Knight and Wand

Chapter 154: Second Army Building, Team Creation

Leon liquidated the funds in his hands.

He now has about 5077 gold crowns, but Selva only has 177 in his treasury.

This was naturally not the feudal lord's default on his debt, but Baron Elliver came and went in a hurry, and he certainly would not carry so many coins with him, so he gave him 4900 Orland gold coins first, and the remaining gold crowns would be delivered to him by knights from Achersburg later.

However, it is in the form of an equal amount of Kantadar gold coins.

Obviously, before the war, the Thornflower family had spent a large amount of the Orland Gold Crown they held on the war, so most of the cash they currently have probably comes from the funds looted from this gamble.

I wonder how much the former Lord of Achesburg, who might have been fighting on the front line in Mamor, would shed tears when he heard the devastating news that his hometown had been robbed.

Leon was also truly alerted by the vivid example before his eyes.

As the saying goes, if my neighbor stores grain, I store guns. My neighbor is my granary.

He didn't want to throw all his wealth into the vault to gather dust, and repeat the tragedy of making wedding clothes for others. Leon would not feel sorry for spending money on building an armed force to protect his current family, friends and home.

The armor and weapons currently in the barracks arsenal are enough to fully arm more than 50 professional warriors equipped with iron helmets and chain mail blouses, arm guards and greaves, spears and various types of shields.

The source of soldiers is also simple. They can be recruited directly from the soldiers who experienced the Battle of Longka in the three territories.

Adequately equipped and having gone through a bloody trial, these young and strong men now only lack a period of more professional and intensive training.

He was not afraid of not being able to recruit soldiers, as long as he did not delay paying them. The annual salary of a professional soldier, 11 gold crowns a year, was enough to make people flock to him.

However, as early as when calculating the rewards for killing the enemies, the conscripts who performed well in the Battle of Longca were also roughly recorded, and Leon would recruit the best from among the warriors.

In this way, after everyone's calculations, the annual maintenance costs of more than fifty chain mail spear infantrymen, such as military pay, food and fodder, are about 680 gold crowns.

In addition to the main infantry, the archer corps, which had suffered serious casualties, also needed to be reinforced.

The Battle of Longka also demonstrated how effective long-range projectile weapons are at killing unarmored targets under the right conditions.

But compared to infantry, recruiting longbowmen is much more difficult. There are very few people who can shoot a bow. And it takes at least two or three years to train civilians who can't shoot into qualified archers from scratch. The cycle of effort and reward is too long. Leon understands why mercenaries are so popular on this continent.

Oftentimes, faced with an imminent war, it is impractical for lords to train a technical force from scratch, and it is more efficient to spend money to hire ready-made professional mercenaries to fight, just like the support provided by Sir Redo's troops in the Battle of Lonca.

"Sir, since you have sufficient funds and you don't plan to recruit mercenaries, I suggest you send someone to River Valley County to find the Craftsmen's Guild of Silver Mountain City to order a batch of light crossbows. The training ground and shooting range in the barracks are already usable. In just three months, I can train a group of qualified crossbowmen for you." Old Brian suggested confidently.

"Is there anything different about the crossbows there?" Leon asked.

He remembered that he could also buy crossbows from the Chamber of Commerce in Farolis City, but he didn't know why they had to go to the neighboring county instead. It was such a long way away, and the cost of transportation would be even higher.

"The skills of the Silver Mountain City Artisan Guild were learned from the last master craftsman of the 'Heraen' people who passed away in the history of the kingdom. Although the crossbows and other equipment they made are expensive, their quality is far superior to that of ordinary craftsmen." Old Blair explained.

"Master dwarf craftsman?" Leon perked up after hearing that, but noticed the price mentioned by Brian, and couldn't help asking, "How expensive will it be?"

"The price of the famous 'Turning Point Crossbow' in Silver Mountain City is too exaggerated, but Selva doesn't need such a luxurious weapon. It's just a light crossbow of ordinary structure. Although the cost is still far higher than ordinary crossbows, the number we need is not large. It is still cost-effective to bear its price and the combat benefits it brings.

After all, the cost of training another group of archers may be far more than the price of purchasing light crossbows, provided that their current market price has not changed much from the past. "Brian recalled his past memories and answered carefully: "I estimate that the price of a light crossbow produced in Silver Mountain City should be around 20 gold crowns now."

Leon's brows twitched slightly in shock.

A complete set of chain mail infantry equipment with helmet, arm guards and greaves on the market only costs five gold crowns, while a light crossbow produced in Silver Mountain is enough to fully arm four armored infantrymen.

According to Brian, to train a troop equipped with thirty Silver Mountain light crossbows, it would be best to equip the crossbowmen with tower shields, light armor, and portable swords.

There were quite a few personal weapons in the arsenal, but the archer's tower shield and light armor had to be purchased separately, and the cost of arming this type of crossbowman would be as high as twenty-five gold crowns per person.

In this way, another 750 gold coins will be spent like water.

