When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1217 New Recruits After Ten Years

As November arrives, the entire Thousand River Valley is already bitterly cold.

As for Red Maple Village, where J.A. Castle is located, just a few days ago, when people stood on the large tower of J.A. Castle and looked north, they could already see the rustling red maple leaves burning into a sea.

Now, under the gray sky, only black crows can be seen gliding among the bare branches, and frost covers the grass.

Winter is getting closer and closer, and the weather is getting colder and colder.

Such a cold autumn would have frozen a large number of people to death twenty years ago.

However, now, with the emergence of Enqing Department Store and Enqing Market, coupled with Shenglian's monopoly on coal, the situation has changed dramatically.

Coal prices in markets across the country have only risen slightly, enough that even the poorest people can afford to buy some for heating.

Sometimes, the monks would even visit people's homes to offer genuine warmth—they would deliver coal to relatively poor farmers or disabled people.

In the past two years, while there are still people freezing to death in the outer counties, there are very few people frozen to death in the inner counties of the Thousand River Valley.

Except for those drunkards who freeze to death on the street after drinking too much.

I don't know why, but this year's late autumn is unusually cold.

Compared to the unpredictable weather of the original Horn world, this world's climate has always been stable, perhaps due to magical factors or the setting of dragons.

Historically, whenever abnormal weather occurs, it can generally be inferred that something major is about to happen.

For example, the vampire invasion.

Outside J.J. Jeanne d'Arc, the greenery was covered with frost, and the air and sunlight had a yellowish-brown tinge, as if the sun itself had been coated with wax to protect it from the cold.

However, the chilly autumn weather did nothing to dampen the bustling activity outside the Jeanne d'Arc recruit camp.

The Christian pacifists from the surrounding villages arrived by boat, horse-drawn train, or horse-drawn carriage.

A bustling crowd stood at the entrance of the recruit camp, chatting excitedly.

McDowell, one of them, also looked with great interest at the recruit camp behind the iron gate.

Many of them had been here before, but the friars from the relatively remote area were seeing it for the first time.

"Stand still and wait for inspection!" the captains of the religious guard shouted, restraining the behavior of their men.

Unfortunately, they were too excited, and while there was some effect, it was completely ineffective.

The chattering and commotion drew the attention of Lian Lianlian, the head instructor of the recruit camp, who was standing behind the iron gate.

"Brother Keruxiu, the quality of this batch of new recruits isn't very good. Weren't they supposed to have all been trained?"

Kruxiu gripped the pious infusion stick in his hand: "Actually, the foundation is good, it's just that he lacks discipline."

Kru Xiu wasn't exaggerating; this group of defenders of the faith were not short, their breathing techniques were quite advanced, and most of them were no shorter than 1.65 meters.

Despite the noise, everyone was in high spirits and there was order amidst the chaos; no fights or brawls occurred.

"There's training?"

“There’s training.” Krushu tapped the slime-hardened stick he made into a stick of piety in his palm twice. “Whether you’re arrogant or whatever, once you enter my barracks, you’ll leave as a first-rate soldier.”

Upon hearing the chief instructor's words, several officers who recognized him stood up straight.

Many of them had been trained by Ke Ru, so they naturally knew the old instructor's methods and strength.

As soon as Kruxiu stepped out of the iron gate, the soldiers fell silent, seemingly emanating an aura of authority.

They pursed their lips, stood at attention, and waited for the arrival of the head instructor.

"Who is that?" McDowell asked his fellow countryman curiously. He was a Norn immigrant from Horntown and had never seen this instructor before.

"Shut up and stand still."

“I could hear you arguing from that building over there.” Krushu tapped the iron gate with his pious infusion stick. “Of all the recruits I’ve trained, you’re the worst!”

Several new recruits tried to argue back, but their captain held them back.

"I know you've always been a tyrant in the village, haven't you? Hunting wolves, capturing bandits, driving away beast-like thugs..."

With his hands behind his back, Kru Xiu walked from one end of the crowd to the other.

"But with me, I don't care what kind of model soldier you are or what kind of merit you have, you all have to train obediently."

This is not your village or town; the place you are going to is a battlefield where life and death are fought.

With your limited skills, you can only bully beastmen and thieves!

"Once you're here, for the next three months, you're all new recruits. What I say goes, understand?"

"Understood." A loud but sparse voice rang out.

"Do you understand?!"

"Understood!" the soldiers responded in unison this time.

Ke Ruxiu snorted coldly, put his hands behind his back, and walked back to the main gate: "Stand outside the gate!"

With a clang, the iron gate slammed shut, leaving the reporting Christian guards standing at attention in the cold wind.

