"Sir, this is the training outline from the division's staff department. Our battalion is required to complete the training requirements. Every soldier has to pass the assessment," said Schnake as he handed a folder to Claude.
Claude flipped it open and couldn't help but shake his head. What's so far-fetched about this training outline?
As Ranger was equipped with 20,000 warhorses, the division's general staff hoped to train the soldiers to be able to fight when dismounted and launch ambushes when mounted.
Unfortunately, Tribe 131's mounts were all warhorses, so the soldiers were required to learn a basic cavalry skill.
"Continue with our original training plan. I'll discuss it with General Michelic and make changes to it.
The division's general staff has good intentions, but they don't understand the purpose and nature of our battalion's operations.
On the battlefield, having an extra battalion of cavalry won't help much.
For us, warhorses aren't just for ambushes. They're more useful for mobility and agility, allowing us to quickly move to the next location and catch the enemy off guard.
It's just like how we managed to get ahead of the enemy and set up an ambush. "Claude tossed the training syllabus onto his desk.
"Yes, Sir," Schnake replied.
It had been almost two months since the last military drill against the royal guard. Nobody expected Claude to lead Tribe 131 to four victories in the field drill, so much so that they didn't even have to compete in the next three drills.
The royal guard officers were left in a sorry state. Claude led Tribe 131 back to camp like a hero. Even General Michelic came to inspect them personally and praised Claude like he was a flower. He also announced that all of Tribe 131 would be awarded the rank-1 meritorious service.
Nobody disliked a commanding officer who could lead them to victory while minimizing casualties. Now that Claude was truly in control of Tribe 131, no one disobeyed him.
Even Schnake, as a vice-jarl, treated Claude's orders as the law of the land.
Flipping through the imperial capital news on the table, the headline on the first page read: Envoy heads to Shiks again in search of a way to reach an amicable peace treaty.
This was the third envoy the kingdom sent to Shiks in half a year. The problem was that the first two envoys didn't do anything at all.
Not only did Shiks refuse to acknowledge the invasion and harassment of Aueras by their troops in Nubissia, they even claimed that it was the local garrisons who invaded their colonies first and demanded an apology and compensation from Aueras.
Myjack placed a steaming cup of black tea on the table and he continued reading the second page. There was no longer any mention of the labor bill.
The funny part wasn't that the bill couldn't be approved by the national assembly. It was that after Vice-chairman Aubinet's proposal to immigrate a million aboriginals to the kingdom's newly conquered territories spread, not only did the various nations of Freia send their envoys to protest, even tens of thousands of citizens gathered in the royal capital to protest. Their reason was the same: they didn't want the bloodline of Nubissia's demons to contaminate the pure continent of Freia.
It was said that Vice-chairman's manor in the royal capital was smashed to smithereens by the enraged citizens and the police in charge of maintaining order simply stood by and watched.
Some well-informed people claimed that the protests were supported by several shrines because the aboriginals of Nubissia had always believed in evil gods. If they were allowed to immigrate to Freia, the faith of the evil gods would spread throughout the continent.
The shrines were only doing this to prevent it from happening.
Alright, it's a war of faith again.
Claude only knew one thing: the aboriginals of Nubissia originally worshipped a primordial god. In the eyes of the aboriginals, everything had a spirit. Wind, trees, rocks, rivers, mountains, anything could become a god they worshipped.
Following the arrival of the colonists, the aboriginals were wiped out and the worship of the so-called primordial gods was banned.
The shrines on Freia also sent people to the colonies to recruit believers in hopes of changing the faith of the aboriginals.
However, what these temples did not expect was that a new monotheistic religion would quickly rise and spread among the indigenous mixed-blood residents of the colony. This monotheistic religion was called God Sunidat, and it preached that all things belonged to the Lord. The other gods were all incarnations of the Lord of God, illusions that were not worthy of worship.
At the same time, it spread the idea of a divine kingdom among the aboriginals and chased the white people out of Nubissia, gaining countless mixed-blood aboriginals as believers.
