I looked at Rollo, who nodded weakly, acquiescing to Yaroslav's answer, and I hurriedly took two steps back, covering my nose with my cuffs, resisting the urge to vomit in my stomach, and asked angrily:

"Take this thing away first, find a clean place to bury it, let people come in and clean up the blood on the ground, it's really unlucky, and you call the bull over and give me a detailed explanation of the situation."

Rollo took the order, and after a while the bull came in in the chain mail that had not yet been taken off, covered in dust, and bypassed the two attendants who were sprinkling water in the house and were busy sweeping the floor, Yaroslav sat in his seat, fiddling with his beloved hand axe, and preparing for a possible battle, the bull came up to me and asked cautiously: "My lord, you called me?" ”

"Tell me about the discovery of the body." I pulled him to sit on a stool and gestured to a precise map of Verlatzen that Rollo had spread out.

"Where did you find it?"

The bull lay down on the map for a long time, and the matter of reading was more strenuous for him than physical work, and after a while, he pointed to the point on the east side of the castle sign and replied with a little certainty:

"Probably here, there are still more than 100 miles away from the nearest Slavic tribe to us, it is a primeval forest with no village in front of the village and no shop in the back, and there are few people in normal times, even the hunters rarely set foot in it."

"The scout team that was attacked has a total of ten cavalrymen, all of whom are experienced scouts from the New Guard, mainly responsible for the task of guarding the perimeter, and the range of activities is outside the castle for a day, and the patrol period is often more than two days, so at first they did not return on time, and did not attract our attention, until this morning, I did not receive their routine report from flying pigeons, only to realize that the situation was not good, so I took it upon myself to take people out to look for them without your own knowledge, and launched a dragnet search in the area where they may be active."

I measured the distance between the place of the incident and the castle with my fingers, it is said that the enemy eliminated ten cavalry with good combat effectiveness in such a close place, it is impossible not to leave any traces, to deal with our soldiers, at least twice as many people are needed to ensure that nothing goes wrong, and the scout team is completely wiped out, not even a single living mouth is left, and no one released carrier pigeons in advance when the accident occurs, which shows that the enemy has been lurking in the vicinity for a long time, and has long been clear about the habitual route of the Nijmegen scout patrol, as well as the law of changing guards, It shows that they are calm and frighteningly patient, and they are definitely scheming opponents.

"What about the scene? What did you find? ”

Retracting my association, I asked the bull: "For example, footprints, dropped equipment, etc., you can deduce the details of the identity and number of people of the other party." ”

"No, nothing, the enemy has even cleaned up the traces of the battle, only put our people there, the scene is very tragic."

The bull shook his head like a rattle, as if he didn't want to recall the scene at that time: "Ten people, including men and horses, were disemboweled, and the blood on their bodies was clean, and their faces were white and terrifying, and the heads of eight of them were missing, leaving only two dead heads in the middle, with bright red blood flowing from their eyes, and their hideous expressions seemed to tell the indescribable pain before death......"

"It seems that the enemy's intention to kill us is to remind us of their existence."

Yaroslav pouted and pinched his chin: "The enemy is in the dark, I am in the light, it is better to plan the plan, give me some manpower, go to the place where the accident occurred, if the enemy is still lingering nearby, he will definitely find us, and when the time comes, let the Lyutich guards fight with them, try it first, at least find out who is facing it." ”

"No, it's stupid, what if the enemy is prepared and waiting for you to take the bait? I will not allow no unnecessary sacrifice. ”

Resolutely rejecting Yaroslav's proposal, I fell into deep thought, this feeling of being led away by an invisible enemy, I felt like a fool helpless.

"Recount the supplies in the city, order the soldiers to immediately begin to fortify the castle, dig deep trenches, and plan to hold on for a long time, send carrier pigeons to Nijmegen and the Duke of Hanover, telling them to send reinforcements to help as soon as possible, and the scouts to be within a day's journey from Neustadt, and the ranks to be expanded to thirty men, and to keep in touch at all times, that war may really come."

"What about the people of Lyutich, there must not be so many people in the castle." As a chieftain, Yaroslav was more concerned about the safety of his people, especially when the situation of the enemy was unclear, and the old and young women and children could not withstand the invaders like wolves and tigers.

"Hurry up and move as far as you can, enter the Duchy of Hanover, and naturally there will be people from Nijmegen on the road to pick up and arrange the rest of the matter."

I poured saliva into my dry tongue, and I wondered why God always refused to allow me to live a stable life, and the wheat fields that had just been sown had to be given up before they sprouted, and it was probably only a false illusion to rely on the estate of Willatzen to achieve self-sufficiency this year.

"Recruit all adult men under the age of thirty-five, and the rest are also organized into troops, responsible for transferring the people's escorts along the way, now you don't want to participate in the exhibition, the enemy has already put a knife on our necks, and ****** blindfolded from behind!"

