Aztec Eternals

When the sun set and night fell, the 2,000 warriors of the rear army finally entered the Hirotepec camp with 20,000 militiamen and supplies.

The camp was buzzing with people. The militiamen are sorting out the luggage, grinding corn flour, baking corn cakes, and preparing food for tomorrow's expedition. The warriors gathered together in battalions, discussing the hope of returning home, and imagining the beauty of their hometown. The new commanders of the battalions are not idle. They are taking the time to familiarize themselves with the warrior centurions under them and restore the organization of the army.

In the camp, Avit took off the king's clothes and the king's burden, showing some ease and ease.

Wearing only a robe, he continued his military duties by the campfire. On the eve of the expedition, the military was complicated. Xiulot is also helping, studying and assisting to arrange the follow-up march plan.

After the surrender of the Xilotepec camp, the army now has 30,000 warriors and nearly 30,000 militiamen. Daily logistical arrangements, marching plans for each battalion, replenishment of food and supplies... all kinds of affairs came one after another. With a large number of people, every job is very heavy.

And like now, when a battle is about to be encountered, the work is even more complicated. The army has to prepare different plans and records, although most of the plans will not be used at all.

These matters are first handled by the staff, and then flow to the supreme commander, waiting for the final decision. It is like a board in the hands of a young man.

"There are still too few warriors who are proficient in mathematics!" Looking at the wooden board in his hand, Xiulot called for talents from the bottom of his heart.

In his hand was the camp information handed over by Kuluka after he surrendered: a huge wooden board with pictures containing information about all the camps. Because there is no formed text, the commanders of Mexica can only use pictures to record detailed military information.

The young man first saw a group of small people in pictures, which were very vivid, and he could understand them at a glance.

On it are eight simple little figures holding sticks, representing eight thousand militiamen. Below that are four square figures wearing hats and leather armor, representing four thousand city-state warriors. At the bottom are four villains wearing hats and leather armor with the word "Hui" on the leather armor, representing four thousand warriors directly under the royal family.

On the far left of the samurai villains are three large flags of different sizes. There is a rectangular square on the flag, and the square is filled with dense vertical bars. The middle is also separated by a long red bar, like a ruler.

"What is this? Command flag?" The boy studied for a while and made a judgment.

Avit took the board and took a few glances.

"Yes. Commander's flag. The three flags represent that the warriors come from three different city-states. The pattern of the city-state is on the edge of the flag." Avit recognized. In this era, this kind of military knowledge is regarded as a master-student secret, which can only be accessed by senior commanders.

"The rectangular squares represent the strength of the troops." Avit pointed to the largest rectangle, "Look, this pattern is the symbol of the capital of Tenochtitlan. Judging by the size of the squares, it happens to be around 4,000 people."

As he said that, he pointed to the other two commander flags: "These two, the small city-state is estimated to have 1,700 warriors, and the other large city-state has about 2,300 warriors."

The boy was stunned. Looking at the picture to calculate the area, is it so powerful?

"Teacher, you are amazing, how can you calculate so accurately?"

Avit laughed, and he tapped the boy's head lightly. Well, it doesn't hurt at all.

"Look at the vertical bars in this rectangular box. Each vertical bar is a samurai squad, with different patterns to distinguish them. The number of people is generally between 80 and 120. Count how many vertical bars there are, and you can roughly calculate Know how many warriors there are."

Xiuluo nodded. The samurai squad is the basic tactical unit, and the captain is generally a senior samurai who can lead the samurai to execute different orders such as scouting, hunting, formation, assault, and garrison. When there is an opportunity in the future, we still need to change the army into a unified centurion and centurion.

"Then what does the red ruler mean?" the boy continued to ask.

"It depends on the commander who drew the picture." Avit smiled. "The red line is to divide the warrior squad into broad categories. For me, I'm used to putting the offensive squad at the top and the defensive squad at the bottom."

"As for my commander teacher back then, he liked to put the minor civilian warriors on top as tactical consumables, and put the important noble warriors on the bottom and use them cautiously."

The young man expressed his understanding that distinctions are everywhere, and everyone has a ruler in their hearts.

Then, he looked at the twenty small flags to the left of the militia figure. The border of the flag was a simpler pattern with a blank rectangle on it.

"So these twenty small flags mean that the militiamen come from twenty different villages? But why is there a blank in the rectangle?" The young man inferred.