The missionaries sent by the temples to Nubissia were assassinated and the temples they built were burned to the ground. They were embroiled in a religious war that lasted two to three hundred years with the Sunidat Holy Church. They all claimed that the Sunidat Holy Church was a cult and the Sunidat Holy Church was an evil god.
Now, Aubinet was blinded by greed and came up with the idea of migrating a million of Nubissia's aboriginals to the kingdom's newly conquered lands. That immediately provoked the shrines.
It was obvious that there was no lack of believers in Sunidat among the million aboriginals. The shrines didn't want the evil god to spread his faith to Freia.
Right now, that Vice-chairman Obinett had already become a dog that everyone wanted to beat up. As the representative of the new business nobility, everything he did was for the sake of profit. It was just that he had forgotten about the customs and religious disputes of the continent. All he could see was the dazzling profits, but he had forgotten about the risks.
No one knew where he was hiding now, but it was foreseeable that his career was over.
The second page of the "King's City News" had already become an entertaining anecdote. It was written about two young nobles who were fighting over a very famous actress in the Grand Theater, and they were in a heated argument.
They even had an illegal duel to the death in the outskirts. In the end, both of them were heavily injured and the actress ended up becoming the mistress of another nobleman in the royal capital.
Alright, the drama was rather melodramatic. Claude had to admit that the royal capital had more news on it.
It was easy for such romantic affairs of high officials and nobles to appear in the newspapers and become the daily interesting news that the common people liked to read. After all, both men and women had a gossipy heart and liked to inquire about the private affairs of those who were high up in the hierarchy.
There wasn't much interesting news after that. After finishing his tea, Claude bade farewell to Major Schnake and left with Myjack and Gum to inspect the training of the various troops.
The four troops were supervised by Moriad, Dyavid and Berklin, so Claude didn't have to worry too much about them.
There was also the newly arrived Captain Kashmiller, who was the jarl of the fourth troop. He had a decent personality and was eager to learn. With Moriad and the other two leading him, the training went smoothly.
Claude's main concern was the light cavalry brigade. He didn't want them to be pure cavalry. Instead, he wanted them to be scouts that surpassed the Canasian light cavalry.
The training method he had for them was to aim accurately from horseback and hit the enemy scouts within a hundred meters. Then, they would turn and run.
When the enemy chased them, they would be led into an ambush and eliminated instead of charging head-on at the enemy scouts.
In Claude's eyes, anyone who did that would be a fool.
It was a pity that the jarl of the light cavalry brigade was a troublemaker. He still trained his men the old-fashioned way of the kingdom's light cavalry, believing that it was the correct way to train them.
While he didn't object to Claude's request to train his men to shoot from horseback, the training didn't turn out too well.
Myjack had reported that the jarl had privately commented that Claude's training method of running away after firing was the behavior of a coward. A true cavalryman should have the courage to draw his blade and charge forward regardless of whether the enemy in front of him was an army of thousands or not.
Claude was already thinking of reassigning the jarl, but he couldn't think of a suitable candidate for the job.
He did not want the division to send another traditional cavalry officer with a head like granite to take up this position. To be honest, these so-called professional technical officers who had received the traditional military education of the Kingdom had a one-track mind. It was as if cavalry should fight to the death with the enemy, and even dying on the battlefield was a kind of glory …
In this era, cavalrymen didn't pose much of a threat. A brigade of light cavalry only had 280 men. Minus the two squads of grooms, they only had around 250 men who could fight.
That number of men wouldn't be able to break through on the battlefield. It would be suicide.
Apart from ambushing the enemy's cannons and preventing light cavalry from ambushing them, the only other thing they could do was scout cavalry.
That was why Claude wasn't the least bit interested in the cavaliers' frontal assault training. Apart from using them to chase after the enemy was routed, he wouldn't let the cavaliers carry out any offensive missions. Even if they won that way, who knew how many of them they'd have to sacrifice.
