Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 309: Chapter 19

Crick’s ideas were much simpler and more down-to-earth compared to Sui Xiong who had far-reaching aspirations.

At present, Crick mainly paid attention to the military training as well as the new agriculture.

Last time, Crick was ordered to join in the volunteer army to support the Eagle Kingdom. Baron Keane had suffered great losses in the battle, and less than one-tenth of one hundred people came back alive. Even the knight, D’vor Ouss died in the battle, and that had a severe impact on Baron Keane. It could be said that nearly all the elite armies had died in the battle.

Generally speaking, a baronet should have three knights, and each knight roughly should have three cavalries, about ten professional soldiers (hunters sometimes could be counted), and about 20 militias. The Baron himself should have six cavalries, about 20 professional soldiers and 50 militias. In a word, a baronet could send out 15 or 16 cavalries, about 50 professional soldiers and 100 militias.

Baron Keane was almost a standard baronet, and losing more than one hundred people at a time was a serious defeat for him. If Crick hadn’t gotten some money and won the support of several masters and the church of the Void Mask, their territory would have been attacked and looted by bandits.

But it was far from enough to rely only on the masters. Maintaining order, hunting bandits, patrolling, collecting taxes, guarding checkpoints… all of these needed hands. No matter how strong the masters were, they could not be divided into more hands.

So Crick had to recruit more soldiers to replace those who were dead in the battle.

After careful consideration, he decided to follow the example of some historical time-travel novels—trying another way to train the army.

First, he abandoned the idea of recruiting adventurers as professional soldiers. There was no doubt about the strength of adventurers, but they all lacked loyalty and discipline. Professional soldiers themselves did not need too much strength; what they needed was training and discipline.

Next, he abandoned the idea of training militias. The reason why the militia was called the militia was that they were composed of the common people who had received a little military training. Such soldiers lacked both combat effectiveness and the willingness to fight, even if they had weapons in their hands. If they were in a superior situation, they probably would not be able to catch their enemies. And if they were in an inferior situation, they probably would turn and flee. Therefore, instead of wasting manpower and material resources to train militias, these resources should be saved to train more professional soldiers.

With regard to the cavalry, there was no way out. There were few who could fight on horseback even among the adventurers. Most of the adventurers who could ride a horse could only ride for travel, and they still had to dismount when fighting. Men who could fight on horseback, even a.s.sault and shoot on horseback, were very difficult to recruit let alone train.

In fact, there were less than ten people who had the ability to fight on horseback in Keane’s baronets, including the dead knight D’vor Ouss

Since Crick had made a choice, he sent out the recruitment notice to recruit soldiers throughout the territory.

However, the requirements for recruiting soldiers were different from those in the past. They did not recruit soldiers who were strong, fierce and daring to kill, but instead those who were honest and obedient to discipline and orders.

Everyone was surprised by the requirements; even Knight James could not help but ask why.

“Sir, it’s all right that you don’t want to recruit adventurers as soldiers or train the militias. But why are your requirements different from others?” the royal knight Howard James asked. “You are going to recruit full-time professional soldiers this time, so you should require them to be strong and daring in order to fight and kill. What can those who are honest and who obey orders do?”

Crick smiled and said, “I also know that soldiers should be strong men who can fight, but there are few men like that in our territory. If we miss the recruitment and something happens, we may even lose all the militias. On the contrary, if we leave them in our community, and when we have sufficient hands in the future, we can train them to be the leaders of the militias and they may support us when we need them.”

Knight James was stunned by his words. He thought that what Crick was saying was reasonable, but there also seemed to be something amiss. Knight James thought it over again and again but could not figure out where the problem was. He just frowned and left. He muttered to himself as he walked away.

Crick smiled and found that fooling a person whose IQ was only nine was not a challenge.

It was not easy for Baron Keane, who has just lost more than a hundred strong men, to recruit more strong men to fight and kill; but it was easy to recruit ordinary people who were honest and obedient. In just five or six days, Crick had recruited 30 people.

According to his plan, after these 30 people were trained, ten of them would be sent to their own villages, and the rest were to leave town. As for the two knights, Charles Oss, and Howard James, they both had the ability to guard their territory, and Crick did not have to worry about them.

After the 30 people were recruited, they had to accept the training.

According to their traditions, the training programs of the professional soldiers mainly include using weapons, wearing armor and simulating actual combat.

The weapons of the professional soldiers were mainly divided into the following categories: sword and s.h.i.+eld, spear, and bow and arrow. People who used a sword and s.h.i.+eld were strong but not too tall. They were the pillars of the army. People who used a bow and arrow were professionals but few in number and who lacked lethality. They could also effectively damage the enemy’s morale. As for those who had no special skills, they were better off learning to use spears because they were the simplest.

