Training Troops

A few days later, Soro's grain-trading caravan left Glan Territory under the escort of several thieves sent by Zhou Ming, heading south toward the Iron Fortress Kingdom.

Of course, Zhou Ming would not put all his eggs in one basket. Besides Soro's large grain-trading caravan, he had also reached agreements with several small and medium-sized traveling merchants, having them sell grain as well and bring back resources Glan Territory needed. How much they could eat into the market depended on each merchant's individual ability.

With the grain sales problem initially resolved, Zhou Ming shifted his focus back to training troops.

Yes, Zhou Ming had never intended to entrust Glan Territory's security and defense to a group of utterly wicked, greedy, brutal, and poorly disciplined bandits.

Though those bandits had become so comfortable under his monetary bribes, servant attendants, and lavish hospitality that they never wanted to leave the castle, whose conditions and facilities were like paradise, they were also like ticking time bombs, capable of bringing endless hidden dangers to Glan Territory at any moment.

Even if they were still relatively obedient to him now.

For instance, in April and May that year, he had sent the great bandit Roger and a group of men to raid and wreak havoc across several territories around Glan Territory. They had set traps and killed several knights, making Earl Lautz stop suspecting that Edward had died at the hands of bandits and acknowledge Donny as the lord of Glan Territory.

Then, in July and August, to prevent Baron Sean of Nathan Territory from sending people to investigate Finnie's cause of death after noticing the changes in Glan Territory, Zhou Ming personally led a gang of thieves into Nathan Territory to cause widespread destruction. They burned farmland and houses, poisoned wells, and used traps to kill three or four knights. Only after confirming that Nathan Territory lacked the ability to retaliate did he return to Glan Territory with the thieves completely unscathed.

Zhou Ming's intended role for these thieves was to clear away obstacles around Glan Territory and safeguard its stable development before Glan Territory's regular military force had been properly established. Whenever a neighboring territory showed signs of stepping out of line, he would send the "Alibaba Thieves Gang" out for some activity and nip those threats in the bud.

Naturally, the thieves were happy to accept such a "role." After all, their calling was to burn, kill, plunder, and commit every evil imaginable. Glan Territory was their nest, and they could not graze beside their own nest. Other territories, naturally, were where they could stretch their limbs whenever boredom struck.

But such a chaotic and disorderly force as thieves could not serve as Glan Territory's defensive army forever. Training a disciplined, formidable regular army had become Zhou Ming's most urgent task.

In fact, if he wanted quick results, Zhou Ming could have had Donny recruit some knights and grant them the ten knightly fiefs in Glan Territory. After all, there were many wandering knights in this world who had lost their lands for various reasons, and some would even come to recommend themselves for employment. Recruiting a few knights would not take much time.

But—

If he recruited knights, then all the reforms Zhou Ming had made before would basically become null and void. Once knights were granted their fiefs, the villages, population, and farmland within those fiefs would all fall under the knights' autonomous rule and management. The lord would lose eighty or ninety percent of his control over the territory at once.

What Zhou Ming wanted now was to grasp every resource of Glan Territory in his own hands, reform agriculture, develop industry and commerce, strengthen the military, and then embark on a path of continual outward expansion. How could he possibly achieve that by relying on a dozen or so knights?

October.

The busy farming season ended. After the farmers of Glan Territory had rested for over a month, Zhou Ming had someone issue a "Winter Training Announcement."

All able-bodied male farmers between the ages of twelve and forty were required to gather at the castle and participate in two months of "Winter Training."

As soon as the announcement came out, the farmers began discussing it heatedly, even causing localized unrest and panic.

"Are we going to war again?"

"What are we supposed to do? Even twelve-year-old children have to go? Their bodies haven't even grown properly yet. Wouldn't sending them to the battlefield be sending them to their deaths?"

"If things get bad, we should run. Two men in the family already died in last year's big war. There are only two boys left now. Are we supposed to send them too?"

Seeing that this localized panic was showing signs of turning into rumors and spreading rapidly, Zhou Ming had no choice but to issue another explanatory notice. It stated that the "Winter Training Announcement" merely called farmers to the castle for two months of winter training. Once the training ended, they would all return home and would not be taken to war.

Only then were the farmers' fears soothed. They gathered at the castle one after another and took part in the winter training.

The Training Ground before the castle.

Looking at the eleven formations below, gathered by village and town, Zhou Ming had the training instructors of each formation count their numbers.

"From immature twelve-year-old boys to burly forty-year-old men, the entire Glan Territory has 1,067 males capable of wielding weapons. How many qualified soldiers fit for the battlefield can be selected from them?"

That was right. Zhou Ming's purpose in organizing this collective winter training was to screen out a batch of high-quality recruits who could fight and dared to fight.

He would model their organization after the Qin State Tiger and Wolf Army, training a force of crossbowmen, spearmen, and light cavalry.

Crossbowmen would be equipped with powerful heavy crossbows, ballistae, or longbows with greater range. They would serve as the long-range troops for striking enemy forces.

Spearmen would be responsible for resisting the charge of heavily armored cavalry. Their training would demand extremely strict discipline, requiring them to stand immovable as mountains and fear no death when facing the charge of heavy cavalry.

The light cavalry's main role would be to cover their own flanks, harass the enemy's wings, and wipe out fleeing enemy forces during pursuit. Later, if needed, a batch of heavy cavalry could also be developed from the foundation of the light cavalry.

A battle formation combining crossbowmen, spearmen, and light cavalry offered the best balance and cost-effectiveness among all combinations of troop types. Against this formation, even heavily armored cavalry—and indeed any single troop type, no matter how powerful—would gain not the slightest advantage.

However, the shortcomings of this formation were also obvious: it required a large number of soldiers. Without enough troops to form a battle formation with sufficient depth, it simply could not display its proper immense power on the battlefield.

Zhou Ming estimated that he needed to train an army of at least 1,200 men, including 300 elite light cavalry, 300 elite crossbowmen, and 600 elite spearmen, before he could crush every other military force within Rose Territory.

But the potential recruits standing before Zhou Ming now numbered only a little over a thousand, from immature boys to middle-aged men. After excluding those who were physically weak, timid and cowardly, or burdened with too many concerns, he would consider it quite impressive if he could ultimately select two hundred men.

"Let them train for two months first. Once I pick out all the promising ones, I'll issue the Military Enlistment Reward Regulations and the Combat Merit Reward Ordinance. I refuse to believe I won't be able to recruit a batch of qualified soldiers!"

Thus, over the next two months, Zhou Ming personally supervised the training of these ordinary farmers according to the training outline he had written.

The training Zhou Ming gave them was not overly exhausting either. They ran two thousand meters each morning and evening, practiced marching in formation and standing posture in between, learned to turn front, back, left, and right, and received basic bow-and-arrow and spear training. He also brought over several dozen horses for farmers who could ride or wanted to learn riding to undergo basic horsemanship training.

During breaks from the dull training, Zhou Ming would also organize the farmers for entertaining activities such as passing flowers to drumbeats, folk song contests, improvised performances, and talent displays. Just like the military training he had attended in university, it was full of fun. Many farmers who had originally been uninterested in winter training gradually came to enjoy it.

Moreover, Zhou Ming set up an honor roll. The top three fastest runners, the top three most accurate archers and crossbowmen, and those with the best performances in horsemanship and spear technique all received public praise and material rewards. For a time, a competitive spirit of striving to outdo one another arose among the farmers.

Nearly two months later, the weather had grown increasingly cold, making it unsuitable to continue training. As this winter training was about to end, Zhou Ming dropped a bombshell before the gathered farmers.