Cremation ends.

Egger's original plan was to wait until he had finished packing up Master Emon's ashes before proceeding to the next step, but it would be ten minutes before the ashes were cool enough to be touched. It seemed unnecessary to continue to mourn in silence during this time, but it was too embarrassing to be in a daze, and his heart moved, and he decided to make a small change to the arrangement on the spot, taking advantage of this gap period.

......

"There has never been a night watchman, facing the crisis we are facing today!" Egger's loud opening words quickly silenced the courtyard of Castle Black, and after a pause, he emphasized again, "Never!"

Everyone quickly understood that this was Egger's inaugural speech, and they all looked up at the new commander-in-chief, wanting to see what he could say.

"The Night's Watch was established after the Battle of Dawn, and the purpose of our existence was to be able to appear and stop their attempts to destroy humanity in the first place if the Celestial Enemies reappeared. No one thought that this would be thousands of years. Until today, when we have almost disappeared, those of us who were about to witness the black-clad army become history have encountered this damned, second strange ghost attack!"

This complaint has been carried out by countless night watch soldiers in their hearts, and now the commander-in-chief has said it in public, which has suddenly narrowed the psychological distance with many soldiers.

"This time, we don't have magic-wielding sons of the forest as allies, nor do we have legendary heroes like Azar Yahai to lead a head-to-head battle with the demons. He raised his hand and pointed to the Great Wall of Desperation behind him, "But unlike the Precursors who fought against the Wraiths in the Battle of Dawn - today, you have this seven-hundred-foot wall of ice, and I, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Night's Watch!"

"Beyond the walls, the Ghost Forest, the Frosty Mountains, the Frozen Coast, and the Land of Eternal Winter have completely fallen and are under the control of the ghosts. Endless, untold numbers of dead people are eyeing the Seven Kingdoms under the leadership of the Stranger. And inside the walls, the kings and nobles of the south were still fighting over an iron chair, and there was no time for anything else. At this juncture, the Great Wall Guards also lost Bunyan Stark, Jeo Mormont, and Maester Aemon, excellent and respectable brothers...... It even took us months to grudge our differences, end the campaign and pick out the commander-in-chief who would command the war that followed. ”

"Next, we have to deal with a dozen old fortresses that are in ruins, large sections of ice walls that have not been properly repaired and cleaned for decades, and tens of thousands of new land-grantees who are fed with problems...... If Commander Mormont were still alive, he would probably frown and declare, 'The situation is not optimistic.'" But I will not use the rhetoric of the nobility to whitewash the peace and cover up the truth, I must tell you honestly: the darkest hour has come!"

Egger raised his voice abruptly, and a lot of frustrating words on it were for this final twist: "But we will not admit it, we will fight to the end! We will fight the enemy on the edge of the Grand Canyon, we will fight the enemy in the cold ice bay, we will fight the enemy on the ice wall and in the fortress, and we will fight the enemy at all costs to prevent them from stepping on the Great Wall!"

"Even in the unlikely event that this most powerful defense is breached, we will continue to fight the enemy in the land grants, in the north, and even in the mountains, rivers, and swamps of the royal realm. As long as we remain faithful and united, we will build another great wall of flesh and blood—until we fight to the last man, or drive those damned shit back home!"

Before the crossing, he hated the bureaucratic and lengthy reports and speeches, and at this inauguration ceremony, he had already planned to control the time for empty talk. In addition, the ashes of Master Aemon are still open in the open air, and the snow is flying, and there is no delay...... After a slight pause, he quickly wrapped up his inaugural speech.

"We are isolated, and even if we are optimistic, we will probably be able to protect the tens of millions of people in Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms behind us...... How unfair it is that there has never been a war in the history of mankind that requires so few people to protect so many of our kind! Why? Because we are the night watchmen! We are the sword in the darkness, the guards of the Wall. We are the flames against the cold, the light at dawn, the trumpets that awaken the sleepers, the shields that protect the kingdom!"

He concludes with the second half of the Night's Watch Oath in order to resonate with everyone, and his cronies in the crowd begin to chant the oath together, followed by the supporters, and then the neutrals...... More and more of the Night's Watch joined in the collective recitation and oath that everyone was familiar with, and by the time the last sentence was the entire fortress spitting and shouting: "We give our life and glory to the Night's Watch, tonight, and every night!"

＊＊＊

No one disrupted or interrupted the presentation. But Egger always felt that the atmosphere was not as expected, and the dark spots in his field of vision stimulated by the bright light had not dissipated, which made it impossible for him to see the expressions of the soldiers in the audience. Psychologically, he couldn't help but have the illusion that many of them were not listening to themselves, but were staring at the weapons at their waists, expecting them to pull out and wield the lightsaber again to enhance the persuasiveness of their speeches.

Although the performance was quite acceptable in terms of the volume of the shouts of the night watchmen, he couldn't help but feel more dissatisfied with Melisandre's own ideas.

But that doesn't matter, an impassioned speech can stir people's blood for a while, but the strange spirits are not coming to attack the city tonight after all. In the end, it is the quality of soldiers, equipment, and logistical operations that determine the outcome of a long-term war.

And most of these depend on oneself as a command and decision-maker.

After his speech, Iger ordered the ashes of Master Aemon. After the site was cleared, he began to publicly announce the changes he would make to the Night's Watch Legion as soon as he took office.

The first point is to greatly increase the allowance and subsidy for all night watchmen, ranging from two to five times the range of positions and tasks.

It's not the most important change, but Iger chooses to announce it first because it's the most tangible and the easiest to win hearts and minds.

The so-called allowance is actually pocket money. The Night's Watch Legion does not need any other expenses for the soldiers' food, shelter and equipment, but after all, people have needs other than survival, and the allowance is to meet this need.

