As a new youth of the country, Li Xiao participated in the social practice of high school and university, and there were three or four times of military training, because he grew tall and strong, and was often the vanguard of the queue.

Therefore, Li Xiao is not unfamiliar with queue training, but it is unknown whether he can train his subordinates into an elite Swedish army like Gustav II.

However, Li Xiao has been on the front line for a month, demonstrating and teaching how to conduct queue training, and has taught him what he learned during queue training during military training to his standing staff.

After nearly a month, night and night, rain or shine training, the standing queue training has achieved initial results, whether it is walking in unison, turning left or right, it is roughly uniform.

It is said that Prince Morris was the first in history to use the queue training method of marching in unison in the army.

But now it seems that this record is about to be rewritten by Li Xiao.

In addition to queue training, Li Xiao also disbanded and assembled training, and each ashigaru knew his own formation position.

Through repeated drills, the standing unit under Li Xiao can quickly form a neat formation and form a combat capability within five minutes.

This month, Li Xiao exercised his discipline surname through strict military queue training, and long-distance weight-bearing running to increase the cohesion of the troops.

It can be seen from this that the advantages of separating soldiers and peasants and forming a standing army lie in the fact that it is simply impossible for a peasant soldier to be conscripted in peacetime to devote one month a year to perfect militarized training.

In addition, after the peasant soldiers were disbanded, they were re-recruited and re-trained in order to restore their combat effectiveness.

As a matter of fact, as the war is becoming more and more complicated, it is becoming more and more difficult for the various branches of the armed forces to carry out military training in the absence of war.

Therefore, when the war shifted from the era of cold weapons to hot weapons, more professional mercenaries have become the mainstream of the European continent, and Gustav II created the first standing army on the European continent with national conscripts as the mainstay.

However, since the beginning of this month, everything has not been carried out as Li Xiao wanted, and there have always been different views and opinions in Li Xiao's retainers on the use and training of the Western Phalanx.

As the head of Li Xiao's iron cannon group, Xiaohata Xiaoxian understands the power of iron artillery, because he has always been an unwavering supporter of the Western Phalanx, and vigorously advocates and promotes it. Among the retainers, such as Shima Katsutake, Kinoshita Koichiro was skeptical of this Western Phalanx.

But what made Li Xiao happy was that their suspicions were suspicious, but the training orders given to Li Xiao were meticulously completed.

There are also some retainers and warriors, who are fundamentally opposed, saying that this method of battle has changed the mud bombardment, and they have never seen such a way of fighting for hundreds of years, which is really incomprehensible and incredible, if it weren't for Li Xiao's face, they would have stood up against it a long time ago.

Among these people, the most prominent opponent was Shioka Kazuha, who did not believe that such a Western phalanx was of any use on the battlefield.

If such an era of personal bravery would have withdrawn from the stage of history a long time ago, Gen Yoshitsune and Kiso Yoshinaka would not have been able to win the resurrection.

Li Xiao understood this, because if the Western Phalanx was really as powerful as Li Xiao said, Shigang Yiyu felt that he was a sword-heroic general like him who galloped on the battlefield by personal force, and he would have to withdraw from the stage of history.

Of course, Li Xiao only partially agrees with this, in fact, this is the trend of the future, but at least until the era of flintlock pistols prevails.

However, in the past twenty or thirty years, iron cannons are still very expensive and difficult to popularize, and the intensity, accuracy, and speed of loading and firing are still far from good.

At present, iron artillery is only slightly stronger than bows and arrows for the time being, and it is a lethal class that kills and weakens the enemy's position in the early stage, but it is not a class that determines the outcome of the battle.

In any case, the final blow of victory must be carried out by a spear or cavalry team.

In the middle of summer in July and August, Hida is very hot, even in the mountains.

On this day, Li Xiao was observing the standing training in the school field, and at this time, Xiaoba Xiaoxian suddenly ran out in front of Li Xiao with great interest.

"Report to the lord, the standing retreat and reloading tactics have been practiced, the iron cannon is light, and the spear is light and the cooperation is also very tacit, and now the tactics of the western phalanx have been realized, and it is enough to go into battle."

