Time passed slowly, and Desmond remained peaceful every day. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

The average farmer may not have noticed, but the merchant who came and went, or the veteran with a keen sense of smell, already sensed the dark cloud that was accumulating.

First of all, the Count of Little Tang once again began to collect the iron in the territory - although this time it was not to forcibly collect all the iron, but to buy it with money, but now it is the season of spring ploughing! Spring! Every iron hoe is precious!

And then there was the second, the soldiers, a large number of soldiers were sent out to patrol the border line every day, and the leading veterans received the strictest orders, and if there was any movement, even if it was just a big tree on the border that fell, and a rabbit jumped a little, they had to report it immediately.

These are the feelings of veterans, and they can infer that war is coming. You know, in the past, although the soldiers were also patrolling, but at that time it was more of a form of walking, and there was no need to catch any smugglers in this era - Count Xiao Tang wished that there would be more homeless people to join him, and there was no contraband - bows and crossbows were not available to ordinary peasants, and the soldiers' patrols were at most to fight the bandits and robbers in the territory, which can be said to be quite low intensity.

But now, without warning, oh, at least there are rumors, the level of vigilance in the territory has suddenly risen a lot, according to the words of the 'master' above, what is the highest level of combat readiness, and it is difficult for veterans not to notice it!

Veterans use their intuition to find out, but businessmen, their senses are more intuitive.

Count Don Jr. actually bought a crossbow from them!

Crossbow!

This thing is contraband! The Pope forbade any Christian to use a crossbow on the battlefield, otherwise their souls would go to hell.

But...... Crossbows, still very popular in Western Europe.

After all, the need for projection of power in war is there, and only a fool would refuse this kind of thing that can theoretically discourage the enemy's offensive ambitions over a considerable distance, and not every country can have as many good archers as the British. The region of Gascony and France suffered in this regard, and their skilled archers were far from sufficient for their war needs. This is one of the reasons why, when their soldiers discovered that it was easier to master the shooting methods of the new guns, muskets quickly became popular.

As for the Pope? There are so many kings who are clamoring for excommunication, but so what? Even when the Mongols were about to reach their doorstep, his heartfelt religious kings were still keen to fight with the Holy See - as if I was a little off topic?

Nowadays, however, crossbows are still high-tech products - although there are quite a lot of copycat products, but genuine crossbows can only be transported from Italy through the Mediterranean-Atlantic-North Sea such a long journey, of course, if the little Count Tang is in a hurry, and can pay a high price, then some bold businessmen also dare to smuggle, from France, which is separated by a sea, there are always generals who are interested in doing such things.

To tell the truth, the cost performance of the crossbow is not high, at least compared with the cheaper bow, and later it became more and more mythical, sixty meters **** wear leather armor, forty meters inside the chain mail, twenty meters inside the plate armor, all nonsense!

(Note: The crossbow here refers only to a stubble crossbow, or a hunting crossbow.) ）

The cross crossbow, at least the cross crossbow in the early and middle middle ages, is completely different from the kind of steel crossbow that appeared later, the lethality of the cross crossbow is quite limited, even in the best range, the maximum lethality, it is estimated that it can only shoot through a layer of chain mail, and the knight with a little money puts a double turtle shell on himself, and the cross crossbow has nothing to do.

But the biggest advantage of the crossbow, which I don't even know you know, is that it is easy to train.

Take the English longbowmen, for example, the famous English longbowmen, who have to go through at least five years of bow and arrow training - and can you believe it? Edward I (the gay Edward's father, the one who beat Wallace) also issued a decree ordering all people in England to be allowed to shoot arrows only on Sundays and not to have any other entertainment.

From the birth of an English child, he accompanied his bow, until he grew up, entertained, married, and even the king issued decrees guaranteeing that even then, at the Battle of Crecy, which decided the fate of England, there were no more than six thousand longbowmen in total.

And the crossbow, we all know, as long as there are enough materials, even an ordinary peasant, not an idiot with sound hands and feet - it doesn't matter if you don't have feet, as long as you can wind it, as many crossbowmen as you want.

Of course, the hit rate of such a crossbowman must not be guaranteed, but compared to the bow, the crossbow is originally won by quantity, and a few cannon fodder crossbowmen who have no training and the cost is just a crossbow are exchanged for a longbowman who has been trained for several years, no matter how you look at it, this business is profitable!

As for the resulting decrease in the morale of the army and the collapse of the morale of the army, it is not something that should be considered.

However, the Count of Don was not facing an army of English longbowmen! Now William the Conqueror had just conquered England, two hundred years before his grandson's son Edward I appeared, and the longbowmen were still nowhere to be seen.

Besides, the Earl of Don is now pressed for time, how can he have time to train any archers, and the mercenaries in the entire Irish have been almost consumed after two major battles, and even those who still have spare strength - such as the Irish trade unions, they have been frightened by the combined forces of the two archdukes, and they dare not fight the archduke no matter how high the price is.

Therefore, the little Count Tang can only pay a high price to buy a batch of much-needed crossbows to arm his soldiers, the weakness of the ultra-long pikemen formation is the lack of long-range attack ability, if the Grand Duke of Murchid learns a lesson, that is, if he does not approach, he shoots with arrows, and the shooting also kills the super pikemen.

As the saying goes, money makes the devil grind.

It was true, and for a sufficient price, some daring Jewish merchants could get whatever you needed, and the Count of Don Jr. bought two hundred crossbows that were shoddy, unmaintained, and almost scrapped for more than two years, for the price of four gold coins per crossbow, which was equivalent to one-fifth of chain mail.

Well, I know it's a loss, these Jewish businessmen are almost all making a lot of money, but what can be done? Now it is a seller's market, as long as the price is not too outrageous, Earl Don will pinch his nose and buy it.

Of course, after that, they secretly set up some stumbling blocks for the Jewish merchants, raising the price of the paper sold to them, not selling them honey, and legislating specifically against the Jews, all of which were just the fault of the Jewish merchants.

In addition, there are also knight chain mail captured last time, most of these chain mail are a little tattered, but after a little repair, it can be used, Count Xiao Tang gave all these chain mail to the veterans who are the team leader, these veterans wear chain mail, one can improve their survivability, and the other is to mark their identity, in the chaos of the battlefield recruits have to listen to the words of the veterans.

However, Count Tang once again strengthened the training of his soldiers, including spearmen, sword and shield soldiers, and newly transferred crossbowmen, especially crossbowmen, anyway, the arrows fired by the crossbow can be recycled and not wasted. Count Don Jr. let them shoot, and they didn't do anything all day long, until they were able to hit six percent at a distance of fifty meters.

Moreover, Count Tang also asked all the blacksmiths in the realm to start forging hard to make more arrowheads, and the carpenters also had to work hard to make more arrowheads...... In short, the whole of Desmond was like a machine that began to run fast, rumbling black smoke and roaring ready to crush or be crushed by the enemy.

It was in these circumstances that a messenger from the Archduke of North Munster, in fact, disguised as a dead man, visited the castle of the Count of Don the Younger, carrying the letter given to him by the big bus.