"Sun Tzu's Art of War" says: Ten are to surround it, five to attack it, and if it is doubled, it will be divided, and the enemy will be able to fight, if there is little, it can be escaped, and if it is not, it can be avoided. Therefore, the small enemy is strong, and the big enemy is also captured.

It cannot be said that this is wrong, "The Art of War" is also a compulsory course at the Nyasaland Army Academy, but the military experience in the era of cold weapons should also be appropriately improved in the era of hot weapons.

According to the data given in the "Art of War", in order to completely annihilate an army with a total strength of 10,000 troops, it needs at least 100,000 troops to encircle, 50,000 troops to attack, and 20,000 troops to find a way to disperse the enemy.

In 1891, when the Herero people in southwest Africa rebelled against the German colonial invasion, a German colonial unit was attacked by the Herero people, and a surviving German military doctor killed 1,000 Herero warriors with a machine gun.

In 1893, more than fifty of Cecil Rhodes' men defeated 5,000 Zulu warriors in Rhodesia with four machine guns, killing more than 3,000 on the spot.

In 1898, in the final battle of the Mahdi uprising in Sudan, 11,000 men were killed by six Makqins, while the British suffered only 28 casualties themselves.

Therefore, to annihilate a 10,000-strong army with backward equipment, 100,000 people are not needed at all, only 2,000 people are enough.

This is also due to the fact that the terrain near Lake Toba is complex, and more troops are needed to search for the enemy who has slipped through the net, otherwise 2,000 men will not be exhausted.

"Fight not with mercenaries, but with Medan troops." Alan Jennings increases the difficulty.

"Sir, the Medan troops have not yet completed their training, and they are not yet able to undertake combat missions." One of the staff cadets was directly opposed.

The Nyasaland Army Academy does not have the same strict requirements as the Royal Sandhurst Military Academy, if the instructor makes a mistake in teaching, the cadet can directly point it out, if it is at the Royal Sandhurst Military Academy, even if the cadet is right, he must not respect the commander's big hat and button it down, at least it is a confinement.

But at the Nyasaland Army Academy, if the cadets are right, then the cadets will not only not be punished, but will be rewarded, so the cadets of the Nyasaland Army Academy are very skeptical.

In this regard, the Ministry of Defence of Nyasaland does not have relevant regulations, but sending soldiers who have not undergone rigorous training into battle is an irresponsible act, and although it is not illegal, it will certainly be condemned by public opinion.

"There is no question of whether it can or not, if Nyasaland is invaded by a foreign enemy, and the war has burned to Lake Nyasa, then not only the soldiers, but everyone must bravely take up arms and fight bravely against the enemy, and everyone here includes men, women, the elderly, and children, and I believe that the Lord will lead by example and fight on the front line of the enemy." Alan Jennings is categorical, the current establishment of the Nyasaland Army Academy is actually a battalion, and it is really a matter of life and death, the dean Derek Dodd is the battalion commander, and the cadets are soldiers, and they can be directly pulled to the battlefield to fight.

All the staff cadets were silent, but their expressions were resolute, the Nyasaland Army Academy has always attached great importance to patriotic education, if Nyasaland is really invaded by foreign enemies, then everyone will not hesitate to take up arms.

It is important to emphasize that this is Nyasaland, not southern Africa.

"It's the same in East India, the soldiers of the Medan army are all Medan people, they have the responsibility and obligation to protect Medan from foreign invasion, there are no individual rights in times of war, and all of us have no choice." Alan Jennings went on to emphasize that this is how the Nyasaland Army Academy reminds cadets of the importance of duty and obligation at all times.

So continue to calculate, this time the number of troops needed is indeed a little more, but it is not too much, as long as there are 5,000 Medan troops, it can still completely annihilate the Second East India Division.

Alan Jennings is finally satisfied that it doesn't matter how many people are needed, the key is to get the trainees to abandon the traditional way of thinking, which is even more important.

When it came time to send troops, of course, the main force was the mercenaries of the umbrella company.

"The Medan troops will also participate in the battle as an auxiliary force, we will fight a beautiful war of annihilation, and teach the Dutch a profound lesson, after this battle, the mercenaries will gradually withdraw from the front line, and the future operations will be dominated by the Medan troops, and they must be prepared." Spike Dobbin was experienced, and according to the military common sense at this time, the members of the Medan army were actually qualified soldiers, and during the Franco-Prussian War, many white young people were assembled in a hurry, and only learned how to shoot and went directly to the battlefield, and as a result, the Prussian army defeated the French army, which was known as the world's first army.

