When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 778: Recruiting Soldiers and Stealing Technology
The two plain counties of Lower River County and Cassia County were themselves under Horn's control.

The two county governors, Martin and Catherine, could easily mobilize the priests and nuns. Horn's move simply turned this power from open to covert.

The proposal was quickly passed, and the five mountain counties remained as they were for the time being.

After the meeting, Horn returned to the room, but his mind was immersed in an issue that was not mentioned in the meeting - conscription.

To expand conscription is not simply to say that we want to recruit soldiers.

The manpower issue is secondary. After all, Horn has two sources of soldiers, the Black Snake Bay and the Norns, and the Franks are also willing to send some mercenaries.

The first problem to be addressed is the equipment.

A regiment needs at least 2400 to 2500 sets of infantry armor and corresponding spears, and 4000 sabers and corresponding uniforms.

There were also 1600 to 2000 clockwork guns, 24 three-pound falconry cannons, and 4 six-pound sand sculpture cannons.

In addition, 50 to 80 donkeys, mules and pack horses are needed to transport food, clockwork cannons and other logistical resources.

With the gathering of various small workshops at the Huilu Town Arsenal, the production efficiency has been greatly improved.

从1445年月产95副盔甲，到如今1448年的月产250到270副。

Over a three-year period, together with the armory workshops in other counties, Qianhe Valley produced an average of 3000 sets of infantry armor and 500 sets of cavalry armor each year.

Horn's own inventory currently totals 4000 sets of infantry armor and 1100 sets of cavalry armor.

If the armor rate is maintained at 60%, this number is expected to be enough to equip another one and a half regiments.

If Huilu Town fires at full strength, it will be able to make up the remaining half of the regiment by the end of the year.

With more than 1600 sets of infantry armor sent by King Frank, it is estimated that there will be a recruitment quota of two and a half regiments.

There is no need to worry about clockwork guns. The Holy Gun Workshop on Autumn Dusk Island can currently produce three to four hundred clockwork guns every month.

This is the result of keeping the weapons in stock. After all, there are still more than 7000 clockwork guns in the inventory, which is more than enough to equip four more regiments.

Looking at the draft on the table, Horn sighed silently.

His throat is almost hoarse from spitting. When will Shilov be able to deal with the magic-eating fungus?
Back to the topic.

Should we recruit soldiers according to the two and a half regiments? Recruit 13000 new soldiers and mix them with the original local garrison regiments to form three new regiments?

Horn raised his eyes and saw the key words "clockwork cannon" in the draft.

Currently, the Dwarf Cannon Foundry in Ashforge Town can cast a 3-pound cannon in about two weeks, and a 6-pound cannon in three weeks.

If it is a 12-pound or 24-pound gun, it will take more than a month because the mold needs to be cast in sections.

This is only the casting time for the entire gun. If we only consider the barrel, it is actually very fast. What really slows down the process is the mainspring chamber.

Currently, there are only 12 6-pound cannons and 24 1-pound cannon cast.

Most dwarf artillerymen cast the two main field guns, the 3-pounder and the 6-pounder.

Currently, the cannon foundry has 4 cannon foundry groups, each of which can cast 2 falcon cannons or 1.33 sand sculpture cannons per month.

In addition to the artillery for Meliati and the city defense cannon, Horn only replenished the clockwork cannons of the two Salvation Army regiments in February this year.

There are currently 32 Falcon Cannons and 2 Sand Sculpture Cannons left in stock, and the clockwork cannons are definitely not enough to support two and a half regiments.

Even supplying two regiments was a bit difficult, after all, there were only two or three months of preparation time.

If the dwarf community in North Mound County could be drawn into a wartime system, the supply of clockwork cannons could be doubled in a very short time, provided there were no problems with the raw materials.

As for the most important power part of the clockwork cannon, there is no need to worry about it for the time being.

After using the alchemical reaction vessel and the lunar mercury immersion method, Horn discovered that the so-called 14 pounds of refined iron to refine 1 pound of mountain copper was pure nonsense.

Because the alchemical reaction vessel is filled with mercury water, it is possible to produce 7 pound of mountain copper from 5 pounds or even 1 pounds of refined iron.

So at least 14 pounds of the 7 pounds of refined iron were wasted, right?

Basically, one ton of steel (refined iron) can be refined into 400 pounds of mountain copper, enough to make 200 falcon cannons or 1200 clockwork guns.

Whenever Horn began to worry that steel could not keep up with the supply of copper, he did not need to worry about where the steel came from.

In cannon casting, the most critical part is actually the creation of the mainspring chamber.

