On August 10, 138 of the new calendar, the Chaoxin Kingdom of the Mingji people declared war on the Kingdom of Byron and the Kingdom of Tairong. Pen ~ Fun ~ Cabinet www.biquge.info The Republic of Bukin, which was allied with Meier, immediately joined the war, and the Ilibi Confederate nations joined the war with it.

Under the attack of the Kingdom of Byron and the Republic of Bujin, the Kingdom of Chaoxin had no power to fight back. If the forces of other races were changed, this war would have ended within half a year, and only a few light traces would have been left in the history books.

But this is not the case.

Chaoxin kept nearly 10,000 Mingji muskets and had unique musket tactics. The musketeers of the Mingji were protected by crossbowmen, sword and shield men, and contradictory soldiers with shields, who would protect them from direct fire and partial projectile fire. The armies of the Mingji people will always move forward bravely, forward, and forward again when fighting, and will not open fire until the enemy is in the best range.

Behind the musketeers were regular melee units, which would charge if the fighting force was bogged down in a bitter battle, or if the enemy's morale had dropped significantly.

The Mingji people believe that the war dead can enter the kingdom of the living god, so the Mingji army has no concept of morale at all, and will always fight to the death. Because of this, the Mingji people will pay great losses in every battle, and even if they win, the casualty rate will be higher than thirty percent.

The Bujin army and the Byronic army had never fought against the Mingji, and they suffered a great loss in the first battle, being killed and wounded by the muskets of the Mingji. Fortunately, the morale of the Bujin army and the Byronic army was high enough, and they were not crushed by the powerful fire blows and enemy charges of the Mingji people, and after paying great losses, both armies won the battle.

The two Ming armies that participated in the battle were completely wiped out, no one fled or surrendered, and more than 50,000 people were killed. The Bujin army sent 30,000 troops and suffered nearly 5,000 casualties; The Byronic army sent 20,000 troops and suffered nearly 5,000 casualties. After the first battle, the number of casualties of the coalition forces was close to 10,000.

Both the Republic of Bujin and the Kingdom of Byron are understaffed countries, and such a loss will undoubtedly hurt the vitality of both countries. Maier personally commanded the battle, and in his opinion the Mingji were weak, their tactics were stupid, and their soldiers were poorly trained. But it was such an army, under conditions of complete parity in strength, that inflicted huge losses on the Byronic army.

This battle was won by Maier, but he also lost. The huge losses made it impossible for the Byronic army to continue its march and had to withdraw to the country to recuperate. Maier drew some of his troops from the city defense army and added them to the regular army. Because of the large shortage of personnel, as of November 138 of the new calendar, the Byronic army was still about 2,000 men short of being able to reach its full strength.

He Yan Zhiheng took this opportunity to submit an application for transfer, passed the relevant assessment, and became a member of the regular army. However, the ranks of the city defense army and the ranks of the regular army are not universal, and Yan Zhiheng was revoked from the rank of second lieutenant after being transferred, and became a sergeant in the regular army, from a grassroots officer to a big soldier.

The sergeant and above are warrant officers, which means that after Yan Zhiheng was transferred, he was demoted two levels in a row. However, this does not mean that the rank of the regular army is two levels higher than that of the city defense army. The city defense army and the regular army belong to two systems, the former is responsible for the local garrison, the latter is responsible for mobile operations, and the two armies are different from middle-level officers to soldiers, and the establishment, equipment and training methods are different.

The full strength of a squadron of the city defense force is 150 men, but usually only 60 to 80 people. One hundred and fifty men of a squadron are on duty in two shifts, usually one month each, and are rotated at the end of the day. The city defense army is divided into two parts: the garrison army belongs to the garrison force, the patrol army belongs to the mobile force in the defense area, and Yan Zhiheng belongs to the former.

In addition to daily training and actual combat exercises, the garrison only needs to stay in the barracks for a month. The patrol force is more difficult, and the suppression of bandits and patrolling the defense area belong to them, which has a certain degree of danger. Because of this, the salary of the patrol is three times that of the garrison.

