plumnovel #247 - January 16th
#247 - January 16th
"All pikemen, close ranks to the left!"
Raising his plumed pike, Coleman shouted loudly, hands on his hips.
To the sound of drums, the black-clad pikemen, arranged in a 50x8 formation, stood firm on their left, while the soldiers on the right rapidly closed in, until there was only a hand's breadth between their shoulders.
On the battlefield, such proximity meant engaging the enemy's cavalry or infantry in face-to-face combat.
A tight formation could slow down a horse's charge, and soldiers equipped with short hooked spears might even be able to pull knights from their mounts.
According to Horn's design, the entire battle group consisted of 4,000 infantry, including 3,200 pikemen and 800 Holy Riflemen.
A legion contained eight pike divisions and two Holy Rifle divisions.
Horn had ultimately reduced the number of Holy Riflemen because the production of Holy Rifles couldn't keep up.
It wasn't that it couldn't keep up with the infantry gap, but rather with replenishing the cavalry, as Jeanne's Cuirassier Regiment also needed repeating rifles.
Standing under a wooden shed on the edge of the training ground, the sunlight reflected off the snow, making him dizzy.
Horn squinted with difficulty, looking towards the War Monks striding through the slush.
"How are these War Monks adapting?"
They were called War Monks because the Salvation Army was essentially a martial religious order, except that most other martial religious orders focused on saving people as primary and killing as secondary.
The Salvation Battle Group, on the other hand, focused on killing as primary and saving as secondary, except that the people they killed were sinners, so from that perspective, they were also saving people.
The War Monks were identified as monks rather than soldiers, which would reduce resistance during future recruitment to some extent.
After all, soldiers didn't have a very good reputation in the Empire.
"Most of them are performing well. They received a lot of respect when they went home earlier, and with the precedent of deserters, they are all putting their backs into training."
Horn nodded, flipping through the soldiers' roster on a nearby table.
Two weeks had passed since New Year's Day, and the first batch of recruits had finally begun their official legion life.
According to previous requirements, the veterans had come to select people to form legions.
Originally, Horn didn't want to create factions like the Black Hat Legion and the Guard Legion, but just because he didn't want to, didn't mean the people from those two factions didn't.
On the surface, there was no difference, but in reality, the Guard veterans and the Black Hat veterans would still draw lines.
By the time Horn realized it, they had already finished dividing the people.
And the people they divided had very distinct characteristics. Das, the leader of the Guard, came from an armed farming background and had relatively upright character. The Guard also had the duty of protecting the Pope.
So, the people he selected were mostly simple and honest farmers, requiring discipline and a clean background.
As for Wickdor, Coleman, and others who led the Black Hat Legion, many were common farmers, vagrants, beggars, and bandits.
They preferred large numbers, inclusiveness, and accepted anyone who came, and they preferred people with savage and fierce personalities.
As such, it had become a fait accompli, and Horn simply established these two systems, to separate them again when expanding in the future.
So, the current organization was the First Guard Legion, the First Black Hat Legion, the Second Black Hat Legion, and the Third Black Hat Legion.
Formal training was naturally very different from the previous recruit training.
The most important thing was to start learning the "Salvation Battle Group Soldier's Holy Book," this basic drill manual.
In this basic drill manual, Jeshka, Hakuto, and the many knights of the Trinity Education Team summarized the movements for using the infantry pike.
These included the three standing positions when using a pike: pike down, pike up, and pike adjustment.
The pike carrying movements for marching: raise pike, shoulder pike, level pike, slant pike, inspect pike, and drag pike.
The pike carrying movements for attacking: high thrust, low thrust, high charge, low charge, high block, low block, and single-handed diagonal pike slash with sword.
These movements were summarized by these veterans as the most useful and easiest to practice on the battlefield.
According to Horn's requirements, they divided each movement into multiple small movements, ranging from seven to three, and each time the command was called, only one small movement was performed.
This maintained uniformity during the army's thrusts, creating a denser and greater kill rate per unit of time.
In addition, in this "Salvation Army Holy Book," Horn and Jeshka and others completed the unified setting of most basic commands.
For example, the leader of a row was called the file leader, because often, soldiers couldn't understand the officers' orders and could only follow the movements of the people in front.
So, the first soldier in each column was very important.
Only the file leader needed to truly understand the officer's orders, and to be safe, the second soldier behind the file leader also had to understand the orders.
In a squad of ten, only two people needed to understand and comprehend the orders.
When officers gave commands, there were also requirements: they had to highlight "who? how? what to do?" in the command.
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For example, "Front row to the left" was an incorrect command, while "First row turn left" was the correct command.
Don't underestimate this slight change, as it could greatly improve command efficiency and reduce the probability of errors.
After flipping through all the rosters, Horn directly saw the statistics at the bottom: "Extraordinary Rate 3%, Holy Favor Rate 25%, Simple Literacy Rate 37%."
The so-called Extraordinary Rate was the percentage of soldiers at the first stage of breathing techniques, and the Holy Favor Rate was the same, but for Holy Favored individuals.
As for the Simple Literacy Rate, in Horn's case, as long as they recognized all 28 Franconian letters and twenty common words, it was considered simple literacy.
This was already enough to express some simple meanings, for example, "I see knights to the east," they could write it as "I do east person."
Currently, soldiers had to attend a literacy class every other day to conduct simple literacy and rapid literacy for the soldiers.
"According to this Holy Favor Rate, well, about 500 of the new recruits can become Holy Riflemen, that's enough people." Horn's finger ran across the roster and the supply logistics register.
"We currently have 440 repeating rifles, and we need 400 Holy Riflemen out of these 2,000 new recruits, leaving 40 to spare."
"Still a bit short." Horn sighed softly.
"That's not enough?" Wiping sweat as she returned to the shed, Jeanne picked up the register in surprise. "Doesn't that leave 40 to spare?"
"Tomorrow is the second batch of 1,000 new recruits entering the camp, and in five days is the third batch of 1,000 new recruits entering the camp, and there's the cavalry side. We still have a shortage of 560 repeating rifles."
Madeline immediately said, "Your Eminence, please rest assured, the new blacksmiths and lightning wizards sent by Rapid Stream City arrived yesterday, and our production will likely increase from 10-12 per day to 15-18."
Horn nodded slightly. In fact, there was one more thing he didn't say, and that was the shortage of lead bullets. After all, iron sand was running a bit short, and stone bullets weren't powerful enough.
Currently, the Holy Riflemen were training with stone bullets, but lead bullets still couldn't be issued to every Holy Rifleman.
It seemed necessary to use the hidden line in Joan's Fort to purchase some lead.
Horn had left behind many connections in Joan's Fort back then, and when Mittenheim left, he even sent a few Cheka child soldiers to infiltrate Joan's Fort.
"What's today's date?"
"January 16th, why?" Jeanne asked, rubbing her sore eyes.
"I think it's about time. The day after tomorrow, we'll send the First Guard Legion and the First, Second, and Third Black Hat Legions to attack the giant spiders and demons in the Southern Mire."