In the early morning, Count Don Jr. personally saw off the Occobar knights. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The legation led by the Knights of Alcoba consisted of fifty men, including forty pikemen, who were guarding the gifts to be given to Count Ormond, after all, it was now Count Don Jr. who had asked for something, and how could he do it without showing a little sincerity.

The remaining ten people were more casual, including merchants, thieves, and poachers. With the exception of the merchants, the rest of the people who had been in the dungeon waiting to be punished, and now they were being used for waste. The Earl of Don sent them out to pretend to be merchants in Ormond, in essence to collect all kinds of information - whatever it was, the military and political situation, even the frisky gossip, as long as they got the information, they could be exempt from punishment.

Of course, they had better not come back with false information, otherwise Count Don promised that their fate would be worse than death, and they had better not run away, otherwise their family's fate would definitely be worse than death - as for the possibility of them informing, to be honest, a peasant can run to an earl to inform, and this farmer's ability is great enough.

As for the merchants, Count Don assured them that if they could bring intelligence, then they would be given the right of first refusal to buy Desmond's goods, and they would be given certain concessions. With this condition, it is no wonder that these businessmen are willing to take risks.

The knight of Orcoba was sent away, but the Count of Don Jr. did not send Priest Philip.

Because Priest Philip's mission was secret, he had left with a caravan the previous evening.

However, despite the two missions, Count Don could not feel at ease.

Iron also needs to be hard!

When Uncle Liu Huang formed an alliance with Sun Quan, Uncle Liu Huang was not only a scholar of Zhuge Liang, but also a martial artist of Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, and the most important thing is that he also had more than 10,000 elite soldiers, and these more than 10,000 elite soldiers and strong generals were all killed from the sea of corpses and blood all the way against the wind. In terms of military spirit, morale, and organization, I'm afraid that the soldiers of Eastern Wu can't compare with each other, otherwise in the Book of Three Kingdoms Wei, how could Chen Shou write that Cao Cao was defeated by Liu Bei instead of Eastern Wu?

"Gong to Chibi, and preparing for war, is not good." - "Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Emperor Wu"

But in any case, Desmond could not have cobbled together any more soldiers.

Maybe next year, because this year Desmond has a good harvest, and every family has food to feed more soldiers. But this year, it really won't work, the time is too tight, even if it is the most optimistic estimate, at most, it will be half a month, and the Grand Duke of Murchid will lead troops to attack. And Count Xiao Tang has great magical powers, and it is impossible to train a group of peasants into real soldiers in fifteen days!

And all the current out-of-production soldiers in Desmond, including knights and knight servants, a total of seven hundred and forty-two, but Archduke Mulchid is estimated to be able to pull out more than a thousand out-of-production soldiers just in Munster, if you add Earl Ormond, then this battle is really impossible to fight.

Therefore, it is still necessary to have professional mercenaries.

The history of professional mercenaries in Europe can be said to have a long history, and there is a clear record of the use of mercenaries since the Alexander expedition in the Middle Ages, and mercenaries are indeed a bit capable of being War-Dogs (war hounds).

Because professional mercenaries are specially used to fight, they have no other skills than fighting, and they do not know other skills, in this era when the standing army units of various countries have not yet taken shape, and the national mobilization system does not know where to go, and the mercenary troops almost represent the highest military level of this era.

But Count Don Jr. also knows the biggest weakness of professional mercenaries, and that is money.

It takes money to feed soldiers, it takes money to maintain equipment, it takes money to train recruits, and it takes money to die, even if it is death, to bury a brother, to give a brother's family a pension!

Therefore, for professional mercenaries, war is not war, war is "buying and selling". They sold their force in exchange for money, so mercenaries in this era were generally not cheap. Fighting a war is a very expensive business. Once the employer's money is spent, the mercenaries who have no integrity and loyalty to speak of will not hesitate to turn back.

But as long as the money is in place, then this group of mercenaries will definitely send out a terrifying combat power.

