Herald of Steel

The various competing factions were not Amenheraft’s only concerns.

For there was also the divergent military thinking factor.

The current times were a season of change for the country, as new technologies, innovations, and battle tactics were sweeping across not only it, but the known world.

This was not orchestrated by Alexander but was the natural evolution of the times.

And this was a change many had difficulty adjusting to.

“I tell you, riding horses to battle is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Not only are they killed too easily, you cannot even carry any javelins with them,” This grumble was uttered by Jamider (Earl) Nibbar’s father after Faruq’s report, who was just one of the examples of those being left behind in the times.

He was an old-style military veteran and thought that cavalry was a fad that would die away, and would frequently exaggerate its shortcomings.

And in his mind, the reason for doing this was many folds.

He considered chariots to be much more economical as they could be pulled by smaller horses such as ponies and even donkeys.

So they were cheaper to use and maintain and as such, a loss of a pony would also hurt much less than a fowl or mare.

Tactically, he also saw chariots as being easier to use as chariots horses did not need to be trained as much, which also saved money on the training.

Then there was the fact that chariots were at minimum driven by two people. So one of them could concentrate on driving, while the other focused on shooting, be it arrows or javelins.

Whereas a horse rider would have to do both on their own.

Then there was the fact that the solid ground of the chariots enabled the use of bigger, stronger, and more accurate bows than those on horses, with the additional perk of being able to more easily shoot backward.

Whereas horse archers basically could only shoot at one side because the bows of the time were too long to swing over a rider’s knees and compact compound bows made of composite materials such as wood and animal sinew, which were smaller yet stronger were a very recent invention, and had not been widely adopted.

And lastly, the old man was of the mindset, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’

Up until now chariots had performed well enough on the battlefields and he saw no reason to change that as evidenced by when chariots managed to defeat the famed Sycarian cavalry thirty years ago in a famous battle.

This was why the three thousand (3,000) chariots came entirety from the old man, and he even insisted, “Faruq, my boy! Those two thousand (2,000) cavalry, turn them into chariots. And their scythes will cut in half that Jakqum. An easy death will be too pleasant for that bastard,” The man gnashed with teeth.

“……” Faruq stayed silent at this, as did Matbar (Marquis) Uhmek’s son to whom belonged the 2,000 cavalry in addition to five thousand (5,000) peasant levies.

Because this was not the first time he had asked for this.

It had been done multiple times, and he was rejected every time with logic and reason.

Logic and reason that the old man refused to buy.

Because he had too much colored by the battlefield of yesteryear.

The retired Jamider (Earl) saw horses as expensive, exotic animals, difficult to rear and maintain.

Which meant getting a lot of them together to use as effective cavalry was hard.

And if they managed to do it, they felt that it didn’t make sense to waste them on a ragtag force of skirmishers and light cavalry that most likely wouldn’t have a decisive impact in battle.

Hence they doubled down on the expense, which was making chariots.

For maintaining a fully equipped chariot team―the horses, the chariot made of expensive wood, and a trained crew―was ludicrously extravagant by ancient standards, much contrary to the old Jamider’s assumption 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨

But this expense was worth it for its time.

For the major advantage of chariots was their “shock and awe”.

Humans who had never seen a wheeled vehicle chugging along toward them at ten miles per hour, being pulled by teams of small horses or donkeys, while warriors aboard chucked spears and arrows were obviously shocked and terrified, dealing them a critical psychological blow.

Plus the lighter infantry units of the time, with their short two-metre spears were unable to pose a major threat to the charging beasts, who could just ram or collide with the formation destroying it.

Hence initially, chariot armies would almost always be superior to non-chariot armies, able to leverage their greater mobility and ability to attack the vulnerable flanks of opposing armies and crush them.

And over time, this gave rise to the creation of military elites in a similar way to knights in Medieval Europe, where kings would either fund a standing force of professional charioteers or else parcel out land or tax receipts to vassals in return for them maintaining a chariot.

Which during wartime could be called upon to become the core of his army, with each chariot supported by infantry levies thus forming a warrior-aristocracy.

In this way, chariots in that time would be as much a weapon as a status symbol, with each chariot on the battlefield unique in its embellishments and decoration.

And Jamider (Earl) Nibbar’s family was one of the first members of this aristocracy, with more than six hundred years of chariot warfare under their belt and a collection of antique chariots rivaling anyone in the world to prove that.

They had started off as one of the king’s charioteers, before slowly moving up the rank until they became a Jamider (Earl), which also made this family about twice as old as the current royal family and one of the oldest noble families of Adhania.

And it was this distinguished identity, of the ‘sacred status of the chariot’ that played another big role in the aged Jamider’s (Earl) reluctance to adapt to the times.

Because as Matbar (Marquiss) Ulmek saw, times were indeed changing.

Firstly, the ‘shock and awe’ factor of the chariots were no longer there.

Chariots might have worked when the bulk of the force were levies and blue-eyed peasants.

But as the fighting force become more professionalize and they got used to seeing this weapon, the fear lessened.

And with developments in new ways to counter the threat being discovered every day, it was evident that the chariot would quickly become irrelevant.

For example, it was widely known that chariots needed good flat terrain to work.

This was not a problem during its inception as battles of that time would occur in designated places and times.

This meant that the two forces would decide on a time and place where they would meet, which would almost be always in an open battlefield, and then duke it out mano a mano.

This was because battles and wars were seen in an idealized light, where individual nobles would fight one another for glory and fame, and any employment of ‘tactics’ and cunningness was looked down upon as dishonorable and shameless.

While was also why Agapios’s last maneuver was so brilliant.

Because no one had expected it.

But as time went on, such as now, those few visionaries accurately noticed that military organization was shifting away from the heroic clash of elites and towards well-trained soldiers acting as a unit.

Talented Generals of the last century preferred to have a drilled force of light cavalry that could conduct coordinated maneuvers in support of the infantry core of the army, rather than a bunch of glory-seeking toffs careening around the battlefield haphazardly in insanely expensive deathtraps.

And these men would cleverly use their soldiers in a variety of terrains not all of which were conducive to the chariots.

There were problems with particularly the wheels, which would have trouble in rocky or wet terrain, skidding in mud, and bumping on hills.

Furthermore, horse breeding had come a long way to the point large, strong breeds were available, enabling them to be mounted and used in battles.

These horses had a much smaller turning circle than chariots and only needed one rider as opposed to two or more.

Cavalry also took up far less space than chariots meaning easier transport and more effectiveness on the battlefield as more force could be concentrated on one area.

On top of that cavalry was much faster meaning they could outflank chariots.

And lastly, newer horse breeding techniques meant that cavalry was showing the trend of actually becoming much cheaper than chariots.

This was why the general trend among Adhanians was a shift towards the cavalry.

And Pasha Djose, in a kind of 4D chess move, even went as far as to get camels from the deserts of Abu Hamam as a way to counter this cavalry threat, displaying the man’s military foresight.

And all these had been recited over and over to the bullish Jamider (Earl).

But he refused to see reason.

Only saying ‘the scythes of the chariots can mow down men like you brats have never seen’. While not minding the fact that those chariots might not even be able to get close to the infantry before being skewered by the phalanx or other spear formations.

And thus he was left to his own devices, the cavalry divided, as Faruq moved on to the most

difficult topic of the meeting, and the main reason they were here, “So Your Majesty, have you chosen who will command the forces?”