The only two slices of black bread each person naturally cannot fill Gonzalez, Enrique and Julio Pablo, such a burly hungry man. In fact, after swallowing the food, they become hungry, but at least they can make their stomachs a little more comfortable.

On the morning of the first day of joining the camp, it was just to teach the recruits to cultivate their personal hygiene habits, which made their original traditional psychology unbearable. Except for dozens of unlucky guys who violated military discipline and suffered physical punishment of 8 kilometers, most people did not think that the military training would be too painful and tormenting. Instead, they felt that the food standards in the military camp were good, but they lacked alcohol.

Everyone thought that the afternoon would start tedious queue changes training, or learn shooting and assassination, but they were wrong. The five non-commissioned officers handed each soldier a few pages of paper, which were written in Catalan and French. The "Summary of Military Regulations of the Desay Division in 1810" in Catalan and French. There are 15 chapters and 142 sections, 9,200 words, and their contents include: soldiers and their responsibilities, internal relations of the army, etiquette, military manners, military courts, work and rest, daily systems, duty, guards, point inspections, emergency combat preparations and emergency gatherings, as well as weapons and equipment and military horses, food, hygiene, camping management, etc.

A 30-year-old instructor took two steps forward and still said expressionlessly: "I know very well that most of you are illiterate, but that doesn't matter. I and several other instructors will give you a little help, including reading it to you twice in groups, which takes about an hour.

After that, all instructors will leave the playground, and you will stay where you are until you remember the contents of the paper in your hands. Of course, you can also seek the help of your comrades who know how to read, provided that you do not leave the school ground. Just say it casually, the gendarmerie outside the school ground will always supervise your every move.

The study time starts from now, yes, 1:30, and half an hour before dinner, which is to end at 6:30. After deducting the 1 hour of the instructor's recitation, I left a full 4 hours for you to prepare for the assessment.

To emphasize again, only soldiers who successfully recite all the military rules and pass the instructor's assessment are eligible to enter the restaurant. Otherwise, not only will there not be dinner, but even the rest time will not exist in the evening until the task is completed!”

As the instructor finished speaking, the soldiers were in an uproar, and everyone complained, causing a little commotion in the queue. On the surface, the instructors' approach was indeed unfair. If the mountain people and soldiers from hunters were fully armed, they would run 8 kilometers, 10 kilometers, or even longer distances, they would be said to run among the mountains and hills all year round, and the full physical energy they forged was enough to cover the cruel test. But it would be a bit difficult for these illiterate, semi-illiterate, to recite the military rules of more than 9,000 words within 4 to 5 hours.

In fact, this was not intentional trouble for the instructors. Before this, the Catalan regiment had also encountered this treatment. During this period, one-third of the recruits completed the task of memorizing military rules within 5 hours; and within 5 hours after the specified time ended, 90% of the soldiers also successfully passed the assessment.

The premise is to put great pressure on the soldiers, because there is pressure to be motivated. Desai and his officers firmly believe that people have unlimited potential. Soldiers who can complete training under pressure and firmly obey orders will avoid various mistakes on the battlefield, reduce unnecessary casualties, and thus ensure the victory of the battle.

The soldiers' dissatisfaction and resentment were normal. The instructors did not stop immediately. They just retreated and waited quietly. It was not until everyone vented for a while that an instructor looked at the pocket watch in his hand and said slowly: "Congratulations to everyone, you have just wasted 13 minutes due to venting and complaining. If you want to say anything, please continue!"

At this time, the soldiers woke up again. The instructor who was heartless would not bargain with him. Unless they voluntarily apply to leave the military camp, give up their generous treatment as voluntary soldiers, and return home under the escort of the military police, and become farmers or hunters who hungry the whole family again. After looking at each other in a glance, everyone could not help but accept the reality in front of them. There was no noise in the entire new recruit regiment, and the queue became silent again.

The instructors nodded with satisfaction and led their respective trained soldiers to recite military rules for them at various places in the school grounds: "The Summary of Military Regulations of the Desai Division in 1810" Chapter 1, General Provisions; Section 1, in order to regulate..."

...

Soldiers were drunk and had loose military discipline; disease prevalence in the barracks and medical treatment was backward, which should be a common phenomenon in European troops in the 19th century, including the British. According to the 1791 Ordinance, the food provisions of soldiers and sergeants were: one and a half pounds of bread, half a pound of meat, two ounces of dried fruit (sweet), a small amount of cheese or butter, and a bottle of wine per day.

But in fact, even in the Bren barracks during peacetime, the food standards of French soldiers were difficult to meet, let alone during the war period when supply was difficult. In Europe, only the wealthy British Expeditionary Force could barely achieve it. However, after the troops left Portugal and entered Spain, due to poor supply, hungry British soldiers would follow the French and plunder the local rations and wine.

Before 1812, General Wellington repeatedly led his troops to fight against Spain, fighting against the French army, which was not strong in fighting, but never had any substantial victory. An important reason is that the atrocities committed by the British army among civilians also aroused the Spanish's resistance. Many Spanish guerrillas also listed the British as their targets to attack them and often ambush the British's supplies and supplies. Even the regular Spanish troops loyal to the Cádiz parliament had deliberately left 4,000 friendly injuries to the French because the British army had killed their compatriots.

