More than a month after the border conflict ended, three major events happened in the valley.
The first major event was that the Dean family sent people to Boulder Town half a month ago to deliver a ransom of 60,000 pfennigs and five fine horses and harnesses. Art fulfilled his promise and released the palace guard knight Dean, who had been detained for more than half a month. The conflict between Art and the Dean family was temporarily relieved;
The second major event was the news from several trading guilds in the North. In early August, the Southern Goods Trading Guilds in Lucerne and Besancon in the northern Counties of Burgundy officially invited "Baron Galvin's Eastern Caravan" to join the guild. The size of the caravan is fifteen carriages. After becoming a member of the guild, the caravan will enjoy the Southern Goods sales market of the guild and promise to accept the constraints of the guild. Art only needs to pay a dues of one thousand pfennigs for this, and Art is officially established in the Southern Goods trade;
The third major event was that Art expanded his army. From the beginning of the eradication of bandits in May this year to the complete subsidence of border conflicts in August, Art's army experienced several months of non-stop fighting and suffered heavy losses in soldiers and equipment. In order to restore and expand its strength, Art sent a caravan out to purchase a large number of weapons, armor, fine iron leather and other materials after receiving a ransom of 60,000 pfennigs from the Dean family. After the weapons and equipment were repaired and replenished, Art led Odo, Angus and others to conduct a new round of reorganization and expansion of the army.
As a standing (professional) soldier, the Legion is the main force in the battle. Taking advantage of the relatively peaceful situation outside the valley during this period, Art transferred some veterans of the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons to mix with the new recruits, and restored the organization of the 1st Squadron, with Colin as the squadron leader. , a newly recruited young mercenary named Roger Muller was the first squad leader, and the other squad captain was a veteran who survived the battle in Boulder Town; the fourth squadron was also successfully formed due to Ron's return, with Ron as the squadron leader, and Andrew and a veteran who had recovered from injury as the squad leader. At this point, the number of legion infantry under Art's command reached four squadrons and sixty people.
In addition, due to the arrival of Jafar and the five war horses sent by the Dean family, Art expanded the size of the sentry team to eight horses, with Lusignan and Jafar serving as captains and deputy captains respectively.
Jason's leg injury has basically recovered after a few months of rest. Although he walks with a slight limp, this will not weaken an archer's combat effectiveness. After Jason's return, the crossbow team has eight crossbowmen.
After the baggage officer Spencer recovered from his injury, the baggage corps was rebuilt. Now the baggage corps is equipped with an clerk who is proficient in writing and can calculate, and three "medics" who have been taught healing techniques by Thomas Farnaz.
In addition to legions, the size of border outposts, patrols, and valley guards has been expanded. The standing garrison at the border outpost has been expanded to fifteen people, and fifteen additional peasant soldiers have been added to the border outpost, for a total of thirty people; the number of soldiers in the Jushi Town garrison (patrol team) has been expanded to fifteen people. If there are not enough patrols, temporary dispatch can be requested to the valley; the name of the valley guard has been changed The Valley Guard Corps is currently just an empty frame, composed of the original standing peasant soldiers of the Guard Corps. Bass, who has been determined not to return to the Corps, serves as the commander of the Guard Corps. Until he recovers from his injury and can barely fight, Scott and Lawrence are responsible for the training and recruitment of the Guard Corps.
In total, the number of standing troops (including standing peasants and soldiers) in At's hands has exceeded one hundred, and the valley garrison can be expanded to more than sixty people in wartime. This kind of strength has far exceeded the upper limit of a knight, and is even close to the power of a weak baron.
These are still the apparent numbers of the army, because in the dense forest of the valley in the southwest of Tyniec County, there is still a "special army" of about fifty people controlled by Ater. This "special army" has been much calmer recently, because last time they looted a farm and harvested a lot of food and supplies.
In addition to the above three major events, there are also some big things in the valley, Boulder Town and the border outpost.