However, compared to the recruits who couldn't stand straight during their training on Autumn Dusk Island, these new recruits were clearly much better in terms of endurance and posture. After all, they had all undergone basic training; the only difference was their skill level.

Charlie, who had previously met secretly with Horn in Charlotte City, had doubts about whether the Holy Alliance could assemble its soldiers before spring.

In fact, for the three kingdoms of the empire and the Holy Alliance, finding enough soldiers to replenish their army's manpower has never been a major problem.

King Leia would ask, "What is a soldier?"

King Norn would ask, "What is human power?"

For Leia, military and agricultural work were intertwined; if there were no soldiers, he could simply recruit from the hundreds of thousands of armed farmers.

For Norn, there was no point in worrying about armed peasants or farmers; he could simply turn right and head to the village to catch them.

For the Kingdom of Fran, replenishing lost soldiers is not actually a difficult task.

France is financially powerful and maintains a standing army of 12 (with a vacancy rate of 10% to 20%).

Because the French Legion is essentially a state-owned mercenary force, with slightly higher salaries but also an additional pension.

Therefore, if the legion is short of people, it can directly recruit from mercenaries.

However, all three of them face a huge problem.

This leads to a significant decline in combat effectiveness due to insufficient training, especially recently as the intensity of warfare has increased, placing higher demands on soldiers' professionalism.

Leaving aside the armed peasants of Leia or the conscripts of Norn, there is a huge problem.

Soldiers need about a year of training before they can go to the battlefield to fight the enemy; otherwise, they're just sent to be eaten.

Especially those elite soldiers and junior officers, once they die in battle, it may take five or six years to train another one.

After several battles, the total number of Franz's legions has dropped to around 9.

Of course, not all 30,000 of them died in battle. Some were wounded, some deserted, some retired voluntarily, and the estimated number who died in battle or from disease is around 10,000.

For the Holy Alliance, recruiting soldiers is indeed not difficult, and they can be put into battle in about three months.

This is not because Horn possessed any time magic, but because the Holy Alliance Exorcism Court, under the guidance of the great Saint Grandson, created a national reserve and military academy system.

The National Reserve is divided into two parts: one is retired veteran volunteers, and the other is the missionary protection force.

The former pertains to the part where, if war breaks out, one must be called back; a little practice will allow for a seamless transition to the battlefield.

They will support the new battle group's sergeant corps, ensuring the army has the most basic squad-level combat capability.

The latter consisted of militia reserves scattered throughout various regions, recruited by local religious protection armies.

Normally they are responsible for catching bandits and thieves and maintaining public order, while in wartime they are responsible for escorting supplies or defending the city.

They also receive training in recruit camps, but due to cost considerations, most of them train in their hometowns.

Moreover, every winter, during the off-season for farming, there is a unified training program lasting two to three weeks.

Regarding Fran's method of directly recruiting mercenaries, these new recruits, despite their different backgrounds, all received the same training.

In other words, they had actually completed basic training and basic drills and were ready to go directly to the battlefield.

The only thing lacking was training in commanding commands, complex formation changes, and counter-attack techniques.

This part would normally require a long training period, but unfortunately, the Holy Alliance has a well-established military academy system.

Unlike the Franco, in the Franco legion, a person's social class determined their upper and lower limits in the army.

The Holy Alliance not only has a system for promoting sergeants to officers, but also a large number of secondary schools that provide the Holy Alliance with a massive reserve of officers and civil servants.

These officers usually reside in the military camps within the combat zone, and are organized into a special officer corps. Apart from their salaries, they are no different from ordinary soldiers.

But once the Holy Alliance expands its army, they can immediately be transformed into centurions, corps commanders, adjutants, artillery commanders, staff officers, and so on...

With elite sergeants and a wealth of junior officers, heavy training can be completed in as little as three months.

Two months of training, one month of integration with the production and construction corps, and they can be ready to go into battle in the fourth month.

But before that, the most important thing is to temper the wildness of these Christian defenders and make them understand what discipline and resilience are.

Standing there from morning until noon, many people had runny noses in the cold wind, but no one dared to wipe them.

We waited and waited until lunchtime was over and our stomachs were growling loudly before the iron gate finally opened again.

"Hey, not bad, not a single person has moved. At ease."

Hearing Krush's cheerful words, McDowell breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to stretch his limbs.

"You did a good job. We'll give you an extra meal at noon. The kitchen is already stewing meat."

A low cheer immediately rose from the recruits, but before the cheers could subside, Kruxiu said with a smile, "However, it's still at least an hour before the meat is stewed. How about this..."

"Everyone, carry your luggage and run around the recruit camp."

The crowd fell silent for a moment, before one of the guards captains finally raised his hand: "Instructor Krushu, how long are we going to run?"

"I said stop."

(End of this chapter)