Although the atmosphere at the scene was slightly serious after hearing Gawain's words, Byron still answered the question with a blank face: "After two rounds of expansion in winter and spring, the number of combatants in the Cecil Combat Corps has now reached five thousand, of which one thousand have received artillery training. But even though we have 5,000 soldiers, more than 3,000 of them are complete recruits - they have only undergone basic drill training, know how to use thermal ray guns, grenades, and mines, and have zero actual combat experience. ”

Gao Wen nodded slightly, this result was roughly within the range he expected, and he was already quite satisfied with it.

Today, Cecil's territory has expanded again, especially after the Kant region was officially incorporated into Cecil, the population within the territory has exceeded 70,000 - of which 30,000 are in the main city of Cecil, and the rest are distributed in the surrounding villages and towns and the vast Kant region.

On this population basis, the exaggerated military-civilian ratio of almost eight civilians and one soldier in the early days of the pioneer territory has finally been alleviated, and due to the existence of the construction army system and the support of the productivity of the territory, the current size of the Cecil Combat Corps is still relatively reasonable and balanced for the territory.

And the fact that more than half of the soldiers in this corps are new recruits cannot be changed.

In addition to the actual combat test and the accumulation of time, it is impossible for recruits in the army to turn into veterans out of thin air, although the combat corps has always had high-intensity intensive training, regularly going to the periphery of the territory to suppress bandits, exterminating demonic beasts to increase the "bloody experience", and the tradition of veterans as seeds to lead the recruit class, the training efficiency is much higher than that of the traditional private soldiers of this era, but no matter how high the efficiency is, it is impossible to train those recruits in place in more than two months.

But Gawain knew that even with a high proportion of recruits, the soldiers of the Combat Corps still had a huge advantage over the traditional private soldiers of this era, and this advantage was enough to offset the problem caused by the high proportion of many recruits - the particularity of the magic guide armament.

The traditional soldiers of this era still mainly rely on cold weapons to fight, and the magic power is often only an embellishment used by a few battle mages in the army to gain the battlefield and counter the opponent, and the soldiers who use cold weapons to fight are particularly long and difficult to train, complex fighting, offensive and defensive skills need to be tempered over the years, and the courage required for close face-to-face killing can not be honed overnight, but what about magic soldiers?

It only takes a month of practice for them to go from being exposed to a heat-ray gun to being able to roughly hit a person's torso from a distance of dozens of meters, and they can also receive disciplined and institutionalized brainwashing indoctrination and the learning of soldiers' ethics, as for cold weapon fighting......

The performance of the melting sword is enough to make up for many shortcomings.

What's more, for Cecil's combatants, cold weapon hand-to-hand combat is not a major item in itself: the Molten Sword is just a secondary weapon.

Byron, as the main commander of the combat corps and one of the early founders, of course knew the situation of the soldiers under his opponent, so after reporting the proportion of recruits, he immediately said: "A magic infantry with two months of training can kill several traditional soldiers who have been trained for many years and even experienced several battles dozens of meters away, so even our recruits have strong combat effectiveness - on the premise of having enough space to shoot." ”

"In comparison, artillery training is more complex and slower," he added, "and the team cooperation, quick access to the firing table data, memorization of various battlefield instructions, and the use and maintenance of orbital accelerators are much more difficult than thermal ray guns." ”

"That's normal, the formation speed of advanced classes has always been like this," Gawain nodded, "as long as they can master those small artillery pieces as soon as possible." ”

"You can rest assured," Byron said confidently, "that the miniaturized 'Persuader' orbital accelerator can be operated by two people, the shooting table is simple, and the sights are simpler, and it is already well trained." ”

After Byron's debriefing, Philip continued: "I am in the process of consolidating and reorganizing the old corps from the Kant region. After Knight Kant swore allegiance, the knight Wald Perridge led the Order and his subordinate servants and militia to merge into Cecil's domain, which numbered about 3,000. They are all old-style aristocratic private soldiers, and their combat effectiveness and discipline are very poor, and they can't be compared with our combat soldiers at all, but fortunately, there are twelve regular knights in this part of the people, and with the cooperation of these Kant knights, the integration and reorganization of the old army is very smooth. ”

"Intensify training, especially the ideological transformation work must be in place," Gao Wen, who knew well what the situation of the aristocratic private soldiers of this era was, emphasized the ideological transformation of those old regiments, but fortunately, the previous Kant Territory was still a relatively enlightened and well-ordered territory, and the local old regiments were not corrupted to an incorrigible degree, and he was still a little optimistic about this, "This regiment will still be commanded by Knight Wald Perridge as the second corps after training." I have come into contact with Wald Perridge and know him as a reliable and loyal man as long as his mind changes. ”

