"...This order from the palace makes me both happy and worried. According to the regulations of the palace, the viscount in the border area can have 300 private soldiers (personal standing armed forces), plus 200 county soldiers in the viscount's fiefdom, which means that I can legally and reasonably control an army of 500, but this scale is obviously not enough. The Welsh Army alone has more than 600 people. Think about it again Continuing to expand the army will easily arouse the suspicion of the palace. This time, the palace suddenly asked me to form a southern border garrison with 500 soldiers. Adding my private soldiers and county soldiers, this is one thousand. Then there are the patrol soldiers under the patrol officers, the security soldiers under the police officers, and the private soldiers of the lords at all levels under the viscount. The number of troops I can legally maintain has exceeded 1,500. "
"But these 1,500 soldiers are also 1,500 gold-eating beasts. In normal times, three Tynets cannot raise 1,500 soldiers with normal means. Supporting the more than 600 horses of the Welsh Army has already drained our efforts. How can it be easy to form another frontier army? It's so frustrating!"
Art walked on the wall of the city of Tynets County, thinking about the palace's order to form a new army, and talked softly with the adjutant Odo who was following him.
It was February, and the harshest chill had faded. The gentle breeze and rising sun above the town of Tynets caused a thin layer of sweat to break out on their foreheads. Odo, who was following behind him, couldn't help but pull the collar of his mask and robe to let the cold air blow into the lining to relieve the heat. "Sir, Tynets is not an important town or fortress. Provence in the south has been having diplomatic relations with Counties for so many years. Okay, who should we defend with such a large army? Of course, we hope that the larger the army, the better, but what does the palace want? Originally, I thought that the palace might be worried about the army in Kodor Province, but a stone castle in the canyon can resist the invasion of the Kodor army, not to mention the army in the Longxia Mountains."
Matt stopped and looked back at the subordinate who had followed him for five years. The lowly commoner who struggled to make ends meet by working hard in the labor shack outside the city of Lucesien was gone. He was replaced by an excellent commander who had experienced battles and an independent-thinking lord (knight). Odo's body was still strong, his cheeks were still thin, and his beard was still thick. Several shallow or deep scars dotted his cheeks, which looked very vicissitudes of life.
"Odo, you are the first person to follow me and the person I trust most. There are some things I can tell you - I have become a sharp sword, a sharp sword used to fight against the old power of the country." Art said word by word.
"Sword? Old forces? You mean the new king wants to deal with Baldwin~" Otto stopped, he found that his voice was a bit loud.
“Soldiers, you two go to patrol the city.” Odo loudly ordered the county soldiers standing guard at the city not far away.
The county soldiers knew that these were high-ranking officers and did not dare to disobey the order. They quickly pulled another county soldier on sentry duty away from this section of the city wall.
There were no ears or eyes around after the county soldiers left. Odo looked around and then approached Art, "Sir, you are saying that the Count of Flanders is going to take action against the old forces of the Baldwin faction? This~"
There are some things that Art still planned to reveal to his most core cronies, so that they would be mentally prepared. "Odo, for now, these things will not happen. After all, the war between the East and the West is not over yet. The old and new forces must be allies before Flanders takes over the entire Burgundy country and canonizes the throne."
“What happens next? For the Baldwin faction who are deeply rooted in the North, Flanders has always been a foreign monarch. If Flanders wants to get rid of the constraints and completely control the country, then he will definitely re-shuffle power..."
"Baldwin is another person who doesn't know how to be patient and restrained. He has begun to show the tendency to restrain the new king. Do you think the new king will keep him with peace of mind?"
As Art said, he remembered the scene of kneeling in front of Baldwin, and a feeling of nausea emerged again.
"So the palace allows you to continue to expand your strength, with the intention of future..." Odo understood quickly, and he didn't say much else.
