In principle, the selected people should be fully independent warriors. However, due to practical factors, many people cannot give up their wealth. In this way, they get more benefits.
The first cavalry team will serve as the most senior bodyguard of the Prince of Rus, and will also be used flexibly as a mobile legion in war.
They must be worthy of the food, clothing and weapons supplies given by the prince, and they must be worthy of the monthly silver coin allowance.
Just like the cavalry soldiers from the Sixth Banner, each of them was assigned a hectare of land and had a wife. During the busy farming period, they still had to plow and harvest in the spring and autumn. The rest of the time they did not have to do other side jobs, they just had to be good cavalrymen.
As for the cavalry warriors from White Tree Manor, their social status has suddenly improved. They receive a stable allowance while serving, although for them, they have to serve until they are thirty years old before they can retire and marry a wife, which is not a great disadvantage. According to the rules of the prince, these people were destined to marry late and have children later, so there were loopholes in the rules. The prince did not prohibit them from creating illegitimate children. When you retire, you will receive a land and a generous pension. Retiring at the age of thirty is not really retirement. If there is a large-scale war and the cavalry is expanded, these veteran soldiers will immediately serve as reservists.
All cavalrymen, like no other, must serve for a full ten years and then be honorably discharged into the reserves.
Their children will also receive certain preferential treatment, and the sons of cavalry will have priority in picking up their father's squad. It is said that according to Rurik's idea, a father who has been riding horses for ten years can teach multiple sons who are good at riding horses through family education in advance.
In this regard, Rurik intends to learn from the service system of the Roman Legion and then make certain adjustments based on the current situation of the Principality of Rus.
The natural and simple tradition of all citizens serving as soldiers that the principality has long adhered to must be adapted to the new era.
The mercenary team of more than 100 people, which is completely infantry, can be said to be the first fully independent standing army.
The six flag corps that were subsequently organized and trained by the people were not standing troops. This complex army organization only has clear military significance when a real war breaks out. In a sense, this is the so-called "one-minute man", who has the ability to Militiamen who are capable of fighting and can be immediately mobilized for battle.
In a complete sense, the private armed force that belongs to Rurik's own mobilization currently only has a size of 250 people. Although the people in the mercenary team are ordered to do some logging and fishing work, it is just an economic supplement, and their source of funding almost all comes from the prince's allocation.
These people lived on the stipends distributed, and all their food and clothing came from the prince.
With this kind of complete economic binding, they can live a good life with no worries about food and clothing, good treatment and high status. Do you really believe in a human god? A human hero blessed by Odin? Giving them enough status, money and food is the basis of loyalty.
As the field of management is said to be extremely huge, one of Rurik's jobs in the seemingly boring winter is to organize the young scribes he trained to calculate the economic accounts of the huge principality.
The quiet-hearted Ella Historia cannot be a female warrior after all. She is busy working with pen and paper, and now she is busy making statistical calculations on the taxes and other material output data collected by the Principality of Rus, and then preparing for next spring. Make a financial budget for future material consumption. The amount of calculation is quite huge, so the quiet girl is very happy that she has established her unique position in the power center of the principality and become further important.
Ella was the head of the scribes, and the more than ten local women who studied with her also received more advanced mathematics education from the prince himself while improving their business.
This winter, the princes and princes who personally learned horse riding and slashing during the day transformed into priests, teaching linear programming in advanced mathematics to the scribes.
Those boring function equations, various characters, and complex formula systems were born to deal with real-life problems.
As the European powers compete for supremacy, any technology that can be used to improve combat effectiveness is adopted by the monarchs of various countries. Operations research content such as linear programming is used in logistics material mobilization calculations and military action calculations. The most direct effect is to make decisions on the material consumption of military expeditions. The precise budget then turned into the calculation of the production and consumption of the entire country's material system, and finally reached an extreme, giving rise to a great attempt - planned economy.
The total number of people living in the principality is 100,000, but the actual tightly controlled population is only 60,000, including more than 10,000 children. This is an extremely limited economy and a rapidly developing economy.
Although it is not enough to create a functional department called the "Planning Committee", the principality has a small population and has established a calculation team, which can indeed basically calculate the people's demand and consumption of major bulk materials, and thus provide an official price for the materials. and ensuring that the “oats-based” economic system can continue to operate safely.
Of course, the principality only has this small population. In today's bad era in Europe, a kingdom of 100,000 people with strong organization and combat effectiveness has no problem running sideways on the European continent.
Just like the Ostrogothic Kingdom that was defeated by Belisara three hundred years ago. The country mobilized only 25,000 men from all over the country. After a war, the kingdom was instantly destroyed due to the collective extermination of the male group.
The Principality of Ross is facing the same possibility, and the Principality is simply unable to withstand a major defeat!
Unless, the priority for combat is not the soldiers mobilized by civilians, but the paid professional soldiers.
Looking at it, apart from Denmark, which is obviously in internal strife, and the Frankish Kingdom, which is even more in internal strife, the Principality of Rus has no strong enemies under its eyes. If it has assembled thousands of troops in the past few years to launch a war that gambles on the fate of the country, at least there will be no foreseeable future. possible.
