After Lange's wedding, Simon did not stay long and returned to his territory impatiently.
Under the escort of elite guards, no group of blind robbers dared to block the road and rob. Finally, after two days of hard work, Simon returned to his territory safely.
Now, he needs someone who can write to help him draft an alliance document. In addition to the priest in Esbaiburg and Father John in Woldburg, Ludwig, who lives in the village of Koosel, seems to be a good choice. After all, he has been a bard for more than ten years. This thing should be It's hard for him.
Ludwig's new home is on the outskirts of the village of Kooser. His farm and the serf family who cultivated the land for him are located on the gentle hills beside the Rhine River. It is covered with fluffy green grass and dots of groves. The scenery is really beautiful.
His new house is a recently built long log house. Before that, the houses where the serfs lived here were cramped and filled with a lot of rotting rushes and excrement. For a baron's vassal, it was really inappropriate to live in such a bad house, so Simon specially approved a new building for him. Got a home.
Next to Ludwig's new house, a not-so-high pointed log wall surrounded the house airtightly, leaving only a solid gate next to the main road. There is a simple arrow tower inside the pointed wooden wall, and a bow-wielding militia wearing a worn-out leather hat is standing guard on it.
In addition, there are small granaries and wells surrounded by stones in the wall, as well as a small room for the garrison soldiers to live.
In this way, if bandits, bandits, or even an enemy's plundering team comes to this place, the serfs living nearby can urgently use this small manor as a refuge to wait for reinforcements from Simon's army instead of Left at home to die like a lamb to the slaughter.
In fact, there is far more than one small stronghold like this in Simon's barony.
Simon asked all the knights in the baron to renovate their lord's houses like this, and repeatedly told them that they must always have a certain amount of surplus food in the granary within the wall.
It can be predicted that when the enemy's army attacks Simon's territory, small manor strongholds like this will become the most troublesome to them - the attackers will either disperse their troops and besiege these manors one by one, or they will wait to be captured by the manors. The soldiers took the initiative to cut off the supply line.
"Praise Jesus, Ludwig, it's been so long," Simon led the servant to the study and met his spy chief who was writing at his desk. "Is there any new news recently?"
"Blessed by God, my lord," Ludwig gently put down his pen, stood up, walked to the table nearby and poured two glasses of red wine, "There has been peace in the territory recently. We have eliminated a few They are suspicious people, and their various behaviors seem to be to spy on intelligence, so we invite them to be guests and enjoy a feast in the dark dungeon as always. Without exception, they are almost all spies sent by Lange. As for Outside the territory..."
"Stop being so pretentious!" Simon took the red wine from Ludwig, shook the glass and took a sip.
"I heard the news from the spies in Cologne. Some people said that a group of Magyar plunderers have been wandering in the Rhine River Basin recently. Several lords have suffered disasters and suffered heavy losses." Ludwig's face became solemn. got up.
"Magyar?" Simon was a little surprised.
These nomadic invaders from the eastern steppes have always been a major concern to King Heinrich the "Fowler".
Most of them moved on horseback and were very fast. Lords in various parts of the kingdom were often attacked without any news.
And when the nobles who were attacked rushed to the attacked village after recruiting serf soldiers, private soldiers and knights in the territory, the group of damn pagans had long since disappeared, leaving only thick smoke in the village. The ruins of the ruins and the corpses of villagers on the ground proved their presence.
Ludwig's biological father, Duke Eberhard of Franconia, once described them this way: "Since there was no Christian army to stop them, these guys who were good at Turkic tricks did not form a slow-moving army, but were divided into agile squads. They come, ravage farmland and villages, and then burn them down with fire. Because they appear so suddenly, they always catch them by surprise. Less than a hundred Magyars appear suddenly and attack their prey from time to time, and It's only when you see the smoke rising into the sky or the firelight in the night sky that you can see where they've been."
The Magyars became so unstoppable by virtue of their rapid movements, which were faster than the Vikings. At the same time, their plundering range on land was much larger than that of the Vikings, who could only rely on the sea and rivers, and could not leave their dragon-headed warships too far on land.
"Yes, sir. They mainly operated in the eastern and southern border areas of the kingdom more than ten years ago, but they were powerless against the wooden forts guarded by criminals and bandits."
The criminals and bandits Ludwig mentioned here were all sinners who had been pardoned by King Heinrich the "Fowler". As a condition of atonement, these people would build and garrison castles on the kingdom's border areas, which had been attacked by the Magyars.
Of course, forcing people to serve as soldiers and guard the border for free will not last long, even if it is on condition of regaining their freedom. Therefore, every bandit who went to guard the border was assigned land on the outskirts of the castle.
