Chapter 442: Discipline Training and Improving the Quality of Grassroots Officers

At this time, Willy on the side spoke: "The 10,000 recruits recruited in the first phase of the draft are very good in terms of mental appearance and physical fitness."

"Well, they are all good."

The central government plans to conduct 13 periods of conscription, recruiting 10,000 soldiers in each period, and strive to recruit 130,000 recruits before the end of the summer of 291, bringing the Knights of Michael back to 200,000.

The 10,000 recruits recruited in the first phase of the conscription were all taken to Base No. 1 away from Avalon Fortress and incorporated into Dale's 4th Army.

Thanks to these 10,000 recruits, Dale's 4th Army was finally fully staffed and became a veritable army, no longer the remnant army with only 10,000 soldiers before.

Su Cheng arrived at Base No. 1 this afternoon and planned to take a brief look at the training of the 10,000 recruits at Base No. 1.

This inspection of the 10,000 recruits of the 4th Army was accompanied by Willie, the deputy commander, and Dale, the commander of the 4th Army.

On the way from Pendragon to the North, while thinking about how to rebuild the Knights of Michael to complete the mission of the Central Committee, Su Cheng had already had the idea to improve the training methods of the Knights, so as to improve the Knights' combat ability. The idea of ​​further improving strength.

How to practice using swords, how to practice using guns, how to practice using bows... In these combat skills for thousands of years, the Britannia Army has already summarized a mature set of training methods that are most suitable for this era. .

Therefore, Su Cheng does not intend to improve these combat skills training methods.

Su Cheng planned to focus on improving the discipline training of the army.

Su Cheng decided to pay close attention to the discipline of the Michael Knights.

Whether before coming to this other world or after coming to this other world, what Su Cheng likes to read most are various military books and history books. There are also several kinds of military books circulating on the market in this other world, but the ones in this other world are The level of military manuals circulating on the market is not as good as the military manuals on Earth.

After reading a large number of military books and history books, Su Cheng came to a conclusion: there are four most important things in an army, namely logistics, intelligence, discipline, and morale.

Discipline determines the lower limit of an army's combat power, and morale determines the upper limit of an army's combat power.

As long as these four things are ensured, even if the general leading the army is a mediocre general, he can still win the battle.

Su Cheng's goal is to build the Michael Knights into an elite force that can win every battle even if it is commanded by a mentally retarded person!

The discipline training of the Britannia Army is not bad, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

For example - the Britannia Army does not have strict requirements on stance, formation and internal affairs.

All along, the Britannia Army's standing requirements have only required them to stand straighter and line up in a slightly more orderly manner, not to mention the internal affairs requirements, which are basically non-existent.

Base No. 1 now has not only the 10,000 new recruits, but also some veterans.

When inspecting the training of new recruits this afternoon, Su Cheng made a special trip to see the veterans' tents.

To be honest, it's terrible.

The quilt and everything were kneaded like strips of pickled cabbage, and there was a strange smell inside.

Therefore, in order to enhance the discipline of the Michael Knights, Su Cheng added many abnormal internal affairs requirements to the daily life of the army.

Whether the discipline of the army is strict or not is often reflected in the little things in daily life.

Su Cheng requested that from now on, all the generals of the Michael Knights were strictly prohibited from talking while eating, that everyone's quilts should be folded, and that armor, boots, swords, spears and other weapons should be polished so brightly that they could be illuminated. Everyone's tent must be so clean that even His Majesty the Emperor would be proud of it and would be happy to sleep in this tent.

These internal affairs requirements may seem formalistic and have no effect on improving the combat effectiveness of the troops, but they actually have profound meaning.

Cleaning up housekeeping is something that seems repetitive and mechanical.

The purpose is to cultivate the discipline and integrity of the generals and subtly instill the concept of absolute obedience in the generals. Repeatedly strengthen the awareness of the generals from every detail, so that the generals know what it means to obey orders.

If you can't even do something as seemingly insignificant as being ordered to polish the tip of a gun, then when the war breaks out, will you be able to perform the combat mission well?

From another perspective, these strict internal affairs requirements can also enhance the generals' sense of honor.

Looking at the tents that are neater and cleaner than their own homes, and the armors and weapons that are so bright that people can be seen reflected on them, the generals will have a sense of honor to some extent, and it can also improve the morale of the troops to a certain extent.

At the same time, these endless and extremely stringent internal affairs requirements can also reduce the excess energy of the generals to a certain extent. As the saying goes, "soldiers cannot be idle."

In addition to these many perverted internal affairs requirements, Su Cheng also added many other projects and clauses to train the discipline of the troops.

For example, training on standing in military posture and standing in line was added, and soldiers must say hello to their superiors when they see them, in order to strengthen the concept of superiors and subordinates in the army.

The training of standing in military posture and standing in line is not only of great benefit to the discipline cultivation of the troops, but also of great benefit to the improvement of combat effectiveness.

In wars in the cold weapon era, formations are very important. Neat queues naturally help to form formations, thus improving combat effectiveness.

The reason why we need to strengthen the concept of superiors and subordinates in the army is to strengthen the generals' idea of ​​obeying their superiors.

It also helps to make the generals fear their own commanders more than their enemies.

Making the generals fear their superiors more than the enemy will not only allow them to fight more fiercely, but also further enhance the discipline of the troops.

