away with you!
How can this be allowed? This is intolerable!
The bandits were immediately enraged. Some shouted that they would start a massacre in the village, while others shouted that they would cause trouble for Luo's army.
To their surprise, no sooner had they started yelling about causing trouble than a group of Rakshasa cavalrymen, riding tall horses, charged towards them from who-knows-where.
Putting aside how strange it is that a group of Russians suddenly appeared in this place, the mere fact that there were foreigners in the Luo family army is itself very abnormal, isn't it?
In those days, all Qing Dynasty people felt this way, no matter who they were, even bandits. When facing foreigners, they felt as if they were inherently inferior.
They didn't want to clash with these Russian cavalrymen, but the Russians didn't think so.
Those Cossacks who were upgraded by Rock to cavalry still retained their bandit habits, each one savage and fierce.
They had barely approached, and before they could even exchange a few words, the cavalrymen raised their guns and opened fire on the bandits, killing many of them on the spot.
Immediately afterward, before the remaining bandits could even defend themselves, these guys shoved their guns aside, drew their sabers, and charged forward like a whirlwind, killing anyone they saw with clean, swift, and merciless movements.
What terrified the bandits even more was that after killing people, they wouldn't kill them all, but would leave a few alive to lead the way!
Immediately afterwards, these cavalrymen would summon even more men from somewhere, and then have the bandits who were leading the way lead them all the way to their mountain stronghold, where they would loot all the food and supplies inside.
In the course of this week, Rock, with his gang of insane Cossack cavalry, successfully raided three bandit strongholds and earned himself an extra 1000 taels of silver.
Furthermore, those Cossack cavalrymen were bloodthirsty. Even if they robbed all the silver from the bandit stronghold, they would not show any mercy to the remaining bandits. Instead, they would simply draw their swords and kill them all, leaving no one alive!
Rock didn't have any intention of restricting them in this regard.
As long as these guys don't kill the villagers, it's fine. They're just killing some bandits, so what's the big deal?
To put it bluntly, those bandits have caused countless families to be torn apart and killed. When they robbed and murdered, they should have been prepared to be killed themselves.
The saying "He who kills will be killed" applies here. None of these people died unjustly at the hands of the Cossacks.
These cavalrymen wiped out three bandit strongholds and killed several bandit groups that came down from the mountains. Wherever they went, no matter which bandit group they were, they were all terrified of these terrifying cavalrymen.
The villagers, on the contrary, applauded and cheered. Many villagers who had been persecuted by the bandits even had tears in their eyes, feeling that finally someone was willing to avenge them and stand up for them.
It was precisely because of this that many of them genuinely recognized Luo's army at this moment, and unknowingly, the morale of the people in the dozen or so villages subsequently controlled by Luo Ke had reached its highest level.
When Rock found out about this, he was even a little dumbfounded.
He discovered that during this period, winning people's hearts was not difficult at all. To put it bluntly, as long as he was willing to treat ordinary people as human beings, he would automatically gain popular support in no time.
Meanwhile, the bandits, emboldened by the sudden rise of Rock's force, began to stir.