First of all, the two knight fiefs of the Valley and the Border Outpost started a new round of refugee recruitment. Because the bandits in the county were suppressed and the food production in the south was reduced due to the war, hungry refugees bypassed the interception of the Provence army and began to flee north in large numbers. The border post has become a camp for refugees to stop and rest. After receiving a batch of food purchased through the caravan, Simon and Benjamin began to select and recruit a large number of young refugees. Some of these refugees were left behind. After crossing the border, they were registered as subjects, and most of the rest were sent to the Valley Knight Territory to become farmers. The number of subjects in the two knight fiefs of Yate reached more than 160 households, and more than 540 people (excluding the army, craftsmen, and war slaves). The border and Boulder Town continued to recruit refugees, and caravans also continued to purchase food and materials from the North and transported them to various territories to support the expansion of Yate.
A letter from Tynets County raised questions about the behavior of the palace guard knight Art Wood Wells in expanding his power beyond the number of knights' soldiers. However, as the palace struggle became increasingly fierce, there was no time to take care of a small lord in the remote south, so Art ignored it.
Secondly, a second village named Kutim (meaning riverside) was built three miles south of the Valley Knights' Valley Village. Due to the terrain, the Valley Village can only accommodate fifty households, and the newly built village has a relatively flat terrain. Civil Affairs Officer Cooper and Construction Manager Lawrence took a team A group of people carved out a large area of land on a river bank that was not easy to cultivate, and built a fence. More than eighty farmers separated from the valley area built thatched sheds and wooden houses inside the fence. Most of the farmers here were newly recruited refugees who had just been allocated land and were not able to produce their own food. The food and supporting farm tools and livestock they needed to survive were temporarily provided by the civil administration.
The last thing that happened was that the over-fertilized land that Ate asked Simon to tidy up when he inspected the border post at the beginning of the year harvested nearly twice the amount of food that the barren land should produce. This was a big deal. When the grain was harvested, Art personally took the parish priest Hamish to the border post to harvest the grain on the small piece of land and grind the grain into flour to make delicious bread in front of everyone.
Hamish knew what Art meant by taking him to the border, so after eating the bread made from the grain produced in that land, Hamish expressed great admiration for God's miracle and reported the miracle to the Diocese of Tyniec. The Diocese of Tyniec did not comment on this. After receiving acquiescence, Art began to conduct retting experiments in the valley. He began to apply manure from the land that Cooper had cultivated south of the wooden castle. When several farmers covered their noses and dumped the human and animal excrement piled in the barrels into the field, more than twenty farmers who were selected to watch and learn all showed up. They had strange expressions on their faces, and it was obvious that they could not accept this kind of thing for a while, but this was considered a good start...
The heat is still lingering in this valley in southern central Europe.
In the wooden castle school in the valley, layers of sweat broke out on the forehead of Bangada, the captain of the third squadron. This was not only because of the unbearable heat, but also because the line symbols drawn by Father Hamish on the wooden boards in the school were too complicated and difficult to read.
Bangada had crushed the charcoal rod in his hand to pieces, tilted his head and asked Klaus, who was twisting and turning beside him: "Klaus, do you remember what those words mean?"
Klaus wiped the sweat from his forehead and grinned and replied: "If I knew what these crooked things meant, I wouldn't have been fined a week's military pay."
Bangeda blinked and moved his gaze from Klaus's face to Andrew, the first captain of the new Fourth Squadron. He muttered with a flat mouth: "Why do you think Andrew is so good? He can write down the priest's professor's words every day."
Klaus was also a little unbelievable, "Do you think he is the son of a woodcutter? He shouldn't hide his identity, right? Maybe he is the second son of a nobleman or a monk who was kicked out of a church college? "
"It's impossible. When we were guarding Tarburg in the east, there were conscripted peasant soldiers from the same village with him. Everyone called him Andrew the Woodcutter."
"Hey, God gave us the same strong body, but also gave him a smart mind."
"Okay, let's treat him to a few glasses of fruit wine after dinner and let him talk to us alone about what we learned today, otherwise we will be fined and forfeited military pay when we test writing tomorrow morning. What do you mean, civilians are not allowed to learn writing every day, do we still need to praise the Bible~" Klaus said with a hint of complaint in his tone.
"This is an order from my lord, do you dare not listen? You are not forced to sit here alone, even several peasant and soldier captains of the guard are sitting here." Bangeda looked around at the people sitting in the school who were also sweating and frowning.
