Chapter 72 Military Merit and Standing Army (for further reading)
These days, literacy is completely considered a luxury. Not all nobles can afford tutors who can read.
The knowledge inheritance of many nobles comes entirely from family education.
Now, there is an opportunity to receive education, which is placed in front of everyone. Even a few barons have excited expressions on their faces.
Although they are barons, they are located in the Argau Territory and are not wealthy enough to afford a tutor. In the entire Argau Territory, only the count's family has this kind of treatment.
The church monopolized general knowledge and gained a transcendent status. Although most of the nobles were illiterate, they monopolized military knowledge. Whether it was fighting skills or marching formations, almost all of this knowledge came from within the family and was passed down from generation to generation. It was they who
The biggest advantage over ordinary people.
The reason why aristocrats became aristocrats and why they can continue to be passed on, apart from the initial luck, the most important thing is that they pay more attention to education and learning than ordinary people, monopolize military knowledge, and make the monarch have to rely on them.
It is precisely based on this that they are eager to learn new things and master more knowledge than anyone else. This is true for families, let alone nobles, even for families whose quality of life has been changed by mastering knowledge in their previous lives.
"My Lord Count is wise!"
"Long live Master Otto!"
There were random shouts in the hall.
Otto didn't say anything anymore. He was very satisfied. He was very good and energetic. The future of the territory was promising.
After solving the problem of post-war rewards and arranging a wave of pensions, Otto then began to think about the reform of the army and family knights.
Regarding this matter, in fact, the nobles already have the prototype of a standing army, which is professional soldiers such as guards and knights who do not produce, but the number is extremely limited.
Today, there are nearly a thousand such soldiers under Otto.
Why could Otto, a small count, be able to support so many professional soldiers? The reason is very simple, because these people only need to take care of the food and don't need to pay them. Otto only needs to provide equipment. He even has a fiefdom and comes from a noble family.
Soldiers still bring their own weapons and equipment.
The reason why these people are so cheap and easy to use is because they all have dreams and want to follow a promising nobleman like Otto, fight for their future with their lives, and then become a powerful nobleman like Otto.
These people are the "quasi-knights" that Otto recruited before.
As for most of the others, it is because they were raised by Otto's family from childhood. Their parents have worked for the lord's castle or manor for generations.
Children who are stronger and lucky can be selected as attendants, receive professional military training, and become "quasi-knights." Those who are unlucky will also receive some simple military training and become guards of castles or manors.
With a small income, you will be able to live without worries about food and clothing for the rest of your life, and you may even become a noble lord one day.
Otto was not worried about the latter. It was the same as the domestic servants and guardians raised in the East in ancient times.
As for the former, they are the most effective in the army. In fact, Otto is most worried about these people.
After all, it’s hard to say whether some of these people will leave Otto after the land that binds the title changes from fiefdom to fief. They didn’t grow up eating Otto’s food. For Otto,
But there is no such thing as loyalty.
Therefore, the method that Otto came up with is very simple, to issue salary. This is the simplest and most direct way to improve the combat effectiveness of the army and ensure loyalty.
For example, Dameng, when the salary is enough, he can chase the Golden Family around. When there is no salary, he can fire two shots into the air and he is worthy of the emperor. He can't even defeat barbarians with incomplete armor.
If you simply give money, apart from increasing Otto's financial burden at the moment, the effect will not be too great. It may even be worse than using this money to buy more mercenaries.
Therefore, a corresponding military merit system is needed to tell these professional soldiers what benefits they will enjoy in the future and what kind of contributions they will make to transform themselves into nobles.
Otto combined history and the experience of previous lives and launched a seventeenth-level military merit and six-level promotion system to ensure that the army has a reasonable promotion channel for meritorious service.
Among the seventeen levels of military merit, the seventeenth level, the lowest level, naturally means that I participated in the war, but before I took action, the war was over and I was in the water. The purpose of this level of military merit is to tell the soldiers that as long as they obey
If you obey orders, you will have merit.
The highest level of first-class military merit is not something that normal people can achieve, such as taking the general's head out of thousands of troops; one person guarding a city, and I am invincible, etc. This level of military merit is mainly for everyone.
To draw a big picture, after all, first-class military merit is almost equivalent to being directly awarded a baronet.
Each level of military merit can obtain different accumulation of military merit. When a certain amount of military merit is accumulated, the identity can be upgraded. The six-level identity system is ordinary soldier, senior soldier, elite soldier, junior sergeant, intermediate sergeant, and senior sergeant.
When you reach the level of senior sergeant, your status is equivalent to that of a real knight, and you can also get a fief. As for later, if you want to upgrade again, that is a matter for the nobles. Although military merit plays a role in the promotion of nobles, it is not the most important thing.
important factor.
After such reforms, the combat effectiveness and fighting will of the army should be improved a lot.
However, due to financial reasons, such a standing army is destined to not be too large in number. Even if Otto is still relatively wealthy, once he pays wages to the existing soldiers, he may not be able to bear it.
Well, let's start from the sergeant level. Those "quasi-knights" who are qualified in martial arts will enjoy the treatment of sergeants. This should reduce a lot of expenses. In the future, when conditions permit, we can distribute it on a large scale.
Otto's idea for this standing army is to mainly use elite cavalry and elite infantry. Needless to say, cavalry is the absolute king in the cold weapon era. As for the elite infantry, whether it forms a separate heavy infantry square or serves as a grassroots unit during war,
Playing the role of a commander or forming an ordinary infantry phalanx with ordinary levies are both good choices.
For the infantry phalanx, maybe it’s time to train the territorial militia. The Spanish phalanx infantry can also become the Habsburg phalanx infantry! Anyway, in history, it was only during the Habsburg rule that it shined, so this doesn’t count.
Infringement!
As for the family knights, they are basically equivalent to the retainers in the East. Otto's idea is to use these people and turn them into public officials, becoming political officials of the territory and commanders of the army. In this way, it can be guaranteed that
Habsburg control of the army and territory.
Fortunately, the commander said that it was okay for the nobles to join him, but for the management of the territory under direct jurisdiction, Otto did not have so many administrative bureaucrats, so he had to convert from the family knights first.
Of course, the loyalty of these people cannot be overemphasized, but the disobedience of some people still needs to be corrected.
There is just one problem. These days, the status of family knights is not high. At least in the eyes of the nobles, these people have no status. They usually smile just for the sake of the lord. They want to manage the nobles and make them behave.
Being obedient is a bit difficult.
So, what needs to be done now is to improve the professionalism of the family knights and increase their status. What should we do?