Chapter 18 – Education

Having understood what was needed, I started to think of the best way for me to support them. If I went with how earth progressed, education and industrialisation went hand in hand, but I don’t think, I want to turn this beautiful and unpolluted world of Arcadia into the mess that was earth. If I could, I wanted to find another way around it.

However, with my new understanding of the situation, I realised that I needed more time and a better understanding of this country. While I had learnt some things about managing a country under my governess that was all theory. I had no idea what specialties Kar had all I knew was Kar produced the most agricultural products for export on the whole continent. We also sold many pelts from wild magical beasts and animals. None of those would benefit much from education as they already had established bases.

What I needed was a new form of industry. The best place to obtain information was in the royal library that was behind the main palace. So, I went there with Erika to find out about the situation not just in Kar but the other countries bordering it as well.

The Head librarian to the library was an old lady, who's family for generations, had maintained the books and kept the most up to date information on Kar and the countries around it. Understanding what I wanted the old lady and her granddaughter brought me all the data they had on specialties and the likes on Kar and neighbouring countries as well as every other country on the continent.

Helping me to look through the data were Erika and the head librarian’s granddaughter, who also was a librarian here. We found that while Kar was a middle size country, it had as many soldiers as large countries like the empire that was on the other side of the continent. Our soldiers were also the most well trained. Our academy was also the best educational institution in the region leading many nobles from other countries to send their children here for further education. Our understanding of runes was also better than most other countries in the region.

Looking at the summarised data, there was a trend. The education provided by Kar was of a higher quality than that of other countries. If I would find a way to turn our education into a commodity that could be applied to all fields, we could turn the whole culture of Kar around. The academy would also have to change its system slightly. It was a good system, but it was too unstructured. I would need to change it from an academy that specialised in certain fields of study to a genuine University. The fields of study would include all the things that the academy currently taught but would also including commerce and accounting, medicine, history and anthropology, engineering and magical sciences, and any other fields that could emerge.

The younger librarian thought my ideas were wonderful with such a diverse range of topics we would be able to attract people from many other countries to study here. She was highly optimistic about my plans but felt that it would take time to implement.

She also believed that it was better for the academy to stay as it was but change into a military academy that specialised in training officers and soldiers. While moving everyone else to the new university built around four main academies. The first academy would deal with everything regarding magical sciences, engineering, medicine, and natural sciences. The second would deal with all the arts such as literacy, scholarly pursuits, history, and anthropology. The third would deal with commerce, accounting and proper management of land targeted at nobles and officials. The fourth would be a school of education that taught our citizens literacy and numeracy skills, but also low levels of the sciences. Not only would this but the fourth school would also oversee the training of new teachers that would spread education around the kingdom of Kar.

Listening to the young librarian think up all this that essentially was what a university on earth was like I grab her hands and practically dragged her to the main palace.

“Camilla, that’s exactly what I had envisioned. Do you mind explaining it all again to Claude.”

Once Claude heard our idea, he believed that it had merit and would consider it if I could prove that it was better to train newly recruited soldiers at the academy. The generals present also liked the idea and agreed with Claude’s arrangement.

I was to start the program immediately. Recruits from around the country were gathered outside the capital waiting to be transferred and to start their training. He told me that I had until the end of the year to produce results, or he would simply ignore this idea.

Bringing the generals with me I headed to the academy to start the process.

Three weeks later the academy had built multiple barracks that could fit up to three thousand recruits and the military instructors from the nine armies had also arrived at the academy. They were to train the recruits in the basics such as how to handle their weapons. A month later they would join with the officer candidates in the knight course and have simulated battles that we had in the large-scale warfare club. This was the bare bone condensed version of how the military academy would operate in the future.

Standing on the stage, I was addressing the students of the academy of the changes to the knight that would be introduced. Many were surprised at the sudden change many had also received news of the changes ahead of time. The knight students that were affected by this sudden change were acceptive of it as they could have the opportunity of being an officer before they officially became a knight.

In addition to our morning training, the students in the knight course now received officer training on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. 

A month later the fifty students of my class were all assigned a group of fifty recruits each that they would command for the rest of the year. They were to practice marching in formation, changing into different tactical formations and conducting training missions such as capture the flag, guarding a base and open-field combat.

