Sweep Yuan

Chapter 21 Pre-Battle Training

In fact, the biggest obstacle to training teams is not the farmers' weak ability to learn, but the disorganized equipment.

Including the weapons brought by Chang Tietou, the entire team only had thirty-nine broadswords (waist knives), twenty-six iron-tipped short spears, and fifteen ordinary short bows, which could barely be called weapons.

Besides these, the tools in everyone's hands included hoes, manure rakes, pitchforks, machetes, carrying poles, wooden shovels, axes, hammers, narrow sickles, and other various work tools, as well as simpler wooden sticks.

If it weren't for the high proportion of young and middle-aged men in the group and the uniform style of headscarves (they didn't have enough red cloth, so they could only standardize the size and way of wrapping the headscarves, not the color), you would hardly imagine such a group of people as an army.

These miscellaneous tools are insufficient for standardized combined attack training, let alone flexible tactical command on the battlefield.

In the past few days, Shishan has managed to recruit two villagers who know some basic blacksmithing skills. He doesn't expect them to be able to forge standard arrowheads or armor, make iron spearheads, or perform simple repairs on damaged weapons.

Limited by time and a shortage of raw materials, even if the two blacksmiths worked day and night, it would be impossible to equip the entire army with iron weapons.

At present, we can only make do with what we have. The simplest and most effective method is to cut bamboo and wood into weapons.

When Shishan was recruiting soldiers, he made it clear that each village should rush to make a batch of bamboo and wood long and short guns. These simple weapons were brought by the villagers' soldiers along with food and military supplies.

In close combat, wielding such crude "weapons" to fight one-on-one against an enemy wielding fine iron weapons would basically be suicide.

But Ishiyama was confident that he would not encounter such a situation.

Given its current level of organization, if it were to be ambushed by the enemy and its formation were disrupted, it would inevitably collapse within a few breaths or at most a dozen breaths, and no one would be foolish enough to risk their life for it.

Therefore, whether it is three-person team offensive and defensive cooperation or "standing in formation" training, the essence is to alleviate the soldiers' fear of the battlefield through simple cooperation, rather than to improve their skills and tactics.

After initially determining the organizational structure and simply standardizing the weapons, Shishan also formulated military regulations.

Considering the local militia's outrageous behavior, the regulations only have three articles:
1. During any march, cavalry scouts must advance five li (any further would be beyond the current capabilities of the cavalry) to carry out tasks such as reconnaissance of enemy positions, surveying terrain, and finding water sources and resting places.

2. During the march, each centurion unit should be thirty paces apart. If attacked, they should form a battle formation on the spot (without training, there is no real formation; they are just huddled together with bamboo and wooden spears pointing outwards like hedgehogs) and listen to the orders. If they are defeated, they should not attack the rear of the formation.

3. When camping, it is strictly forbidden to leave the designated area (if there are not enough tarpaulins, felt and other materials to make tents, you can only camp in village ancestral halls and haystacks for the time being). The sentries must keep the campfire burning all night (compared to the risk of the firelight guiding the enemy to a night attack, darkness and fear pose a greater danger to the newly formed team).

The organization and regulations were very simple and crude, but there was no other way. Without rigorous training, the team was essentially a mob and could not execute even slightly complex military orders. They could only adjust as they went along.

Because the basic training was so poor, the originally planned half-day training session took a day and a half, and additional training in raising guns and forming ranks and throwing spears was added.

During this period, Li Wu led his cycling team to train while also conducting outreach in the surrounding villages.

The results were quite good, and more than thirty more people came to join the army. These recruits, who brought their own weapons, were more reliable and had higher morale than the village militia recruited as a whole a few days earlier. Shishan decisively incorporated them into his directly administered centurion team.

……

Huxi Village, the main hall of the capital.

"If we are here, Xuzhou City is here, and the Yellow River flows from the north of Xuzhou City to the southeast into Huaian Road. Fangcun Station is probably in this area on the left bank of the Yellow River, and Chulan Station is still west of Fangcun, less than 20 li away from Huxi Village."

Using tea as ink and his fingers as a pen, Chen Cheng used teacups to represent various geographical features, explaining the surrounding geography of the target area to everyone on the table.

In his early years, feeling that he could no longer make any progress by studying behind closed doors, Chen Cheng traveled to parts of Henan and Jiangbei provinces in order to broaden his horizons and make acquaintances with promising young officials. As a result, he gained some knowledge of the geography of the Xuzhou area, which he could then explain in great detail.

"Chulan Station and Fangcun Station are about 30 li apart, and there is a post road connecting the two stations. If Chulan Station is attacked, the Tartars in Fangcun can quickly come to its aid as soon as they receive the news."

Thirty li is a short distance. Even taking into account the time it takes to transmit information, the enemy troops in Fangcun could reach Chulan Station to provide support in a few hours to a day. If the rebel army cannot resolve the battle before then, it may be caught in a pincer attack.

Of course, this inference is based on the premise that Fangcun has a sufficient number of government troops with high morale.

Li Wu, born into a military household, was accustomed to the chaos at the bottom of the Yuan Dynasty's military system. He didn't believe that the small Inland Garrison could have such strength and mobilization capabilities. He was rather dismissive of Chen Cheng's pretentious theoretical discussions and interjected:
"Just tell me, how many people are actually stationed at these two stations?"

The term "Zhanchi" is the Chinese transliteration of the Mongolian word "Yichuan" (驿传), and it was not invented by the Mongols. However, the fact that the Yuan Dynasty expanded its function and scale to such an extent, establishing more than 1,500 Zhanchi and over 20,000 express delivery stations throughout the country, is unique in history.

Because they were responsible for tasks such as changing horses for urgent military matters, providing lodging for imperial envoys, and transporting goods, some border stations had regular garrisons. However, inland stations obviously did not need to do this; at most, they trained some post station guards to defend against bandits and invaders.

However, in cold weapon warfare, young men are the basic fighting force, and the number of young men can determine the number of "soldiers" that can be trained. Li Wu's question is quite insightful.

In fact, the Xuzhou Road Military and Civilian General Administration had organizational data on the various stations within its jurisdiction, but it is unknown whether these data were destroyed in the fire on the night the city fell, or whether Zhao Junyong did it intentionally, and did not mention this to Shishan before sending troops.

The Zhanchi was an official institution with military purposes, not open to the public, at least not to Han Chinese of Chen Cheng's level. Chen Cheng was even less likely to have access to such information, so his answer lacked confidence.

"It is said that at its peak, Chulan Station employed no fewer than two thousand households, with several hundred horses and mules. However, in recent years, the station's labor burden has become increasingly heavy, and there are concerns that some households may flee. Fangcun is slightly smaller—"

Chen Cheng had said so much, but it was all hearsay. Li Wu was getting annoyed and interrupted him rudely:
"Although I have never been to Chulan Station, our military households often deal with the station's inhabitants. Large stations have four or five hundred households, while small stations have a little over a hundred. Some stations have more than a hundred horses and donkeys, while others have only twenty or thirty."

Border areas where frequent battles might have more, but in the Central Plains, very few stations had more than this number of troops. Chulan Station wasn't a major station; how could it possibly have more than this number?

(End of this chapter)