It is August and the weather is extremely hot.
The wasteland outside the north pass of the valley has been turned into a large training ground.
Thirty officers were divided into six or seven groups and worked for more than half a month to recruit a total of 312 soldiers. Among these newly recruited soldiers, laborers, miners and bankrupt farmers accounted for the majority. Hunters and woodcutters, unemployed citizens, caravan guards, young refugees, etc. accounted for the minority. There were also seven or eight carefully selected free mercenaries.
More than 300 newly recruited soldiers, plus nearly 100 people recruited from the previous caravan, a total of more than 400 people were divided into five recruit flag brigades, and they were all receiving basic training for recruits at Beiguan Army Fort.
Basic training of new recruits is the responsibility of the recruit instructors under the garrison. The term "recruit instructors" has been written into the "Legion Act". They are non-combatants between officers and soldiers. The "recruit instructors" under Art's command are mainly composed of three types of personnel. The first is those elite wounded soldiers who cannot continue fighting but do not need to be handed over to the civil administration for resettlement. The second is the group of trainers that Art previously recruited from the north of Burgundy. The third is that commanders above the army squad leader can be appointed to concurrently serve as instructors for new recruits when needed.
There are currently seventeen recruit instructors under the garrison, which can be roughly divided into three categories: military formation instructors, physical fitness instructors, and weapons instructors (many instructors hold multiple positions).
According to the requirements of the "Legion Act", under normal circumstances, all newly recruited soldiers must undergo no less than one month of basic recruit training. Only after the recruits pass the training assessment can they be promoted to combat soldiers and enjoy the treatment of combat soldiers.
The content of recruit training is relatively simple and matches the type of instructor. There are only three items: military formation training, physical training, and weapon mastery.
Military formation training is the first hurdle in the training of new recruits. Every day, military formation instructors who have been transferred from injured and retired veterans carry short sticks to "teach" the recruits how to line up, form and retreat, and charge and retreat. Those former laborers, miners and displaced farmers We have never seen this kind of specialized military formation training. In the first three to five days, the recruits could not even stand in order in the most basic line formation. The military formation instructors would not say anything to these stupid guys. The slightest mistake would be punished with a stick. After a few days, almost all the recruits were injured.
Physical training is the second hurdle for recruits. Different from the simple fatigue of being a manual miner, the so-called physical training is simply torture of new recruits in different ways.
Every morning at dawn, a physical instructor led a short stick to "invite" the recruits out of the thatched shed (the military tent was not yet in place). First, they ran back and forth for two "two miles" in the wilderness until the sun rose. After breakfast, after half a morning of military formation training, there was immediately another physical training, with three or five people carrying hundreds of pounds of heavy wood. Squats, jumps and lifts, or picking up fifty or sixty-pound rocks and constantly lifting and putting them down. This kind of training lasts until the scorching sun at noon. Then I can return to Beiguan Army Fort with sweat all over and wolf down, and then take a quick rest. In the afternoon, as soon as the sun tilts, I start to repeat the training contents of the morning. I finally make it to the evening, can I rest? impossible! Before sunset, I repeated the "two-mile" round trip training again; finally it got dark, was it time to go to bed? Don't worry, there is also the "Legion Order" that recruits must learn. When the instructors sent by the Officer Academy explained the "Legion Order" to the recruits, many of them were already sitting on the ground and snoring...
Compared with the first two aspects of recruit training, weapons mastery training is simply a rare break for new recruits. The basic training of new recruits does not have high requirements for the mastery of weapons. Its main purpose is to familiarize the recruits with the weapons they will use, so as to facilitate the training of combat soldiers after they are promoted to combat soldiers. There are three main types of weapons that recruits need to initially understand and master: long (short) spears, broadswords, and shields. In the daily basic training for recruits, weapons mastery training is only conducted for one hour before lunch and dinner.
With such inhumanly heavy training, Art certainly would not treat the recruits badly in other ways. According to regulations, the monthly salary of new recruits is only twenty pfennigs (equivalent to the previous salary of handymen) before they are promoted to combat soldiers, but the food provided to the new recruits is very abundant.
每日早中晚三餐已经是那些平民贱户们从未有过的厚待（多数人一日两餐），每餐都供应裸麦面包配加了食盐的麦糊更是往日不敢想像的奢望，更让新兵们惊喜的是每天中午都有一碗能见着油荤的肉汤和一份果蔬。 Every three days, a piece of bone-in meat or a fatty and shiny stew can be seen on the recruits' dinner plate...
However, even with such favorable conditions, a small number of recruits cannot withstand this purgatory-like basic training, and either cheat and play tricks, or directly ask to quit, and some even run away in the middle of the night.
For recruits who have repeatedly failed to reform or openly defected, the "Legislative Decree" has made it very clear. In the light case, they will be whipped and imprisoned, in the serious case, they will be punished as slaves. If the crime is serious and the impact is serious, they will be beheaded in public.
