I'm not a lord

Chapter 103 I Don’t Want a Knight (3K)

Lynn never wanted to be a knight.

Feudal knights these days are simply not a qualified type of soldier.

Not only is it expensive, but its service life is also very short.

According to the traditional distribution model of the Northern Kingdom, it took three or four hundred serfs to support a knight and his accompanying squires.

Not only is the service period only three months a year, but the lord also has to pay extra money beyond the period.

Once on the battlefield, they will charge forward like a pig.

When there are too many people, it is impossible to coordinate the military formation.

Is this considered an army?
Even the Duke of Swamp could see that these guys were unreliable, and would rather spend a lot of money to maintain an elite standing cavalry or spend money to buy the services of mercenaries.

In this battle for the throne, the White Bear Territory, the Shoal Territory and several neighboring baronies did not send a single knight, and all of them used shield taxes to offset the tax, which played exactly into the Duke's hands.

He just wanted to use this money to pay the salaries of mercenaries who could fight all year round, and the price of combat expertise was not expensive.

In fact, as the duration and intensity of the war continued to increase, the military system of the entire Northern Kingdom began to transform.

The great lords are spending money to set up private armed forces that can be prepared for war around the clock, and mercenary groups are springing up like mushrooms after a rain.

It can be said that the chivalry system is on the verge of being phased out.

In a few decades, this thing will collapse into a disorganized system.

Lynn was just a billion times faster than the tide of the times.

He selected more than one hundred of the strongest refugees, organized them into two squadrons, and arranged them to be trained by Lao Wu in the northern military camp.

The fifth brother, Andre, has a bad temper and the [Training] trait, which is just right for suppressing the tempers of the refugees.

Training new recruits is actually a rather offensive job.

Lin En's plan is to let Lao Wu be responsible for the initial training of the new recruits.

Once they have trained well, they will be assigned to other generals.

The most important task of recruit training is to crush their past cognition, reconstruct their behavior patterns and value systems, and let them develop a collective consciousness and absolute obedience to their superiors.

To this end, moderate corporal punishment is essential.

Especially young potential stocks like Lucas who have been brainwashed by feudal knights should be trained and whipped harshly until his old ideas are completely broken.

High loyalty is indeed good, but what Lynn wants is never some crappy squires or knights.

Fortunately, Lucas is not very old and there is a high probability that he can correct it.

In the future, if we capture lords and knights who are older and unable to correct their consciousness, we will physically eliminate them on the spot.

Many times, it is much easier to solve the problem than to solve it.

Lin En doesn't have the time to correct everyone's perception, and he also knows that this is unrealistic.

As long as we destroy all those feudal lords and feudal knights physically, won't this system disappear naturally?
The lower-class peasants are the objects of rule anyway, and the rulers are simply replaced by professional bureaucrats instead of feudal knights.

They were both being ruled, so what difference could there be? If it was unacceptable, could it be more unacceptable than being beaten six times in one second?

Moreover, Lin En would guide the farmers to improve agricultural techniques and gradually liberate the lower-level serfs, allowing them to have enough food to eat, live in good houses, and have freedom within regulations.

If you dare to cause trouble again, we will have to use heavy blows.

The stick will not only produce filial sons, but also obedient citizens.

Lin En also treated the refugee soldiers well.

Instead of distributing farmland, he directly distributed grain, cloth, sheepskins and a small amount of cash, and advanced two months' salary.

Even if he distributed farmland, these refugees with broken families, no farm tools or livestock would not be able to take good care of the land.

There are at least five people in the local serf families in Baixiong Territory. If they draft one young male laborer to join the army, they can still cultivate 120 acres of arable land with a bit of effort. After all, they no longer need to perform corvee labor.

A refugee family like Lucas's has a total of three people, two of whom are elderly, weak and sick. Without him, the whole family will be paralyzed, and farming is naturally impossible for them.

With the advance salary, Lucas was able to support his mother and sister, and use the cash to buy furniture and other necessities in White Bear Town.

Together with the mud houses and farmhouses vacated by the serfs, they would surely be able to safely survive the cold winter in the north.

As for those refugees who were not selected as soldiers, Lin En also made safe arrangements.

Those who have some skills or are relatively nimble are assigned to various workshops.

Some jobs such as leatherwork, stonemasonry, and carpentry are not too difficult. In addition, there is a great demand for craftsmen in White Bear Territory now. As long as you are willing to learn seriously, the money you earn will be enough to support one or two people.

It was a bit of a pity that Lin En did not find the skilled craftsmen he urgently needed among these 600 refugees.

Of course, this is also normal. If the refugees really have solid skills, they can find a city to live in during their exile, and they will not end up in the White Bear Territory.

The reason why Lynn was able to get the blacksmith Eric was because Eric was ambitious and stubborn, and was unwilling to kneel down to the guild to make money.

