paranoianovel #536 - Military life in Delavan (Part 1)
#536 - Military life in Delavan (Part 1)
Lead-colored clouds crawled across the sky, the gloomy light failing to reflect off the tips of bayonets and sabers.
Dravan wore a set of tight-fitting quartermaster's rough cloth clothing. The cold wind swept across his forehead, turning the newly oozed sweat into cold sweat that trickled down his cheeks.
With each step on the frozen, hard dirt road, he could hear the clanging of four pickaxes and bottles and jars behind him.
Whenever he looked up, he saw the backs of soldiers marching in rows, and when he turned his head, he saw the donkey's long, sullen face beside him.
"Can't you carry a little more? I can barely walk," Dravan asked the donkey, almost pleadingly, but the donkey turned its head away, pretending not to hear.
Due to the onset of winter, most of the previously muddy and difficult roads had become incredibly hard after the snow stopped.
But when the sun came out, a simple shine would melt the snow into the grass, making the roads even muddier.
Amidst the white snow on both sides of the grass, a black-clad team of about six hundred people was speeding past in neat formation.
According to Horn's army policy, every ten people were assigned a quartermaster and a donkey.
Each soldier carried weapons such as breastplates, helmets, long guns, and holy muskets, along with about 15 kilograms of dry food and water.
Daggers, flints, cooking utensils, blankets, bandages, and other small public items weighing about 10 kilograms were carried by the unarmored quartermasters.
The donkeys were responsible for carrying tents, fodder, spare rations, bullets, mallets, pickaxes, logging axes, spoils of war, and even wounded soldiers, with a load of about 80-100 kilograms.
Normally, quartermasters were mainly responsible for assisting and taking care of the donkeys, and their own burden would not be too heavy, because they were also tasked with receiving orders from the legion commander and delivering them.
In fact, however, because the donkeys were unwilling to continue walking with too much weight, Dravan had to help them carry some of the baggage in order to keep up with the marching speed.
"I'll have you gelded when I get back," Dravan said through gritted teeth, seeing that the donkey was ignoring him.
As a young man from a Cush noble family, Dravan was not as resentful as McGaughn.
McGaughn and Dravan were friends, but McGaughn's father was a Frankish knight, so he lived in a more privileged environment.
But Dravan was a purebred Cushite. As part of the Cushite knight class, he had done his fair share of dirty farm work on his own estate.
What was wrong with serving tea and water? What was wrong with taking care of livestock? His father, as a pureblood Cushite knight, still had to go to the fields to work during the busy harvest season.
In Dravan's small manor, serving tea and water was considered easy work. He always believed that McGaughn would be honest after being assigned to the fields to cut wheat for two days.
"Hang in there for a little while," said an old quartermaster in his late forties, effortlessly leading his donkey. "The supply point is ahead. Give your donkey some eggs and carrots, and it will listen to you."
In Dravan's Fifth Guards Legion, most of the quartermasters were young men, with only seven or eight old quartermasters.
These old quartermasters were actually the instructors and teachers of the young quartermasters.
"It eats better than I do," Dravan gasped, exhaling puffs of white mist. "How much longer do we have to endure? I feel like I've been walking for almost a year."
"Hahahaha," the old quartermaster laughed. "You're almost as tall as me, and stronger than me, and you know how to breathe. How can you be tired?"
"But I'm still so tired," Dravan even felt a little aggrieved.
"It's not your body that's tired, but your heart," the old quartermaster continued to stride effortlessly. "Marching is always boring. Doing the same thing over and over again will stretch time infinitely, making it seem like you've been doing it for a long time, but the actual distance is far from tiring."
Dravan's panting subsided a little: "How many times have you been on the battlefield?"
The old quartermaster looked thin, but he carried those sundries effortlessly: "Three or four times, I can't remember. I was there at the Battle of Longbridge."
"What are we like when we go to the battlefield?" Although Dravan envied the battlefield glory enjoyed by other soldiers, he was equally apprehensive about war.
The old quartermaster scratched his scalp: "If it's a planned field battle or ambush, we'll camp five miles away first, and then the Protectorate Army will stay in the camp, letting the war monks go out lightly armed.
