Chapter 11: The royal commissioner who pulls the strings
Chapter 11 The Royal Commissioner of Pulling Strongmen
An argument was going on.
“Lord Earl, I still don’t think it’s right ……,” so said the former family knight-now Captain Holman-who had led his company to the rotation.
“Don’t try to persuade me, Holman, after all, this has been going on for some time, how can we stop halfway.”
“But I still say that teaching soldiers to read and write is really unnecessary, they just need to understand orders.”
“No, I’m going to create an army that is different. The first difference is that the soldiers are knowledgeable and thoughtful.”
“Alright, let’s not discuss whether or not they have the qualifications to receive an education, but have you considered whether or not they will still be willing to be a soldier after they have acquired knowledge? Will they still be willing to be driven by you?”
“I will make soldiering an honorable profession, of course, this does not refer to the kind of soldiering in the aristocratic circle, but the profession of soldiering that truly belongs to the general public. If even then, they still want to break away from my leadership, then it only means that I don’t have the qualifications.”
“What? This is absurd. Ah, I beg your pardon, Count, I was rude. But you are their lord alas, what is there to qualify or not qualify, it is both a right and a duty to rule them, as natural as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.”
“Well, Holman, my mind is made up, and it has been going on so long; are you going to ask me to retract my order? Wouldn’t that be a slap in the face. “
Seeing that Holman was going to continue to argue, Paul raised one hand and said, “That’s it, I’m going back to the town immediately to meet with the messenger of the king’s capital, and I guess I’ll be staying for a few days, I hope that after I come back, the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion will be able to read and write their own names in addition to their physical fitness passes.”
After personally appearing as a “teacher of enlightenment”, Paul no longer dared to set his expectations too high, after finishing his speech, he turned around and walked out of the tent.
Holman turned to Claude who was next to him, “Are the Count and you really teaching the soldiers to read and write?” He still felt incredulous.
Claude spread his hands and laughed bitterly, “When I first heard about his plan, I simply suspected that I was dreaming, this little earl of ours is doing things that are beyond common sense!”
……
Paul came to the blacksmiths’ tent, “How is the progress of the muskets?”
Blacksmith Herman was fiddling with something with a few of his peers, when he saw Paul come in, he immediately got up and saluted, saying, “Lord Earl, we’re figuring out how to improve the triggers of the flintlock muskets, and it’s a bit laborious because we’re not odd armourers.”
He honestly said, “Right now with this trigger in my hand, the gun that is built is estimated to have a high rate of duds.”
Paul nodded, on Earth, when the flintlock gun was first invented, it was understandable that the flint could not strike a spark, or did not strike enough to ignite the gunpowder, resulting in an oddly high rate of duds due to reasons such as poor steel and shrapnel manufacturing techniques.
“It looks like the development of technology really can’t be achieved overnight.”
He picked up an already built fire rope gun next to him to take a closer look at it, the structure was very simple, the collimating star and the shining door were all missing, there was only the barrel, the stock, the medicine pool and the trigger, but it was indeed a solid musket all the way, although it was roughly similar to the flintlock pistol, the firing structure of the fire rope gun was much simpler.
The gun mechanism consists of a serpentine rod and trigger, the serpentine rod holds the fire rope, when fired, pull the trigger, push the serpentine rod through the lever, so that the burning fire rope touches the gunpowder pool at the end of the barrel, and the flame is transmitted into the chamber through the fire door at the back of the barrel. This type of gun mechanism is much easier to make.
The barrels, on the other hand, were made by blacksmiths using the coiling method, in which iron made from cooked iron was wrapped around a mandrel and slowly forged, corrected with the help of grooves in the anvil, and rolled bit by bit into the shape of an iron pipe, which was all that could be done until a good drill could be made.
“Let’s do it this way, suspend the improvement of the flintlock rifle for now, and concentrate all our efforts on generating a fire rope gun. How long will it take you guys to make such a flintlock gun from scratch?” After considering it for a while, he needed to get a batch of usable muskets right away, rather than slowly researching and improving the flintlock pistols, it would be better to make a large number of simple and matured flintlock pistols right away, so that the soldiers could familiarize themselves with the use of gunpowder weapons as soon as possible.