"For the troops to expand quickly, it is still necessary to launch an offensive on Batavia as soon as possible." Alan Jennings is a little worried, although the population of the East Indies is large, there are not many people in the province of Sumatra, and more people are in Java, Kalimantan, and Suhuilasi, and the Medan troops are mainly Chinese, if they have been limited to Sumatra, it will be very unfavorable to the expansion of the Medan troops.

Of course, Alan Jennings will certainly not question why the Medan army is mainly Chinese, there is no answer to this question, Southern Africa is also mainly Chinese, and the Boers shout every day that it is unfair, and when it comes to signing up for the army, many Boers even want to avoid compulsory military service.

Southern Africa is still very insistent on this point, except for the Chinese and whites, only the Gurkha have the opportunity to become professional soldiers, Africans can only serve in the compulsory army, no matter how strong the quality of individual soldiers, they cannot become professional soldiers.

Compared with the professional soldiers in southern Africa, the umbrella company's requirements in this regard are much looser, at the beginning of this year, the umbrella company tried to recruit a group of African mercenaries, compared with white Chinese, the price of these African mercenaries is cheaper, more obedient and easy to use, but they seem to have some problems in learning, not that they can't learn, but they don't want to learn, the same shooting, Chinese mercenaries and white mercenaries are excellence, African mercenaries just pass, even if the results will affect the salary in the future.

Africans are also deeply rooted in this regard, and the Africans recruited by Christian Construction Company are also very serious and hard-working when they work, but as soon as they get paid, they will immediately let go of themselves and will never come to work if they do not spend their salaries.

The umbrella company has strict requirements in this regard, and the salaries of mercenaries are also graded, even the lowest level of salary can ensure that people will not starve to death.

Many Africans are working for the umbrella company with starvation salaries, not because they are unable to fight for higher salaries, but because they are not willing to fight for them at all.

"Wait, we need more troops, there's a question that Mr. Christian hasn't figured out, what kind of East Indies do we want—" Spike Dobbin sneered, picking up a picture and handing it to Alan Jennings.

The photo shows a burning village on the shore of Lake Toba, which was taken by the pilot from an airplane, and the people in the village don't need to ask, most of them are more than lucky, and many of the villages passed by the Second East Indian Division are now in ruins, which is certainly a disaster for the East Indians, but it may be a good thing for the Adan Company, at least in this way, the ownerless wasteland will increase a lot.

Most of the people living in the villages are Javanese or Malays, and even if there are ethnic Chinese, most of them are Baba Nyonya who already regard themselves as East Indians, and many Baba Nyonya do not even speak Chinese, and it is estimated that they themselves do not recognize their Chinese ancestry.

Relatively speaking, overseas Chinese and new guests live in the city, overseas Chinese students actually regard themselves as Dutch in their bones, and they also extremely disagree with the identity of Chinese.

"Hehe, we don't have to worry about this problem, let David deal with it." Alan Jennings is also a bottomless person, the umbrella company can take the initiative to create security needs in order to get more business, and now in order to get more ownerless wasteland, of course, you can also draw cats like tigers, anyway, in the end, it will be pushed to the Dutch, and the winner will be qualified to write history.

David, who didn't know what role he was going to play, was making pre-war preparations, the umbrella company had 3,000 mercenaries in Medan, most of them were stationed in the port of Medan, it was easy to gather troops, but the difficult thing was the various materials needed by the troops to go out.

"This is the case, a force of about 8,000 men is attacking the port of Medan, and our task is to destroy them, which is not too difficult, even quite easy, but I still ask you to pay 100 per cent attention and not to be negligent because it is not too difficult, and the tragedy of Bandar cannot be repeated." David stressed at the pre-war preparation meeting that in fact, in David's opinion, the defeat of Li Wan's troops in Bandar before was very undeserved, after all, the officers of the troops at that time were also mercenaries.

As a result, the army was completely wiped out, and the mercenaries, who served as officers, were also killed on the spot, and two mercenaries were seriously wounded and captured, and the two men were reportedly sent back to Batavia, which would be direct evidence of the Umbrella Company's interference in the internal affairs of the East Indies.

If he could, David would have liked to have captured some Dutch officers from the 2nd East India Division, and the Umbrella Company would have a deal with the Dutch colonial government.

"We'll leave tomorrow morning, and the 2nd East India Division was still in Lake Toba when the last plane reconnaissance was made, and hopefully they won't be dispatched overnight." David is not very worried about this problem, the troops that can be dispatched overnight in this era are all elite, and the Second East India Division is estimated not to be able to.