Matchlocks and Northern Expedition (10)

Time passed, and before long the day arrived when 25,000 Joseon soldiers set out to punish the Jurchens.

The Commander-in-Chief of this army, Choe Yun-deok, stood atop a platform and looked down at the soldiers lined up in perfect ranks and files for inspection.

“They are truly a reassuring sight.”

Ever since formal drill training had been introduced, the Joseon army had changed completely.

In the past, all they could do was somehow gather and train a ragtag mob of men drafted for military service around a handful of elite soldiers and military officials, then form up and fight.

Now, everyone could form their ranks quickly and firmly as though they had become a single body, and every unit could coordinate its movements as if it were a single person.

Even Choe Yun-deok could not predict how strong these transformed soldiers would prove in actual combat...

But he had become convinced that, as long as their numbers were sufficient, they could fight and defeat even the Jurchens, the Japanese, or the Ming army.

“Commander-in-Chief, don’t the soldiers look truly valiant? They have done nothing more than match a single step and a single movement, yet look at them.”

“Isn’t that the most important thing? You, Chief Military Commissioner Yi Sun-mong, know better than anyone what separates an elite soldier from an ordinary one, so why say such a thing?”...