"What conspiracy? The enemy across from us are plainly a bunch of green recruits. They swarm forward in a rush when attacking, then scatter like birds and beasts when retreating. Where the hell did they find such a collection of idiots?"
Grigi made his judgment quickly. If he had not been short on troops, he truly would have ordered a charge. Opportunities this good did not come often.
"Commander, I saw the enemy abandon quite a few weapons. Why don't we send people to pick them up? We could make a tidy profit!" the young officer suggested after some thought.
Grigi shot him a fierce glare and said in a tone of exasperated disappointment, "Amburich, sometimes I really want to split open your skull and see what's inside. Why is your head full of so many ridiculous ideas?
"All you think about is making money. Do you take the enemy over there for fools? Why don't you go try it yourself and see whether they'll take your life?
"Our task is to hold the line. What use are a few broken guns if we pick them up?"
In this era, military pay in every country was poor. If soldiers wanted to get rich, their main means were plunder and battlefield spoils.
This war was being fought on Austrian soil, so plunder was out of the question. No matter how mad they were, they could not run wild on their own land. Thus, captured spoils became their principal source of income.
Of course, Franz's promise of land rewards was also an important reason why they could fight with peace of mind.
In the past, obtaining land as a reward mainly meant becoming a noble and receiving a fief. The difficulty was simply too great. Aside from a handful of lucky men,