Banner of the Evil God

The nobles never hesitated to kill people. For them, swords were not the best tools, but at least they were very useful tools. If killing could solve the problem, then killing was of course a good choice.

So no one objected, and they immediately passed the resolution to "severely crack down on the movement of civilians taking surnames in the territory."

After deciding this matter, more than one noble showed a relaxed expression.

"There is another thing, I am a little worried." Marquis Yuke said, "After this policy comes out, will those adventurers who want to settle down give priority to the territory of the merchant faction? After all, for them, settling down and having a skill are definitely satisfied. In other words, as long as they choose to settle down in the north, they will definitely get a surname."

"Then they might as well go to the Northwest Republic." An earl said.

"The Northwest Republic is strictly controlled, and many people are not used to it." Marquis Yuke laughed disdainfully, "Among the adventurers who settled down, many of them saved money by doing shameful business. Such people can't adapt to the environment of the Northwest Republic. Can a black crow force itself to pretend to be a white dove? It can't be done."

This metaphor made many people laugh.

"But for us, whether it's a crow or a pigeon, as long as it can strengthen our strength, its origin doesn't matter. I believe the Merchants should think so too." Marquis Yuke said, "Then the question is, since we can settle down here or here, then of course it's more pleasant to settle down here and start a family."

The nobles all frowned, a little worried.

This matter may not seem big at first glance, but it is actually not small. Settled adventurers are the best supplement to the reserve forces of each territory. They have both property and ability. Many people are taken in as subordinates by the lord after settling down, and even many of them have made contributions in the subsequent wars and obtained the status of knights - for example, among the two real knights of Lord Keen, Knight Os's family comes from settled adventurers; even their neighbor, Viscount Samat, whose territory is to their south, is also a settled adventurer.

This situation is very common, and most noble territories have such knights. In other words, if there were no supplements from these settled adventurers, the noble system would rely on itself to cultivate talents, and the positions of grassroots nobles such as knights and quasi-knights would not be filled at all.

Cultivating talents also requires time, energy and wealth. The nobles have money, but if they use it to cultivate talents, then the wealth of most nobles may not be able to support it.

For example, to cultivate a knight, first of all, he must know a full set of combat skills; he must be able to skillfully use long and short weapons and bows and crossbows; he must be able to fight on horseback; he must be able to skillfully wear armor and go into battle; he must know how to command small-scale combat; he must have rich combat experience; he must be able to deal with most common emergencies; he must have sufficient military force; when attacking, he must be able to lead the team to break through; when retreating, he must be able to stabilize his position and not be in chaos; when breaking out and escaping, he must be able to escape successfully...

Ordinary people, no matter how much training they do, can never reach this level. Only those who are born strong and sharp can be cultivated to this level. This "prerequisite" alone can eliminate at least 90% of people. Among the remaining one tenth of qualified candidates, it often takes thirty to forty people to train one.

In other words, to train a knight, you need to select thirty or forty from three or four hundred young and strong people for long-term training, and only one can be trained in the end.

However, although the "selection" link does not cost money, the cost of training thirty or forty people is really beyond the level that most barons or even viscounts are willing to bear.

In the process of training, there needs to be enough nutrition, which means the cost of food; there needs to be wear and tear of weapons, armor and various equipment, which means the cost of materials; there needs to be enough treatment, which means the cost of magic and medicine; finally, people need to grow up through actual combat, which means the cost of various combat supplies...

If there is no choice, the nobles can of course train talents in this way. But most of the nobles are reluctant to spend money in this way - someone has estimated that according to the orthodox method, it will cost at least tens of thousands of gold coins to train a knight from the common people.

The nobles of the Gold Coin Federation have relatively high incomes, but most barons probably earn no more than 2,000 gold coins a year - half of which comes from taxes, and the other half comes from various monopoly industries and the business under his name. In other words, it takes five years of saving money to train such a knight - and there can be almost no expenses in these five years.

Is it possible for a distinguished noble lord to have no expenses?

Of course not!

So most barons can't save much money. If they earn 2,000 gold coins a year, then if they can save 500 gold coins, they can be considered to be good at managing their families.

In other words, it actually takes 20 years to save enough to train a knight.

This is obviously an unacceptable price, so in addition to the knight training passed down from generation to generation in the family, the main way for the nobles to supplement knights is to select from settled adventurers.

Generally speaking, a mid-level adventurer can barely complete the work of a knight. But in most cases, when adventurers want to retire, they often have to have high-level strength to serve as knights.

There are not many high-level adventurers, so most territories choose to recruit mid-level adventurers to serve as "quasi-knights" - knights with noble status, but with salaries but no territories. If the descendants of these quasi-knights work hard and can make further progress in their fathers' careers, they can become real knights, and if they do not work hard, they can only be demoted to ordinary officials.

On the one hand, they cultivate their own offspring, and on the other hand, they recruit retired adventurers. This is the talent training mechanism of most noble territories.

If, as Marquis Yuke expected, all retired adventurers ran to the territories of the merchant faction, then there may not be any problems in the short term, but over time, it will definitely greatly affect the talent rotation of the noble faction, resulting in a serious vacancy in the high-end military forces at the grassroots level of the noble faction.

At that time, I am afraid that the strength of each other will be reversed.

There is no fool who can become a great noble. When Marquis Yuke mentioned it, everyone could foresee this situation and couldn't help but worry.

To the common people, the nobles are sacred and inviolable, but to those adventurers who have been on the edge of a knife for years, the nobles are only important if they take you seriously; if they don't take you seriously, you are nothing!

As long as there are enough benefits, let alone moving to another place to settle down, even if they want to attack the nobles, it is not a problem at all.

They are the most realistic and only care about interests.

Chapter 2