Chapter 455 - The Traditional View of War
Chapter 455: The Traditional View of War
When they heard this, Allie and Morton didn’t think much of it. Katz and Zacken, on the other hand, sucked in a breath of cold air.
After the two of them looked at each other, Zacken said, “If that’s the case, the control of the army has indeed strengthened a lot, but wouldn’t the power of the military commander be greatly weakened?”
“The military commander is responsible for fighting, and the military judge is responsible for governing the army. This is an important characteristic of the new army.”
“What if the military judge randomly kills the military commander?”
“This naturally has rules. If the military judge wants to kill someone, it’s not that easy. First of all, he can’t do it alone. He has to find someone to work with him.”.
“Second, if the military judge kills the wrong person, then his own life will not be saved.”.
“There’s still a military court after that.”
After a moment of silence, Zakum asked again, “Then…if the military judge causes trouble, does the military commander have the right to kill him?”
“No matter how high-ranking a military commander is, the highest authority for a military judge is to detain him. If the military commander kills the military judge, then no matter what the reason is, the military commander must be executed.”
Katz and Zacken felt a cold chill run down their spines. Even Allie could not help but interject, “Isn’t that a bit too much?”
Lei Luo only replied indifferently, “If you are kind, you will not control the army, and if you are righteous, you will not control the wealth.”
After Lei Luo said this, the people present had nothing more to say.
“Although this is a little strict, at least we can avoid something like the Holy City of Beauty.”
After a while, Morton nodded and asked again, “Then according to this method, does it mean that there is no concept of a lord? What should we do economically?”
Hence, Lei Luo responded, “Of course, separating the command and the management of the army is only the first step. The second step is the separation of military and economic. In our group, those who fight will fight, and those who manage money will be in charge of managing money. No matter how big the development is in the future, military officers are absolutely not allowed to touch money. We will set up a financial office, and we will assign financial officers to each army according to the principle of proportionality. As for the specific ratio, I am not sure yet, and I still need Morton to come up with a charter. However, one thing is certain. Like a military judge, a finance officer is not under the command of a military commander but is directly under the control of the chief financial officer. And the chief financial officer is directly responsible to me. All the expenses and reimbursements of the army will have to be applied to our finance center and then disbursed. If by that time our territory becomes larger, we can set up a finance sub-center to deal with it. However, no matter how we change it, there is one rule. No matter how high-ranking military commanders are, they are not allowed to touch a single cent. Once the army has financial problems, they will first punish the finance officer.”
As soon as Lei Luo finished speaking, Morton immediately nodded.
“I agree with this rule. It’s fine if it’s small, but if it’s big and financial power is not controlled, the army will easily split. To ensure that the army is always under our control, the concentration of finance is inevitable.”
After a short while, Katz pushed up his glasses and said, “Lei Luo, I agree with the second rule with both hands. As for the first rule, it’s not that I don’t agree with it. I just doubt if it can be implemented. One must know that the new generation of commanders in the empire are basically trained by the senate. The system that we implement is basically completely against their common sense. The probability of them accepting it is very low. Do we have to rely on pirates to conquer the world forever? Although pirates have many conveniences, in any case, the overall quality of a commander is still far inferior to that of a regular military officer. What you said is exactly the third point I want to talk about, the issue of the composition of our army.”
At this point, Lei Luo paused and looked at everyone present before saying, “Katz, you were right. Although the empire is about to fall into chaos, it will still take some time before the senate loses its authority completely. It can be as short as a few years, or as long as more than ten years. It is indeed not easy to change people’s views, especially those of the military commanders from the regular military academies.”
Lei Luo raised his hand and strengthened his tone.
“So, without a doubt, at the early stage of our group’s development, it’s not that regular military officers can’t be used, but they can’t be the main force we rely on, nor can they become the mainstream of commanders. When can regular military officers be used? Only when we are strong enough and the influence of the senate is weak enough. In this way, our disadvantage in commanding was inevitable. Then, what should we do? The answer is very simple, and that is to improve the quality of our soldiers. The main duty of a military commander is mainly to be able to observe every tiny change in the warship and fleet at any time, and make a judgment quickly, and divide his judgment into many orders and send them out. Based on the current situation of the entire empire, except for a few exceptions, most of the training was not very good. The speed at which they executed the military commander, as well as the coordination and communication between them, were also very few. Basically, they were all executing all the orders of the military commander mechanically, and there was no need for them to have any subjective initiative.”
Hearing what Lei Luo said, Katz laughed.
“Lei Luo, the magic war is not an ancient war. When wars are fought, things do happen very fast. In that kind of environment, it is already not easy to complete the basic tasks given by the commander. How is it possible to coordinate and communicate with each other. If someone asks whether it can be done, I will say, ‘of course it can be done.’ However, the problem is that it would take at least five to ten years to train such a soldier. After training, one would need to go through at least ten to fifteen large-scale battles before they could truly become the elite soldiers you spoke of. Not to mention that in the current environment of the empire, no lord would dare to go through more than ten large-scale battles. Just the war rewards, victory rewards, and death and injury compensation for every soldier that went out to battle was a huge sum of money. As for the soldiers that were trained, 90% of them were gone. There were only a few left. All in all, the training cost of elite soldiers is high. It’s more cost-effective to directly produce warships or hire powerful commanders.”
“This is the traditional view of war,” Lei Luo said as he shook his head.