After a long time of fear, Art came to the quarry that afternoon to recruit (buy) soldiers.

The quarry stands on the mountain, several hills have been dug up more than half, the slope of the fault has been carved into a multi-step pattern, on each step there are miners who hammer the stones with their palms, and the large stones that have been mined are carried by a group of three or five porters along the sheep intestine path next to the stairs to the open space below the mountain, and a dozen stonemasons cut the stones into strips of stone, and wait for the iron plate carriage on the side to transport the stones to the various construction sites. There are sentry posts around the quarry to prevent anyone from stealing the quarry, and to prevent the miners from escaping.

According to the quarry steward, there are more than 120 miners in the entire quarry. Because of their low status and hardship, even the ugliest widows were reluctant to marry them, so most of the miners were alone.

Under the leadership of the steward, Yate led his horse to the quarry's shed, and several mine leaders who were resting in the shed saw that the quarry steward had come with a few people, and hurried forward to greet them.

The steward said to the miners, "These are men sent by the Bishop of Orlov, who have been ordered to select a group of miners from the quarry to form a caravan and go to the south to procure the materials necessary for the Bishop to renovate the church. ”

Art smiled and nodded to the group, and Ron and Kazak unloaded a barrel of pale beer from their horses and moved it into the workshop and placed it on the wooden table.

Art pointed to the beer on the wooden table and said, "You have worked hard in the mine, and these beers are my consolation for Bishop Orlov. ”

When Art invited the mine chiefs to drink, the quarry steward pulled over one of his henchmen and commanded, "You will gather the miners here in a moment for this lord to choose." ”

The head of the mine turned his head and glanced at the others, leaned into the steward's ear and asked in a hesitant whisper: "Lord steward, most of these miners are slaves and prisoners who have been sent to monasteries from all over the world, I'm afraid it's not appropriate to take them away like this, right?" ”

The steward stared at the head of the mine with round eyes, and said impatiently: "It's up to me to decide whether it's appropriate or not, besides, these are all temporarily sent to do labor, and the people with Bishop Orlov can't run away when they see it, and they will naturally come back when the matter is done." ”

"The ghost will believe that they can come back, and it seems that they have to report their illness and death again~" The mine head muttered a few words in his heart, and obediently carried out the order because of the steward's usual obscenity.

After giving the instructions to the head of the mine, the steward turned to Art and said, "My lord, you have to choose quickly, I still have to hurry up and mine the stone." ”

Art smiled and nodded in agreement.

The sound of copper bells jingling over the quarry sounded, and the miners gathered in groups to the wooden shed, and soon seventy or eighty miners stood in the open space in front of the shed.

Seeing that most of the miners were halfway there, the steward made a gesture of invitation to Art.

With his right hand on the hilt of his sword, he stood on a small wooden platform in front of the shed, and Ron and Kazak also stood straight behind him, and Arte's loud voice sounded: "Brothers miners, I am here on the orders of Bishop Orlov to temporarily recruit a group of laborers and guards to go to the south with my caravan to buy goods, you all know that Provence and Lombardy in the south are now at war, and it is dangerous to go south with me, but I will not let you go on adventures with me in vain, whoever is willing to follow me will be fed and clothed all the way, There is also a weekly salary of five pfennigs. On weekdays, you only need to drive the carriage and carry the goods for me, and if you encounter a rogue bandit, you can carry a stick to help Zhuang Zhuang make a noise......"

There was a commotion among the miners below, many of whom were slaves and prisoners who had been working in the quarries for many years, smashing stones in the wind and smashing stones, doing the heavy work of cattle and horses, eating the food of pigs and dogs, there was no more difficult life in the world, and there were already a few miners who were eager to try it without being instigated by Artedoga.

Art's voice sounded at the right time, "However, since I am doing things for the Bishop, I also have to choose. The first must be a young and strong man, and no one should be old or infirm; the second must be a single person, and no one who has a wife or a son or a daughter shall not be; The third must be a brave man, and those who are timid and afraid of things should not be allowed. If you think you are qualified, you will stand up, I will only recruit ten people, and I will not want to recruit when it is full. ”

Before Art could finish speaking, a miner of twenty-five or sixteen years old who was naked in spacious hemp pants had already stepped forward.

Art nodded to Kazak and Ron, and the two jumped off the platform and walked over to the miner. Kazak pinched the miner's tendon like a livestock, and then broke his teeth and looked. After Kazak's initial selection, the miners came to Ron again.