This is a microcosm of Art's training for his officers. After the reorganization and expansion of the army was completed, Art supervised the officers' training of the legion soldiers, and at the same time led Angus and Odo to personally conduct individual training for the officers above the legion squad leader. During the weekdays, Art led the troops to conduct physical endurance, personal combat skills, and military formation coordination training in the wilderness outside Beiguan Army Fort. On Sundays, when the soldiers were grooming, Art took the officers back to the parish school in the wooden castle in the valley to be taught by Father Hamish. Of course, he would also take time to teach the officers some commonly used tactical vocabulary.
This kind of special training is too difficult for officers who have never had the opportunity to learn to read. Coupled with some deep-rooted ideas, many officers are not able to accept it. Fortunately, Art had already begun to try to teach them writing. With the confiscation of military pay, naming and criticism, and promotion restrictions, the officers had no choice but to sit in the narrow schoolroom and listen to the boring symbols of the priest and professor, while thinking about whether to go to the tavern in the wooden castle to drink a few glasses of fruit wine at night...
…..
In the official room of the Lord's Mansion in the Valley Wooden Castle, Art was talking to the son of the bandit leader Redoan, "Matthew, this is something your father asked someone to bring you. I guess your mother sewed it for you herself." Art handed a cotton lining to the young man across the table.
Matthew took the clothes and held them in his hands without saying anything for a long time.
"Tell me, why don't you want to stay in the parish school?" Art sat on the armchair with his hands folded and stared at the guy opposite.
Matthew took a breath and summoned up the courage to reply: "Sir, I don't want to be with those kids in the school. I want to go out to fight with you."
Matt smiled, "Children? They are not children. Those guys will be the commanders of our army in the future. And the officials in charge of the territory, if you can study hard and train hard like them, I will let you become an officer or the steward of the territory in the future. "
Matthew's face turned red, "Master, I~I can't sit still. I am imprisoned in the room every day and listen to the priest's nagging. I feel like I am going crazy."
"So you fight with the guys in the school and let me expel you from the school in this way?"
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"Do you know how happy your parents were when they learned that you had the opportunity to learn letters from a priest and receive training as a knight's squire? Your father was an honest farmer and became a robber in order to keep you alive. Do you still want to continue to be a robber in the future? Your mother will come to live in the valley next month. What are you going to tell her then?" Art raised his voice.
Matthew was a little excited after hearing this, and retorted: "Master, I have no intention of continuing to be a robber. I just want to join your army and be a soldier. Anyway, Father Hamish also said that I am not suitable to continue to stay in the school~"
After hearing this, Art couldn't laugh or cry. The son of the bandit leader was born with a warlike spirit. When he was a bandit, he dared to break into the camp alone. Now he was admitted to the parish school. He had to fight with the apprentices every day, which made the apprentices in the school very afraid of this "barbarian."
Matt thought for a moment, pulled out a list of words that officers need to learn, handed it to Matthew, and said: "This is a list of words that officers need to learn. There are fifty words in total. If you can learn them all within a month, I will make an exception and include you in the legion and stay with me as a personal guard. I don't require you to stay in the school this month. No matter what method you use to learn these words, come to me in a month."
Matthew stood up and took a piece of parchment densely written with words from Art's hand. He frowned for a moment, then looked up and looked at Art firmly, "Master, don't forget what you said in a month."
Matt put his fist on his hand. He said in his heart, "I guarantee the honor of the knight."
"Okay, sir, I believe you."
………………
The tavern of Emma's house in the wooden castle in the valley was very lively today.
Almost all the legion officers and soldiers who had spare money returned to the valley. These people could afford expensive drinks and delicious food.
In the hut of the tavern, Colin was drinking with several veterans of the First Squadron and the new squad leader Roger who had just joined.
“Roger, are you really the miller’s son?” Colin asked.
This time I originally planned to hide my identity and follow Captain Geer as a caravan guard, but soon after I joined, I was accidentally selected to stay at the outpost. At that time, the outpost was about to be captured by those mercenaries. In order to survive, I had to..."
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