I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 40: Bumping on the Road

Chris was not a rookie. He knew from the beginning that marching and fighting was not an easy task.

For example, if you have experienced and still remember the spring outing organized by the school when you were a child, you will know that it is not easy to organize a group of people to walk towards a destination.

The same is true for marching.

The caravan originally planned to set off at nine o'clock, but after breakfast, new shoes and clothes were distributed, and after a while of hard work, the caravan finally managed to break camp at around ten o'clock.

The carts were abandoned and sold cheaply to the locals, while the tents, food, five hundred muskets, some medicines, bandages and other miscellaneous items were transferred to horses and donkeys.

There were some extra things, so Isaac and Connie arranged for people to carry them.

Humans are also big animals. What's wrong with carrying some things? We eat and drink well every day, so why would we be unable to walk if we carry some things?

After everything was prepared, the team of nearly two hundred people set off in a mighty manner.

The border is fifty kilometers away, and Chris plans to have the team walk for four to five days, an average of about ten kilometers a day.

This sounds like something is wrong. Only walking ten kilometers a day, isn't that too short?
However, this was a marching plan made by Chris after carefully estimating the team's physical fitness and road conditions.

First of all, among the team of more than 170 people, except for the players and caravan servants, the physical fitness of the remaining 120 people is not equal.

There are some veterans like Carlos, farmers in the fields, who have excellent physical fitness and big feet. They can carry nearly 100 kilograms of firewood and walk on the mountain road for a whole day.

There are also some young people who have just left home and are ready to venture into the world. They are short, thin and frail. If they are not given time to adapt, they will definitely fall behind.

There is no way. How many qualified soldiers can players recruit within a township?

After filtering out some of the ruffians, players really don't have much choice, and they have to give up those new recruits who know nothing.

Fortunately, young people like these can happily accept a monthly salary of five silver coins, which makes players feel more balanced. You get what you pay for.

Chris plans to use marching to improve the physical fitness and discipline of the new recruits in the team, and plans to train them while walking.

If nothing else, at least they had to learn how to load muskets, so that when a battle broke out, even if they didn't dare to fire, they could hide behind and reload ammunition for the veterans on the front line and make some contribution to the battle.

In addition to training while marching, the troops now have to leave the main roads when marching in Bohemia and march in the fields and woods where there are no good roads.

The reason is simple: those 500 matchlock guns and 50,000 ammunitions are the most deadly things.

If we were stopped by a tax collection team on the road, we would be doomed.

It is true that Popoli is the person in charge of this area, but when doing such smuggling business, he has to do it behind people's backs and cannot do it openly, so as to avoid the news leaking out and harming everyone.

The help that Popoli could provide to Isaac was to give the caravan a map of the province of El, which recorded the topography of El and the locations of checkpoints so that Isaac could avoid these places.

The only problem is that they might run into Bohemia's field patrol... But for Isaac, it doesn't matter if they run into him. He has already cooperated with Master Bopoli and has the latter's token.

Any patrol team with less than 100 people in the province of El will give face to Master Popoli.

We're all colleagues, we'll see each other every day, so why bother with so much? You know what? With this map drawn by Master Popoli himself, Chris's team was able to successfully circumvent the three major fortresses and a dozen scattered checkpoints before reaching the border.

If other smuggling teams knew that Chris had this thing, they would definitely run over with red eyes to snatch it.

The first day of the march was not very smooth, which was what Chris had expected. The new recruits started to slack off as they walked.

After walking for less than three hours, some people had blisters on their feet and said they couldn't walk anymore. Others were tired and wanted to ride horses.

Chris agreed to take a break, but for those who wanted to ride horses, he raised his hand and released Home Alone and his military police to beat up these guys who wanted to be masters.

You know what, after getting beaten up, these guys actually became quiet and stopped complaining about being tired.

During the break, Chris asked someone to set up a large pot to boil water and start cooking today's lunch.

Because we are still on the march and haven't set up camp yet, today's lunch is a little simple, just a cold, hard pancake, some cheap noodles, and some broth made from a thick soup base.

This lunch is simple and high-tech, but it is really filling and full of oil.

As gendarmes, Carlos and his fellow gendarmes were the last to get their meals, but the large plates in their hands contained obviously more noodles than the others, and there were also chicken skeletons left over from this morning.

Carlos was very satisfied with his current treatment, so after quickly eating and drinking, he began to patrol the team, and then he saw that there was something wrong with the guy sitting at the edge of the team.

This guy, who looked a little shifty, was always looking out furtively. When Carlos looked over, he immediately looked away and pretended nothing had happened.

This guy has a problem.

Carlos thought so, he walked over, stood in front of the guy, and looked at him intently.

"What are you doing here, kid?"

"Ah... I didn't do anything, just looked at the scenery."

"You don't want to be a deserter, do you?"

As Carlos spoke, he waved his hand to signal his subordinates to come over, hold the man down, and search him personally. He actually found five large pancakes and more than twenty silver coins.

It was obvious that the flatbread was the food he prepared for his escape, and the silver coins... Carlos asked other people and easily found out that someone in the team had lost money, and it was not just one or two people, but many people.

The players gave fifty silver coins as resettlement fee, which everyone would leave to their families before leaving. At most, they would take a few silver coins with them as a precaution.

Carlos quickly reported the matter to Chris, who waved his hand casually.

"You handle this deserter. You can make him a logistics soldier and serve everyone. If anyone tries to escape in the future, you can handle them this way..."

Well, I will write some rules and regulations later and implement collective responsibility system, so that they can supervise the people around them.

The players will just be hands-off. They'll run to the front as scouts, and I'll have to help them manage people and clean up their messes. It's so troublesome..."

(End of this chapter)