This was originally just a helpless move by King Heinrich in the face of internal and external troubles. However, what no one expected was that the "Bandit Legion" performed quite well in their new homeland. After all, if people have land and assets, they will They spontaneously went to protect it, so these former green forest heroes burst out with amazing construction passion and fighting power, and actually built Merseburg in just a few years.
"Now, there are various signs that the Magyar tax signed eight years ago can no longer stop their ambitions that are getting more and more expanded due to greed. Now these Magyar raiders appearing in the Rhine River Basin may be their forerunners to spy on the road conditions. Troops." Ludwig expressed his worst thoughts.
"We have to prepare for the worst." Simon also realized the seriousness of the matter. Because of these damn Magyars, as a vassal of the Duke of Cologne, Simon has to pay an additional Magyar tax every quarter, which will eventually be turned into an annual tribute to the Magyars. In exchange for peace.
But according to Simon, this tax may soon no longer have to be paid. The king was not so lowly that he would pay others for beatings at the same time. When a large-scale attack began, it would be time to tear up the peace treaty.
"We have to make some preparations in advance. I heard that a policy called military peasantry is being implemented in Brandenburg, Sachs and Thuringia." Simon put down the wine glass that was shaking in his hand. He clearly has no interest in drinking now, as alcohol dulls his brain.
"What you said is absolutely correct," Ludwig did not put down his wine glass. He showed confidence in his ability to drink. "There, one out of every nine military peasants has to go to the fortified fortress to garrison. Normally, that garrison The man was to live in the fort and take care of the accommodation of eight others, providing them with shelter in time of war. In return, the other eight were to pay him a third of their assets for his salary and weapons."
Simon's territory is different from those in these areas. First of all, this is the northwest frontier of the kingdom. Except for occasional Viking attacks, it seems too stable compared to the southeastern region of the kingdom that is constantly war-torn.
Secondly, in the German region, supporting a knight generally required 300 to 500 acres of farmland and about 50 people. However, due to the promotion of farmyard manure, food production has doubled several times, and Simon was able to have more food. and money to build up territory and maintain an elite standing army.
When small lords go to war these days, except for a few knights and vassals and twenty or thirty private soldiers, the remaining soldiers have to recruit untrained serfs on a large scale to fill their numbers. Once the war lasts for a long time and the serfs serving in the army are unable to cultivate and take care of the farmland in the territory, big trouble will occur.
Simon's standing army looks more professional - they are neither private soldiers of lords who do not need to work in agriculture, nor village militias with shabby equipment, nor can they be temporarily recruited cannon fodder peasant soldiers.
They are paid to participate in training and patrols most of the week, and when they are not training on Saturdays and Sundays, they can help with farm work at home. They were well-equipped, provided by Simon, and most of them were experienced veterans who had survived the previous battle.
Even if a large-scale war breaks out, they who are recruited to fight will not have much impact on the production in the territory. All this was due to the many refugees Simon had accepted from the war in the northern lowland countries in the past two years and the serfs and craftsmen he purchased from slave traders.
But Simon thought that it would not work to always take the route of elite soldiers. He cannot guarantee that his standing army will be an "always victorious army". Once huge battle losses occur, it will always be the vast base of conscripted farmers and soldiers who will protect the safety of the territory.
When that time comes, he doesn't want the main labor force in his territory to be untrained weak chickens wearing tattered linen clothes and holding pitchforks when they are needed to defend their homes, and their lives are harvested by the enemy like wheat. When they also suffered huge casualties, Simon was no longer able to guarantee even the most basic food production in the territory.
That was an unmitigated disaster.
"We have to mobilize every citizen in the territory," Simon thought carefully and expressed his thoughts to Ludwig. "We have to strengthen the defense of each small stronghold, build an armory, and store Weapons and armor will be temporarily distributed to levied peasant soldiers when necessary to improve their armor coverage and combat effectiveness."
"Sir, you must know that a peasant wearing knight's armor will be easily dispatched by a knight wearing peasant clothes." Ludwig reminded kindly.
"Of course I have taken this into consideration, so we have to train these powerless serfs. This training is regular and in rotation. The number of serfs selected for each training cannot have a great impact on the cultivation of the fields, and those who accept For the trained serfs, we will provide them with lunch and dinner. I think for them, no one would refuse the training of not having to work but having someone to take care of the food, and allowing them to learn to protect themselves, right?"
"This will cause a large additional expense for our territory, whether it is food or the cost of hiring instructors. However, if you are willing to allocate some of the veterans from the standing soldiers stationed at Fort Fulde and Fort Esbai to serve as Instructor, I think this will save a lot of money."
"That's exactly what I planned." Simon smiled at Ludwig, raised the glass again, and drank the red wine in it.
You are a genius, remember in one second: Red Oasis:
