Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1497: Long Snake Formation
Shangluo never imagined that he would face such a problem one day.

Once everyone decided to form a long snake formation, even that formation still had the problem of sorting.

Those on the flanks would be hit by the cavalry, while those standing in the middle would be safe on both wings. So the question is, who is in the middle and who is on the sides?

The heads of the four colleges gathered around a fireplace, and Shang Luo sat on a stool beside him, drinking tea from a thermos cup. Although Wen Yuan had handed the matters here over to him, he did not intend to interfere with other people's decisions for the time being.

But after sitting there for a while, he realized that he might not be able to stay out of it forever. He felt that he would have to intervene sooner or later.

"I think the watermelon man should stand on the far right." said the representative of the banana courtyard.

"why?"

"Because you are the best fighters."

"The most capable fighter must be sent out by you?"

"In fact, I have read the war history of Rome. As long as the most elite troops are placed on the outermost side, the entire formation can be kept in place. I also heard that there was a commander of the city-state of Thebes named Epaminondas. He invented the oblique attack tactic to fight against S. S. What was it? Smidda? Skoda?"

"Sparta." Shangluo said in the back.

"Oh, yes, Sparta." Jiaoyuan bowed and thanked him, and continued, "I think we should adopt the oblique attack tactic."

Ge Lun shook his head: "I'm not saying it can't be used. I just want to ask a question - has anyone among you ever had military training?"

The other three shook their heads.

"Since none of you have ever received military training, there is an important question - you can learn to use a rifle in half a day, but what about operating a cannon? Who has ever learned to operate a cannon?"

"Does a machine gun count? Da da da da." The man from Jiaoyuan raised his hand.

"Then you have not undergone military training? Why don't you tell me when I ask you?"

"I thought you were talking about the collective drill when we entered school? We don't have military training, but we have defense education courses."

To some extent, the entire Nanyang region remained militarized, which was completely different from the Kinai region, which had completely entered a "demilitarized" state. The civilians in Kinai would probably never pick up a weapon higher than a kitchen knife in their lifetime, and the army was mainly recruited from military households.

But Nanyang was different. Nanyang was essentially a series of military garrisons. Everyone who went to Nanyang had to register as a guest in a certain military garrison, which meant that everyone was a military household.

This is necessary because the ratio of the Chinese population to the indigenous population in Southeast Asia is about 4 to 6. This number is very sensitive, because when the Chinese are at an absolute disadvantage in numbers, they will summon a large number of royal troops from the core area of ​​civilization to start a vigorous expansion of territory and expel the barbarians. After that, the real land defense will be established, and the contradiction will temporarily subside. But as the population gradually takes root here, the large-scale war to expel the barbarians will become a long-term, low-intensity small-scale conflict.

No one in this world naturally likes to live in the mountains. After the land in the plains was taken away, the remaining people had to live in the mountains. This kind of thing has been happening in the capital for two or three thousand years, but it is happening now in Nanyang. The guards actually maintained neutrality in this process, because the political correctness of the court was "all the people in the world are the king's subjects." But when the technology and military force were at an absolute advantage, the neutrality of the guards was equivalent to acquiescence.

Although the military households were already very close to the war, war was generally a way of self-fulfillment for them. But for Nanyang, the war might be just outside the window.

"I told you that you can still fight - but why did the basic training just now look so bad?" She said as she picked up the musket that she had used in the practice just now, which was leaning against the side and had a bayonet for demonstration:

"Come on, let's practice a little?"

“I haven’t practiced.”

"Wait, you live among the barbarians, what will you do if they charge you? Don't you practice bayonet in your defense courses? Then what do you practice?"

"We learned to use machine guns. Of all the skills, machine guns are the best."

"anything else?"

"No, it's just shooting."

"What about formation? What about fighting? What about tactical coordination?"

