Zhao Hu's face was solemn and he looked at the account book in his hand, which recorded the grain that had just been harvested in his territory this month. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

This year's rain is very sufficient, and the rare harvest of grain is thirty percent more than in previous years, but these do not make Zhao Hu's heart.

The grain in the castle granary has long been piled up in the warehouse, which is enough for the people in the castle to eat for three years, but the taxes of the towns in the territory are very small, only more than 3,000 gold coins.

If it weren't for the fact that all the knights under his command had run out, the money would not be enough to give the knights an annuity, and the ledger showed that half of the food hoarded in the castle was transported out and sold every year to fill this big hole.

Thinking about the knights who the family spent a lot of money to raise, but they escaped without a trace when the family was in the most crisis, Zhao Hu couldn't help but feel disgusted with the knight's profession that was sacred on the outside but dirty on the inside.

Seeing the young master's tight brows, the tax collector Stad reported speculatively, "Each village has heard that there is a bounty, and two hundred young adults have been gathered, and many of the hunters in the village have also participated, and the Zhao Li family has agreed to use the prosperous Feishui Town to exchange, which can increase our income by 500 gold coins." ”

"Hunter?" Zhao Hu, who was looking through the account book, stopped what he was doing, in fact, Zhao Hu couldn't understand what was written on this account book at all, those complicated numbers and hundreds of merchants, the names of the tenants made Zhao Hu feel dazzled, and pretending to look through the account book was just for the tax collector to see, so that the tax collector could do less tricks.

"Yes, there are thirty-eight hunters who have participated in the recruitment, these barbarians who like to run around in the mountains, they used to run far away as soon as they heard about the recruitment, but this time they ran back because they saw the notice of the lord." The tax collector was relieved to see the lord take his attention away from the ledger.

It was impossible to guarantee that there would be no problems with the ledger, and as a hereditary tax collector, Stad considered himself to be much more honest than many of his peers.

I just concealed some smaller transactions, although the money was not much, but it was enough for my own expenses, I was old, how to safely hand over this position to my son is my biggest concern.

"You have just offered to ask your son to take your place, bring him here, I need to see my future tax collector." Zhao Hu closed the account book on the table, three hundred gold coins in addition to the daily expenses, there are still more than a thousand left, which is enough for the bounty of this expedition, which makes Zhao Hu, who has always been worried about the lack of gold coins, relieved.

After reading the account book, Zhao Hu has a certain understanding of a lord's source of income, and what determines the lord's gold coin income is the checkpoint road tax and town poll tax of his own territory, and the others such as the income from plundering the enemy lord, the income from the redemption of hostages, and the income from the emperor's reward are some uncertain numbers, so if you want to be rich, in addition to the fixed taxes, you can only rob the enemy and grab the land.

"You're the tax collector's son, Stahn? I heard from your father that you had been a knight with the Marquis of Nas for a year, how could you suddenly think of coming back to be a tax collector, and being a knight is more promising than being a tax collector. ”

Zhao Hu saw the tax collector Stad leading a heroic teenager into the hall, he really didn't expect the obese tax collector to have such a heroic son, but unfortunately the young man's right foot was obviously a little lame, and he walked bumpy, which was really a pity to look at.

The young Starn saw Zhao Hu sitting on the lord's seat in the hall with blazing eyes, and he couldn't help but feel abrupt in his heart, feeling as if he had been seen through by Zhao Hu's sharp eyes, "Could this be the idiot lord who is circulating outside, how can a person with such eyes be an idiot?" ”

"I used to be the captain of the archer squad under the Marquis of Nas, but I was shot in the right leg by the Kazakhs in last year's battle and had to come back." Thinking of his bloody battle, but not being appreciated by the lord, Starn's originally heroic face darkened, and the fingers on his sides were nervously clenched.

"You go down first, and since you were once a knight's servant, be my lieutenant first! Tomorrow I will gather all the 200 soldiers who have been requisitioned to the castle, and I will personally preside over the training!" Zhao Hu looked at the grief and indignation on the young man's face, and waved his hand at the tax collector's father and son.

"This is the real strength of the knight!"

Zhao Hu looked at the young man galloping in the center of the castle playground, and the tax collector's son Stahn skillfully waved his knife left and right on horseback, and the knife light flying up and down was like a chain of light, and the scarecrow head as a target was cut off by Stahn's gorgeous drag knife technique, which attracted the applause of the peasant soldiers standing around.