The soldiers of the city defense army rotate every four months, with two months off, one month as the garrison, one month as the patrol force, and so on. The officers of the city defense army have a fixed occupation, either garrison or patrol army, and unless they are transferred, they have to work until they retire. A squad leader like He Yan Zhiheng has to lead four teams of city defense troops every rotation cycle, and his soldiers have to change a batch every month.

Officers of the garrison are free to leave the barracks at the end of training, without drills, and without duty, and have five days of free vacation every month, which can be accumulated, which is very relaxing. However, the salaries of officers in the garrison are low, there is no opportunity to be promoted to the rank of officer in the regular army, and motivated officers basically do not stay in the garrison.

The work of the officers of the patrol is dangerous, there is no free leave, and they can only use the free period after duty, which is very hard. But patrol officers are well paid, and there is also the opportunity to be promoted to regular army officers, and motivated officers will cut their heads and squeeze into the patrol army. He Yan Zhiheng was one of them, but before he squeezed into the patrol army, there was a huge personnel gap in the regular army, and he successfully joined the regular army with qualified physical fitness.

The junior officer of the garrison and the junior officer of the regular army are completely two professions. The former is an instructor and barracks administrator of the city defense force, and the latter is a real grassroots officer. In the regular army, the work of bringing new recruits is the responsibility of non-commissioned officers, so when junior officers of the garrison are transferred to the regular army, they are usually directly demoted to non-commissioned officers.

And the junior officers of the patrol army will not encounter such problems, even if they are demoted, at least they can keep the rank of warrant officer. The difference between warrant officer and sergeant is only one level, but the difference between the two is cloudy and muddy. The status of non-commissioned officers and officers in the army is completely different, the former is a soldier even if he rises to the top, and the latter is an officer even at the lowest level. The rank of a soldier doesn't determine much, at most it shows your military age and abilities and improves your status among your peers. On the side of the officer, the official level crushed people to death, and you have to listen to what people say, because what people say is "order".

Non-commissioned officers do not have the right to give orders directly to soldiers, and only after receiving orders from officers can they give more detailed task instructions to soldiers according to the officers' instructions, and then take soldiers to carry them out. Even if an officer dies in battle, the non-commissioned officer must continue to carry out the orders of his superiors, otherwise he will escape from the battle and will be dealt with by military law.

Because of this, it may only take two years for a recruit to be promoted from private to sergeant in wartime, and it will be even faster if he performs well. But if you want to be promoted from sergeant to warrant officer, even if you perform well, you have to wait for a year and a half, and you have to be recommended by an officer, and in the end it may only be a wartime promotion, and as soon as the battle is over, you will become a sergeant again. If you want to be promoted to warrant officer smoothly, you must study at a military academy for at least half a year, and only when you have learned the necessary skills of a junior officer and been recognized by the army can you get rid of your status as a soldier and join the ranks of officers.

Of course, this is not absolute. As the saying goes, there are people above who are easy to do, and if you have a good background, it is not difficult to get promoted from sergeant to officer. But then again, since you have a good background, how do you start as a private and work your way up to sergeant? It's a hard thing for you!

People like He Yan Zhiheng, who are willing to start as soldiers and work hard to be promoted little by little, are rare in the army. If it were someone else, he would definitely directly ask Maier to train himself to become a junior officer, and then start as a warrant officer, which would be much faster than using Meier's light to start and climb up from the soldiers.

But such an experience is not a bad thing for He Yan Zhiheng. He had been a soldier, so he knew the soldiers' minds very well and could easily mingle with them. When he was working in the garrison, He Yan Zhiheng was deeply loved by the soldiers. After his transfer, the morale of the garrison in the city of Byron was low for a while, and it took three months for him to recover.

Starting from a soldier, it is not only Yan Zhiheng who has risen to become an officer by the light of Myer, but also a bird. Although the musketeers are a special class, the musketeers also have to abide by the rules of the army. Even if the bird has made great achievements, if you want to change from a non-commissioned officer to an officer, you still have to go through the standard process.

But the little bird has a relationship with Meyer, as long as Meyer nods, let alone be promoted from sergeant to warrant officer, even if he is directly promoted from private to second lieutenant. But it's not a backdoor, because the birds have the strength. Not everyone can use a smoothbore gun to shoot at a distance of 150 meters, which is difficult in a shooting range environment, and even more difficult when changing the battlefield environment.

