I will be crowned king

To be honest, Fabian is not surprised by this result.

This is not because he is confident in his identity and title, but because the "Storm" Legion, which is currently called the Legion but actually only has one infantry division, is facing such an embarrassing situation. Excellent officers are absolutely rare animals.

Although everyone here seems to be full of talents, in fact, the Storm Legion was still a conscripted corps when it was first established. There are serious shortcomings in all aspects of configuration. Each unit has almost no backup and replacement talents. Once the chief officer leaves or an accident occurs, The entire department would immediately be paralyzed.

Among them, the logistics and staff departments have the most serious problems. From the beginning, Carl Bain's "one-person staff department" has now finally got a seemingly makeshift structure. He, the chief of staff, is still required to work intensively for six days a day. It takes more than 1 hour to maintain normal operation, and he cannot escape for a moment. One person has to do the work of at least three or four staff officers.

As for the commander of the Grenadier Corps, he actually also served as deputy commander, head of the officer corps council, warden, logistics consultant, instructor and a series of other miscellaneous positions - and it was difficult to find a suitable replacement.

With such a shortage of manpower and almost no local supplements, Anson Bach would certainly not abandon his qualified deputy and train a mid-level officer from scratch - that would only make the gap bigger.

According to Fabian's initial guess, in any case, after learning from the Joseph incident, Anson Bach will no longer trust him as much as he did in the past; although he will not abandon him immediately, he will gradually ignore it, ignore it, and finally Letting others gradually take over is the most reasonable choice.

But he never expected that the other party not only did not suppress him, but even publicly proposed that he be the deputy commander of the legion? !

Although Fabian has been the de facto deputy commander for a long time - the commander-in-chief has been taking the blame for a long time - there are two completely different concepts between being in name and in name.

The moment he finished speaking, he thought of countless possibilities and guesses in his mind, and his eyes were fixed on Anson Bach's face, hoping to get the answer from the slight changes in micro-expressions.

Rising brightly and falling darkly? A hint of inducement? still……

It's a pity that the Commander-in-Chief didn't sleep well last night. Apart from a pair of unhealthy eye circles and a slightly cold and stiff expression, he couldn't see any emotion at all. After Thalia left, he not only woke up late, but also slept very late. It's too late.

Carl Bain on the side certainly knew what was going on, but out of tacit understanding he would not take the initiative to say it, and could only use his eyes to signal everyone to vote on the resolution.

But the scene was still as quiet as a pool of stagnant water.

Obviously, no matter what the outcome of this military meeting is, it will determine the future structure of the entire legion. Many things that were vague in the past will be replaced by brand-new organizations.

In other words, this will be a complete transformation of the Storm Regiment - Storm Division - Storm Legion, from an armed interest group that works together to make money, to an interest group with a clearer institutional system and stronger relationships.

At first, everyone just wanted to survive the war. Later, they discovered that they could make a little fortune, and then they started to make a lot of money. Then they successfully obtained the establishment, purchased a lot of real estate in the New World, and bought shares...

As the scale continues to expand, demand gradually increases, and interests become more closely related, it is time for many issues that were not mentioned or even considered at all in the past to be put on the table.

"I have a question."

While everyone was still silent, Yu Lian, commander of the Fifth Corps with a complicated expression, suddenly spoke: "No offense, but Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, I must confirm something before making a formal statement."

"Does this vote really require all of us to vote, or is it just a formality like before, and it is still really your decision?"

“If it’s the latter, then I can tell you right now that I agree with your proposal — not just this one, but all of them.”

After saying that, ignoring the eyes of Alexei and the military doctor beside him, which were about to fall out, and the continuous gasps of air-conditioning around him, Julien, who had a delicate face, pursed his lips tightly and looked at Anson with determined eyes. , quietly waiting for the answer you want.

Feeling Fabian's looming gaze next to him and Karl's "This is what you want" expression on his face, Anson raised the corners of his mouth slightly and said calmly:

"Of course it is a collective vote, and the one-person-one-vote system is implemented. Everyone's vote will be given due respect; and in order to avoid private canvassing and other people's behavior, today's military meeting will be held before all resolutions are fully implemented. It won’t end.”

