Realm of Power

"Dear Dusta, it's great that you arrived in time. If it had been any later, my castle would have been occupied by this despicable and shameless Marquis of Kaitoka. You are really the protector given to me by God."

Seeing that all the recalcitrant knights had put down their weapons, Du Yu began to command his soldiers to clean up the battlefield. Du Yu took all the dozens of valuable sheepskin-sewn tents into his pocket. Although he did not know about this battle, What a harvest, but these dozen tents and the full body armor of the knights alone are a considerable amount of income.

Although Marquis Kesto was not captured alive this time, he was not allowed to run away. The corpse was a huge sum of money. If the successor of the Kesto family wanted to legitimately inherit the position of head of the family, he would have to spend a lot of money to kill the old Marquis. The body is redeemed.

Just when Du Yu was happily directing the soldiers to clean up the battlefield, his cheap father-in-law, Lord Kestola, ran out of the castle in a mess and wearing a tattered mail armor with more than a dozen servants, his face full of grievances. Holding Du Yu in his arms, he cried and howled bitterly. This made Du Yu, who was still cleaning up the battlefield, curse angrily.

"I'm fighting bloody battles at the front, but you're here negotiating with the enemy. If you can't give me a reasonable explanation, I'll send someone to take back your territory!"

"Take back the territory? Okay, okay, I don't want to stay in this bad place for a long time. You can take back my territory. It's better for me to become a knight under you than to stay here and bear the revenge of the Kesto family! "

Contrary to Du Yu's expectation, Lord Kestola showed no fear at all when he heard that the territory was to be taken back. Instead, he showed a look of joy. Even his originally embarrassed demeanor seemed to exude excitement, and he burst into tears of gratitude.

"Sir, if you take back an independent lord's territory, you must give him a title and land as compensation!" Seeing his lord's expression of inexplicable sluggishness, the adjutant Statunko came over with an embarrassed expression and whispered in Du Yu's ear. explained.

"According to the decree of the kingdom, when the territory of an independent lord is annexed, the lord must be given a certain amount of property and land compensation to continue the bloodline of the lord." It is this decree that ensures that although there are sometimes constant battles within the kingdom's nobles, as long as there is no rebellion The bloodlines of kings and nobles can always continue for a long time, and many knights themselves are descendants of previous lords.

This time Lord Kestola not only pretended to be a bandit and robbed the Kestor family's caravan, but also colluded with the Falcon family to ambush the Marquis of Kestor, causing the Marquis of Kestor to die in battle. Lord Kestola had already had the opportunity to escape. I think if I stay here, I will definitely die.

The revenge and anger of a marquis family is not something that a little Lord like himself can bear. Now that his caring son-in-law is willing to take back his territory, of course Lord Kestola is ecstatic.

Just take it back. Fortunately, his cheap father-in-law only has three villages. Du Yu sighed secretly. The original owner of this body seemed to be really autistic, and he didn't even know a lot of popular knowledge.

"If possible, I would like to meet my two fiancées!"

Du Yu sat down in the hall of Lord Kestola's castle. The two parties had just negotiated matters related to the recovery of the territory. Du Yu allocated two villages to Lord Kestola from a dozen villages near his castle in exchange for Lord Kestora's Three Villages.

"Of course, but my two daughters are still learning aristocratic etiquette from Mrs. Rovienna at Moline Castle. I'm afraid they won't be able to come back until the autumn of next year. Then I will bring them to see you immediately. Next year they will be 13 When you are 20 years old, you can hold the wedding." Lord Kestola looked pleased and picked up the village's land deed from the table and handed it to his adjutant Statunko.

"13 years old!" The age spit out by Lord Kestola shocked Du Yu, who was sitting in the main seat of the hall. After thinking about it for a long time, his fiancée and sisters were still two 13-year-old little girls.

"It's not urgent! It's not urgent! Since the deal has been settled, I will lead the army back first." Du Yu stood up from the chair in embarrassment. Regardless of whether the sisters are beautiful or not, Du Yu is not evil enough to destroy the little girl. Girl's point.

"Sir, in this battle, a total of 138 ordinary soldiers were killed, 17 knights were captured, a total of 3,500 gold coins were received as ransom, 16 villages were allocated, and the population was 3,786..."

Statunko respectfully handed Du Yu a thick stack of data sheets and the headcount list of the village. Statunko knew that the recent battle in Lord Kestola's territory had caused his master to lose his temper. A small fortune,

In order to redeem the body of the unlucky Marquis of Kaitoka and the captured squadron of family knights, the Kaitoka family paid another 3,000 gold coins and had to divide 13 neighboring villages to redeem all the captives.

Except for the knight with red feathers flying on his head, because he is the Iron Shield Knight Stoli, the captain of the guard of the Marquis of Kaitoka. Due to the unbearable death of the Lord, the captain of the guard Stoli has been deprived of the title of Iron Shield Knight by the new clan leader. title, reduced to a retinue and guard without a territory.

