Early spring in March, the weather has begun to warm up.
At the stream in front of the wooden castle in the valley, Tuba came here with two soldiers with heavy steps. He bent down and buried his head in the stream, desperately pumping the cool stream water into his mouth that was about to spit out fire. He slowly raised his head until his stomach was filled with clean water and turned over and collapsed on the lawn beside the stream. The two soldiers beside Tuba had no strength to climb to the stream to drink water.
Not long after, several more figures ran towards Tuba and the others along the stream bank.
Why lord tortured us so much?
Tuba gasped and said, "Colin, didn't you hear what Lord Odo said? Last year, they were chased by a group of bandits in the mountains and forests for an entire afternoon. If we run more now, we won't be able to defeat them in the future. At least we can still run away. Besides, it's not like you haven't seen Jason being trained by Chief Ron. How cruel. "
"Yes~ Sir Ron, be more ruthless to yourself~"
Matt and Odo followed the fleeing team. Each of them carried a big wooden stick in their hands, and any soldier they chased immediately hit them with a stick.
Odo and the others were almost exhausted from running. Starting after lunch today, and now as the sun sets, they have been chasing the soldiers back and forth between the wooden castle and the edge of the northern dense forest. Several weaker soldiers have already collapsed on the way. What awaits them will be a hungry night without food.
Odo slowed down the pace of chasing the soldiers, came to Art's side and gasped: "Sir, I'm afraid it's too much for us to train the soldiers like this? Besides, will we still be chased all afternoon?"
Since the soldiers were seriously damaged in the last encounter at Wincheston Manor, Art has been exploring better battle formations. In the end, Art did not expect a battle formation that was suitable for the current patrol. However, Art was certain that this was an era of fighting and physical strength. The main reason why he was able to win the battle last time was that his soldiers were all hard-working men who had always endured hardships. Their combat skills were not good but their physical strength was much higher than that of their opponents.
"Odo, do you think I am really training soldiers to escape? I use this method to train the soldiers' physical strength and endurance. We can only use stronger physical strength to make up for the shortcomings in the soldiers' personal combat skills. Besides, we only train like this once every three days. I have already told Emma to add more meat to dinner so that everyone can eat better."
Seven or eight oak round shields painted black are neatly placed on the wood pile in the open space of the wooden castle, waiting to dry. The old carpenter Bud is making the round shields together with the butler Cooper. They used tools such as hand axes, wood saws, chisels and planes to make wooden boards of different lengths about one and a half inches thick from basically seasoned oak and elm wood. They used several rivets to splice the boards to two beams, then trimmed and polished their edges into a round shape two feet in diameter, then painted them with black dye, and finally added wooden handles and adjustable length straps between the two beams.
This batch of newly made wooden bucklers is stronger and more durable than the ones made last time, but because there are too few people who can do carpentry, the two old guys can only make one such wooden buckler a day at most. This speed is because a lot of wood was left behind during the previous road construction, which saved the process of collecting wood.
While drilling holes in the beam with a chisel, Bard asked Cooper, who was trimming the round shield next to him: "Old steward, why don't you make a square shield? That kind of shield is much faster to make and can cover the whole body." The four corners of the square shield will also hinder the use of stabbing weapons. This kind of round shield does not have this problem. If the round shield is firmly fixed with rivets and is inlaid with an iron convex in the center, the edges are wrapped with iron strips, and the surface is covered with leather, it will be stronger. But we don’t have this ability now, so we can only use rivets and wooden beams to splice it together. "
In Cooper's cabin in the wooden castle.
The chopping, sawing and planing outside woke up Simon who was lying on the wooden bed. He struggled to sit up and leaned against the wooden wall, pinching his empty left sleeve with his right hand. Simon, who had been lying on this bed for more than twenty days, was already disheartened. His survival over the years was all due to his strength and his courage to fight and kill without fear of death. He followed this patrol officer northward, firstly to avoid disaster, and secondly, hoping to fight for a future with this patrolman. But now all of that is gone. Simon, who has lost his arm, feels like a waste. He can't farm or sell goods and do business. He feels that what awaits him will be eviction and wandering...
Ron's sister Camille ran from the wooden castle courtyard to the open space in front of the big wooden house with a handful of goat-feeding grass in her hand, "Grandpa Butler, Uncle Simon is in the fields again."
"This careless guy!" Cooper dropped his work and ran into the small courtyard with Camille. When he saw Simon, who had just recovered from his injury, came out to commit suicide again, he quickly rushed to help the man who was missing an arm. "Simon, why did you get out of bed again? Your wound has finally scabbed, and it will open again if you move."
"Old housekeeper, I really can't stand this kind of life anymore. What's the difference between lying in bed every day and being dead."
"Old housekeeper, please let me go. Rather than staying here like a beggar and waiting for others to give alms, I'd rather go out and be eaten by wild wolves." Simon cried and begged Cooper to let him go.
Cooper's face grew darker and darker, and he shouted loudly: "Are you still a man? You've been showing off like a bitch all day long. What's wrong with having no arms? Did you starve to death or freeze to death without arms? It's not easy to die, but it's difficult to live. You coward, it's a shame that my master still plans to reuse you!"
