Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 727 Military Must Also Go Back to Basics
As evening fell, the teams gathered again at the open space south of the camp, as agreed.

The camp was engulfed in flames—though most of the fires were probably not started by them. And given the limited number of people, the direct casualties from this attack were likely not very high. But in this chaotic state, the enemies within the camp had clearly lost the ability to continue fighting.

Moreover, the commotion here clearly alerted the enemy at the front lines. Scouts reported that a group of enemies had left the battlefield and were heading this way. The intensity of the attack on the convoy also appeared to have decreased significantly. The objective of this battle seems to have been successfully achieved.

However, they were also missing many men. This team lacked long-term training and cohesion; no matter how much extra practice they did, it was unlikely they could achieve perfect discipline based on just a few days' events. Their first real military operation, a high-difficulty maneuver like raiding a camp, was still too challenging for everyone.

Several teams had suffered some losses. They even called for help from the nearby woods to bring back little Jeanne and the others who had been settled, but the team was still significantly smaller. The worst off was Li Li's team, which had only a few members left.

"Where are the people of the Gelai tribe? They've all disappeared!" Tang Sai'er looked around and asked, "They rushed in so fast, could they all have perished inside?"

“We don’t know either,” Captain Martin said. “I saw them near Gatman’s camp before I withdrew. But they seemed to be in a frenzy; I called for them to leave, but they ignored me. Now, we don’t know where they’ve gone…”

"Oh well, forget about them." Tang Sai'er thought for a moment and gave up. "The longer they cause trouble, the easier it might be for us. Can we even continue fighting?"

"No problem!" Everyone cheered enthusiastically.

“If you’re injured, don’t push yourself. I’m talking to you.” She pointed at Li Li: “You and my sister should stay in the back and take cover.”

"Everyone else, follow me and maintain formation!" Without waiting for their reactions or further words, she directly ordered, "We're going to intercept those reinforcements!"

“They have a lot of people, and they’re an organized army. We only have two or three hundred men with fighting ability on our side. We’re already struggling to deal with the scattered enemies in the camp, so dealing with them will be even more troublesome.” Captain Martin asked, “Are you really prepared to fight them head-on?”

“If possible, I would certainly prefer to have more people on my side,” Tang Sai’er said helplessly. “But if they are in a hurry to go home and put out fires, and they can’t be defeated in one fell swoop when they are most anxious and agitated, then we probably won’t have a better chance afterward.”

“Since I started my military career, I’ve rarely fought a battle I was absolutely certain of winning. But often, the choice of whether to fight or not isn’t up to us. Even as a commander, I can only choose where and when to engage in battle within a limited scope, trying to minimize the situation.” She remarked with some emotion:

"Back then, we rallied a group of fellow villagers to fight against the border troops specially dispatched by the imperial court. Now, no matter how great the gap in strength between us and the enemy is, can it be as exaggerated as it was back then? We weren't afraid then, so what is there to worry about now?"

“Then don’t chase me away.” Li Li interjected, “My injuries look terrible, but compared to when I was chased by the Ming army and ran around in the woods back then, it’s nothing. But it’s really strange that we ourselves have become Ming soldiers now…”

“Who isn’t…” Tang Sai’er muttered.

After they said that, everyone was less nervous than before. The group quickly regrouped and headed towards their destination.

Unlike back home, the army here is accustomed to carrying a large number of non-combat personnel when marching, resulting in often very bulky formations. In the past, everyone was this bulky and slow, so it didn't matter. But in the last few decades, the situation has slowly changed.

Captain Jessica had previously served as a mercenary on the English-French front, witnessing firsthand the prolonged and intense warfare that spurred various new ideas. He shared these experiences with the group. The emphasis on improving troop mobility first appeared on both sides of the continent. Nearly a century earlier, to counter the massive French army, the English launched a series of "riding raids," which involved having soldiers ride horses as much as possible, minimizing the burden of heavy baggage and weapons to enhance mobility. Supplies were obtained through local raiding.