With regard to their armor, swordsmen and s.h.i.+elds-men should wear heavy armor, usually with a mosaic armor inside. Sometimes they would even wear armors composed of chains and animal skins. Lancers should wear thick leather armor, and archers, if conditions permitted, should wear chain armor; if not, they had to wear light leather armor.

This didn’t mean that the archers who wore light armor wanted to be more agility—they were towards the rear of the army and so didn’t have to wear heavy armor.

In fact, archers often had the highest value of force, and all excellent archers were good at hand-to-hand combat. But who would ask them to fight against enemies on the battlefield without any weapons? That was wasting manpower!

However, when archers were going to draw their swords and fight, it meant that the Hill Lord was going to be killed. And when that time came, who would take care of others, especially when everyone was in danger?

But Crick’s practice was totally different from others. Among the 30 people he had recruited, there were no archers, swordsmen, s.h.i.+eld-men, or uniform lancers.

The armors he had prepared for the lancers were not the ordinary thick leather armors, but the uniform plated armors instead. Although these plated armors were crudely made, they could still work even with their low quality.

A plated armor, even if it was crudely made, would cost more than 100 gold coins. The batch of plated armors for 30 people would cost nearly 3500 gold coins at a time. If the territory didn’t have any stock and the Eagle Kingdom had not gained any relics, Crick, who was not well-funded at present, would have been very stressed in buying these armors.

But it was undeniable that the 30 soldiers who wore the plated armors and held spears in their hands looked magnificent standing in their formation. Their momentum had already impressed everyone a lot.

The training program given by Crick was very strange. It was not to p.r.i.c.k scarecrows and stab targets but to form a line and walk in steps instead.

“Do these things really work?” Howard James asked privately.

Crick himself was not so sure about it, but he thought that people had been recruited and money had been spent anyway, so he had better finish the experiment no matter what happened.

Under his command, these soldiers who were farmers and small helpers before, all stood in lines and marched after having enough food and drink. In addition, they also received physical training, such as long-distance running. Generally speaking, they were not like soldiers but like a group of actors.

What’s more, Crick would visit the barracks every few days and give them political lessons. He told them, “You guys as soldiers, but you are not fighting to earn a living but instead to guard the present peaceful life. Although death was terrible for soldiers, failure and escape are much more terrible.” He asked them to recall the miseries of the past and cherish today’s happiness. Essentially, he tried hard to motivate them in various ways.

To be honest, his ways didn’t work well.

Indeed, these soldiers’ intelligence was not high. The highest intelligence was only nine, and there were several soldiers whose intelligence was only seven. Even still, they weren’t outright foolish. They would not act like some pushovers who would only bow down and wors.h.i.+p the protagonist when he made any sounds in the old-fas.h.i.+oned novels written by a famous Chinese writer named Long Ao’tian.

After all, they came to serve as soldiers just to earn more money so that they could live a better life.

For them, nothing was more terrible than death. In fact, they hadn’t been ready for the killing or being killed, nor had they completed the transformation from ordinary people to soldiers.

That was why when one recruited soldiers, one usually recruited those who could kill and fight.

Crick was not worried at all. He still trained them to stand in lines, walk in steps and exercise every day. He also paid regular visits to them and gave them lectures and talks.

About one month later, they were all in neat lines and walked in steps. Therefore, the training went to the next stage—long spear stabbing.

The long spear marksmans.h.i.+p was actually a huge system. Generally speaking, this system was divided into four parts: smas.h.i.+ng, stabbing, sweeping and peaking. Smas.h.i.+ng meant to smash from top to bottom, and this was very useful when dealing with enemies whose weapons were also long spears. Stabbing meant penetrating, and that was the main attack method. Sweeping meant to sweep around with a long spear in order to drive away monsters like goblins, and that was very useful in expelling the mob. Peaking meant to fix the long spear on the ground thus forming a gun forest, and that was used for dealing with the cavalry, though it was impossible to use in reality.

An experienced soldier would spend more than half a year just learning the four main tactics of a long spear. But Crick ignored the other three tactics directly, leaving only the aspect of stabbing.

In this way, the training speed had been accelerated greatly, but the combat effectiveness of the soldiers was also greatly reduced.

Knight Howard James worried again. He privately tried to persuade Crick to train the other tactics as well.

“I don’t have enough time,” Crick said. “First, they need to master the following tactics: ranking, walking in steps and stabbing. Then they have to practice their physical fitness. Next, they can fight with enemies after wearing armor.”

“This way may not work…”

“Anyway, they are just going to wipe out the goblins for the time being,” Crick laughed and said. “They don’t need the other tactics at present.”

The knight whose IQ was nine was persuaded again, though he still felt something went wrong.