"I think the old housekeeper has told you that I plan to station a few soldiers on the border area from Tyniec to Provence to set up a checkpoint. Firstly, it will make it easier for us to control the security in the border area. Secondly, it is also to collect some entry taxes from passing caravan vendors and obtain cheap goods from them. In addition, the business travelers who come and go are the most well-informed. Through this checkpoint, we can collect information from the north and south." "But this matter is not urgent. There is war in the south and bandits are rampant in the north. There are no caravans and vendors willing to come to the north to trade. In addition, your injury has not healed yet, and my team is short of soldiers, so it will have to wait for a while."
"In addition, I will retain your salary as the leader of the combat team..."
The frown on Simon's face finally eased, and he choked and struggled from the bed, "My lord~"
Art stopped him and was about to kneel on the ground. Simon thanked him and said: "Simon, I said I will not treat everyone who has shed blood for me..."
While the two people in the house were talking, in the large open space outside the wooden castle, Odo was holding a wooden stick to supervise the improved battle formation training of the patrol soldiers. I saw him taking a few steps in front of a guy standing in front of the line, and slapped him with a stick.
"Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate! You are in the battle formation, who the hell asked you to run so fast? Are you in a hurry to die? Go back and do it all over again!"
The beaten soldier quickly got up and touched the place where he was beaten and returned to the shield formation.
This time, the march of the contradictory line formation was finally more orderly and strict. Otto corrected several obvious wrong moves in the contradictory line formation, explained the key points of the movements, and then let each team train alone. "Okay, each team will train the contradictory line formation and personal combat skills separately."
After completing basic training, Lawrence had to rush back to the valley to continue organizing farmers to plow the land. Ron also left with his only soldier to train alone.
Seeing that the third team's exclusive training ground was vacated, Odo took off the buckler hanging on his back, walked into the queue and came to the two soldiers.
Contradictory line array, array.
“Roar!” The six soldiers of the two combat groups of the third team stood in a line, with two punches between them.
"Defensive charge!"
"Roar!" The six soldiers raised the round shield to their chests, leaned forward, stepped back half a step with their right legs to touch the ground, and rested the short spears in their hands on the upper right edge of the round shield.
herdie in ″ Roar! Roar! Roar !” The six soldiers thrust forward with their short spears.
"Defend from arrows!"
“Roar!” The six soldiers were divided into two close combat groups. The leader of the combat team squatted halfway to protect his chest, while the other two stood and squatted respectively to protect the front and bottom. Viewed from the front, this formation looks like two rows of shields with three shields in each row.
"End the defense and prepare to face the enemy!"
"Roar!" The two combat groups in a defensive posture returned to a line formation and turned into a defensive charging formation.
"Fill the gap!" Odo withdrew from the formation, Quan Dang had been killed and left a gap in the tight battle formation.
"Roar~" Odo had just withdrawn, and the soldiers on the left and right moved towards the empty space to fill the gap.
Otto left the team, came to the opposite side of the crowd, nodded with satisfaction, and said: "After more than twenty days of training, you bastards finally look good. Okay, now let's do some personal combat training. Today I will teach you how to cut the enemy in half with a battle ax~"
Two open spaces The sounds of battle formation training of the first and second teams also came from the side...
On the unfinished carriageway half a mile north of the wooden castle, Ron was using dry horse dung to smoke the horn rifle in his hand under Jason's guidance.
Ron was blinded by the thick smoke of horse manure, "Ahem, Jason, can this method work?"
“Sir Ron, these two captured walking bows have not been used for who knows how many years. The bow strings and bow bones are already a little soft. They must be smoked with horse dung before they can be returned to the bow.” Jason turned the unstrung bow bones in his hand to ensure that they were evenly smoked.
"I didn't expect that you are bad at riding a horse and fighting, but you are very familiar with bows and arrows. The master said that you will be our archer from now on, and the master will also take the time to train you and me personally."
Jason was the soldier who was kicked out of the three squads. He luckily stabbed an enemy to death in Wincheston Manor, but in the subsequent confrontation he panicked and forgot to cooperate during battle formation training. Because he failed to keep up with the main attacker in time, Bass, the main attacker, had a hole poked in his right leg by a serf holding a wooden fork. Afterwards, at Bass's strong request, Jason was replaced during the new round of soldier assignments. Several other officers who had seen Jason's poor performance in training and combat were unwilling to accept this "harmful spirit." However, Art remembered that this young man was the son of a hunter and should have some foundation in archery, so after a long circle, Jason returned to Ron and became Art's bodyguard and also trained archers.
Ever since he missed the captain of the third team, Ron has been competing with himself. He worked hard every day to train his personal combat skills and equestrian skills. Since he was Art's direct guard, and Art not only had to supervise and guide the training of soldiers, but also deal with affairs in the wooden castle, so he could only find time after intensive training to find Art to teach bow, horse, sword and shield, and then go down and practice hard on his own. The horses in the wooden castle were used to train soldiers in basic riding skills. The horses and mules were used to plow the land, so Ron had to use a large donkey that had been begged for separate riding training.
So everyone could see Ron and Jason, who had completed basic training, riding donkeys on this carriage road every day, wielding long swords and short spears to hack and slash at the thatched people standing on both sides of the road. Jason, who was slow to react, fell off the donkey's back again and again, and climbed up on the donkey's back again and again amidst Ron's curses...
The warm spring of the valley has come quietly due to the hard work and arduous training of everyone in Mubao.