Chapter 32: Training Soldiers

With the arrival of revolvers, iron knives, iron stirrups and other equipment, Ma Shao felt that the Apaches could try some advanced operations.

He had already thought of a set of tactics that was more suitable for the current situation, and what he had to do now was to train his people to master it.

So that morning, Ma Shao summoned all the tribesmen who were equipped with revolvers.

There were about two hundred of them in total, mainly from the plains tribes, and some from other tribes. They were persuaded by Ma Shao to buy expensive revolvers, so they were naturally willing to be called over.

Two hundred men on horseback gathered in the open space and formed a loose square formation.

Ma Shao stood in front of the crowd and shouted, "Those who have passed the literacy test, please step forward and get out of the line!"

Fifteen men rode their horses forward. As their Chinese teacher, Ma Shao knew them all.

"I will divide the two hundred people into fifteen teams, called 'Teams'. You will serve as 'Team Leaders', each leading twelve people. The rest will be led directly by me," said Ma Shao.

As soon as the words fell, the crowd suddenly became agitated.

"Why are they appointed as 'Team Leaders'?"

"That young man has only a feather on his head, why should he be made a 'sergeant'..."

Nowadays, those who learn to write are basically young people, at most twenty-five or twenty-six years old. Most of these young people have no military achievements and are difficult to convince the public.

Therefore, after learning about this arrangement, people couldn't help but talk about it and expressed their dissatisfaction.

Ma Shao frowned and said, "If you want to be a squad leader, you must be able to read. First we'll see if you can read, and then we'll compare your military achievements!"

"The text that the high priest and I created is simple and easy to understand, and anyone can take the course. It is not difficult to learn it. You can all do it."

The crowd's voices became quieter, but they were still talking and whispering.

There is no way, the Indians' organization and discipline are at this level. Strictly speaking, these people cannot be called an army, but only a group of warriors.

"Any of you who is dissatisfied with my arrangement can challenge me according to the tradition of duel, and I will accept your challenge." This was all Ma Shao could say.

Like everything else, discipline cannot be traced back infinitely. The original discipline must come from non-disciplined things, such as violence.

Now people finally quieted down.

It may be difficult to understand discipline, but it is human instinct to understand the majesty of power. Looking at such a burly horse whistle, anyone would think that they have no confidence in winning.

Ma Shao's height is still increasing. Although there is no reliable metric ruler, he can basically be sure that his height is about 1.8 meters, almost the tallest person in the entire camp. He has well-developed muscles, and the equally tall and mighty warhorse Heifeng under his crotch makes anyone in front of him have to look up.

The nine eagle feathers proved that his amazing size was not just for show, and no one dared to question the young man's strength.

"From now on, no one is allowed to talk about each other unless I allow it." Ma Shao said, while thinking about how to more deeply shape the discipline of the soldiers in the future.

"You squad leaders must also understand that you can become squad leaders today because you learned to write earlier than others. When they also learn to write, and you still don't have outstanding achievements, I will replace you as squad leaders." He added, "Do you understand?"

"Yes." The squad leaders nodded.

"Reply me 'I understand' instead of 'hmm'." Ma Shao recalled his impression of the army.

"I got it."

"War Chief, I have a question..." At this time, a young man said hesitantly.

"what is the problem?"

"Why is it called 'Shi', but there are twelve people?"

Ma Shao: "…"

In fact, he had thought about using more modern organizations such as squads, platoons, companies, and battalions, but the Apaches did not have similar concepts in their language and ideas, and there were not many people.

So he had to imitate ancient China and use a concept that can be translated as "shi".

Afterwards, Ma Shao began to divide the troops into teams, register them, and established a simple military organization and rules and regulations.

In the next few days, his main job was to make these 200 people initially adapt to the military model, let them know how to respond to their superiors, and let them gradually form the concept of "army" in their minds.

Another thing is to adapt to the shooting process of the revolver.

In addition to the army, he and Rainy Day also took on heavier teaching tasks.

After all, it was he who said "First look at whether one can read, then look at one's military achievements", and those tribesmen who had military achievements and were unwilling to be ordinary soldiers joined the ranks of learning to read.

There were also a bunch of people who followed suit and watched the fun.

As a result, the number of students increased directly to more than 150, and their levels were uneven, which made the two teachers very worried.

Ma Shao also has to teach students some science and engineering knowledge that is almost at the level of a second-grade primary school student, which of course gives him even more of a headache.

To this end, they had to select several literacy class graduates with outstanding academic performance to serve as teaching assistants to share some of the teaching tasks.

After a few days of this, the teaching work became stable, and the two hundred members of the pistol unit began to look a bit like soldiers, probably similar to the middle school students during military training.

"That's all for the morning class." Ma Shao put down the chalk and walked away from the blackboard.

The blackboard was made by him by hand, made of painted wood, and was very simple.

There are two of them, standing in the middle of the camp in the open air, and put into the tent when it rains because the paint quality is not good. The two blackboards are used for teaching, posting notices, and posting duel card strategies.

"Changgun, you are in charge of the afternoon class. Remember to check the recitation of multiplication formulas." Ma Shao reminded again.

"Okay." Changgun replied, looking like a class representative or study committee member in later generations.

After class, some students excitedly started playing card games.

The other group followed Ma Shao out of the classroom with sighs. They were members of the pistol unit and had to participate in Teacher Ma's military training.

The two hundred-man pistol unit gathered again in the open space. Compared with a few days ago, their ranks were much more orderly, and there was a serious and tense atmosphere in the team.

Ma Shao rode his horse and paced, looking at them and nodding secretly.

It's time to start tactical training.

"You have all experienced the function of stirrups." He said slowly, "With this simple accessory, we can control the warhorse more easily."

"But it is much more than that. Starting today, I will train you to make better use of the stirrups and, of course, our new weapon - the Colt revolver."

"The first training we are going to do is a charge, or more precisely, a group charge."