Fantasy Starting from the Stone Age - Chapter 60



Only Noblemtl

Episode 60. Military Training

The easiest way to solve most problems in nature is violence.

Once you hit and the opponent dies, everything they have is mine! You can even eat them. To stop such an opponent, you need violence.

The only solution that can surpass this is asymmetric power: poisons, chemicals, thorns that don’t come out when touched.

Ultimately, evolution in the natural world is a story of how effectively we wield violence and how effectively we escape it, and the extreme of this is war.

Even advanced creatures like Homo sapiens go to war. Chimpanzees go to war. There are all sorts of ways to do this, including politics, diplomacy, and dialogue, but the first thing they think about is military power.

The history of mankind is about how powerful a group of people wielded hegemony.

The development of mankind has created a civilization that gives us a strong military force.

Datang didn’t have much opportunity to wield such hegemony. It wasn’t that there was none at all. It was mostly bloody battles with wild animals. Even Datang Oram could only catch one scaly hippopotamus with his primitive spirit magic… Besides scaly hippopotamuses, there were also kneeling giraffes, scaly elephants, and many other powerful herbivores in the world.

Although they later encountered other races, the Bark were able to cooperate with them through dialogue, acceptance, and love.

Erin and Baekhan were so different in weight class that they could only deal with them by showing their majesty through spirit magic.

Although I didn’t necessarily describe it, it has happened quite often in history that when a Daton gets caught up in a conflict and dies, other Datons will drag a bunch of spirits away and literally trample them.

However, Datang claimed to be an isolationist. To be more specific, they had no choice but to be isolated. In any case, they were isolated and would burn intruders as they came, absorb allies as half-bloods, or give some territory to Datar and live together. They were just like a sponge that sucked up all of humanity.

But is that the reason? In the end, since the founding of Datang, military power has only increased in number over the past 10,000 years, but has not developed qualitatively.

In the end, Datang’s military operation meant sending out hunters, if that didn’t work, sending out spirit masters, if that didn’t work, sending out spirit beasts, if that didn’t work, sending out more, if that didn’t work, sending out mineleaders, and if that didn’t work, calling in all the chauns.

This was the end of it.

Research to make the spirit water stronger, research to create more powerful weapons and tools, research on tactics using the spirit water. No other strategic research has been conducted. That’s because the above strategies have already solved 100% of the problems.

I do not intend to advocate war as a necessary evil, but if there had been a military group with similar power nearby, it would not have gotten to this point. However, since there really was none, Datang’s military power was very weak.

Humanity has gone so far as to build computers with super-fast calculation speeds to accurately calculate the trajectories of shells, and they are using them for cultural but useless areas such as mining virtual currency or playing games that require enormous capacity.

It is clear that the development of military power has a great influence on the development of civilization.

Will Datang be able to achieve the level of military power he aims for? ‘A military that is not capable of invading at all, but is the best at defending in the world.’ It’s a fairly clear yet ambiguous goal.

This military reform of the Tang Dynasty was blocked by an unexpected problem.

The most expensive entity in human history has been the military.

No asset receives more resources than the military. To be precise, there are certainly sectors in which more is invested.

But the biggest problem with the military is that it’s a group that doesn’t really create anything, and it’s a group that should not be used if possible.

Well, if this is a story beyond the modern era, at least the prehistoric army was a group that created something. It was a so-called predatory economy. They stole something.

But if you want to take something from someone, you have to be stronger than them. And you might even lose if you try.

After all, armies cost a tremendous amount of money, and throughout history, every group of human beings has invested all of the resources of society into raising the funds to train those armies.

Why are we raising taxes? To build up the military.

Why are we drafting people? Because there are no people in the army.

Why do we develop the economy and invest in industry? To collect more taxes and build a stronger military.

It’s so ironic and contradictory. If everyone just didn’t build an army, there wouldn’t be any waste of money, but if no army was built, eventually the neighboring country with an army would invade and destroy it, so everyone builds an army.

Anyway, this simple fact tells us one truth.

Raising an army requires taxes. And a lot of them. At least if Datang wants to create the world’s strongest defense force, he needs to spend ‘at least’ the world’s strongest military budget.

But guys, this part is really a headache.

Datang has not collected a single penny of tax in ten thousand years.

All Chaun wants to create an army. He hears an unexpected objection.

It was from Paron Echacado, whose job it was to refute. Echacado looked at Ol Chaun with an expression that was almost pitiful.

“Can’t we create an army?”

“Yeah. At least not to the extent you want.”

All Chaun asks:

“why?”

“Why······. Who would want to join the military?”

“······?”

“Of course. The military is a group where you could die if you join.”

“Isn’t that the same for any profession? Even hunters?”

“No······. The military and hunters are completely different······! Come on. Don’t you know what an army is?”

To be honest, I don’t know. Echakado, who has lived outside of Datang, knows what the military is, so he begins to explain.

A good army needs at least the following:

First, a good soldier. A person who has trained hard, is physically and mentally tough, and is ready to kill.

Secondly, a great commander. One who can command such an army and defeat the enemy.

Thirdly, excellent supplies. Equipment, food, etc.

“Yeah. There are all three.”