This was only the one-time expense of establishing the army, which would be mixed with the scarce archers afterwards. The annual maintenance cost of this fully staffed archer detachment of about 45 people would be over 600 gold coins.

Although he was surprised, after careful discussion, Leon approved the plan to train crossbowmen.

In the Battle of Longka, if there had been archers who were as good as the enemy and had taken advantage of the terrain, the Wolf Lord's conscripted soldiers would have been shot and forced to flee before they even engaged the enemy.

According to Brian, the arrows fired by the Silver Mountain Light Crossbow are powerful enough to pose a threat to ordinary armored soldiers. Moreover, ordinary armored infantrymen are not equipped as thoroughly as the Knights. Arrows can fly directly into areas that are not covered by armor and take the life of a burly elite infantryman.

After calculating the cost, this can be said to be quite cost-effective. Of course, the premise is that it is commanded properly.

After formulating a plan to recruit chainmail spearmen and crossbowmen, Leon next turned his attention to a force that was more important than the first two.

That's naturally the cavalry.

Now, Sir Redo and his squire had left his team, and the young man from Anquila who had helped in the battle and repaid his gratitude had also returned to Elifer at Wachterburg.

After losing these four foreign aids, including the armor and horse gear used by Leon himself, he currently has a total of 26 war horses and 30 sets of heavy armor with complete parts.

There were quite a few ordinary riding pack horses, but those animals purchased for use as sentinels and for daily labor and carrying goods were not considered "war beasts" and could not withstand the high-intensity driving of heavy cavalry.

In terms of the number of riders, there were himself, Corvis, the six heavily armored guards who learned horsemanship from him on a daily basis, as well as Olivia and old Brian, Azerien and Lohak, and the servants they each accepted after the Battle of Lonka.

In total, there are fourteen heavy cavalrymen, but there are still twelve empty war mounts that need to recruit riders to expand the team.

In this way, the order of building the army is naturally to build the cavalry as guards first, followed by elite crossbowmen equipped with Silver Mountain crossbows, and finally ordinary chain mail infantry.

This time, the candidates for the Guards Cavalry no longer have to go through Leon's trial like the original six.

However, during their training, they can only receive the same salary as ordinary soldiers. Only when they have passed the riding test and proved themselves to be real heavy cavalry rather than mounted heavy infantry, will they receive the salary that an elite cavalry deserves.

Of course, Leon did not intend to block the opportunity for his soldiers to try to be promoted as quickly as possible.

As usual, he welcomes his warriors to challenge him.

As long as there is someone who can survive five sword strikes from him, who is now a Knight of the Order of Arms under normal circumstances, without being defeated.

That way, he could still become a member of the initial guards like Zabron and others, and enjoy the generous income after the six guards received a salary increase.

The regular guards have received a pay raise.

The six guards' exploits and loyalty in Longka proved that he could entrust his flag and his back to them.

Now that I, as the lord, have become rich, I will certainly not forget to improve the treatment of my personal guards.

But they are not the only ones who receive high salaries.

Not to mention Leon himself, Lohak, and Azerien, who were independent of the public account allocation as lords. Among the elite cavalry in the territory, the one with the highest income was Old Brian.

Out of respect for his future father-in-law, who played an irreplaceable role in commanding and building the army, Leon could not help but give the old centurion a standard salary of a genuine knight of the inner court.

That is ninety gold coins per year.

Next in line are Olivia and Corvis, whose annual salary will be equivalent to the market price of hiring heavy cavalry, which is forty-three gold coins per year.

In fact, Leon originally wanted Olivia, the first "Baturu" under his command, and Corvis, the "Chief Warlock", to receive the same knight-level treatment as Uncle Brian.

The girl was the first to capture the general, and Corvis's magic power supply was the key to Leon's successful charge.

However, the two men refused, and Leon reluctantly allowed these two great contributors to accept the annual salary of forty-three gold crowns.

Considering that he had other plans for everyone, he did not force his lover and partner to accept the high salary.

Then there were the guards like Zabron and Hawke.

The annual salary of the six people increased from twenty-four gold coins to thirty gold coins.

Finally, there are the knight squires that Azerien and Lohak each accepted. The two men from Pleyton will enjoy the same standard annual salary as ordinary Selva Guards, which is about twenty-one gold coins.

But it’s not Leon who will pay the money.

Azerien and Lohak will use the allocated funds and the income from their fiefdoms to support their respective retainers.

Although according to convention and tradition, most servants do not receive any salary while serving their masters, these two brave men from Pleyton who survived the Battle of Lonca are not servants who have followed their masters since childhood in the traditional sense. They are much older than Azerien and Lohak, and their martial arts skills meet the standards of cavalry. Therefore, everyone thinks that it is more in line with people's wishes to treat them as truly independent soldiers and give them corresponding treatment.

Including the ten future guards, the basic salary expenses of the cavalry troop add up to 608 gold crowns to be issued each year.

Because the pastures of the three territories were not large enough and the number of livestock on the territories seriously exceeded the carrying capacity of the pastures, the maintenance cost of the twenty-six war horses also soared to nearly four hundred gold coins per year.

