Chapter 247 January th

"All Lance Brigade, hold tight to the left!"

Raising his lance, Coleman shouted loudly with his hands on his hips.

To the sound of military drums, the black-clad spearmen arranged in a 50X8 formation stood still on the left side, while the soldiers on the right side quickly moved to the left until the distance between their shoulders was only enough for the palm of their hand.

If on the battlefield, such a distance means that you have to start face-to-face combat with the enemy's cavalry or infantry.

A tight formation can slow down the charge of horses, and soldiers equipped with short hook spears may be able to pull the knight off the horse.

According to Horn's design, the entire regiment had 4000 infantrymen, including 3200 spearmen and 800 holy lancers.

There are 8 spear divisions and 2 holy gun divisions in a legion.

Horn eventually reduced the number of Holy Gunners because the production of Holy Guns could not keep up.

It’s not that they can’t keep up with the gap in the infantry, but that they can’t keep up with the replenishment of the cavalry, because Jeanne’s cuirassiers also need clockwork guns.

Standing under the wooden shed next to the training ground, the sunlight shines on the white snow, and the reflected sunlight makes people dizzy.

Horn squinted his eyes with difficulty and looked at the war monks who were striding forward in the snow and mud.

"How are these war monks adapting?"

They are called war monks because the Salvation Army is essentially an armed order, but other armed orders are mostly focused on saving people and killing people as a supplement.

The Savior Corps' main focus is killing, with saving as a secondary purpose, but the people they kill are sinners. From this perspective, they are also saving people.

The identity of war monks is monks, not soldiers, which can reduce the resistance in recruiting soldiers in the future to a certain extent.

After all, soldiers don’t have a very good reputation in the empire.

"Most of them performed well. They received a lot of respect when they returned home. And with the precedent of deserters, they all worked hard in training."

Horn nodded and flipped through the soldiers' roster on the table beside him.

Two weeks have passed since the New Year's Day, and the first batch of recruits have finally begun their formal military life.

According to previous requirements, veterans came to select people to form a legion.

Originally, Horn didn't want to create any factional distinction between the Black Hats and the Guards, but his decision not to do so didn't mean that the two factions wouldn't do it.

On the surface there is no difference, but in reality, there is still a distinction between veterans of the Guards and veterans of the Black Hats.

By the time Horn found out, they had already divided up all the people.

Moreover, each member of the group is very distinctive. The leader of the Guards, Das, is born into an armed peasant family and has relatively good conduct. The Guards also have the responsibility to protect the Pope.

Therefore, most of the people he selected were simple and honest farmers, and all he required was that they abide by discipline and have a clean family background.

As for the leaders of the Black Hat Army, such as Victor and Coleman, many of them were public farmers, vagrant beggars and bandits.

They all prefer strength in numbers, being inclusive and accepting everyone, and they prefer people with wild and fierce personalities.

This being the case, as it had become an established fact, Horn simply finalized the two systems, and when it came time to expand further in the future, he would separate the two.

So the current organization is the 1st Guards Legion, the 1st Black Hat Legion, the 2nd Black Hat Legion and the 3rd Black Hat Legion.

The formal training is naturally very different from the previous training for recruits.

The most important thing is to start learning the basic operation manual "Salvation Corps Soldiers' Holy Code".

In this basic manual, Jessica, Hakuto, and many knights of the Holy Trinity Education Team summarized the movements for using infantry lances.

There are three kinds of standing postures when using the spear: putting down the spear, picking up the spear, and tidying up the spear. The spear-holding movements when marching: raising the spear, shouldering the spear, holding the spear horizontally, tilting the spear, checking the spear, and dragging the spear.

Gun holding actions during attack: upper stab, lower stab, upper charge, lower charge, upper gun block, lower gun block, and one-handed slashing with a sword while holding the gun at an angle.

These movements were summarized by these veterans and are the most useful and easiest to practice on the battlefield.

According to Horn's request, they divided each movement into seven or three small movements, and each time a command was given, only one small movement was performed.

This can keep the army's stabbing orderly and cause more intensive and greater casualties per unit time.

In addition, in this "Salvation Army Codex", Horn, Jeshka and others completed the unified setting of most of the basic instructions.

For example, the leader of a column is called the vanguard, because many times, soldiers are still unable to understand the officers' orders and can only follow the actions of the people in front of them.

Then the first soldier in each column is very important.

The only one who can truly understand the officer's orders is the vanguard. To be on the safe side, the second soldier behind the vanguard must also understand the orders.

In a queue of ten people, only two people are needed to roughly understand and follow the commands.

There are also requirements when officers give orders, that is, the three things must be highlighted in the command: "Who? How? What?"

For example, "Front row, turn left" is a wrong command, while "First row, turn left" is the correct command.

Don't underestimate this tiny change, it can greatly improve the efficiency of command and reduce the probability of errors.

After flipping through the entire roster, Horn saw the statistics at the bottom: "Supernormal rate 3%, Saintly favor rate 25%, Simple literacy rate 37%."

The so-called extraordinary rate is the proportion of soldiers at the first level of breathing technique to the total number, and the saintly favor rate is the same, except it is the proportion of those who are favored by the saint.

As for the simple literacy rate, in Horn, as long as you can recognize 28 French letters and common words, you can be considered simple literacy.

This can already express some simple meanings, such as "I saw a knight in the east" and let them write "I am the easter."

Currently, soldiers have to take literacy classes every two days to provide them with simple literacy and quick reading skills.

"According to this rate of Holy Favor, um, there are about 500 new recruits who can be Holy Gunners. That's enough people." Horn's finger ran across the roster and the material logistics booklet.

"We currently have 440 clockwork guns. If 2000 of these 400 recruits are to be holy gunners, we will have 40 guns left over."

"It's still not enough." Horn sighed.

"Isn't this enough?" After wiping the sweat off her face, she returned to the bottom of the shed and picked up the booklet in surprise. "Aren't there 40 left?"

"Tomorrow the second batch of 1000 new soldiers will enter the camp, and in five days the third batch of 1000 new soldiers will enter the camp. As for the cavalry, we still have a shortage of 560 clockwork guns."

Madeline immediately said, "Your Majesty, please rest assured. The new blacksmith and lightning wizard sent by Rapid City arrived yesterday. Our production can probably increase from 10-12 pieces per day to 15-18 pieces."

Horn nodded slightly. Actually, there was one thing he didn't say, which was the gap in lead bullets. After all, the iron sand was not enough and the stone bullets were not powerful enough.

Nowadays, the Holy Musketeers are trained with stone bullets, but lead bullets are still not available for every Holy Musketeer.

It seems necessary to use the secret line at Jeanne d'Arc to purchase some lead.

Horn had left a lot of connections in Joan of Arc. When Mitternich left, he sent a few Cheka child soldiers to sneak into Joan of Arc.

"What's the date today?"

"January 16th." Jeanne rubbed her sore eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I think it's about time. The day after tomorrow, we'll dispatch the First Guards and the First, Second, and Third Black Hat Legions to attack the giant spiders and monsters in the southern swamp."

(End of this chapter)