"What can I do, my lord?" The bull asked me anxiously.

"The terrain in Neustadt is too flat to be defended, the enemy's cavalry can advance all the way to the bottom of the city walls, and there is no shortage of raw materials for the construction of siege equipment from the abundant timber."

I stared at the castle icon on the map, and said to the bull worriedly, "Take your men and put the wooden fence out of range of catapults and ballistas, leaving only a zigzag passage in between, so that the enemy can advance as hard as possible, understand?" ”

"I'm good at this, and I'll complete the task." The bull ripped off the belt behind the chain mail, moved his wrist, and patted his chest in reassurance.

"In the vicinity of the castle, I will also arrange for more people to dig some deep pits with other horses' legs, so that the enemy will not even have a chance to ride a horse, and can only climb in the dust."

"If there is more wet mud outside the city wall, the enemy may not attack with fire." I counted with my fingers, and there were no details that were left behind, and Luo Luo also crossed his fingers to remember.

"Two more wells will be drilled in the city, and one more well will definitely not be enough water for people at that time, so we must take precautions in advance."

When Yaroslav waited for me to finish speaking, he squinted his eyes and muttered mysteriously: "I have a strong premonition that this time the enemy is coming with the determination to uproot Neustadt Castle, and they will do whatever it takes to kill the thousands of people in the city. ”

——————————

——————————

The main way of constituting the army in this era is to recruit and form through layers of feudal relations of allegiance, just like His Majesty the Emperor will issue a conscription order to his nominal vassals, dukes of each duke and counts, barons, and knights directly under the royal family, and they will recruit the corresponding number of knights and peasants under their command according to the different titles, and arrive at the designated place within a certain assembly period, and finally reorganize into a coalition army.

But the reorganization here is not as we understand it in later generations, the nobles still control their armies and are responsible to the higher lords, and His Majesty the Emperor has no right to pass the lords and give orders to even the lowest knights, which is a great taboo to break the feudal contract relationship.

It can be seen that these armies that rarely see each other on weekdays, and the combat effectiveness and coordination ability of the troops improvised before the war are very poor, and they are ridiculed as the medieval version of the wind forest volcano.

Retreat and transfer it as fast as the wind!

Charge into battle, Xu Rulin!

Looting money and aggression like fire!

Friendly forces are in trouble and do not move like a mountain!

The nobles who believed in beggar-thy-neighbor often took the opportunity to fall into the ground, and it was inevitable that the same camp would be separated from Germany and stumble with each other, so the outcome of the war was often unexpected, not determined by the strength and number of people on the books of both sides.

I have been in such an army for a long time, and I naturally understand the harm, and the painful lessons of many lonely and in-depth battles have taught me that in this era, there is no one to trust except myself.

In order to avoid the Nijmegen army, but also become such a civil war insider, outside the war layman's straw bag, at the beginning of the grass I carried out a certain degree of reform, knights were the dominant wars in the Middle Ages, the number of knights on both sides of the war determined the direction of the war, although Nijmegen also canonized knights, but did not rely entirely on them to fight.

This group of temperamental nobles and their attendants were not well suited to a hard war of attrition, and often left the battle sequence without permission for all sorts of strange reasons, like a donkey that could not hold a halter, so I weakened their role, and in the army sequence of Nijmegen, they only assumed the duties of reserve and flank detours.

There were only 300 Ravenna kidnapped from Italy, and even fewer soldiers could be provided.

Their leader, Mortiyunas, is no longer an officer, he was born as a spice merchant, he is more talented in domestic affairs and economics, and he is relatively energetic, and now helps Leonardo and Wangcai two old men to take care of daily government affairs, as the next prime minister, focus on training, and the only remaining experienced Ravenna veterans become instructors, training newly recruited soldiers, to ensure that their former iron blood and glory can continue to be inherited.

The New Guard, composed of young people from Nijmegen, was withdrawn from active service by me and turned into some kind of honor similar to the Whampoa Military Academy, the cradle of future officers, who were educated, literate and loyal, like the soul and backbone of the Nijmegen army, with the courage and sharpness to hold on to the green mountains, and they were also my most reassuring descendants.

Together with the cavalry commanded by Hans, the archers trained by Kohler, the infantry trained by the bulls, and the Lyutich guard of Yaroslav, they formed the main body of the Nijmegen army, and the distribution of arms was more professional and balanced, emphasizing discipline and the ability to work together, and direct allegiance to us through the command system of obedience at all levels, rather than to the respective lords, so that the combat effectiveness could become more and more cohesive, and many times in crises relied on strong willpower and the spirit of tenacious struggle to turn danger into danger, and won one impossible victory after another.