Claude was thinking of letting one of Moriad, Dyavid or Belklin take on the role of jarl and have the division send another infantry jarl over to throw the jarl back to his original cavalry unit.
However, he needed to understand which of his three subordinates was more suitable to take on the role of light cavalry captain, and who could train this light cavalry unit into the scouting cavalry unit that he wanted.
Time passed quickly and half a month went by in the blink of an eye.
Claude decided to make a trip to the division command center to meet General Michelic and get rid of the problem of the jarl.
Just then, communications officer Michel came to report that he had received an eagle message from the division command center. General Michelic wanted to see Claude.
What happened this time?
Could it be that the other corps were going to conduct some sort of drill with Ranger again?
Claude had no choice but to rush to the division command center in Christo with his men and wait for General Michelic's summons.
He didn't have to wait long outside the office. In less than five minutes, General Michelic let him in and gave him an official order. Tribe 131 was to break camp and head to the three southwestern prefectures within three days. Their destination was Whitestag.
Claude was happy to be able to see his family in Whitestag again, but he found it strange that it wasn't a long distance training. Instead, Tribe 131 was to be the vanguard of the division and head to Whitestag first. They would also leave some men to guard the important spots along the way.
"General, what's wrong?" An ominous premonition flashed through Claude's heart.
General Michelic sighed deeply and leaned back in his chair. "Claude, I have some unfortunate news for you. War has broken out."
What did you say? War has broken out?
Who are we fighting against? The papers didn't even mention it!
Claude looked at the general with a puzzled expression.
"It's not here. It's on Nubissia," General Michelic said with a bitter smile, "The colonial army of Shiks has declared war on our seven colonies.
Shiks asked for our jurisdiction over Cromwell, Balingana and Robisto, three colonies on Nubissia, but they were rejected. That was how war broke out. "
"Are we going to Nubissia?"
Claude asked. Wasn't Ranger supposed to be the royal guard of the Stellin royal family? Why would we have to fight in a war with the colonies? That's ridiculous.
"The ministry of the army said that the war in the east has only ended three years ago and the kingdom doesn't have any troops to send. Ranger is the only one with no other mission. We're a mobile unit that can be sent to the frontlines of Nubissia immediately. We're strong enough to defend against the Shiksan colonial forces …" Michelc looked at the ceiling helplessly.
"No troops to send?
How is that possible?
Doesn't the kingdom have four ace corps and three new standing corps? "Claude said in exasperation. He didn't want to go to Nubissia at all.
"They can't be deployed," General Michelic said calmly, "We need three new standing corps to hold down the newly conquered 29 prefectures.
Red Dragon, Bluefeather and Griffon, the three ace corps are stationed at the border of Nasri and Canas to prevent Shiks from using those two countries to invade our kingdom. "
"But aren't the royal guard idle in the royal capital?"
"Hehe, the royal guard …" General Michelic shook his head with a smile that didn't seem like a smile. "They're using the excuse that Tribe 131 suffered a crushing defeat in the last military drill as an excuse to train and reorganize their troops.
They also strongly recommend that Ranger be sent to Nubissia to defend against the Shiksan colonial army. They claim that we can take on ten enemies at once and spread the might of the kingdom's army in Nubissia. "
"T-that's possible? How shameless …" Claude's jaw dropped. He didn't think that his performance in the drill would become an excuse to go to Nubissia.
"Carry out the order, Claude."
General Michelic pointed at the official order on the table. "We have no choice but to make a trip to Nubissia. The current situation is that the enemy has taken over half of Cromwell and is besieging the capital, Wickhamsburg.
The higher-ups have decided to keep this news under wraps and limit the war to Nubissia to prevent panic among the people.
Ranger's objective is to teach Shiks a harsh lesson on Nubissia and make them understand that a full-scale war with the kingdom will only end in mutual destruction. That way, they'll be forced to sign a peace treaty with us.
The ministry of the army has promised to expand Ranger into a corps after the war. "