Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Chapter 1265 – Strongest Disarmament Plan in the World
This massive rumor storm forced Ashoka to the edge of the cliff.
Under an atmosphere of such public debate, not only could not Ashoka withdraw from Tibet, but he even had to think of a way to defend it. At the very least, he had to come to an agreement with Great Xia to be able to explain things to his people.
Otherwise, this storm would not calm down.
The starters of these rumors were the Gupta and Peacock dynasty kings. They were planning in the dark to launch a joint attack on Ashoka once the Battle of Tibet ended.
As such, how could they easily allow the Ashoka Dynasty to withdraw their troops from Tibet?
Only if the Ashoka Dynasty suffered heavy losses could they have a chance of obtaining victory.
During this process, the Black Snake Guard spies in India joined in to stir the waves. Thanks to the hard work of all three sides, the rumors spread in the shortest amount of time possible.
After much consideration, Ashoka gritted his teeth and decided to send 500 thousand more troops. At the same time, he ordered the defending troops in Lhasa City to defend till the reinforcements arrived.
Naturally, it would be the best if they could defend the city. Even if they were not able to, Ashoka hoped to use these 500 thousand troops to bring back most of the army to India.
As long as the army existed, Ashoka would have nothing to fear.
At the same time, to reduce the expectations of the civilians, Ashoka ordered the 500 thousand troops to disguise as grain transporting forces to enter Tibet.
Ashoka was worried that if the people knew that the dynasty had thrown in two million troops yet failed to defend a Tibet, it would hurt the authority and prestige of the dynasty. As such, he decided to act in a low-profile manner.
…
10th month, 5th day, Imperial Capital.
Ashoka placed Tibet under military control, treating the people as sheep and squeezing them as he wished. Following which, India entered a public opinion storm, revealing that hidden currents were flowing in India.
Ouyang Shuo was filled with emotions; even the heavens were helping Great Xia.
With these two points, the meat grinder operation designed by Jia Xu would basically succeed. Moreover, because of how cooperative the Peacock and Gupta dynasties were, it would be possible for Great Xia to achieve miraculous results.
The frontline received news that the Imperial Court had some progress regarding the disarmament plan.
The Grand Council, Privy Court, and Administrative Mentor Court worked with one another to work on the largest scale disarmament plan in Great Xia history. At the same time, it was also the most thorough military adjustment plan.
As long as Ouyang Shuo approved it, it could be started right away.
The most unique point of this disarmament plan would be not reducing the legion corps level scale. Instead, they would be reducing a legion from 70 thousand to 50 thousand people, cutting 20 thousand soldiers.
That was really amazing.
Including the Guards Legion Corps, the Great Xia Army had a total of 19 legion corps, each having five legions. Along with the Yingzhou and North America formation, that was a total of 99 legions.
To reduce 20 thousand from each meant that they would be cutting 1.98 million troops at once; this would be 28.6%, which is more than a quarter of the army.
As such, more than one out of every four soldiers had to retire.
After the disarmament, the Great Xia Army would go from its 6.93 million peak to 4.95 million.
Of course, the disarmament would not be a simple reduction of members. To change from 70 thousand to 50 thousand legions would affect the entire structure and remodel the army completely.
Before the disarmament, the Great Xia Army had 10 men squads, 10 squads as a platoon, five platoons as a unit, five units as a regiment, five regiments as a division with a thousand men subordinate squadron, and five divisions as a legion with a direct regiment.
After the disarmament, it would still be 10 men squads, but it would now be five squads as a platoon.
Such a change was backed by data.
It was beyond a lieutenant’s ability to control 10 squads, and it was easy to cause a power imbalance between the lieutenant and major.
Apart from that, the roles of the platoons were properly split based on their mission, equipment, and how they were formed. They would split into infantry, cavalry, gunners, cannoneers, engineers, scouts, mechanics, logistics, medics, chefs, and machinery soldiers.
Hence, the platoon level basically encapsulated all the soldier types of the Great Xia Army, be it the combat or the support types. It was no different from modern day armies.
There were two pros to such an arrangement.
First, it added the possibility of multiple soldier type coordination.
As an example, after this change, the Great Xia Army would be able to have spearmen, cavalry, and gunners fighting together at the unit level, making the fighting method more adaptive and flexible.
