Volume 4 Chapter 31: The Low-Quality Officer Corps of the Miscellaneous Army (Part 1)
Due to its remote location in the rear, and not being a permanent garrison, the Great Bear Army's camp outside of Emon Port was relatively simple. There were no trenches dug around the perimeter, only a circle of low wooden fences that ordinary people could jump over without even using a pole. Inside the camp, there were no brick or stone buildings; soldiers and officers lived in hastily constructed plank houses. If your rank wasn't high enough to warrant a plank house, you had to find a flat spot to pitch a tent.
Even the most stylish legion headquarters was only a temporary two-story wooden building, with walls and floors covered in uncleaned wood shavings and sawdust all over the floor, the whole house emitting the scent of raw wood in the wind, obviously hastily built.
The first floor of the headquarters, apart from the stairs and the gatehouse, was a spacious conference room. On the walls hung large-scale battle maps, while in the center of the room stood a sturdy but cumbersome round table, surrounded by several small stools scattered around it. Like the building itself, they were also temporarily assembled with raw wood. Fili was now sitting on one of the small stools beside the round table, patiently waiting for his subordinates to arrive.
In fact, in the hierarchical army, military meetings are usually held with oval or rectangular tables. The highest officer sits at one end of the table, or on the upper seat, and the officers sit in two columns to the left and right. Generally, the closer the seat is to the superior, the higher the rank, and the farther away, the lower the rank. The seat directly opposite the upper seat, that is, the farthest from the highest officer, usually sits a secretary. Maps, reports, and other things are hung behind the upper seat. This pattern is basically universal around the world.
If you ask Phil why he didn't follow the usual convention, but instead chose to hold a meeting at this symbolic round table of equality, he can naturally come up with a lot of grandiose reasons. For example, his own seniority is insufficient and should respect the predecessors who were in the army before the war; or the Giant Bear Corps is theoretically just a spontaneously organized militia organization, which has no concept of those etiquette routines in the regular army; also, the luck factor in his merits is too much, although the newspapers outside are blown very fiercely. But people in the military all know what's going on and can't put on airs in front of them.
But fundamentally, this is still because Ferry has no confidence in his own leadership ability. He knows very well that he actually doesn't know how to fight at all, although his colleagues are even worse than him.
Fili's era of learning magic. Various powerful weapons have basically driven ordinary magicians out of the battlefield, and magicians are basically engaged in life trivia unrelated to combat. Naturally, schools don't teach much about magical combat skills either. Therefore, his understanding of how to fight with magic only stays on legends and military magazines, and he doesn't even know a decent attacking spell (learned but useless, can't make money).
After coming to this era of war, his colleagues around him didn't understand fighting either, so naturally no one could teach him. If a real professional fighter were to compete with him, 14th-level Ferri might not even be able to beat a 10th-level opponent. Fortunately, the battles he experienced were mostly chaotic and disorderly. And luckily, except for becoming bald, he didn't suffer any serious injuries like broken arms or legs. But whether he can have such good luck in the future is hard to say.
But if there could be so many people gathering together, it would still be better than having one's own say. Moreover, with the long table, how to arrange the seating is still a headache, no matter what will offend someone. For this current messy military officer group, any internal conflict is very dangerous. This is the direct reason why he came up with the round table.
Ferris sat on the bench and knocked on the table for half a day, and finally people started coming in one after another, each pulling up a small stool to sit down. Now Ferris is also a high-level white-collar manager of more than 5,000 people and more than 1,000 bears, and he must have several capable assistants under him. Although they are incompetent and do absurd things all day long, Ferris has no local information or connections, so he can only hold his nose and make do with them.
The first to arrive was Vice Legion Commander Druyivini, who had been gnawing on a meat bone outside the headquarters gate. By the time he finished, he was almost half an hour late. What's more, Vice Legion Commander didn't enter from the door, but came directly from outside the wall. Of course, this doesn't mean he has the ability to pass through walls. It's just that yesterday morning, a group of iron beetles had destroyed nearly half of the conference room wall with their collision game, leaving only a few wooden bars hanging there. The lighting was so good that it was impossible to describe, and the holes were so big that even Black Dragon Holmes could drill in, let alone a bear like him.
As soon as Grand Druid Veen came in, his translator and entourage Grena had to follow. The conference room obviously wouldn't have a stool sturdy enough to support Veen's thousands of pounds of body weight, so he could only sit on the floor, leaning against the wall and dozing off. But when that massive body fell over, it instantly made the thin building seem like it was experiencing a magnitude 6 earthquake, with the floor, walls, and furniture all violently shaking together, scaring Phil into hastily pressing himself onto the table and grabbing tightly onto the edge to avoid falling off.
