>But that still seems to leave the Heortlings on the short end of
>the stick militarily: each tribe can field a militia of only 1500
>men? I have a gut feeling that this is rather low. But again, I'm
>not a military historian.
Don't forget that half the population are children, so 20% is pretty much every able-bodied adult male. That's a high percentage in any culture, the Lunars will have more troops but as a percentage of the population much less - probably only 5-10%. You could argue that the Heortling militia is a bit larger because some women will also fight, maybe another hundred or two in the average tribe. Conversely I wouldn't expect the entire tribal militia to be mustered in any one place. The primary purpose of the clan fyrd is to protect the clan tula which is rarely served by marching off somewhere else, so the average tribal chief would be doing well to muster 1000 in one place.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
Powered by hypermail