In the hall of the lords of Tignets, Viscount Pierre was listening to the clerk read a parchment manuscript from the court of Besançon, which clearly replied to the request of the Viscount of Pierre to the court to authorize him to canonize five knight-apprentices, stating that freemen who were able to unconditionally provide the court of the Count of Burgundy with thirty armed infantry with their own weapons and salaries, or five horsemen with their own horses and weapons, and who had served the Marquis for more than six months, could be canonized as a knight-in-command. If these trainee knights can make achievements on the battlefield, they can be officially canonized as knights after the battle. However, the letter clearly pointed out that these canonized apprentice knights were lifelong apprentice knights, and unless they could accumulate military merits and become knights, they could not be hereditary, let alone have an inch of fiefdom.

The clerk closed the parchment letter and praised Pierre, who was sitting in the chair, "Your Excellency, you are worthy of being a person who came out of the Marquis's side, and you have long expected that the Marquis will agree to your proposal. If there really were five apprentice knights who came to enlist, the court would not have forced us to send fifty soldiers. ”

Viscount Pierre said disapprerovitously: "I'm sharing the worries of the Marquis, you see, this method will not take long to spread in other provinces and counties of the country, with a trainee knight without a title and no fiefdom, you can gather a large number of soldiers with their own weapons and salaries, and then the Marquis only needs to provide some food to get a large number of additional troops, I think the Marquis will not be stingy at this time."

"It is believed that as long as you accumulate military merits in the war, the trainee knight will be officially canonized as a knight."

"That's right, but if you think about it, if there is a real war, will the commander of the army let the army that has spent a lot of money on training and feeding rush to the front and send them to death, or will these apprentice knights and their soldiers who have not spent a single copper coin in the court be sent to death?"

"That must be to make the unspent ghost a dead ghost!!"

"Therefore, there are not many people who can survive, and even fewer people can accumulate military exploits. If there really is a trainee knight who can survive until the end of the war and accumulate military achievements, then he is a real warrior, and such a person should be officially canonized as a knight. ”

The clerk nodded yes, put down the parchment, picked up a glass wine bottle from the table, diligently poured half a glass of wine for Viscount Pierre, and said with a smile: "My lord, my merchant brother has a lot of money, and he also wants my nephew to recruit a group of soldiers to serve in the war, look at this~~"

Viscount Pierre took the wine glass in front of him and drank it all, and replied to the clerk with a smile: "As long as you can lead troops to fight, of course, you can canonize the trainee knight, but I will tell you first, once you go to the battlefield, the sword is ruthless, if you die on the battlefield, don't blame me for not reminding you."

"Of course, it's not so simple to become a knight and become a noble~"

………

“…… If you cherish glory and desire fame, I will vouch for the honour of the Marquis and the House of Dion, and I will surely ask you for a knightly lord upon your triumphant return. I hope you can come. Pierre Jagen de Dieng. ”

After reading the parchment letter in his hand, Art asked the people in the cabin, "What do you think?" ”

Odo quietly listened to the letter, thought for a while, and said: "My lord, it is not so simple to become a nobleman, the letter only says that you can be canonized as a trainee knight if you lead thirty armed soldiers or five cavalry to Tignaz within two months and then go north to the Besançon court to serve in the army, but there is no mention of the payment of military salaries and supplies for the service army, once we leave the valley and go to the battlefield, the supply of food and materials is the biggest problem. But if the court doesn't feed us, how can we fight? Counting on looting the enemy? ”

In the wooden hut of the Wooden Fort in the valley, the four squad leaders of the patrol team and the three civil officers of the wooden fort gathered here to discuss the letter that had just been delivered.

This letter had been sent from Tignets before the court replied to Viscount Pierre, and eight other letters of similar content were sent from Tignets to all parts of the county, and any powerful freeman could accept the invitation to bring thirty armed soldiers or five cavalry to Tignets to be selected by Viscount Pierre, and once selected, he would be ordained a probationary knight in Tignets.

However, unlike the other eight letters, the one that Art received was written by Lord Pierre himself, because Viscount Pierre had seen Arte's patrol soldiers, and compared with other farmers who might have been temporarily recruited, he felt that Art's patrol team was the most potential "army", and he was worried that Art would not accept the recruitment after seeing through the essence of this trainee knight, so he wrote a letter to Art himself, and strongly invited Art to serve in the war with the patrol team.

Bath, who has always been obedient to Odo's words, is quite assertive today, and he put forward a different opinion, "Although what Commander Odo said is good, but our original intention is also to take the initiative to ask the court to fight with the army, and now the lord can not only participate in the war with the army justifiably, but also canonize the title of a trainee knight, if it is not for the war, this is an opportunity that many people will not get in their lifetime." Once we become a trainee knight, our status as an adult changes, and we can call ourselves an army. ”

Odo had always been in charge of managing the military rations and salaries of the patrol team, and the daily consumption of the patrol team was huge, so he realized the importance of logistics supply more deeply, and he retorted: "However, according to our previous plan, the patrol team went out to fight to provide weapons and food for the county of Tinets and the court, and now Lord Pierre's letter does not mention these two things, most of them do not want to contribute money or food. Without a fixed source of materials, we can still deal with it in three or five days, and if the war lasts for a year and a half, what will we eat and drink? ”

Everyone couldn't answer, they were indeed only confused by the title of apprentice knight, and they didn't think deeply about the disadvantages of leaving the country to fight.