Then came in and changed clothes
Feydon, a red-robed mage in the uniform of the Gray Army. This twenty-year-old giant bear warrior is an important pillar of the army, serving as infantry commander and head of the army's direct magic strike team. Although he has only four mages under his command, there are thousands of ordinary soldiers. This glorious responsibility makes Feydon, who was once just a low-ranking soldier in the Sel Federation, excited as if he had taken a powerful stimulant, spending every day on the training ground sternly urging his troops to train harder. He is now able to shout orders in a somewhat strange accent, and even with more complex conversations, using gestures and "pen talks" can get by.
In fact, letting a foreigner who has difficulty communicating with others be the commander of an army is simply ridiculous. The problem is that among all the members of the Giant Bear Army, only he had been in the regular army and had fought many fierce battles. In order to make the main infantry force of the Giant Bear Army have some semblance of a real army, so as not to become a chocolate soldier corps that can't stand the sight of blood, Phil also had no choice but to let Feton command this main force.
The only annoying thing is that Feton's military rank is still just a junior lieutenant, and every squadron leader under him has a higher rank than him, which has a very negative impact on clarifying the relationship between superiors and subordinates. However, this is also an unavoidable situation, as Phil had long submitted his promotion application to the Ministry of Defense through ultra-long-distance communication, but wherever there is a habit of discriminating against foreigners, others' promotions have been approved, and only his has no follow-up. Fortunately, within the Giant Bear Army, personnel appointments are made with just a nod from Chairman Zena, so Feton, this infantry commander, actually oversees two infantry battalions, one magic strike team, and sometimes even an artillery battalion. More than half of the army's forces are under his responsibility at ordinary times, which is really worthy of being called powerful.
The organizational structure of the Giant Bear Corps is very simple. Every ten people form a small team, every ten teams form a medium-sized team, and several medium-sized teams are collectively referred to as a large team. The number of people in each large team is different, and the proportion of auxiliary soldiers and combat soldiers is also different. The two infantry brigades with the largest number of people have twelve medium-sized teams, which are basically all combat soldiers. The smallest is the reconnaissance brigade, which has only two incomplete medium-sized teams. Although the unlucky bear brigade has eleven medium-sized teams, according to the dog bear's intelligence level, when fighting, it can only be either a swarm or a rout, and the so-called organization is just a decoration in actual execution.
The commander of the first battalion was temporarily replaced by Feton, while the second battalion was led by a veteran police officer named Neville. He had extensive experience and was originally a squad leader in the civil corps, claiming to be a warrior monk from a certain temple, with unmatched boxing skills and excellent marksmanship, earning great respect from everyone. During the strike protests, he was often pushed forward as the leader to boost morale. Later, during the defense of New Moscow Sobel City, many officers were severely injured, and Neville, who had not been deployed in combat, suddenly became a hot candidate for promotion. As a result, after a test, his boxing skills proved to be extraordinary, but he was knocked flying by a half-human-sized bear with one palm, losing two teeth, and accidentally shot a colleague standing vertically next to him while shooting at a target. The medical team rushed to rescue him for a whole day and night before he came back to his senses.
Everyone was shocked, and then repeatedly pressed for questioning. The old thief finally confessed, and it turned out that the temple was financially difficult at the time, so they came up with various titles such as honorary martial monk, honorary holy warrior, and honorary saintess to solicit donations from all walks of society. This person's father happened to be a devout believer, so he donated an honorary martial monk for his son who was not yet one year old. The title sounded good, but in reality, he had never experienced even a day of martial arts training, and his martial arts foundation can be imagined.
However, Neville, although he likes to boast, has a very good relationship with people and is the kind of person who can get along well wherever he goes. He is usually gentle and diligent in his work, and has many friends among the officers and soldiers. So after much consideration, they finally chose him as the leader of the team. Neville also knows that he doesn't have much ability, and usually considers himself as Fenton's assistant, and their cooperation is quite harmonious.
After Lieutenant Feton, the half-elf girl Ail with a lieutenant colonel's rank also came bouncing to the meeting. This habitual counterfeiter who made great contributions in the defense of New Masobu City was recommended by Chairman-sama and is now fully responsible for the Engineer Corps. Under the pretext of developing new equipment, she spends all day making various paper-mache fake people, horses, and cannons, almost turning the engineer corps into a funeral supplies factory, truly diligent to the extreme. The only defect is that she often forgets her main job, the important task of repairing the large hole in the command center's conference room was repeatedly urged by Fili for a whole day, but not even a single person was sent over. Just as they were about to scold her when she finally came to the meeting herself, she casually stuck a piece of cardboard on it, enraging the Military Commander-sama.
The notorious reputation of the little ghost's forgery skills has spread far and wide, making her the second most famous figure in the army after Grand Druid Vini, with even the central government sending a special pardon and commendation from afar to praise her skill in deceiving the Elf General. She was promoted out of turn. Unless absolutely necessary, Fili really didn't want to move her, so she chose selective amnesia, pretending that she had never given such an order.
