Elenrian Schools of War

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Elenrian Schools of War

A relic from the days of the Sanshan Empire, the Elenrian Schools of War are- or rather, were- military schools of thought taught by the Nanshan Imperial Military Academy （南山帝國軍官學校） of the Sanshan imperial military, developed from the experiences and tactics of countless military campaigns carried out by the imperial military. Officers who attended the Nanshan Imperial Military Academy were to study in courses up to five or even eight years, during which they would familiarize themselves with all twelve schools and their applications.

Though senior officers origninally tended to be inselni who had been hardened by centuries of both studying and campaigning, the vast majority of graduates from the Nanshan Academy nevertheless remained fiercely competitive for their era with their longer-lived peers, innovating, improvising, and experimenting with tactics, technology, and strategies that much of the more cautiously conservative officers were slower to understand and adopt.

Understanding this issue, the Sanshan military sought out and promoted the first non-Inselni Martial officers out of proven candidates and junior officers and accordingly expanded the Sanshan Academy for them to experiment, theorize, apply, prove, and finally teach new cadets the products of their labor. Each ennobled Martial found themselves ruling not an estate, but instead entrusted with fortress-armories equipped with a small city’s worth of military industrial production to which they could commission new and specialized equipment and conduct their experiments.

With the advance of time, these officers would be reformed again when it was decided they would should be able to test their ideas directly upon the field of battle. Attached to the staff of generals leading soldiers on the frontline, these officers played a valuable role as advisors and assistants, both gaining battlefield experience in the field with their own commands under their general, while further developing and maturing their own ideas where they could be scrutinized for their effectiveness and appreciated by the more skeptical higher-ups. This was in addition to suppressing what the reigning monarch and the Imperial military’s senior officers as growing regionalism within the experiment armories, possibly threatening to boil over into becoming a force multiplier should a rebellion ever break out- a fact proven in the Seskara Uprising of 1532 after officers who believed their talents were squandered by senior officers who overlooked them assisted and abetted a small rebellion into into a well-organized insurrection.

The result of this integrated approach was a further centralized military and a growing emphasis on the constant adaption to changing conditions of war. Differing mindsets in application and practice did not mix well within the ranks until the Nanshan Academy fully integrated the experimental armories into formal branches within the Academy, serving as courses while retaining their original function of vigilant adaptation. The titles of nobility were stripped in place of a system based on merit and new cadets would from then on be required to study in each class for a combined course period of up to seven years, or ten to twelve for inselni, where they would then mostly serve as subordinate commanders of brigade-sized units until they were considered experienced enough to serve in a more senior position.

The final major development of the Schools were the innovation of the Colleges, specialized schools of thought that were developed by seasoned officers whose ideas had survived the the rigors of the battlefield and seen significant refinement. The Colleges were taken as guidelines by generals and other commanding officers for how their armies should be formed and organized, and would serve for centuries to come as the basis of future military strategy, from where food would be obtained to individual weapons to maneuver and the nature of engagements. These Colleges were ultimately combinations of variously emphasized Schools, designed to raise an army from the ground up into a carefully curated fighting force.


In the waning days of the Empire, the fall of the Academy and its scattered campuses during the civil wars meant that the extremely varied teachings of each School and their classes were no longer available, and though their teachings existed in writing within the Imperial Libraries in the Imperial heartlands of modern Elenria, the officers and instructors responsible for writing and updating these documents were lost to defection and casualties. As a result, many new graduates were left with the remains of the teachings the Academy still held, clutching to the remaining knowledge over past teachings, ironically leading them down the same path of cautious traditionalism in ideas that had founded the Academy’s Schools to begin with.

It is a tragedy of history’s path that the ruins of the once-esteemed Schools have been left to age in the sun within modern Touli. Though many of its graduates once proudly wore a crest of decorations and armor upon the field of battle, most now toil with their history in the recesses of memory as their scars are blotted out by coal dust and their worn hands, who once held a sword with finesse and elegance, are now pricked by the splinters of manual labor. Not all is forgotten though- many old Inselni of the Territorial Army recall the proud achievements of Nanshan Academy, and as Elenria stirs from dreary isolation as Kumosenkan’s prefecture in the face of the modern world, some wonder if the old teachings of the Empire might be useful once more.