The main force of the English army consisted of conscripted farmers who could afford to provide their own horses. It wasn't that these people were particularly wealthy, but rather that the land in their region was barren and yielded very little, making livestock raising perhaps even simpler than farming... Moreover, France was far wealthier than England, and could quickly recoup its losses even without supplies.

The most famous "riding raids" were launched by Edward the Black Prince, who marched all the way from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The defending forces along the way were powerless to stop them, and the large armies assembled by the local nobles could not keep up with them. In two months, the English army marched more than 2,000 kilometers, destroyed more than 200 villages and towns, and successfully achieved its strategic objectives.

This method quickly gained attention: the success of mounted raiding proved the importance of scientific logistical planning. With proper route planning, choosing routes that could sustain the army while maintaining sufficient maneuverability and avoiding being forced to pass through already raided areas, it was entirely possible to maintain speed and gain a significant strategic advantage over the enemy.

Of course, the French were constantly looking for ways to counter this, and successfully forced the Black Prince to hastily engage in a decisive battle under unfavorable conditions. However, in the Battle of Poitiers, the main French force was inexplicably lost, leading to the collapse of the entire strategic situation.

Regardless of the impact on the two kingdoms, the combat experience accumulated by both sides during this long period of conflict had a significant influence on the European military community. Many ideas about maintaining and disrupting enemy logistics originated from this experience.

Armies in other regions also began to adopt this approach. They would employ scorched-earth tactics when countering the enemy, but these methods soon encountered new problems. Not long after the Black Prince, the rapidly rising Purple Horde Khanate also came into focus.

Although the Purple Tent faction kept saying that their unification was slow because of the continuous efforts of several generations to expand and rebuild the country from scratch, Europeans still saw their rise and expansion as very rapid, quickly disrupting the local order.

The army of the Purple Horde was also known for its speed. However, with the Hundred Years' War now in a truce, large numbers of mercenaries were returning home, bringing with them the most advanced military experience in Europe during that period—including the use of firearms, as well as knowledge of logistics and strategic maneuvering. Therefore, from Poland to Serbia, the monarchs and nobles of Eastern Europe were not as surprised or nervous when facing the Purple Horde as they had been when they first encountered the Mongols.

In most people's eyes, the Mongols and the English were actually quite similar. Their high mobility relied on organized raiding, resulting in warfare without a rear base. And the countermeasures had long been in place.

First, we must implement a scorched-earth policy to prevent the enemy from having any resources to plunder.

Early on, the French discovered that while a small local garrison couldn't defeat the British, it could defeat the local villagers. Therefore, by striking first and burning down villages and towns along the British army's likely route, even if the British won, they wouldn't have anything to loot. This method proved very effective, frequently causing the British to run out of food and leaving their army weakened.

Secondly, fortresses can be built. Because the attacking side needs to maintain high mobility, prolonged sieges are unacceptable. Even the Black Prince himself almost lost his way during a castle siege due to momentary lapses in judgment, allowing the French army to catch up directly. Europe has a tradition of building fortresses; by encouraging everyone to build more castles and reinforce existing strongholds, the opponent's advantage can be significantly weakened.

Conversely, they could also plunder the territory of the Purple Horde. Since there were fewer fortresses there, they were actually at a greater disadvantage. Furthermore, the scorched-earth policy caused significant damage. The Purple Horde didn't yet have its current territory, and everyone felt they couldn't possibly be as resilient as the French in enduring such massive losses. It was estimated they wouldn't be able to withstand it for long.

However, in practice, they found that the results weren't actually that good. The experiences gained on the Anglo-French battlefields might even have the opposite effect here.

In the end, many generals found that these military innovations were not even as good as none at all. Unlike the war between England and France on the Western Front, on the Eastern Front, many commanders, especially the old-timers who had often faced the Roman legions and managed to survive, simply abandoned the idea of ​​increasing mobility and instead focused on issues such as route planning and fortification design, trying to ensure their own safety by strengthening their camps and stabilizing their rear.

This trend is now very prevalent in Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia on the eastern front. However, the Prague army they encountered this time, due to its hasty deployment and lack of qualified commanders, was even struggling to emulate the old model. The army's condition seemed to have reverted to its old state.

(End of this chapter)