Chapter 475 - 469: An Extraordinary Gift
The calculation of military achievements within the army has a very complicated algorithm, which varies with position.
For a common soldier, beheading enemies of the Third Level is counted as a great achievement and warrants a promotion by one rank. However, for a Commander, even if he killed hundreds of ordinary soldiers, it might not even count as a minor achievement. This shows the strictness of the calculation of military achievements.
Even under such a strict system of calculation, Ye Zhen undeniably earned the greatest military achievement in the Eastern Expedition.
No one could question this, not even Gu Zhaoge, the Marshal of the Eastern Expedition Army.
For this reason, the second greatest military achievement of this Eastern Expedition still went to the Left Army, to its Vice Commander Zhou Zhen.
There was no helping it. The Left Army had taken the lead in breakthroughs and captured the most cities, granting them an innate advantage in terms of military achievements.
From Ye Zhen and Zhou Zhen downwards, almost every officer and soldier of the Left Army gained considerable military achievements. At the very least, they were eligible for a promotion by one rank. The family of those who died in the battle received even more substantial compensation due to the military achievements earned.
Take Liu Datong’s son, Liu Hu, for example. At the start of the battle, he was only a Captain commanding a few hundred men, but he fought bravely and had a bit of strategy, also inheriting his father Liu Datong’s caution.
With the subtle favoritism from Vice Commander Zhou Zhen during the war, even before the end of the conflict, Liu Hu had been promoted on the spot to Captain of two thousand five hundred men.
Now that the war had concluded, his accumulated military achievements could even promote him to Deputy General, a Deputy General commanding ten thousand troops.