March arrives with the wind, and it’s already halfway through in the blink of an eye. The weather is still sunny and dry, which is a good day for travel.
Villagers from all over came with their surplus agricultural products and went to the large market in the northern city of Tlatelolco to exchange for their needs. When they passed the northern gate of the lake capital, the village of Tepiiaga, they were surprised to find that the houses here had been temporarily requisitioned by the alliance, and a new legion camp was being set up outside the nearby school grounds.
In the spacious school grounds, a total of 8,000 spear corps have gathered to form a dense spear array. Among them were six thousand tenacious and obedient miners, one thousand village militiamen who were repeatedly selected, and finally one thousand warriors who served as the backbone.
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They hold a 2.5-meter bronze spear in their right hand, weighing about six or seven kilograms, and a shield with a diameter of one meter in their left hand, weighing ten kilograms. The shield is firmly fixed on the upper arm of the left hand and hung around the neck with a tie. In front of the spear formation, the leading warriors wore white cloth-covered paper armor and brown rattan helmets. If you look closely, you will find that everyone has a white cloth tied on their left arm, which looks quite eye-catching.
At this moment, after receiving the order to "stand still", thousands of militiamen with spears stood solemnly and silently. Surrounding them were hundreds of guards patrolling and inspecting, scolding and supervising the militiamen from time to time.
In front of the school grounds is a raised platform. A sacred platform was built on the high platform, and Shulot sat cross-legged on the sacred platform. He was wearing a complicated and solemn chief priest's robe, a thick and dazzling feather crown on his head, and a glittering gilded obsidian necklace around his neck, like a messenger of gods in the human world. The eyes of the "God Envoy" swept across the spear array with awe, and the spear militiamen bowed their heads in obedience and fear, not daring to look at him.
Under the warm sunshine, the militiamen stood motionless with solemn faces. The large shield and spear show the strength of the warrior. Wearing armor and a helmet symbolizes elite equipment. The entire spear formation stood like a forest, exuding a formidable power.
Seeing this scene, Shulot nodded slightly satisfied.
"The spear militiamen have been gathering and training for two weeks. The discipline of these miners is indeed good. However, after practicing for more than ten days, they have gained some military posture. Let's take a look at their marching formation later. "
He looked serious and thought to himself.
"The spears and large shields are already in place, and the cloth-covered paper armor and rattan helmets are still being made. We still have to urge the armor-making master Matelaar to complete the legion's equipment as soon as possible."
While thinking about it, Shulot waved his hand, and the guard beside him went down to give the order, signaling the training officer to start formation training. Wearing this majestic costume, it was naturally impossible for him to go out and train the legion in person. In fact, Shulot knew very little about the specific training steps of the army. He only made suggestions to the training commander from time to time based on the clips he had seen in the past.
Two training officers stood in front of the high platform. The leader of the training is the eagle warrior Barda who is good at fighting. He has experience in legionary drills and is an outstanding warrior himself, proficient in spears and shields.
Next to Barda is Ezpan, the leader of the surrender troops from Tarasco. He was in his thirties, with a weathered face, and was a squad leader in Tarasco's pike militia. After being captured at the Leman River, he was left behind by Shulot to avoid being sacrificed, and soon returned to the Alliance. He had experience training with Tarasco's pikemen and was therefore appointed adjutant to assist in the training.
After receiving the order from His Highness, Barda nodded and accepted the order. The "Standing in Military Posture" session just now was proposed by His Highness. It is said that it can increase discipline and improve the mental outlook of soldiers. His Highness's power was growing day by day. Although he did not comment on this proposal, he still regarded it as an order and carried it out.
Barda shook his head secretly again. He had been a commander for ten years and he had full confidence in military training. Then he shouted loudly to the left and right.
"Blow the flute, beat the drum, march, and form a formation!"
The marching flute sounded immediately, and the spear corps began to spread out to both sides, divided into battalions of a thousand people, and each battalion was composed of five squads of 200 people. The battalion commanders of the thousand-man battalion are all senior samurai, while some of the battalion commanders of the two-hundred-man squad are elected by the miners, and most of them are still samurai.
Accompanied by the rapid sound of the whistle, team leader Guzman was sweating nervously. While shouting as loudly as he could, he tried hard to suppress the footsteps of his teammates behind him, so that they would not scatter as much as possible. However, the pace of everyone was still uneven. Within a few steps, the queues in front and behind collided with each other. The spear of the front team was tilted and hit the shield of the rear team, making a continuous "bang bang" sound, and it was about to be completely twisted together.
