In the days following the victory celebration, Roland immersed himself in the grand endeavor of farming once more.
Sitting in his office, the incessant dripping sound from outside the window was like rain. It was the sound of melting snow. During the New Year holidays in the countryside, he used to love lying by the window, watching the long icicles under the eaves turn into transparent water droplets, falling one by one. Although he no longer had such leisure at the moment, it was quite pleasant to write plans while listening to the sounds of the earth's revival.
According to past experience, it would take about a week for the snow to melt, but it would take at least a month for the land route between the town and the fortress to be passable. Roland could imagine what the mud roads without hardened surfaces and drainage measures would be like after the snow melted. If he could successfully take Longsong Stronghold, the first thing he would do would be to build a hardened road between the two places that could be used by carriages.
However, the most pressing issue at the moment was still the construction of the army. Without a reliable and strong army, it would be impossible to defeat the fortress army when outnumbered. Transforming the militia into a regular army was only the first step; the specific organization, rules, disciplines, and rewards and punishments were what gave him a headache.
Although he had played military chess as a child, he had completely forgotten it at this moment. After some deep thought, Roland simply decided to make it up himself. Anyway, he was the creator of the new army, and no one would be able to tell if the settings were unreasonable.
Thus, the First Army of Border Town was quickly born: using army, division, battalion, company, and group as the overall framework, five people were in a group (considering that at least five people were needed to operate a cannon), ten groups formed a company, and ten companies formed a battalion. As for the number of people in a division and an army, he decided to consider it later. Given the overall combat level of this era, just two or three battalion-level units would be enough to defeat the vast majority of opponents in field battles.
After the most basic framework was set, Roland breathed a sigh of relief.
The following rules and disciplines were much simpler. In addition to the usual rules such as obeying military orders at all times, obeying superiors, not deserting in battle, and not betraying, the first discipline that Roland established was to prohibit looting and disturbing the people.
The disadvantages of indulging subordinates to loot were countless, and the negative impact on the local people would take many years to remedy. This was also why he insisted on using civilians as the army's personnel composition.
When nobles responded to the lord's call to arms, it was simply a fantasy to expect them not to participate in looting after defeating the enemy. Or rather, the main reason they were willing to follow the lord into battle was that they could freely plunder the wealth and territory of their opponents—and, of course, the innocent civilians on those territories.
As for mercenaries and bandits, not to mention. They looked fierce and tough, but in reality, they could only fight advantageous battles, and robbery was also a major source of their income. Military discipline was meaningless to this group of people.
Only an army composed of civilians would not regard other civilians as lambs to be slaughtered. Of course, relying solely on discipline and strict punishment was not enough. As time went on, the greed in their hearts would always grow with each victory. Therefore, rewards must be given at the same time to fundamentally eliminate looting and other violations.
To make the rewards motivating enough, Roland decided to release the ultimate weapon—awarding land for military merit. Anyone who made great contributions in battle could be granted land. Roland had already figured out the source of the land, which was the land between Border Town and the fortress that needed to be reclaimed.
This was definitely a generous reward in an era when ninety percent of the land belonged to the aristocratic class. Once they had permanent property, these people would cling tightly to his side, and anyone who wanted to overthrow him would be met with the fiercest resistance from the beneficiaries.
Driving people is not about words and whips, but about real benefits. In other words, as long as he can always represent the fundamental interests of the people under his rule, his ruling position will be unshakable.
Unlike traditional fiefdoms, Roland controlled the awarded land area between a few acres and a dozen acres, which could be used to build houses, buy serfs, or hire farmers to manage the land, but could not be used to establish industries. In comparison, a knight's territory was close to two thousand acres, an area equivalent to a small village. The income from the industries operating on it could provide the knight and his attendants with what they needed for combat, such as buying weapons, armor, and horses.
This small area of land reward would not cause strong resistance from the aristocratic interest groups and would weaken
the independence of the land recipients. In Roland's view, it was like a retirement pension that could guarantee a stable income for soldiers after they retired.
At the same time, to strengthen centralization and avoid the situation where "the servant of my servant is not my servant," the people who were granted land only owned the land, but did not have autonomy. In other words, this land was still subject to the laws, regulations, and systems within the lord's jurisdiction. In a sense, they were more like farm owners in later generations.
After writing down these preliminary ideas one by one, Roland stretched. Next, he could finally devote himself to his area of expertise—weapon development.
As the speed of musket manufacturing increased, continuing to equip pikemen to protect musketeers would be a waste of manpower. The latter had to have the ability to fight independently in close combat.
The solution was simple: attach a bayonet to the gun. Roland did not expect his troops to take the initiative to launch a bayonet charge against the enemy, but only to have the ability to fight when the other side was cornered and the artillery had failed to completely destroy their courage.
Bayonets were not difficult to manufacture. If you wanted to keep it simple, it would be a sharp cone. The key was the way the bayonet was connected to the gun: the original bayonet had a thin wooden rod wrapped around the handle, and the wooden rod could be inserted directly into the barrel. The advantage was that it was simple to manufacture, but the disadvantages were also obvious: you could not fire the gun during bayonet combat, and it was particularly laborious to pull it out after the battle.
Roland planned to produce the improved second-generation bayonet—the socket bayonet. The end of the handle had an angle that was connected to a section of iron socket. The inner diameter of the socket was slightly larger than the barrel, with a zigzagging mortise. Only a small section of iron strip needed to be welded to the barrel for the mortise to be embedded to fix the blade. The blade was a triangular iron with a v-shaped cross-section, and all three sides were sharpened. After being inserted into the body, it would not affect the pulling out and would leave difficult-to-heal wounds.
After the socket bayonet was installed, it would be slightly higher than the barrel, which had a certain impact on ammunition loading, but compared to a folding bayonet, it was simple enough and convenient for mass production. As long as a sample was made, it could be handed over to the blacksmith shop to make it themselves.
To make the bayonet effective in actual combat, the key was to train soldiers how to use it.
Roland knew nothing about this. Fortunately, he remembered that the Chief Knight had boasted that he could use any military weapon in a decent manner, so he might as well ask him to teach the musketeers how to fight with bayonets.
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