"I see what you mean." Joanna seemed to understand: "Compared to the armies of the Mediterranean world, your military style is generally closer to the East. So even if these Rus' people have experience, they are under a completely different system. ”

"If they join your army, this experience is likely to be completely unsuitable, even here, it may be useful. Is that so? ”

"That's right." Guo Kang nodded: "Our political system, military system, and combat methods are all far from here. And it's not easy to change......"

"The Ross Auxiliaries have been around for a long time. In that year, Tokhtar Maimaitinicus fought against the Ottomans in Asia Minor, and because of the lack of troops, he temporarily recruited a large group of Rus. He didn't know the combat effectiveness of these people, so he let them be in charge of guarding the fortifications, as long as they could fill the number. ”

"However, the Ross have been very positive. We later learned that their original life was too hard, and many people thought that they were just like the old boyar who caught the strong man before, and just left it there. But even the auxiliary army on our side tried to feed people as much as possible, and the Rus' were overjoyed and fought very hard, and actually repelled the Ottomans in several battles. After that, the establishment remained. ”

"But even then, we don't plan to integrate them into the regular army. Because these people are likely to be a burden on the official battlefield. Guo Kang explained: "But training from scratch is too troublesome. So, we usually leave these people alone and let them do things like that. ”

"This system has been around for decades now. have formed a set of cultural traditions. He thought for a moment and said, "Do you know the Legion Soup?" ”

"Huh? What is that? Joanna had obviously not heard of it.

"Oh, it's normal not to know, it's a kind of food invented by the Ross auxiliaries and military slaves." Guo Kang said: "The legionnaires ate much better than them, so these people often went to pick up leftovers from other people's food, and then threw bones and hard bread shells together and stewed them together to make a thick soup. Later, they collectively referred to this kind of food as 'legion soup'. ”

"Sounds disgusting...... Joanna said, frowning.

"You're rich, of course. In fact, it would be good for them not to starve to death. Guo Kang shook his head: "If we integrate them into the regular army, in the long run, it will be good for everyone." I just don't know how long it will take them to adapt. ”

"Is it difficult?" Joanna asked.

"It's not difficult to train this Rus soldier, but it's difficult to train 'Rus soldiers'." Guo Kang sighed: "The most difficult thing is not to train individual skills, but to romanize the Rus region. If the latter can't do it, then there is little point in training these soldiers. But it's hard to change the customs of a place. ”

"Let's take the previous example." He said: "You see, I just said that Seris has a lot of chariots. But you know, why at that time how much was their tank? Why did you lose something so useful? ”

"I don't even know about the tank, it's all about you. Now you ask me if I know these ......" Joanna said speechlessly, "Did you do it on purpose?" ”

"Well, I didn't mean that. I usually talk to them like this, I'm used to it. Guo Kang hurriedly explained.

"The situation here is quite understandable. To put it bluntly, it is actually a question of whether there is money or not. ”

"The tank is really good, but at the cost of it's expensive. This is far more expensive than the car itself, but mainly the people in the car. ”

"Driving a combat vehicle is a very difficult technique and has a series of high demands on the driver. The Ceris chariot had four horses and six reins—and a man had only ten fingers. He stretched out his hand.

"Therefore, even with the assistance of tools, driving the chariot and performing all kinds of maneuvers is a high test for the driver and the horse. This requires long-term training and practice, and the average person simply cannot afford this expense. Therefore, the chariot can be said to be a typical aristocratic weapon. ”

"At that time, it was mainly the low-ranking nobles known as 'shi' who took on such tasks. However, as the scale of the war expanded, the number of soldiers continued to fall short of the demand, even as countries began to open up arable land and increase production. ”

"What should be done in this situation, the plans of different civilizations are very similar, in fact, they are all 'expanding', and the threshold for joining the army is loosened more and more. The efforts of the reformers of Seris were even similar to those of Cleomenes of Sparta. Everyone is giving land to ordinary people and lowering the threshold for citizens. ”

"But when the bar is lowered, new recruits tend to be poorer. They were not conditioned to be trained to drive combat vehicles and could only fight as infantrymen. However, the improvement of the level of organization and weapon technology has made the infantry more and more efficient. ”

"The size of the tank unit is really increasing, and the capabilities are getting better and better. The horses were clad in armor, and some of the bodies were protected by metal plates. ”

"The functions of the chariot are also gradually maturing and differentiating. Some tanks were used in a centralized manner, forming a pure tank cluster that fought independently. Since then, there has been a distinction between heavy vehicles that cooperate with infantry and light vehicles that cooperate with cavalry or fight alone. ”

"But as with many other weapons, the most mature and perfect period is often when they are about to be obsolete. Combat vehicles, although also developing, were far less rapid than infantry. Their proportion in the army gradually decreased, and they were eventually reduced to auxiliary troops. ”

"By the time of the Qin Dynasty, the core of the army was already infantry. But there's one caveat here, and that's that this evolution happens gradually. He reminded: "That is, in the process of gradually increasing the proportion of infantry, the impact and shock resistance of the army formation has not weakened, but even increased." Otherwise, the new army formation will not be able to defeat the old army formation in actual combat, and it will definitely not develop in this direction. ”

"Therefore, even if the infantry increases, the entire operational thinking will not change much. This new infantry formation, which still attached great importance to shock, only shifted the main work from the tank to the infantry. ”

"In the army of the Qin Dynasty, the main weapons were beryllium and halberd. The positioning of these weapons is different from the spears of Europe today, and they are not used to support the front as human flesh. Rather, it is similar to a two-handed sword and axe gun, and is a two-handed combat weapon. Of course, the weapons at that time were certainly not as advanced as they are now. ”

"And more than seventy percent of the entire army are such soldiers in armor and armed with two-handed combat weapons. They, like the Romans, consisted of squads of fifty to eighty people. But these small formations were not spread out horizontally, but were connected end to end, and finally formed an exaggerated column that might be more than two hundred men in depth. ”

"The whole formation, except for a few rows of shooters in the front and back, the rest are all this kind of soldiers. You don't need to be too professional to see at a glance the operational ideas of this army. In the familiar words of our side, it is to use a large number of halberd-wielding infantry, with the help of a large depth of the queue, to try to break the enemy as soon as possible. ”

"The ancients on our side always said that barbarians prefer to rush and rush, but in fact, civilized people rush up and are much wilder than them. The Qin people, or the Warring States Period, all the qualified troops who could hold out on the battlefield several times, embarked on this road, and it had a very far-reaching impact. Until now, our formation has been centered around that. ”

"This situation is so special that other people don't need to do such extremes." He spread his hands and expressed pessimism: "So, we can't expect them to understand and adapt quickly. ”

(End of chapter)