The Corps Framework
The Corps Framework
Sitting in the office, there was a non-stop ticking sound outside the window as if it were raining. It was the sound of melting snow. When he was in the countryside during New Year, he loved crouching on the window and looking at the long ice icicles melting into transparent water droplets and slowly dripping down. At the moment, he did not have time for such leisure. But it was still enjoyable to listen to the voice of the earth recovering while writing a plan.
According to previous years of experience, the snow took about a week or so to melt. But a month would still be needed before it was possible to pass through the road between the town and Longsong Stronghold. It was not hard for Roland to imagine what the muddy road would look like without the surface hardening or proper drainage measures. If he could successfully take over Longsong Stronghold, his first action would be to build a hardened road suitable for horse carriages to pass through.
But now the priority was to solve the problem of building the corps. Without a reliable and powerful army, it would not be possible to defeat Longsong Stronghold corps if they had fewer soldiers. Converting the Militia into a regular corps was only the first step. The specific preparation, discipline, punishment and reward system was a real headache.
Although he played military chess as a child, at this moment he had long forgotten everything. After some deliberation on his part, Roland simply decided to create his own system. Anyway, he was the creator of the new corps, and no one would notice even if he set up an unreasonable system.
So the First Army of Border Town was created: consisting of corps, division, battalion, platoon and team as the framework; 5 people formed a team (considering a cannon required at least five people to operate), 10 teams a platoon, and 10 platoons a battalion. As for the number of the division and the corps, he would deal with that later. In view of the overall level of combat in this era, as long as there were two or three battalion forces, it would be enough to defeat the vast majority of opponents in the field.
After setting out the most basic framework, Roland let out a long breath.
The next rules and regulations would be much simpler. These included obeying the military order, obeying the superior, no escaping, betrayal and other similar cliches. But Roland's first set of discipline was the prohibition of looting and disturbing the peace.
Allowing the military to loot as they wished had too many cons, and it would take several years to reverse the damage it would cause for the local people. This was why he insisted on using civilians as military personnel.
When the noble responded to the lord's recruitment, choosing not to loot after defeating the enemy was simply a fairy tale. It would be more appropriate to say the main reason they were willing to follow the lord was that they could wantonly plunder the opponent's wealth and territory, including the innocent civilians on the domain.
As for mercenaries and bandits, that was better left unsaid. They looked sturdy and vicious, but in fact, they were useless at a real battle. Stealing was a big source of their income, so military discipline for this group of people was meaningless.
Only an army formed by civilians would not see other civilians as slaves to be slaughtered. Of course, just depending on discipline and punishment was not enough. As time went by, greed would increase with every winning victory. So the reward system had to keep up with the pace, in order to fundamentally eliminate looting and other disciplinary behavior.
In order to make the reward tempting enough for the people, Roland decided to release the ultimate weapon—military land as a reward. Whoever made great achievements during battle, could be granted a piece of land. Roland had already thought of the source of land. That would be the reclaimed land between Border Town and Longsong Stronghold.
In this era when 90% of the land belonged to the noble, it was considered a generous prize. Once they had titled land, these people would be closely attached to his side. Any person who wanted to overthrow him would meet the most intense resistance from his army.
Motivating the people did not rely on words or whips, but real measurable interests. In other words, as long as he could always represent the fundamental interests of the people, his rule would be stable.
Unlike traditional fiefs, Roland limited the land from several acres to about a dozen acres. It could be used for self-built residences, to purchase slaves or hired farmers to take care of the land, but not to build industry. In contrast, a knight's domain was close to two thousand acres, equivalent to a small village. The industrial income of the above operation could provide the necessary operations for knights and attendants, such as the purchase of weapons, armor, and horses.
Such a small area of land reward, would not cause a strong conflict between the noble interest groups, and yet it weakened the independence of the recipients. In Roland's opinion, it was similar to a retirement pension, and you could ensure that soldiers still had a stable income after retirement.
At the same time, in order to strengthen the centralization of authority, and to avoid the situation that "the servant's servant was not my servant", the person who was conferred the land had ownership but no autonomy. In other words, this land was still under the lord's laws, regulations, and systems. In a sense, they were more like the future generations of farm owners.
After transcribing these preliminary ideas, Roland stretched out. Next, he could finally devote himself to his field of expertise—R & D weapons.
Since the speed of flintlock manufacturing was increasing, continuing to equip the riflemen to protect the flintlock shooters would be a waste of manpower. The latter needed to have the ability to fight independently in close combat.
The solution was simple, that was to install bayonets on the guns. Roland did not expect his troops to take the initiative to start a hand-to-hand combat, but just as the opponents were trying to escape and the cannon could not completely destroy the enemy's courage, they would at least have the strength for battle.
A bayonet was not difficult to manufacture. It was simply a sharp cone. The key was the connection between the bayonet and the gun: the original bayonet was the knife handle wrapped around thin wood. The wood could be directly inserted into the barrel. The advantage was it was simple to create, while the disadvantage was also pretty obvious. During the hand-to-hand combat, the barrels would be unavailable, and pulling the bayonet out after the fighting was also particularly laborious.
Roland was planning to produce the second-generation bayonet—the casing bayonet. The end of the shank had a corner and was connected to a casing. The casing diameter, which was slightly larger than the barrel, was attached to the Z-shape tongue and groove joint. The barrel only needed to be welded with a small iron bar, so that the tongue and groove joint could be embedded in to fix the blade. The blade was a triangular iron, its cross-section similar to a V-shape. With all three sides of the blade piercing the body, this did not affect the pulling out, yet leaving a wound that was difficult to heal.
The casing bayonet after installation was slightly higher than the gun, and this had a certain impact on filling the ammunition. But compared to the folding bayonet, it was easier to facilitate mass production. All it needed was a sample that could be replicated by the blacksmith.
To make the bayonet play a role in combat, the key was to train the soldiers on how to use it.
Roland knew nothing about it. Fortunately, he remembered Chief Knight used to boast that he could use any military weapon. He might as well be in charge of teaching the Flintlock Squad on how to fight with a bayonet.