In his letters to the British Cabinet and Parliament, General Wellington not only asked the Imperial Navy to increase the supply of the Expeditionary Force and demanded that the cabinet and Parliament increase the military pay every year, he also complained countless times about the active British soldiers, accusing them of extremely low character, which was simply "a group of garbage composed of gangsters, thieves, murderers, and rapists!"

For this reason, Wellington spent three years forming a military police force to strengthen internal military discipline, teaching officers and soldiers to pay full cash when requisitioned local materials and use strict discipline to restrain his soldiers. In addition, every other time, soldiers who were plundered, murdered or blasphemed of religion would be hanged.

The British fleet, which was backed by the British fleet, was in hand with a large amount of British pounds, and this was the case with abundant supply of British troops. As for the unscrupulous Napoleon army, they would provide on-site supply from the occupied areas as their logistics guiding ideology. Similarly, this applies to European teams. From German countries, to Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, and even Poland, these developed agricultural and animal husbandry areas, the logistics supply of the French army is fully guaranteed from the occupied areas.

But on the Iberis Peninsula, everything changes.

The grain planting area in Spain is not small, but the yield is not high. That is because of backward agricultural technology and old water conservancy facilities. They basically rely on the weather for their livelihoods. The farmers barely make a living. Since 1807, natural disasters have occurred on the Iberis Peninsula for three years. The food collected or plundered by the French army from the Spanish is usually the food that civilians rely on for survival.

Because he was away from his hometown for a long time, he faced various death threats anytime and anywhere, and food shortages often occurred. Under the disarray of military discipline, the soldiers began to drink uncontrollably, which became the biggest original sin of French soldiers in the occupied areas. The inhumane killing and rape against urban civilians and rural farmers were basically accompanied by excessive drinking of soldiers.

In 1809, even the Rana Legion, with the best military discipline, soldiers were also in the scene of purposeless massacre and rape and plunder of civilians due to wanton drinking.

From the initial Infantry Regiment level to the current Master Regiment; from the start of the safety village plan, to the acquisition of Catalonia and Northern Aragon regions, Desai and his military police chief Carls, have been committed to solving the discipline of the army.

In addition to timely distributing military pay and ensuring the food standards of officers and soldiers, over the past year, the number of officers and soldiers in the Desai Division who were sentenced to death by military law for violating military discipline was as high as 126, including 118 soldiers and 8 officers at all levels. Among them, more than 60% of officers and soldiers violated military discipline due to alcoholism.

To this end, Colonel Karls, the commander of the military discipline inspection in charge of military discipline, issued a suggestion to Duke Hruna in November last year: It is strictly forbidden for officers and soldiers to drink in the barracks, but it was immediately rejected by everyone because this proposal was not realistic and could not be implemented.

Even Professor Say, who served as a long-term civil servant, knew very well that soldiers in the war were facing death threats anytime and anywhere, and alcohol was the only effective tool for them to relieve stress on the battlefield, relieve tension, and avoid psychological collapse.

However, under the vigorous adjustment of Desai, the officers also reached a compromise with the Ministry of Military Police and made certain special regulations in the military regulations: specific requirements for the amount of alcohol consumed, and emphasized that officers and soldiers are not allowed to drink alcohol in the first two hours of duty; breakfast and lunch are not allowed to drink alcohol...

Since early December last year, thousands of military police have increased their investigation and punishment efforts in and outside the military camp. The phenomenon of alcoholism by officers and soldiers seems to have been effectively curbed, but that is only on the surface. Since September 1810, there have been neither war nor riots in the entire Catalonia, and the soldiers no longer have the danger of death, so their fear of law enforcement military police is far higher than the temptation of excessive alcoholism.

In a letter to Desay, Colonel Carls admitted that once he entered the dangerous battlefield again, even if the military police always performed their duties, they would not be able to suppress large-scale alcoholic soldiers in time, because it would cause various unforeseen riots, unless it would allow the officers and soldiers to obtain another safe and effective way of reducing pressure without causing criminal consequences.

But when the problem was on the desk, after thinking about it, he could only release another demon, "nicotine". At the beginning of this year, Duke Hruna ordered people to collect large quantities of roasted tobacco leaves from Turkey, Egypt and North Africa and transport them to Catalonia. In addition, he also acquired a cigar processing farm in Barcelona and transformed it into a production base for paper cigarettes.

According to the requirements and diagrams of Duke Hruna, the engineers of the Ordnance urgently made a semi-manual and semi-mechanical assembly line for cigarette production. The dried tobacco was cut into thin strips with mechanical means, and then sprayed some flavors or spices. Then, the paper wrapped in the tobacco was artificially rolled into a barrel-shaped strip with a length of about 120 mm and a diameter of 1 mm.

This type of paper cigarette is different from an ordinary pipe. When smoking, you only need to ignite one end and then use your mouth to suck the smoke generated on the other end, which is convenient and quick. Compared with expensive cigars, these cigarettes are cheaper. In addition, just for the fire making when smoking, Desai even lets engineers develop less safe white phosphorus matches.

The effects of cigarettes are very similar to alcohol addiction, because they are very irritating and just play the role of restoring physical strength and refreshing the spirit. Smoking processed tobacco leaves allows soldiers in battlefield environments to greatly reduce psychological pressure, increase their minds and focus more, thus ease worries and endure hunger. As for tobacco, which can cause nausea, dizziness, headaches, and even cause long-term diseases, it is no longer a problem that superiors need to consider.
Chapter completed!