"I reiterate once again, regardless of position or title, everyone here has one vote... I also have one vote." Anson raised his head and turned his sincere eyes to the commander of the Fifth Corps who was the first to stand up:

"I wonder if you are satisfied with this answer, Lieutenant Colonel Julien?"

"I am satisfied, and please allow me to apologize for my abruptness, Commander-in-Chief."

Julien, who was surprised and a little happy, stood up and gave a military salute to Anson; then he quickly sat back down and raised his right hand decisively:

"I agree with the decision to appoint Colonel Fabian as deputy commander of the corps!"

Seeing Julien who was just raising his hands to vote, the officers who had remained silent just now looked at each other in shock. They could no longer pretend to be dead, and they all raised their hands to vote.

In the end, not surprisingly, Fabian was successfully elected as the deputy commander of the regiment with a high vote; the only two dissenting votes came from Alexei, commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, and Hank, the military medical chief.

The former is simply unhappy with Fabian (it’s Fabian again, all the good things are his - Alexey), while the latter is simply unhappy with the Guards. His pet hospital is suffering from the abuse of illegal drugs. and fur smuggling, which was seized several times by the Guards.

Anyway, they guessed that Fabian would never lose the election, so the two took the opportunity to vent their old and new grudges.

Next is Carl Bain's proposal. Since the army has expanded from an infantry division to a corps, the staff and logistics also need to add more manpower and resources, especially clerical talents.

Of course, in order to form the current staff within the legion, almost all the officers with the attribute of "literacy and hyphenation" have been transferred, and the remaining remnants may not even meet the minimum requirements for job transfer. , or he was already in an important position and couldn't leave... so Karl didn't put his thoughts on his own people at all.

"Since we are already a legion, we can directly face the colonies and recruit Clovis people who are loyal to the empire and the legion's cause to join our big family!"

At the end of the proposal, Karl finally came up with the idea: "In order to ensure that we can recruit truly high-level talents, we naturally cannot be too stingy in terms of funding..."

The officer corps finally realized - he was there to ask for money!

The so-called organizational reform, apart from some minor details and whether everyone has the same title, the real core content is actually very simple: how to divide money?

After more than two years of accumulation, the Storm Legion has accumulated considerable wealth; the even distribution as in the past has become increasingly unfair, and a new way is urgently needed to distribute this extremely attractive piece of cake.

This is not only for the officers themselves, but also for the departments behind them: each combat unit, each frontline and logistics department, and even each branch of the army... The size of the cake they get will determine their respective rights to speak within the legion. size.

Even further considering, the direction of the flow of this money is also the direction of future changes of the legion: rapid expansion of military strength, or elite troops and streamlined administration? Is it to strengthen artillery or increase the weight of cavalry? Is it to improve field military hospitals or to further improve the efficiency of logistics supply...

If this was a military strategy game, it would be equivalent to the "upgraded" Storm Legion getting a lot of skill cards and attribute points. Consider where to invest these precious points.

And this is the real world. If you want to change some aspects of the army, Ansen can't just perform a one-man show. You must also get all-round cooperation from his subordinates. At the same time, if the investment of one party is increased, then the beneficiary will be in the army. The internal weight will also increase, which in turn will affect all aspects of the future of the legion.

As for Carl Bain's proposal...it was unanimously approved without any suspense.

After all, the problem of the general staff is obvious to everyone. It is really impossible not to expand it. It can barely cope with daily work. A strong general staff is no less than the brain center of an army - so the storm division in the past was the same as the brain center. The brain-dead patients who keep injecting themselves with chicken blood to stay alive are no different.

The chief of staff's proposal also made everyone see the nature of this military meeting, so the subsequent meeting did not go so smoothly.

Following Carr, Army Surgeon General Hank demanded an increase in budget for field hospitals, especially training expenditures and an increase in the number of medical soldiers - and also to equip them.