As for the remaining small number of refugees with broken families and weak physical conditions, Lin En made them "free laborers."

With the rapid population growth in White Bear Territory, many of the young offspring of management were rapidly promoted by Lin En, or even sent to school by him. This resulted in a shortage of necessary laborers for the families of stewards and village heads, who were unable to even take care of their own fields. During the busy farming season, they needed short-term labor that could be plugged in and used immediately.

Free laborers are the lubricant of the territory.

They did not have their own farmland and moved wherever they were needed. They worked for the rich peasants in exchange for food and wages, and occasionally took on some handicraft work.

Moreover, before the first snow of this year, White Bear Territory will also launch a new round of corvee conscription, mainly to dredge ditches and rivers, repair field roads, etc.

These free laborers can just fill the vacancies of corvée personnel caused by conscription. Lin En will provide them with food and a small amount of money as compensation.

All in all, the White Bear Kingdom doesn't keep idle people.

If you can't work, then don't live!

In less than three days, Lin En dealt with the 600 refugees with great efficiency.

He then ordered a census of the entire territory.

The managers and village heads all went out to count the population from house to house and compile all household registration information into a book. Even newborn babies had to be registered.

With war imminent, Lynn, as the lord, must control the information of every person in the territory so that resources can be mobilized efficiently.

While the stewards were counting the household registration, he did not forget to take time to inspect the military camp in the south of the territory.

After a month of training by the second brother Hughgo, little Thorward and fifty barbarian longbowmen already looked like an army.

"loyalty!"

The barbarian archers knew only a few words in the common language, but they shouted slogans of loyalty very clearly and loudly.

Standing on the makeshift wooden platform, Lin En could see the glimmer of hope in the eyes of the barbarian archers.

what is this?
This is loyalty and innocence!
All Lin En needs to do is provide them with food and lodging, give them some extra food every month, and paint a big picture for them, and these young men from the barbaric society will regard him as their adopted parent.

They had lived a hard life in the forest before.

Even if they were able to exchange salt for food later, the rye they got was not enough for the whole family.

On nights when they couldn't mine, they had to risk going hunting in the forest to barely fill their stomachs.

Since becoming soldiers of the lord, they not only enjoy sufficient food that they could not even imagine in the past, but they are also given an extra bag of grain every month to take home to supplement their family expenses.

The lord also promised them that as long as they killed the enemy and made meritorious contributions, they would be allocated land and livestock in the future and would have a stable food income every year.

The beauty of life is created through contrast.

Now, whenever these archers return to their tribe to visit their relatives, they will be welcomed by their families and tribesmen.

The material rewards and spiritual enjoyment were all maximized, which made them work extra hard during training, and at the same time made them more grateful for the kindness of the lord.

Moreover, these barbarian archers have almost 100% trust in the lord.

Although the master is an outsider, his wife is the beloved daughter of the clan leader.

To round it off, that means we are from the same ethnic group.

Can people of the same ethnic group deceive people of the same ethnic group?
It can't be!

After finishing the formation, little Thorward trotted down to the stage, pounding his chest with his right hand, his eyes determined as if he was about to join the party: "Sir, please give the order!"

Compared to Lucas, whose mind is full of servants and knights, little Thorward is much easier to train.

Although Xiao Suo knew that there was a class of knights among the southerners, he knew it but not why, and he knew nothing about the core of knights.

Lynn simply told him that anyone who could ride a warhorse and wield a sword was a knight, and promised to give him a warhorse after he got married.

Xiao Suo was so excited that he thought he was about to become a knight. From then on, he was completely devoted to Lin En and tried his best to help the second brother train the archers of the same tribe.

After a month, he became more proficient in the common language, his body became much stronger, and his archery skills were among the best among archers. He was already showing half the spirit of his father, old Thorward.

A good father will have a good son. Lao Suo has three-star attributes, so naturally the son he gives birth to will not be too bad.

I estimate that in another month or two, Xiao Suo will be able to get a one-star rating.

Lin En withdrew his gratified gaze from Xiao Suo and swept his eyes over the fifty archers below the stage. He announced loudly, "I declare the first archery competition officially open. The person with the best performance will be rewarded with a mail coat!"

The biggest advantage of the Savage Archers is that they are cheap.

Not only are the salary requirements low, but the equipment required is also cheap.

Each person only needs a set of leather armor, two wooden longbows, and a few bags of arrows.

This archery competition was specially set up by Lynn to test the archers' archery skills and commend the outstanding ones to stimulate their enthusiasm for practice.

The content of the competition is very simple, it is just target shooting.

Lin En had more than a dozen fixed targets made, and asked archers to stand sixty meters away and shoot ten arrows. The winner was determined by the total score.

Just as he was actively preparing for battle, a medium-sized paddle boat sailed upstream and entered the White Bear Territory Pier.

The flag on the ship was fluttering, which was the golden elk flag representing the Duke of Swamp.

(End of this chapter)