Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 435 - 252: Cleansing the Royal Side

Chapter 435: Chapter 252: Cleansing the Royal Side

At this moment, Zhao Haiping was walking through the military camp to inspect the soldiers’ training.

Soldiers wielding various weapons stood in square formations in the drill ground, practicing their tactics with these weapons.

These categories of weapons, along with their specific training methods, were of course planned by General Deng. Most were based on moves used in later military training devised by General Deng, tailored specifically for the Jin’s heavy cavalry.

After all, General Deng’s main enemies were the Eastern Barbarian bandits and the Northern Barbarians’ cavalry. In that era, it was rare to encounter heavily armored cavalry like the Iron Pagoda.

But the reason General Deng became a great military strategist was his talent for adapting training and combat methods based on the actual conditions of the battlefield, making adjustments according to circumstances, time, and personnel, always finding the optimal solution.

For instance, at this moment, General Deng had ordered Zhao Haiping to particularly strengthen training with weapons effective against cavalry, such as large axes, the Mazha Blade, shields, and the Divine Arm Bow.

Columns of soldiers arranged neatly into square formations, each performing various stances shouted out by the instructors.

The instructors quickly corrected any inaccurate movements before continuing to shout the next commands, practicing another stance.

Zhao Haiping rode his warhorse alongside General Deng Yuanjing, constantly moving through the drill ground and camp to inspect and ensure that the training was carried out precisely as planned.

Through Zhao Haiping’s relentless efforts, the training had actually progressed into its third stage.

The first stage was selecting personnel.

From the many extraneous troops, those suitable for military service with combat abilities were individually selected for unified training. Others with weaker combat capabilities or too many bad habits were trained separately, with opportunities to be promoted if they excelled in assessments.

They further screened these selected individuals, rearranging them according to General Deng’s unique evaluation method, positioning the most suitable candidates as junior officers.

Then, these junior officers were responsible for selecting individuals themselves to organize the structure of the entire army.

According to General Deng, having junior officers choose their personnel not only strengthened the unit’s cohesion but also stopped them from shirking responsibility when issues arose.

After all, since they had chosen their subordinates themselves, there could be no argument if they were punished alongside their subordinates for their mistakes.

The second stage involved distributing military manuals to every platoon leader, squad leader, and team leader, ensuring they thoroughly taught the content to the soldiers, and making sure every soldier could recollect it completely.

Among these, the primary focus was on the maneuvering of flags and musical instruments.

For example, which direction each color of the Five Directions Flag corresponds to, what rank of officer the different-shaped flags represent, and what the different flag signals mean;

And for instance, what different sounds of drums, cymbals, and suonas mean in various situations.

Zhao Haiping arranged for individuals to conduct spot checks in various camps, and those who still couldn’t memorize the details after a long period faced punishment. Base-level officers like platoon leaders, squad leaders, and team leaders also faced collective punishment if too many of their men failed.

Only after several large-scale drills, ensuring that most could accurately react to drum signals, would they proceed to the third stage of training.

And in the third stage, they focused on training with specific weapons.

Originally, weapon training was also a part of military training, but in General Deng’s view, it held many misconceptions.

Take the training with long spears, for example.

Previously, military lance instructors taught mainly folk spear techniques typical of civilian fighters.

This included holding the middle of the spear with both hands and performing fancy maneuvers such as spinning, leaping, and thrusting back.

Such techniques could be highly effective in civilian single combat, where a skilled spear user could control the approach of several adversaries.

The saying "twenty years of practicing the pear blossom spear makes one invincible among men" encapsulated this idea.

Civilian spear techniques certainly have their merits, but when blindly implemented in army formations, their effectiveness significantly diminished.

In clashes between armies, both sides maintained dense formations, with row after row of spears thrusting forward and long swords hacking. Soldiers were too closely packed to perform any nimble movements.

In such situations, if my spear was a foot longer than yours, I could spear you first, while you could never reach me;

As long as I could perfect the thrusting motion, no matter how you dodged, you would ultimately fall to the chaotic jabbing.

Thus, General Deng drastically revised the training methods for these weapons, retaining only the most practical techniques for formations, such as thrusting, retracting the spear, and maneuvers like deflecting or suppressing the enemy’s spear.

Soldiers equipped with long spears practiced these specific drills daily.

In addition, General Deng also had profound knowledge of training shield soldiers.

Besides the daily practice of various movements, the shield soldiers underwent another crucial training exercise: regardless of what happened in combat, they were strictly forbidden to raise their heads.

At a commander’s order, these soldiers immediately had to raise their shields to protect their heads and faces, and they could only move forward, not back; they could only bow their heads, not raise them.

This tactic, utilized with shields, was originally General Deng’s method, but the source of the tactic was actually from General Han Fuyue’s strategy in defeating the Iron Pagoda.

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