"Da da da……"
The sound of logging continued to be heard in the woods surrounding the hunting house.
After a week of running practice, the recruits finally got rid of this boring training and entered the next boring training schedule. However, they all know that these timbers will be built into the first outer wall of Fort Verde in the future, which will ensure the personal safety of them and their families when the Vikings invade. So it takes extra effort to do it.
After Simon actually inspected the entire territory in the past two days, he had a preliminary understanding of the resources in his territory.
If you want to build a large wooden fence and two wooden gates around the village of Verde, and build a preliminary wooden fortress outer wall and arrow tower wooden gate for your hunting house, your own forest will definitely suffer great damage, and various woodland derivatives will be destroyed. Resources will be significantly reduced accordingly.
This is no different from killing a chicken to retrieve the egg.
However, if you build a sharp wooden wall, an arrow tower and a large wooden door around the hunting house first, the wood required will be much less. When the villagers are in danger, they only need to hide in their wooden forts.
"I sometimes wonder, why isn't the tree in front of me a damn Viking? Then I can make this greedy and bloodthirsty pagan meet Satan with an ax!" A young recruit with a thick beard Looking at the thick calluses on his palms, he picked up the logging ax and chopped hard at the poor oak tree.
"Hey, kid, I just hope you don't wet your pants when you see the Vikings on the real battlefield, and don't vomit when you see the broken human corpses on the ground, then thank God!" Old Bauch said with a smile. Several older serfs who had been on the battlefield also laughed.
"Shut up and work! Today is the same as yesterday. The best group gets a piece of meat, and the worst group only gets a bowl of soup!" Behind the recruits, a fat man holding a big stick slowly said.
Everyone had no choice but to keep silent and silently speed up the progress.
It seems that these days, Simon and Fatty have been quite successful in training this group of lazy serfs who never know what discipline is.
…
At this time, in the newly cut open space next to the hunting house in Feld Village, Simon was walking with a piece of parchment with a simple topographic map of the hillside of the hunting house. Behind him was a serf carrying a basket of stones. Every ten steps Simon took, the serf took out a stone from the basket and placed it behind Simon's feet.
If you can look down from directly above the hunting house and connect the anchor stones placed by the serfs behind Simon, it will be a fairly standard rectangle. This is the basic base for building a fortress in the future.
"That's it, you did a good job." Simon watched the last stone being placed, gave the old farmer a copper coin, and then wiped the sweat on his forehead.
"Thank you, my generous and kind lord." The old farmer took the copper coin, his face almost burst into laughter.
"Hey, fat man, come here!" Simon waved to the fat man who was leaning on the old tree supervisor not far away.
"What's the matter, my young master?" The fat man immediately ran over.
"In the afternoon, we took out a group of people to dig a deep trench along the stones we just laid out. Although the terrain here is high, we can't yet divert water from the Rhine River to use as a moat, but we can fill the trench with small sharp wooden stakes. Simon squinted his eyes, thinking.
In fact, in addition to digging and laying out trap pits, Simon also planned to add gravel and lime to the excavated soil and some water to make a solid rammed earth city wall. But both the building materials and the steps were too troublesome, and I couldn't guarantee whether this method would be able to build a wall before the Vikings raided in the summer.
"It seems that I can only build a simple wooden fence initially, and then build scaffolding behind the fence to make a simple version of the city wall. I will have to wait until my territory becomes rich before considering anything else." Simon thought, smiling bitterly. He shook his head.
At this time, Elsa came over from the foot of the hill holding a bag of things.
"Master Simon, this is a hare that little Klein shot in the forest and roasted it over a campfire at Bill's place. Please ask me to bring it to you!" Elsa unwrapped a piece of greasy cloth wrapped in rabbit meat and said to Simon said.
"Thank you, Elsa, you can eat some too!" Simon said and started to tear the meat with his hands.
In front of the fragrant barbecue, this cute little girl still couldn't resist the temptation, and nodded without any politeness with a blushing face.
Seeing Elsa eating rabbit legs obediently beside him, Simon felt like he had a little peacock.
"Master, we are here to report and help." At this time, several free farmers and a woman came to Simon with hoes on their shoulders.
"Very good, go to the village chief to sign in and erect the sharp wooden fence with the recruits this afternoon." Simon ate the roast rabbit and stood up.
But after the surrounding free farmers dispersed to find the village chief, there was still a young couple standing in front of Simon.
"My dear lord, if I take my wife to work with me for fifteen days, in addition to tax reduction, can I give her an extra wage?" The young free farmer plucked up the courage to say.