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School of Engineering

“You need a bridge to cross a river, and walls to defend a city. To construct is as important as to burn.”
    - Martial Senonsa Pera Cona Sen(1723 - 1765), Master Engineer of the Imperial Beusont Army

The School of Engineering was founded in 1318 by military architect Rin Calia Tavos, (courtesy community name Feng Tai) in the modern-day province of Casinet Pora, beside the Bromsoll Bay and at a fork of the Nansen River. Headquartered at the now-defunct Seven Stars Imperial Fortress complex, the School of Engineering was responsible for the instruction of cadets on all forms of military engineering, from pontoon bridges to fortresses, as well as public works of infrastructure from irrigation projects to sewage systems. The school itself was divided into separate subjects to reflect these focuses:

- Subject of Siege (Combat Engineering)
The siege and taking of cities and fortresses in addition to combat engineering in general were critical focuses in many campaigns that the Sanshan Empire engaged in. Crossing rivers, sapping defenses, and building bases, were absolutely critical in military education and the geographical location of the School of Engineering provided an excellent location for cadets to practice and understand such needed skills. A notable focus was the importance of domestic specialists and choice of materials: cadets were to recruit locals who were familiar with the terrain and climate to make choices in material and decisions.

- Subject of Construction (Civil Engineering)
Sanshan civil engineering was considered a duty and required part of military knowledge in the expansion of the Empire. The imperial government was well acquainted with the problems of disease from poor sanitation and feared massive plagues from the start of their expansion. Newly conquered territories had the fighting armies immediately followed by armies of auxiliary troops, engineers, and laborers who were given the task of building everything from more permanent infrastructure such as roads and waterways for traffic and commerce to sewage and drainage networks to dispose of waste.

- Subject of Fortification
The greatest monuments to the Sanshan military imperial legacy most physically visible in the modern world are debatably the towering walls of their cities and elaborate tunnel systems of their fortresses. Cadets were instructed on not only the design and planning of fortresses, but also their employment: if no hill existed for a commander to build their fortification in a muddy swamp area, it was not uncommon to simply hire or even draft massive numbers of civilians workers to terraform artificial foundations so thousands of tons of brick and stone could be cemented and manned.

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School of the Infantry

“No matter what changes in war, the infantry will always be the ones holding the land.”
    - Unknown Officer at the 8th Battle of Keita (1412 IC)

From the records of the Schools of War that survived the collapse of the Sanshan Empire and were preserved in the Elenrian Libraries, it is strongly suggested that the School of the Infantry was among the first schools established, if not just a formalized organ of the military that preceded the Sanshan Empire. As one of the most important Schools of the Sanshan military, it maintained two campuses across the Empire: the primary campus at the Nanshan Academy, and another in the modern-day central UST. Both campuses were massive: records describe the campuses as small cities of marching cadets that generated vast numbers of professional officers in three to six year courses.

- Subject of Drill
The School of the Infantry was meant to instruct officers from the lieutenant to the general on curricula so they could raise their own armies and train them appropriately to their theater and situation. As a result, the curriculum revolved around a basic skeleton of essential regular formations, counters for existing known enemy formations if they were known, training regimen for the troops, and so forth. A notable decision was the implementation of theater-specific equipment that was to directly counter enemy advantages, and how to organize troops who had been equipped so. Furthermore were the more minute details: combat drill and tactics of the individual soldier were taught so a commander could be deployed and train their own army, often with their own small alterations to the training regimen.

- Subject of Combat
To the Sanshan, attacking and defending meant a carefully-planned operation that had to fulfill a number of criteria in order to be approved as a feasible expenditure of resources and material. Officers were taught that a 3 to 1 ratio was ideal: a small offensive force could be very easily isolated and destroyed, no matter how good the troops were. There was also the Five-Force policy, where the total number of troops in an attacking force had to be split into five distinct tasked units: Two to take or defend the objective, one reserve unit, one skirmishing unit, and one “containment” unit. The balance of a Five-Force force could be altered depending on the situation, but the idea remained the same.

