Some desertion sure - 80 and 90 percent? No way - especially since staying together means you can protect the food you are growing and can beat off marauders and desperate people looking for food
and in this case they would be getting fed - i.e. they are in cantonments and getting fed thru that whole period - its not till after April that it becomes apparent there is going to be a big time problem with getting food -
look at A Rock in Troubled Waters - per that article there is no problem feeding the soldiers and civilians in southern NJ - and they have comparatively easy duty with the State Militia to back them up - and yet they desert in huge numbers compared to say the 43rd who was surrounded on all sides by marauders and hostile forces but still was in pretty good shape right up to the April 2001 mutiny
and if anything after it was known that food was going to be tight it would be a bigger incentive to hang together - good luck keeping any food you grow if its you and your M-16 at your family farm holding off thousands of hungry people
on the other hand 1000 massed M-16's protecting the fields and food supplies in your cantonment probably would do the job easily
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