A modern nation-state is a democracy when its most powerful decision-makers are elected through fair, honest, periodic elections in which candidates are free to fight for votes and in which virtually every adult citizen has the right to vote.

– Joseph Schumpeter (Austrian political economist)

The normal development of military strength has kept the city of Rome, which has no plans to use foreign troops for the time being, in a stage of rapid economic development, and the increasing stability of the 12 newly built towns has not only increased the overall prosperity of the Roman power, but also increased the grain production and reserve resources of the Roman power.

Each of the 18 towns under the direct command of the city of Rome had a large area dedicated to the production of military rations, and from six to eighteen cantonments, the annual grain production of Rome more than quadrupled to feed more than eight million people.

The calm Cangluo River not only provided a large military area for the city of Rome, but also provided the common people under the rule of the city with patches of fertile land to cultivate, and the barbarian people, who began to enter the agrarian society, achieved true self-sufficiency for the first time.

If it weren't for the fact that the construction time of the 18th Army cantonment area was too short, and there was no long-term reserve of military rations, and he led the army to recover the Baifeng of the four fallen provinces one after another, he only needed to transfer military rations from the warehouses of the city of Rome, and he could easily solve the problem of food and clothing for 20 million refugees.

After a year-long period of recuperation, the number of barbarian people under the rule of Rome City has reached nearly 2.3 million, and among them, the number of barbarian young people who can take up arms to serve Bai Feng at any time is about 400,000 to 500,000.

There were 266,000 barbarian warriors serving in the army, consisting of four field legions, three phalanx legions, two cavalry legions, the Doge's Guard, 12,500 longbowmen in the naval forces, and 30,000 longbowmen belonging to the Roman legions.

Speaking of the Doge's Guard, we have to mention the powerful Trege's Guard; the archbow workshop in the city of Rome has built more than 8,000 qualified standard crossbows in the past year, and 8,000 crossbows are still stored in warehouses, excluding the training wear and tear of the Treadmill Guard.

Eight thousand crossbows, fifteen thousand longbows, twenty-seven thousand Roman youth weapons, and thirty thousand leather armours were all the weapons and equipment stored in the storehouses of the city of Rome, which were enough to arm 50,000 well-armed troops.

The crossbow and longbow were all made by the crossbow workshop in Rome, which specialized in the manufacture of bows and crossbows, and the standard weapons and equipment of the Roman youth army came from the monthly forging of the armor shops in the city of Rome, except for the sewing of the 30,000 sets of leather armor, which was the result of the negotiation between Vepsani and Luquis.

In order to protect the safety of the caravans, Vipsani, who was in charge of government affairs, asked Luquis, who was in charge of military affairs, to send an army to strangle the beasts.

As Vipsani's old boss, or the man who raised Vipsani with his own hands, Luquis did not refuse Vipsani's request to benefit the city of Rome, and the Fifth Roman Legion was divided and strangled to clear the beasts in the Roman sphere of influence in only half a year.

When the mountains of beast carcasses were transported back to Rome, Vepsani arranged for the meat to be pickled by hand, and on the other hand, for tailors among the citizens of Rome to sew the skins into pieces of leather armor with excellent defense.

The sewn high-quality leather armor was supplied first to the auxiliary longbowmen of the five Roman legions, and then to the longbowmen of the other armies, and it was not until all the longbowmen had been fitted with this high-quality leather armor that the excess leather armor was sent to the warehouse for storage.

Light and agile leather armor was undoubtedly more suitable for longbowmen than the relatively heavy armor of the Roman youth army, and even light cavalry and light infantry, which were more mobile, could use this kind of leather armor with decent protection.

On the night of checking the various attributes of Rome City, Bai Feng returned to Rome City with the teleportation array in the White Spirit Ring under the escort of the Flame Sword Saint, and the longbows, crossbows, and leather armor in the warehouse were all packed by Bai Feng into the almost empty White Spirit Ring.

After the three-day New Year's celebration, the armies under Bai Feng's command resumed their original training state, and the 18,000 recruits who temporarily belonged to the pro-guard guard were formed into three direct archer wings and one direct crossbow archer wing by Bai Feng, who had changed his mind.

The reason why Bai Feng decided to give up his plan to train 18,000 recruits into a reserve army was because he felt that among the large army under his command, there was a serious lack of long-range strike force, which was very unfavorable to the next increasingly brutal battle.

The number of archers in the Imperial Army was already small, partly because of the limited lethality of ordinary archers, and partly because the range of archers was far inferior to that of mages, and the presence of mages made archers completely reduced to a chicken-ribbed class.