Apart from dwarves, few people can build this thing.

This, however, depends on the progress made by Halkin.

Horn picked up the latest three issues of Pravda, and almost every issue attacked the Steel Guild of North Mound County.

The first episode is about the dwarves exposing the scandal of the dwarf master, and the apprentice revealing the master's atrocities with blood and tears.

The second phase was to explain the current situation of the Thousand River Valley, the steel production in the Thousand River Valley, and implicitly pointed out that it was the dwarves, mine owners and nobles in North Mound County. The third phase was to announce that a new smelting town would be built in South Mound County, and enthusiastically solicited names from the general public.

Because Pravda was linked to the communique system, it remained relatively neutral and did not break off relations.

Commercial newspapers like those published by Magdi and various tabloids and pamphlets that flattered Horn were frequently exposed.

Things like "North Mound County, the sinner of the Thousand Valleys", "The Steel Guild is the enemy of civilization", and "The dwarves of North Mound County must be dealt a heavy blow" have all come out.

They will bow their heads soon.

After much deliberation, Horn finally wrote down the number of 8000 people in the draft, which was enough to form two battle regiments (without service soldiers).

It won’t be too late to recruit the second batch of 12000 people when the equipment is fully replenished in the spring of next year.

After all, with two new regiments, together with the two field regiments of the Salvation Army, the new regiment built by Mountain County and the Crusader Army, there should be about 3 people.

In the future, the number of troops that will support Meliati can be increased to around 4, which is about enough.

Once the second batch of 12000 men join the army, it will be time for a strategic counterattack.

After making the schedule, Horn called Pettier and handed him the pile of drafts.

Taking the draft in a daze, Pettier was about to leave, but turned around and said, "Ms. Istria seems to be waiting outside the door. Do you want to invite her in? I asked her, but she just smiled and didn't answer."

"Istria? Let her in."

Soon, the witch, pushed by her servants, came in front of Horn.

"What do you want?"

Istria didn't say much, just handed Horn a few pages of notes.

Horn took the note blankly, and after just a few glances at it, his eyes froze.

"This is..." He looked up at Estra in surprise, "Are you trying to reverse the mana of mountain copper?"

"To be precise, it wasn't me. You'll see when you read on." Estra smiled with his eyes still closed.

The so-called reverse mana of orichalcum was a conjecture put forward by Senius, a layman in alchemy.

That is, the question is whether there is magic power inside the orichalcum mainspring after it is wound up by brute force.

According to the laws of alchemy, spiritual properties and material properties will influence each other.

Since the spiritual properties of mountain copper can transform mana into potential energy, can the material property of potential energy be transformed into mana?
Due to the lack of mana observation instruments, this problem has remained unresolved until now.

Maester Kelburn believes that magical power cannot appear or disappear out of thin air.

Without external input, mana cannot exist within the Orichalcum Clockwork.

But this incomplete notebook used an alchemical ritual that Horn could not understand to prove that a spring wound up by brute force would store magic power!
The owner of the notebook is still trying to find the source of these magical powers, but unfortunately failed.

So the owner of the notebook designed a new alchemical ritual that Horn still couldn't understand, trying to "extract" the mana in the copper spring and identify its nature.

Unfortunately, he could only transfer the mana in the orichalcum mainsprings between different orichalcum mainsprings.

It’s a pity for the owner of the notebook, but not a pity at all for Horn.

This meant that previously only relatively fast-flowing water or dams could charge the spring.

But now, it is even possible to use wind power to charge the light spring, and then use this ritual to concentrate the magic power and potential energy on the heavy spring.

The only thing worth examining at this point is the efficiency of this ritual.

However, this ritual is incomplete, with only about one-third of the content remaining. Fortunately, some experimental data and failure cases are still available.

"Do you have the incomplete parts of the ritual?" Horn raised his head and asked impatiently.

"No." Estra closed her eyes and looked at Horn, "But you can figure it out yourself."

Horn's enthusiasm suddenly cooled down: "We are currently short of manpower. You know we have identified countless fake formulas during this period..."

"This will definitely work." Estra interrupted Horn, her soft voice not sounding rude.

"You are so confident? This is an unverified formula. Perhaps it was created by some crazy alchemist who was hallucinating."

"Why don't you look at the signature of the owner of the note?"

Horn flipped through the pages quickly until he saw the last page, when he was surprised to find a familiar name.

"Kerben?" Horn looked up suddenly. "This is Kerben's research. How come I don't know about it?"

"Of course you don't know." Estra smiled mysteriously, "Because this is the result of Mr. Kerben's research ten years later."

(End of this chapter)