Chapter 10: Villages and Sentinel Towers
Chapter 10 The Village and the Sentry Tower
In addition to robbers, the Northland also has beast plague, only the latter occurs at an irregular time, generally before winter the beasts will be more violent, the beginning of spring when the ferocity of the larger, from time to time there will be wild beasts into the territory to cause deaths and injuries, so every noble lord likes to hunt, on the one hand to be able to obtain rare meat, and on the other hand, also to reduce the risk of the territory.
At the same time every few years will also form a coalition army to go to the north of the barbarians where to fight grass valley, the strongest of the weak play to the fullest.
All these issues need to be prepared in advance, in order to prevent regret when the time comes, so Owen has been busy with these matters.
The problem of bandits is imminent, they can not enter the tall and soldiers stationed in the castle, but the serfs do not have this condition, after the plunder is able to go to the other nobles where to exchange for food, which makes Owen very distressed.
According to theory, the castle space is large enough to accommodate all the serfs in the territory, but the Hydra family has never done so before, even if there are serfs freezing to death in the ground every winter, these serfs are not allowed to step into the castle.
Owen could hardly understand this practice, but he did not intend to violate this tradition.
When you are not sure of what to do, it is best to refer to your predecessor’s practice, so that even if you miss many opportunities, you will not make a big mistake.
The problem was, Owen couldn’t just sit back and watch the serfs being plundered by robbers, these serfs were his property.
After consideration, Owen decided to gather the serfs together and build a village, so that it would be more convenient for him to station troops to protect the serfs from the bandits.
Originally, the serfs did not have houses, they lived in the ground nest.
It is to find a sunny place to dig a pit, inside the sun dry and lay a thick layer of hay, night nest in it to sleep.
This thing can only be used for emergency, after all, people are not rats, long time to live in the ground nest will certainly get a problem, but the serfs’ life expectancy is short, many times not waiting for the onset of the person is gone, so no one cares about these.
Owen decided to get rid of the dependence on the system food, a large number of indigenous farmers is indispensable, so we can not sit back and watch the territory continue to lose population, so he decided to take advantage of the agricultural leisure time, let the craftsmen with these serfs to build some grass huts, as long as the winter before the addition of the earth wall, it will be a grass hut, although simple, but it’s better than the ground nests, so that in winter there will not be too many frozen to death.
Grass hut no technical content, with wooden stick support frame, and then will be woven hay layer on layer, half a day can get good.
So it didn’t take long for a small village to appear not far from the castle.
Although it is a simple hut, but Owen still do a good job of planning in advance, all the huts are facing north to south, so that they can get more adequate sunlight, to ensure that the hut will not accumulate moisture.
At the same time to leave a sufficient distance, convenient for future expansion, but also dug a good drainage ditch in advance, the construction of public toilets, it can be said that he can think of, can be done, have done.
Next let the serfs build a fence around the village so that no one will be carried away by wolves again at night.
Perhaps because of having a home, the serfs were rarely active, which made Owen very pleased, and then arranged for the craftsmen to start building a sentry tower at the location of the village entrance, which would be a guarantee of the village’s safety.
Sentry tower as a defense building certainly can’t take mud paste, must use masonry only, otherwise a kick down is not funny.
But then, also need to hit the foundation, and vertical piles and beams, increase stability and frame strength, the amount of work is not small.
The good thing is that the castle earth wall under the stone, can be used directly to build the sentry tower, otherwise it will be more trouble. These stones were originally part of the wall, because the castle wall is inside and outside the two layers of stone wall, the middle filled with soil, so more material saving, so although the wall collapsed in half, but the stones did not lose, are buried under the soil that, planing out can be used.
The actual Hydra family has always wanted to rebuild the walls, one to enhance the defense of the castle, two to better look.
Only want to rebuild the walls need too much manpower, time-consuming too long, so Hydra family has not been rebuilt.
Owen would like to repair it, but after calculating the cost, he decided to give up, and could only put it into the later plan.
These peasants from the imperial era in only retain the ability to build, craft has been strengthened, originally can only build a house in the village, now as long as it is not too complex and delicate building, they can get on, take the tools to do the work is very nimble, with three days to dig a good foundation, and then it is the base of the stone, burying columns, less than half a month, the sentry tower is built.
Constructed sentry tower four square, looks quite strong, because the internal wooden columns and beams as support, so a total of two and a half floors were built.
The first floor was a reserve area, storing food, water and equipment, even the metal farming tools used by the serfs would be stored here.
The second floor was the resting place for the soldiers, Owen specially asked the craftsmen to build frame beds, so that the sentry tower was able to station more soldiers when necessary.
At the top was a watchtower with a breastwork from which soldiers could stand guard and shoot arrows to kill the enemy.
The appearance of the tall and sturdy sentry towers gave people a strong sense of security, at least those serfs’ originally numb expressions loosened a few points when they knew that their safety was more guaranteed.
In fact, during this period of time, they could also feel the changes in their lives, first of all, there was more food, not to say that they were full, but at least they would not be breathless every day, and they would not be unable to sleep every night due to hunger, coupled with the emergence of the villages and sentry towers, these serfs could really see the hope that they might no longer be expendable, and they had the hope to become real territorial subjects.
After the sentry tower was built, Owen stationed a total of fifteen soldiers here, they patrol during the day and keep watch at night, rotating with the castle’s soldiers once a week, so as to maximize the protection of the territory’s wealth.
However, Owen felt that the best way was to form a cavalry squad, so that he could take the initiative to attack, but also expand the scope of his patrols, and create a deterrent to the surrounding neighbors, so that they would mind their own paws.
Unfortunately, although cavalry only had one more horse than infantry, the price was several times more expensive, one light cavalry would cost three progress points, while the combat power exerted was completely sorry for the price, as three swordsmen or infantry archers were able to easily kill a light cavalry, and the combat power was disproportionate to the redemption value.
After careful comparison, Owen felt that the better breastplate cavalry was the most suitable for the territory’s current situation.
Breastplate cavalry was between light cavalry and knights, besides swords, they were also equipped with spears and shields, so they could fight head on and also pursue in the chaos, and they only needed five progress points to exchange for one, which was a good price/performance ratio.
However, if you want to assemble a chest armor cavalry squad, you need 50 progress points. Considering the speed of progress value recovery, I’m afraid that if you really want to form a squad, you won’t even be able to catch up with the fall harvest.
Owen had no choice but to increase the number of swordsmen and foot archers first, so that he could send more soldiers to patrol the castle without having to worry about the safety of the castle.
The effect of the implementation was not bad, the patrol team of five was enough to discourage most of the bandits from taking risks, and the four scout cavalry also played a significant role in keeping the territory safe from the bandits.
(End of chapter)