Li Xiao was stunned on the spot when he heard it, it was only a little more than a month, and the Western Kingdom Phalanx had already been trained, which was inevitably too fast.

Li Xiao shook his head and said, "You better be cautious, I think this standing training is just a shelf now, and you can't go into battle." ”

Xiaohata Xiaoxian laughed and said: "Lord, don't worry, after a month of training, we have repeatedly performed these few movements, as well as the so-called queue march, and we have trained hundreds of times repeatedly, even with our eyes closed." ”

"Really?" Li Xiao smiled faintly, but when he looked at Xiaohata Xiaoxian's expression, he looked full of confidence.

"In this case, let's have a military drill tomorrow to verify the results of your hard work since January."

Hearing Li Xiao say this, Xiaowan Xiaoxian looked excited and couldn't wait, and said loudly: "Lord, please rest assured, I will ask you to witness the majesty of our army." ”

"Okay."

Li Xiao nodded, looking at the appearance of Xiaoman Xiaoxian immediately going to the whole team to retrain, but instead shook his head and said to himself: "I hope to lose face tomorrow, just don't lose too much." ”

Second, all the cronies and retainers under Li Xiao's command and the samurai were all present to observe this military exercise.

On the side, the retainers and warriors of Li Xiao's retainer regiment, with all kinds of uneasiness and expectation, will be skeptical and negative, looking at the standing preparations for military training on the school ground.

Shima Katsu and Kohata Xiaoxian went down as the two hundred and forty standing generals of the Western Phalanx, and personally commanded them.

When the practice lasted for a whole morning, after Li Xiao's retainers watched it, the more they watched, the more frightened they became, and they were all dumbfounded.

The gap between the front and back of this training is really beyond anyone's expectations.

A morning passed, after the training was over, all the retainers in the retainer group were silent, only Li Xiao nodded, the result of this military training seemed to be completely expected.

Of course, the final result of the practice was just as Li Xiao had expected, and it was a shame to be thrown home.

At the beginning, Li Xiao's 500 standing training was very good, with the various queues of the Gun Foot Light Team and the Iron Artillery Team, marching in unison and rigorous formation, showing the results of the training in the past month.

After that, the Iron Artillery Foot Light Team, which made a backward reloading tactic, performed very well and was very well-trained.

This result was very unexpected by some of the generals who did not think of the Western Phalanx.

At least this degree of training, as well as the military appearance displayed, is definitely an army composed of non-professional soldiers in this era, which is incomparable.

There were even a few of them, who were ashamed on the spot, ready to apologize to Li Xiao after practicing and retract what they said before.

But when everyone began to have expectations for the Western Phalanx, Li Xiao made an unexpected decision. He ordered Kohata Xiaoxian to let him stand up, change all of them to live-fire training, and personally go to the front line to monitor.

As a result, Li Xiao's Western Phalanx, in the actual operation, all the problems were undoubtedly exposed.

Under Li Xiao's stern gaze and vigorous urging, many iron cannon ashigari were in a hurry, often aiming and shooting in a panic, and the bullets hit the sky.

At the same time, Li Xiao also ordered the archery team, each of whom used the arrow shaft of the arrow, when the iron artillery team was firing, when simulating the battlefield, the enemy army shot with bows and arrows, and shot the arrow shaft into the iron artillery team's phalanx, affecting the shooting action of the iron artillery footlight.

As a result, all of a sudden, the tactics of retreating and reloading, which had been effective, suddenly became chaotic.

In particular, the roaring iron cannons of the iron cannon formations on the left and right flanks at different times made the iron cannon ashigaru who were ready to shoot panicked, misjudged the shooting time, and often raised the iron cannon directly to shoot without waiting for the order of the queue.

The problem was even greater during the march of the queue, as the panic of the front firing and the impact of the bow and arrow shots caused the ashigaru to scratch in the rear was gradually expanding, and the previous queue of advance and retreat became gradually disorderly, and the advance and retreat of the iron cannon Ashigaru became hastily and panicked.

After the iron cannon ashigaru in the front row finished firing, when retreating to the back row, he was also very panicked, and often rushed into the rear ashigaru, which made the originally strict queue even more chaotic.

