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In the eyes of the vast majority of ordinary people who understand the profession of mercenaries only in RPG online games, Chinese domestic online novels and Japanese light novels or literal ordinary people, mercenaries are the so-called adventurers or other similar professionals, and what kind of trade unions or other related organizations, from helping the old aunt find pet cats to organizing a group to save the world in the midst of fire and water, are within their scope of business, and all kinds of tricks to beat the regular army and nobles are endless. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

However, these are only routine rog online games and the so-called mercenaries that only appear in Chinese domestic online novels and Japanese light novels, and the guys who will describe the image of mercenaries like this are either completely ignorant of real mercenaries, or they know what mercenaries are but are still full of nonsense, resulting in more and more guys who have read their books or played their games to get the relevant concepts and knowledge materials wrong at the beginning - this is why the post bar in China, The main reason why there are always so many bullshit theologies in forums and QQ groups,There are too many people who don't say anything about the way to understand relevant knowledge at the beginning,Plus the attitude of not admitting that you are wrong and some kind of inexplicable weird self-esteem or anti-intellectual remarks similar to the anti-intellectual remarks that people with empty brains and low quality will show,Naturally, there will be this kind of large group of people with extremely wrong ideas,Normal people who really understand the relevant aspects of the common situation of tossing and lying down with saliva and shit,Or how the Internet is always okay to ridicule that South Korea is a stickThis shows how obvious these are the norms of the Internet, and it can also be seen that in many cases, too many people lack the most basic knowledge level and personal qualities.

To get back to the point, the real mercenaries can be said to have few places that overlap with the so-called mercenary images in old and new literary works and game works, and it seems that the only place that can overlap a little bit is that only a considerable number of mercenaries do have rich combat experience and combat effectiveness that are no less than the regular army or even can win, otherwise they will not survive on the bloody battlefield again and again and get the commissions and loot they want.

Leaving aside the modern mercenaries and the mercenaries who appeared in the era of gentlemen's wars on a large scale, armed with fine firearms, if the scope is limited to the mercenaries of the European Middle Ages or similar eras, then it can be said that a considerable number of mercenaries in the European Middle Ages or similar times can be completely classified into the category of professional armies, and their rich combat experience and combat effectiveness make employers more than happy to hire them to enrich their armies. It's just that the common unreliability and many popular characteristics of mercenaries make employers who hire them to fight for themselves need to be vigilant against them at all times, which is why they wait until they have the ability and conditions to start a standing army and gradually get rid of the dependence on mercenaries The main reason is that mercenaries are too common, even modern mercenaries are still the same, so that the modern mercenaries in the outside world are not subject to the "International Law" and the " The protection of the Geneva Conventions is naturally due to their consistent unreliability and fickleness from ancient times to the present, and this pot can only be carried by themselves.

As far as Feng Longde himself knows, the reason why there is a situation where the employer himself has his own army but still hires mercenaries is actually very simple, that is, there is a shortage of troops, and in addition to the most common problem of insufficient troops, which is the most common problem of insufficient troops.

The first point is the problem of insufficient troops caused by the structure of the armed forces: Before modern times, whether in the East or the West, the combat effectiveness of the army to which every nation, every country, and every force belonged was directly related to the local military traditions and folk customs -- for example, in countries that lack cavalry traditions, it is difficult to recruit a group of cavalry with reliable combat effectiveness here, and it is equally difficult to recruit a group of archers with reliable combat power in areas lacking bow and arrow traditions...... However, no matter what level of technology the war, it is not only one type of troops can be won, but it requires multiple arms to cooperate in combat, but if there is no condition on your side to produce some of the required troops, then mercenaries have become the solution, the most typical example of which is the Kingdom of France, which is known as the country of knights, in the time between the Hundred Years War and the Thirty Years' War between Britain and France, almost all the core components of the infantry have been relying on the core composition of the infantry from other places. For example, the Swiss mercenaries are composed, and the infantry of the Kingdom of France is basically a second-rate army, and only the knights under their own feudal fiefdom system still maintain a high combat effectiveness, but the characteristics of being unruly and disobedient to commands for their own glory and chivalry are also the unique situation of the French knights, and the vast majority of mercenaries are much easier to command than them in terms of discipline and obedience to orders.

The second point is still the lack of its own soldiers: the lack of soldiers mentioned here is first of all the lack of its own population, for example, in the Swedish army of Gustav II, the father of the modern army, which is full of a large number of Germans, Slavs, Scots, Britons, Flanders, Dutch, The French, the Protestant Bohemians, and other non-Swedes, can show that the new Swedish army that was rampant throughout Northern Europe at that time was completely an army of Europa mercenaries modified by the style demon...... In Gustav II's national hodgepodge of the Swedish army, the Dutch and Flemish often served as sappers and a small number of artillery in the Swedish army, while the French (mostly Huguenots) in his army often played the role of dragoons, and the expelled Protestant Bohemians formed a separate cavalry regiment; Especially the role of line infantry.