"What? Your wife?" Simon then turned his attention to the woman behind him.
This woman is a native German. She has a broad square face and a thick frame, and the muscles on her body that have been tempered by long-term labor are as good as those of the new recruits. She had no shoes on, and her big muddy feet and thick legs were covered with thick hair.
"Master, please don't underestimate me," the woman said when she saw Simon looking at her, "I'm not the kind of delicate woman who will feel so tired after lifting two stones."
Indeed, in this era, only women from relatively wealthy aristocratic families were relatively delicate and did not do rough work. Most of the other women were as tall and muscular as the woman in front of them.
Simon looked at Elsa next to him. Although she didn't do much heavy work as the village chief's daughter, she could see a bit like that woman.
"No problem, just follow along and I will pay you extra wages when the time comes." Simon nodded.
…
The project progressed quickly this week.
The recruits cut out a large open space around the hunting house, and dug a trench nearly two meters wide and deep around the house with the house as the center. By this time nearly one-fifth of the pointed wooden fence had been erected.
"My lord, I think that in addition to building a warehouse to store grain and sundries in our new wooden fort, we also need to build a well. Otherwise, once we encounter a siege, everyone will suffer from dehydration and shock!" The village chief accidentally came to Gande. On the busy construction site, he frowned and pointed out the problem to Simon.
"Oh, thank you for the reminder, village chief!" Simon has been very busy recently, and it is inevitable that there will be some mistakes in the new castle.
"By the way, village chief, I want to entrust you with something." Simon called to the village chief who was about to go to the fields to supervise the serfs' work.
"What's the matter, Master Simon?" The village chief stopped in confusion.
"I would like to trouble you to take a few recruits and take the animal skins and most of the wool accumulated in the village warehouse to the port of the economically developed Principality of Friesland in the north to sell it. Then find the local weapon maker to buy some kite shields. Short Axe, mace," Simon looked at the drawing in his hand and added, "The parchment and ink in the village are running out. If you can, drop by the monastery and buy some."
"Okay, Master Simon, I'll go do the inventory and set off in the next two days." The village chief nodded, stroking his beard and walking towards the counting house.
"Master, I once heard my uncle say that if you build a new castle, you must write a document and send it to the palace. Otherwise, building a castle privately is illegal and may be confiscated by the king!" The fat man was slightly worried. The ground reminded Simon.
It turned out that if crenels were to be built on the city wall, the nature of the wooden castle would change from a wooden wall to a small castle. This requires writing instructions and sending someone to send the instructions to the palace, requesting the king's approval, and issuing a "permit to open the crenellation". Otherwise, the castle would be illegal, and the king had the right to confiscate the castle, even if it was just an extremely small wooden castle.
"Then before the village chief leaves, ask him to write one first. When the castle is almost repaired and everyone can hide in the strong wooden castle and behind the strong militiamen when the village is attacked, I will personally go there with the explanation document. Go to the palace and ask the king for permission." Simon thought for a while.
There was no way, now the only people in the village who could ride horses were him and Fatty, plus an unskilled little Klein. At present, all affairs and construction in the village are inseparable from the two of them, and they can only leave after everything is almost completed.
…
In addition to supervising the construction of the wooden castle, Simon will also go to the large meadows by the river to train little Klein how to ride horses.
Simon recalled what his father often said to the playful little Simon when he was a child. If a child from a noble family did not learn to ride a horse before the age of twelve, then according to tradition, he would be sent to a monastery to become a monk.
Although little Klein was not born into a noble family, since he wanted to be a noble attendant, riding a horse was an indispensable skill for him.
"This horse stinks so much!" Little Klein stepped on the stirrups with difficulty and got on the horse with Simon's help.
"Stop talking nonsense, this is your closest partner!" Simon knocked on his little head.
After all, he was a beginner, so little Klein often fell off his horse. Fortunately, the training ground was soft grass, so there was no serious problem.
"Your reins are held too high, lower them! Don't keep your eyes on the horse, look at the road ahead!"
"Don't be nervous, relax, don't squeeze your legs so tightly, be more natural!"
"Don't hold the reins too tight. Didn't you see that you were pulling the horse's mouth just now?"
Little Klein is quite talented. After overcoming many common mistakes, he was finally able to ride a short distance on his own.
"You have learned well these days. When you become proficient in it, I will teach you how to use a lance on a horse." Simon looked at this smart little guy with satisfaction.