The worst thing is the gunpowder loading of the iron cannon ashigaru, after the eight rows of iron cannon ashigaru have completed the salvo, the iron cannon ashigaru of the first row that was originally the first to shoot has not been reloaded at this time, and after waiting for a while, one of the five iron cannons in a row has not yet been loaded.

After Li Xiao saw such a scene, he looked back at Xiao Xiaoxian, who was standing behind him and was nervous, and said with a calm face: "This is what you call military training, and this is just training in front of you, not actual combat." ”

"The conditions in the real battle are ten times worse than now, the iron artillery team has to face the charge of the enemy cavalry, the arrows fired by the archers, and the comrades around them are killed by the enemy at any time, the situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, there will be all kinds of unexpected situations, if it is all at this level, what use do I want him to set up with a lot of money."

Xiaoba Xiaoxian was scolded by Li Xiao for being a bloody dog, in fact, not only Xiaohata Xiaoxian, but also the spearhead team located in the center of the formation and protected by the two wings was also not used to the roar of the iron cannon firing nearby.

In the past, the iron cannon was fired at the front of the line, but this time it was fired at the side, and some people who did not know the truth were always worried about whether the iron cannon would have any accidents and explode around them.

Therefore, when the iron artillery team was firing, the central spear foot light team also showed a slight degree of confusion, so that the formation was loosened. If this situation were to occur in wartime, it would be easy for the front to collapse.

However, in comparison, their problems are far less serious than those of the Iron Artillery Team.

After Xiaohata Xiaoxian was reprimanded by Li Xiao, Li Xiao asked him to go down and reflect on it.

In fact, Li Xiao was not angry, the reason why he taught Xiaoban Xiaoxian was just to tell him not to take it for granted, where is this Western Phalanx so easy to practice.

The purpose of his reprimand is just to let Kohata Xiaoxian remember that the general must not be complacent, and he must not do it again next time.

After Xiaoxian left in frustration, but today's turmoil about the failure of military training has not actually passed.

That night, several retainers who had lost confidence in the tactics of the Western Phalanx came to the castle tower of Li Xiao's Shengang Castle overnight, wanting to persuade Li Xiao to give up continuing to train the Western Phalanx.

Holding this opinion, the person at the head is Li Xiao's number one general, Dao Shengmeng.

He pointed out to Li Xiao on the spot that even if the Western Formation could be trained, it still had his fatal weakness.

The flaw in the western phalanx is in the two flanks of the phalanx, if in battle, the enemy does not attack the front of the phalanx's strongest attack power, but surrounds the two wings of the phalanx, the western phalanx will have only one way to collapse.

Li Xiao is still very pleased with Dao Shengmeng's keen judgment, which is indeed the weakness of the current Western Phalanx. If Dao Shengmeng personally trained the Western Phalanx for a month and didn't understand its disadvantages, then he would be worthy of the title of the first general under Li Xiao and his reputation in history.

However, Li Xiao said that he was very powerless for the time being, because he did not have an elite Swedish cavalry like Gustav II on hand to protect the two flanks.

Historically, the Swedish Army could rely on long-term queue training to shift the front of the queue to the left and right, so that the front of the phalanx could quickly meet the enemy from other directions.

If the enemy divides the forces to attack the front and flanks, the Swedish army can use cavalry to expel the enemy forces that are harassing the flanks, and continue to march in formation, by moving the front of the phalanx to meet the enemy's main force.

However, Li Xiao has this standing force on hand to realize, like the Swedish Army, the queue is changed left and right, and this short two-month training is simply not enough.

Li Xiao took a lot of time to persuade his retainers one by one, and under his three-inch incorruptible tongue, this stabilized the confidence of the retainers.

Dao Shengmeng and the others promised to train for another month in Li Xiao's way, and if the Western Formation could no longer be trained by then, they could only cancel the plan to attack Chengshengcheng in a month.

Li Xiao also agreed with Shima Shengmeng's opinion.

In fact, Li Xiao has always had a specific timetable in mind for the training progress of this closer to the Swedish Army's version of the Western Phalanx, and he never thought of achieving it overnight.

