Chapter 876 A Slight Lull
?Chapter 876
In the following days after the battle, Alexander was in his camp finding himself inundated with a whole lot of work.
First and foremost, he had come to the conclusion that the ox pulled wagon strategy was a bust.
Which did somewhat put a bit of a damper on the man.
He had been quite excited by this idea when he first thought about it, thinking he had found a real life hack.
If it did work as he had intended, he would not have had to use infantry to protect the vulnerable crossbow units, but let the wooden wagon act like the shields, making them impassable for the enemy and freeing up his legionaries for use elsewhere.
But although a sound theory, when that met reality, well, the tactic did not pan out as Alexander had thought in his head.
Welp.
After that, Alexander had to come to an agreement about what to do with Hemicus and that last minute heavy charge the man made against his orders.
Which posed a bit of a dilemma for Alexander, as given on one hand the attack clearly showed its results, with a great many dead, while on the other hand, just because it worked this time did not mean it would work every other time.
It only took one failure to ruin the past ten successes and Alexander did not want his officers to be taking such great risks on their own whims.
But credit to Hemicus, when he was asked by Alexander to explain his reasoning, he presented his case very cleverly, not pointing to the result of his charge because the man had known Alexander long enough, but instead the reason behind it, saying that it was a move designed to 'help the legionaries retreat by preemptively destroying the enemy.'
That was a novel phrase coming out of Hemicus.
So, impressed by this articulate presentation, although Alexander knew this was more an excuse rather than a reason, he decided to let the man off with a knowing smirk and a simple warning, "If you are going to do something like this in the future, be sure to tell me beforehand. Do not do such things on your own."
Although Alexander was able to overlook Hemicus's little act, one other very important thing that he could not let off so easily was the Tibian nobles breaking and running away during the battle, despite the urging of Lord Theony.
That matter was indeed very grave.
And Alexander did have meetings questioning the nobles about it.
He had not also discussed the matter of succession to him, which would involve reinstating the post to Theony, leaving that eventuality for later.
Aside from these discussions and analysis, Alexander also went to see the wounded and injured, visiting the camp clinic to see how the men were doing and what types of new procedures had the doctors there been able to come up with.
The clinic was composed of a series of very large tents, each dedicated to different stages of medical care as the injured men were laid on makeshift cots, their faces etched with both pain and gratitude for the aid they were receiving.
The atmosphere inside was a juxtaposition of agony and hope, the moans of the wounded being punctuated by the soft-
spoken words of caregivers offering reassurance.
As Alexander entered, his nose was with a sharp stench made of blood, gore, herbal medicine, and soap, with the first thing he saw when he entered were many slaves with mops and buckets of soapy water constantly cleaning the floor.
His arrival caused a multitude of cheers, smiles, and even just grateful looks for the more injured to emanate from the vicinity, and here Alexander spent some time talking to and asking for the well being of the men, bringing great solace to these individuals,
They felt blessed to be able to personally talk to a man as high up the ladder as Alexander, with the more religious type even feeling like they were talking to a blessed of the gods.
Along with the injured of course, Alexander also roamed across the clinic observing and asking the various doctors about the ins and outs of their operation, how well they had been performing, and if there were any shortages of any herbs and medicines.
Alexander even watched a few 'surgeons' work on the more severely injured, although calling them butchers might have been more appropriate given the nature of their work.
Surgery usually consisted of one thing, cutting something off, which was always gruesome.
The procedure usually involved holding the person down with several strong men, putting a gag in his mouth so that he did not accidentally bite his tongue off, and then hacking the part off as fast as possible with a saw as sharp as possible.
To that effect these patiently were aided, by whatever small amount, by the fact the medical camp had access to Alexander's high quality steel, and thus were able to make tools such as saws sharper than anything out there, thus reducing the cutting time.
It was not much, but when you are being literally cut apart, every single microsecond helped.
And speaking of tools, Alexander got to see a whole of them, some old, but many new.
The most impressive thing that Alxx got to see was the implementation of a new kind of forceps, called Hemostatic Forceps, which were specially designed to literally clamp down on any severed blood vessel and stop the bleeding.
This practice was based on their newly found knowledge of blood vessels, as they discovered that blood flowed through the body in specialized 'tunnels' called blood vessels, and not at all like how it was previously imagined- which was that it flowed like the ebbs and tides of the sea.
Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!