"Huh? Wasn't the atmosphere very lively just now? Why was it so cold when I came?"
Lawrence continued to ask, and at the same time glanced at the eyes of all the soldiers watching. Every soldier who met Lawrence's eyes quickly lowered his head without saying a word.
"I am Laurence Bonaparte, commander of the 4th Infantry Battalion, and this is my adjutant, Major Trefarley."
Lawrence loudly identified himself and Trifari, and then asked the soldiers:
"How many companies does the fourth battalion have?"
The soldiers responded sparsely: "Two."
Lawrence frowned slightly. The number of people in a company should be about 120. The fourth battalion only had two companies, which meant that the number of people would not exceed 300. Under normal circumstances, a battalion should have about 500 people.
Lawrence glanced at the tents in the camp with the corner of his eye. Judging from the number of tents, there were indeed only more than two hundred people.
There is no doubt that Pauley must have deliberately given the Fourth Battalion to Lawrence in order to minimize his influence in the Wehrmacht.
"This guy Pauly stuffed me with a bunch of rubbish, and he even cut corners when stuffing it with rubbish."
Lawrence couldn't help shaking his head. It seemed that Paulie really didn't want him to interfere too much in military affairs.
Putting the thoughts about Paulie behind him, Lawrence still had to quickly deal with the internal problems of the Fourth Battalion.
"Where are the captains of the two companies? Come out!" Lawrence shouted.
Then, a middle-aged man with a full beard stood out from the crowd with a face full of panic and uneasiness. The pattern on his sleeve indicated that he was a lieutenant.
After Lawrence waited for a while, there was still no other company commander coming out, so he couldn't help but ask:
"Where's the other company commander?"
The lieutenant who came out said carefully:
"Sir, another company commander has just been shot dead by you."
Speechlessly, he glanced at the fat man who was lying in a pool of blood with no trace of life left. Lawrence couldn't help but sigh, no wonder this fat man could be the banker at the gambling table. It turned out that he had an official position.
"You, come with me." Lawrence said to the lieutenant, and then took Cui Fali and the three of them outside the camp. I really don't know how these soldiers endured this camp that was full of feces and flies.
"Sir, I am Lieutenant Seth, commander of the first company."
Lieutenant Seth said with lingering fear, and couldn't help but glance at the fat man's body in the distance. Until now, no soldier dared to step forward to collect his body.
Lawrence was too lazy to talk nonsense and directly asked the question he was most concerned about:
"Why is the Fourth Battalion so chaotic?"
Lieutenant Seth hesitated for a while, with a bitter look on his face, and said:
"None of the soldiers in the fourth battalion are recruited from normal recruitment. They are basically prisoners assigned from prisons or forcibly recruited from homeless people."
In the early days when Paoli was gathering troops to fight against the Genoese, when the war was very intense, Paoli had to incorporate criminals, gangsters, and refugees into the army. On the one hand, it could increase the strength of the army, and on the other hand, it could also stabilize the security order in the rear.
Lawrence nodded to express his understanding. Such behavior of arresting strong men is still common in this era.
But now, when the war situation is favorable, these conscripted cannon fodder have lost their value. This must be the reason why the Fourth Battalion is not stationed in the city but on the outskirts of the city.
After all, the regular troops in the National Defense Force will inevitably discriminate against these conscripts with low quality and weak combat effectiveness.
"How many men are there in the Fourth Battalion now?"
Lawrence frowned and asked. Although he understood the situation of the fourth battalion, he did not expect to lead such a force to complete the task of attracting the Genoese attack.
At that time, if the fourth battalion is pulled under the Genoese fortress, they might think they are victims of the disaster.
Lieutenant Seth swallowed and hesitated for a while on Lawrence's question before saying:
"I don't know. There hasn't been a roll call here for a long time. Anyone who wants to go home will leave directly. However, you can still get military pay if you stay here, so many people go home for a while and return to the camp. Anyway.
We play cards and drink here every day..."
Even Lawrence couldn't help but twitching at the corner of his mouth when he heard such an answer. It didn't look like an army at all. It was like a large welfare institution. You could come and leave as you wanted, and you were paid.
"What about the weapons? Where are your muskets stored?" Lawrence's brows did not relax for a moment. The problems in the fourth battalion were beyond his expectation.
"Musket..." Lieutenant Seth looked like he was about to cry. He glanced uneasily at the fat man lying on the spot and said:
"Everyone took it secretly and sold it for money. Anyway, there hasn't been a war for a long time...and even if there is a war, it won't be us."
"I understand, please go back."
Lawrence waved angrily at Lieutenant Seth and said, he was afraid that if he continued to learn more, he would be so angry that he would also shoot Lieutenant Seth on the spot.
After Lieutenant Seth slipped away as if he had been granted amnesty, Major Trifali asked with a worried look:
"How to do this? With this group of people, let alone fighting, it is probably unrealistic to drag them for five miles."
"No matter what, we must put things in order tomorrow." Lawrence nodded and said.
Major Cui Farley sighed: "Having said that, what are you going to do?"
Lawrence yawned, took the blanket from the horse's bag, and said:
"It's nothing more than a word, a carrot and a stick, both kindness and power. By the way, do you know the cuirassiers who escorted us here?"
Although Cui Fali didn’t know why Lawrence suddenly mentioned this, he still nodded and said:
"As a matter of fact, most of the cuirassiers' pistols were made by me. I got to know them during the customization process."
"Very good. Let's go back to Bastia tomorrow. I'll ask for supplies. You can personally ask the cuirassiers to come back to the camp with us."
After all, before Trifali could ask about the purpose of these cuirassiers, Lawrence had already found a pine tree and sat down against it, covering himself with a blanket and getting ready to fall asleep.
...
In the early morning of the next day, in addition to the calls of hundreds of songbirds in the woods, one could also vaguely hear the sounds of orders and shouts coming from the direction of Bastia not far away. It seemed that they were the daily drills of the Northern Army.
.
Lawrence and Trifali got up early, looked at the still silent camp, and estimated that these people would not get up before noon.
The two parted ways after returning to Bastia, and Trifari followed Lawrence's instructions to ask for six cuirassiers to accompany him.
Lawrence stood on the street trying to figure out how to negotiate with General Nathan. After all, he and Nathan had just parted on bad terms yesterday evening. Now he had to shamelessly request a batch of supplies, so he had to prepare a good excuse.
Just when Lawrence was standing on the street and had almost made up his mind, a dozen soldiers carrying wooden boxes passed in front of him. Each box was unsealed, and the contents of the box turned out to be shining gold coins.
Even the two boxes of gold coins in One-Eye's are not half as much as any box here, and there are a dozen boxes of gold coins like this.
Lawrence couldn't help but feel a little surprised. He waved his hand to stop the leading lieutenant and asked, "What are you doing with so much money?"
The lieutenant didn't want to answer, but after seeing Lawrence's rank, he quickly explained:
"Sir, this is not a Corsican gold coin. It is a counterfeit coin made by the Genoese in order to disrupt our currency system. Sir, you can see the difference if you look carefully."
Lawrence casually took out a coin from the box and looked at it carefully for a moment. He found that the coin was exactly the same as the Corsican gold coin in terms of size and style, but the color was much duller. It was probably because brass had replaced the gold inside.
However, it is not easy for ordinary people to notice it if they don't look carefully at the sun. Although the density of brass is much less than that of gold, it is difficult to feel the weight difference with just one or two coins.
"These gadgets...maybe useful."
Gently throwing the counterfeit coins back into the box, Lawrence suddenly had an idea and decided to add these counterfeit coins when requesting supplies from Nathan.