It cost more than a thousand gold coins to maintain a mere twenty-six heavy cavalrymen, and this was not a one-time construction investment to buy equipment such as the Silver Mountain Crossbow.

But this time, Leon would rather spend a lot of money to keep the horse than sell it. On the contrary, if he trained enough riders in the future, he wanted to be thick-skinned and ask Baron Elliver to buy back the warhorse he sold last time.

Selva has changed from a deserted mountain valley to a frontier area with many disputes.

Expanding the cavalry is an urgent need. After all, whether in the past life or in the present world, heavy cavalry is the trump card that almost dominates the cold weapon battlefield.

Even though there were many cases of heavy cavalry failing in history, the reason why those cases became famous was precisely because the creators of such great achievements left a deep impression on people's hearts that the "weak" defeated the "strong".

The mobility of cavalry is crucial in determining the initiative in battle and the outcome of a battle.

Especially heavy cavalry.

Leon still remembered that he had watched a ridiculous program in his previous life that was about nonsense, the so-called "Mongolian light cavalry sweeping across European plate-armored knights."

As a young boy at that time, he was quite shocked to see the Mongolian light cavalry wearing only Hu clothing, shooting bows and arrows and beating the plate-armored knights. It was not until later that he learned from real historical materials that the "plate-armored knights" who were shot into sieves by the grassland archers in the rumor-like program animation happened at least a hundred years after the Mongol Westward Expedition.

The European knights who faced the Mongol Empire at that time were just a group of horse-riding bumpkins wearing chain mail robes, but what these Eastern European bumpkins had to face was the most luxuriously equipped, most powerful and largest heavily armored cavalry in the world at that time, the real main force of the Mongol Empire to sweep the world.

In the past, the heavy cavalry on Earth was powerful and dominated the battlefield until the improvement of gunpowder weapons, the power of bullets and the popularization of machine guns.

And this is apparently still the case on the land where he lives now.

Especially since he woke up from the time travel, Leon had never even heard of the existence of gunpowder.

The closest thing to gunpowder in the previous life is the alchemical crystal that Corvis used, which can trigger elemental reactions.

I really don't know if the formula of one nitrate, two sulfur and three charcoal still works in this world. Leon thought about it and decided to give it a try when he had the chance.

Charcoal is simple, and although the first two have no similar names heard in the world, perhaps there are similar isotopic substitute materials?

But leaving aside the gunpowder weapons that have disappeared for the moment, there are things on this continent that can threaten heavy cavalry.

The most direct one is "magic".

Whether it's Isa's arrows, Amon's fire snakes, or Mette's strange spells that transform him into a monster, they are all extremely dangerous to ordinary knights.

Leon could not estimate how powerful the ancient civilization of Lorelit, where Miss Lola was born, was.

But Lorelit had disappeared without a trace long ago, and this land no longer belonged to the era of magic. There were only a dozen or so warlock masters in the Northern Kingdom with a population of over ten million, and there were more than thousands of knights of honor like Orland who were as powerful as supermen. This did not even include the martial artists like Olivia who might not have the title of knight yet in the folk.

Excluding rare magic, in terms of pure violence, the only other things that could shake the status of knights and heavy cavalry, as far as Leon himself was concerned, were probably the giant beasts that he had either seen with his own eyes or heard of.

For example, the mountain bear he escaped from.

For example, the griffin that rescued Selva.

For example, the so-called "dragons" whose true form he has not yet seen.

The greasy look of Goliath suddenly flashed through Leon's mind, and he couldn't help but close his eyes and pinch his nose.

Since it was Laura who saw through the other party's true identity, he certainly would not question the judgment of this ancient magic king.

It's just that it's really hard to connect the elegant and cool giant mythical creatures in the magic book illustrations with the bard's despicable behavior.

The long territory meeting was over. It was expected that a standing army of about 100 people would be established. At least 3,000 gold coins would be burned this year. Leon, feeling emotional about the military expenditure, went to the backyard of the house after the meeting and summoned the three soldiers who had witnessed Canis' death and had been under the supervision of Zabron and others during this period.

The three men were surrounded by six guards, their expressions showing visibly anxiety, as if they were worried about being punished by the lord because of some secrets they accidentally learned. It was obvious that the house arrest during this period had caused them to have wild thoughts.

"Don't be nervous." Leon smiled at them.

He finally had some time to deal with this not-so-small "hidden danger".

Even if it were leaked, no madman would believe that a small country lord could bring back the deceased intact from the afterlife imagined by the world.

But just in case, he still had to ask the three people in front of him to keep their mouths shut.

In the previous life, there really were fools who believed "I am Qin Shi Huang, I am Chen Oxi", so there is no guarantee that there are no such fools in this different world who just happen to be lucky enough to succeed.

However, he would not slash the guards' necks in a way that even the dead would not speak to keep his own secrets.

That was not his style, and as a matter of fact, he had already made the dead speak.

(End of this chapter)