"No training, just target practice - the reason is that we have a military training grading standard, there are four military training levels, A, B, C, and D, which are divided according to height, weight, athletic ability, etc. My service level is C, so I only have firearms training, no tactical training."

“I think I understand how you guys practice.”

Shangluo was also listening in the back, and Apollonia searched what had just been said:
【So that's how it is. Lan Fang divided the military service registration like this: those with Class A military ability, which means high military literacy, will be specially selected to study in schools with supporting facilities, and they can become front-line combat personnel. Class B full military literacy can become auxiliary personnel such as communication soldiers, medical and logistics. Class C ordinary military literacy will only be assigned to logistics and civilian work. Class D does not participate in military training at all, mostly because they are judged to be not healthy enough to carry out operations. 】

This rating is done regularly, regardless of whether or not you have served in the military. Because even if you have served, you must be prepared to report to the reserve for life. This combat readiness status does not discriminate between men, women, young or old. Everyone who can handle a gun must practice shooting. The only difference is whether or not they will be incorporated into combat units to actually perform missions.

Lan Fang also had professional soldiers - the Lan Fang Navy and the Marine Corps and Air Force attached to the Navy. In comparison, Lan Fang's military forces outside the Navy were closer to the police, serving in many public functions from firefighters to traffic police.

These are all the terms of service of "Lan Fang Administrative Services Co., Ltd." In theory, everyone can terminate their service agreement at any time, but like military households, terminating the agreement will terminate their residence status in Nanyang. Although this status is not linked to a lot of cash, it usually means a job that is passed down from generation to generation. As long as they don't want to return to Kinai to find a new hereditary job, they basically won't give up this lifestyle.

"It's over. You only know how to shoot, what can I do?"

The negotiations reached a deadlock. Not only were the composition of the four courts different, but the four courts were also different from each other. The Jiao Court where Lan Fang came from had four service levels, A, B, C, and D, and it was impossible to find the same people.

The problem is not that the military skills are not good, but that they are different. Because they are different, there is no way to unify the command.

"Alas." Shang Luo sighed, "Since they are all different, I think it would be better to command them separately."

"Huh? Aren't we going to form a battle formation?" Ge Lun turned around and asked, "If we don't form a battle formation, we will be overwhelmed by the cavalry." "The number of cavalry that can be deployed on both sides is the same. So as long as you don't charge the opponent's cavalry, your cavalry strength will be evenly matched, right? Since the company here can't even stand in line, then why don't we just stand in line. Everyone, disperse and fight your own battles."

"Is this even possible???" Ge Lun said seriously, "This will be considered as passive competition."

"As long as we can win, isn't that enough? Who cares if he's passive or not? There's no referee on the battlefield. It's the most humiliating thing to form a long line and then get beaten to pieces."

That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Originally, the four of them had not decided yet, but since Shangluo's words made sense, they decided to listen to Shangluo.

"But there is a problem." Phaethon said, "Let me analyze it for you - if you are all scattered to four places, you will be easily defeated one by one. So I suggest that you at least combine the positive and the odd. In other words, you must leave at least one team standing on the battlefield, at least to form a front. Otherwise, the battle will probably end very quickly."

"Why?" asked the people from Liyuan. "If we disperse, we can delay it for a long time."

"Classmates, have you not noticed a basic question - what is your physical fitness level? How fast can you run 5 kilometers?"

As soon as this was said, everyone realized this difficult problem:
They were not only poorly trained. Even their basic physical fitness was uneven. The marching formation was often formed by the slowest members of the team. After all, this was not a race in front of a bear - you only needed to outrun the slowest person. Here, since they were a team, they could not leave the slowest person behind.

"So how can we fight this?" Ge Lun was about to go crazy. "If it's an internal confrontation, it's fine. The quality of the soldiers on both sides is completely different. If a fight breaks out, won't it collapse at the first touch?"

"Not necessarily." Shangluo said, "We have more than a thousand people. Even if it's 1000 pigs, it will take them three days to catch them."