It would take a while before they can march in formation, and change into different tactical formations much less complete training missions. I estimated that it would take another month before they could march in formation. Two months before they could efficiently change into tactical formations used by the Kar armies. Before finally after three months, they would be ready to try out training missions.

Looking at the disorderly group in front I felt that my guess wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Forget getting them to march in formation I needed to get them in formation first. Luckily for all knight course students, we had a few experienced instructors that were with us to help. I decided it was counterproductive working in such large groups, so I broke them up into five groups as we had four instructors and including myself that would be five ‘instructors.’

Over the next few days, we taught them to stand in formation while holding their weapons. The weapons used by the recruits were limited to spears now as they were the easiest to take up. It was a slow process even with their previous month of training with the spear, it was hard for them to move in sync with everyone else. I could understand now why some countries on earth took up military drums, it kept everyone in sync.

Nonetheless, the month of hard intensive training paid off the recruits were able to march orderly in their groups, by keeping the rhythm in their heads. They could march straight, and they could also turn instantly when the order was given. They were also able to change from a standing position to a battle-ready position with their spears pointing forward.

The generals that had come today to inspect the progress were greatly pleased by the development of the recuits so far. They believed that it was indeed better to have recruits working and training together in smaller groups like this than sending them off into large training camps where it would take three months to even get them to be able to march properly.

They informed me that they will be supportive of this new military academy even if the results are not as significant at the end of this year. However, I was sure of myself and believed that I would be able to bring results and I knew exactly how to do it. I had already been testing it out during large-scale warfare club and in the knight courses with students that were willing to help me out.

What I had been trying out was simple, instead of having military formations that consisted of only one type of weapon for each battle group, I had used the same way of segregating the troops from my first large-scale warfare in test to see which was most efficient. My method had turned out to be a great success as they were more easily able to adapt to new situations as they had a scout in the form of light infantry capable of moving around the battlefield easily, a tank in the form of heavy infantry with their heavy armour and large shields their duty was to protect the ranged fighters. Ranged fighters were archers but carried a short sword as their secondary weapon. Each squad would have at least one of each light, heavy and ranged fighter in their group.

The Kingdom of Kar had used this sort of tactic before, but they were limited to the elites of the elites in the order of the silver wolf.

Having made up my mind about implementing such battle reforms, I decisively started to enact it on my group of recruits, stopping the conventional training that was given to normal soldiers and recruits. The smaller and faster recruits were made light infantry and given short spears and smaller and lighter shields as well as a short sword. The larger and stronger recruits were made heavy infantry carried medium length pikes and carried a large shield, while the last group the ranged soldiers were the archers. The archers were the ones with the best eyesight and hand-eye coordination. While they mainly trained with the bow, they were expected to be able to guard themselves for a minimum of five blows from a light infantry member using a sword of their own. 

The next time the generals came around they were expecting that I had trained my recruits to the standard of being able to quickly switch formations while marching. They were heavily disappointed. However, I didn’t correct any of them as I had intended to surprise them next month when we started doing training missions.

The reason why I did show them the recruits now was that they simply weren’t ready yet, but they would soon be ready. I had personally demonstrated with my friends how a group should act when encountering different situations. We taught them to think for themselves during battle. When they were under fire from the enemy the heavy infantry was to shield the archer while they returned fire and reloaded. The light infantry was to use their smaller shield to shield themselves while searching for ways to escape. What I was training was no longer a group of soldiers that only knew how to stand in formation when ordered to or soldiers that just blindly charged when ordered to. They were soldiers that were battle-ready and alert. They were the perfect example of an elite special force unit that could fight battles normal soldiers couldn’t hope to even survive in. Not only would they survive those battles they would win them too against all odds.

The only thing they were missing now was to be able to integrate themselves into larger battle units. Their current groups were the smallest consisted of five members making up a squad. The next smallest group would be two squads merging to form a patrol. Going up another size would make a platoon that was made up of five patrols. Platoons are currently our largest formation as I only had fifty recruits.

However, in my vision, five platoons would come together to form a company. Four companies coming together would form a battalion comprised of one thousand soldiers. Three battalions would make up a brigade. With five brigades coming together to form a division. Finally, we would have multiple divisions coming together to form an army.

This was the army I had envisioned.