"If the knight who rushed into the hall that day was on a war horse, I wonder if I would still have a chance to stand here?" Zhao Hu saw that Starn, who was only a subordinate knight, had such a smooth knife dragging technique and the ability to skillfully cut left and right on a horse, and secretly thought: "I don't know what kind of power those regular knights with sharp spears, hand-to-hand combat swords on their backs, and heavy armor all over their bodies will be, no wonder the main combat force of the empire is still knights, and ordinary troops mainly peasants can't compete with these war machines who have practiced killing since childhood." ”

"My lord, what do you think of these recruits" The well-informed old butler didn't care about the young Starn's teasing, as an old man who had served the orthodox knight family all his life, these tricks were just some fancy pediatrics to make people shout, and the task of recruiting soldiers this time was what the old butler cared about.

Zhao Hu looked at the peasant soldiers who had been gathered, most of them were young and middle-aged, holding all kinds of weapons in their hands, from farm tools to butcher knives for killing pigs.

On the right side of the procession stood dozens of archers dressed in various animal skins, all of whom were relatively thin, but with a somewhat thick and well-developed right arm and sharp and terrifying eyes, which should be the hunters of the various villages in the mouth of the tax collector.

"Bring out all the weapons equipped this time, I can't let the people in my territory kill the enemy like this." Zhao Hu waved his hand at the guards behind him who were pushing a cart full of weapons.

This time, Zhao Hu decided to move two hundred weapons from the castle's arsenal to equip his first army, as an old knight family, there was nothing else, but this weapon and equipment were still piled up in the warehouse, some accumulated over the years, and many were captured from the enemy.

"My lord, isn't this a little too short? This is a guard sword for archers, and we were killed before we could cut the enemy. The peasants were curious about the wagons piled high with weapons, and their faces were a little gloomy with excitement.

As an adjutant, Starn curiously picked up a short sword from the car, waved it in his hand a few times, and then looked at the other things in the car, his face turned green ugly.

The entire carriage was stacked with the short sword, which was only half the length of the sword, and the archer's tall wooden shield, which was equipped with armor for archers on the battlefield, and could not go head-to-head with the enemy, whose spears could stab you in the heart from two meters away.

"Unload all the equipment on the carriage first," Zhao Hu waved at everyone in full view.

Zhao Hu held a human-high wooden shield in his left hand and a wooden short sword in his right hand, holding Stairn who was holding a spear in front of him close to him.

"Bump!"

The three-meter-long spear in Stahn's hand had no chance to stab out after the initial blow was blocked by the shield, and the spear swept away without any force, but he kept retreating helplessly until he retreated to the wall, gritting his teeth and watching the big shield swaying in front of his nose, but there was nothing he could do.

Because Zhao Hu had already relied on the cover of the big shield to rush closer than a meter, in this short distance, the short sword in Zhao Hu's hand was absolutely deadly, and it only took an assassination with a small space for action to easily kill Stairn.

The peasants, who were originally giggling, stopped laughing when they saw that Starn, who was still majestic in front of them, was knocked down by the idiot lord with such a despicable but effective action, and all of them found out that the short sword with a big shield was so dangerous! Even the knight Starn was cornered by this tactic.

In a highly dense melee, the infantry phalanx with a giant shield and javelins, short swords and other hand-to-hand combat weapons are like raising the sharp hilt of a knife that hides a fatal blow when you inadvertently pop a fatal blow.

This is a memory that left a deep impression on Zhao Hu, and it is also the purpose of Zhao Hu's training this time, the javelin is being made at the blacksmith in the castle, and two hundred people can form a small phalanx, and this special force will definitely be able to surprise the enemy at that time.

"In a month, you are going to go to war, if you still want to come back alive, and you still want to get a good bounty, practicing these is your only chance." Zhao Hu threw the short sword and giant shield in his hand to the ground, and when the peasant soldiers looked at some weapons, there was a kind of fanaticism in their eyes instead of contempt just now.

"A knight is rewarded with a gold coin, and a lord is rewarded with a piece of land." Many of the peasants came for the head of the silver coin, and although the one ahead was tempting, the peasants didn't think that the killing machines in heavy armor were what they could think of.

However, Zhao Hu's demonstration just now made these goals, which originally felt distant and unattainable for farmers, suddenly seem to be within reach.