When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

After gradually delegating tasks to Vite, Patrick, and others, Horn finally sat down to take a good rest.

To be honest, he was originally meant to just oversee the general direction, while specific tasks were supposed to be handled more adeptly by these local Empire natives who were more familiar with the situation.

Unfortunately, this world lacks any concept or method of scientific management, let alone any awareness of confidentiality or planning.

The great political return event of that year was born from this lack, and Horn had no choice but to teach these ministers the management techniques considered common sense in his homeland, step by step.

Sitting in the Pope's Palace in the side hall of the Mechanical Palace, the cold rain once again pattered on the eaves, feeling even colder than yesterday.

Although it was only evening, the outside sky had already dimmed. Horn picked up a difficult-to-use quill pen, dipped it in ink, and quickly wrote on a sheet of white paper.

According to Vite, cities like Elmin City mostly belonged to the El Army, and this Autumn Dusk Island was likely a key location in the waterway transport of the Thousand River Valley.

As a result, it was highly probable that there was a camp on the island. Based on the prevailing Eight Winds philosophy in Ancient Aier, Vite pointed out a possible direction for the camp.

When Horn returned to the study, the Child Soldiers handed him the camp's location and a simple map.

At this point, after a series of preparations, Horn was finally able to focus on what was most important at the moment, which was the military.

Turning this motley crew into a regular army was not as simple as the "Synthetic" reform Horn implemented back then.

He was aiming for real combat effectiveness.

He tossed a bit of Slime Core powder onto the fluorite lamp, and a gentle and clear orange-yellow light illuminated the desk in front of Horn.

A few drops of rain, carried by the wind, landed on the desk, and Horn moved the walnut desk back a bit.

He picked up the pen again and started writing on the paper.

Although the army was to be constructed in imitation of Maurice's Array, Horn did not plan to copy it entirely. Each situation needed individual consideration, and in this world, Prince Maurice's specific tactical setup was bound to have some discrepancies.

For instance, Maurice's Array was a phalanx of 50x5 spearmen matched with four 10x6 lines of musketeers, plus some miscellaneous troops, forming the basic combat unit of 500 men.

Theoretically, this 500-man camp was the smallest unit for deployment, and the "phalanx" was merely an administrative structure; they wouldn't genuinely form a grand phalanx.

Horn picked up a ruler and sketched out the rough formation on the white paper, then began to modify it according to circumstances.

Based on information gathered from veterans like Jeska and Hakuto, and his personal experience, Horn thought it necessary to modify it into a 50x8 phalanx of spearmen and two 10x5 lines of clockwork gunners.

The reason for this modification was that the knights in this world had a much stronger impact, requiring a thicker formation of spearmen to withstand their charge.

And clockwork guns differed from muskets in being more straightforward to operate and requiring less movement, plus there was no need to worry about gunpowder misfires caused by sparks.

Therefore, those two clockwork gun formations could be arranged in a tighter formation and fire continuously and intensively.

But this required shortening the clockwork guns, as the current version of Kanni Di's clockwork guns was quite cumbersome for single-handed firing.

With loaders, a Holy Gunman could fire about every half to one minute, but once removed from a fortress, where on an open battlefield would loaders come from?

So they would still have to wait for feedback from Haimodin's side.

Thus, based on this tactic, Horn could basically finalize the basic structure of the Salvation War Group.

The group would consist of 4,500 men, with 500 in a legion, 50 in a division, 10 in a brigade, and 1 in a company.

This would also include three special 150-man cavalry divisions, four 200-man cart driver groups, one 50-man cook unit, and one 50-man medical unit, along with non-combat personnel such as accountants, service soldiers, barbers, military judges, and military chaplains.

Placing the piece of paper aside, Horn did not decide immediately; he needed to find Jeska and Hakuto for confirmation to prevent any issues.

With the structure settled, the second step was discipline, or in other words, the matter of military law and merit.

When it came to recording merit, Horn didn't want to implement any headcount-based system like the Ming Army, who awarded merit based on headcount. Although seemingly efficient and ruthless, it completely ruined military discipline.

In later stages, the Ming Army would rush forward en masse for head counts to report for merit, causing flanks to be left unprotected, leading other soldiers to run away, resulting in inexplicable major defeats.

So Horn decided that the spear phalanx would record group merits by brigade, with greater merits going to those in the front after a win, while the clockwork gun phalanx, which required rotational firing, would record merits by division, with more shots fired equating to greater merit.

Aside from this, Horn also noted that, during previous engagements with mercenaries, peasant soldiers frequently had issues with looting.

Even during the bloodbath at Joan of Arc Castle, a solemn occasion where everyone was fighting with a common enemy, there were still people stopping to loot the bodies of knights to see if they could find any equipment.

Some Gulag Veterans occasionally exhibited this bad habit.

Therefore, Horn specifically assigned two service soldiers, one military judge, and one accountant in each legion to collect and account for spoils, with checks and balances, and distribute them post-battle based on merits.

The final issue was soldier plundering, a main issue with the Black Hat Army.

Since the Imperial Guard took on some responsibilities of guarding the Pope, they mostly consisted of honest young farmers with properties, selected for their simplicity and fewer tendencies to commit such acts.

Many in the Black Hat Legion were vagrants, beggars, or even ruffians and bandits, and despite repeated warnings from Horn, they barely managed not to kill during raids.

This was unavoidable, as the expansion of the army would inevitably involve absorbing these low-quality individuals.

The salary Horn could offer was not enough to outweigh their income from raids, and personal transformations could not be accomplished in just three months.

Therefore, Horn could only instruct them to extort rather than plunder, weeding out incorrigible elements, even resorting to harsh laws to handle troublemakers.

For now, he needed to suppress this issue in the short term, with defeating the knights as the primary goal, and this couldn't be rushed.

To be honest, these problems that troubled Horn wouldn't even be problems for most of the Empire's generals.

Like Prince Kongdai, who even treated the income from raids as regular wages, some knights would consider soldiers who didn't raid to be effeminate.

With thoughts of military law and merit on his mind, Horn swiftly filled a page. The military regulations included:

"What's the penalty for forgetting your weapon on the battlefield?" "What's the penalty for loudly revealing military secrets?" "What's the penalty for feigning illness to avoid combat?" "What's the penalty for loud chatter in the ranks that disrupts formation?"

Although these rules seemed absurd and laughable, behind each was Horn's personal experience, each noted in blood and tears in his journal.

As for later issues of regulations and training, those would need to be discussed tomorrow with veterans like Jeska.

Having settled these matters, Horn stretched out and realized it was almost midnight.

Standing by the window, the rain had stopped outside, and from the main hall came the sound of gears turning, suggesting Hilov was awake.

Calling the Child Soldiers to make some hot soup, Horn mixed together the cold leftovers to soak them a bit, finished eating in a couple of bites, burped, and lay down on the bed.

He had to get up early to go to the camp tomorrow.