Descending On France 1780
Chapter 121 - 115 Who says women are inferior to men

Chapter 121: 115 Who says women are inferior to men

After joining, Lazar Kano immediately set about improving the training of the company that Anning currently had at hand.

After a morning of drill, Cano found Anning in his study: "It’s so surprising, your troops can’t even march in formation! How did you manage to defeat so many Rebels with such a force?"

Anning sat behind his desk, put down the cannon inventory list he just got, and looked up at Cano: "First of all, there weren’t as many Rebels as the Parisians think. I’ve corrected this many times, but to no avail. The total number of Rebels is probably just eight or nine thousand.

"As for how I defeated them... the first three thousand Rebels we encountered had neither cannons nor cavalry, so I took them by surprise in the open field, using our advantage of having a complete range of troops to heavily defeat the enemy.

"The second battle was an ambush, taking advantage of some bushes to surprise the enemy."

Anning detailed the second ambush, including how he left the baggage on the main road to mislead the enemy and how he took advantage of the enemy’s underestimation to completely rout them with a volley of gunfire and a charge.

Lazar Kano’s eyes widened: "You defeated the enemy with a bayonet charge using an army with this level of training?"

Anning replied, "The enemy was just as ragtag. And it was only a bayonet charge after all, just had to charge out from behind the hedge."

"Even so, this is an extraordinary achievement. You truly are a military genius."

Anning was speechless; he even began to doubt himself: Could it be that I really have some talent in this area? That doesn’t make sense, anyone from my era who played RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games could probably fight such a battle. Could it be that people from my era who liked playing RTS games became great military strategists once arriving in the ancient times?

So, did RTS games evolve mankind?

Cano continued, "So that’s it, you knew your troops weren’t capable of advancing normally, and that their formation would be scattered after just a hundred meters, hence you chose to ambush from behind a hedge. Brilliant, truly brilliant!"

Anning thought to himself: Right, from now on, that’s what I will think too!

However, Cano did get one thing right, Anning’s troops really couldn’t maintain their formation even for a hundred meters when launching a proper attack.

Previously, when Anning’s troops were fighting against the 3,000 enemy soldiers, indeed the formation was nearly scattered after traveling around a hundred meters. Moreover, these men didn’t stop to fire in unison; they charged directly towards the enemy.

The standard procedure should have been to stop for a volley fire and then charge.

But with the formation already scattered at the time, stopping for volley fire would have probably caused chaos too, and even risked friendly fire.

Anning said, "So the task of training these troops is now in your hands."

Cano frowned, "To train such troops, relying on me alone won’t be enough. I suggest you issue a call to arms, to recruit experienced officers and non-commissioned officers from all over Paris.

"However, there might be one problem."

Anning asked, "What problem?"

"Your troops emphasize equality between officers and soldiers; there’s no distinction in rank between soldiers and NCOs," Cano paused, "but the old officers we recruit may not accept that."

Anning thought for a moment and asked, "Then, can it be like this? I’ll first select officers who have performed outstandingly from the troops and let them form a teaching squadron of about two hundred people, to be instructed by you and your peers.

"With only this number of people, the conflict between the old officers and the soldiers demanding equality should not escalate. Even if it does, it will just be within this teaching squadron and should be easier to resolve.

"Once the training of the teaching squadron is complete, we can have these people go down and train the soldiers. These people and the soldiers are of the same origins, so no conflict of rank should arise.

"At that time, the teaching squadron can take in another batch of officers for training. Over time, we will have a group of officers who have the same background as the soldiers, are equal to them, yet are experienced. The troops will also become well-trained."

After Anning finished speaking, Cano stroked his beard and thought for a few seconds, then nodded and said, "Hmm, it’s worth a try. In this way, even the most ordinary soldiers in the troops may gradually be promoted to officers. I think the initiative of the troops will greatly increase."

Anning: "You probably don’t know yet, but my troops are more spirited than the old army because the grassroots officers and soldiers are all patriots, citizens; they just lack training."

"A force composed of citizens, and with a path for promotion, unlike the old army, after several years of war, a private at most gets promoted to Private First Class. Okay, I can’t imagine how fervent such a force’s desire to fight will be," Cano said with a laugh, "I’ll start working on forming a teaching company right away."

Anning: "Starting from today, you are the captain of our army’s large teaching unit!"

Cano nodded, then suddenly thought of something and asked, "What about the cavalry? The current troops’ cavalry are only those noble ladies, right? Such a small cavalry force is certainly not enough. Are you considering selecting people from the infantry to learn how to ride horses?"

Anning curled his lip and sighed deeply: "I haven’t figured out where to get the cavalry from yet. Maybe after a while, I might hire some Cavalry."

Cano frowned and said, "The discipline of the Cavalry is very poor, they are pros in drinking, gambling, you name it. If you really recruit them, I fear those noble ladies might quickly end up being taken advantage of. You wouldn’t want your beautiful noble ladies’ cavalry troop to turn into a bawdy cohort, would you?"

Anning didn’t say a word, Cano’s remarks extinguished the idea of hiring wild Cavalry.

Not only could he not hire wild Cavalry, but also the Citizen Soldiers – known in France as Leaping Soldiers – with poor discipline, couldn’t be hired either.

But this wasn’t a big problem, because the high morale of France’s Citizen Soldiers meant they could be directly used as Leaping Soldiers.

Anning stood up and paced around the room.

Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea: "Wait a second, what do you think about recruiting purely female soldiers to serve as Cavalry?"

Lazar Kano stared at Anning with a look that said, "Do you realize the madness you’re speaking?"

Anning: "You probably haven’t experienced last year’s march on Versailles, but I saw it with my own eyes. The women, armed with guns, dragging Cannons, arrived at Versailles and forced the King to promise them food.

"There has long been a tradition in the light infantry units of appointing female sutlers, who would carry barrels of alcohol and charge into battle behind the light infantry.

"And my Cavalry units have performed well in reconnaissance and pursuing the enemy as well. I believe women can be Cavalry. It is also consistent with our principle of equality for all. Women hold up half the sky!"

Cano: "This... If you’re willing to give it a try, I won’t object. But you can only recruit in Paris, where there are many ladies deeply influenced by Enlightenment thoughts. Going to the countryside of Conte, probably not so many ladies will be willing to leave their families and fight."

Anning nodded, "Alright, then I’ll draft a notice and post it along with the call for officers."