our family is gone

Chapter 404 Heart of Steel
No one will object to this, and the deployment of soldiers whose strength is far beyond normal will not lower the average level, because the more mature the army, the less it depends on heroism, but on collective strength.

It will motivate them to fight even more, because others want to join this secret army too.

"What's the name?"

If you want to unite the strength of an organization and deepen your sense of identity, it is best to give them a bond, and this name is it.

Lance hated naming names the most, so he thought about it for a moment and then came up with a sentence. This was also his hope for those personal guards.

"My body is as strong as iron, and my heart is as steel. The first guard team is named [Steel Heart]."

Under Lance's strong push, the matter was settled in this way.

But what he said was exaggerated, but in fact the quota for [Heart of Iron] is only 100 people, and he recruited [-] people in the first round.

For example, Barrett, Sobrey, and Bahrain are particularly outstanding, and those with unique skills are basically assigned quotas by default. The rest is to select the truly brave and elite from the entire army.

Let Boudica, Disma, and Geralt take turns as their instructors to train them. They need to master fighting, muskets, and cold weapons. At the same time, Grindel will prepare potions to help them discover their potential.

This is also the benefit of being separated from the army. They will not be bound by rules, can develop their own abilities in a targeted manner, have better room for development, and exert stronger strength.

Lance's requirement is that these people must be at least elite. Of course, they will receive strong "support" from the lord to greatly shorten this time. Hamlet can't wait so long.

Hamlet won a complete victory in this battle, but he also gave the old man a big meal, and Lance could also feel the urgent crisis.

"What about the captives? It's useless for us to keep them, and we have to send someone to guard them."

"That's right, a lot of money wasted in treating them, as well as eating and drinking."

"..."

Everyone's opinions on those captives are very unified, that is, kick them away quickly and don't waste food.

"The reason for treating them is that the price we can get will be higher. I have included all the money, and they are good practice props."

Lance explained with a smile that he also went there these days to treat these people. Medical soldiers and nurses can accumulate enough experience by treating various wounds. If you don’t practice this kind of thing with others, do you practice yourself? ?
And more importantly, Hamlet did not abuse them, and even expressed his willingness to rescue them.

When these people go back, the relevant situation will be spread no matter what. When the time comes to fight, it will be easier for the Bastia soldiers to surrender instead of fighting to the death.

The siege is the bottom, and the heart is the top.

But what they said is also reasonable, it needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise those guys will be troublesome to stay here, and gold coins are more real.

"The knights offered [-] gold coins each, the earl's son named Alvin asked for [-] gold coins, and the baron asked for [-] gold coins."

"Ah! One hundred thousand?" They also guessed that Lance would ask a high price, but they didn't expect it to be so high.

"Is five hundred one too many?"

"A knight leading more than 100 people may only produce [-] to [-] gold coins a year. This is a territory with relatively rich conditions.

And these are just knight titles, but members of the Knights without fiefs cannot afford the ransom.

As for the earl's son who is not among the heirs, according to the usual practice, it is worth two to three thousand gold coins at most. A baron is worth a little money. Unless he sells his territory, he will definitely not be able to make up one hundred thousand gold coins in a short time. "

Once a member of the knights, Leonard felt that he still needed to explain the rules under the aristocratic system.

It's just that Lance heard it but didn't care at all.

"It's not them who gave the money. Earl Bastia will not be stingy with this money. As for the baron, I have no intention of letting him go back. Just give me 50."

Alvin was able to put it back because this kind of idiot should be put back to cause trouble for the earl, but the baron is a truly capable person, and if it wasn't for Alvin's delay, he would never have been captured.

Being able to catch this big fish is luck, and Lance will never be so stupid as to put him back, that's because he has nothing to do.

What's more important is that the Baron is Alvin's teacher, the real leader of this knight order. Many of these knights came from the baron's territory and were also trained by him. As long as he is handled properly, there will be a lot of room for manipulation.

"Actually, the focus is not on those captives, but on Bastia."

Lance took out the seized map and unfolded it in front of everyone, but he was still in the mood to laugh and tease.

"It seems that Count Bastia is very concerned about Hamlet, and he knows it better than me, the lord."

Everyone has also seen the map from Bastia, but the scope of the thing is a bit beyond Bastia, and even the map on it is mainly the boundary of Hamlet, and a large number of towns in the area of ​​Hamlet are marked village.

To be able to draw such a map speaks volumes about the depth of its penetration into Hamlet.

Similarly, everyone can see Bastia's desire for Hamlet's territory, and his desire to occupy Hamlet is revealed directly as the map unfolds.

But I'm afraid they didn't expect that Hamlet is not as simple as it seems on the bright side. This is not a declining territory, but a terrifying bottomless pit.

"Some people may not know Bastia, so let me tell you about this place."

Lance has the information collected by the Roma in his hands, so he knows a little about these things, and he said a few words about the situation in Bastia.

And Grindel was also listening, but she looked a little strange, but she didn't speak.

"According to the documents I inherited, the original scope of Hamlet's territory is..." Lance raised his hand and swiped across the map. In an instant, the poor little place expanded rapidly, and a huge territory that almost occupied the northeast province of the empire appeared.

Lance's fingertips paused for a moment, and then drew a few more lines.

"This is Hamlet's current territory, and [-]% of it is someone else's. The remaining [-]% is secretly controlled by the Ascension Sect. There is also an empire behind the city of Owendo.

The vast sea area has been given over to pirates, and even the safety of the coastline is difficult to guarantee. There are also large areas of ruins separated by wilderness, and this is the only area we really control. "

Lance raised his hand and drew a circle. With his movement, in the eyes of everyone, only less than [-]% of Hamlet remained, [-]% was divided up by various forces, and less than [-]% was actually controlled.

