Compared with the ambitious Sui Xiong, Crick's ideas are much simpler and more practical.
At present, the work he is focusing on, in addition to new agriculture, is military training.
The last time they were ordered to join the volunteer army to support the Eagle Kingdom, Baron Keen suffered heavy losses. Not even one-tenth of the more than a hundred people returned, and even the knight Divol Os died in the battle. This greatly damaged the vitality of Baron Keen, and it can be said that the elite of the territorial army was almost ruined.
This account is not difficult to calculate. Generally speaking, a baron should have three knights. Each knight should have roughly three cavalry, about ten professional soldiers (orions are sometimes counted), and about twenty militiamen. The baron himself should have six cavalry, about twenty professional soldiers, and about fifty militiamen. In general, a baron can dispatch fifteen or sixteen cavalry, about fifty professional soldiers, and a militia of over a hundred.
Barony Keen is almost a standard barony, and losing more than a hundred people at a time is really a crippling injury. If Creek hadn't still had some money, there were still several masters in the territory, and he had the support of the Masked Void Church, he might have been able to be invaded by bandits and plunder.
But relying on experts alone is not enough. Maintaining order, chasing bandits, patrolling, collecting taxes, and checking checkpoints... these all require manpower. No matter how powerful the master is, they cannot be divided into several people.
Therefore, Creek must recruit more troops to fill the gap in soldiers in the territory.
After careful consideration, he decided to imitate the practices in some historical time travel novels and try to train the army in a different way.
First, he gave up his plan to recruit adventurers as professional soldiers. There is no doubt about the strength of the adventurers, but both loyalty and discipline are problematic. Professional soldiers themselves do not need strong strength. What they need is training and discipline.
Then he also gave up on the idea of training a militia. The reason why the militia is called the militia is that, to put it bluntly, they are ordinary people who have received some military training. Even if such soldiers have weapons, their combat effectiveness and will to fight are highly questionable. When they have the upper hand, they may not be able to catch up with the fleeing enemy. When they are in confrontation, they cannot withstand the situation. When they are at a disadvantage, it is a blessing that they do not run away. Rather than wasting manpower and material resources to train militias, it is better to save these resources and train more professional soldiers.
As for the cavalry, there is really no way. Even among adventurers, there are only a few who can fight on horseback. Most of the adventurers who "can ride a horse" have a riding skill level that allows them to ride on horseback. When fighting, Still have to dismount. It is difficult to recruit heroes who can fight on horseback, or even charge and shoot on horseback, let alone training.
In fact, in the entire Baron of Keen, there are less than ten people with this ability, including the sacrificed knight Divor Os.
Now that the decision was made, Creek sent out recruiting notices to recruit soldiers throughout the territory.
However, the requirements for recruiting soldiers this time are different from those in the past. They do not require "being strong", "fierce" and "dare to kill", but "honesty", "obeying discipline" and "obeying orders".
This request surprised everyone, and James Knight couldn't help but ask.
"Sir, it's okay if you don't recruit adventurers as soldiers, and it's okay if you don't train militiamen, but your requirements for recruiting soldiers are different from others!" The loyal knight Howard James advised, "What do you want? When recruiting out-of-work professional soldiers, of course we should require each one to be tall and strong, and to be brave enough to fight and kill. What good can those honest and humble people who only follow orders do?"
Creek smiled and said: "I don't know that soldiers should recruit strong men who can fight and dare to fight, but there are already very few such people in our territory. If we recruit them again, if something happens, There are really no militiamen left. On the contrary, we should keep them among the people, and when the manpower is more abundant in the future, we can train them to be militia captains, and they may be able to help some time."
James Knight was stunned. He felt that this statement seemed to make sense, and there seemed to be something wrong with it. However, after much deliberation, he could not figure out what the problem was, so he could only frown and leave. As he walked, he was still talking to himself, mumbling and thinking.
Creek smiled slightly. It was really not that challenging to fool a person with an intelligence of only nine.
For Baron Keen, who had just killed more than a hundred strong men, it was not easy to recruit strong men who dared to fight and kill, but it was not difficult to recruit honest and obedient ordinary people. In just five or six days, all the thirty people that Crick had planned were recruited.
According to his plan, after the thirty people were trained, ten were sent to their own villages, and the remaining twenty stayed in the town. As for the two knights, Charles Ouse and Howard James, they are both capable of maintaining their own territories and do not need Lord Creek to worry too much.
After recruiting thirty people, it is natural to train them.
According to past traditions, the training program for professional soldiers generally has three parts: using weapons, wearing armor, and simulating actual combat.
In terms of weapons, professional soldiers are divided into three categories: swords and shields, spears and bows and arrows. Those who use swords and shields are those who are thick but not tall enough. They are the backbone of the army and are responsible for resisting enemy attacks. Those who use bows and arrows are professionals. They are not many in number and have low lethality, but they can effectively attack the enemy. Morale; as for those who have no special skills, just learn to use a spear, this is the easiest.