“In my opinion, none of the three are present, and if this is the condition of a good army, there is only one absolute condition for a soldier.”

That’s right, treatment.

The military rank is high.

Whether the military rank is respected in society or not.

The military class may live more affluently.

Otherwise, good soldiers themselves won’t gather. Naturally, there will be no commanders and the supplies won’t be very good.

“What are you talking about? You say that the treatment of soldiers should be better?”

“It can’t just be good. It has to be overwhelmingly good. Otherwise, who would risk their life to fight for it?”

“No, hunters fight with their lives at stake!”

Echakado looks at Olchaun with a pitiful look.

“That’s because a skilled hunter is not defeated by his prey.”

“Soldiers······!”

“No, what are you talking about? You’re a soldier. A hunter is someone who fights only what he can kill, and a soldier is someone who fights even if he can’t kill. Surely you wouldn’t say that you’re going to create an army that only deals with fools who can’t help but win.”

“······.”

“In short, I need someone who knows they will die like the Borin tribe, but will jump into Datang Oram and turn to ashes. Do you think it will be easy to gather such people? Of course, if you lose to Datang as a whole, some may come out. If you treat them with honorable positions, more may come out.

But let me be blunt. That won’t make you the world’s strongest army. Whether it’s Patchar or Borin, if they invade, they’ll be able to kill and sweep away all the soldiers who gathered with such pitiful ambitions. Life is more important than medals.”

All Chaun asks after much thought.

“How did the Barks gather soldiers?”

“How did you get them? Our entire tribe is hunters. And since we have a maja, the problems of soldiers, commanders, supplies, and necessities were all solved. We used our hunting skills to fight against other tribes, and we used our war skills to hunt. For the Bark, war is usually a matter of survival, so the problem of treatment was not a big deal.”

This is why nomads and hunter-gatherers usually have high fighting power, because they don’t need special training to become soldiers.

“Then what about other races?”

“Well, it seems to be different for each race, but the Erin tribe has separate farming and military groups, so the military group takes responsibility for protecting the farmers, while the Baekkan tribe either trains each person for combat, or those who can’t or won’t do it pay more taxes.”

“······What is tax?”

Datang has no concept of tax.

No, even the concept of private property is vague.

Of course, there is the concept of one’s own land and territory, and there is also the concept of one’s own honor and medal.

But if someone asks for help, you always help them. If someone is hungry, you always share food with them. If there is a timid person who only accepts help? Dutan will judge them with fire. (Usually, it is forced labor under the supervision of Orotbe.)

In the first place, if you wanted to go on a pilgrimage, you had to cooperate with someone, and if you settled down, you had no choice but to work, so they maintained a perfect system through effective exchange of labor and resources without having to collect taxes. The social welfare system was also very advanced.

Above all, the culture of the tribe is to work less and play more rather than create surplus resources and save them. So, without any taxes, the country was able to run for nearly 10,000 years with only respect for the Mainiron.

Echakado was left speechless when he tried to explain this tax concept to Olchaun.

They neither collect nor pay taxes.

In the first place, if you want to eat, you eat what is abundant in nature, nature managers manage the vegetation, and chefs cook and distribute the remaining surplus resources, and if you want to eat what is distributed, you have to work hard that day.

In a sense, perfect communism has succeeded!

But what can we do? The army will not return to this primitive-communist economic system. At least a prehistoric-economic system is needed. Otherwise, we will be trampled by the Pachar army that will come in a few generations.

This is similar to the situation when they faced the primitive Bark army. It was handled well at the time, but… As time passed, the limits of Daton’s weak political, economic, and military systems were finally exposed.

“Damn it. This is seriously serious. Come on. We need to expand our military power immediately. Otherwise, we’re going to have another messy incident like the Borin Explosion or the Shujor Massacre.”

“I’m the one who’s the culprit. Echakado. How on earth am I supposed to do that? There’s a limit to how much I can force with my authority. The Datons follow me because I make their lives easier.”

“······.”

Conscription is not a good idea. It will not be able to withstand the backlash and will result in a rabble.

A conscription system is not possible. There is no incentive to conscript.

So how do you build an army?

Paron Echacado is a critic, not an alternative provider, but he is the only expert, so he thinks about it for a moment and then says:

It is not a conscription or volunteer system, but rather a militarization of the entire nation.

“The Bark tribe are all hunters, so they can all be soldiers. What about making them all spirits?”

“That’s ridiculous. If you spread the word in one week, everyone will die.”

“Some of them are made by metalsmiths.”

“Training metalsmiths is fucking hard. Quakos, plantsmiths, Gigards, they’re all the same. You can’t fill an army with just them.”

Paron Echacado ponders. He revisits his experiences during his time among the Barks.

“······This might be a bit strange.”

“huh?”

“Have you ever thought of holding a large-scale sports competition?”

They say a strong mind resides in a strong body?

Exercise and sports are closely related to military training. There are even many countries that have made exercise a national virtue.

For example, in Joseon, they had people throw stones, which was called Seokjeon. And in ancient Greece, famous for the Olympics, they encouraged sports on a large scale.

Echakado recalled from his experience of winning matches in the tribe, but it seems that he quite liked this all-rounder.

“I like that. Do it now!”