"Wouldn't that turn it into a wilderness survival exercise? When they knock on the rice bowls, wouldn't all of them who are extremely hungry surrender?"

Shang Luo covered his forehead and said, "Why do I feel like I'm on a strange side? This army doesn't look like it will win. How should we fight?"

This reminded Shangluo of many bad things, and he felt that there was no hope of winning if he stood here.

[I can imagine how desperate you are. I guess you thought about it from the moment you set up the long snake formation.]

"Because even the reasons are exactly the same. They were all dragged up here by force. It's hard to decide who should stand in the front, so they stand in a row. How long we can fight in the end will probably depend on how many people line up to surrender. No, no." He patted his head, "We have to shift the focus of our tactics. Since we can't win by fighting head-on, we have to add some tricks."

[Strange tricks? What does it mean? ]

"There are ways to fight even if you are a scattered person. Let me check out the equipment."

In fact, there is a reason why the equipment has not been distributed yet in this competition: all equipment will be provided by the lighthouse system. Specifically, within this certain range, under the projection of the lighthouse system, high concentrations of phlogiston can create some phlogiston entities. Shangluo intends to distribute such weapons and equipment.

Under the blessing of the phlogiston, these equipments will have their own actual weight. There are many types of equipments to choose from, and Shangluo starts to choose from the equipment list.

His eyes rested on a weapon.

"It looks like this is the only one."

A few hours later, Shangluo and Wenyuan met again.

"How is it over there?" Shangluo asked Wen Yuan.

"Perfect. Even though we just met, I feel like I've known them since childhood. I don't need to teach them anything, they all know how to do it. The following content is to study the terrain here and what to eat in the evening. The atmosphere is very relaxed and pleasant - but I noticed that the air pressure over there seems to be different?"

"Yes. Because after recognizing the reality, I asked them to choose this tactic."

Because Wen Yuan would definitely keep it secret, Shang Luo directly showed Wen Yuan the options of the Southern Imperial Academy:

They selected 400 chariots, each of which was connected head to tail. The chariots were equipped with light field artillery, mainly breech-loading cannons such as Portuguese guns, and a large number of tiger squat guns used to carry out forward attacks based on the chariot defense line.

As for muskets, only those who really knew how to use them got their own rifled flintlocks, or even better, large muskets like handguns. The others only got basic ones like fire sticks, without even spikes. There was no other melee weapons at all, as they didn't know how to use them anyway. The entire army couldn't even get together a few dozen sets of armor.

"Are you replicating the second-line troops in the Dayi War?"

"Hey, you're good at history."

"This is something I must definitely learn about war history. I'm very familiar with it."

This is actually a chariot camp. But it is not an ordinary chariot camp. This is a chariot camp created by Sun Chengzong, the governor of Ji and Liao.

This type of chariot camp is different from those that chased the Mongols during the heyday. It was created by Sun Chengzong when the empire entered a complete collapse during the Little Ice Age. It contained despair for the quality of the soldiers, because this chariot camp had almost no expectations for the close combat ability of the soldiers, just to allow the desperate soldiers to pull the trigger three times on the battlefield, so that they could at least be worthy of the court.

In this camp, everyone just had to hold their guns and shoot from their own firing positions. They were just there to listen to the noise. The real killing was left to the experienced artillery and the truly elite cavalry.

"Shangluo, I think you made a strange choice"

“How did you choose the North?”

"I can't say. But you're really not going to think about it?"

"What should I think? You know they are going to split up into smaller groups to test how fast you can catch pigs. You are not really going to go around the mountains and bang on the bowls to ask them to come back for dinner, are you?"

"It's over. It's all over." Wen Yuan looked up at the sky. "What you said makes sense. I know the quality of our soldiers. This is the only way to fight. But... ah... I feel like you've got your credits, but I'm afraid I can't get mine."

(End of this chapter)