Chapter 66: The Return of Hansel
Chapter 66 – Return of Hansel
Hansel spent a week in the royal capital and found a total of 37 people who wanted to go to the northwest, including his close friend Bernard Francis. Among these 37 people, there were 17 low-ranking nobles, including Bernard, and 20 commoners, with occupations that included book scribe, chieftain, and former lower-ranking affairs officer of the kingdom government.
After deciding on a day to return, Hansel bade farewell to his family. The mother, Miranda, was very sad, at first she thought that her son would not leave after his return, but she did not realize that she still had to go to that legendary barbaric land, she hugged her son and constantly wiped her tears, complaining about the officials who had given her son this position in the first place. Count Abbott, on the other hand, patted his second son’s shoulder and encouraged him to do well, “Since you have already decided on the path you want to take, don’t give up so easily. “
“Take good care of yourself, don’t get too tired, we all want you to be peaceful.”
So said his brother Harrison Abbott.
Harrison had mixed feelings about Hansel, on the one hand his father, whom he had always respected, made him love and care for his brother, who was not born from the same mother, and on the other hand his brother, who had a so-called “lowly” pedigree, inevitably had a negative impact on his upbringing.
But he appreciates Hansel’s hard work, and laments the fact that his brother is bound by his bloodline.
Only the younger sister Julie is very excited, these days she was Hansel told some such as pirate treasure of a kind of Northwest legend to the fascination, “brother ~ please take me along with it ~” she tugged at her brother’s sleeve and constantly pouting, in the elder brother was strictly rejected, soon from excitement to depression, no longer care about Hansel.
“In a few years, when the Northwest Bay becomes prosperous and little Julie grows up, I’ll take you there!” Hansel stroked his sister’s head and comforted her, and the little girl then broke into a smile.
After another day, the crowd gathered at the north gate of the king’s capital, and together they embarked on the road north, and also on the road to the turning point of their lives.
……
After finalizing the decision to go to war against Baildin, Paul transferred the 2nd Infantry Battalion, which was stationed in the port of Fulan, to the town of Lakewood, and assembled the entire army force for training and maneuvers.
At this time the Army of Arda had the following forces:
Two infantry battalions, each with three companies of lancers and a battalion mortar (Tiger Gun) platoon.
One independent musket company.
One independent artillery company, armed with two 6-pounders and six 4-pounders.
One independent transport company under the command of the Logistics Department.
All the army officers and men counted 1355 people, which in the northwest has been a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately, a large amount of money seized pirates and the profits from paper and porcelain, otherwise Paul really can not afford to raise such a well-fed, well-dressed standing army.
Even so, the seal chief old Ford also reminded him every now and then: if the paper and porcelain sales can not continue to expand or no new sources of income, such as seized from the hands of pirates all the money used up, this army can only drink the northwest wind or directly disbanded home.
Paul is worried every day, do not know how Queller in the South, porcelain there can not be sold.
After learning from the intelligence that Baldin had a good number of knights, Paul asked the staff to start the hollow square drill. A complete version of Arda’s hollow square formation is like this: a quadrilateral square formation consisting of several layers of soldiers, the outer layers consisted of spearmen, the spearmen bent their knees and crouched down, sticking their spear shafts into the ground, with the tips of their spears pointing diagonally outwards, forming an impermeable hedgehog formation, and the inner one to two layers consisted of musketeers, who were responsible for killing and injuring charging cavalrymen at a long distance, and the remaining musketeers weren’t in charge of shooting, they were in the middle of the square formation Responsible for loading ammunition for the outer musketeers to ensure rapid and continuous fire. If the situation permitted, mortars were also deployed in the center of the square to kill the enemy with curved fire.
In fact, to put it bluntly, it is a “human bunker”, the outer layer of spearmen form a thick wall, the inner layer of musketeers act as machine gunners, but the intensity of firepower is very different.
Although it is easy to say, but to let the soldiers can quickly and skillfully form an effective hollow square is still quite troublesome, although the practice in advance many times, but in the exercise in the case of unprepared to receive the order to form a square, most people are panicked and do not know where they should stand, which is a very test of the grass-roots officers of the organizational capacity.
And also very test the judgment of the officers, for example, according to the number of enemy troops and charging formation, their side should form how large square formation, whether to form a large square formation or form several small squares, each square formation should be configured with a few layers of spearmen and a few layers of musketeers, in addition there is how to let the soldiers quickly adapt to various different configurations of squares, and how to quickly repair the gaps of the square formed by the charging of the gaps.
After repeated rehearsals, the speed of forming a battalion-sized square was finally limited to about 5 minutes.
……
On this day, Paul was on site supervising the soldiers’ training when someone came to inform him that Baron Hansel Abbott, the royal commissioner, had returned.
He quickly returned to the lord’s mansion, Mr. Baron was already waiting for him in the hall, the two men exchanged greetings and warmly embraced each other, now they could be considered a pair of political allies.
After a few pleasantries, Hansel reported to Paul about his progress in recruiting people in the king’s capital, and Paul was very happy when he heard that more than thirty people had come to Lakewood.
Although the number of people is not large, but after all, just started, I believe that under his favorable treatment policy, there will be more and more talents over to defect.
Previously, he and Hansel had discussed about setting up an office in the royal capital, sending former royal capital people who had lived in the Northwest Bay for some time to station there, and recruiting a steady stream of manpower.
A number of pavilions had already been constructed in Lakeheart to house the new arrivals recruited in the program, and now they could finally be put to use.
Still slightly concerned, Paul asked, “How do your friends feel when they get here?” What if they find the Northwest Bay too remote and run back, wouldn’t it be a wasted trip?
Hansel shrugged, “I can’t say it’s good or bad. Although this place is not as prosperous as the south, thanks to the exaggerated and inaccurate descriptions of the Northwest Bay from the Jingyao side, they felt that the real appearance of this place greatly exceeded their previous expectations.”
“It’s like this ah ……” Paul cried and laughed.
He said to Hansel, “You go and ask Steward Philip to reimburse you for your expenses on the road. Tonight we’ll hold a banquet to receive the people you’ve brought with you, it’s hard enough to come all this way. As for what to do with these people, let Chief Steward Ford take care of it, he and I have discussed in detail the staffing gaps on all fronts, and he knows what to do.”
Hansel saluted Paul: “I thank Your Excellency for them.”
Then he suddenly asked: “There is a question I would like to ask you, after entering into the Arda territory, I feel that the atmosphere is inexplicably a bit tense, and I still see militia training in the villages along the way, are the pirates launching another attack?”
(End of chapter)