The Legion has no regular source of income, so the so-called allowance is only a few dollars a day, which is better than nothing. Generally, low-level soldiers basically need to save up for a few weeks to do something they want to do - you can go to the village of the land-giving residents to exchange some eggs, meat, cheese or something to open a small stove for yourself, you can also go to the cave in the mole village to find a woman to vent the biological instinct of reproduction, or you can hide and do a "big" vote when you have saved enough: for example, you can get yourself a new dress, buy a new pair of shoes, or even change to a more convenient guy, etc......

The obsidian that Iger used to make the dagger and eventually did his miraculous work was the money he had saved up for three months. And in order to make his friends in the East China Sea pay attention to whether there was such cargo on merchant ships, he spent two weeks' allowance to invite him to dinner, and only then could he get the matter done.

Because the base is extremely low, although it sounds scary to increase to the original "2~5 times", the pressure on the night watch industry is not huge.

Theoretically, once a person joins the Night's Watch, it becomes his duty to guard the Wall, even if he doesn't pay a penny. But now that the Great Wall has completed the land-grant resettlement plan, a strange problem has begun to emerge: although the Cypriot foreigners have handed over almost all their property in the process of changing from "savages" to "new land-grantees", if they are strong enough, have a nimble brain, and a little luck, they can continue to get jobs from Houguan Town...... By receiving their salaries, these outsiders immediately have more liquid money in their hands than ordinary night watchmen, and if they have enough to meet and manage the money properly, the life of the new landgivers will soon be much more nourishing than that of the night watchman!

Egger was a night watchman after all, and if he allowed this to develop, his elbow-turned hat would soon not be able to shake off. Suffering from unevenness and imbalance in the mentality of subordinates, sometimes it can cause serious consequences.

The second point is the change in staffing.

The internal contradictions of the Night's Watch have reached an unprecedented level of intensity due to the appearance of their own dark horse and the forcible seizure of the position of commander-in-chief. Although the overall strength of Houguan Town is now greater than that of Castle Black, Shadow Tower, and Donghai Wang combined, at this dangerous moment when the strange ghost may attack in the next second, the Night's Watch Legion is like a dying seriously ill patient who cannot withstand the intense treatment methods.

Iger did not dare to take any risks and consolidated his rule through a large number of personnel changes and purges.

Since it had been agreed not to change the commander of the Shadow Tower and the East Sea Watch, Iger simply went one step further: in the entire Night's Watch Legion, he did not change a single mid-to-high-level position, but instead used another way, gently applying medicine, diluting the power of the old-school Night's Watch little by little:

Tons of new posts added!

Iger announced in public that the sixteen newly opened forts would be officially elevated to the same status as the Shadow Tower and the East China Sea Wang, with the establishment of fortress commanders, chief rangers, affairs officers, craftsmen, and logistics officers—and announced the names of candidates for these positions on the spot.

There is no doubt that these newly elected officers of Iger, his supporters and cronies, are still all bare-bones commanders. But Iger plans to slowly increase the number of the Night's Watch to around 2,000. Those recruits who join later will be filled with the newly activated fortresses one after another, and eventually each newly activated fortress will be equipped with 50~100 Night's Watch soldiers, and then counting the mountain people and new landgivers who live in it, their control over the legion will be stable to the point that it is completely impossible to shake.

Neither moving the old people's positions nor drawing your soldiers is a move that leaves no one to object. Even if the old people saw that Egg intended to reduce their status and influence in the Night's Watch legion, there was nothing they could do, this could not be more typical - Yang Mou!

The third point is the relocation of headquarters.

Iger officially announced that from now on, Houguan Town will become the headquarters and land grant center of the Night Watch, the office and residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Night Watch.

This change naturally led to another addition: Castle Black was downgraded to 16 upgraded forts, plus the Shadow Tower and the East China Sea Lookout level "normal forts...... As a result, another position of Fortress Commander became vacant, and Iger put Jon Snow on the throne as Commander of Castle Black.

After some arrangement, Egger's evaluation of "cronyism" is probably impossible to shake off - this does not sound like a good word, but in fact the logic is very simple: in this troubled world, you don't need cronies to promote people, can you use passers-by or enemies? In order to gain a fair and good reputation, you can take the risk of not having enough control over your own forces, and you can do this kind of thing.

Doubts immediately appeared: "The Commander-in-Chief of the Night's Watch does not sit in the Black Castle, but hides in the Crown Town, how can he lead us to guard the Great Wall when he is not even on the Great Wall?"

This was completely expected by Egger, and he had already prepared a way to fight back: "Then according to this statement, we fight against the strange ghosts, and go north to fight them face to face without going out of the wall, but hide behind the Great Wall, isn't it also a sign of cowardice? I am a logistics officer, and I believe that only a strong land grant can support this war to defend mankind, and I am sitting in Houguan Town this time to build this solid backing." Jon Snow has both courage and intelligence, and may not have a little experience, but with the help of three seasoned chiefs, I am relieved to hand over Castle Black to him!"

Houguan Town is not King's Landing after all, it is only a day's journey from the Great Wall, and it is not far from the front line. Although many soldiers were not used to the change, it was not strongly opposed. Not to mention...... According to the law of the Night's Watch, the Commander-in-Chief does not need to worry about the reaction of his subordinates when issuing orders.

Without saying much to the doubters, Iger continued his rhythm: "The changes that are relevant to everyone, for the time being, these are the three points. The future of all humanity rests on us, and no matter what the road ahead, I am honored to stand by your side on this journey. Disband!"

The black-clad crowd slowly dispersed with expressions of satisfaction, excitement, or doubt, and Iger turned his head and took a breath, "Go, call Carter Pike and Jon Royce." ”

——

.。 m.