- Subject of Garrison
In the case that a swath of land had to be defended from any sort of activity, the School of the Infantry provided its cadets with clear courses on the protection of everything from cities to resource points. The garrisoning units were defined in two grades: monitor, and containment. Garrison units were not meant to be used to push into hostile territory and in many cases not even fight enemy forces directly- instead they were meant to provide information in their local areas, record data on local terrain, provide security in case of bandit raids, and send messengers to the local army of any possible hostile activity. Conversely, the containment garrison units were meant to prevent the influence of an enemy force from expanding in regions where it may be too expensive or unfeasible to permanently eliminate a threat with a regular army.

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School of Terrain (Mobility & Maneuver)

“Move, move! If you wanted to be a sitting duck you should’ve joined the Engineers!”
    - Brigadier General Sen Inika Porina (1531 PI - 1581 PI), Commander of the Sen Cavalry Squadron at the Battle of Ins (1572 PI)

While cavalry and the importance of positioning and maneuver existed to an extent in the Sanshan Empire, the lessons of maneuvering units properly was harsh lesson that was only learned by the Sanshan military after three consecutive humiliating defeats by Niaoren skirmishers in 1412 IC. Sanshan forces failed to account for the hilly terrain they were fighting on and ended up separated from their cohesive units, then had their formations slashed by cavalry raids. As a result, the School of Terrain was established in the plains of modern-day northwestern Eleria, and standardized Sanshan cavalry soon thereafter became commonplace. Additionally, a Mobility Subject was added later, to teach the rather specific logistics of transportation.

- Subject of the Cavalry
Cavalry were a strange formation in a military in theaters where both combatants were capable of flight. Nevertheless, the extensive maneuverability offered by the horseback soldier was recognized by Sanshan commanders, and squadrons of scouts, skirmishers, lancers, and raiders existed alongside masses of heavy cavalry who proved to be devastatingly effective in open battle. Instructors at the School were however split on what form of cavalry to emphasize, and in the end the Subject was split into two wings: one to teach different forms of cavalry, and the other on how to use them. Overall, the Cavalry ended up being considered by senior Sanshan commanders as inefficient, but ultimately necessary.

- Subject of Maneuver (Battlefield Movement)
Students were taught that the ideal ground for battle depended on three factors: the kinds of troops fielded, whether the situation was one of defense or offense, and the climate and weather. In most cases, solid and open flat ground was preferred: Fighting formations were more cohesive, visibility largely unhindered, and easy movement. However, practical experience often showed that such advantages were impossible- rain would soften ground into mud, terrain was uneven, and fog coated the battlefield. In response, cavalry reconnaissance were to screen ahead of the army, and special attention was made to identify any place where an ambush or trap might be made: mountain roads where projectiles could be poured upon travelers below were noted and avoided where possible, enemy positions probed with skirmishers, and forces in general moved in smaller units that traveled in relatively close proximity and could respond or survive an attack on the marching column during deployment and during combat.

- Subject of Movement (Strategic Movement)
In general, students were taught that the deployment and movements of troops were to fulfill at least one of or more of three factors: ability to support and be supported by other units, coordinated movement, and the affordability of movement, or in other words the favorability of terrain. Great stress was placed upon the close communication of units to maintain a coherent fighting formation, and if a unit’s commander moved outside of the larger unit’s effective zone of communication, they were severely disciplined. Similarly, students were taught that outrunning the supply lines of the unit was though sometimes necessary, absolutely not a long-term solution. The “Two-Mule Rule” was introduced in this line of thinking: a week’s worth of supplies for one platoon could be carried on the back of a pair of mules, and in a pinch the mules could be butchered and consumed for protein, adding maybe a week to the lifespan of a platoon.

Once the two mules were eaten, the unit would have to carry all their gear on themselves, plus be ready to starve. The rule thus defined that a unit without its supply lines could last two weeks tops with its mules eaten, and before then it should be withdrawing to a point where it could resupply. Supplies could be stored in additional units, of course, but the rule remained: two weeks to gain resupply when the reserves were spent, or the unit would have to retreat to avoid starvation.