Duke has always been a coveted state of medieval heavy cavalry, but the Warcraft cavalry or higher-level riding creatures are not currently affordable for Stormcastle.

Therefore, it can only be done from the most basic war horse level, as long as the equipment is well-equipped enough and can even wear armor on the war horse, it still has strong combat effectiveness.

A long time ago, Zhang Nan had set up a storm horse farm in the grassland under the Saint-Michel mountains, in order to breed the number of future war horses in Storm Castle. After more than a year of breeding, the first foals have basically been born, and the horses bred by the selected excellent horse breeds are quite tall and suitable for heavy cavalry mounts.

But the flaw is also obvious, that is, the number is still very scarce, the first foals are only a few hundred, and it will take at least a year or two for the foals to be tamed into a good war horse. More importantly, the general war horse will choose castration, and the war horse that has not experienced castration is not easy to be tamed when it is short-tempered on the battlefield, and it is even more troublesome when it encounters estrus.

It's just that once the horse is castrated, it also means that a good source of stallions is lost, especially when the base is not enough, it is easy to lose good stallions. So theoretically, the foals will be able to become war horses after another year, but in practice, if Duke wants to breed more war horses, then he must keep these foals as stallions and prepare them for breeding.

Therefore, if Duke wants to build his own heavy cavalry unit, he can only rely on the purchase method. While he still had some money to spare, Duke called the treasurer Cons and discussed with him whether he could build a strong cavalry force with the current financial balance.

"Conception, what is Stormcastle's fiscal balance right now?"

During this period of time, Duke may have asked more about the financial balance than in the previous year, because the money spent during this period of time was like water, and it was impossible not to ask.

So Conceptis is also accustomed to this kind of inquiry, and has already prepared the accounts.

"Lord Hui, there is still about 460,000 gold in the Storm Castle vault. Although the Sea Clan's pearl and gem sales brought huge profits, as the profits increased, Stormcastle carried out large-scale construction and expansion operations, so the rate of consumption was also very fast. ”

Four hundred and sixty thousand? Duke frowned when he heard this number, you must know that the Sea Clan Jewels sold for millions of gold coins, and there were also sales profits of 150,000 per month, and in two months, the financial revenue of Storm Castle was theoretically as high as 1.3 million gold coins, which was already the amount that some principalities could reach.

As a result, I didn't expect to spend more than half of the gold coins in one go, but consider that the three armies of the Sea Clan, the Terrans, and the Dwarves were built at the same time, and because some urban construction projects were restarted, and the food harvest did not meet expectations, Storm Fortress still needed to buy rations from other territories.

Originally, the purchase of grain in winter was a season when prices were on the high side, and in particular, some territories were still taking advantage of the fire to rob, raising the price of grain by at least five layers compared with the past, and the cost of purchasing grain has also increased by a large margin. After all kinds of expenditures, it is reasonable to spend so much money.

The main thing is that the pension problem has been solved, and I believe that the future should not be so tight, and if the storm carriage is put on sale, it should be able to break even.

"Kangsi, according to the general price of war horses on the mainland, can we build a thousand-man cavalry team?"

"No, you can't. ”

Conceptis rejected Duke's question without the slightest hesitation, and this decisiveness surprised Duke.

"Why not?"

460,000 gold coins, in exchange for the exchange rate of later generations, is about 460 million, and if you use purchasing power, it can at least exceed 1 billion. If this money were exchanged for Duke in the previous life, it would be an astronomical amount that I couldn't even think of, and as a result, Conceptis directly rejected himself.

"Because war horses are basically not for sale on the mainland, as strategic materials, almost every empire is in the stage of seeing enough. Even if it is willing to sell, it is estimated that the price is sky-high, with the transaction price on the market, the lowest-level war horse is more than 1,000 gold coins, and it is basically impossible for a good war horse to be less than 2,000 gold coins. ”

"That is to say, even if you put all the current gold coins of Storm Castle Gold into it, you can only buy less than five hundred war horses. And the war horses are extremely delicate, and the breeding price is also amazing, Storm Fortress has no spare strength and financial resources to form a thousand-man cavalry force!"

Hearing Kangsi's answer, Duke's heart instantly cooled, he knew that the war horse was very expensive, but he didn't expect it to be so expensive. Sold the entire Storm Fort, it is estimated that it is not enough to gather a regiment of elite cavalry.

Seeing Duke's frustrated look, Conceptis hesitated for a moment and finally gave his advice.

"My lord, although we can't buy so many horses, we can still assemble a cavalry team of a thousand people. Why are you reluctant to recruit knights to Stormcastle?"

This is what Conception has always puzzled, according to the practice on the mainland, when the lord fights, he usually recruits the knights in his own territory. Weapons, horses, armor, and even retinues will be provided by the knights themselves, and the lord only needs to take out a part of the territory as spoils of war after the battle to distribute to the knights.

If you don't have enough knights in your territory, you can recruit other adventurous knights who are willing to fight and let them join your cavalry team. That's why, the other realms have been able to maintain a decent number of cavalry, but the finances are not in crisis.

It's just that this very trouble-free and cost-saving recruitment method has been abandoned by the lord, and now he is troubled by the problem of cavalry.

"Concept, there's no need to talk about this kind of thing. In this case, try to buy some stallions so that Storm Horse Farm can breed enough horses as soon as possible. Self-reliant, abundant food and clothing!"

When Duke finished saying this, he sighed deeply, in fact, he was not unaware of the advantages of recruiting cavalry, but he also knew the major disadvantages of recruiting cavalry. Because these recruited knights have never been trained, and both the knights themselves and the war horses are of mixed standards.

It's easy to say when the wind is downwind, once the wind is against the wind, it can only depend on whether the knight is strict with his knightly character, and if he is not strict, it will lead to a rout.

Even if it is strict, Duke thinks it is useless, what he needs is victory, but to use the battle death to maintain the glory of his knight!