Each soldier type had its pros and cons, and cooperative fighting was using the pros of one to cover the cons of another. The deeper such a fighting model spread into the army, the higher the army’s overall combat strength.
The olden styles where an entire division or even an entire legion was a singular soldier type was unsuitable for the modern day, where new soldier types popped out quickly. It was destined to be eliminated.
Obviously, Rome was not built in a day.
How different soldier types worked together, what the pairings were like, how to command them, how to solve logistical problems, and other issues had to be slowly solved after the change was made.
Once the change matures and succeeded, the Great Xia Army would move onto a whole new stage.
Secondly, pushing down the logistical duties to the platoons helped to raise the individuality and flexibility of the army.
Before the change, the division level had a thousand subordinate troops that basically consited of support type soldiers such as engineers, logistical workers, and medics.
Below the division level, there were no individual support soldier types.
Before this, the Great Xia Army was used to fighting in legions, so there were not many problems. However, as the war scenario changes, with the regions and battlefields expanding, they needed regiments and even units to be able to fight independently.
As a result, they needed to arrange the support troops properly.
The army’s remodeling after Baiqi’s arrival was completed in the 1st year of Gaia. Six years had passed since then, and Great Xia had been through earth-shaking changes. It was time for a change of eras.
With the rich roots of Great Xia, they had the ability to equip the army with various soldier types. Not only would this raise their flexibility, but it would also help to raise the survivability and reduce mortality rates.
Above the platoon level, a remodeling was planned too.
A unit would have six to ten platoons and 300 to 500 soldiers. Apart from combat platoons, a unit needed to at least have one logistics platoon. Based on the situation, other support types such as chefs, medics, and scouts would be added.
A unit would become the basic strategic level of the Great Xia Army.
Similarly, based on the mission, the equipment and makeup could be split into infantry units, cavalry units, gunner units, cannoneer units, scout units, logistic units, and engineer units.
One could see that apart from machinery platoons not forming units, the mechanics, chefs, and medics would not form units either. They would basically be equipped under units at a platoon level.
A regiment would have three to five units under it and a support subordinate squadron of 2000 men. This support squadron referred to engineers, scouts, mechanics, logistics, chefs, and medics.
Normally, not all six support types would be present, but they would adapt based on the actual situation.
The regiment level would be the Great Xia Army’s advanced strategic level; each regiment would have a regiment headquarters and a battle strategist. Based on the mission, equipment, and make up, they were differentiated into infantry regiments, cavalry regiments, gunner regiments, special forces regiments, logistics regiments, and engineer regiments.
With Great Xia’s current industrialization standards, it was unable to equip a cannoneer regiment. Apart from that, their scouting was limited to a unit level and would not increase to a regiment level because that would be too wasteful.
A division would have four regiments and have an independent unit and a support squadron for a total of 10 thousand people.
Following a similar logic, the independent unit would focus on battle logistics, technicalities, and logistical supply, including engineer units, scouting units, and logistics unit; they would basically be equipped.
The support squadron would consist of maintenance staff, chefs, and medic platoons.
The division level would be the Great Xia Army’s basic warfighting force, and they could fight alone and defend a region. Based on the mission, equipment, and make up they could be split into sword shield soldier divisions, cavalry divisions, and gunner divisions.
It was not hard to see that at the division level, spearmen and heavy swordsman would back out at this stage of history. In front of gunners, they were living targets and were destined to be eliminated. Only the sword shield soldiers who wore heavy armor could they fight against gunners thanks to the individual soldier’s personal body ability increasing.
They would have a division department and have a title and flag given to them by the legion corps marshal. They would also have a special insignia.
The division department would have a level of management authority over their forces and were in charge of their training and administrative management, including the selection of basic level soldiers.
Hence, a Major General would be worthy of being called a general.
A legion would have four divisions under it, including a support regiment and a support unit, for a total of 50 thousand men. The legion level’s independent regiment would include support forces such as engineer regiments and logistic regiments and gunner, sword shield soldiers, heavy swordsmen, cavalry, gunners, and even special forces regiments.
As for the specific arrangements, it would be based on the situation; they would adjust flexibly. The final goal was to maximize the cooperation between the many soldier types to raise the overall combat strength of the entire army.
The legion level would be the Great Xia Army’s basic fighting formation, equipped with a legion department that could lead the defense work of a province. Unless it was wartime, the five legions of a legion corps would not be housed together.