"Yes, there are twenty different villages, and the patterns represent that the villages belong to different nobles or royal families." Avet nodded with a smile, teaching Shulot was a rare moment of relaxation for him.

"As for why it is blank? Of course, no one knows the exact number! The militiamen are recruited according to the village, led by the village leader, and gathered in groups. The commander will only roughly estimate the number of people based on their area, and then Put it into specific construction projects, or secondary battlefields that need to be consumed."

So the young man understood that the militia is a widely used war consumable that does not need to know the specific number and casualties.

Shulot shook his head and continued to look at the picture to guess the military situation. He suddenly saw a very vivid figure.

"Is this yellow ball a tortilla? One, two, three, four, twenty-five?"

"Well. This round ball refers to the prepared dry food, usually corn cakes. Usually stationed, warriors can only eat two meals a day, morning and evening, and only eat two cakes for one meal. During the march, a strong warrior should eat at least one meal. It takes three cakes. On the day before the battle, warriors need to accumulate more energy, so they have to eat three meals, each with more than three cakes."

The young man nodded, the three armies did not move, and the food and grass went first. Battles and marches consume more food. Dry rations for marching should be light in weight and small in size. The best option is to make tortillas, which are easy to carry and dry and firm.

"And here, one tortilla ball represents the consumption of a thousand warriors marching for ten days. Twenty-five corn tortillas represent the dry food for the ten-day march of 25,000 warriors in the camp. Kuluka did prepare Not bad.

Tomorrow we will dispatch 30,000 warriors and prepare dry food for at least ten days, so we need thirty corn cakes. It's better to have more, then let 30,000 militiamen work tonight, and make 40 overnight! "

After finishing speaking, Avit called his personal guards and immediately conveyed the new instructions.

"How about the food for the militia?" The young man was a little curious, but he didn't see the corresponding sign.

"The militiamen usually bring their own food, mostly sweet potatoes, corn, beans and pumpkins. Then during the march, they will go to the wild to get some food, such as hares, voles, wild vegetables, leaves or insects.

If there is insufficient food in the camp, the militiamen will be the first to be abandoned. Commanders usually launch a pointless attack to consume them first, lest the militia riot. Of course, if there is enough food in the camp and the commander wants to train the militia, an extra meal of corn will be provided every day. "

Shulot was silent for a moment. An ancient Chinese poem says, "When a man cannot sleep, the general's white hair will make his husband cry."

In the civil official's pen, the general and Zhengfu communicate with each other. However, the militia cannot be compared with the samurai, let alone the commander. The militiamen need to work day and night, prepare dry food, dig ditches and fill trenches. We must continue to endure hunger and be the first to suffer casualties.

Therefore, Zhengfu should have only tears but no gray hair, because they can't live to have gray hair.

The moment of softness passed quickly. The boy looked around again, but found no new food patterns. He asked suspiciously, "How much food is left in the camp?"

Avit directly stretched out his hand, and simply flipped the big wooden board over. At that moment, hundreds of food graphics, in the form of square stick figures, caught the boy's eyes.

Corn, beans, pumpkins, fish, avocados, peppers, and cocoa are all drawn in square frames one by one, and then neatly arranged to fill the entire board. From time to time, Shulot saw the boxes with corns crossed out, and others circled.

"What do the boxes represent? What about the dashes and circles?"

"Like tortillas, a box represents the consumption of a thousand people for ten days. Crossed out represents loss, such as the guerrilla of the Otomi, or the breakage of mountain transportation. Circled represents spoilage, this food will Damage to the body of the samurai will be left to the militia after simple processing. There will always be militias who do not have enough food.

There are now. I count. There are more than 300 boxes. That is the food for 100,000 people for a month. This should be prepared for Tisok's army, and they are all stockpiled here now. The Xilotepec camp is close to the river, so it is really convenient to transport food. This batch of food is enough for us!

But this frame is very inaccurate. Like this kind of raw food, sometimes a box can only supply 800 people, sometimes it can supply 1,200 people, it all depends on the mathematics level of the quartermaster and the speed of food deterioration.

If there are no major problems, the loss is still acceptable. But once there is a big problem, it is time for the quartermaster to pay for the crime with his life, regardless of the rank of nobleman. So for the alliance, this is also the position with the largest number of executions.

As a commander, in order to ensure that the samurai have an accurate amount of food when they go out, they still have to choose processed corn cakes. Tortillas can also be stored longer than raw. "

Xiuluo nodded, food storage and transportation is always a big problem. In the warm and humid rainy season, food storage loss can even account for 30% of a month, and transportation loss is proportional to the distance.