At the critical moment, Guzman, the leader of the team, shouted "stop", and the newly joined military aide also tried his best to stop the team. The team slowly stopped, stood still and regrouped. The team of gold miners is indeed the most disciplined. Dozens of backbones shouted back and forth and reorganized the militiamen into chaotic formations. After a while, the small gun array started to operate again. Everyone bumped into each other and walked out. There were a few rattan hats on the ground.
After walking a certain distance, the surrounding spearmen gradually dispersed, and Guzman's team also became looser. There was a turn in the middle. Faced with this difficult collective action, he shouted nervously.
"Turn left, turn left, toward the arm of the white cloth strip!"
Using this white cloth strip to distinguish left and right saves a lot of training time. It wasn't until he reached the predetermined location that he remembered to continue chanting.
"Gather, gather. The shield on the left covers the teammates on the left, and the spears in the back row support the teammates in the front row!"
Guzman didn't know what he meant. Everyone just relied on their general feeling, imitating the small formation demonstrated by Tarasco's troop surrender more than ten days ago, forming a dense formation shoulder to shoulder and gathering into an irregular square formation. The first private pointed his spear diagonally, then the rear private held the spear backwards and raised it, placing it on the front private's shoulder, and then moved back one by one. And there were three or four layers of spears protruding from the front of the most spear formation, which looked a bit like hedgehogs.
It took a while before the small gun array was completely formed. Everyone stood still, front to back, side to side, and could feel the rapid breathing from front to back and left to right. Guzman, who was at the front, breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to turn his head and look around, but he could only see the rattan helmet of the person behind him, but not the rattan plaque. Then he looked to the front, but the salt workers were still bumping into each other, and he couldn't help but laugh.
Shulot on the altar could not laugh. His face was expressionless, looking at the phalanx of spears under the altar, tightly clenching his sleeves.
Although two to three quarters of an hour had passed, only one third of the small formation had been effectively deployed and gathered. The large group of gun and shield soldiers collided into several groups in the center, with the front and rear indistinguishable, and it was difficult to distinguish the left and right. The captains and acolytes of each team screamed and tried to separate their teams, but they couldn't find them at all. Some teams tried to stop, only to be pushed even harder by other struggling teams.
There were many squeezed rattan hats scattered on the ground, and occasionally there were sporadic fallen rattan cards and spears. Shulot first counted the fallen spears, probably hundreds. He shook his head helplessly. Then, he counted the number of shields that fell to the ground and got an approximate number of one or twenty.
Shulot frowned. These shields were tied to the arms and could not be dropped unless the militiamen deliberately removed them. Thinking of this, his face turned cold and he said a few words to the guards. The guard hurried away.
Soon, Barda nodded fiercely and smiled ruthlessly. The training officer gave the order again.
"Blow the conch, stop, spread out and wait!"
The harsh sound of the conch sounded, and the hundreds of supervising warriors on the periphery took out wooden sticks, swung and led the way, and dispersed the gathering spearmen from the periphery. As the crowd gradually dispersed, the operations of the Lance Corps gradually returned to normal. One third of the spear and shield soldiers formed a small formation and were scattered on both wings. The remaining militiamen stood in place, trying to maintain a serious appearance.
After everyone stood still, Barda roared and shouted.
"On the battlefield, your shield is your life! The shield should be tied to your arm and tied around your neck, and it will fall with you. The person who drops the shield loses his life!"
Having said this, the training officer waved his hand ruthlessly.
"Those who lose their shields, bring them to the front of the battle!"
Upon hearing the order, hundreds of supervised samurai stepped into the loose militia group in the center again, dragged out the militiamen without shields, and pressed them at the front of the spear formation.
Guzman felt bad. He took a slight step back to cover his fellow miners behind him. I don’t know when the shield in the opponent’s hand was lost. Fortunately, their formation was tight, and the supervising warriors simply swept over and headed towards the loose militia group in the center.
A quarter of an hour later, a dozen militiamen who had lost their shields were pinned in front of the formation. The two of them were fighting, already vaguely aware of their next fate. Among them, the quick-responsive salt worker repeatedly shouted for mercy, but was choked by the warrior behind him and was forced to silence.
Barda once again swept across the entire field majestically, swinging his war stick downwards.
"Execute them all!"