Especially in the eastern battlefield of the empire, the amazing defense of orc warriors far exceeded that of humans, which greatly reduced the value of archers again, and archers, who could hardly inflict effective damage on orcs, were directly canceled by the legions stationed in the eastern part of the empire.

The reason why Bai Feng decided to form a wing of archers and a wing of crossbow archers was that the longbow and crossbow in Rome were completely different from the standard bows and arrows in the imperial army, and the difference between the two was like arquebus rifles and assault rifles.

The effective range of the Leng Huai longbow is three times that of the Imperial standard bow and arrow, and the lethality is five times that of the Imperial standard bow and arrow, and the effective range of the crossbow is the same as that of the Imperial standard bow and arrow, and the lethality is thirteen times that of the Imperial standard bow and arrow, which is the accurate data tested by Bai Feng himself.

The fact in front of him meant that Bai Feng could enhance the actual combat effectiveness of his army by forming a longbow army and a crossbow army, and 18,000 troops equipped with longbows and crossbows far exceeded the troops, and the damage that could be inflicted on orcs was definitely greater than that of 400 magicians!

Although the magician's magic attack is extremely powerful, their limited magic power is really not enough to support a long-term attack, and more importantly, after the magician is depleted, it takes a long time of meditation to slowly recover.

For this alone, longbow and crossbow units that continue to attack for a longer period of time have far more war potential than mages, especially the easy-to-shoot crossbows, which allow the crossbowmen to keep shooting as long as the enemy does not hit the crossbow troops.

When Bai Feng led his army to defend the Sunset Fortress, the number of orcs killed and wounded by Cretan archers and iron artillery spearmen was only much more than that killed and wounded by other troops, which is the most typical proof.

In view of this, Bai Feng made up his mind to form a longbow unit and a crossbow unit in the pro-soldier guard; as for the possibility of the longbow and crossbow being discovered by others, the increasingly large system army gave Bai Feng the confidence not to worry about anyone copying the longbow and crossbow.

After the formation of three wings of archers with a full strength of 5,000 soldiers and a company of crossbowmen with a full strength of 3,000 soldiers, the most urgent problem for Bai Feng to solve was to appoint suitable wing commanders for these four newly formed wings.

The veterans of the wing, who were highly valued by Bai Feng, should have been the most suitable range for personnel selection, but considering the particularity of the archer wing and the crossbow archer wing, after careful consideration, Bai Feng decided to appoint the centurion of the system class as the wing leader of these four wings.

The first self-raised system general in Rome was Perris, a Cretan archer, and now he is the leader of the Lion Legion, and his strength and ability are not much inferior to those summoned from the Roman world.

On the whole, the generals of these two systems, the system generals summoned from the Roman world have stronger initial strength, and the system generals who grow by themselves have stronger local development potential; for example, Licinius can take charge of himself as soon as he appears, and Leonidas is especially good at defensive operations.

The three centenarian captains of the three teams of Cretan archers, Sussman, Minoan, and Greko, were appointed by Bai Feng as the co-captains of the first, second, and third direct archers, respectively, and their Cretan archers would join the archer wing with them.

The Wing Commander of the Crossbowmen's Wing was Amis Amis, the best of the four Roman Youth Legions, and the four Roman Youth Corps were also included in the Ballista Wing and served as the escort of the Ballista Wing.

With the addition of four more than the wings, the number of directly subordinate wings of the Pro-Guard has reached nine, and the regular strength has increased to 38,000; with the addition of twelve reinforcements of iron artillery and gunmen, the total strength of the Pro-Guard has exceeded 50,000, exceeding the strength of a royal legion!

Blindly pursuing an increase in quantity is of no practical significance to a truly elite division, and on the contrary will lower the overall strength of the unit; how to increase the quantity while improving the quality is the key to maintaining the combat effectiveness of an elite division.

On the tenth day after the New Year, when the other legions were training intensively, Bai Feng ordered Luculus to lead nine directly subordinate wings of the Pro-Guard to attack an orc army garrison eighty miles away from the border.

This garrison was originally a rather prosperous small city in the province of Mengdan, but after the fall of the city, it was burned and plundered by the orc army several times, and the city with a population of more than 200,000 was now left with less than 80,000 people struggling.

The orc army, which had lost more than 16,000 warriors one after another, readjusted their garrison deployment, and the orc troops that had previously been scattered throughout the province of Mengtan were concentrated in thirteen geographically important towns by the commander of the orc army.

