The act of placing soldiers in a fort or town to defend it, or occupying a location with military forces.
From garrison (noun/verb) plus -ing. Garrison comes from Old French 'garnison' meaning equipment or supplies, and later came to mean a garrison of soldiers stationed to defend a place.
During wars, commanders had to carefully calculate how many troops to station in each garrison—too few and it falls to enemies, too many and you weaken your main army. It's like a military chess game played across an entire country.
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