Potato's Victory

As the commander of the Royal Guard Legion, Berthier, announced the start of the Joint Exercise, the military and police, led by their respective commanders, immediately ran quickly to the center of the Training Field.

The drill procedure was arranged in advance, consisting of four parts: formation, shooting, marching, and Combat Exercise.

The next step is to conduct Drill.

The Royal Guard Legion, with their years of military experience, should have had an advantage in this regard. However, they had only recently undergone a reorganization. Although Berthier had tried to group soldiers from the same units together, many were now in unfamiliar companies, not even recognizing the drummers or Flag Bearer.

They handled basic maneuvers like standing at attention, marching, turning, and handling rifles quite well, displaying the demeanor of professional soldiers and clearly outclassing the police officers. However, when it came to changing formations, especially during marching, the several companies that hadn't trained together much started to fall into disarray.

On the other hand, although the police officers had only practiced drills for a few months, they cooperated very well with each other.

The speed at which Skirmishers converted into Infantry Line was particularly astonishing, leaving the Royal Guard Legion in awe. The soldiers were unaware that this was essential to the New Shock Tactics proposed by the Crown Prince, a tactic they would learn later, but for now, they had no choice but to concede defeat.

Ultimately, in the category of queuing, the officers in charge of scoring mostly gave the officers higher scores.

The officers and soldiers of the Royal Guard Legion were shocked, feeling as if their pride had been struck by a thousand blows—their elite force had actually lost to the Police!

During the subsequent shooting drills, the soldiers were all eager to show the young Police what they were capable of.

As expected, with everyone working together, the Royal Guard Legion Line Infantry Firing, which went first, achieved an excellent score of 75 hits in three rounds of firing, taking only 1 minute and 8 seconds. The participating Infantry Line consisted of only 300 men, and at a distance of 70 paces, this hit rate was truly astonishing.

As the soldiers walked off the field with smug expressions, ready to laugh at the police officers, the latter surprised them once again with their performance of hitting 66 shots in 1 minute and 10 seconds across three rounds of shooting.

It's worth noting that although the officers lost, their speed and accuracy are commendable in any military. And reportedly, these officers had only trained in shooting for a few months.

Of course, Joseph trained these shooting skills by having the Police Academy fire bullets into them. Each person had to fire three bullets a day.

Don't underestimate this number. Right now, it's already quite remarkable that the most elite troops in Europe can conduct three live-fire exercises in three days.

You know, the Gunpowder and bullets loaded into a gun are all money being spent when it's fired!

Officers are all scheming to line their own pockets; who would want soldiers firing shots at their own Gold Coin?

Having won back a point, the Royal Guard Legion was greatly encouraged and prepared to continue "teaching the Police a lesson" in the third marching exercise.

To their surprise, they suffered an exceptionally crushing defeat.

Police Academy regularly conduct 1- Lieue weighted cross-country runs, while currently, no one in the armies of Europe countries is training physical fitness.

As a result, after the police officers completed their 5- Lieue march and returned to the Training Field, they waited a full ten minutes before the Royal Guard Legion soldiers arrived, panting heavily.

It wasn't until the Combat Exercise began that the Royal Guard Legion finally showed their elite strength, with infantry and cavalry working together to quickly break through the police officers' lines of defense.

The final result was a 2-2 draw. Although the Combat Exercise had a higher weighting in the score, giving the Royal Guard Legion a higher total score, almost drawing with these young Police who hadn't even graduated yet made them realize that they would never underestimate the latter again.

So when Berthier announced that the Royal Guard Legion would take turns training at the Paris Police Academy, not a single soldier objected.

Some people even started to look forward to it after they found out privately about the quality of the food at the Police Academy.

As a result, the number of students at a certain Police Academy Principal suddenly increased by more than two thousand.

Upon returning to his office in Paris, Joseph's first encounter was with Varennes, the Assistant Director of the Industrial Planning Bureau had previously remained in Bordeaux to assist Venio.

The latter respectfully placed a stack of reports in front of the Crown Prince and reported, "Your Highness, the Spring Planting in the South is basically over, and I rushed back to report to you."

"Thanks to your efforts, more than one-fifth of the Farmland in the Bordeaux area was planted with Potato this year."

"Oh? So many?"

Joseph was somewhat surprised; he had thought that a 15% planting rate would be quite good. After all, Potato yield four times more than Grain. Planting 15% Potato would increase the total harvest by 60%.

Varennes said, "Many Lesser Nobility or Freeholder saw that Plantation Owner were planting Potato in large quantities, which increased their confidence in Potato, so they followed suit and planted quite a bit as well."

Joseph nodded in satisfaction and opened the report in front of him, "What about the other regions?"

"Mr. Venio, following your methods, used Brewing Technology to persuade many Plantation Owner in Burgundy District and several the South provinces. These areas each have approximately 15% of their planted area planted with wine."

Joseph saw the figures on the report: Burgundy 16%, Béarn 15%, Foix 15%.

Unexpectedly, Venio was so fast that he even exceeded the target.

Varennes continued, "Your Highness, in addition, Brittany and Normandy also grow a considerable amount of Potato, but not on as large an the South."

Joseph quickly flipped through the pages: Brittany 13%, Normandy 11%. Although neither was much, it was still extra income.

"Mr. Venio also went to the West?"

Varennes shook his head and said, "Mr. Venio went to Provence from the South, but he asked a friend named Jean Sonnet to take some people from the Brewing Technology Association to the West to promote it."

Jean Sonnet Joseph felt the name sounded familiar; he seemed to be one of the key figures in the Girondins later on. It turned out he and Venio had started working together so early on.

However, to be fair, these members of the Girondins were quite efficient at business promotion.

He continued to look through the report and saw that Provence and Dauphiné also had 6%-8% Potato planting area, indicating that after passing through the Southern Provinces, Venio went straight to the Southeast.

Joseph was talking to Varennes about Potato when Eman entered the office with a court official, bowing and saying, "Your Highness, His King has sent someone."

The official hurriedly stepped forward, bowed, and said with a broad smile, "Your Highness, His King invites you to return to the Versailles Palace as soon as possible. He says he has something important to tell you."

Joseph hurriedly told Eman to help him change his clothes, preparing to go see his father.

Just as the group reached the door, a messenger hurried over and handed Eman several letters sealed with Sealing Wax wax.

The latter glanced at the markings on the envelope and whispered to Joseph, "Your Highness, it's your ' Grain Buyer '."

Dear readers, please consider giving me more monthly tickets in recognition of my extra chapters. I really need your encouragement and monthly tickets!

(End of this chapter)