Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 777 Fearing the Ming army would lose, yet also fearing they would win too quickly.
While the fighting was taking place at the camp, the Italians were still marching through the woods.

The two camps aren't particularly far apart; the current location is the result of previous skirmishes and mutual pressure. During the day, traveling on flat ground would take about two hours. But at night, with the detour, it takes much longer.

Therefore, several captains questioned this course of action. In their view, by the time they arrived at their destination, both sides would likely have finished fighting. If the Ming army failed, even if they disrupted the Polish base, it would be futile; instead, they would lose their own supplies, leaving them exhausted and with nowhere to run.

Conversely, if the Poles were defeated, the Ming army would pursue them along the main road. They had a large cavalry force, and even at night, they could catch up in an hour or two. Meanwhile, the Poles would probably still be in the woods.

They suspected that the Ming army had anticipated the outcome, knowing they would likely not need the soldiers in the end, and thus transferred them out for future considerations. Whether it was to prevent them from having any unfounded thoughts and give them something to do first, or to send them away so they could collect the spoils of war themselves, remained unknown.

However, Manager Roberto disagreed. He explained that he had been in contact with the leaders of the Ming army. While they did care about money, it was primarily because they needed it to get things done. As long as the goal was achieved, wealth was merely a means to an end.

In other words, the prince and those who are only after money won't have a direct conflict, because their ultimate goal isn't money, but something else. It's not worth turning against them for such a small amount of money.

Commander Francis also agreed with his judgment.

He reminded his captains that if the Poles won, the camp would be empty. According to their usual practice, if they were to actually win and storm the Ming army camp, all the noble cavalry would surely rush off to loot, and wouldn't be back for a while. This would present them with a perfect opportunity to raid the Polish camp.

Betting on the Ming army was a decision everyone had made before, and he still maintains this view. Even if the bet fails, they can attack the Polish camp first and then retreat, at least recouping some of their losses. They've already plundered Sigismund, so what's one more person they might offend? Their reputation can't be worse than Visconti's.

As for the timing, he wasn't too worried.

He urged everyone to speed up, mainly because he feared the Ming army would win too quickly, not lose too quickly. In reality, he didn't believe the Ming army would be defeated soon. On the contrary, even if they suffered some losses tonight, he estimated they would be unlikely to collapse.

Francis believed that the resilience of an army depended not only on training and discipline, but also on the reasons for their fighting. Regular mercenary captains, to some extent, understood military history and should have known that Italians also fought to the death.

In 1176, Frederick the Redbeard marched south to invade Italy, and the Lombard League, composed of city-states from northern Italy, assembled an army to resist him. The Milanese, who spearheaded this effort, organized an infantry unit known as the "Death Legion," guarding their iconic standard chariot. The battle was extremely fierce; even after the rest of the army was routed, the Death Legion held their ground, their backs to their standard chariot, and Frederick's knights were unable to break them. At this point, reinforcements from other city-states arrived and attacked from the rear. The Holy Roman Empire's army suffered a crushing defeat; Frederick's guards and standard bearers were all killed, and he escaped alone, only to be found by his men several days later.

In 1237, Frederick II again attacked the Lombard League, and the two sides clashed at Côte d'Or. This time, the Holy Roman Empire army gained the upper hand, but the Italians fought a retreating battle, eventually reaching the fortress of Côte d'Or before being defeated. Of the 10,000-strong allied army, more than 3,000 died in battle, many of them sons of urban nobles; the Milanese soldiers guarding the standard-bearer fought to the last man. In the end, Frederick II failed to completely conquer northern Italy.

As the war progressed, casualties decreased. Some so-called wars devolved into mere performances and negotiations between mercenaries.

The most formal battle fought between Italians in modern times took place in Castagnaro in 1387. Padua hired the mercenary leader John Hawkwood and his 8500 soldiers to fight against the Veronaese and Venetian armies led by the local tyrant Odrafi. Although the enemy outnumbered them by 1.1, Hawkwood skillfully employed tactics from the Hundred Years' War, using infantry to draw the enemy's full strength, and then, taking advantage of the moment when his own forces were faltering and the enemy was unwilling to give up but was already exhausted, he led his cavalry to flank and attack from the rear, defeating the enemy.

