Before he and Tyrion went south to King's Landing, Egg was a serious Night's Watch soldier - on duty at the top of the Wall, patrolling the Ghost Forest, and cutting down the Stranger.

He thought he knew what it meant to be cold, but reality gave him a hard blow to his ears and let him experience firsthand: why there is also a distinction between winter and summer in the concept of northerners.

After Robb Stark's inspection of the Great Wall passed, the land grant lasted for a long time in good weather. But the so-called "good" actually means that there is no snow in the sky, the wind does not blow people, and the sun can occasionally be seen.

The temperature, however, continued to drop without hesitation after a small rise.

When it first crossed over, Castle Black was cold, but it only fluctuated around freezing...... In the wilderness, a little away from the ice wall, you can feel a little warmth in the sun when you are lucky enough to soak up the sun during the day. Even at the coldest time of the night, it was only minus five, six, seven or eight degrees, and although the wind could freeze the teeth of the sentry on duty at night, it was not so terrifying to wrap an extra blanket.

It was a mild to some good memory, and now, the real winter in the concept of the northerners has arrived, and Egger, who was born and raised in the water town of the south of the Yangtze River, has finally realized what it means to be maddeningly cold.

A basin of hot water can freeze when it hits the ground, and maintaining a normal campfire in the open outdoors has become a luxury, either by building a bunker to retain heat before lighting the fire, or by increasing the size of the campfire or mixing it with tar; as soon as one leaves the room, the cold will go like a life into the fibrous holes of fur and clothing, no matter how thick the clothes are, it will not be possible to stay outside for long; it has become impossible to arrange a group of people to stay overnight—to ensure that no one freezes to death, the commander must arrange at least three shifts...... Along with the "cold" comes the Ruhe River, which is gradually losing its isolation function due to ice at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and the increasingly arduous and soon urgent anti-freezing work in the East China Sea Wanghai Seal Bay, which must be vigilant day and night.

Egg was ashamed to find that as the commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch, the supreme commander of the human race against the dead, he didn't even see the shadow of the enemy, and he was so frozen that he didn't even want to go out of the door.

Of course – not wanting to come out and not being out are two different concepts. With great power comes great responsibility, and although he is frozen like a dog, he must not show slackness. Gritting his teeth, Egger insisted on fixed inspections and guidance to ensure that his strategic arrangements were implemented correctly, and that every government affairs that occurred in the land grant and the Great Wall were handled as soon as possible to avoid misconduct...... Lead by example and set a good example.

In stark contrast to the bone-chilling cold, there is a fiery atmosphere of production and preparation along the entire land grant and the Great Wall.

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Construction is in full swing, and the patrol transfer station "Canyon Wang" on the south bank of the Grand Canyon and the "Ice Gorge Port" at the mouth of the sea have been completed and put into use. Craftsmen from all walks of life were recruited from the North, the River, and even the Imperial Domain...... In addition to the young people who were ready to learn the technology at Egger's behest, they began to search for high-quality timber, discuss tonnage classes and constructions, and officially begin preparations for the construction of the North West Coast Fleet.

In terms of military preparations, Iger had a good deck of cards: the Night's Watch was a well-trained standing army in its own right, and with Dennis Mellister surrendering and Carter Pike relenting, the new Commander-in-Chief had a high degree of control over the entire legion. Although the number of armed forces directly under the logistics department is slightly smaller, the quality is better and the loyalty is higher, and there is only a little actual combat experience.

In addition, the large-scale rotation training for all the residents of the land grant was carried out as planned: whether it was the old land-grantees, the mountain clans or the visitors from outside the Cypriots, who were originally distributed along the Great Wall, they all adapted to the cold climate. Accustomed to surviving in harsh environments, they are much stronger and more powerful than they seem. With Egger in power, the chief logistics officer, the improved food and proper exercise soon made them go from being thin to healthy and full—a better source of soldiers than any peasant in the Seven Kingdoms. It is only necessary to complete the basic discipline training and drills, and fill in the officer system of the logistics department guard with a complete and advanced concept, and then a strong army can be quickly formed.

......

The progress of militarization has not been without its challenges: rotations are compulsory, and everyone who qualifies must participate. This meant that, unlike recruiting temporary workers or soldiers, not all of the participants had voluntarily assembled for training, and many of them had never been in contact with the Night's Watch Logistics Department, and this was where the two sides of the people's customs were evident - the new inhabitants were fierce and wolf-like, but naturally more unruly than the peasants of the Seven Kingdoms. Among them, those who have long since returned to the northern mountain clans are quite manageable, while those who call themselves "free people" have a natural resistance to things such as discipline and obedience that can be associated with "unfreedom" and "kneeling" at the first hearing, and although they dare not openly make trouble, a considerable number of them have a negative attitude of non-violence and non-cooperation in training.

These thorns are stubborn and hard-boned, often from larger tribes, whether it is good words and persuasion, beating and scolding, corporal punishment, or locking up a small black house (in this ghost weather, confinement really has no deterrent effect), the deterrent effect is quite insufficient, Iger did not dare to rashly give orders in training out of caution, resulting in the military training did not go smoothly at first- It wasn't until later that a logistics officer from King's Landing came up with a different solution: divide each group of militia into groups, add a clause to the punishment for passive resistance to disciplined trainers, and reward the confiscated part as a reward to the other groups that made faster progress in training.