Speaking of this, Lance couldn't help but raise his hand to hold his forehead, and sighed helplessly.

"Our family has fallen..."

Several other people were still immersed in this continuous shock. To be honest, the ones who had an accurate concept of the earldom here were probably Barton and Barristan.

But the problem is that it is impossible for an ordinary earldom to be so big!

To be able to occupy a province, I am afraid that only a duke with royal blood and a grand duke is qualified, but Hamlet is indeed a count.

And more people are still imagining how powerful Hamlet was in his heyday, and how powerful he was to be able to occupy such a position.

But Lance has woken up from the glory of the past. He clearly realizes that what he inherited is just a quagmire full of monsters, and he has to fight monsters in the stinky mud every day.

"I know you've been wondering why I didn't expand my sphere of influence and send troops to reclaim those lost territories."

Lance raised his hand and tapped the map in his hand, his attitude was not as relaxed as it was at the beginning, but looked a little serious.

"The Ascension Sect's control over Hamlet is too deep, so deep that even Bastia, who has been coveting Hamlet for a long time and is constantly infiltrating, is difficult to parry.

These Bastia knights who thought they were in control of the situation would be stabbed to death by farmers with pitchforks when they were fully armed. Can you imagine this?

Have you ever wondered why these villages and towns still exist in the cult-ridden Hamlet?When they were lurking in the villages and towns, no one knew how many of them were cultists.

Maybe he was chatting and laughing with you one second, but then drew a knife and stabbed you at the next second, how do you want me to recruit soldiers from these people?How do you want me to manage these cultists?
Why did I have to run so far, to Ovindor, to Totnes?It was to get rid of the control of the Ascension Sect, and it was these newcomers who opened the road to Hamlet's revival.

If you rush to regain the territory before the Ascension Sect is completely disintegrated, then you will fall into their trap, and what happened to the Knights will continue to happen to us.

They will use every possible means to consume us and waste our energy on dealing with these civil strife, and then only the Ascension Sect and the evil god behind them will benefit in the end. "

Lance's words finally solved their doubts.

As an earl and an heir to Hamlet, since he took over the territory, he would rather spend a lot of money to relieve refugees, develop wilderness and farms, rather than recover those lost territories.

It's not in his interest.

"Similarly, now is absolutely not the time to rashly start a war with those nobles. No matter before or now, Hamlet has only one way to revive.

That is to go north, completely wipe out those ascending sects, destroy the rituals they arranged here, and end the nightmare that has been circulating here for many years. "

Lance named Hamlet's main enemy now, but Barton raised objections.

"But are we just watching Bastia and the surrounding nobles eat away at Hamlet? We can recover more land, accept more refugees, and accelerate development."

Barton now truly considers Hamlet his home and is unwilling to watch it be invaded.

In addition, the construction of artillery needs to go through wars, and scattered small groups of cultists are not as suitable for firing artillery as the noble army.

But Lance shook his head with a smile when he heard it.

"You will have a chance to prove the artillery, but not now. When I need you, I hope you can stand up and use the roar of the artillery to prove that my choice is not wrong."

As for those nobles who want to get their hands on Hamlet?

He didn't care at all, that is, in order to maintain his identity, he couldn't do anything casually, otherwise Lance would have killed him long ago.

He wished that those guys would rush in and kill those troublemakers, so that he wouldn't have to slowly distinguish those cultists.

Then he still occupies the righteousness, and he has the final say on where Hamlet's army will stop.

To be honest, it's not that Lance looks down on them. Even if the army of those nobles can have the level of a knight order, it's a rotten fish to Lance.

He can kill all those guys by himself. Wheel battles and gang fight tactics are useless to him. As long as he can kill people and have corpses, then he is a war machine that will not be injured or fatigued.

In the era of cold weapons, this is the crushing of ordinary people after a certain level of extraordinary power, but Lance can't say what methods the extraordinary people in the church will use, and he still has a little awe of these.

Not in awe of the church, but in awe of the unknown.

This meeting determined Hamlet's next resource allocation, development direction, and main enemies, and arrangements for those prisoners were also made.

At the end of the meeting, everyone else left. They needed to implement the content of the meeting, but Greendale did not leave.

Lance didn't think it was a hint. Although the window paper was broken between them, it was still important to talk about business during working hours.

"Is it the research of Feisheng potion or the progress in the treatment of leprosy?"

Obviously Grindel meant the same thing, she was not surprised by Lance's appearance, after all, the meeting just now showed the great pressure he was under.

"Neither, but maybe I have something to explain about Bastia."

Grindel directly spoke out why she stayed, and this Lance just remembered something, and nodded for her to continue.

"I remember you mentioned it before."

"The main trading object of our tribe and empire is Bastia. We will grow raw materials ourselves, and we will also recycle some from various tribes in the mountains and Bastia.

The potions we refine are actually not consumed much in the mountains, and the real big ones will be sold all over the world, and this middleman is Bastia. "

"So it's because of your cooperation with them that Bastia is able to reach what it is today?" Lance looked a little playful.

"Our tribe doesn't care about the internal situation of the empire. Before that, I didn't even know what happened here. He has grasped the pass. We can only trade with them if we want to transport the medicine out of the mountains."

Of course, Lance heard the reason explained by Greendale, and couldn't help but waved his hand, and explained with a smile: "I didn't mean to blame you, I meant that Bastia has money, and this ransom can be doubled again. "

Greendale didn't know what to say when she heard this...

　Thanks to [End Anni] for the 100 reward.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)