"This is also an excellent opportunity for us, but as you just said, raising a thousand troops is not easy. You see, just hanging the lives of more than 4,000 refugees outside the city is a difficult task." Odo looked at the long line of refugees outside the city to receive life-saving soup, and sighed heavily.
"Put aside the formation of the Southern Xinjiang Army for now. We must take advantage of the temporary lull in the war between the east and west borders to repair and restore the army. What is more important than building the army is to build the territory. An army without money, food, supplies, weapons and armor will not be any better than these refugees." Art looked south along the refugee camp outside the crenellations of the city wall.
Matt suddenly thought of something again. He looked back and asked Odo intentionally or unintentionally, "I heard that there are two factions, the old and the new, in our Wells Legion? You are the adjutant of the legion. Have you heard of these things?" There are some slight differences between the old guys from the period and the young officers who came out of the military academy~"
"We are still a small number of people, and these problems are just symptoms, but in the future when the number of people increases, more problems will definitely arise. You are the adjutant of the army, and there are some things that you should tell the guys more appropriately than me. These symptoms must be eliminated as soon as possible!"
Under the four walls of Tyniec County are all shabby shacks, where more than 4,000 refugees who were unable to escape from the war in the North gathered here to survive.
Him Half a month ago, Tynets County had stopped providing relief to refugees. The small city of Tynets was really unable to afford relief food for thousands of refugees. The refugees who had been struggling for more than ten days had planned to return north to beg for work when they saw no hope of relief. However, a few days ago, a team from the south began to distribute relief food.
Although the so-called relief food is only a clear soup and wheat paste that is so thin that the silhouette of a person can be seen every day, this is a rare luxury for these desperate refugees.
After eating two meals of relief food to stabilize people's hearts, a few officials-like people came out of the team to recruit workers among the refugees. The officials made it clear that they were officials under a lord named Art Wood Wells in the south. In order to prevent the poor refugees from starving to death, they provided food and recruited everyone to work.
The job to be recruited is very simple - to repair the North-South Highway for that lord; the salary to be recruited is also very simple - to provide a meal of thick soup and wheat paste plus half a pound of rye or grains every day.
A meal of thick soup and wheat paste can save one's life, and half a pound of rough rye can save the lives of his wife and children. This job can be regarded as saving the crisis of many refugee families. In one day, 300 young and strong refugees applied for recruitment, and thousands more refugees rushed to the recruitment point.
In the open space outside the shack in the south of the city, a dozen soldiers wearing cotton armor and holding short spears guarded two tents filled with food bags. This was the food that had just been transferred from Wincheston Manor after receiving the authorization from Art today.
There were many refugees salivating and staring at these tents outside the tents. No one dared to come forward to rob them because the heads of the guys who robbed them yesterday were still hanging on the roofs of the tents.
There are three long broken wooden tables near the tent. Behind each long table there are two or three officials and soldiers registering the refugees who have come to apply for recruitment.
Behind a wooden table in the middle, a thin old man with a gray beard was carefully flipping through a large pile of birch bark. Another younger, middle-aged man explained to the old man respectfully, "Old housekeeper, the three hundred young men recruited yesterday have been brought to Wincheston Manor by the Geer brothers. They will immediately start repairing the road from Wincheston Manor to Lane Manor; those who have been recruited just after noon today Two hundred and eighty people, I estimate that I can recruit about 500 people today. I will send someone to bring them back to Wincheston Manor before evening. "
The old man is Art's housekeeper Cooper. After arriving in Tyniec yesterday, Art learned about the "relief for work" arrangement of the Civil Affairs Bureau.
"Lynn, starting from this afternoon, the salary for recruiting laborers will be reduced to one meal of wheat paste and one-third of a pound of rye." Old Cooper gave the birch bark back to Linn and gave an order.
"Cutting wages? These wages are already low enough. If it is reduced further, many people may not be willing to work." In normal times, a laborer's daily salary can buy about four pounds of rye. Nowadays, half a pound of rye and a meal of wheat paste are cheap enough.