And although Little Bird got the rank of lieutenant, she has no military rank and is still a sniper. That is, she just takes the salary of an officer and enjoys the treatment of an officer, but in fact she is still a soldier. Meier felt that Liu Xiu's military rank system had many advantages, but the disadvantages were also obvious. For a soldier like Kotori, who has performed many miracles on the battlefield but is not suitable to be an officer, the rank of sergeant is obviously too low to highlight her difference from other soldiers. Monetary rewards can meet the material needs of the warriors, but not their psychological needs, so Mel can only give them promotions.

In the Byronic Army, there are many soldiers with the same talents as Little Bird, who have made great achievements. Without exception, they were treated like officers, but they still performed the most basic combat missions like soldiers. They could barely lead recruits like non-commissioned officers, but the officer's job was too heavy for them, and even if Maier wanted to train them, they wouldn't want to learn the skills that officers needed, because they knew they weren't that kind of material.

There were no less than fifty unarmed lieutenants and even an unarmed major in the King's Guard, and they were outstanding in martial arts and combat skills, but they were too simple-minded to be the type that even found it difficult to read. Maier tried to train them, but their command and leadership skills were so poor that Maier asked them to study with the instructor for two months, and finally the instructor handed his resignation to Maier with a sad face, saying that he was not good enough to teach these students.

The pressure on students is even greater. Think about it, what would you feel if you tried your best in school for two months and your grades didn't improve at all? The soldiers' self-confidence was greatly damaged, and it took a great deal of effort for Mel to appease them and the instructors, after which he never thought of training them to become officers.

On November 18, 138 New Calendar, Sergeant Yan Zhiheng of the regular army and Lieutenant Xiao Bird of the regular army met by chance in the barracks. Both of them were surprised, and after staring at each other in astonishment for nearly 30 seconds, Xiao Bird greeted He Yan Zhiheng with an embarrassed face.

"Yo, long time no see."

"Uh, well, long time no see."

"That...... Your shrine maiden phobia cured? ”

"Ah...... Well...... Pretty much, at least I'm not so scared when I'm around a shrine maiden, but it's still ...... if I touch it."

"Then you should pray well before you go to war." The bird shrugged, "If you are slightly injured, there is a one-third chance that you will be healed by the shrine maiden; If you are seriously injured, the shrine maiden will come to your rescue 100%. ”

"Uh...... I...... I'll do my best not to get hurt......"

"Then take care!"

The little bird left this non-painful and non-itchy word, and turned away. Looking at the back of the bird leaving, He Yan Zhiheng felt lonely in his heart.

I don't deserve to be with the birds...... I don't even deserve to think about it......

He hypnotized himself like this, so that the loneliness gradually faded.

On November 25, 138 of the new calendar, the Byrons army set out of camp and set foot on the land of Chaoxin for the second time.

According to reliable information, the musket units of Chaoxin were completely wiped out in the first battle. Chao Xinguo obviously did not expect that their own side would be defeated, otherwise they would definitely not send the main force out to die. During the period when the coalition forces were retreating, Chao Xin did its best to produce about a thousand muskets. Due to the rush of production, the quality of these muskets was very poor. Most of the muskets were distributed without testing, and there was no guarantee of reliability.

The coalition forces only knew that Chaoxin was working overtime to produce muskets, but did not know the enemy's production capacity and the quality of muskets. Maier consulted with Bujin, and both agreed that the longer they rested, the more muskets the Asin army would have. Therefore, without waiting for the replenishment of troops, the coalition forces went out again.

Due to the heavy loss in the first battle, nearly 10,000 Mingji muskets were lost, and the strength of Chaoxin was greatly reduced, and it had to take a defensive position. They gathered another 30,000 men and, with the cooperation of the local defenders, kept the coalition forces out of the two settlements. Both the Bujin army and the Byronic army needed to capture the settlement in front of them as a supply transit point to ensure the safety of the supply line. After resting in front of the settlement for a few days, the coalition forces launched an attack on the settlement of the Asahin Kingdom.