A few days later, Solo's grain caravan, escorted by several thieves sent by Zhou Ming, left the Gran Territory and headed for the Iron Castle Kingdom in the south. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Of course, Zhou Ming will not put all his eggs in one basket, in addition to Solo's large-scale grain caravans, he has also reached a cooperation agreement with some small and medium-sized traveling merchants, so that they can also help sell grain, and by the way, they will bring back some needed resources to Gran Ling, and how full they can eat depends on the respective skills of these traveling merchants.

The problem of grain sales was initially solved, and the focus of Zhou Ming's work returned to military training.

Yes, Zhou Ming never pinned the security of the Grand Collar on a group of robbers who were innocent, greedy and tyrannical, and poorly disciplined.

Although these robbers, with his money bribes, servant service and hospitality, lived happily in a castle with conditions and facilities like paradise, they were also like time bombs, which could bring endless hidden dangers to the Gran Collar at any time.

Even these robbers still listen to him.

For example, in April and May of this year, he asked the thief Roger to take a group of people to plunder several territories around the Grand Territory, set traps and kill several knights, so that Count Lauzitz no longer had any suspicion that Edward was killed by the robbers, and recognized Donnie's identity as the Lord of the Gran.

Also, in July and August, in order to prevent Baron Sean of Nathan from finding out about the changes here in the Gran Territory and sending someone to investigate the cause of Fanny's death, Zhou Ming personally led a group of thieves to wreak havoc in the Nathan Territory, burned down farmland and houses, poisoned wells, and set traps to kill three or four knights, and determined that Nathan Territory had no ability to retaliate, so he returned to the Gran Territory with the unscathed thieves.

Zhou Ming's positioning of these thieves is that when the regular military force of the Gran Territory has not yet been established, he is responsible for cleaning up the obstacles around the Gran Territory and escorting the smooth development of the Gran Territory.

The thieves are naturally willing to accept such a "positioning", after all, their vocation is to burn, kill, loot, and do all kinds of evil, the Grand Collar is their nest, and the grass on the edge of the nest cannot be gnawed, and other territories are naturally the places where they can move their muscles and bones when they are extremely bored.

However, the chaotic and disorderly force of thieves could not always act as a garrison for the Gran Territory, and it became Zhou Ming's top priority to train a regular army with strict discipline and strong combat effectiveness.

In fact, if you want to have a quick effect, Zhou Ming can also ask Donnie to recruit some knights to come over and seal them in the ten knight fiefs in the Grand Territory, after all, there are many wandering knights in this world who have lost their fiefs for various reasons, and some knights will even recommend themselves to apply, and it won't take long to recruit some knights to come over.

But-

If the knights were recruited, all the reforms made by Zhou Ming before would basically be invalidated, and after the knights were sealed, the population and farmland of the villages in the mining would all be under the autonomy and management of the knights, and the lord's control over the territory would be lost eighty or ninety percent at once.

What Zhou Ming wants to do now is to grasp all the resources of the Grand Territory in his own hands, reform agriculture, develop industry and commerce, and strengthen the military, and then embark on a road of continuous external expansion, relying on those dozen knights, how is it possible?

October.

After the busy farming period ended and the farmers of Gran Ling recuperated for more than a month, Zhou Ming had a "winter training notice" issued.

All able-bodied male farmers aged 12 to 40 come to the castle for a two-month "winter training".

As soon as the proclamation came out, the farmers talked a lot, and even caused a local riot and panic.

"Is there going to be war again?"

"What can I do about this, do 12-year-old children have to go, they haven't grown well, aren't they going to die on the battlefield like this?"

"If you can't do it, just run, in the big battle last year, two men died in the family, and now there are only two boys left, do you still want to send them?"

Seeing that these local panics had a tendency to turn into rumors and spread rapidly, Zhou Ming had to issue another explanatory announcement, saying that the "winter training notice" was just to summon the farmers to come to the castle for a two-month winter training, and after the training period, the farmers would go home and would not take them to war.

The panic of the farmers in the territory was calmed down, and they gathered at the castle to participate in this winter training.

Training ground in front of the castle.

Looking at the 11 phalanxes gathered together in various villages and towns below, Zhou Ming asked the training instructors of each phalanx to count the number of people.

"From a 12-year-old immature boy to a 40-year-old middle-aged man, there are a total of 1,067 men with weapons in the entire Grand Collar.

Yes, Zhou Ming's purpose in conducting this collective winter training is to screen out a group of high-quality soldiers who can fight and dare to fight.

These soldiers, he will imitate the formation method of the tiger and wolf division of the Qin State, and train a group of crossbowmen, pikemen and light cavalry.

Armed with powerful crossbows, ballistas, or longbows with long range, crossbowmen are a ranged attack class against enemy forces.

The pikemen were responsible for resisting the onslaught of the heavy cavalry, and during the training process, the discipline requirements were extremely strict, and in the face of the onslaught of the heavy cavalry, they could not move like a mountain and were not afraid of death.

The role of light cavalry is mainly to cover their own flanks, attack and harass the enemy's flanks, and annihilate the enemy's fleeing forces in pursuit battles. In the later period, a group of heavy cavalry could also be developed on the basis of light cavalry according to needs.

Crossbowmen, pikemen, and light cavalry, the combination of these three arms is the best balance and cost-effectiveness ratio among all the combinations of arms.

However, the defect of this military formation combination is also relatively obvious, that is, it requires a large number of soldiers, and if there is no large number of soldiers, forming a military formation with a thickness that meets the standard, on the battlefield, it will not exert its due great power at all.

Zhou Ming estimated that he would need to train at least an army of 1,200 people, including 300 elite light cavalry, 300 elite crossbowmen and 600 elite pikemen, in order to defeat all other military forces within the scope of the Earldom of Lodz.

But now the potential soldiers standing in front of Zhou Ming, from immature boys to middle-aged men, are only more than 1,000 people, excluding a group of weak, cowardly and worried, and finally 200 people can be selected, Zhou Ming feels that it is very impressive.

"Let's train them for two months first, pick out all the good seedlings in them, and then issue the order on rewards for joining the army and the order for rewarding military merits, I don't believe that we can't recruit a group of qualified soldiers!"

So, in the next two months, under the personal supervision of Zhou Ming, according to the training syllabus he had prepared, he trained these ordinary farmers.

Zhou Ming trained them not to be tired, running two kilometers in the morning and evening, marching and standing training in the middle, learning to turn back and forth, left and right, as well as simple bow and arrow and spear training, and brought dozens of horses, so that those farmers who can ride horses or want to learn to ride horses can carry out simple riding training.

During the boring training intervals, Zhou Ming would also organize these farmers and carry out some interesting activities, such as drumming and passing flowers, mountain song competitions, improvisational performances, unique demonstrations, etc., which were just as interesting as the military training he participated in in college, and many farmers who were not very interested in winter training gradually liked this kind of training.

Not only that, Zhou Ming also set up an honor list, the top three fastest runners, the top three most accurate bow and crossbow shooting, and the best riding and spearmanship.

Nearly two months later, the weather was getting colder and colder, and it was not suitable to continue training, and when this winter training was about to end, Zhou Ming released a bombshell in front of this group of farmers.