However, although the tactics were similar to those in Poitiers, the intensity of the fighting was vastly different. Verona suffered over 4000 prisoners and only 700 killed in action. Padua, on the other hand, lost only 100 men.

Of those who died in battle, more than half were not regular soldiers—Odrafi had conscripted about a thousand local farmers to bolster his forces before the war. However, during the battle, the city-state's citizens and mercenaries, realizing the situation was dire, all fled. These farmers, considered untrained and unreliable, fought desperately to protect their territory from plunder. The last survivors and their commander were captured, and only then did the battle end.

Now, the Poles have directly invoked religious fervor, which has already stirred up many people. As for the Ming army, they are directly fighting to defend their homeland, because if they lose, the people of Tabor Mountain will certainly not be able to escape, and the residents of other places will inevitably be divided up by the new lords. This is also completely unacceptable.

Therefore, they estimated that there was still a fight ahead.

If the Poles had known when to stop and retreated to their camp after repelling the Ming cavalry, the night's battle might have ended there. But now, both sides were too engrossed and were constantly reinforcing their troops. On their way here, they could still see waves of Poles rushing towards the front lines. At this point, there was no way they could simply retreat.

Francis told everyone that the sooner they arrived at the location, the easier it would be for them to control the situation. However, even if they arrived a little later, they were confident they could achieve some results. Therefore, there was no need to worry; they just needed to manage their own personnel and carry out orders properly.

After his explanation, the team leaders were reassured and went back to their posts, urging their subordinates to hurry up and leave.

As he expected, the main battlefield at the camp entrance had indeed entered a fierce stage.

As the first rockets were launched, the infantrymen lying in ambush near the gate leaped out. The first to engage were a dozen or so Tyrolean infantrymen, each a hundred men long. When ordered to prepare for the raid, they noticed the trench beneath the wall. The enemy dared not approach easily there, making it an excellent hiding place. Several commanders each selected some veterans to lie in wait at the edge of the trench. At the signal, they leaped out and charged straight at the nearest enemy.

The Tyrolean tactics initially resembled those of the Swiss, with veterans using longswords and halberds, while new recruits concentrated on spears. Later, they were also influenced by the Romans.

After the Railway Protection War, the locals did not live happily ever after as depicted in popular folk tales, simply because they had defeated the great villain. On the contrary, due to their strategic location, they were constantly at war with surrounding forces.

Despite having a secret agreement with Austria, the Habsburg family itself couldn't really control its various lords. Some would frequently try to take advantage of the region's revenue and cause trouble. Furthermore, to maintain regional stability, they also had to proactively intervene in the surrounding situation.

Back then, Antonio, the Venetian, made an exception and used his power to provide them with considerable assistance. Of course, the real reason behind this was that Antonio was too eager to advance—within the existing Venetian system, his path to advancement had essentially reached its limit. Therefore, he urgently needed to build external connections to allow himself to move forward further.

Under his influence, Tyrolean soldiers participated in numerous Venetian-led military operations, acting as mercenaries to crack down on disobedient neighboring city-states. Naturally, the Wu royal court received substantial financial and commercial benefits in return. Antonio, acting as the middleman, leveraged his ability to recruit reliable mercenaries to rise through the ranks, eventually becoming a senator.

Furthermore, they participated in the Purple Horde's incursion into Croatia, and in turn, leveraging their well-organized strength, began to influence the loosely structured Swiss Confederation. When tensions escalated between Bern and Zurich, it was these mountain people representatives who recommended the King of Wu to mediate, ultimately leading to an agreement. It can be said that over the years, the local area had developed a highly sophisticated system for building and utilizing military power.

Today, the Tyrolean infantry has also drawn on some experiences from the Ming Dynasty and the Purple Horde.

Swiss infantrymen traditionally gathered their veteran soldiers together and placed them at the front of the square formation, equipped with crossbows, muskets, and two-handed weapons, forming a "vanguard." The specific number depended on the proportion of veterans in different units.

Following the vanguard was a large "main force," but due to the regularization of the army, the proportion of pikemen in the Swiss army was actually not high. Only about one or two tenths of the men served as pikemen, forming a "shell" around the perimeter of the formation. This shell was generally only four ranks deep. Inside this huge shell were veteran assault teams wielding greatswords and halberds, responsible for launching attacks on the enemy when the situation was right.

Following the main force, there is usually a "rear force," similar in formation to the main force. The shape of the main and rear forces is not necessarily a square formation, but depends on the situation. Often, the wedge formation, known as the "pig's snout," is more common, because the Swiss preferred to use infantry formations to directly charge the enemy.

Of course, their greatest strength lay in their flexibility and adaptability in formation. For example, during the Swiss Civil War, both sides deployed formations with up to 20 rows deep to prevent being breached by their equally skilled compatriots. Later, in Italy, when fighting against Spanish pikemen and swordsmen, the Swiss only left three rows deep and still managed to defeat their opponents. This ability to adapt to changing circumstances is a characteristic of an excellent army.

In contrast, although Tyrol was very far from the Ming Dynasty's mainland, its infantry were greatly influenced by the Ming Dynasty. First and foremost was their organizational structure.

Both sides were organized according to their respective administrative units. The Swiss ranks would have a large number of brightly colored flags representing their villages, towns, or guilds. During battle, their ranks were also divided according to these units.

Tyrolean soldiers were organized according to the Ming Dynasty system, divided into various units such as chiliarchies (thousand-household units) and centurions (hundred-household units). Theoretically, this corresponded to their administrative units; for example, each centurion would have one centurion soldier. However, this organization was not fixed. A market town could have more than one centurion; in remote areas, several villages might share a single centurion.

Moreover, due to the complex environment within the region, over time, some armies, especially the state and county troops directly under the government, were no longer tied to the administrative structure. For example, in the wealthy areas south of the mountains, because they had participated in the war before, even the commercial districts in the cities had centurions. However, most of the merchants here were nomadic and did not personally serve in the army, so the centurions became purely administrative institutions.

Swiss instructors were initially worried that this formation might lead to soldiers becoming less familiar with each other, thereby affecting team cohesion and reducing combat effectiveness and morale. However, they later discovered that they had been overthinking it.

Those units that are more detached from their hometowns and rely more on their organizational structure are actually the more professional and specialized ones. Otherwise, they wouldn't have become detached from their hometowns. Because they have been fighting together in the military for a long time, their teamwork is quite good, and their training level is very high.

Conversely, the Ming Dynasty's administrative structure was far more orderly than that of the fragmented Switzerland. In times of war, even seasoned mercenary bastions might not have been as efficient. Therefore, some Swiss who served in the Ming army began to feel that this system should be introduced and promoted in their homeland. However, due to the long-standing tradition of federalism and free cities in the region, this has met with considerable resistance, and it remains at the level of mere contemplation.

Another point is the use of spears and ranged weapons.

The Swiss have a tradition of using crossbows, maintaining crossbowmen until the age of firearms and holding crossbow competitions in towns and cities throughout the country. In these competitions, contestants shoot at a three-ring target 90 meters away, scoring points based on the location of the hit. The outer ring is approximately 13.5 centimeters in diameter, the middle ring 3.5 centimeters, and the inner ring only 1.5 centimeters, highlighting the difficulty of the challenge.

In contrast, Tyrolean soldiers, influenced by the Purple Horde infantry, preferred the use of muskets. They didn't prioritize long-range accuracy, but rather used muskets as large javelins, firing volleys before charges to suppress the enemy, disrupt their formations, and damage their shields and armor. Their approach was quite different.

(End of this chapter)