Lorist needs the help of Earl Miranda very much. Without the permission of the lord, no matter how powerful Lorist's family army is and how rich the funds are, he will not be able to get the support of manpower and material resources in the area of Ametrine Port. It has a great influence on the northbound direction of Lorist.
Lorist held several discussions with Fatty Shi and his family knights, and everyone agreed that the biggest difficulty in traveling north was how to pass the 2,000-mile journey of the Kingdom of Ridleys. It would be no problem if Lorist only brought a dozen or so people through the Kingdom of Ridleys, but now there are more than 6,000 people following Lorist to the north, and there are still a large amount of supplies, which has become a problem.
The Kingdom of Ridleys was established by the great prince of the former Krissen Empire. In the former empire era, the great prince was famous for his tyranny, greed, and dishonesty. That's why the old emperor of the empire abolished his inheritance rights and put He was dispatched to the province of Porto Org, far from the imperial capital. As a result, the eldest prince went to the place like a fish in water. Relying on the height of the mountains, the emperor quickly gained the military and political power in the province of Puerto Org. The destruction of the caravan of the Norton family is suspected to be the hand of the great prince.
After the death of the old emperor of the empire, it was the eldest prince who first raised the flag of rebellion, dragging the entire empire into a raging civil war. Now less than a year and a half after the signing of the armistice agreement, the eldest prince found an excuse to provoke a war with the Principality of Forendo. In fact, he wanted to get his hands on the richest central region of the former empire. Fortunately, the four princes of Faker, Forendo, Handra, and Sabaji in the central region have a clear understanding of the character of the grand prince, and the four princes formed a military alliance. The coalition forces were sent to jointly resist the grand prince's invasion. At present, the coalition forces of the four principalities and the prince's kingdom army are entangled in the south-central.
What Lorist and the knights are worried about is that they are now in the Principality of Rulm, and if they go north, they will enter the territory of the Kingdom of Ridleys. They are carrying a huge amount of supplies and many family members with the army. An easy target for the Grand Prince. It is said that the eldest prince is not having a good time. Although his territory covers seven provinces, he has already plundered people's wealth to a height of three feet. The territory is full of wars, people who have fallen into bandits are everywhere, and bandits and robbers emerge in endlessly.
And the army of the eldest prince is now in an inextricable battle with the coalition forces of the four principalities, and it has reached a situation where it is difficult to ride a tiger. Thanks to the burning, killing and plundering of the prince's army, the four principalities, from the nobles down to the common people, hated the prince deeply. Even if the prince wanted to withdraw his troops, the army of the four principalities would definitely counterattack and enter the Kingdom of Ridleys. It is said that now the eldest prince can only rely on loans to cover military expenses, so as to keep the frontline war from collapsing.
Fatty Shi believed that if he walked along the road, no matter how strong the family army was, it would inevitably become a fat sheep in the eyes of the eldest prince. The eldest prince is very likely to send his garrison army to besiege Lorist's northbound team at the risk of the world. Anyway, he and the Norton family had old grievances, and he would definitely not let go of the opportunity to wipe out the roots, not to mention that Lorist and the others still carried so many supplies.
Both Fatty Shi and Bodfinger thought that the best way was to take a detour. They chose a westbound northbound route. This route would pass through the territories of more than a dozen lords, large and small, more than walking along the avenue. Walk more than three hundred miles away. Fatty Shi believes that there are many advantages to taking this route. For example, with the strength of the family army, these territorial nobles can be completely crushed, and there is no problem in forcibly passing through. Moreover, banditry is serious in these territories. We can suppress bandits and train soldiers along the way, and we can also get the gratitude and assistance of the nobles of the territories.
Bodfinger believes that in order to pass through the Kingdom of Ridleys, it is necessary to maintain a minimum journey of 50 to 60 miles a day. As long as half of the mileage is passed, then even if the eldest prince gets the news, he will have nothing to do with us, because he will send troops. Can't catch up with us. Once we occupy this place, we can say that it is safe and secure.
