Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 738: German Soldiers

12th April 1661

"What the actual fuck have I gotten myself into?"

A frustrated shout was heard from within the ground, that’s right, from within the ground. A man could be seen with a lost expression as he looked straight at the ice wall, his eyes red. Judging by his military attire and his facial features, as well as the badge worn on his shoulder, it could be seen that he was a soldier, and a German soldier at that, from the Kingdom of Prussia-Brandenburg, huddled in a corner of a pit dug out of snow, shivering.

He was wearing thick garments meant to keep him warm, but still, his heart was cold and his mind was extremely stressed because of the absolute isolation he was enduring.

The snow and the cold only bothered him a little. It was the darkness and not being able to contact anyone for the next 12 hours that led him to feel hesitation, depression, doubt, and, most importantly, question his own sanity for agreeing to do this hellish task.

But in the end, he had to endure no matter the cost, so he gritted his teeth and persisted.

The man’s name is Ludwig Becker, a soldier from Prussia-Brandenburg. He was among the 2,964 soldiers who came to the Bharatiya Empire for training.

As soon as these people approached the military, they were immediately sent to the Ahom Regiment because the Germans requested they be trained in special operations in snowy conditions and dense forest terrain, as the German nation is mostly plains and dense forests on the northern side, which in winter snows heavily.

Ludwig Becker, along with 2,963 other fellow soldiers, were introduced to very demanding training from day one. For example, in the first week of the training, Ludwig Becker was asked to do the cold march exercise, where he had to march 10 kilometres through the snow with a load of 30 kilograms on his back.

He was asked to do the frozen gauntlet exercise, where he had to crawl under the icy logs with the brown-bess musket in his hand.

He was asked to do the load and fire drill, where he had to reload and fire the musket within 50 seconds.

Saying that they were challenging is putting it lightly, but fortunately, the German soldiers were already trained to operate in cold weather conditions by their natural affinity to their living environment, and they had strong bodies and excellent physiques as they are the crème de la crème from the Prussia-Brandenburg military. So, although they faced a little trouble in the exercises, like Ludwig Becker, it did not stop everyone from gritting their teeth and getting the job done.

However, starting from week two, a lot of people began to fall. The 12-hour Silent Night exercise, where one has to stay in an isolated snow pit for half a day, was not something you could endure with just physical strength. More than the discomfort brought by the cold and dark conditions, it was the mental pressure from the claustrophobic environment and the absolute isolation in a literal ice pit that broke the sanity of so many people.

"Who would’ve thought I’d come such a long way to this great empire just to be treated like a prisoner?"

People like Ernst Fischer handled the situation with some light-hearted jokes, while people like Ludwig Becker decided to raw dog the whole thing by staying silent and enduring the harshness of cold isolation. There were also people like Hermann Schafer, who could not resist the mental torment and inner demons and immediately quit after a few hours of staying within the ice pit.

---

A few hundred meters away,

A tall young man stood on the balcony of a wooden house with a telescope in his hand, gazing at the hilly pass where a German soldier was staggering forward with difficulty.

He lowered the telescope with a sigh. "What number does this one make it?.." he asked in a commanding tone.

A soldier standing next to him immediately counted the number and replied, "The 1,251st, sir. General, sir."

"Hmm, they are performing better than expected. These Germans really do suit our tactics," the man who was called General muttered in a low voice.

Not hearing the General next to him talking to himself, the soldier lamented, "The elimination rate for the special unit in the Ahom Regiment is more than 80% even for our own people. But now these Germans have an elimination rate of less than 70%—they really are something."

The General turned his head, looked at his lieutenant, and said nothing.

The man called the General is the Major General of the Ahom Regiment, having command of over 12,000 soldiers and a member of the command team from the special unit within the Ahom Regiment.

The Ahom Regiment has 60,000 soldiers split into five different divisions, all focused on warfare in northeastern terrain.

Divisions One and Two strictly focus on jungle warfare, and Divisions Three and Four focus on special operations, while his division, the last division, focuses on jungle warfare in snowy and hilly terrain.

Each division has further specializations on an internal level, but externally their specializations are fixed.

Being the closest to what the Germans wanted, Major General Sukladhwaj Phukan was tasked with training the Germans according to Ahom Regiment special unit standards.

