Andrew, the name of the middle-aged craftsman just now, took advantage of the time to hurry, and Otto roughly figured out his personal situation.

In his early thirties, he was single, and he usually made a living by making bows and arrows for people and cultivating the land.

Andrew's residence was no different from the houses of many civilians of this era.

Low-rise wooden houses with thatched roofs and small windows that don't meet the needs of light.

There are few decent pieces of furniture in the house, and the only thing that catches people's attention is a wall full of bows of different lengths.

It can be seen that in this era, even a person with a unique craft still cannot live a relatively rich life.

Andrew rummaged in a corner of the house for a long time and took out three crossbows.

"Young master, look at it, is this kind of crossbow? The hunters in the village got this kind of weapon before, so they asked me to make some, and these few were sold and kept forever. ”

Andrew introduced as he handed the crossbow to Grent.

When he saw the appearance of these three crossbows, a look of disappointment flashed in Otto's eyes. For no other reason, these three crossbows are too small, very similar to the hand crossbows he has seen in film and television dramas.

Without testing, Otto knew that this light crossbow could only cause damage to leather armor, and was completely ineffective against metal armor.

"Young Master, do you want to try it?" Ginter took the crossbow and looked at Otto.

"No need." Otto shook his head, the crossbow machine, which could only fire finger-length and short crossbow arrows, did not meet his requirements at all.

However, the principle of the crossbow machine is universal, since you can make a small one, you can make a bigger one.

"These crossbows are too small, can you make some bigger ones?" Otto looked at Andrew, who was at a loss with a few crossbow arrows, and asked softly.

"Ahh

But unexpectedly, the young master in front of him was willing to give him another chance. It's just that he hasn't done a bigger crossbow yet.

"Should... It should work, but a bigger crossbow requires a longer bolt, and I... I may not be able to build a corresponding crossbow. Andrew replied a little crampedly, clenching the crossbow arrow in his hand tighter, and could vaguely feel the pain coming from his palm.

"It's okay." Otto was delighted to get the answer he wanted. "You don't have to worry about crossbow arrows, just let someone else do it. Your task is to build a bigger crossbow, at least, that big.

What materials you need, you try to open your mouth, as long as you can make it, I guarantee that you will be rich and prosperous for the rest of your life. ”

Otto recalled the crossbow in his memory and roughly measured the length with his hand.

"Oh, good, good!" Andrew hurriedly nodded excitedly, and also gestured according to Otto's appearance, trying to remember the size, and in the process of drawing, the crossbow arrow tightly held in the palm of his right hand also fell.

He was about to bend down to pick it up, but Otto had already moved first, picking up a few crossbow arrows on the ground.

"Let's go, let's go back to dinner! Hungry to death. ”

Otto reached for a crossbow from Ginter's hand and tried to reload.

On the way back to the castle, Ginter asked Otto, who was a little fond of playing with his crossbow all the way.

"Young master, I know the crossbow as a weapon, but its power is limited, young master, do you want to prepare this for that group of farmers?"

"Limited power?" Otto smiled and aimed his crossbow at a nearby tree to try to aim. "Foolish man, you know nothing about the power of machinery."

As he spoke, Otto pulled the trigger, and the bolt flew out and plunged into the trunk of the tree.

After dinner, Otto, who returned to his room, spread out the map he had drawn and marked the location where the Eagle Castle was to be built.

Now, there are soldiers, and soon, there are weapons. After being equipped with a crossbow, this "new army" of its own also has a certain combat effectiveness. Then there are only two things to focus on, the construction of Eagle Castle and the threat of Lady Kailin.

The key to the construction of Eagle Fort is money. The money provided by Madame Kaylin could only barely build a small earthen fort, while Otto wanted to build a large stone castle, the difference in cost was more than one or two times.

Even though the stone could be mined by the serfs, the corresponding other building materials would have to cost a lot of money.

Money, where does it come from? Otto had already figured out the answer.

The Allgaux Collar is located in a key position between the South German and French trade routes, so it is natural to make good use of this geographical advantage. With so many caravans passing through each year, how can you pay only a little symbolic tolls and tolls?

Originally, Otto was not prepared to start collecting commercial taxes so early, and when his own territory was not yet developing, imposing high commercial taxes was completely an act of exhaustion. But the current scene can't take into account Otto's slow picture.

Even though he knew that this would cause the caravans in transit to choose a detour, which would be detrimental to the long-term development of the territory, Otto felt that it was worth it compared to the benefits of building the Eagle Castle. What's more, collecting some taxes does not necessarily make businessmen detour.

Historically, after a certain family ruled the northwestern region of Switzerland, it built thousands of fortresses, large and small, set up checkpoints along the way, and made a fortune by collecting tolls, completing the original accumulation of the family.

Compared with the tyranny of the family in history, Otto felt that the commercial tax of thirty taxes and one was completely the price of cabbage.

Otto's rebuilding of the Eagle Castle this time is not only to meet the strange requirements in the system, but also to take this opportunity to build a commercial town based on the Eagle Castle.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, almost all the original towns in the empire decayed, and only a few towns still retained their commercial functions. The main reason for this is the successive establishment of feudalism in various parts of Europe.

The feudal system distributed land and population as private property to lords of all sizes, which turned the original freemen into serfs. Without enough free people, it is naturally impossible to support the development of towns, and the decline of towns is inevitable.

Otto wanted to abolish serfdom in one step, mainly because serfdom was too constraining the development of the productive forces. But he also knew that it was impossible. Not to mention the resistance to reform since ancient times, Otto did not want to become an alternative.

Therefore, Otto's idea was to use the newly built Eagle Fort to convert some serfs into yeoman farmers with their own land, and then gather craftsmen from all over the territory to Eagle Castle.

In this way, the prototype of a small commercial town was established. Over time, it developed a siphon effect and grew gradually, and with its geographical location, Eagle Castle was likely to become a commercial center for the entire Swiss region and even South Germany.

Historically, many towns in Germany and northwestern France have arisen in this way.

Even if it does not become a trade center, it can also gain great benefits as a trade transit point for trade routes, the most direct example is Constantinople, the city of the world's desire, which made a lot of money by virtue of changing trade.

With such a simple primitive method of accumulation, why bother to exploit the lords who already had little oil and water?