The issue of military treatment is not an easy one to handle.
It’s not that increasing such an expenditure or improving military treatment for Perfikot is difficult to achieve, but rather that improving military treatment itself is challenging.
The treatment of soldiers in the Imperial Military is regulated. Even though the Northern Army is essentially Perfikot’s private force, where she can freely adjust their treatment, it’s unsuitable to raise the soldiers’ treatment too high.
Of course, if it were just this, it wouldn’t be something Perfikot couldn’t handle.
After all, she is a central minister in the Imperial Front Conference, and enhancing the treatment of her own private army in her territory, while somewhat troublesome, is still within her control.
The military is eager to support her, not to mention that improving military treatment is beneficial to them, avoiding any conflicts over such matters.
As for the nobles, this issue involves quite a few entanglements of interest, and Perfikot must pay a certain cost in terms of interest exchange to gain their consent.
Nonetheless, this is not particularly difficult for Perfikot, as she can offer interest exchanges to advance the issue, securing the nobles’ agreement.
Therefore, at the Imperial Center, advancing the improvement of military treatment is not an unsolvable problem; as long as there is enough interest, both the military and the nobles will support her.
The real problem lies with the soldiers of the empire themselves; their treatment improvement brings some negative implications.
In the original world, there has always been a peculiar issue troubling and affecting countries worldwide: the social status of soldiers and the army’s image in people’s minds.
In some countries, being a soldier is a respected profession, and the military is equally loved and supported, to the extent that people will go to great lengths to reward the army.
Stories of new recruits sitting at the end of military trucks being hit with half a pig face, or girls sending their best friends to military trucks, are reflections of the social relationship where soldiers are viewed as fulfilling a sacred duty.
In such an environment, no one would object to high military treatment because they genuinely fulfill their duties, defending the safety of people’s lives and property at all costs.
Conversely, in certain countries, enlisting is something people vehemently avoid, going as far as finding various excuses to evade service, and even when forced into service, they will do everything possible to avoid becoming cannon fodder or bullying targets.
For instance, in one country in the original world, conscription is done via lottery. Drawing a lot exempts one from service, making each draw a choice between heaven and hell; drawing means heaven, not drawing means hell.
Of course, there are also armies where new recruits are bullied by veterans, eventually leading to suicides, a toxic atmosphere spreading across many countries.
For more countries worldwide, joining the military for them is no different than finding a risky job; there’s no sense of military honor, nor a mission and responsibility to protect the country.
The only purpose for soldiers in such countries joining the military is to make money.
As long as they can make money, they would not hesitate to kill defenseless innocent women and children.
Compared to them, the Empire’s army does have special entities like Knights, who inherently uphold the creed of protecting the weak, but for most ordinary lower soldiers, the main purpose of enlisting is still to earn money. Original content can be found at Novᴇl_Fire(.)net
Of course, there’s also a worse scenario, which is being forced into service.
This is commonplace in this era, as in the past, monarchs and lords of various countries recruited their armies this way.
Back then, the main composition of the army was Knights and their retainers. Knights formed the core and framework of the entire army, while their retainers were elite soldiers cultivated by the Knights.
Though there were Knights who couldn’t afford to train retainers and just used drafted militia as placeholders, overall, they were the main core component of a feudal-era army.
Today, although the Empire has implemented military reforms, the core of the army remains the Knights and a few professionally educated and trained elites, forming the core officer corps of a unit.
Normally, in peacetime, a unit would maintain only the officer corps plus a small number of veterans, thereby saving on expenditure and costs.
When necessary, they only need to fill in new recruits drawn by conscription to quickly form a viable unit.
This method allows various countries to maintain a large military establishment, retaining as many army numbers as possible with relatively limited military funding.
However, this creates a severe issue for the Empire, where most lower soldiers are disposable, entitling them only to pay, allowances, and pension, along with a severance pay upon discharge.
Expecting any special additional treatment or attention from the Empire for these disposable soldiers is nearly impossible.
After all, a considerable portion was forcibly conscripted, mostly captured from street gamblers and social idlers, or even prison criminals, who might be aggressive but whose soldier quality is not to be hoped for.
It’s nearly because the Empire does have some standing armies, those with guard titles, maintaining a half or full establishment state, with more veterans to sustain the army’s combat state, ready for any potential emergencies.
For instance, during the last Tri-state declaration of war, both the Tri-state Alliance and the Empire could immediately utilize these standing armies.
Once large-scale conscription expands units with only officer corps, extensive military mobilization becomes necessary, revealing their movements, leading enemies to perceive war intentions, while causing social unrest.
This is akin to the so-called mobilization policy of a major Eastern power in the original world, a national policy with wide-reaching effects, requiring the entire country to adjust for the purpose, profoundly impacting neighboring states and even the entire world, even if absolutely nothing is done.
Just like in World War I, when countries conducted total mobilizations, Tsarist Russia did not intend to join the war but merely wanted a deterrent military mobilization, an action misleading other countries to think Russia was entering, sparking each nation’s mobilization, dragging the entire world into the mire of war.
Thus, for Perfikot, to solve the issue of military treatment improvement, she must first resolve this issue.