After beating nine, imprisoning three, and killing one, the remaining recruits became much more honest, because they already understood that what awaited them through hard training was a daily generous food supply and high military pay after promotion to combat soldiers. What awaited them was not only the inactivity in the hands of the instructors, but Wooden sticks, and sharp swords on the waists of the Military Law Corps (guards)...
.
The original dozens of soldiers in the army were trained by the two army adjutants Odo Angus and Kazak, Tuba and others. Among the recruit instructors, several "masters" who were proficient in swordsmanship and conflict would also often lead the training of the soldiers.
According to Art's arrangement, these veterans who have experienced war will become the low-level commanders and the backbone of the new army.
Comparing with the combat skills training of recruits and ordinary soldiers, the training of officers pays more attention to cultivating a smart brain
In the stone room of the Beiguan Army Fort Officer Academy, the army's top commander, Art, is personally giving lessons to the officers.
He held a piece of parchment in his hand and said to the officers in the room: "Everyone, the day before yesterday I explained to you how to improve the combat effectiveness of the army from three aspects: combat skill training, morale improvement, and battlefield strategy. Just now I also analyzed the important role of an army's command ability, and then I will tell you in detail how to command an army like controlling the left and right hands."
Att paused to attract everyone's attention, and then continued: "The command of the army is actually the transmission, refinement and execution of the commander's orders. For example, in the last battle to recapture Wallonburg, I only led the guards to supervise the formation at the rear. How was the order I gave to start the attack implemented?"
“First of all, I have to convey the order to the adjutant (or other commander) through the messenger; secondly, after receiving my order, the adjutant thinks about how to allocate the battering ram, siege tower, siege ladder and crossbow squad, attack direction, etc., and then conveys it to the next-level squadron leader through a trumpet or a password; the squadron leader receives the order from the adjutant. After the order is issued, the siege order must be carried out specifically. The squadrons responsible for the siege must lead the soldiers into the siege ram, the siege tower, or carry the wooden ladder and rush to the wall. The crossbow team responsible for covering must find the best shooting angle for the crossbow. As the soldiers at the bottom, they must receive the most direct and clear order before they can exert their combat power. "
"What kind of things are needed for the final execution of this kind of commander's order? One is the person who executes it, mainly the officers sitting here, and the other is the way the military order is transmitted..."
At the top, Art was talking with great excitement, and all the officers below were also listening with interest.
As the recruit training progresses day by day, the first batch of more than three months of officer training at the Military Academy is almost over.
This batch of trained officers have completely separated from the army in the past few months and have devoted themselves to various trainings, from learning common characters (with a certain learning foundation), simple arithmetic and medical skills to selecting battlefields and arranging troops, from how to From training soldiers and improving their combat effectiveness to strict military discipline, rewards and punishments, from distributing weapons and armor, setting up camps on the battlefield to collecting food and wages on the battlefield, ensuring army supplies, from the single combat skills of infantry to the exploration of collaborative operations of infantry, cavalry and bows...
In just two or three months, officers were fed a large amount of knowledge about army command and operations like crammed ducks. These things could not be digested and absorbed in just a few military classes. They had to be stuffed into their stomachs first and waited for the officers to chew them over later while managing soldiers and marching and fighting...
..................
In mid-September, in the midsummer evening, the air was still hot and humid.
In the shallow ditch of the stream in front of the wooden castle gate, Art and Odo Angus stripped off their clothes and only wore pants and soaked in the clear stream water, enjoying the rarest coolness in the hot summer.
Matt submerged his body into the water, leaned his head on a flat stone on the bank of the stream, and looked up at the red sky; Odo Angus and the two people on both sides also closed their eyes and enjoyed this leisurely time.
“Sir, it would be better if I could drink a large glass of beer.” Angus narrowed his eyes and said with enjoyment.
Matt smiled, "Don't worry, Ron has already gone to get the beer. I asked Ron to take a large bucket of beer and put it in the dense forest upstream of the stream to chill it this morning. It should be the coldest time now."
Angus took the wine glass that Ron handed over, looked at the light yellow foaming beer inside, and asked: "Sir, is this the beer brewed by our valley brewery?"
As he spoke, he raised his glass and took a long sip. A cold wave of coldness poured down his throat and into his belly. In an instant, his whole body was soaked in the cold...
Hiccup~~~
"Sir, this, this tastes so damn good to drink!" Odo burped and couldn't help but praise loudly.
Matt also picked up his glass and took a long sip, "It's really good! I hired the brewery's brewmaster from Lucesien at a high price, and the hops we brew are also the highest quality hops purchased."
Several people clinked glasses again. After taking a few sips, Art brought up an important topic, "Odo, Angus, the first phase of the Officer Academy ends tomorrow, and the basic training for new recruits is about to end. The time has come for us to officially establish the legion. I want to talk to you about the issues of legion organization, officer appointment, and job title restructuring."
“After the expansion, the legion will be named the Wells Legion. This is the name given by Earl Baldwin. I still plan to set up two infantry companies..."