“A blacksmith and an apprentice to do the job, if it goes well, about two weeks.”
“Two weeks? It’s a bit long ah …… well it’s okay, but the quality of the barrel must be good, and the finalized product must not have the kind of blown chamber phenomenon from the previous experiments.”
“This please rest assured, Lord Earl. We have already done a lot of experiments and basically figured out the relationship between the amount of medicine and the explosive power, we will definitely be careful and careful again on the quality of the barrel.”
“Very well, I am in a hurry to use this musket, I must increase the production, after that I will allocate you a group of apprentices and carpenters specialized in making gun stocks, you must carefully teach them the skills of making muskets. Never hide anything, whoever teaches a qualified one, I will reward him with two months’ wages.”
The blacksmiths’ eyes widened as they listened, this was still very tempting.
Only to hear the Count continue, “The other thing is, when there are more manpower, we suggest that each of you distribute the work, each person is only responsible for building a component, those who build the barrels only build the barrels, those who build the machine only build the machine, and those who are responsible for the assembly only assemble it, the complicated things are assigned a little more manpower, and the simple things are assigned a little less manpower. But the parts of the musket must be able to be used universally, and you should appoint a specialized person to be responsible for the scale measurement and acceptance of the parts, so that they can be assembled, and so that it will be easy to repair and maintain them in the future after the troops have been mounted.”
Anyway, the structure of the musket was relatively simple and did not require too much finesse, so let the craftsmen try this new way of working.
The crowd nodded their heads, and then there was another round of the Count’s farsighted horse’s ass.
“Gentlemen, I will send someone to count your finished product rate and defective rate, this will affect your wages, oh, if the defective rate is too high, you may be subject to some ‘small punishments’, oh.” Lord Earl said with a stern face.
Everyone was sweating profusely, due to being in the barracks, they had already witnessed the ‘small punishments’ that those new recruits received.
……
At around two o’clock in the afternoon, a strange army arrived in Lakewood.
After crossing the pontoon bridge in chaotic steps, the army marched down the central street towards the lord’s mansion at an unbelievably neat pace.
“Focus your attention upon entering the town, stay in strict formation, no looking around, no talking to each other.” Company Commander Davide ordered in a loud voice, and then continued to shout “one, two, one”.
Both sides of the street were filled with curious townspeople, the reason why they were so bold was because they saw that it was their lord, Paul Paul, who was leading the group, and they realized that these were the new recruits who had been taken out of town by the young earl for training some time ago.
“Eh? Isn’t that whoever from whoever’s family? Aiyo, I haven’t seen you for a while, I simply can’t recognize you, you used to be wrinkled in length, how did you become so strong?” “Yes, my neighbor’s youngest son is also in there, he used to be weak, but now this spirit is like a new person.”
“This team walks really neatly, the previous guards can’t be compared ……”
Similar comments were constantly coming from the crowd, Makarov, who was walking in the procession, was secretly pleased: “What’s the point of getting stronger, I even recognize words now! I’ll scare you to death if I tell you.” But the strict military discipline made him continue to tense his face, not daring to show anything.
The procession marched to the hill on the north side of the island and finally stopped in front of the gate of the lord’s castle.
“Stand at attention-! At ease!” Company Commander Davide ordered loudly, “His Lordship, sympathetic to your hard training, has given you an afternoon off to roam freely around the town, and to meet at the old camp gates in the town before the sun goes down. Memorize all the disciplinary orders, and if anyone gets caught by the picketers, I’ll make sure he gets it.”
“Long live the lords!” The crowd cheered and dispersed in groups. Not long ago, the army pay had just been paid out, many people who did not have the habit of saving money had already covered their hands, and now they finally had a place to spend it.
After the soldiers dispersed, Paul steered his horse into the castle gate, and the old housekeeper immediately greeted him after being notified, “Young master, the messenger is waiting for you in the hall.”
“Good, I’ll go see them right away.”
After arriving at the castle hall, he found that besides the messengers from the royal capital, Chief Ford and Battalion Commander Bryce were also inside. When the three saw the lord walk in, they stood up and saluted him.
“Lord Earl, this is the emissary from the royal capital, Baron Hansel Abbott.”
“Baron Abbott, this is the new lord of our Alda Collar, Count Paul Greiman.”
Chief Steward Ford introduced both parties.
The new lord was even more tender than expected, Hansel bowed slightly and saluted.
“Honorable Earl Gleiman, I have come to your territory by order of the royal family this time, on the one hand, to convey His Majesty the King’s decree, congratulations, you are now an official Arda lord recognized by the kingdom government. On the other hand, I will be representing the royal family to be based in your territory, I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent situation, so many royal representatives have been stationed in various places to strengthen the ties and unity between loyal subjects like you.”
Paul slightly measured Hansel, medium size, thin figure, dress very elegant, gray-white hair is cleaned meticulously, white face, a pair of eyes give a very shrewd feeling, and through a trace of arrogance.
He said gratefully, “Thank you, Your Majesty, for your trust in me, I will certainly live up to Your Majesty’s trust.”
Because they were all waiting for the lord to return, no one had lunch, so the guests and masters went to the dining room to take their seats and talked while eating.
But soon there was an argument.
“But my lord, please forgive me for being rude, I took the liberty of visiting your territory. According to my observation, the threat of pirates to you is not as serious as imagined, I think the first priority is still to organize an industrious team to join the counter-insurgency army under Her Highness the Grand Princess. Although the Grand Princess has licensed you not to send troops, defending the royal family is, after all, the basic obligation of a vassal.”
“What kind of words are these, Lord Emissary? Our old earls have all sacrificed their lives because of the crusade against the pirates, isn’t this still serious? We really can’t agree!” Bryce, who was dissatisfied at the side, loudly retorted.
“With all due respect, nothing would have happened if the old earl hadn’t gone to provoke the pirates.” A commoner martial artist also dared to interject, having him and the nobles eat at the same table was already very unseemly, Hansel was slightly unhappy.
“What about the safety of the town and the lords?”
Hansel said with slight disdain: “Lend the pirates ten more guts and they won’t dare to attack the lake center town where the lord is located, that will incur the collective wrath of the surrounding nobles, as for the deaths and lives of the pariahs in the border area, why should they care so much?”
“This ……” Bryce reddened and wanted to retort, but some words did not dare to say out, whether in the eyes of the other side, or his own heart, he still belongs to a commoner, the huge gap in identity let him quickly calm down to restrain himself.
The living class education ah, a certain count who has not yet cultivated the consciousness of the ruling class inwardly sighed repeatedly.
He rounded up and said, “The last crusade against the pirates failed with a lot of casualties, recruited a batch of new recruits to replenish the army, with the current level of training can’t do anything, everything is waiting for the new recruits to finish their training before we talk about it!”
Hansel heard the boss is not happy, was trying to fool you to go as cannon fodder, but also training ah, after all is not want to go.
“My lord, please allow me to remind you of a bannerman’s primary obligation to his lord, the pirates are only scratching an itch on your own boots, but Giles’ rebels are the kingdom’s biggest problem.”
Still refusing to give up, he took on the air of a royal nobleman and looked at the bratty lord sitting at the head of the table, his tone serious as well.
Scratch that, it’s just that you don’t bow your head to me as the protagonist, but you’re even trying to boss me around, look at my kingly aura.
“Let me also remind you that I’m the lord here! And there is a deep hatred between me and the pirates.” The young earl slapped the table and also changed into a serious expression to stare at him. Comparing glares? I’m too familiar with that.
……
“Yes, Lord Earl.”
After a long moment, Hansel bowed his head slightly, seeming to back down, and then bowed his head in silence as he ate his food.
The banquet went on in an awkward atmosphere ……
(End of chapter)