Chapter 260

Chapter 260.

The matter of Alda’s solo expedition to Emsion spread throughout the entire Northwest Bay, causing the lords to look at the earldom, who had made a big splash in the Battle of Bidor Castle, in a new light. Emsen was Maltz Kent’s lair, this was tantamount to single-handedly touching a tiger’s ass.

The other lords of the alliance wrote to Paul with anxiety, urging him to be cautious, as they might not be able to support him in time if the battle went badly, and Paul wrote back to them, telling them to rest assured.

Paul’s confidence was based on two things: the current strength of the Arda army and the new military service system implemented by the Ministry of Staff.

Since last year, the staff department has been sending personnel to each large village and town in the territory, these people are either retired officers and soldiers or active duty soldiers drawn directly from the army, their task is to organize and train the local militia, so that the militia becomes a qualified reserve force.

With the start of the new year, these instructors were put under a new organization, the Military Service Station, and in addition to continuing to organize and train the local militia, the station also added a new task – to regularly count the population eligible for military service in the geographic area under their jurisdiction, which met the conditions for enlistment. The criteria for examination included age, height, physical fitness, and even neighborhood popularity, family criminal records, and so on. The statistics are then summarized in the town of Lakewood.

When Alda’s armed forces – navy, army, and internal guards – were short of personnel, such as when they suffered heavy casualties or had to form a new unit, the staff took out the most recent list of the military population, selected a group of people in proportion to the number of people in each locality, and sent it to the local military service stations. When the military service stations in each place were short of men, for example, when there were heavy casualties or when new units were to be formed, the staff would take out the latest list of the military service population, select a group of men from each place in proportion to their numbers, send a notice of enlistment to the military service stations in each place, and then the people at the military service stations would make door-to-door visits with the notices, and then finally, on the stipulated day, they would be organized and sent to the town of Lakeshore to report.

A new batch of Alda’s sons and daughters were born, and after three months of centralized training, they would be able to take their rifles to the battlefield. If the situation was urgent, they were hastily trained for a few days and then pulled directly to the battlefield, and most of the enemies they faced had just laid down their hoes for a few days anyway.

According to the projection of the General Staff, after the implementation of the new militia system and military service system, without taking other factors into consideration, the ideal situation, Alda and Bairdine two places can mobilize a total of fifteen thousand people in an emergency.

The fact that the Greiman family, as counts, did not have many vassals under their name had always been seen as a sign of weakness, but it was a great advantage for Paul, who had every inch of his own territory under his direct control, and whose decrees could reach every town and village, at least in theory.

The other lords at the same level as him didn’t have such a convenience, their decrees could only flow freely in their own territories, and when it came to the territory of their own bannermen, they had to be approved by the bannermen before they could be enforced. Of course, this also depends on the relationship between the bannermen and the bannermen, if it’s a strong bannermen with absolute power in their hands, most of his decrees can be enforced in the bannermen’s territory, as to how effective the enforcement is, that’s another matter.

Moreover, a bannerman’s obligation to his lord is not unlimited, for example, if a baron has 20 knights in his territory and can enlist 500 soldiers, then strictly speaking, he only needs to provide 5 knights and more than 100 soldiers to his superior bannerman in order to fulfill his obligation as a bannerman, and the lords will only invest all of their strength in the defense of their own territories.

In reality, however, no one would be so stupid as to provide their lord with only the minimum number of troops for his feudal duties; in addition to showing his loyalty, providing more troops would also give him a greater say in the distribution of the spoils after the battle. But the higher feudal lords could not abuse the loyalty of their bannermen, and after enlisting bannermen’s troops for more than a certain period of time, they were either told to disband them and return home, or they were responsible for their expenses and even had to pay extra military pay.

Before reaching the period of time stipulated by the obligation, the logistical expenses, weapons and equipment of the bannermen’s troops are all taken care of by themselves, and the obligation in this regard extends down layer by layer, and in the vast majority of places, the soldiers of the lowest tier need to pay for their own weapons and defense gear after being conscripted by the lord, but of course, if you feel that you’re lucky enough to be lucky or don’t care about your own life, you can also directly resist putting a hoe on the battlefield, no matter how well equipped No matter how, people must arrive anyway.

This has resulted in the local lords’ armies often being a mishmash of clothing and equipment, and in Paul Greiman’s opinion, even the Battle of Biddle Castle, which was fought by more than 10,000 men, looked like an enlarged version of the villagers’ armed fights.

A few wealthy lords will keep a group of off-duty or semi-off-duty soldiers, dressed in uniform clothing, holding a uniform weapon, but the number will not be too many, for example, the Battle of Biddle Castle appeared in the group of archers, they are the former Duke Ferdinand’s soldiers, two afternoons a week to be concentrated on training archery.

Only state-level forces, such as the royal family of the Gabella Empire, the royal family of Aldo, or semi-independent dukes with large territories and numerous vassals like Giles, could afford to feed formed units.

In the previous advance operation, Alda’s army occupied almost half of Emsion’s territory, and under the Kent family’s successive generations of management, Emsion developed into a large Earldom, and the population of half of it’s territory was almost 100,000 people, if the 1st and 3rd battalions continued to attack, although the lower class civilians of this era couldn’t talk about any allegiance to their own lords, Paul was still afraid that something would happen on the newly occupied land What a mess, so the southward force stopped at Fort Byron. One of the aims of the operation had been to create a buffer zone between Arda Bärdin and Emsion, and that aim had now been achieved.

Moreover, Fort Byron, which was the residence of the Kent family, was stronger and better defended than Fort Biddle, and even with artillery, capturing it would never be easy; Paul still planned to wait for the armies of the other allies to gather again, and then together they would fight against the Kent family.

Fighting in the front, building in the back. The rebellion in the south caused the crown to beg for armor and weapons throughout the country. Thanks to new technology, Arda’s iron production skyrocketed, and with the cost of making iron greatly reduced, it was natural to want a piece of the royal family’s booming demand for weapons. But what the royal family needs is finished weapons, the number of blacksmiths in Alda for their own production in the territory is too insufficient, how is it possible to share a part of the production of swords and armor these in Paul’s eyes will inevitably be eliminated things. Moreover, whether it was Alda or Baldin, there were very few blacksmiths who were good at making traditional weapons.

But there were in other people’s territories! It was time to talk to the allies about cooperation.

(End of chapter)