If it's an encounter, we'll surround ten large carts in a circle, putting the wounded and baggage inside, but so far, I haven't encountered anyone breaking into the cart camp."
"Why?"
"War monks have a base salary. Rushing into the cart camp will at most make them share the same hatred, unlike mercenaries or conscripted laborers, whose loot is gone, which means a wasted trip.
During the Battle of Rapid Creek, the church's knights rushed into the cart camp, but our war monks fought as usual. Later, the knights learned their lesson and stopped rushing into the camp."
"Will we encounter a battle this time?"
"Of course." The old quartermaster was also bored, and since the quartermasters didn't have to be as disciplined as the regular war monks, he explained it to Dravan.
The church knights who reacted on January 20th began to advance continuously towards the South Nao'an River, trying to drive back the Savior Army, which had not yet gained a firm foothold.
They launched attacks on the northern line of the Nao'an River near Small Pool City on January 22nd, 23rd, and 25th, respectively.
Due to being outnumbered, the two legions on the northern line retreated about 20 kilometers while blocking, and camped on a mound.
According to the scouts' reconnaissance, as these church knights went deeper, their supplies were indeed insufficient and they had to requisition supplies along the way.
And if they wanted to attack Small Pool City, they would face the same predicament that Earl Musac encountered when he conquered Small Pool City—
At most, one route could supply more than a thousand people. This time, the attack was planned by Racunio and led by Count Lyanna, a titled knight.
Bringing the Kasha County armed monks who had come to join them, totaling about four thousand people, they had to divide their forces into three or even five routes.
Because there were fewer villages on the branch trails, and fewer supplies that could be requisitioned, the other two routes had to be further divided.
The knights' army camped tonight and had to get up tomorrow morning. The scope and time for requisitioning supplies were limited, so they could only rob as they went.
In the end, the news spread, and even the villages by the roadside took their supplies and fled into the forest. They couldn't continue chasing into the forest to ask the villagers for supplies, could they?
It wasn't that they didn't know that looting villages would make it increasingly difficult to requisition supplies, but if they didn't loot villages, the knight lords would have to go hungry. It wasn't that they deliberately wanted to rob.
There were three ways to easily collect supplies:
The first was to prepare adequately before the war, which was definitely too late for the Church Army. The second was to take the densely populated main road, but it had already been taken by the main force of the Homeland Servants. The third was to continue advancing in small teams of one or two hundred people, and then gather again in the evening to camp.
At first, they used this method when pursuing the Savior Army, but they were repeatedly attacked by the Holy Musket Cavalry, so they had to form teams of at least four or five hundred people to advance, and they had to include knights.
The Savior Army could walk thousands of people on a small road without robbing because there were supply points.
After the supply points were established, the Protectorate Army had ample time to purchase and transport supplies from farther away.
"According to the scouts' reconnaissance, after this supply point, there is a tributary river. We cross the river and walk through a section of grassland, and the scouts will come to meet us.
Then we just need to wait for the scouts to find the enemy, and then ambush them on the Church Army's marching route. After the fight, we return the same way.
Don't worry about whether we can beat them. They have about 100 knights and 400 infantry, but we have more than 600 people with the Protectorate Army.
Unless they are Edict Knights, otherwise it's 200 knights and 800 infantry, we can fight."
Dravan nodded as if he understood, and then asked, not knowing whether he was relieved or disappointed: "Then we are fighting an ambush, doesn't that mean we won't see the battlefield?"
The old quartermaster looked at him in surprise: "People are trying to avoid going to the battlefield, how can you still be looking forward to going to the battlefield? Besides, who said you can't see the battlefield in an ambush.
The rules stipulate that in small-scale battles, the quartermasters must stay within a range of 100-200 meters. If they see wounded soldiers, they must pull them back as soon as possible, bandage them, or send them to the surgeons for treatment."
"I'm only a quartermaster temporarily. This is called adapting to the battlefield in advance," Dravan felt that the hardship and fatigue had dissipated a bit. "Let's go, let's walk faster."
Dravan perked up, but didn't see the playful expression on the old quartermaster's face.
"I hope you can really adapt to it."