Berserk, Total War: Second Son of Nobles

After two weeks of bumpy journey, John returned to the forest.

"We will arrange workshops for these craftsmen according to their abilities. If there are no workshops, we will build them in the industrial zone. The territory is currently very poor and lacks everything." John took the craftsmen to the workshop area and arranged places for them to live and work. Then John quickly opened the system to check his tasks.

In the task bar, the htb module task has been completed, so John can now build htb buildings and recruit htb troops.

The Holy Order of Jonesburg, the Swiss Guards...

All kinds of confusing types of soldiers challenged John's knowledge base, and he realized that he could currently recruit so many types of soldiers.

"Forget it, let's not think about it for now." John decided to solve the current soldier problem first.

According to statistics, the population of Forest Territory is more than 60,000, but there are 20,000 regular soldiers, which means three people support one soldier. The reason why they can survive here without their economy collapsing is mainly because John robbed enough.

It is definitely not acceptable for these soldiers not to work in the territory and spend the whole day either patrolling or training, but it would also be a huge waste if they were directly dismissed.

So John decided to set up a mercenary company, letting Charlie, who is now leading the Black Watch Mercenary Group, be the commander and Simon be in charge of financial operations. He would incorporate some soldiers into the mercenary team to form a systematic operating mechanism, reduce unnecessary costs, and thus compete with other rivals in the mercenary market.

Currently, most mercenary groups are formed by retired soldiers, vagrants, fellow villagers, and armed gangs. Although they can unite the team to a certain extent, they are inefficient, have different levels of training, and have uneven quality.

But the system's soldiers can guarantee both quantity and quality (provided you have money), and can also guarantee loyalty. Relying on the large number and high-quality troops, John is confident that he can establish a good reputation in the mercenary market.

The second thing was territory construction. Because the newly acquired Count Franche-Comté was too dangerous, John did not plan to send people to take over immediately. Instead, he first consolidated the territory he had so that he could ensure that his homeland would not be breached by the enemy after he led his troops to the Count's territory.

John first planned to upgrade the military barracks and alchemy workshop so that he could train stronger infantry and gunpowder troops. This would not only be effective against ordinary soldiers, but also against apostles. If magic was not enough, he would have to make up for it with firepower.

So, under John's idea, the first mercenary company was established in Mond, the closest city to the Forest Territory, and its name was Black Watch. On the first day of opening, all the nobles and merchants of Mond, big and small, came to see the origins of this mercenary company.

When he saw that this was invested and built by the Governor of Midland, he immediately began to flatter him.

Simon, who was in charge of the opening, knew at a glance that these people did not take them seriously at all, so he prepared to take them to the military camp to see the soldiers.

"We soldiers have fought with Governor John in Balden, and many of our troops have fought against Yoda's troops, so our capabilities are unquestionable. In addition, our equipment is made of the same material as the Midland army. We even hired officers from Governor John to train us." Simon brought a group of noble businessmen to the military camp to observe the soldiers who were training.

When everyone saw it, they thought, oh, that means we can hire a group of soldiers similar to the Midland army. However, they were still skeptical, but were soon intimidated by the heavy cavalry charge. Who would dare to rent out their own heavy cavalry?

Simon saw that there was hope, so he took them to visit the training of archers, crossbowmen and other soldiers.

After observing for a while, everyone felt that these soldiers were comparable to the army in terms of training level and weapons and equipment.

"Then may I ask, what is the price for hiring soldiers?" asked a businessman, because the trade routes have been in trouble recently and there have been many robbers.

"Since we have just opened, we only accept contracts for escorting caravans. We pay based on the type of soldiers you hire and the route. For example, it takes about two weeks to travel from Mond to Provan. If you hire 100 infantrymen, the price for one week is 10 gold coins, so the round trip is four weeks, which is 40 gold coins."

The merchants were delighted when they heard this. Although the profit from the goods they sold was relatively small, they could pool their money together. Several merchants could come up with the price of hiring 100 soldiers to provide escort.

"Is there anyone who can help me wipe out the robbers? Recently, a group of robbers appeared in my territory from nowhere, and they often rob my people outside my territory. But I don't have the money to recruit a standing army to clear them out, and other unofficial mercenaries are not reliable. Can you hire some of your soldiers to help them?" said a noble. The bandit problem affects not only the trade routes, but also the territories of various nobles to some extent.

"That's not the case yet. We are currently working on other employment contracts and I believe that will be available in the future," Simon said while making a note of the matter.

After visiting the army, some merchants who were preparing to transport goods came to Simon in groups of three or five to sign contracts. They were usually from cities such as Provins and Windham. There were also some from Mond to Balden Binsey. They came purely to give money. Basically, the entire countryside of West Balden was actually controlled by John, and even if there were robbers, they were in disguise.

So on the opening day, Simon earned about 800 gold coins, and once he distributed the money, more clients would soon come to hire him.

The emergence of mercenary companies has, to a certain extent, provided a systematic platform for the powerful and wealthy, and has also seized part of the market, arousing the vigilance of many peers.

But if they fight him openly, they will not get any good results as they are invested by nobles. If they play dirty tricks on them or pretend to be robbers to rob them, they will not be pushovers either. They know their own strengths and weaknesses. The capable mercenaries have long been incorporated into the army and have a stable job. They can only bully small businessmen and ordinary people at most.

So after a few days of operation, the mercenary company officially took root in Mond. In addition to those who came to hire, there were also some people who wanted to apply to be mercenaries. However, when they saw that only forest residents were being recruited, they felt very strange. This was not recruiting mercenaries at all, but more like recruiting regular soldiers from their own territory.

Therefore, many people privately called the Forest Territory the source of mercenaries. Some bards, in order to make up stories, magicalized the Forest Territory and directly called it the Kingdom of Mercenaries in the stories. They described the residents there as tough, brave and fearless, which reasonably explained why John was able to win the battle.