"This is the master's order. Our recruitment of labor is only a temporary strategy. The ultimate goal is to recruit the people. If the refugees who are willing to stay for one-third of a pound of food every day are the ones who really have no way to survive, only such people will be down-to-earth and obediently serve as the people in Tyniec. Otherwise, when the war subsides in the future, everyone will clamor to return to the North, then won't our hard work be in vain?"
Lynn thought about it carefully, and it seemed to make some sense, so he said no more. He turned around and explained the new salary to the recruited officials. Sure enough, some people stopped waiting in line after hearing that the salary would be reduced again...
Viscount Pierre, the former county chief of Tyniec, County of Burgundy, sat blankly on the armchair in the office room, looking up at the candlestick on the ceiling.
As early as three days ago, he had received the order letter from Besançon. The Count of Flanders, who had not yet been recognized, had been impatient to divide the land among the lords and arrange his own power. This made Pierre very angry and helpless.
册封宫廷子爵，看似是晋升了爵位，实际上是完全架空了自己，从一个拥有一定实权的直属郡境郡长变成一个只有一座庄园的宫廷勋贵，这样的安排只要不是瞎子都能看懂。
There is no way, Pierre's tragedy will always come from the deceased Marquis of Ivrea. Regardless of whether he joins Flanders's formation or not, Pierre is unlikely to gain the trust of the new monarch, Flanders. After all, he was the chief of the palace guard of the Marquis of Ivrea, and it is impossible for a new monarch to reuse the old monarch's cronies.
Pierre's eyes were dull, and he just stared blankly at the candlestick hanging from the ceiling. After six or seven years of business operation, he still failed to make this remote border county prosperous. He was unwilling but powerless.
“What shouldn’t belong to me is finally lost~” Pierre let out a long sigh.
At this time, Sir Jerry, Pierre's inner knight and captain of the bodyguard, opened the door and walked in, "My lord, Viscount Arter has not sent anyone to take over the city defense and treasury yet. There is still 180,000 pfennigs in the treasury, which is what is left after the back tax forcibly collected from the county and handed over to the palace last year. Do you think we are~"
< br/> Pierre came back to his senses, "Since Mr. Art is interested, let's be polite and leave 30,000 pfennigs to Viscount Art, and take away all the remaining 150,000. After six or seven years of hard work, there must be something harvested. Otherwise, how can I be willing to accept it, and how can Viscount Art be relieved~"
Pierre said bleakly.
“What about those county soldiers and the weapons and armor in the arsenal?” Jerry knew that the two hundred county soldiers in Tyniec were Pierre’s greatest achievement. In recent years, he could barely manage with only two hundred county soldiers.
"Take away all our trusted officers among the county soldiers, and keep the rest of the soldiers and all the weapons and armor. They exchanged this for us with 150,000 pfennigs. We have to understand it ourselves. What's more, what is the use of these county soldiers? Do I still dare to station troops outside the city of Besançon? "
Jerry nodded, "In addition, Viscount Ater sent a message saying that he will not be stationed in Tinets for the time being. Let us stay for a while longer and hold a banquet for you to celebrate your promotion to Palace Viscount after he has finished his duties."
Pierre snorted, "The whole of Tynets is his territory, why should I stay here? I have already packed my luggage and told the servants that we will leave Tynets at noon tomorrow. I have had enough of this ghost place."
…..
On February 20th, Viscount Pierre left Tyniec County with ten fully loaded four-wheeled carriages, ten servants and more than thirty personal bodyguards, and embarked on the road north to the newly entrusted territory.
After reluctantly seeing off Viscount Pierre, Art issued a transfer order to transfer hundreds of soldiers from the Welsh Army temporarily stationed at Lane Manor to the county town of Tyniec (they did not enter the city, but camped outside the city), and then issued a peace notice and sent people to spread the news throughout the territory...