Ron, who had experienced the battle, no longer had the shyness of half a year ago, and he had a momentum in front of this miner who was a head taller than him, and he raised his head and asked, "Man, what's your name, why are you here?" ”

The miner did not shy away from replying, "My name is Obote, and I was originally a slave who was resold here. ”

"Have you ever killed someone?"

"No, but I'm not afraid to kill."

"Okay, you've been chosen, let's go and register on the side."

Obote, the miner, left the crowd and walked to the wooden table under the wooden shed, and the steward of the quarry drew a circle with a quill in his hand and the name of Obote on the parchment.

The second miner who came up was scared of Ron for a moment, and then boasted to himself, but Ron didn't ask much at all, and eliminated him directly, because according to the standard set by Art for Ron in advance, anyone who has a flamboyant tongue and is too tyrannical to control is not to be controlled.

The third miner, who had been sentenced to hard labor for a manslaughter in a brawl, successfully passed the test of Kazak and Ron, and after being "registered" by the steward, he stood by Obote's side.

Then came the fourth and fifth......

The criteria set by Art are not too strict for these miners, and a small half of the miners below have come forward to accept the selection, but Ron has just selected and eliminated less than thirty miners and has already recruited ten people, which is the upper limit of the number of miners that the quarry steward allows Art to take away, and it is also the upper limit of the number of people that Art intends to recruit, because now there are only eighteen people in the patrol team, and these miners are different from those laborers, most of them are not good people, if they recruit too much, it will definitely have a negative impact on the overall combat strength and military discipline of the patrol team, so Art didn't plan to fill all ten people into the patrol team, and he would continue to choose from these ten people in the future......

While waiting for the selected miners to return to their shacks to pack up their belongings and prepare to leave, Art and the steward came to a place away from everyone's sight, and put three large silver marks and six small silver deniers into the steward's hand......

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

In the evening, the three of them returned to a small hotel north of Lucesen with ten miners, and Arte invited the miners to a feast of oatmeal porridge and rye bread in broth.

That night, Ron and Kazak were going to take turns keeping watch to prevent the miners from escaping, but Art stopped them. Most of them were nominal slaves and slaves, and if they were caught, they would face even more brutal punishments. And Art promised to keep them fed, clothed and warm, and some extra salary, and they should not leave on their own initiative.

Sure enough, early the next morning, Art opened the door and saw the miner named Obote, waiting in front of his door with several other people.

"Thank you, my lord, for giving us abundant food and warm shelter, and please assign us the work we need to do today." Obote bent over and said to Art.

Art looked at the group of bowed miners in front of him and said, "I think you probably guessed that I didn't recruit you to trade temporarily. You have been bought from the quarry by me, and as long as you do things for me, you will not go back to work as a mine slave in the future. Although I bought you, I didn't plan to let you be my slaves forever, and in the future, I will select suitable people from among you to join my patrol team, and once you become a soldier in my patrol team, you will no longer be a slave or a slave. Even if you don't make it to the patrol team, as long as you serve me diligently for two years, I will restore your status as a free citizen. ”

Several miners were pleasantly surprised, they thought that they would just get a slightly better situation than being a miner in the quarry, but they didn't expect that they would have a chance to restore their status as free people~

"May God bless you, honorable lord." The miners knelt down and landed their heads on the ground.

Art called out to the miners.

"After breakfast today, I will select a few people from among you to go into the city to buy goods, and the rest will rest in the hotel, and I will arrange the food and lodging, but you should not move around at will to avoid more trouble." With that, Art led the miners downstairs.

Ron had already arranged the meals for everyone, the miners had a large bucket of pea cereal, and Art and Ron Kazak had a broth soaked bread with refined salt.

Everyone ate deliciously.

On this day, Art took Ron and a few miners around the city of Lucesen for a whole day, and spent two thousand fennigh on a wooden iron four-wheeled carriage and a mussel-mouthed mule, as well as a quantity of grain, bacon, farm tools, salt, burlap, and other supplies, and bought ten miners in tattered clothes a short brown cloth of coarse cloth.

Art lamented again that the money was not enough, and at the end of the day, the three thousand dophines were gone.

Surprisingly, however, the miners, who had been given new coarse cloth clothes, were not happy, believing that the more generous the new owners, the more dangerous the road would become......

After staying in Lucesin for four days, Arte took a group of more than a dozen people out of the southern gate of Lucesine and embarked on the road back to the south. In order to deal with the dangers that might arise on the way, Art bought ten long clubs for competition from the jousting arena in Lucesne, and the ten unarmed miners had one long stick for themselves.

However, this time the journey back south was not as thrilling as the last time, and in less than five days everyone had reached the territory of Tiniecs.