The location on the map that Bodfinger pointed to was a border fortress called Benzburg, which was the junction of the third prince's Antinac kingdom and the eldest prince's Raedlis kingdom. This place is very familiar to Bodfinger, who had fought bloody battles here when he was still in the White Lions. He said that in the past, the White Lion Army defeated the Grand Prince's army here, but the Grand Prince's army received continuous support from the Ford Business Alliance. In the end, the White Lion Army, which had run out of ammunition and food, withdrew from Fort Bends. Give up the throat fortress that controls the border between the two countries to the army of the grand prince.
Bodfinger said that since that battle, both countries have been unable to fight again, and then a truce was signed and the White Lions were disbanded. Since the eldest prince turned his attention to the central region, only a thousand-strong garrison was left here. Half a year ago, when Bodelfinger and his children passed through here to Morente City, he found that the defense of Benzburg was extremely lax. If you can attack suddenly while it is unprepared, then it will be easy to take this fortress with the strength of the family army.
Lorist understood Bodfinger's meaning, took this fortress, and handed it over to the third prince. Not only did he sell the third prince's favor, but he didn't need to worry about the eldest prince's pursuit, so his team could rest assured along the road. went north.
Once the route is determined, the problem to be solved is how to make the northbound team travel more than 50 miles a day. It is very simple, and they can only rely on horse-drawn carriages. Even if it is very good. According to Fatty Shi's plan, with four to five families as a group, with twelve or thirteen people in one carriage, at least 250 wagons would be needed for nearly 4,000 military dependents. In addition to the horse-drawn carriages needed by the troops and the horse-drawn carriages for transporting supplies, in the end Fatty Shi found that he couldn't get on the road without six hundred four-wheeled carriages.
Fatty Shi made the most of the manpower of his military entourage, divided them into teams according to their skills, and tried their best to catch up with the work, but it is estimated that only 200 carriages could be produced in a month. More than a hundred vehicles, less than half. In addition, the horses pulling the cart are also a problem. A four-wheeled carriage and two horses, 600 carts required 1,200 horses, and what Lorist had on hand plus what was seized from the attack on the slave camp and the Slov Manor was only 600 horses.
Lorist's time was very tight, he had to arrive in the Northland before March of the new year to inherit the title and family territory. It is now the end of November, and there are only three months to go, and the port of Ametrine is still nearly five thousand miles away from the Northland.
The reason why he decided to stay at the Slov Manor for another month was that there was no other way. He had to buy a carriage within this month before he could go on the road. As long as he passed through the Kingdom of Ridleys, then Lorist could safely let the team go north slowly. He took a few people to take the lead, and rushed to the north to inherit the title and territory.
So Lorist needs the help of Earl Miranda very much. As long as Earl Miranda agrees to mobilize the materials and manpower in the territory to help Lorist build or purchase the carriage, that month will be enough. Originally, Lorist was still thinking about how to get to know the local lord and ask for help, but Earl Miranda came to his door automatically, which made Lorist overjoyed. Sending the manor to the relatives of the members of the slave hunting group is to make good friends with the local lord, the Earl, and let him agree to his request.
Earl Miranda stayed in Miranda Manor for four days. Lorist's act of changing the name of Slov Manor to Miranda Manor made Lord Earl very happy. He promised to do his best to help Lorist and mobilize the manpower and material resources of the territory. Help build a four-wheeled carriage, and collect a thousand draft horses to provide to Lorist. Perhaps the Earl also hopes that Lorist's team will go north as soon as possible, so that he can become the real owner of Miranda Manor.
The Earl told Lorist unabashedly that he planned to move the castle he lived in to Miranda Manor. First, the terrain here is good, difficult to attack and easy to defend, and the surrounding environment is also good. The defense facilities in the manor are better than his current ones. A castle to live in is much better. The second is that the Earl believes that after moving to Miranda Manor, his control over the Port of Ametrine will be strengthened. As long as the port is not only invested and developed, Port Ametrine will soon be in the hands of the Earl For the hen that can lay golden eggs, the prospect of a lot of money is just around the corner.
Lorist naturally expressed his admiration for the Earl's vision. As a thank you for the Earl's willingness to help him provide carriages and horses for free, Lorist decided to give the three-masted ship of Slov to the Earl as a gift. This gift fulfilled the earl's wish to own a sea ship. In fact, the value of three hundred four-wheeled carriages and one thousand pack horses is equivalent to that of the big ship, but nobles cannot conduct transactions nakedly like merchants, because that would be too out of style. So one was willing to provide free help, and the other gave gifts, and everything was done tacitly.
Earl Miranda did what he said, and on the third day, he sent his lord, nearly a hundred servants, and dozens of maids to Miranda Manor, and assigned two young and beautiful maids to serve Lorist specifically. He specially asked the Master Manager to come over to say hello, pointing out that the two maids had taken the Michira liquid, and Lorist could use it with confidence.
Lorist naturally understood, and immediately asked all the family knights under him to move out of the main building, and each of them found a house in the manor residential area as a temporary residence, so that the chief executive could recruit craftsmen to renovate and decorate the main building according to Earl Miranda's preferences.
Miranda greatly appreciated Lorist's knowledge and interest. If Lorist hadn't wanted to go north to inherit the family territory and title, he would have really wanted to recruit Lorist under his command.
Perhaps it was the sealing up of Slov's shops that made the Earl a lot of money. During the four days in the manor, he signed several agreements with Fatty Shi who was lying on the soft couch:
First, Earl Miranda entrusted Lorist's family army to train him a private armed force of more than 700 people, including 120 heavy armored soldiers, 240 crossbowmen, and 360 soldiers. Spearmen, for a month.
Second, this 720-person private armed personnel will be assembled within three days, and will be stationed at the former slave catcher camp on the southern outskirts of Ametrine Port. All the weapons and equipment will be provided by Lorist, and the training commission and The total cost of weapons and equipment is 20,000 Jinford.
Third, Lorist will sell the excess weapons and equipment to Earl Miranda at a 40% discount, and the Earl will sell them.
Fourth, the Earl will provide Lorist with 300 head of beef cattle and 2,000 sheep, and the cost will be deducted from the purchase cost.
After signing the agreement, Earl Miranda left the manor to raise expenses and recruit personnel. And Lorist and Fatty Shi brought El and Terman over, please leave for Morente City immediately, without him, Fatty Shi thinks that Lorist is buying those scrapped and auctioned weapons in the academy The idea of equipment is really great. Last time, Lorist only bought seven colleges, and there are twenty-eight colleges in the college area, and there is still a lot of potential to be tapped.
Fatty Shi regretted why he didn't discover this way when he was in the academy. If he had monopolized the business of refurbishing and selling used weapons from various academies, he would be worth at least a million Goldfords now! For example, the plate armor of the heavy armor purchased by Lorist cost less than ten gold coins, and then sold it for forty gold coins. Earl Miranda thought he had earned a bargain and owed Lorist a favor.
El and Terman brought 50,000 gold for this trip, not only to buy weapons and equipment from the academy, but also to order 700 carriage axles. For this reason, Lorist also wrote a letter to President Peterson, believing that with the help of the Peterson Chamber of Commerce, the axle of the carriage will be completed soon.
The Miranda Manor was in full swing of labor, and it was only then that Lorist realized how difficult the logistical preparations for the 6,000-person expedition were. In terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation alone, Fatty Shi has already prepared for the clothes. The custom-made purchases in Morente City and the confiscated ones from the residential area during the capture of Slov Manor are enough to ensure the team's supply.
Food is to prepare dry food for long journeys. Like the supplies provided by Earl Miranda who are currently stationed in the manor, the daily food consumption of 6,000 people is 10,000 catties, plus other non-staple food, such as fresh meat. As well as vegetables and fruits, Earl Miranda, who was in charge, also yelled that he couldn't bear it. Earl Miranda had to pay for the grain of the two sea ships to solve this problem.
Since this month's supplies were provided by the Earl, all the grain ordered and collected by Fatty Shi before would be used to make dry food on the northbound road. What Fatty Shi decided to make was marching black bread. This kind of black bread was different from the ones sold in bakeries. One loaf was half a meter long, thicker than Lorist's arm. After it was baked out of the oven and cooled, it was so strong that Lorist even suspected that it was as hard as a brick.
