King of Mercenaries

After the lots were drawn, everybody left with cheerful moods. While Marin’s right-hand man, General Schwartz walked over with a worried face:

“Young master, if you’ve splitted two-thirds of your land with the soldiers, what are you going to do?” Privately, Schwartz always called Marin as young master, while calling him Boss in the military.

“It’s fine Schwartz, I’m assuming you don’t know this yet? The salt-boiling operations we own is producing 1000 quarts of refined salt every day!” Marin revealed.

Schwartz had been spending the days in Den Burg, and was in charge of training the soldiers as well as preparing defenses. That’s why he wasn’t well informed about what was going on within Salttown, only knowing that they were boiling salt over there.

“1000 quarts? Every day?” Schwartz was shook. He knew how high the prices for salt was, and with how much salt they were producing, how much profit would that be…

“That’s right, now I have 600 gold coins of profit every day, you tell me, do I have to be concerned about the fields?” Marin spoke with confidence.

“That does make sense, but young master, you don’t have to share so much farmland with them. Honestly, 2 morgens per family would have been enough.”

2 morgens were about 4 acres, roughly 24 fields, and would be more than enough for a family to be self-sufficient. Of course, based on the current production of Europe, that would only be barely self sufficient.

Aside from that, they won’t be having any surplus. If there was a bottomless eater like Kahn in the family, it certainly wouldn’t be enough…

“It’s okay, don’t worry about that. These soldiers, I want them to put their lives on the line for me, if I don’t give them enough benefits, would they risk death to serve me?”

“But, if you’re giving 5 morgens of land for every soldier that join you, we won’t have enough land on the island!”

“Schwartz, I did not promise I’ll give land to the new recruits who will be joining us in the future…”

“Your meaning?”

“These 400 people, I’m intending to train them into officers at the level of a squad leader. As for the grunt soldiers, we could always recruit more in the future…”

“400 squad leaders? Are you intending to raise an army ten thousand strong?” Schwartz was shook once again. A squad was made up of 25 members, and 400 squads came up to ten thousand people! An army ten thousand strong, no average Duke would be able to muster that. Because, there simply was insufficient money…

The nobles of the middle ages, because of how lacking farming was, territorial productions were limited. On top of their own luxurious lifestyle, this caused the financial situation of most nobles to be really terrible. Those who were able to muster an army ten thousand strong were basically very wealthy dukes, or even kings.

Of course, some would also fill the ranks with serfs. But the serfs did not go through any training, and their combat ability was extremely miserable, as they would scatter the instant a trained unit charged through them. Nowadays, between wars of nobles, it was already a popular method have an army consisting of knights, mercenaries and soldiers. As such, even heavy cavalry who were previously squires could be hired. If they filled the ranks with serfs as meatshields, they would definitely get run down, on top of being an extreme waste of rations.

“What about it? Our salt-boiling base of operations could churn out 210 thousand gold coins each year, do you think I can’t afford an army 10 thousand strong?”

Schwartz thought about it for a moment, that really was enough money to afford an army that large. However, a Baron Lord owning an army ten thousand strong, no matter how you look at it, it feels strange. Unless, the young master wants to expand his territory…

Schwartz immediately felt refreshed…

Young Master intends to expand his territory, he definitely wouldn’t be complacent in living on this island. If he wanted to expand, Schwartz pondered, he believed the greatest possibility was Eastern France. Because, that place was the location where Madam Mary’s family originally controlled.

However, if the young master could retake Eastern France under Madam Mary’s name, then Madam Mary’s first heir in succession, should be Young Master Adler… Schwartz was a bit confused…

“Alright, Schwartz, I have an important mission for you right now!”

“I await your orders young master!”

“I want you to do your best to train those bastards into qualified squad leaders, can you do it?”

“Train them into squad leaders? How should I train them into squad leaders?” Schwartz was very familiar in training soldiers, but training squad leaders, how was that supposed to be done?

“That’s easy, just make them take turns acting as the squad leader in their own squads, isn’t that it?”

“That simple?”

“That simple!”

“Then how are we going to train their troop-training skills? Those 400 men of ours are already veterans, they don’t need more training. This way, their troop-training skills can’t be raised…”

“That’s easy, don’t we have almost a thousand young men on the island? When it’s slack season, just round up all the young men on the island, and make the soldiers train their formation and discipline. We could even go as far as gathering the kids and teach them how to stay in formation, allowing them to gain some experience. But, we mustn’t break anything when training the kids…”

“We’re not teaching them how to fight?”

“Why are we teaching them how to fight? If we taught them how to fight, what if one day they come to dislike me, and rebel against me, what would I do then?” Marin was a bit angry. Teaching the serfs to stay in formation and discipline, was just to make them more obedient, making it easier to command them. To train them to fight, what if one day these peasants started a rebellion? Then he would definitely get KO’ed…

“Alright, I understand, young master!” As he finished speaking, Schwartz hurried away, he was going to accomplish the task young master had handed him, to train these buffoons into qualified squad leaders…

The reason why he said to train the soldiers to qualified squad leaders, but not company captains or even platoon leaders, the reason was simple…

Because amongst these soldiers, everyone besides Schwartz was illiterate. The understanding of an illiterate person was limited, and they weren’t good at thinking. Turning them into squad leaders was the limit. Usually, all they needed to do was fulfill the verbal commands their superiors gave them to a tee.

But the company captains and even the platoon commanders were different, not only did they have to read written orders and execute said orders, they also had to make minor changes to their commanding platoons or companies based on the war situation.

As such, if the wings of the army was breached, when the company captains and platoon commanders notice a breach in the wings, they had to command their underlings to make the proper response, while not going against orders given by the general or someone superior. Responses such as that, was something greatly difficult to accomplish for squad leaders who were illiterate. Because they were not used to thinking.

Marin wanted to expand his army, so he definitely needed to recruit wandering knights who came from knightly houses in the future, to train them into company captains. As for platoon commanders, that was really important, not only did they have to be educated and intelligent, they must be as trustworthy as Schwartz. Even if they weren’t trustworthy, their family members must move onto his territory, to act as hostages.

Marin’s reputation, under the Emperor’s decree, had started to spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Presumably, there definitely would be some of his fans seeking his audience and joining him in the future because of his fame. When that time comes, Marin intends to choose several knights, and train them to become his company captains and platoon commanders. As for Schwartz, he would be trained to become his Legion Commander.

By the time Marin told Schwartz his intentions, Marin was so excited that he started shaking — a Legion commander! That was a bigshot who was able to command at least 6000 men (a roman legion). Normally, only a Count could shoulder that responsibility. When Schwartz voiced his confusion, Marin told him matter of factly — if his title was insufficient, he could just act as the Acting Legion Commander…

“But young master, I’m still but a squire…” Schwartz said helplessly.

Squire, not even a noble, compared to the lowest requirement of acting as a Legion commander — a Baron, he was extremely extremely lacking…

“Oh right, I almost forgot. How about this, as the Baron of an independent Barony, it seems like I have the right to knight Knights of the Land. How about this, when we have time, I’ll invite my family and your family onto the island, then I’ll host an allegiance ceremony as I name you my knight…”

“Thank you young master, thank you young master…” Schwartz was so grateful that he immediately went down on one knee, intending to swear his allegiance then and there

…

One must know, a named knight and a squire, was the difference between a noble and a commoner. And that difference, was the distance between the skies and the earth. Being named as a knight was no different that becoming a noble! How could Schwartz not be delighted…

“Don’t swear your allegiance now, we have yet to prepare for the ceremony…”

“Hehe…” Schwartz stood up, and laughed awkwardly.

Since I will be naming you as my knight, I definitely need to give you a manor. My fief has a small land, so I won’t be able to give you a large manor right now. How about this, after some time, I’ll get the serfs to cultivate 100 morgens of land to act as your Manor, you won’t complain about how small it is, will you?”

“How could I, that’s already amazing, young master, your father only has 100 morgens of farmland.”

How could Schwartz be greedy for more? Being able to obtain the status of nobility was already a huge gain for him.

“Don’t compare with the old man, he has a coal mine under his grasp. However, we weren’t that rich before the coal mine was developed…”

“Being able to gain the status of a knight is already the greatest reward I can get, young master, I won’t be picky.”

“Hehe, let me tell you this, you aren’t losing out on much. After utilizing farming technology from the East, the rye harvest for a mou of land would be 200 pounds at the very least…”

“Young master, what’s a mou of land? How big is it?” Schwartz naturally didn’t know the unit of measurement “mou”

“Cough cough — one mou of land is equal to one-twelfth of a morgens…”

“Huh? One morgen is 12 mou of land, then wouldn’t a morgen produce 2400 pounds of rye? That many?” Schwartz was shook yet again. That production rate was definitely a quarter higher than Europe’s production (during harvest season)…

“No less, only more!”

“Then am I going to be rich?”

“Yeah, you are… but stop daydreaming, go and train those bastards!”

“Yes, young master!” As he finished, Schwartz went out to work with a revitalized spirit, swearing to train those soldiers into hell and back…