Count Tang was not short of money now—not to mention anything else, but the dozen or so merchants he had pit had contributed to him more than two thousand gold coins worth of materials, which were enough to hire a mercenary force of 1,000 men for a month.

But what Count Xiao Tang lacks is time, this is not a game called 'Zombie Storm', as long as there is money, a little mercenary can appear. This is the real world, it takes time to get the news to the mercenary leader, and it also takes time for the mercenary leader to gather the soldiers, and as we have said before, what Count Tang Jr. lacks is time.

"So, you're willing to hire us for twice the usual price for a month?"

Also in the hall of Count Don's castle, a group of mercenaries, almost more than thirty people, was about to burst the hall, but this was not all of this group of mercenaries, but the leader of this group of mercenaries.

Because it takes a lot of money to raise a group of mercenaries, and 'big wars' with more than 1,000 people are rare, the mercenary leader allows the mercenaries under him to take personal jobs - this is the prototype of the mercenary union in Western Fantasy.

And the mercenaries want to take private work, then it is definitely impossible to run out to pick them up alone, they are either with the same villagers, or they have a better personal relationship, but no matter who they are with, the soldiers of these professions know that there must be a leader, and now, it is the leaders of these mercenary groups who gather in the castle of Count Xiao Tang.

"Yes, that's what I mean, I won't hide it from you, I think you have all found out, Desmond will have a big battle in the near future, but our combat strength is seriously insufficient, so I need your help, I can pay a third of the deposit on the spot, on behalf of my sincerity."

Count Xiao Tang did not hide that he had recently made a series of big moves, forcibly recruiting blacksmiths and craftsmen, and buying a large number of weapons, armor and medicinal herbs.

As soon as he said this, the leaders of these small groups of mercenaries began to make a noise, and the whole hall became boiling for a while, and these mercenaries were all rude people, which could be said to be extremely noisy and annoying.

But Count Don was quietly waiting for their decision.

Twice the reward, this price is indeed very exciting, but as a mercenary, reputation is also a very important thing, reputable mercenaries have a higher commission, that is to say, reputable mercenaries can sell for more price, so those mercenaries of large mercenary groups have strict rules outside, and they are not allowed to take on other tasks.

As for the small mercenary groups, they really can't be reassuring - today they can abandon their merchant employers for more commissions, so who can guarantee that they will not abandon Earl Don for higher commissions tomorrow - and they have no credibility to speak of, they are just small mercenary groups with no reputation anyway, and it would be good to start again with a different name and place when the time comes.

However, the Count of Don Jr. thought that the price he had offered was twice as much as usual, a price that had already made him feel pain in his flesh, and that the Grand Duke of Murchid would not have paid so much under any circumstances.

So, even if some small mercenary groups were very quick to defect, Count Tang smiled and signed a contract with them, and then gave them shiny, tempting gold coins.

"Whoa—"

The sound of gold coins clashing against each other instantly silenced the entire hall, and the eyes of all the mercenaries looked at the lavishly decorated money bags containing gold coins.

"Gold! Yellow, glowing, precious gold! This thing, with just a little bit, can turn the black into white, the ugly into beautiful, the wrong into right, the humble into noble, the old man into a young man, and the coward into a warrior. ”

-- Shakespeare

Now that someone has already received a commission on the spot, there is no one who can calm down in the face of real gold.

Especially after the Count of Don promised that he would consult with the mercenaries' employers, that is, the merchants who had crossed the sea, and would not hurt their credibility, the mercenaries agreed even more happily.

As a result, these more than thirty small mercenary groups, totaling more than six hundred people, joined the battle line of Count Don Jr., and Desmond's combatants exceeded the unprecedented number of 1,300 for the first time!

"In this case, both the military strength and the actual strength have surpassed that of the Grand Duke of Murchid, so there shouldn't be any problems, right?"

At that time, although the clouds of war were still thickening in front of him, Count Tang was optimistic for the first time, after all, he had done so much effort, he had done almost everything he could, and these did bear fruit. Even God, for the sake of him working so hard, he won't be disappointed...... Right?