In addition to the lack of its own population to recruit enough soldiers to form a standing army, the other is that the people who are willing to join the army are simply not enough to form a standing army, the most typical example of which is the Italian city-state republics throughout the Middle Ages, and the Italians who relied on the Mediterranean trade circle to make a fortune were more willing to devote their time to trade, commerce, crafts and finance, and all the things related to war were left to mercenaries to do...... Although the various city-states and republics in Italy had their own urban militia units and a small number of feudal knights, they were only better armed than the armies of most other kingdoms and powers in Europe, and in terms of combat experience and combat resilience, they were only the Duke of Milan The team is not bad, which is why the Italian city-states with a high level of education and developed commercial trade have gradually weakened and weakened for hundreds of years until modern times to be unified, and the national commercial power that does not pay special attention to its own military strength and the construction of the country's standing army will collapse once it encounters an emergency, history has confirmed countless times.

Not only is it a major and common population problem, because of the restrictions of the traditional feudal feudal compulsory military service system, according to the corresponding regulations and oaths, a knight who has obtained a certain fief only needs to serve his lord for forty days in a year, and his lord cannot ask his knights or other minor nobles to serve him for free for the rest of the year, but it is obvious that in most cases the war can not be done in forty days at all, so mercenaries began to prevail, flooding the armies of large and small nobles, and even in the armies of kings-- The most typical example is that in the Middle Ages in Europe, the Kingdom of England used to levy a "shield tax" on his knights and nobles who were exempt from military service for a long time This is not to say that the Kingdom of England will not use feudal marcenary armies, but in many cases the cost of hiring mercenaries to fight is much lower than spending time and energy to recruit and raise feudal fiefdom armies, and only large-scale mobilization of feudal fiefdom armies will be carried out in times similar to when a full-scale attack on other countries or crusades is launched.

In addition to some of the common problems of the feudal fiefdom army, due to the difficulty of replenishing and reorganizing the troops caused by long-distance conquests, mercenaries were very much needed to supplement the army: this was the same in both the East and the West, for example, in the previous Crusades, the Crusader troops from all over Europe would recruit other small groups of Crusader troops or pilgrims to replenish the military salute, and even recruit local mercenaries locally, and in most cases the clash of beliefs would disappear in front of the gold or silver glittering coins, except that the Tang army would fight the Arab armies in the Western RegionsThere are also a large number of Qarluq mercenaries and Bakhana mercenaries to compensate for the vigilance and light cavalry and light infantry units of their own army.

Last but not least, mercenaries are reliable and trustworthy in terms of combat effectiveness: while the feudal fiefdom armies, which consist of knights and civilian soldiers, were also strong, the problem was that the feudal fiefdom armies were slow to assemble and had limited service time and varying in their military qualities, while mercenaries were ready to fight and had a wealth of combat experience. In addition, in the vast majority of cases, the militia who lack training and equipment is often difficult to resist the impact of enemy knights or hoplites, and the light and heavy infantry in the mercenaries have gained rich experience and good coordination in previous battles, so that they have many ways to defeat the enemy knights or hoplites, so since the Renaissance, the feudal fiefdom system in European countries began to gradually disintegrate, and the mercenaries with the color of professional armies took over the banner and became the European ** during this period The main force of the team.

As for combat, mercenaries from different regions have very different fighting styles and different tactical systems from each other, but there is still a general tendency that prevails, that is, they are good at roundabout encirclement operations, concentrating forces to attack the enemy's weak points, winning battles at the least cost, disgusting and avoiding frontal combat as much as possible, and emphasizing elaborate strategy and bluff tactics, which make war in their hands a game similar to a game of chess. This is not to say that they will not participate in the frontal battlefield, but that they are better at some fine tactics and other forms of combat, and even on the frontal battlefield, they have a lot of extremely practical combat methods, which greatly increases their survival rate and victory rate on the battlefield.

The battlefield performance of mercenaries in the late Middle Ages in Europe was more and more in line with the mercenary style: mercenaries almost never fought at night unless necessary, and almost all mercenaries went into a winter break every year;

By the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, mercenaries had become formalized, many of them had their own specialized companies, and merchants, banks, and merchant guilds from the Italian city-states and republics were involved—they would provide not only professional soldiers for hire, but also servants, weapons, and equipment. Horses and funds, in order to obtain greater benefits from it, make mercenaries more and more professional and regularized, and the prosperity of mercenaries has also indirectly stimulated the production and promotion of various new weapons and new armor, and introduced all kinds of new weapons and equipment to countries around the world through war, and virtually promoted the development of industry and stimulated the progress of science and technology, which is completely unexpected.

As mentioned earlier, due to the lack of overall population, the Swedish army of Gustav II, known as the father of the modern army, was filled with a large number of non-Swedes such as Germans, Slavs, Scots, Britons, Flanders, Dutch, French, and Bohemians with Protestant beliefs...... However, the reason why this Swedish army is said to be a modified version of mercenaries is because Gustav II used the same organization, strict training, discipline and unified weapons and equipment for mercenaries and native soldiers, and completely turned the original unruly and complex mercenaries into Sweden's elite standing army.

In a sense, it was the existence of mercenaries that allowed the gradual development of the modern standing army system and the prototype of the modern army. (To be continued.) )