Perturabo stood upon a temporary wooden platform, his expression cold as he looked down at the militia below. They were training in marksmanship and various military skills recorded in the manuals Perturabo had written himself.
Father Mikhail stood beside him, watching the men assembled to defend Perturabograd. Under a regime of absolute discipline, these soldiers loyal to Perturabo followed every protocol and tactic with the mechanical precision of puppets. This was exactly what Perturabo required of them.
With the collective recognition of the Kislevite lords, Perturabo was now the master of the rising city—both in name and in practice. He had become a lord of the city named after himself, the first in millennia to rise to power through such calculated means.
The ascent of Perturabograd benefited the villagers who had transitioned into citizens. Though Perturabo himself remained indifferent to the commoners, the people of Perturabograd adored their new ruler, guided by the influence of his respected foster father. They were willing to die for him.
Perturabo neither rejected nor encouraged this devotion. He maintained a posture of polite detachment. To him, the commoners were like gears within the intricate machines he designed—part of a grand plan to reshape the backward medieval world of Kislev into a paradise of science and reason. They were functional, but not irreplaceable.
Perturabo possessed ample wealth and a territory to rule as he pleased. He lacked only an army—a force under his direct command that would be invincible under his leadership.
In his mind, this army would be entirely different from the cavalry of the Kislevite lords who brandished swords and spears. It would be a new army of gunpowder and steel.
This force would not follow the tradition of being farmers in spring and soldiers in autumn. The vast wealth Perturabo earned through the arms trade allowed him to establish a professional standing army entirely removed from agricultural production. These soldiers received a salary from their ruler, allowing them to devote themselves fully to perfecting their military skills.
Perturabo would not equip his core troops with what he considered obsolete cold weapons. He intended to use this army to open a new era for Kislev—a century dominated by gunpowder and steel, where pastoral idylls became a memory of the past.
The musket was not an entirely foreign concept to the people of Kislev. Matchlock muskets, ignited by a lit cord and black powder, were the most common variety. Their greatest weakness was rain and humidity; in damp weather, the matchcord would fail to stay lit, rendered the weapon useless.
Furthermore, the power of this black powder was weak. The range and accuracy of a matchlock musket were often inferior to a bow or crossbow—at least, a trained archer or a skilled hunter could reliably hit a target, which was a difficult feat with a crude musket.
Consequently, the Kislevite lords found muskets less effective than bows. The disadvantages were too significant. They preferred to spend their gold recruiting hunters as archers rather than forming musket units.
For Perturabo, these weaknesses were solvable. The innate knowledge within his mind provided the solutions. In his strategic vision, improved firearms and artillery were the essential tools to bridge the gap between his new recruits and the battle-hardened veterans of the other lords.
Perturabo did not discard black powder. He refined it. He knew how to transform the crude mixture into a potent propellant that would define a new age.
After his refinements, the explosive efficiency of the powder improved significantly, greatly increasing the effective range. In massed volleys, the lethality of these firearms far surpassed that of bows and crossbows. This was the effect Perturabo sought.
He then turned his attention to the matchlock itself. The primary issue was the unreliable matchcord. Perturabo modified the design, removing the cord and replacing it with a metal hammer and a piece of flint. Upon firing, a spring-loaded mechanism struck the flint against a steel plate near the touchhole, creating sparks to ignite the powder and discharge the bullet.
It was a simple modification. Perturabo knew he could create even more advanced weaponry, but in his eyes, this simple flintlock was sufficient to crush the armies of the Kislevite lords. There was no need to exert further effort on more complex designs yet.
With the issues of powder and firearms resolved, the method by which Perturabo's new army would defeat the old forces became clear. It was the "Line Tactic," a method that had appeared on Ancient Terra thirty thousand years ago and would now be resurrected in Kislev.
The infantry would be deployed in thin, overlapping lines of two or three ranks. Artillery would provide supporting fire from the flanks or between the lines, while cavalry protected the wings of the infantry mass. Under the cover of cannons, the infantry would advance with a slow, steady, and unstoppable pace.
This was Perturabo's new army—a force requiring extreme discipline. The soldiers were not permitted to think; each man was a replaceable gear in a war machine.
Perturabo was confident in his ability to enforce this discipline. During training, he utilized the harsh punishments common in Kislev to break the individual spirit of his soldiers. This army, devoid of independent thought or judgment, was exactly what he desired. He could execute any complex tactic he devised without hesitation or opposition.
To distinguish his loyal new army from the sword-wielding old guard and symbolize the arrival of a new age, Perturabo gave the force a name that would be spoken for ten thousand years.
"Streltsi," or the "Kislevite Streltsi." This was the name of the rising army—the title of the future mortal auxiliaries of the Fourth Legion, the mortal soldiers who would accompany the Son of Perturabo through the Great Crusade and the Great Heresy.