The principality must take advantage of this period of opportunity to develop its comprehensive strength and further develop its standing army, but its numbers must be controlled.
"Build a cavalry flag force with a strength of 600 people. One squad of ten, three squads and one squadron, and ten squads of one hundred. Six hundred-man squadrons and the command center of the flag squad will form the entire flag squad. So who will come? How about being the flag captain? Well, we have to let them compete, and the stronger one will win."
A great plan was being planned in Rurik's head. According to his estimation, it was possible to support a thousand-man off-duty standing army with his current financial resources, but it was not appropriate to continue to expand the scale.
At the end of November, the selected eighty cavalry began to increase their training in spear thrusting.
It's still the old rule. If you release your spear before it hits the target, you will be whipped. The burning taste is not pleasant.
The snowy wilderness outside the city is very cold. According to the habits of the Pecheneg people, people and horses should not run around in this cold weather. The right way is to hide in a warm stable. These Turkic horses are generally cold-resistant. After all, in the Ukrainian-Southern Russian grasslands where they gallop, the lowest temperature in winter can reach -20°C. Now each one has grown an extremely thick winter mane, making each one look more beautiful. To be fluffy and fat.
The horse's food treatment became better due to its participation in training, and Rurik naturally got more horse manure. Horse manure is a treasure and cannot be thrown away. The fermented compost can be used to fertilize the fields next year.
The horses breathed white mist, and the riders armed with infantry spears also breathed white mist.
There is a pillar directly in front of the rider, with a leather ball nearly the size of a football standing on it. Two large squirrel skins were sewn together and stuffed with large amounts of hay to create a cavalry thrust target.
Look! The young cavalryman galloped forward and charged with all his strength. His spear was flattened, and the spearhead instantly hit the ball! He gently pulled the reins, and the charging horse slowly stopped. It spun three times on the snow and stopped. He raised his spear high again to signal his success to all onlookers.
In combat, the cavalry will use spearheads that are easy to break, and any hit to the enemy will cause fatal injuries. What they are training now is to accurately poke the ball target, and everyone must be trained to be able to do this easily.
After seven full days of spear training, both the men and the horses were actually exhausted.
But after three days of rest, the much-anticipated riding and shooting training finally began!
Even Rurik himself participated on horseback.
The short Prince Kagan of Pecheneg is now dressed like a Russian warrior, and he does not feel at all inconsistent with the classic blue stripes on his underwear.
He no longer tied his hair in weird braids on the back of his head, but simply followed the example of the prince and kept a "ponytail".
Not just him, a large group of cavalry trainees are either born with straight or curly hair, but now they generally wear rough "horsetails", which are said to be as elegant and brave as galloping horses.
Many people have learned archery. For the time being, there is no beautiful recurve bow, so they use hunting bows such as short wooden bows instead.
The finger-wrenching technique is universal in the principality, but usually everyone is accustomed to placing the arrow on the left side, just like a warrior who always holds a sword in his right hand.
Kagan stood in the stirrups and declared to everyone: "The arrow should be placed on the right side, right on the thumb of your left hand holding the bow. Only in this way, you can take out the arrow from the quiver, put it on the bowstring and shoot immediately. Excellent An archer can shoot ten arrows in a very short time..."
Kagan simply performed a practical demonstration. Not to mention the shooting accuracy, he did achieve what he claimed to be able to shoot ten arrows in a very short time. The whole action was smooth and smooth.
Of course, it is possible to shoot quickly if the arrow is nocked on the right side. How can an archer who is accustomed to the left nock adapt quickly to a sudden change in the bow nock position? Nowadays, all the cavalry, including Rurik himself, are the ultimate beginners in mounted shooting.
The right-hand bow was a bit awkward, so the riders simply dismounted from their horses and fired randomly at the target with the right-hand bow. They did not seek accuracy, but just wanted to master the new shooting feel.
It just so happens that the horse can also rest further.
The archery training has been going on for many days. Even with a low-pound short wooden bow, you have to shoot up to 300 times a day. Who doesn’t have sore arms?
Finally, it was time for the mounted shooting test, which could demonstrate the success of the training. At first, everyone just sat steadily on the horse, standing sideways and shooting at the target.
Those handsome boys from the Sixth Flag Team who have had sufficient archery training have adapted to the new archery model and have the highest target rate.
The worst misfortune was those sons of boyar nobles from allied estates who were forced to serve as soldiers. The so-called sons of nobles were just stupid sons of landlords. Their poor archery skills are indeed embarrassing, which is not surprising. A group of boys who may have been destined to have no chance of hunting are now cavalry. They are beginners in holding bows and archery, and now they know nothing about riding and archery. Their inherent arrogance was completely crushed by the ruthless reality. Fortunately, their white backs were not bruised by the whip.
As a whole, they looked like they were riding high, and Rurik couldn't help but pout and look sad.
Because, his own horse riding and shooting skills also look stretched.
No one will accuse the prince of poor skills, because the group performance is not good.