Su Cheng also didn't expect to train the Michael Knights into a modern army like Earth's. With the productivity of this era, it was absolutely impossible to train them into a modern army.

However, although it is impossible to train like a modern army, Su Cheng believes that there is still a way to achieve it by working hard to get closer to the modern army and making the Michael Knights slowly begin to resemble a modern army.

However, strengthening the discipline of the troops - this is only one of the focuses of Su Cheng's improved training method for the Knights.

Another focus of Su Cheng's improvement is to increase the cultural training of the troops.

Whether it is the cold weapon age of the earth or this other world, they are particularly fond of recruiting simple villagers to march into the army.

Because the villagers are basically illiterate and relatively dull, they are particularly easy to manage and direct.

After all, in the cold weapon era, soldiers did not need any culture, and generals did not need high-quality soldiers.

Su Cheng himself also agrees with this point of view. In the era of cold weapons, there is indeed no need for highly educated soldiers. It doesn't matter if all the soldiers are illiterate. Anyway, they only need to understand one concept: military orders are like mountains, as long as There is an iron rule that you need to know: if an order is given, you will risk your life to complete the order. As long as you understand this concept and this iron rule, that's it. This unit will be able to be mobilized to carry out operations, and the combat effectiveness will not be too low.

After all, unlike the modern earth with high-tech weapons, in the era of cold weapons, cold weapons such as guns, swords, bows and crossbows did not require highly educated soldiers to use them.

However, although soldiers do not need any culture, generals do.

No matter how the times change, whether it is the era of cold weapons or the era of hot weapons, the generals responsible for commanding and managing soldiers to carry out operations will definitely need a certain culture.

While participating in the Lund Kingdom rescue battle and the "Xia Feng" offensive, Su Cheng had already discovered that the grassroots officers of the army, namely the tenth captain, the hundred captain, and the thousand captain, had low average cultural quality. To a worrying point.

Knights are senior military attachés of the Britannia Empire, and their selection is extremely strict. Even if you want to become the lowest level knight among knights, you still need to have the ability to command troops of 5,000 or more.

Those who have the commanding ability to command troops of 5,000 or more must not have low cultural quality.

In the history of the Britannian Empire, there has never been a person who was purely illiterate but became a knight.

People who can become knights are often people with good family backgrounds, such as nobles, businessmen, or rich farmers.

Although there have been many knights in history who came from poor families and could not read a single word, they were just "formerly illiterate". In the process of joining the army, they slowly became self-taught through various channels. After they became knights By that time, I was no longer illiterate.

The knight remained illiterate from beginning to end, something he had never seen before in the history of the empire.

Therefore, the quality of the knights who are senior military attachés of the empire has always been very high. In the two battles of the Lund Kingdom rescue battle and the "Xia Feng" offensive, Su Cheng had seen a lot of knights. So far, Su Cheng had not seen a single knight whose ability was worrisome. Every knight was... Has considerable talents and qualities.

Compared with the high-quality knights, the quality of the captains, who were the lower-level officers of the empire, was a bit dismal.

Many captains are completely illiterate and can't even write their own names.

If they can't even read the words, then don't expect them to understand the battle map.

Not only can't they read, many captains can't even do arithmetic within 100.

During the two battles, the Lund Kingdom rescue battle and the "Xia Feng" offensive, Su Cheng also met some very good captains. They didn't even know how to read a watch. If they were given a pocket watch, they couldn't understand that it was now. what time is it.

What's even worse is that these captains who can't even read watches are still Captain Qian! Captain Qian, who manages and commands 1,000 people!

After this incident, Su Cheng had a very intuitive and pessimistic understanding of the quality of the army's grassroots officers.

As a junior officer in the army, he couldn't understand the time, the battle map, or the warrant. What a shame!

Therefore, after Su Cheng arrived in Baidi City, before the reception banquet was over, he impatiently asked Humphrey to help him recruit a large group of people. The abilities do not need to be too high, but they only need to be able to teach some very basic skills. A teacher of knowledge, he also asked Humphrey to help him organize manpower to produce a batch of simple textbooks for the generals to use.

Su Cheng needed a large number of teachers to help him set up cultural classes in the army, teach the generals various basic cultural knowledge, and teach them literacy, arithmetic, and other basic cultural knowledge.

After the day's training, both soldiers and captains need to come together for "evening classes" and receive cultural training.

These soldiers are all future captains and even future knights, so they all need to receive cultural training together.

Because time was very tight, Humphrey was unable to help Su Cheng find enough teachers and a sufficient number of textbooks to carry out cultural training for all the Michael Knights, so now there are only the 10,000 people at Base 1. New recruits have cultural classes, but veterans have not yet received formal cultural training.

However, when enough teachers are recruited in the future, veterans will be able to gradually carry out cultural training.

In addition to asking Humphrey to help him recruit teachers, Su Cheng also asked Humphrey to help him recruit enough bards.

After the cultural class every night, Su Cheng needed these minstrels to tell stories to the generals.

The reason why these bards were recruited to give "story lessons" to the generals was naturally not to relax them.

The purpose of "Story Class" is to improve the sense of belonging and pride of the generals. By telling various great people and great deeds in the history of the Britannia Empire, the generals can feel proud of their motherland and feel proud of themselves. Proud to be a Briton.

To put it simply, the establishment of “Story Class” is to pave the way for subsequent patriotic education.