"But this kind of opportunity is too rare......"

............

After an afternoon of discussion, the consensus was reached to accept the canonization of Viscount Pierre.

The detailed plan was roughly as follows: the patrol party to serve in the north was divided into three parts, the first part was the combatants, including Otto Eleven, who nominally served for Baron Galvin, and five cavalrymen who had received the conditions of canonization as a probationary knight in Tiniec, plus ten armed soldiers, who were to be led by Yat himself; The second part is a caravan led by Cooper, assisted by the merchant Salter, and led by Lawrence with well-behaved prisoners of war; The third part consisted of caravan guards and reserves composed of the remaining patrol soldiers and the young men of the castle who volunteered to join the expedition.

These three parts exist independently and are closely related to each other.

Needless to say, the combat team is mainly combat-oriented; The caravan with the army is mainly used to trade between the army and various places, not to make money, but only to ensure the daily logistics supply of the combat team; The third part is mainly responsible for the security of the caravan accompanying the army, and also provides personnel for the combat team.

The cost of this expedition must be not small, and once Tignets and the court did not bear any food and salary, Art could also feed dozens of soldiers and caravans through the coordination of these three parts. If managed properly, Art could not only support itself, but also make a lot of money in the war......

In order to go all out on this expedition, Art made a temporary major adjustment to the Valley Wooden Fort and the patrol team.

First of all, there is the wooden fort side of the valley. Since Cooper and Lawrence will be on the expedition with the army, all matters of the Valley Wooden Fort will be temporarily taken care of by Scott, and the Fort Guard will leave most of the peasant soldiers to guard the Valley Wooden Fort, and the construction of the carriageway will be stopped, blocking all contact between the Valley Wooden Fort and the outside world to prevent strangers from breaking into the valley, so as to ensure the stability of the foundation.

The second is the issue of the staffing of the caravans. The main task of the caravan was to travel back and forth between the departing army and the various places, on the one hand, to raise food for the battle troops of Arte, and on the other hand, to conduct wartime commercial trade with the rest of the Count of Burgundy. The chief of the caravan was the old butler Cooper, and the specific commercial trade was in charge of the new fallen merchant Salter, and Lawrence was mainly responsible for the management of the caravan and the wagon livestock, and there would be two peasant soldiers of the fort team and five prisoners of war who had performed well in the road construction during this time as the charioteers; In order to protect the caravan, Kazak and his second squad of five soldiers were to serve as armed escorts for the caravan, following the caravan back and forth between the army and other places.

Finally, there is the staffing of the patrol team. On the last trip south to the Aosta theater to transport military rations, one soldier was killed on the spot, the serious wound with a cut on the belly was not saved at Sap Fort, and the other seriously wounded is still lying in a separate room in the wooden fort for treatment.

On a trip south, the patrol team lost three soldiers and one war horse.

But the harvest was also quite rich, the largest of which was the high commission paid by Baron Berrion and Baron Galvin to Arte tens of thousands of puffines, in the raid on the hills, a horse and a mule were captured, and Baron Galwin gave a strong horse, and also collected three sets of leather cotton armor, three notched broadswords, four battle axes, ten short spears, and five hundred pennies; In addition, six bandit minions were captured. After the battle at the manor outpost, most of the weapons and armor were taken by Baron Baron Baron, and Art was given four pieces of leather armor and two high-quality horses.

Before he knew it, Art already had eight military horses, weapons for nearly fifty people, and eighteen sets of armor of various colors.

On the return trip, three more young men were recruited to supplement the patrol team, making up for the three soldiers who were damaged in battle.

Yate has not made major adjustments to the staffing of the patrol team for the time being, and has basically maintained the original state. Only one farmer was recruited from the fort team to become a patrol soldier, and one of the soldiers in the patrol team with better riding skills was transferred to Ron's sentry cavalry.

It was already dark, and everyone had been discussing in the cabin for a whole afternoon.

"For now, I'll take Ron's sentry to Tiniez tomorrow to receive the canonization, Otto will continue to train in the wooden castle with the patrol team, and you guys must cooperate with Otto's training. I estimate that it will be at least a month before the official expedition is launched, so you will give me a hard training of soldiers this month. ”

"Cooper, you have been teaching Scott all the things of the wooden fort slowly, and you should hurry up and build roads, but you won't get through the last half mile. In addition, you have to observe that Sarter more to see if he can be trusted. ”

"Lawrence, you must now slowly withdraw from the farming work in the valley and strengthen the management of prisoners of war, and at the same time you must take more peasants from the Fort Brigade to participate in the training of the Patrol Team, and I will ask Otto to allocate you another batch of captured weapons for you to strengthen the Fort Team."

"Scott, you are about to take care of the affairs of the Wooden Fort in the valley for the time being, and you must grasp two things, one is to do a good job in the cultivation of the fields, especially the autumn harvest in a few months; The second is to maintain the stability of the people in the valley wooden fort, to prevent strangers from breaking in, and to prevent the people of the fort from making trouble internally; The third is to do a good job in the supply of grain and materials, and this time we have brought back a lot of grain and materials from outside, which can ensure the supply of this side of the valley for more than half a year. After we're all gone, you'll have to take care of the guards and prisoners of war. ”

"Alright, go down and prepare. A banquet was held this evening, and rewards for the southbound troops were awarded for meritorious service. ”

Everyone got up one after another to answer the order, and they scattered to be busy.