I'm not a lord

Chapter 53 Bad News and Good News

By the time Lynn received the news, it was almost evening.

At this moment, he was slaughtering a fat stag for the serfs, and his body was covered in the smell of blood.

But he didn't care, and even reached into the deer's abdomen and pulled out a pool of colorful internal organs.

As the climate gradually warmed and the road continued to advance deeper into the forest, Lin En was able to hunt more and more wild animals.

We had a good hunt today, but the logistics team is seriously understaffed.

In order to prevent the meat from going bad overnight, even the Baron had to personally handle the prey.

"The Duke's messenger? They arrived so quickly! Where are they? Are they still in the castle?"

Lynn had anticipated this, but he didn't expect the Duke's envoy to arrive so quickly.

The King in the North should have died at the end of March.

It had only been a month when the Duke's recruiting envoys arrived at the remote White Bear Territory.

Fortunately, he had made arrangements in advance.

With Lao Liu's ability, he will definitely not mess things up.

"My lord, the messengers have left."

After Lao Liu's persistent admonition, the younger brothers all knew to call Lin En "Baron".

After removing the deer's internal organs, Lynn expertly skinned it. As he did so, he asked, "Gone? When did they leave?"

In addition to sending followers, Lynn can also gain experience points through personal actions.

He has been hunting frequently in the past two months, and even killed a seven-meter-tall demon bear. His hunting level has reached nearly level four.

He originally thought that this ability would not be of much help in territory construction.

But now it seems that this high-level hunting ability has definitely helped him a lot.

At least it can save White Bear Territory a lot of food expenses, which is a timely help for the limited food reserves.

The younger brother replied, "He left not long after getting off the boat. He stayed in the castle for less than an hour. He said that he thought our White Bear Collar was too worn and dirty."

".What did Lao Liu talk about with him? Forget it, I'll go back myself." After thinking for a moment, Lin En stood up and wiped his hands with deerskin.

After giving a few words to old Albert, he took his two younger brothers and rode towards the castle.

The night is dark and the drizzle is like black hair caressing my face.

As the roads were clear, it took Lynn less than an hour to reach his faithful riverside castle.

Lao Liu greeted them at the door, while Yagena went to the kitchen and asked the cook to prepare a delicious and sumptuous dinner.

"Brother, that messenger was sent by the county governor. He went upstream from Sanhe City to Baixiong Territory and brought a handwritten letter from the county governor."

In the study, Lao Liu handed over a dark brown parchment envelope with both hands, and the red sealing wax on the envelope was intact.

Lynn used a silver knife to cut open the envelope, unfolded the letter and looked at it carefully.

The content of the letter was very simple. It was that the governor of Baihe County, on behalf of the Duke of Swampland, was recruiting troops from Baixiong County.

According to the requirements in the letter, Lin En must send five fully armed knights and fifteen mounted attendants to the barracks outside Sanhe City before June 5th to accept the inspection of the county governor.

His service term this year starts on June 5th and lasts until September 5th.

If they exceeded the time limit, the Duke would pay them a monthly salary of sixteen gold coins.

The salary of a regular knight is two gold coins per month, and the salary of a mounted attendant is 0.4 gold coins, which is eight silver coins.

Yes, feudal knights in those days did receive cash salaries.

The statutory annual service period was only three months, but few wars lasted less than three months.

If the deadline is exceeded, then naturally, the payment must be made. A feudal knight's life is also a life.

Of course, Lynn can choose not to pay the 'blood tax' and instead pay the shield tax.

As for the specific amount of this shield tax, it was as high as one hundred gold coins.

After reading the letter, Lin En gave it to Lao Liu.

After just a few minutes of reading, the sixth brother complained, "Brother, this Duke of the Swamp is truly greedy. According to the letter, we can earn less than fifty gold coins by serving for three more months, but in order to be exempted from three months of military service, we actually need to pay a shield tax of one hundred gold coins. This is too unreasonable."

Lin En shook his head. "No, this amount is actually quite reasonable. Before you joined, we worked as mercenaries for the earl in the south. Our pay was indeed similar to that of landed knights, but the earl also had to cover the additional costs of maintaining the mercenaries' armor, weapons, and mounts. This was the bulk of the money."

On the battlefield, the loss of knights and squires is secondary. If they really cannot win, they can just surrender and buy back their lives by paying a ransom.

But when a warhorse dies, it is really dead; when armor is broken, it is really broken.

Fighting is a waste of money.

After a large-scale war, the number of dead horses is definitely far greater than the number of dead knights.

Even the strongest warhorse cannot withstand repeated and intense round trips.

And as the old saying goes, shoot the horse first when shooting a man.

When two armies were fighting, archers and crossbowmen all shot from horseback.

As long as the cavalry can be shot off their horses, their two greatest advantages can be offset - mobility and impact.

Knights with fiefs could use the income from the land to make up for the loss of war horses, armor and weapons.

Isn't this what the upper nobles used to do when they allocated territories to them?

But mercenaries are different.

They received no income from the land, but only a low fixed salary and the right to distribute the spoils.

If they failed to capture enough spoils and prisoners on the battlefield, they would definitely not be able to afford the high cost of the loss of war horses and equipment.

After all, a good warhorse can be sold for fifty or sixty gold coins in the North, which is equivalent to nearly two years' salary of a regular knight.

A second-rate warhorse would cost about twenty gold coins.

As for the combination of chain mail, helmet, longsword, lance and shield, it would cost at least more than thirty gold coins.

Therefore, the employer who hires them must bear the full cost.

As the lord of White Bear Territory, if Lin En does not report to Sanhe City, the local county magistrate will have to find mercenaries to fill his vacancy.

Only one hundred gold coins, which is equivalent to about 20% of the annual output of the White Bear Territory’s public land, is already a very reasonable price.

"Well, big brother, do we really have to pay this shield tax? We don't have that much money on hand right now."

Lao Liu was shocked by the high shield tax.

The bandits are the type who live for the moment and have no habit of saving money at all.

When they robbed Roman and his group before, they didn't get much gold coins.

The bandits' greatest fortune at present is the 110 gold coins earned from selling the demon bear's fur.

But some horse bandits had already squandered the fur dividends in Sanhe City.

"Pay, why not? I am still nominally a vassal of the Duke of the Swamp. If I don't report and pay taxes, I will only attract the Duke of the Swamp's elite knights."

Lynn was very happy to pay the shield tax.

The bad news is, there's a hefty tax to pay.

The good news is that the Duke of Moor seems to be going to war in June.

(End of this chapter)