For now, two months is only enough for Li Xiao to practice a quick version of the Western Phalanx, well, if you insist on saying it, it will be okay to pass on the copycat version of the Great Ming Kingdom.

Take the historical progress of Gustav II in training the new Swedish Army as a reference.

In 1614, Gustav II won the first battle against Russia in the first battle against Russia using the phalanx of the West, which had been trained in the Maurice Column for a short time.

However, the victory or defeat of that war was not so much the victory of the Western phalanx that was hastily trained, but the insufficient strength of the Russian army at that time, compared with the Swedish army at that time, the Russians had backward weapons and equipment and outdated tactics.

Just like the Battle of Nagashino, Oda Nobunaga adopted the iron cannon tactic of three-stage shooting, but it cannot be said that he defeated the Takeda army with three-stage shooting. In fact, the three-stage shot is a kind of innovative iron cannon warfare, which increases the power of the iron cannon, but it still does not determine the outcome of the war.

The real cause of the defeat in the Battle of Nagashino was the huge disparity in the strength of the two sides, 36,000 troops against 15,000 troops, and in the end, when the battle reached a stalemate, the Takeda army was not strong enough to defeat the entire front.

It was not until after the coronation of Gustav II in 1617 that he began training for the new Swedish Army, which took a full eight years.

In the first four years, Gustav trained the Swedish army without going to war, and in the last four years, Sweden sent troops to Livonia, Poland, captured the capital Riga, and used the way of waging a war against Poland to nourish the war with war, and train troops at the same time during the war.

In the decisive battle of Poland in 1625, the Battle of Volkhov, Gustav II defeated the Polish elite cavalry with an improved version of the Spanish phalanx + field artillery + Swedish cavalry, which marked the completion of Gustav's new army.

In this way, after eight years of forging swords, Gustav II put the Swedish standing army under his command to train the first class of new armies in Europe.

Five years later, Gustav II had European ambitions.

Sweden officially joined the Protestant League in the Thirty Years' War, and Gustav II's new Swedish Army swept through Europe without defeat.

Eventually, the Holy Roman Empire sent Wallenstein, the country's leading general, to face the Swedish army of Gustav II.

In this pinnacle duel between the two best European generals at that time - the Battle of Lützen, the Swedish Army was killed by Gustav II and lost its commander, but with the discipline of years of training, not only did not collapse morale, but resolutely defeated Wallenstein's emperor [***].

At this point, Sweden's strength has finally been recognized by various countries and ranks among the top European powers.

Well, for Li Xiao, this prospect is very good.

Although it took Gustav II eight years to train the Swedish Army.

However, in eight years, in addition to training infantry phalanxes, Gustav II carried out artillery and cavalry reforms.

In contrast, Li Xiao has no artillery, no cavalry, as long as he focuses on doing a good job, the phalanx training between iron cannons and spears should be much easier.

Even if Li Xiao felt that with his qualifications, compared with this Gustav the Great, there were still shortcomings, but with the knowledge and experience of modern people, it would not take eight years to say anything.

However, Li Xiao estimated that it would take at least two to three years, and at most it would take six or seven years, but once Li Xiaoxi's phalanx was trained, he was given about three or four thousand standing troops.

I don't dare to say that this army is going to sweep one side, but it should not be a big problem to gain a foothold in Echichu between the two strong Echigo Uesugi and Kaga Honganji, stand firm in this acre and three points of land, and achieve the goal of Takeda Shingen to contain Uesugi Kenshin.

Because it is impossible for the Echigo Uesugi family to use all their strength to deal with Li Xiao in Yuezhong, after all, the Uesugi family is in Shinano, and the Ueno country has to face strong oppression in the two directions of the Takeda family, so it is impossible to concentrate all their strength on the front line.

So in the future, Li Xiao may be able to wrestle with the Uesugi family, and the two families will fight a field battle with tens of thousands of people.

The Western Phalanx is purely a battle formation born for the battle, and if you don't participate in the battle, it will be a waste.

However, the training time in the past few years is not long, but it is not short, and it is not a problem to catch up with several key battles of the Takeda family in history.