Normally, the legion would be made up of many different soldier types.
Although the 1st generation fighter jets were in production, it was not sustainable to establish an air force with the current scale. As for the navy, they would only fight together during wartime, and there would not be a mixed navy and army organization.
Before the military change, when Great Xia threw itself into a battle, it would often take support troops from different legion corps to organize together and send to war.
A legion was the basic strategic warfighting force of the army and was also the basic unit used to calculate war power. The number of legions and their quality formed the symbol used to measure the strength of an army. Simply put, the scale of a battle would depend on how many legions Great Xia threw in.
Next would be the legion corps level, which would be the highest level in the army. The five legions under it would not be changed, and it would have an overall managing mechanism. It would be the battle unit that decides the direction of the war and a basic war unit.
Not only that, but the legion corps that had a relatively stable defense zone would also have headquarter, hospitals, and logistical centers to provide medical and logistical support for the legion corps.
These were the core details of the greatest disarmament plan of Great Xia. Rather than calling it a disarmament, it was more like them using this chance of a disarmament to remodel the army.
Ouyang Shuo had mentioned long ago that the final goal of disarmament was not to reduce the number of troops but to raise the overall strength of the army. Du Ruhui, Zhang Liang, and the others understood his intentions.
Apart from the adjustment of the army structure, the plan also had specific details on which soldiers to remove, which soldier types to remove, and how to settle down those removed soldiers.
In the Great Xia Army, the Guards Legion Corps, Imperial Palace Guards, and City Protection Legion corps were direct legion corps and were at the highest level. Next would be the Dragon, Tiger, Leopard, Eagle, Bear, Wolf, and Phoenix legion corps.
After that would be the border defense legion corps like the West Africa, East Africa, Hanoi, Heluo, Nanjiang, Xiangjiang, Hedong, and Beijiang legion corps as well as the formations such as the Yingzhou and South America formations.
Even lower would be the Garrison Divisions of the various provinces. Below that would be the reserve forces. From top to bottom, there were five layers that formed the perfect structure of the Great Xia Army.
The further down it went, the weaker the soldiers got.
Hence, for this round of disarmament, they were going to kick out 100 thousand people out from the Guards Legion Corps, what a waste of a treasure.
The principle would be that the members cut from the top layer would replenish the next layer, and this would continue on till the last layer.
Of course, this was not confirmed.
Du Ruhui drew a huge red line during this round of disarmament; he stated that the only sons, those who had served for more than five years, and those who had hidden illnesses had to retire.
Even if they were from the Guards Legion Corps, they would have to retire.
‘Those with wives, those with negative cases, and those with injuries from battle,’ were listed as primary disarmament targets.
Apart from that would be the ratio adjustment of soldier types.
Due to the rise of firearms, the plan clearly mentioned that gunners, cannoneers, air force troops, combat puppet controllers, and the like would take up 60% of the army.
Especially cannoneers and air force troops; they would be greatly expanded in this round.
Archers, spearman, and even cavalry were listed as primary targets of disarmament. As for crossbowmen, they had long been replaced by gunners in the last round of military reorganization.
Amongst the cavalry, there was a new sub soldier type. There were light, heavy, war elephant, iron armored beast, and a new gunner cavalry.
While reducing the infantry ratio, the plan increased the ratio of support troop types.
This plan hoped that in the future, the Great Xia Army would have self-sufficient ability and would not have to make use of a large number of laborers to settle their logistical problems every time there was a huge war.
Of course, there was a difference in the treatment between combat and support troops, and it also helped to reduce expenditure.
In conclusion, the people who were removed would face one of four fates – they could be demoted like from the Guards Legion Corps to the Dragon Legion Corps, change soldier type like from spearmen to gunner, change occupation type like from cavalry to logistics soldier, and finally, change from active service to reserve force, obtaining a retirement fee and leaving the military system.
One could imagine how huge of a project this was.
This project was not only huge, as even the sum of gold required was immense. Just the retirement fees of the 1.98 million people would reach 20 million gold.
In principle, the retired soldiers could select their future jobs, and the various offices had an obligation to arrange a suitable job for them.
The indirect costs were uncountable.
At the same time, 1.98 million soldiers retiring at the same time also increased the scale of Great Xia’s reserve forces to a whole new level. How to effectively manage it would also become a problem.