The wait continued as people staggered out of the path one by one throughout the night until, by the dawn of the morning light, only around 600 to 700 soldiers were left.

Major General Sukladhwaj put down his telescope and comfortably stretched his back, "Note down the ones that are still in the ice pits and give them ten points each in the evaluation, and for those who got out, give them no points if they lasted less than two hours, and after that, one point each for every hour."

"Yes, sir."

---

Ludwig Becker had never felt like the morning was as beautiful as it was today. Having breakfast in the barracks along with his fellow mates, he felt like he was seeing a new perspective on life. Spending a few hours with the mates, he eventually went to rest.

In fact, when the soldiers of the Ahom Regiment do the Silent Night exercise, they goof around and play some sports the whole next day because they have become so used to the Silent Night exercise that the soldiers actually fall asleep and take advantage of the 12 hours they are given in absolute silence. Continue your adventure with novelbuddy

It was like they were saying thank you very much, can’t wait to do more. For this reason, Major General Sukladhwaj Phukan and his four other colleagues in the Ahom Regiment, who all have the Silent Night exercise in their training plans, occasionally give the soldiers in the ice pits a scare by having people open fire in the vicinity of the pit so as to keep the soldiers awake and alert. But unfortunately, even this lost its effectiveness as they adapted to the conditions and treated it more like white noise. Fortunately, though, after the skills advanced, the Ahom soldiers who had gotten this far did not have to do the Silent Night exercise anymore.

Ludwig Becker, Ernst Fisher, and Hermann Shafar, along with the German soldiers, got up with varying amounts of sleep from four hours to six hours, only to be told that they had to do another exercise at night.

"Cunning Fox exercise," Major General Sukladhwaj Phukan declared, his words loud and sonorous.

"Each of you will be given a map and a random target. Your objective is to navigate to the target with the help of the map at night.

"This is an individual exercise. You will all be doing the exercise alone. I wish you all good luck."

Ludwig Becker and the other German soldiers looked at each other with cramped expressions. They almost questioned whether these exercises were something humans could do.

Fortunately, though, when they were about to set off at dusk, they were instructed by a man who might as well be an angel:

"The point where we will be dropping you off will be known as the spawn point. Remember that your target will not be more than three kilometres away from the spawn point, so if you cannot find your target even after walking for more than three kilometres, you can use the fireworks you have on you and give up the challenge. We will come to pick you up. Good luck."

In a daze, Ludwig Becker was dropped off at a place God knows where. He was left there standing with a defeated expression on his face as snowflakes fell on his body.

"Sigh!"

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he first looked around and secured a good location, after which he opened the map and saw what his target was.

The light was dwindling fast, and he had to use the natural light as much as possible to memorize the map in his mind, as the candles he had with him were not too many, and even if he could use the candle at night, they were not too reliable.

"Thank God there is a German translation," Ludwig thanked wholeheartedly, his eyes almost tearing up.

With so much torture he had to endure, the small, small conveniences provided by the Bharatiya military made him very touched.

---

Vijay was constantly hearing the reports about the training that was going on for the Germans, and he could not help but chuckle from time to time hearing the bizarre stories.

But he was not ridiculing anyone because most of the training plans of the regiments in the Bharatiya Empire were created with some input from him, and he actually, specifically for snow and cold terrain-focused regiments like the Ahom Regiment or the Kashyapamar Regiment, designed training plans and operation plans after taking inspiration from the Russian Spetsnaz Unit—the unit focused on Arctic and Taiga warfare, which was historically inspired by Cossack irregulars, the Norwegian FSK MJK winter reconnaissance unit who got their inspiration from Norway’s ski troops, and finally the Swedish SOG specializing in sabotage and defence tactics whose inspiration was the Gustavian Army, called the Swedes JÄGAR, specializing in forest-based guerrilla warfare and artillery mobility.

"Is there anything else?" Vijay asked as he looked at Ganesh.

Ganesh thought about it briefly and immediately nodded his head, "I have received the report that the construction of the Raya University in Kashyapamar is about to be completed, Your Majesty. The construction company sent a message that we can plan its inauguration very soon."

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"Good!"