Chapter 103
Xiao Yu stared at the 10,000 troops in front of him. He secretly nodded in his heart as he was aware that Captain Hui knew how to train soldiers. After all, as a commander Captain Hui had participated in battles for many years. However, they had soldiers now but didn’t have enough commanders.
“Master, we have qualified soldiers but we lack commanders. Throughout the Lion territory only the Xiao family is a noble one so it’s a big problem to find officers for our army.” Captain Hui complained.
In this world one had to be from noble background to become an officer or commander in an army. The civilians weren’t allowed to high level posts. At best, a civilian could become a corporal and head 10 men troops. Senior commanders had to be from noble descent which was a tradition of thousands of years.
Actually, such a tradition was held up to WWI in Germany and British kingdom. However, this prerequisite was taken away after the urgent need for officers arose. Rommel wasn’t from noble descent either. So if there wasn’t urgent need then he wouldn’t have become a commander.
This tradition was still harshly kept in this world.
Xiao Yu looked at the soldiers. If he didn’t have good commanders then it didn’t matter how elite his soldiers were. At the time when Soviet Union invaded Finland the casualties it received numbered at 400,000 while Finland had only 20,000 soldiers killed. The biggest reason was that the Fins had good commanders.
“Should we set up a military academy?” Xiao Yu murmured.
“Military academy?” Captain Hui was surprised. There was a Knight’s College and Magician College but there was no specialized institution to train military officers in this world.
Xiao Yu nodded: “Yes, it’s totally different idea than a Knight’s College which trains strong knights. We need officers with good command of the forces. They may not have to be individually strong but they must have clever minds and excellent commanding abilities.”
Captain Hui frowned as this notion was beyond his understanding. There was never such an institution that trained officers for the military. Normally, at Knight’s College the students would be taught martial arts, code of the chivalry as well as knowledge about the military aspects of the war. It was the era of cold weapons so more attention was focused on the strength of individual knights rather than the capabilities of their commanding on the battlefield.
Most of the time a powerful knight would lead the charge which would decide the situation in the battlefield.
The notion of an officer without strength wasn’t quite sitting well with the circumstances of this world.
“It doesn’t matter. There aren’t children from noble descent in our territory so we won’t be able to recruit…” Captain Hui said in an embarrassed manner. A lot of people migrated to Lion territory but all of them were civilians.
The nobles were too arrogant to migrate to such a remote and week territory like a Lion town.
Xiao Yu took a deep breath: “Just pick soldiers to train for low-level posts while I will think of a way to find senior officers.”
Xiao Yu didn’t dare to say that they should train civilians for senior posts as Captain Hui would immediately refuse to such a proposal. Captain Hui also came from a family of knights. As a noble he also looked down on civilians. It would be very hard for him to grasp a situation where a civilian has the same power as him in the military hierarchy.
Xiao Yu also understood this problem. Nobles were always antagonistic towards normal population. As a result, they wouldn’t let normal civilians to become nobles in a single go.
Captain Hui didn’t even want to have civilians as a low-level officers. But now there was no other way. At best he was planning to let civilians lead ten men groups while he would never allow civilian officers over 100 or 1000 troops.
Xiao Yu had told Captain Hui to divide 10,000 army into groups of 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000 group system. This way it would be much easier to command them during a battle.
As a result, Captain Hui began to select brave soldiers based on their meritorious service to lead the 10 men groups.
As a result, 100 men and 1000 men groups weren’t made yet as there weren’t officers to lead them. Xiao Yu asked Suesha to help Captain Hui as she was a warrior too. Afterwards, Xiao Yu asked Captain Hui to research the nearby territories for capable generals who they could sway towards themselves.
Captain Hui said: “All territories and countries (principalities) have good generals. Generally they are very loyal to their territory so it won’t be easy to snatch them away…”
Xiao Yu narrowed his eyes as he sipped from the wine: “It’s possible as long as we swing strong enough…”
Xiao Yu told him to gather intelligence about good generals so he would decide about the outcome.
“What was the most expensive thing in the 21st century? Talent!” Xiao Yu planned about getting talented people on his side.
In fact, the problem wasn’t only limited to army but he missed talented people within the Lion town for the administrative work. Basically, Housekeeper Hong would work day and night because ot this problem. There were no suitable staff to help him out. Xiao Yu had asked his second sister-in-law Suehan to help Housekeeper Hong with the management of territory. He found out that his second sister-in-law was capable so he taught her some content from the lectures from previous world. Housekeeper Hong didn’t protest as Suehan was a part of Xiao family.
Xiao Yu asked eldest sister-in-law Qiyin to help with the finance and accounting of the family. Her help took out pressure from Housekeeper Hong’s shoulders. In this case, Housekeeper Hong would only check her reports and help her to correct the omissions.
Camilla and Siwen also came to ask Xiao Yu for work. He told them to help Qiyin with the finances.
Xiao Yu saw that administrative work of the territory was a big problem too. He wondered if he make a list and recruit talent like it was done in the Warring States period…
However, their territory wasn’t an attractive place so he believed that no one would come to join them at this point. He had to solve the problem and find a capable general first.
At the same time, Xiao Yu sent spies to learn about the movement of the bandits and know when they were preparing to attack.
After ten days, Captain Hui reported that there was a general in Wei Principality who was almost excluded from the power. Xiao Yu also knew that general’s son who ate, drank and gambled with Xiao Yu in Wei principality. However, the general’s son was studying in Knight’s college so he had hang out with Xiao Yu when he had come back to visit his relatives. At that time Xiao Yu had encountered the kid and they had a dispute.
“Muhua Lee…We will get him…” Xiao Yu smiled.