Du Yu admired the knight captain Story's loyalty and commanding ability. If Story hadn't organized the panicked knights to resist tenaciously, perhaps these knights would have been defeated long ago.

Du Yu forced him to stay in the castle without a ransom.

Since the Marquis of Ketoka met the Falcon family invited by Lord Kestola to help fight the bandits when he invaded Lord Kestola's territory, and died in a heroic duel,

According to the tradition of the Kingdom Knights, this was a battle between two knights of noble character and incomparable bravery. It was a fair and sacred battle, and a story worth telling.

Therefore, the Katoka family could not investigate the attack on the Falcon family, unless the Katoka family was willing to admit that their lord was thrown off his horse and died when he was suddenly attacked. This would make the already shameful Katoka family a laughing stock among the nobles.

"After doing so much, I only earned 2,000 gold coins. It seems that if I want to get rich, I still have to find a way from my own territory." Du Yu simply flipped through the report submitted by Statuenko. Although this battle was fruitful, the expenses were also very high.

Due to the bounty marked before the war, these two battles consumed nearly 600 gold coins of bounty, and after returning to the territory, the peasants who participated in the battles kept running away. With a lot of money, who would be willing to stay in the castle and work hard? They all tried every means to run back to their homes. In the end, only 70 of the 200 peasant soldiers were left.

The hunters also retreated to the mountains to spend the winter under the leadership of the leader. Although the hunter leader promised that the hunters would come back immediately as long as they received his conscription order, these situations that had never been considered before made Du Yu question his idea of ​​"ruling the army with money". Is it necessary to have knights to truly form a standing army?

After three days of deep thinking, Du Yu promulgated his new policy "Land Reward System" in his territory.

"All soldiers who have participated in ten battles with the lord will be automatically promoted to elite soldiers and transferred to the castle to serve as the lord's guards. The lord will allocate a piece of the richest land near his castle as a reward to him. All soldiers who have hunted more than three enemy heads in battle will automatically become leaders and serve as three-man leaders in the army. All soldiers who killed the enemy knights in battle will become combat soldiers and serve as ten-man leaders in the army. They will have the right to share 1% of the spoils after the war..."

"Money is the driving force of people's desires, and land is the foundation for retaining talents."

This is the conclusion Du Yu came to after thinking hard for a few days. With the impression of the Qin Dynasty's land reward system and the Manchu Eight Banners system in his mind, The image gradually became clear.

Du Yu felt that his doubts and difficulties were suddenly cleared up. It turned out that this difficult problem had been solved by his ancestors. He had nothing but a lot of wasteland.

In this world where productivity was not well developed, most farmers gathered in villages, and there were often large tracts of wasteland in other places. Especially for himself, a "lone commander" who did not even have a knight under his command, it could be said that "the only thing left was the land".

Du Yu specially allocated pieces of land by the river outside his castle as the garrison and production for his castle garrison.

He was not rich and could not always support a large number of soldiers in the castle. It was better to allocate land for them to farm by themselves. They only needed to hand over very little food. They were soldiers in wartime and civilians in peacetime. They had military training every day after dinner.

This system of farming in the morning and training in the afternoon not only allowed the soldiers to feed themselves, but also maintained a well-trained army for themselves, and also promoted commercial trade around them. It was no longer like before, when the knights led the peasants back to their own territory after returning from the battle.

The new policy promulgated by the lord shocked the farmers in the farms in the territory. It has always been the privilege of the knights to receive the land rewarded by the lord. Now, as long as they join the lord's army, they will have the opportunity to receive the land reward from the lord and share the spoils of war.

They only need to hand in very little food to farm in the garrison camp outside the castle, which makes many extremely poor farmers feel like they have seen heaven. Being able to eat enough is the lifelong dream of these extremely poor farmers.

With the free publicity of the peasant soldiers who escaped back, the farmers in the territory all know that their lord is the most generous person in the kingdom. Now this good reputation is even more loud. Everyone knows that their lord is a generous and trustworthy person.

However, only a dozen days after the notice was posted, the number of farmers gathered outside the castle to join the army reached 1,378.

This shocked Du Yu, who was not mentally prepared. Even in the heyday of the Falcon Family, 1,300 soldiers only had a military force of 800, including more than 100 knights.

Other lords need to send knights to various villages to recruit soldiers, but he just casually sent a conscription order and more than a thousand people came. No wonder all the powerful countries in history closely linked land with military merit. This is indeed the best way to allocate war resources.

Just like the people who go to the mountains and villages all over the country now, running around and selling insurance enthusiastically, they link their interests with achievements, and the more they work, the more they get. Getting rich is the reason why they endure the cold eyes of others and still persist.

The achievements of the soldiers are military merits, and the interests of the soldiers are land.