In terms of armor, sword and shield soldiers should wear heavy armor, usually inlaid armor, or even composite armor of chains and animal skins; spearmen should wear thick leather armor; as for archers, they should wear chains if possible. Armor, if you don't have any conditions, just wear light leather armor.
This does not mean that archers pursue agility, so they wear light armor, but that archers stay behind and generally do not need heavy armor.
Although... In fact, archers often have the highest force value. Most excellent archers are strong in hand-to-hand combat, but who will let them go into battle to fight with people in hand-to-hand combat! That's such a waste!
When even the archers drew their swords to fight, the lord's own life was almost in danger. At this point, who cares about others
But Creek's approach was completely different from others. Among the thirty people he recruited, there was not even a single archer or sword and shield soldier, and they were all spearmen. Moreover, the armor he prepared for the pikemen was also different. It was not the ordinary back leather armor, but all-color chain plate armor.
Although those plate armors are relatively crudely made, no matter how poor the quality is, they are still plate armors!
A piece of lock plate armor, even if it is crudely made, often costs more than one hundred gold coins. The lock plate armor of this batch of thirty people suddenly cost almost 3,500 gold coins. If it weren't for the fact that the territory itself still had some inventory, and the Eagle Kingdom had returned many relics after the war, just buying these armors would make Creek, who was currently low on funds, feel a little distressed.
But I have to admit that thirty soldiers wearing chainmail, standing in several rows with spears in their hands, are indeed majestic and majestic. Just looking at the momentum is amazing.
The training program that Crick gave them was also very strange. They did not go out to stab the target individually. Instead, they started with lining up and walking in unison.
"Do these things work?" Howard James Knight asked privately.
Crick himself was not very sure, but he felt that since people had been recruited and money had been spent, the experiment should be completed anyway.
Under his orders, these soldiers, who were farmers or small helpers not long ago, stood in queues and walked in unison every day after eating and drinking. They also did physical training such as long-distance running. Generally speaking, they did not look like a group of soldiers. Rather like a group of actors.
Not only that, Crick would visit the military camps every few days to give them political lessons and tell them, "You fight as soldiers not to make money to support yourself, but to protect your current stable life." "For soldiers, death is certainly terrible, but failure and escape are even more terrible." Let them remember the bitterness and sweetness, compare the hard life in the past with the stable life now... In short, think of various ways to stimulate their fighting spirit.
But to be honest, the effect is mediocre.
It is true that the intelligence of these soldiers is generally not high. The highest one is only nine, but there are several with intelligence seven. But they are definitely not stupid, and they are not like the soldiers in some old-fashioned Long Aotian-style novels. When the protagonist shakes his body and exudes the aura of domineering king, they all fall down and worship, and their loyalty is immediately locked to one hundred. .
In the final analysis, they come to serve as soldiers to make money and live a better life.
And for them, nothing is more terrifying than death. In fact, they are not mentally prepared to kill or be killed at all, and they have not completed the transformation from ordinary people to warriors.
Why do the recruitment of professional soldiers generally emphasize the courage to fight and kill? And here's the key.
Crick was not in a hurry. He still trained them to stand in line, walk in unison, and improve their physical fitness every day. He still visited them regularly and gave them lectures and heart-to-heart talks.
After about a month, the soldiers were finally in order and walking in unison, so the training moved on to the next step, spear thrusting.
Spear marksmanship is actually a very large system. Generally speaking, it roughly consists of four parts: smashing, stabbing, sweeping, and thrusting. Smashing refers to smashing from top to bottom with a spear, which is especially useful when fighting the opponent's spearmen; stabbing means poking, which is the main attack method; sweeping means sweeping left and right with a spear to drive away monsters such as goblins. It is very useful for killing monsters like this, and for mopping up mobs; the top is to fix the spear on the ground, forming a forest of spears that is difficult to reserve, which is naturally used to deal with cavalry, although it is almost impossible to use it in practice.
A skilled soldier will spend more than half a year just learning the four main moves of a spear. But Creek simply ignored the other three moves, only retaining the collective jab.
Since then, the speed of training has naturally been greatly accelerated, but the combat effectiveness of the soldiers has also been greatly reduced.
Howard James Knight became worried again and persuaded him privately, suggesting that he should train other tricks well.
"We don't have that time," Crick said. "First, learn how to line up, walk in unison, and stab each other. After that, practice their physical fitness, and then put on armor. Then they can fight."
"This won't work..."
"Anyway, we just want them to exterminate goblins and the like for the time being." Creek said with a smile, "Other tricks are not needed for the time being."
The knight with intelligence nine was convinced again, although he still felt something was wrong.