Among them, the orc army stationed in this small city has 25,000 orc warriors, and it is one of the most fortified of the thirteen towns, and Bai Feng chose this place because this town is the closest to the border of Mengdan Province.

With the 38,000 cavalry army of the pro-soldier guard, he took the initiative to attack the important town heavily guarded by 25,000 orc warriors, which seemed to others to be tantamount to a sheep's mouth, but Bai Feng, who insisted that the soldiers were expensive but not too expensive, decided to use a bloody battle to hone his pro-soldier guard.

Of course, in order to ensure that the pro-guard guards would not be severely damaged by the orc army, Bai Feng, who was fully prepared, personally led the systematic troops of the Yulin Legion and the pro-guard to march ten miles behind Luculus, ready to reinforce Luculus's army at any time.

Facts have proved that the phrase 'the ideal is full, but the reality is cruel' is also applicable to Bai Feng, who opened the protagonist's aura, and the 38,000 soldiers led by Luculus were defeated by the orc army head-on in the process of fighting with 25,000 orc warriors!

At the beginning of the battle, Luculus, who was not weak in command, ordered Cabaye to lead the 5,000 cavalry of the cavalry wing to charge the loose infantry line of the orc warriors, and as a result, the seemingly thunderous cavalry charge caused less than 500 casualties to the orc army.

Sadly, the price paid by the cavalry wing was that 1,200 cavalry remained in the line of the orc army forever, and the result of killing 500 enemies and losing 1,000 made Luculus have to withdraw the cavalry wing and send the main infantry directly.

The morale of the four infantry wings directly under the infantry was good, at least not affected by the poor performance of the cavalry wing, and the three archer wings and crossbow archer wings were deployed on the two flanks of the main infantry unit, responsible for long-range strikes against the orc army on the opposite side.

The covering rain of arrows of fifteen thousand longbowmen should have dealt a heavy blow to the orc warriors who were generally unarmed, but the longbowmen, who had been trained for less than a few days, did not know how to fire volleys and projectiles, let alone how to use their range advantage.

The chaotic shooting and the sparse rain of arrows directly caused the orc warriors to rush to the defensive line formed by four infantry wings without heavy damage, but fortunately, the extremely strong penetration of the crossbow at the critical moment played a significant role.

At least 2,000 or more orc warriors were killed unsuspecting by the crossbowmen with arrows fired from their crossbows, and the surging orc army forced Luculus to immediately retreat from the archer and crossbow archer wings, which were unable to defend themselves.

Luculus, who ordered the withdrawal of cavalry wings and long-range troops one after another, relied on his 16,000 infantry and an army of 22,000 orcs to start a bloody battle to the death.

The superior individual combat effectiveness of the orc warriors was almost perfectly reflected in the fierce hand-to-hand combat, and the desperate pro-guard infantry, three people besieging an orc warrior, would be killed by at least two orc warriors in a bloody battle.

In a one-on-one or two-on-one fight, the infantry of the Pro-Guards were no match for the orc warriors, and the brave and fearless orc warriors fought the Pro-Guards with only the strength to parry and had no ability to fight back, and the casualty ratio of the two sides was once stretched to 1 to 4!

1,000 infantry were killed, and the soldiers of the pro-guard detachment became more and more courageous; 3,000 infantry were killed, and the officers and men of the pro-guard detachment became more and more frightened; 5,000 infantry were killed, and the officers and men of the pro-guard detachment became more and more frightened; by the time 6,000 infantry were killed, the pro-guard was on the verge of collapse.

The tragic situation of 6,000 soldiers killed and more than 4,000 soldiers injured made the soldiers of the pro-guard finally unable to restrain the fear of orc warriors in their hearts and began to rout backwards.

By the time Bai Feng led his army to the battlefield, the defeat of the Pro-Guards was a foregone conclusion, and Bai Feng, who was greatly disappointed, first led his army to defeat the orc army that intended to pursue the Pro-Guards, and then sent reinforcements to help Luculus collect the rout of the Pro-Guards.

In just an hour and a half of battle, the pro-soldier guards, who fought for the first time after several expansions, killed less than 4,000 orc soldiers, but nearly 8,000 of their own dead soldiers; if Bai Feng hadn't led the army to the battlefield in time, I'm afraid the number of casualties of the pro-soldier guards would have doubled again!

The disastrous defeat of the pro-soldier guards in the first battle made Bai Feng, who had been too concerned about the number of troops in recent times, suddenly wake up to the fact that the quality of the army is a more important measure of combat strength than the number of troops;