If history had not been influenced by his traveler, eleven years later he fought with Nagashino of the Oda Tokugawa Alliance, and eight years later he fought with the Tokugawa family on the road to Kamiraku.

This is all a battle related to the fate of the Takeda family, Li Xiao will inevitably be recalled by the Takeda family and fight with the army, if there is no strong army around him at that time.

It is impossible for Li Xiao to stage the miracle of dozens of cavalry charging into battle like the Battle of Baigen Mountain every time, and the luck against the sky will be used up at one time, and it will come to an end.

Next came the 11th year of Eiroku, the Takeda family vs. the Hojo family, the largest mountain battle in the Sengoku period, the Battle of Mimasumo Pass, and the siege of Odawara Castle.

And ten years after Eiroku, the Takeda family's Suruga invasion of the Imagawa family is a bit hanging.

If the new army had not been trained at that time, Li Xiao's only hope was that Takeda Shingen would have forgotten about him quickly, otherwise he would have died in the line of duty.

Therefore, Li Xiao can only seize the time to train his standing reserve now, hoping that he will be able to train successfully in a month, at least it will be enough to reach the realm of the Western Formation Rapid Edition.

At that time, Li Xiao could send troops to conquer Chengsheng City, and occupy Chengsheng City, not only to expand his territory, but also to complete the monopoly on the trade route.

In the next ten days, Li Xiao adjusted his surname in response to the shortcomings of the last military training.

As for the shortcomings of the flanks of the Western Phalanx, it is necessary to be able to see through the weakness of the Western Phalanx and the two flanks at a glance in such a short period of time, and adopt tactics aimed at the surname.

Based on Li Xiao's estimation, it is not easy for this Warring States to appear in a short period of time, even with military geniuses like Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin, who have been bombarded once in hundreds of years, it is impossible to do it before they have seen the essence of the Western Phalanx.

Even if it is seen through, Li Xiao still has two standing teams of 100 people on hand, and as the left and right wing guards, he can resist for a while.

Now for Li Xiao, the biggest problem is how to ensure that the iron cannon is light on the battlefield, maintain shooting discipline in various unexpected situations, and ensure the usual level of training to complete the shooting action.

In fact, there is not much way to do this, only to add a large number of repeated surnames again and again, and the training of mechanical surnames, so that Ashigaru can truly achieve mechanization and complete combat operations completely subconsciously, while ignoring the fear of subjective consciousness.

This must be established, strict discipline, and [***] military law.

Therefore, it is destined that the standing iron cannon is ashigaru, and it has to endure a greater amount of training than the gun, as well as mental pressure.

Of course, cruel military law is necessary, Li Xiao also understands the principle of carrots and sticks, and every iron cannon is ten times, which is three times more than Pu's usual stocking of points.

Under the high salary, Iron Cannon Ashigaru has no complaints about the amount of training he has increased in the past few days, and has stepped up boring and repetitive training.

As for Xiaohata Xiaoxian, who is the head of the iron cannon group, he said that after being reprimanded by Li Xiao, he was even more ashamed and brave, and these days he ate and slept together with the iron cannon Ashigaru, and whenever he had spare time, he was trained in backward loading tactics.

Li Xiao saw all this in his eyes, and was very satisfied, in the past ten days, the progress of the iron cannon is obvious, for now, the progress is good, and there should be no big problem in practicing after a month.

However, in fact, all affairs will not move forward according to Li Xiao's ideal progress, and there will always be accidents.

And at this time, when Li Xiao was in full swing of training.

On this day, who was in charge of Li Xiao's intelligence collection, Yokotani Yukishige, the leader of the ninjas, suddenly appeared in the castle tower of Li Xiao's Kamioka Castle.

Yokotani Yukishige reported to Li Xiaoyu that the Saito family in Castle was preparing to secretly send troops to Kamioka Castle.

This time, the Saito family united the forces of the Jimbo family, and it is expected that the number of troops will reach more than 1,000.

After Li Xiao heard this, he was taken aback on the spot, not because of the attack of the Saito family, but because his Western Kingdom Phalanx had not yet been trained.

(To be continued)