Some people expressed frustration, but Kagan explained optimistically at the critical moment: "Don't think you can learn to ride and shoot in a few days. We Pechenegs learned to ride horses at the age of six, and at the same time we took our father's arrows to practice riding. Shoot. An excellent warrior needs to be trained until he is twenty years old. More than ten years of riding and shooting training can cultivate an excellent mounted archer! You need many years of training to succeed."
Kagan seems to be exaggerating, but it also illustrates the fact that mounted archers cannot be quick.
So Rurik decided to cheat.
It was an ordinary winter morning. The sun is bright and dazzling today, the air is dry and cold, and the wind is as sharp as a knife and piercing my face.
Everyone gathered in front of the young cavalry's dormitory, and a large number of wooden-armed crossbows were placed on the ground.
Rurik clasped his hands behind his back and lectured in public: "My brother Kagan said that cavalry archers cannot be quick, and this is obviously correct. Look at the crossbows in front of you, and go get what you like."
Everyone is quite confused. Since the prince has given the order, let's carry it out.
They got crossbows and listened to the prince's order: "After all, the purpose of mounted archery is to shoot arrows into the enemy's chest and neck. For this purpose, crossbows can also be used. I can't wait for you to become excellent mounted archers in ten years. That You will all retire by then. Now when you are riding a horse and shooting with a crossbow, you should first follow this training."
They took their lightweight wooden-armed crossbows to the stables to pick up their horses, and displayed their unique posture in front of Kagan, which really surprised the Pechenegs present, including the Pecheneg captains of each team.
"Is this your unique bow?" Kagan said while stroking the crossbow that Rurik wanted to play with.
"This is our standard weapon."
"The bow is placed horizontally, and it can actually..."
"Yes." Rurik said with a dull face: "It's like your arm is always pulling the bow string, and you can shoot when you want. You can even aim at the target before shooting, and a fool can become a marksman."
"I...I don't believe it." With these words, Kagan saw the unique bow of the Ross people for the first time, which was a painful blow to his pride. ,
what for? After all, Kagan did not really see the majesty of the Ross army, but he only had some general and fallacious understanding of the Ross army.
Even a simple saddle has a relatively hard structural protrusion at the front end, which happens to be a fulcrum. It could have been used to tie the reins or to put on the hoops of the crossbow. The power of the wooden arm crossbow is limited, and it only shoots ordinary light arrows. After all, it is a modification of a short wooden bow. It only adds some tendons to the bow arms to barely increase the strength.
"I'll show you an arrow on horseback."
Rurik took back his crossbow and operated it in front of Kagan. The iron ring covered the protrusion, he pulled the bow string with both hands, leaned back, and the string caught the mechanism. An arrow is then inserted into the groove and is slightly held in place by a steel spring at the tail. This kind of crossbow was designed with a shoulder stock, and Rurik fired accurately at the hung squirrel target not far away like a musket.
"Ah! I actually hit it!" Kagan was shocked, and asked a soul question almost at the same time: "Brothers, it seems that you have many of these..."
"It's a crossbow."
"I want to buy it."
"You want to buy?!" Rurik was shocked. It stands to reason that he can be sold if someone wants to buy him, but he just talked about the transaction, why not get a big one?
Rurik replied decisively: "Just trade your recurve bow with mine, a recurve bow for a crossbow."
"this……"
"Are you hesitating? Isn't this a wonderful deal for you?"
Rurik was suddenly very lively, and Kagan could tell that his sworn brother really liked the recurve bow. According to the rules of the prairie, brothers are treated politely in Ross and must be given some gifts no matter what.
Kagan thought for a moment and slapped his thigh: "Then I will exchange thirty recurve bows with you."
"Deal! Just not now." Rurik sighed softly, looked at his brothers on horseback and held crossbows, then looked at the target set up, and then stared into Kagan's eyes: "Indeed, I can't complete the mounted shooting. Quickly, if you use our crossbow, it should be much better."
"It doesn't matter." Kagan shrugged: "If you can use a sling to shoot stones to kill the enemy, no one thinks there is anything wrong with riding a horse and wielding a sling."
A crossbow cavalry was born? No! Whether the cavalry uses crossbows, recurve bows, or even fire blunderbuss, they are all tactical aids and a means of disrupting the enemy's array. The main weapon of the cavalry is still the lance or saber. At least the crossbow is used to make a group of cavalry beginners become good shooters immediately. Just don't be fanciful about using rapid fire to implement "fire suppression".
The squirrel target began to hit the arrow frequently, and the cavalry holding the crossbow passed by quickly. They could better seize the opportunity to pull the trigger.
In Rurik's view, the cavalry unit with preliminary combat effectiveness that he dreamed of has been successful. Although it has not experienced any actual combat test, they at least showed fairly good abilities on the training ground.
There is no need to demand too much from them. This group of young people have only been training for a month at best. They have mastered horse riding, horse riding chopping, riding spear stabbing, and riding crossbow shooting. Although they are not perfect, they have enough time to improve.
It can be said that in the eyes of ordinary people, the Principality of Ross has successfully birthed a cavalry force that looks majestic, which is actually a great honor for the principality.