The supervising warrior did not hesitate, took out his close-fitting long dagger and swiped it on the neck of the militiamen in front. After just a dozen breaths, there were more than a dozen spreading masses of bright red on the ground, and the person lying on the ground could no longer make a sound.
Looking at the silent and solemn spear militiamen. Barda nodded with satisfaction. He ordered again.
"Disperse the military formation. Use a thousand-man battalion as a group and disperse the formation for training!"
Under the call of officers at all levels, the militiamen dispersed and gathered again. Guzman's squad dispersed slightly and resumed their march. Everyone was silent and didn't say anything. They just tied the shields tighter and held the spears in their hands tightly. Guzman, the leader of the team, guided the direction of the team. He deliberately passed through the scattered shields and left a gap for his companions behind him. The miner also quickly bent down and grabbed it, as if grabbing gold from the golden river, took the shield of life back into his hands, and then quickly and carefully tied it tightly. Then he leaned forward and whispered his thanks to Guzman.
"Brother Guzman, you saved me! I will listen to you from now on!"
Guzman in front smiled and nodded. Soon, they gathered into a battalion of a thousand people, and under the command of the samurai battalion commander, they formed an array again.
This time, everyone's walking speed was much slower, but the actual time spent was shorter than last time. The eight scattered battalions of 1,000 men did not interfere with each other. Each battalion had five squads of 200 men, gathered into a sharp spear phalanx. Then the militiamen set their spears in shape again and stood still.
On the altar, Shulot observed carefully and nodded slightly.
In front of his eyes, forty small spear phalanxes appeared, roughly gathered into eight groups. There are gaps of tens of meters between the phalanxes, which gradually become smaller as the phalanxes move, until every five phalanxes form a rough straight line. This will be the defensive front on the battlefield. Although there are still ups and downs on the front, and some square formations have gradually turned into round formations, they at least have a certain degree of actual combat capability.
Shulot thought to himself.
"The effect of this thousand-person formation is much better. It seems that as the size of the square formation expands, the difficulty of the formation will rise sharply. The legion-level formation is obviously beyond the capabilities of the current militiamen."
Later, Shulot sighed softly as he thought about the loose formations in the formation and the speed required to form the formation again. In his expectation, the template for this new army was the early phalanx soldiers of ancient Greece. They should have the ability to march in phalanx formations, fight collectively, and be able to launch several rows of spears for short-distance charges when necessary. But now it seems that this new army is still far from the early phalanx soldiers, let alone the more stringent Macedonian phalanx soldiers.
Shulot recalled carefully that the new army he was organizing now was more like the spear and shield soldiers that were common in the Three Kingdoms of China.
The length of the spear is between two and a half to three meters, and it can stab in three rows at the front and back at the same time. However, due to the power requirement of the poke, the frequency of attacks is actually not high, and it has more of a blocking effect. The shield with a diameter of one meter can provide effective protection against bows, arrows and war clubs, greatly improving the survivability of the militiamen. Of course, larger shields further reduce their attack power.
All in all, the positioning of this new army is more inclined to defend in place, resist the attack of enemy warriors, maintain the stability of the battle line, and act as a human shield to absorb firepower.
"You can't expect militiamen who have been trained for several months to have the same assault capabilities as samurai. The real output still relies on cross-firing crossbows and elite warriors who attack on both sides."
Shulot stared at the spear array in front of him, thinking quickly in his mind. In his opinion, the training of the spear militia has just begun. To truly unleash the power of the phalanx, it may take years of training and going through battle formations.
In the next month, he is also planning to arrange a competition between the teams. The winners will be rewarded with meals, and the losers will be punished with chores. Then there are the adaptive training for bow and arrow shooting, and the defensive training for facing the impact of samurai. He still has many memories in his mind.
Shulot thought for a long time, and the spear militiamen also stood in silence for a long time. After a while, the young man called the guards and signaled the spear phalanx to be disbanded, and each battalion separated to conduct individual training.
Barda nodded and obeyed the order and shouted loudly.
"Disband and divide into camps. The Thousand Man Battalion trains shield defense and stabbing."
After saying that, the fierce eagle warrior turned his head, looked at Ezpan, who had no presence beside him, and chuckled softly.
"You Tarascans are really interesting. With such a phalanx of spears, you can also resist the invincible warriors?"
Ezpin smiled sarcastically, his eyes flashing with a lively light. The training adjutant lowered his head and saluted Barda respectfully. But his eyes quietly looked at His Highness, with a desire for a future in his heart.
