MTLNOVEL Chapter 246 January 16th
"All Long Spear Brigades, tighten to the left!"
Raising his plume spear, Kolman shouted loudly with his hands on his hips.
Amid the sound of war drums, the black-clad long spearmen in a 50x8 formation stood still on the left, while the soldiers on the right quickly closed in on the left until only a hand's width could fit between their shoulders.
On the battlefield, such a distance means the beginning of face-to-face combat with enemy cavalry or infantry.
A tight formation can delay the impact of a horse, and soldiers equipped with hook spears might even pull a knight off his horse.
According to Horn's design, the entire battle group has 4,000 infantry, including 3,200 long spear soldiers and 800 holy gunners.
In a corps, there are 8 Long Spear Masters and 2 Holy Gun Masters.
Horn ultimately reduced the number of holy gunners because the production of holy guns still couldn't keep up.
It's not that they couldn't keep up with the infantry gap, but they couldn't keep up with replenishing the cavalry as Jeanne's Cuirassier Cavalry Corps also needed spring guns.
Standing under the wooden shed beside the training ground, the sunlight on the white snow was dizzyingly bright.
Horn squinted his eyes with difficulty towards the war monks marching in the slush.
"How are these war monks adapting?"
They were called war monks because the Salvation Army is essentially an armed monastery, though most armed monasteries focus primarily on saving rather than killing.
The Salvation Battle Group, however, focuses on killing rather than saving, although the ones they kill are sinners, so from this angle, they are also saving people.
The war monks' identity as monks rather than soldiers helps to some extent reduce resistance when recruiting in the future.
After all, in the Empire, soldiers do not have a very good reputation.
"Most of them are performing well. Earlier, they were highly respected when they went home, and with the precedent of deserters, they are all training with great effort."
Horn nodded and flipped through the soldiers' roster on the table beside him.
Two weeks had passed since the New Year Festival, and the first batch of new soldiers finally began formal corps life.
According to previous requirements, the veterans selected recruits to form corps.
Originally, Horn did not want to distinguish between the Black Hat Army and the Imperial Guard, but just because he didn't want to doesn't mean the two factions wouldn't.
On the surface, there was no distinction, but in reality, veteran guards and black hats would still draw a line.
By the time Horn found out, they had already divided the people up.
Moreover, the divisions were quite distinct, with the leader of the Imperial Guard, Dass, coming from armed farmers, having relatively upright conduct, and having the responsibility to protect the Pope.
So he chose people who were mostly simple and honest farmers, valuing discipline and clear background.
As for the Black Hat leaders like Victor and Kolman, many were public register farmers, refugees, beggars, and bandits.
They preferred a large and inclusive force, accepting anyone and favoring those with wild and fierce personalities.
With the situation already a fait accompli, Horn decided to formalize these two systems and consider separating them further in future expansions.
So the current formation is the First Imperial Guard Corps, the Black Hat First Corps, Black Hat Second Corps, and Black Hat Third Corps.
The formal training is quite different from the previous training for new recruits.
The most important thing is to start learning the "Holy Scripture of the Salvation Battle Group Soldiers," a basic manual.
In this fundamental manual, Jeska, Hakuto, and knights from the Holy Trinity Education Team summarized the actions for using infantry long spears.
These include three ready stances for using the long spear: lowering the spear, raising the spear, and organizing the spear.
For movement, the wielding actions are: raising the spear, shouldering the spear, leveling the spear, slanting the spear, inspecting the spear, and dragging the spear.
For attack, the wielding actions are: upper thrust, lower thrust, upper charge, lower charge, upper block, lower block, and single hand angled spear with sword draw.
These were summarized by the veterans as the most useful and easiest practices on the battlefield.
According to Horn's requirements, each action is divided into as many as seven or as few as three small actions, with each command executing only one small action.
This maintains uniformity during spear thrusting, causing denser and greater damage in the same unit of time.
In addition, the "Holy Scripture of the Salvation Battle Group Soldiers" standardizes most fundamental commands made by Horn, Jeska, and others.
For instance, the column leader is called the vanguard, as often soldiers cannot comprehend the officer's command and must follow the actions of the person in front.
Thus, the first soldier in every column is critical.
Only the vanguard needs to truly understand the officer's command, and to be safe, the second soldier behind needs to understand it too.
In a team of ten, only two need to roughly understand and follow the command.
When officers issue commands, they must highlight "Who? How? What?" in the command.
Commands like "Front row to the left" are incorrect, while "First row, turn left" is correct.
Don't underestimate this slight change, but it can drastically enhance command efficiency and reduce error rates.
After flipping through the entire roster, Horn directly saw the statistical data at the bottom, "Extraordinary rate 3%, Divine Favor rate 25%, basic literacy rate 37%."
The extraordinary rate refers to the proportion of soldiers at the first stage of breath technique, while Divine Favor rate similarly refers to the proportion of Blessed individuals.
As for basic literacy, in Horn's terms, as long as they recognize 28 Falan letters and twenty common words, they are literate.
This enables expressing some simple meanings, like writing "I saw a knight to the east" as "I make east person."
Currently, soldiers have a literacy class every two days for basic literacy training and quick reading skills.
"Based on this Divine Favor rate, hmm, in the new recruits, there are about 500 people who can become holy gunners, which is sufficient." Horn's fingers slid over the roster and logistics supplies.
"We currently have 440 spring guns. These 2,000 new recruits will produce 400 holy gunners, with 40 remaining."
"Still not quite enough." Horn sighed softly.
"Isn't that enough?" Jeanne asked curiously, wiping sweat and picking up the roster, "Aren't there still 40 remaining?"
"Tomorrow is the day the second batch of 1,000 new recruits arrives, and in five days, the third batch of another 1,000 will arrive. Plus, we have a shortage of 560 spring guns for the cavalry."
Madlan immediately said, "Your Grace, rest assured. The new blacksmiths and lightning mages sent from Rapids City arrived yesterday. Our production can probably increase from 10-12 per day to 15-18."
Horn nodded slightly. Actually, there was one thing he hadn't mentioned, which was the shortage of lead bullets. Iron sand was running low, and stone bullets were inadequate.
Currently, holy gunners train with stone bullets, but lead bullets still cannot be distributed to every holy gunner.
It seems necessary to activate some contacts at Joan of Arc Castle to purchase some lead.
Horn had left many connections at Joan of Arc Castle, and when Mitney left, he even dispatched a few Cheka Child Soldiers to infiltrate Joan of Arc Castle.
"What's today's date?"
"It's January 16th." Jeanne rubbed her strained eyes and asked, "Why?"
"I think it's about time. The day after tomorrow, mobilize the First Imperial Guard Corps along with the First, Second, and Third Black Hat Corps to attack the giant spiders and monsters in the Southern Swamp."