"The first phase of the Iron Ranger and the preliminary training plan are in place, but the training has just begun, and there is nothing to report on yet," the third one to speak was Thorderlin, "I have privately thought about some equipment design plans based on my own combat experience and the characteristics of the 'magic guide weapon', and I am going to discuss it with Mr. Egg in the near future." ”

After these reports were over, Gawain nodded with satisfaction, and Hetty, who had long wanted to speak, finally couldn't help but speak: "Ancestor, we want to ...... Ready for war? ”

"Yes, prepare, but it's only preparation for now," Gawain looked into Hetty's eyes, "Frankly, I don't want to involve the developing territory in the war right now, but we need to be prepared for the situation to change." ”

"The situation has changed,...... Hetil thought for a moment and understood what Gawain meant, "Are you saying that this peace negotiation between Typhon and Ansu will cause a big mess?" Instead, it will lead to war? ”

"I just have a premonition of uneasiness," Gawain affirmed Hetty's statement from the side, "I would like to believe that the leaders of both countries are aware of the common threat from the wasteland, and can understand the irrationality of the war between the two countries at this time, but I doubt that everything will go so smoothly...... The Eternal Sleeper, the Society of the Death of All Things, the nobles of the two countries, and the rumored 'madness' of Emperor Typhon, there are too many factors threatening this negotiation, and once something goes wrong in the negotiation process, it will be too late to prepare after the outbreak of war. ”

"I see," Hetty nodded slowly, "the government department will also start to act - in fact, the hoarding of supplies has not stopped since the various trade routes were opened, but now I will increase the hoarding of materials according to the standards of preparation." ”

Cecil Territory is a seemingly peaceful and prosperous place, but in fact the land was prepared for war from the start, regardless of whether the enemy was an aberrant or a human, due to Gawain's sense of crisis. In the past year, Gawain has opened up trade routes in three directions, and now all kinds of ores from the western Leslie Collar, medicinal raw materials and wheat from the northern Kant region, and grain, fur, and textile raw materials from the eastern Gülen are constantly being sent to the warehouse every day.

Outsiders only knew that Cecil had earned an astonishing fortune in the fields of alchemy potions, magic guidance machinery, and so on, but they probably couldn't imagine that more than half of this wealth had actually been spent at the same alarming rate, and had been turned into war preparation materials in Gawain's warehouse......

"In addition to stockpiling supplies, we also need to consider the maintenance of law and order in the territory, public opinion, logistics, material distribution, and so on in the event of a war," Gawain said, looking not only at Hetty, but also at everyone present, "Cecil has a prosperity and order that far exceeds that of the outside world, and what we want to prove is that even in the event of war, this prosperity and order is far greater than anywhere else." ”

After completing all the preparations for the battle, Gao Wen announced the end of the meeting, but the atmosphere at the scene was still a little tense and serious.

Seeing this, he laughed: "Of course, we are just taking precautions here, maybe this negotiation will end smoothly, or maybe nothing will happen, so don't be overly nervous - life should still be passed." ”

Amber couldn't help but muttered when she heard this: "Why did I panic even more when you said this......"

Gawain immediately glared at the guy: "How did you say that?" ”

Amber muttered: "Last time, you said that it would be good if the deviants didn't attack, but more than 3,000 monsters came to attack the city before the winter ended......"

Gawain slapped the half-elf on the skull: "If Rebecca isn't there, you're in charge of the head iron, right?!" ”

"Oh mom - it hurts!"

Thanks to Miss Half-Elf's dedication and sacrifice, after Gawain's slap, the atmosphere on the scene suddenly became less tense and serious......

After taking the amber to the truth, Gawain remembered something, so he looked at Byron: "Speaking of which, winter is over, and it seems that the exploration of the remaining part of the 'Fortress of Disobedience' can be resumed. ”

After Kamel joined Cecil's Domain, many of the secrets of the mountain ruins were solved, and its name was changed to the official name of the Gondor Empire, "Fortress of Disobedience", and now a third of the area of the fortress of disobedience has been reused, and after the transformation of the modern magic net, it has been connected to energy, and has become the location of arsenals, sophisticated equipment manufacturing plants, and warehouses for war supplies, but a large part of it is still hidden in the unknown dark depths.

Although Carmel was one of the former senior technicians of the Rebellion Fortress, the scale of the ancient fortress was too large, and there were too many secrets buried inside, only the Gondor royal family had all the secrets of the fortress, so Cavel only helped Gawain draw a structural map of the bottom floor of the Rebellion Fortress and the area of the Rebellion Fortress, and as for the southern and eastern aspects of the fortress, it is still a mystery.

After winter, Gawain suspended his exploration of the unknown territory of the Fortress of Disobedience and ordered the corridors to the southern and eastern parts of the fortress to be temporarily blocked, but now that winter was over and the weather was getting warmer, he decided it was time to restart the project.