So Border Towns’ first compilation for the new army was soon prepared: according to the Army, division, platoon, team, squad, five people for a squad (taking into account that a cannon needed at least five people to operate), ten squads for a team, ten teams for a platoon. As for the number of platoons within a division, he decided to consider it later. In view of the overall battle prowess of the armies during this era, as long as he sent out two or three platoons of soldiers, it should be enough to defeat the vast majority of opponents on the battlefield.
When he decided on the basics for the army framework, Roland took a deep breath.
The rules and regulations that came next were much simpler, in addition to always wearing their uniform, they had to obey the commanding officer, never desert, never betray a comrade and so on. Roland’s first rule was to prohibit plundering and harassing.
The problems caused by plundering were numerous, and the negative impact it had on the local inhabitants was so great, that they would need years to recover, if ever. This was also the reason why he had insisted on only using civilians as the members of the military.
When the aristocracy responded to the call for battle of their Lords, the main reason for their obeying wasn’t to defeat the enemy, instead, it was for the looting afterwards. Or in other words, the main reason they followed the call of war, was to plunder the wealth and territory of an enemy, of course, this included also the innocent civilians within that territory.
As for the mercenaries, not to mention bandits, even though they looked steady and fierce, but if you took a closer look, they were just a flag waving in the wind and at the same time robbery was also a major source of their income. So hoping for military discipline from these people was meaningless.
Only an army built up out of civilians wouldn’t see other civilians as only lambs to be slaughtered. Of course, relying on discipline and moral restraint alone wasn’t enough. After long days in the field, the heart of greed would enlarge with each continued victory. Therefore, the given rewards had to always keep up with the greed, only in this way could he prevent looting and other illegal behavior.
In order to make the reward grand enough, Roland decided to offer the greatest reward of all — receiving their own territory. As long as they achieved great merits during battle, they could get their own territory. Roland had many unclaimed territories, like this, the land between Border Town and Longsong Stronghold could slowly be reclaimed.
Since more than 90 % of all land belonged to members of the aristocracy, such a reward was absolutely very appealing. Once they had their own property, these people would be closely attached to his side, and in case there was someone who wanted to overthrow him, they would show the strongest possible resistance to protect their benefactor and with this protect their own land as well.
After all, humankind wasn’t driven by words and whips, but by their own benefits. Putting it another way, as long as he could continuously fulfill the basic interests of the people under his rule, there would be no one who could shake his dominance.
Unlike a traditional fief, Roland will grant them an area between a few acres and up to a dozen acres. The territory could be used to build their own residences, and they could purchase serfs or hire farmers to take care of their fields, but they weren’t allowed to set up their own industry. In contrast, the rewarded territory for a knight is close to two thousand acres, an area equivalent to a small village. The above-mentioned industry income was used to provide the knight and his attendant’s for their war necessities, for example, it was needed to purchase their own weapons, armors and horses.
Being awarded such a small area of land wasn’t of much interest to the aristocracy and as such wouldn’t encounter much resistance, but it would also weakened the feeling of independence for the people on the battlefield. In Roland’s view, it was just like paying a retirement pension, which would ensure that the soldiers had a stable income even after retirement.
At the same time, in order to strengthen the centralization of power, and to avoid that the thought that “servant’s servant is not my servant,” would occur, he would only grant them the ownership of the territory but no autonomy. In other words, the land was still under the jurisdiction of the laws, regulations, and systems in the Lord’s area. In a sense, they would become the foundation for the future generations of farmers.
After he had written down the concept for the reward system, Roland took a break and stretched his body. Then finally he could start thinking about a field within his own area of expertise — R&D weapons.
