The Broken System - Chapter 22 The Vishnugupta
It took Kinoya four more days to make a complete recovery. During the time big changes happened on the plane of Eale. This place was their first foothold in the country of Torria, it was quite natural that the whole battlefield was turned into a wooden fortress. With four watchtowers on the four sides and on the all the high ground around it, it will be hard to attack the camp.
‘Even if the place is well fortified, it was not a good idea to set up a supply station here. The place lacks natural defence.’ Kinoya could only shake his head, even with the contribution it will be hard to convince to do otherwise.
‘I have better things to do’ he sighed looking at the 9 squads of heavy infantry and 1 squad of cavalry in front of him. Kinoya’s voice was loud and clear, “Raise your hand if you are not a new recruit.”
There were nine hands in the air and all of them were the sergeant.
“If you have any problem serving under me then spit it out now. I will help you to change the troop.” But nobody responded, “Listen well, I don’t know what you have learned before but my way is different. If you don’t adapt you will die alone.” Kinoya stopped, “So no one wants to leave? Ok. That is good. We will be staying here for at least a week.”
‘That is another idiotic decision. it will be like we are giving them the time to reorganize their troop.’ Kinoya frowned before continuing, “Till then the heavy infantry squad will practice the formation I am going to show you next and the cavalry will learn archery.”
They looked at Kinoya with disbelief. There was a standard military formation in the army, they have been taught from the beginning. Now they are told to change the formation?
“Permission to speak captain.” One of the brave sergeant asked.
“Tell me if these newly trained recruits were added to the formation of a battalion with another troop, will they be able to move in sync?” Kinoya threw the question to the sergeant.
Never did the sergeant expected question. He hesitated, “It will be like asking for impossible.”With his 15 years of experience, there was no denying it, but he added, “That is why we need to train more.”
“How long a heavy infantry could hold the formation after engaging the enemy?” Kinoya didn’t agree or disagree rather asked another question. But the other party wasn’t able to answer.
“You can’t hold your formation after engaging the enemy, otherwise you will just stand at the end of the row. The formation is important for the military but the formation we are using is backdated. We need to change it.”
“But it was perfected over the generation for a reason.” One of the new recruits shouted.
Kinoya smiled, “You go and run around around the fortress now.” A frown appeared on his face, ‘What a little child like you would understand about the formation of Empire?’ He didn’t ask it neither he could disobey the order.
“Was there a record of night war?” Nobody answered but everybody knew what he meant. “Do you train in a battalion or in a squad? Why use the formation of a battalion to train when you are going to fight in a squad. All those formations that was perfected under 1st emperor almost 100 years ago. The emperor had changed, people have changed, and the battlefield has changed, then why are you so against the change?”
“Permission to speak.” Kinoya looked to find out it was Chanakya. ‘Here come the archery question.’ The one Kinoya was most curious about.
“It will be hard to use a long bow from the back of the horse. It should be better if we use pyramid bow.”
“Don’t worry about the bow. I will give it to you, it’s a compound bow. Perfect for horseback archery.” Kinoya took another look at him. ‘He actually suggested a bow!?’ it piqued his interested but he didn’t ask.
“Any other question?” Nobody spoke. “So from today the cavalry will do their daily practice with General Vaicus’s cavalry, then they will train for some forest running training for two hours and after that, will be the archery training. As for the Infantry, all you have to do is run in the formation, throughout the whole day. If you think your weapon art is not good then train after you done running. You will do it every day unless you are subjected to work from the general.”
“Do you get it?”
“Yes, captain.” All shouted in unison.
“Then cavalry go for your jungle training now. Infantry come here and let me show you the ‘Rhombus formation.’”
“Permission to speak again captain.” It was Chanakya again. “Can I take a look at the formation?”
Kinoya stopped for a moment before answering, “First complete your training. Then you can come and watch. You can ask me anything you want. Now on the training.” The cavalry soon left on the training.
************
“Look how funnily they are walking?” One of the cavalry-man jabbed at other to show the troop members of Kinoya, who was still in the ‘Rhombus formation’ as the whole army moved towards the Yeomcheon.
“Don’t you know who they are? They are Captain Kinoya’s troop.”
“Who? Kinoya? Never heard of him”
“You came as reinforcement right? No wonder you don’t know about him. He is the one who went to enemy camp with the other 29 general guards.”
The one asking took a deep breath in, “Oh! The blind Devil’?”
“Yes, the blind devil. I heard that the name was given by the Captain of the general guard himself. Nobody knows what happens and the general forbids to speak about it.”
“I heard he is just a 12 years old boy. What can he do? He must have done something naughty.”He added with a laugh, “Like you call your naughty child ‘devil’. It may be that kind of thing.”
The other one looked at him with a question, ‘Is this guy thinks that the battlefield is some kind of child’s playground?’ But he didn’t say that rather he asked a different question. “What is the situation at the other places?”
“Last time I heard General of North was having a hard time against the Cantela”
“Why? The Knight Templars?”
He nodded and said. “Open plain, armoured cavalry, great mobility. It wasn’t something I want to go against.”
“Didn’t they cut out the number of cavalry in our army to assist them?”
“All in vain” he shook his head. “I heard there was only 50,000 Knights. The General of North wasn’t able to hold ground against it with, 120,000 cavalries. You can imagine the strength of them.” He signalled the other to come closer as he whispered in his ear, “I heard they are moving 10,000 magus guards.”
“Magus Guard?” He almost shouted out.
“Silent, are you want to die.”
But the one shouted had no care about it, “They are the elite of the empire.”
“You can understand how dire the situation is.”
‘Lucky for us we didn’t get posted there.’ The man sighed in relief before asking, “What about the Godola? Isn’t the Moon general leading it?”
“What do you expect from him? He is the great moon general. He is nailing it. He already closing in at the capital.”
“Capital of Godola? Which one? I heard Godola has two capital cities.”
“It’s Ceblob, the one closer to the empire. But”
“But what?”
“The Bosonic Archer squad didn’t appear yet, on the top of that Cantela is sending 20,000 knights and 30,000 squires to help Godola.”
“Whatever as long as the Moon general is there, there is nothing to worry about.”
Another sense attracted the attention of the soldier, “That is the cavalry squad of ‘Blind Devil’.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t that child is just a captain? How can he have a squad of cavalry in his troop?”
“The sergeant of the cavalry squad is a ‘Vishnugupta’.”
From beginning to now nothing surprised him as much as the name ‘Vishnugupta’. “He is from the cursed family, still he joined the army?”
“You know about the treaty, there is nothing one can do.”
“Yup, you are right, but what are those thing on their back?”
“Believe it or not it’s a bow made by the devil himself. Nobody knows what are they, archer or cavalry.”
“Now I am sure that is one naughty child. He is just playing with the army. Must have some strong backer.” He cracked a smile.
“If he is an heir of a great family then all of these makes sense,” The soldier nodded, “Otherwise there is no way a sergeant could become a captain in just one fight. Better not mess with him.”