When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#227 - Recruit training and placement

"This is the strong army you said could defeat the Edict Legion?" The middle-aged knight named Colebo asked Horn.

Although his tone was gentle, everyone could hear the hint of mockery in it.

"How dare you! Who gave you the courage?"

"Drag him out and beat him!"

"Your Grace, I…"

Although the surrounding people looked like they wanted to kill him, no one actually moved.

Horn held the holy words in his mouth; only he could give the order to act.

Standing beside Colebo, Lana frowned as she watched the undisciplined recruits jumping around.

These young men had never undergone military training, or if they had, it certainly wasn't Horn's kind, so it was normal for them to be unaccustomed.

But she never expected the situation to be this bad.

"How many Saint-Touched are there in this batch of recruits?" Horn asked Yeshka beside him.

Yeshka stroked his thick, rough beard: "According to the previous statistics, there should be 233, which is about one-tenth of the total number of recruits. After all, we only have over 2,000 Saint-Touched in total, and the number of young men who can actually fight is still too small."

This was also a problem that plagued Horn. Despite being blessed by the Holy Father, he still hadn't figured out how the Saint-Touch was spread.

He had experimented with blood, saliva, hair, and even virgin urine, but the results showed no clear evidence that they had any correlation with the Saint-Touch.

But the strange thing was that Lana's blood was highly likely to infect people or animals with Witch's Disease.

Horn even wanted to ask: Am I not a witch? Am I a witch after all?

"During this time, I will be stationed at the military camp, trying to train and live with them," Horn said helplessly to Yeshka.

After all, the only thing that could prove a connection with the Saint-Touch was Horn's own range of activity.

"Your Grace, this is the training schedule for the recruit camp. Please take a look," Hakuto handed Horn a roll of hemp paper.

Horn took it and glanced at it. Under his promotion, the convenient and intuitive format of two-dimensional tables had already spread among clerical workers.

The recruit camp's training on the hemp paper basically conformed to Horn's ideas, but in terms of specific details, Horn decided to leave it to Hakuto and Yeshka to manage.

Compared to Horn, a cloud military strategist who didn't understand specific affairs, these two experienced old soldiers understood practice and details better.

At Horn's suggestion, the recruit camp would last for twenty days, and the priority of training subjects would be discipline, physical fitness, and ideological education.

Originally, ideological education was to be placed first, but Horn temporarily didn't have suitable personnel to complete this part, or even say that he originally had no conditions to complete it.

But considering the importance of ideological education, Horn decided to forcibly arrange it and give it a try.

According to this schedule, the first three days of the recruit camp were for adaptation, with only the simplest queue training to let them experience military camp life.

This part of the training included standing posture, sitting posture, one-way marching, military regulations, etc., and every night there would be a chaplain to conduct confession and guidance.

The middle seven days were basic training, still with queue training, but requiring standing posture, left and right turns, tidying up formations, interior affairs, and interspersed with some simple physical training, such as one-kilometer running, 50-meter sprints, and lifting long sticks, etc.

In addition, they had to start learning simplified Leia script, and all 28 simplified letters had to be memorized, laying the foundation for future literacy classes.

The last seven days were intensive training, with more queue and physical training added on the basis of the first two being practiced well.

Such as three-kilometer running, 100-meter stick sprints, one-kilometer weighted running, and island-wide exercises, etc.

After these seventeen days of training, the recruits needed to be able to understand commands, distinguish between left and right, march in a straight line with basically neat formations and basically consistent movements, lay a good physical foundation for breathing exercises, and fully integrate into military camp order and life.

The last three days were the assessment period. After the assessment, the Black Hat Army and the Guards would come to pick people, using veterans as the backbone and recruits as the flesh and blood to form new legions, and begin formal training.

Subjects such as tactical training, formation changes, and breathing exercises would be left until after the recruit camp ended, and determined according to specific tactical assignments.

In fact, this "Savior Battle Group Soldier's Bible" was so complex and meticulously managed that it was quite strict compared to the Empire's most stringent infantry training.

Hakuto and Yeshka had both offered suggestions, overtly and covertly, but they were still suppressed by Horn.

Because this army had to not only defeat the extraordinary knights of Jeanne d'Arc Castle, but also defeat the Edict Legion. Finally, it had to be the new model army for all insurgents.

Horn believed that these young men from Daze Township had the strength to complete his ideas.

Many of them had personally experienced the bloody battle of Jeanne d'Arc Castle. In their weakest moments, they had truly seen blood and dared to face knights.

This kind of willpower could not be trained.

In addition, many of them were displaced laborers who had nothing to lose.

Due to their wandering experiences, their knowledge, courage, and self-care abilities were much stronger than ordinary farmers.

The only possible drawback was that due to wandering around, they had picked up many cunning and vicious habits.

Compared to relatively simple farmers, they could rob, steal, and extort with almost no psychological burden.

This was why Horn would forcibly promote ideological education, even at the cost of pulling all the monks of the Holy Father Society to serve as chaplains for them.

Hopefully, collective confession three times a day could change their behavior patterns.

"Brother, look." Lana, who was originally observing the recruits at the foot of the hill, suddenly relaxed her brows. "There's a recruit standing there. Finally, there's someone who's passable."

"That big guy? He's not a good soldier." Colebo, wearing shackles, took two steps forward. "I saw him during the roll call just now.

This kind of soft egg soldier is just an empty shell. He looks good, but he's too timid. He can be used as a guard of honor to deceive stupid earls, but he can't deceive the enemy."

"Can you predict the future?" Lana asked, staring at him unconvincingly.

"My dear lady, how many people like him do you think I've seen? His cowardice is in his bones and can't be changed." Colebo lazily tilted his neck. "When he really gets to the battlefield, even if he doesn't run away, he'll basically be unable to move."

"I think he'll be a good soldier," Horn said, with his back to Colebo, looking at the military camp and the noisy, moving recruits below.

"Of course, you can have your opinion, but I reserve mine," Colebo said.

"Cowardice is not in the bones, it's not innate. As long as they understand two things, the most cowardly people can be more courageous than the most valiant knights."

"What things?"

"Why fight? Who to fight for?"

"Ha, humorous."

Turning around, Horn smiled: "How about we make a bet?"

"How do we bet?"

"In a month and a half, I will arrange for them to go to the southwestern mountains to clear out the giant spiders and were-human zombies entrenched there as the first actual combat training.

We'll bet on how well this big guy performs in that battle."

This was something Horn had planned. If he could clear out the giant spiders and monsters in that area, then the silted-up area of ​​South Ze Lake could belong to the Papal State.

If there was a chance, maybe he could use the Rotary Holy Machine to break through the silted-up area. If the water level of South Ze Lake could drop, Horn and his men could immediately obtain a large area of ​​fertile land.

"Okay, I bet he won't have any results and will only cower and shiver."

"Okay, then I'll bet the opposite of you." A sly look flashed in Horn's eyes.

"If I win, what happens?"

"If you win, I'll let you go. If you lose, what can you give me?"

Looking at Lana beside him, Colebo snorted: "I swear before Messala to accept your re-baptism, serve you, tell you all the ways cavalry fights, and help you train your cavalry."

"Okay, it's a deal," Horn said calmly.