A loaf of marching black bread is enough for an adult to consume for ten days. The way to eat it is also different from other breads, you can't chew it with your teeth, otherwise your teeth will collapse. The correct way to eat it is: 1. If you have enough time, you can bake it on the fire for half a day, cut it into two slices, put some dried meat in the middle, and eat it, especially if you are very hungry. Second, if you don't have enough time, use a hammer to smash the pieces down, put them in a pot, add water and cook, and it will immediately become a noodle porridge. Add some wild vegetables and minced meat to make a big pot. Three, if the time is particularly tight, add water soaks, after soaking for a while, you can break off a small piece and stuff it in your mouth to chew slowly, but be careful to burp your teeth.
The raw materials for making marching brown bread are very simple, rye flour, bran, salt, and then you can add any miscellaneous grains, as long as the dough is fully fermented, it can be made into black bread. Bodfinger said that when food was scarce, sawdust and leaves were added to the black bread of the White Lions marching. The shelf life of marching black bread can be as long as half a year. Fatty Shi is going to make 10,000 loaves of marching black bread, and each soldier will carry two with him, and each family member will bring one. Lorist praised this as a good one. When the weapon is broken during the battle, you can use the black bread you carry to smash the enemy to death...
In addition to the marching black bread, there are 300 cows and 2,000 sheep that Fatty asked Earl Miranda to purchase. All of these will be slaughtered to make bacon jerky and dried meat, as well as mutton sausage, beef jerky and shredded beef, etc. Meat supplements on the road. In addition to these Fatty Shi, he also ordered nearly a thousand catties of preserved fruits, prunes and green olives as snacks for everyone to adjust their tastes during the long journey.
There is only one solution to the problem of accommodation, tents, a large team of 6,000 people cannot find a hotel to rest. Fatty Shi is very thoughtful about this point. In addition to the military tents of the soldiers, the arrangement of the accompanying family members is also the same as that of the carriages. One tent is arranged for each carriage. When the time comes, the carriages will form an outer barrier and the tents will be set up inside. This problem will be solved. .
Needless to say, use a four-wheeled carriage. It's just that this trip to the north is not a normal group trip, but will encounter various dangers, so there must be an army escort, and with the army, there will be more things, such as preparing a carriage for transporting logistics supplies, and preparing medicines The team of the division had to prepare spare weapons and equipment, fine feed for mounts and fodder for pack horses, so the team expanded more and more.
Al and Terman returned to Port Armitling on December 23rd in a large Peterson Chamber ship. They brought back seven hundred carriage axles. According to their report, for the seven hundred pairs of axles, President Peterson sent people to buy all the spare axles from all the car shops in Morente City, and dismantled more than one hundred of his own four-wheeled wagons. Got the quantity.
In addition to the axles, they also spent more than 20,000 Jinford on the so-called scrap weapons and equipment in the arsenals of the eight academies. If they didn't come back too quickly, they really wanted to spare any of the arsenals of the academies, but they were worried that there would be too many of them. I couldn't carry it, and I didn't have enough time, so I hurried back.
As El and Terman said, there are really too many weapons and equipment. When Fatty Shi asked Earl Miranda to fulfill the agreement to buy surplus weapons and equipment, the Earl was dumbfounded. Because he found that even if he took out all the copper coins around him, he would only be able to buy one-third of the excess equipment that Fatty Shi said. This is because Fatty Shi gave a 50% discount according to the market price instead of the 40% discount stated in the agreement.
The Earl finally spent 60,000 gold coins to buy a quarter of the surplus weapons, but he turned around and sold these weapons to his subordinate nobles to earn 30% of the profit, which made him very happy.
Fatty Shi found that the convoy he planned had expanded to more than 800 vehicles, of which more than 100 vehicles were extra weapons and equipment. So he decided to go all the way north and sell all kinds of weapons and equipment to the territorial nobles along the way, first act as an armed caravan, and then invest the huge profits in the development of the Northland.
Time passed quickly, the busy New Year is here, all the preparations for the northbound trip have been completed, and the convoy has been prepared and set off in three days.
In order to celebrate the new year, Lorist announced that every soldier would be given a Gold Ford, and the family members of the army, regardless of age, would be given a large silver coin. He also held a grand banquet to welcome the new year, which aroused bursts of cheers from the soldiers and their families.
In the dead of night, Lorist was still unable to sleep. He was alone in the yard looking at the bright starry sky. He was about to head north. What would his future lordship look like? Involuntarily fell into a daydream...