"Hello gentlemen! I, Shavy Mayer Lundstein, am the chief instructor and the head of your special training. Perhaps, you are not very clear about the mission you came here for, and let me tell you...... The reason why you elite cadets from the Bathton Military Academy, the Norsnod Military Academy, the Ragson Military Academy, and the Hadirs Non-commissioned Officer Academy are standing here is not to visit the Delafiger Senior Staff Academy, but to improve your military cultivation through a special intensive training. Please note that I am talking about 'military cultivation', not military literacy and military ability that you often hear about, and by the end of the special training, I hope that each and every one of you will be able to understand its meaning. In addition, the top 5 of you will get a chance to visit the Norman Empire. ”

At the Dale Fig Higher Staff Academy in Liberty City, the capital of the Free Federation of Ulster, 40 young men dressed in military school uniforms sat neatly in their seats and listened to a middle-aged officer's speech in a large, well-decorated and well-furnished classroom. The officer wore the epaulettes of a lieutenant colonel, a gold Medal of Freedom tied around his neck, and two battle medals on his chest, indicating that he had caught up with the war with the Norman Empire and had made an important contribution to the victory of the Free Commonwealth.

As the lead cadet of the Batton Military Academy, Weiss sat in a prominent position on the far left of the first row, with his head held high, his chest held high, and he wore a small, bronze-colored third-class personal meritorious medal on his right chest. Hearing that the top five students in the overall performance had the opportunity to visit the Norman Empire, he, like most of the students present, had a calm expression on his face, but his heart was very surging. For them, the Norman Empire was like a fairy tale beast, used to intimidate urchins or swear curses, and no one could tell the reason for it if they looked into it carefully, and at their age, it was a good time to solve all kinds of mysteries with their own eyes and experiences. Who wants to miss such a rare opportunity?

The small lieutenant colonel officer continued: "It should be noted that there is no elimination, no qualification, and no direct competition in this special training, what you have to do in the past four weeks is to focus on learning, communication and mutual assistance, we will select the five people with the best overall performance according to your performance in all aspects, and make a public explanation at the graduation ceremony." ”

Hearing this, Weiss nodded slightly. The 40 cadets here are the most promising stars selected from the four outstanding military academies of the Federal Army, and to a certain extent, they represent the future of the Federal Army. Prior to this, the major military academies had never had similar special training, and the cadets had little contact before graduation, and after the official entry into service, it was very common for seniors to take juniors and juniors to help seniors to warm up, and the factional mentality undoubtedly reduced the centripetal force and cohesion of the officer team. Therefore, the cross-school special training should be cooperative rather than competitive, communication rather than confrontation, so that it is possible to dissolve the psychological barrier between the trainees and let them do their best and show their abilities.

Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein arranged a special training course that was as simple and straightforward as his introductory speech. The first lesson for the cadets at the Deelefig Senior Staff Academy was to review the three wargames in which the Norman cadets and the Basston cadets had military exchanges. The sand table was made in advance by the instructors, and the analysis data of the wargame deduction was also compiled and prepared by the instructors themselves. Such a detailed and comprehensive review, even Weiss, who had personally experienced these three games of wargames, was deeply surprised, and more and more realized his own shortcomings.

How much of an advantage did those Norman cadets have in terms of military tactical ability?

The special training instructors believe that if the ranks are divided by level, the difference between the two sides is at least two or three levels!

Regarding the battle of Walladen Lake, which Weiss played chess and won, Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein personally analyzed it and asked Weiss to come to the stage to "show up". The lieutenant colonel believed that Weiss won in anticipating the landing operation of the other side and showed enough patience at a critical time, and such a victory was somewhat of a fluke. In comparison, the Norman student with the national character face had a better military and tactical ability than Weiss. If the two sides play each other many times, the opponent's chances of winning will definitely be greater.

Listening to Lieutenant Colonel Rundes's assertion, Weiss was not unconvinced. In the process of review, he found that the opponent was more experienced than himself in the handling of details, the grasp of timing, and the use of tactics and strategies.

After objectively analyzing the technical gap between the two sides, the team of special training instructors led by Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein analyzed the personality characteristics and blind spots of the three chess players on the other side one by one, especially the two games lost by the cadets of the Gaston Military Academy, in fact, there was a way to break the game. It's just that with the skills of the Basston cadet, without preparing the routines, they can't control these game-breaking strategies.