Iger never imagined that such a low-level way of dealing with problems as fines would have a surprisingly amazing effect: those thorns who ignored the reprimands and responded to the whipping with anger quickly became well-behaved under the lessons of other members of the same group who did not want to get along with money, and the instructors of the logistics department did not have to pretend to be blackfaced, and the problem was easily solved by internal digestion, which really made people laugh and cry.

......

While the rotation training was gradually being rolled out smoothly, Nina, who had recently come north to ask for advice on strategy, also wrote to report on the progress of her return to the south: she successfully met with Tyrion Lannister in Lannisterport, and successfully applied for a loan of 40,000 gold dragons without contacting Duke Tywin at all—although there was interest, but considering that the western frontier was still in the process of post-war reconstruction, and the 40,000 was cash, it was already priceless.

This is great news. Climbing technology is actually like building a high-rise building, and the existing technology in the world of ice and fire is like a big slippery bungalow, although it is decent compared to the open-air mat and thatched shed, but it is a pity that the "practical artillery" is at the height of a three-story building.

If you want to put thermal weapons into the battlefield, you can't do it in the air, Iger must first take out the money to reinforce the "first floor", and then build the "second floor" at his own expense, before he can reach out to the final goal. And it was much more difficult to do this independently without the support of the state: the money donated by the nobles of the north was quickly spent, and the rest was all occupied by various budgets, and without the capital injection from the Lannister Bank, Iger would probably have to give up the idea of monopolizing the thermal weapons, and invite Robb to visit the firearms arsenal and ask him to officially join the family.

After all, although the temptation to possess a weapon of mass murder in the first place is strong, it would be a great crime to delay the birth of such an excellent weapon because of personal desires, and then lead to the defeat or even defeat of mankind in the battle of life and death.

Now, with a new sum of money, Iger can continue to build his already large "second floor".

The large-scale production of gunpowder is one of the important technologies on the second floor, and as an important source of nitrate, Nina also took some actions in the south according to Igger's instructions: first spent a lot of money to collect a few cans in the royal territory and the river and transport them back to the Great Wall, temporarily relieving the urgent need for experimental gunpowder, and then spent money to form an exploration team to find the saltpeter mines controlled by King Stannis, and at the same time opened a new experimental base in the King's Landing Industrial Park, gathering a large number of inventors who had already cooperated with the Night's Watch industry, and began to study the way to produce nitrate.

Very good, virtuous help is virtuous help, Iger issued an order in the reply letter: from now on, the Night's Watch industry no longer needs to transfer profits to land gifts, but instead invests all in the mining or production of nitrate, and the two-pronged approach is to overcome this key technology as soon as possible. He had such a hunch that she would always be able to do well what was handed over to Nina...... Hopefully this is not a delusion.

A little girl is so reliable, and Egger himself can't drop the chain: also on the "second floor", there is also the pre-technology for the production of cannons: the ability to cast "non-solid objects whose strength meets the requirements".

......

Following the discovery of copper and tin, iron ore was finally dug up among the hills of the land grant: after all, it is the second most abundant metal element in the earth's crust, and the exploration of iron ore should not be too difficult. But unfortunately, the quality of the first iron ore found in the land grant is really commendable, so bad that the master of the continuous casting and forging cold weapons shook his head when he saw it, and could only use it to make do with the production of some ordinary tools, which were distributed to the workers of the construction team for work, and even the swords still had to be donated and purchased for the time being...... As for the cannons, which require more materials, most of them still have to count on bronze first.

Self-minted copper coins are to lay the foundation for smelting, which is a "one-store" technology, and it is naturally no problem to simply move from the south to the land gift. However, the hollow spherical tank used for casting explosive bombs will greatly test the casting level and brain-solving ability of the land-donor craftsmen: the explosive bomb does not consider bearing the overload of artillery firing for the time being, so the performance requirements are low, and it is theoretically a metal can. After dozens of days of failure and repetition, the accuracy of the mold was finally improved to the required standard, and finally the process was matured and fixed, and mass production began to be sent to the test site for real explosion testing.

The technology of accurately casting metal containers on demand will be a valuable foundation for casting cannons in the future. Step by step, the progress bar for the research and development of launch-type thermal weapon technology has slowly climbed from 1% to 10%, and although it is still far from being realized, it has finally made people see hope.

It has become a habit for Iger to visit the industrial area outside the inner city every day, and on this day he finished his lunch, put on his coat, and planned to go out to breathe in the cold air as usual, and pushed open the gate, only to be greeted by the caretaker of the crow's nest in Houguan Town.

"Your Excellency, a letter from the Long Night Castle. ”

Iger nodded, took the letter scroll, kneaded it and looked at it, and was immediately solemn.

An important juncture in the battle between ice and fire, the ultimate warning signal he had been waiting for for a long time...... It's finally here: Brandon Stark, who has been missing for months, has reappeared in the well where the Black Gate is hidden under the Long Night Castle.

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