In simple camps, old food cannot be stored for too long, so the food for the army is always not enough.

And once the grain road is cut off, there is no new grain to replenish, and the old grain will quickly deteriorate during the rainy season. Like the current king Tisok, he must have fallen into a serious food shortage. Once there is a shortage of food, the morale of the army will drop sharply, and the combat effectiveness will decline rapidly.

"If an efficient logistics team can be established, it will greatly reduce the food burden of the empire when it goes out. Of course, first of all, I have to cultivate a group of talents who are proficient in calculation." The boy set up a military reform in his heart The goal.

Xiulot continued to flip back to the front of the board. He was finally attracted by a row of conspicuous long flags in the center of the board. There are many bright green feathers on the flag, and there are still different patterns on the side, but they are extremely delicate.

"What is this? It looks very detailed." The boy was a little confused, and counted a total of nine long flags.

"This is the main backbone of the army." Avet said with emotion. "The nine long flags represent the lineages of the nine hereditary nobles. The number of feathers on the long flags represents the number of great nobles."

"Usually, these feathers are at least half of the battalion-level commanders in your army, all the legion-level commanders! Every feather representing a great noble starts with a battalion-level commander, which is equivalent to the top level of ordinary civilian warriors. .”

The young man shook his head. There is still too much resistance to reform the military commander system.

While talking, Avit took out another old board. This is the army information obtained from Ketoko after the capital reinforcements were captured. He found the front flag, pointed to the largest feather and said:

"Look, Shulot, this flag with the sun pattern is the family pattern of the Kechar family, and the largest feather on it is Ketoko. Since we are going to sacrifice him to the flag tomorrow morning, let's go now." Paint it over."

Avit picked up a writing brush casually, dipped it in the Mayan blue dye used for sacrifice, and painted it directly on the feather representing the great noble Ketoko. "Ketokko" was covered with blue and sacrificed to the gods.

"Avit, are we really going to execute Ketoko tomorrow? If the news reaches the capital, how will Chief Priest Kechar react?" the boy asked seriously.

"Of course, Ketoko is the commander-in-chief of the reinforcements, and keeping him is always a hidden danger. Executing him can just deter the generals and warriors and increase our chances of victory."

Avit sat up straight. In his bright eyes, the edge of a commander gleamed. On his smiling face, the self-confidence of a king emerges.

"Let's go all out for a battle! If you win, you will have everything, occupy the throne, and become a condor and fly into the sky. If you lose, you will lose your life, and go to the kingdom of God together, and fall into the abyss as petals. Why think too much !"

Avit laughed, and he threw the plank aside. Then he grabbed the boy and sat beside him.

"These pictures are too troublesome. Come on, let's use the words you invented to rearrange the information of the army." As he spoke, Avit picked up a brush and took a wooden board to record: "30,000 warriors, 30,000 militiamen, 100,000 food for one month"

Shulot thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled: "Avit, now it's my turn to teach you something."

As he spoke, the boy snatched the pen and board from the teacher's hand, and wrote in Chinese characters word by word:

"Whoever wins before a battle and the temple counts must be counted as more, and if the temple is counted as invincible before a battle, it must be counted as less. More counts as victory, less counts as invincibility, let alone nothing!"

"What's this?"

Shulot laughed, and he also threw the wooden plank aside. Then grabbed the teacher, opened the tent, and looked at the vast and distant galaxy together.

The galaxy has not changed for thousands of years, and the war will continue for thousands of years. The young man recalls the pictures in his "memory": the Napoleonic War, the Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, World War II, from the Army Staff to the Joint Staff, from industrialization to Digitization until the era when computing determines everything!

"This is the future of war!" The boy confidently looked at the dazzling stars.

"...Come here! Copy the military situation."

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, don't pinch my face, it hurts too much!"

The night before the expedition was full of busy schedules. It wasn't until Sirius quietly rose, and the dawn was not far away, that the final calculation was finally completed, and the battle plan was finalized.

The two made all the military preparations, and it was rare for them to forget the pressure of the battle.

They have temporarily broken free from the shackles of the throne, they are just discussing the direction of military revolution, and they are working together to create a future that changes everything.

It took another five hours to write. The board of this chapter is based on the Aztec's "Code of Huzoxico" (1531), plus the author's own understanding and elaboration. Finally ask for a recommendation!