An afternoon of wargames and replay benefited Weiss a lot, but it was clear that not everyone was sincerely impressed by the instructor team headed by Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein. Such a review, after all, is an after-the-fact summary, with no time limit and no concerns about on-site play, which is not enough to reflect the real ability of the instructors.

Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein seems to have anticipated this a long time ago. On the first night of the special training, he prepared an extraordinarily sumptuous dinner for the cadets, prepared a large amount of mare's milk fermented wine and starch crop brewed wine, and invited a group of students studying at the Dale Fig Senior Staff Academy to accompany him. At this meal, the instructors put down their identities and drank and talked, and the elites selected from the active officers also showed the heroic side of the soldiers, which made the dinner atmosphere particularly harmonious. After a few hours, all 40 students were drunk, no exceptions.

After this battle, the cadets were completely impressed by Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein and his instructors.

At the dinner table, good wine and food were greeted, and on the training ground, the instructors were not polite at all. With extremely strict standards and an almost ruthless way, they ravaged these cadets who should have enjoyed their holidays easily. However, strict is strict, and the instructors' practice is still to "convince people with talent" and "convince people with ability". Whatever is required of the cadets, they will set an example, and most of the courses have cadets from the Senior Staff College come to lead the drill or take on the role of training opponents. Most of these young officers have served in the army for six or seven years, and some of them have served in the army for two or three years. In the active duty troops, their basic military skills have been fully exercised, and in order to demonstrate to the soldiers, some have reached the level of perfection.

In terms of tactics and strategy, these cadets of the Advanced Staff College are also good at it. They spent a great deal of time studying typical or atypical combat examples in the history of warfare, studying the personalities and thinking of famous generals in history and those phenomenal commanders, and not only that, but they also conscientiously studied various battlefield laws, down to the efficiency of transporting heavy supplies under different terrain conditions, the degree of influence of various factors on the morale of troops, and so on. The wargames they conducted combined the elements of topographic surveying and mapping, military supply, and troop command, and the complexity of the exercises was unimaginable to the cadets, and the process could simply be described as "brain-burning." Playing against them on the sand table, even a man of the hour like Weiss only won two of the first ten games with difficulty. Because of this, Weiss thought more than once that if he had brought in a few foreign aid from among the cadets of these senior staff colleges, the Bathton Military Academy would not have lost all his temper in the military exchanges with the Royal Norman Army Academy.

Or, those Norman cadets are not exactly the status of cadets of primary military academies, maybe they also brought high-level foreign aid, but the federal side is not able to screen, and honest people end up suffering from honest losses......

In the midst of the casual chat, Weiss told his speculation to a few students of the Senior Staff College who often met with him, and some people felt that he was reasonable, and that the next time he visited the Norman Empire, he might as well return the favor in his own way, while others disdained it, feeling that this method was purely self-deception and would not be beneficial to the personnel training of an army or even to the national defense and military construction of a country.

Weiss's most impressive point came from a student named Blowka-Gomi, who made it clear that no one with a correct understanding of the Norman army traditions, especially the traditions of the officer community, would make such a conjecture. Because for the Norman soldiers, deception and impersonation are tantamount to self-destruction and are absolutely unacceptable. If the Royal Norman Army Academy had brought in foreign aid in order to achieve good results in military exchanges between the two countries, then the Free Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Wessex would have been able to take a holiday to celebrate—a Norman army that had lost its faith in honor was no longer a threat to them.

Taking this conversation as an opportunity, Weiss asked Gomi several times about the Norman army, and received a satisfactory answer. Gomi told him that he had served in the First Fleet for five years before entering the Advanced Staff College. Because the defense area was close to the Norman Empire, he took advantage of the opportunity of reconnaissance and patrol many times to conduct in-depth communication with the people living in the border area, and also had contact with the Norman Empire's border guards. Thanks to these rare opportunities, he became half Norman, and the more he learned, the more he felt that the vast majority of the Union soldiers and civilians had blind prejudice against the Norman Empire.

In the continuous exploration and curiosity, the first week passed, the second week also passed, and as time passed, Weiss gradually had a personal understanding of the "military cultivation" that Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein said: real military cultivation often takes a long time - even several generations of accumulation and inheritance, and finally condenses the inner quality and spiritual wealth, this special training is just a beginning for the students' cultivation road, how long the future life is, how long the cultivation road is!