The reason is also very simple: the current Storm Division cannot afford to die. Once large-scale casualties occur, the combat effectiveness will decline exponentially; therefore, it is reasonable to increase the budget of field hospitals.

As a record of the meeting, the little clerk sitting in the corner of the conference room made a quick calculation based on the various requirements put forward by the military surgeon general, and found that the increased budget was enough to train two more grenadier regiments.

So all the officers immediately couldn't sit still.

Alexey, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, took the lead and proposed that instead of increasing so much expenditure, it would be better to expand each infantry regiment by adding two line battalions - thus expanding the regiment to nearly 8,000 men, plus the shooting corps and the freedom corps. The Confederate militia has nothing to fear even if the Empire counterattacks.

As for which infantry regiment should be supplied first with new troops...isn't this obvious enough?

Cavalry Major Jason Fruhauf immediately raised objections. He believed that the rapid improvement of the legion's combat effectiveness was not in the infantry at all, but in the cavalry - because this is the legion's biggest shortcoming, bar none!

Due to the lack of cavalry, the legion's battles have almost always revolved around battlefields. Every time they faced the imperial army, they had insufficient mobility and could only be beaten unilaterally and then defend and counterattack, which was very passive.

One can imagine how different things would be if we had a powerful cavalry!

The officers present collectively expressed their contempt for this kind of lice on a bald man's head - of course everyone is aware of the problem of poor mobility, but does Clovis have any cavalry that can handle it?

Even if he, Jason Fruhauf, could recruit so many horses and riders, considering the Clovis cavalry's combat effectiveness of two to one to ensure that they would not be unilaterally beaten by the Imperial cuirassiers, could the expansion of them be just to give the enemy more power? Do you want to add more battle achievements?

As the highest-ranking cavalry officer in the regiment, Major Jason was certainly aware of this problem, so he immediately came up with a real plan - to expand the number of reconnaissance cavalry and messengers to create a light cavalry regiment of about 500 people.

Compared with a reinforced hussar regiment, this requirement is obviously much more reasonable, but it is still not recognized by most people. In the end, only the current reconnaissance cavalry company was expanded, and the original hussar company was added to form a reinforced hussar company. cavalry battalion.

After the dissatisfied cavalry battalion commander sat back down, the artillery company commander gave his advice very sincerely: expansion is not required, but the artillery of the artillery company has been used for almost a year, and the losses are not small. It's not too much to tinker, replace a few old cannons, and add some lightweight rapid artillery, right?

But even such a reasonable demand is still very embarrassing - local supplies are slow to arrive, and small military factories in the colonies can only produce rifles, but it is simply impossible to cast cannons.

And what kind of artillery is needed, there must be corresponding artillery shells. How to replenish them when they are all fired is also a big problem. Although the requirements are not excessive, once the artillery company really needs to be re-equipped collectively, the cost will not be much smaller than that of a field hospital.

At this time, Fabian, who was originally silent, suddenly made a new proposal: to increase the number of skirmisher companies in each infantry regiment, from the original company to a battalion.

"Given the harsh natural environment and scarce supplies in the New World, skirmishers are the most efficient unit in killing enemies and the most adaptable to various battlefields and terrains. This is the force that the legion should immediately improve." Fabian explained:

"This improvement will be immediate, and the expenditure will not be very large - the infantry of each regiment has received skirmisher training, and now it is just a matter of converting some of them directly into skirmishers and going into battle with skirmisher sequences and tactics; as for The vacant line troop establishment can be solved by increasing troops."

"Just by expanding from the current 5,000 to nearly 7,000, the legion will have six to seven skirmisher battalions; this force can be used as a reconnaissance force, and can also conduct rapid mobile operations before the enemy reacts, and the cost is far less than that of cavalry. The concealment is far better than that of a large cavalry force."

"Therefore, I hereby formally propose to organize a new skirmisher battalion organization in each infantry regiment, and to organize the entire Storm Legion to be mainly skirmishers, supplemented by line soldiers. They are good at rapid response, cross-country marching, and have high individual firepower efficiency. , transforming the army into a fighting method based on killing rather than suppressing!”