When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Lower Riverford County and Kasha County, both plains counties, were already within Hoen's control.

The two county heads, Martin and Catherine, could easily dispatch the Priesthood Order. Hoen's actions merely changed this power from overt to covert.

This proposal was quickly passed, while the five mountain counties would temporarily remain as they were.

After the meeting, Hoen returned to his room, his thoughts immersed in an issue not mentioned during the meeting—conscription.

Expanding conscription was not as simple as just saying 'we need to conscript'.

The manpower issue was secondary; after all, Hoen had the Black Serpent Bay and the Northerners as sources of soldiers, and the Franconians were also willing to send some mercenaries.

The primary concern was the equipment issue.

A battle regiment required at least 2400 to 2500 sets of infantry armor and corresponding spears, 4000 sabers and corresponding uniforms.

There were also 1600 to 2000 clockwork rifles, 24 three-pound falcon cannons, and 4 six-pound saker cannons.

In addition, 50 to 80 donkeys, mules, and packhorses were needed to transport food, clockwork cannons, and other logistical resources.

The Gray Furnace Town Armory, with the gathering of various small workshops, had greatly increased production efficiency.

From a monthly output of 95 sets of armor in 1445 to the current monthly output of 250 to 270 sets in 1448.

In three years, including the armories in other counties, Thousand River Valley averaged an annual output of 3000 sets of infantry armor and 500 sets of cavalry armor.

Currently, Hoen's own inventory totaled 4000 sets of infantry armor and 1100 sets of cavalry armor.

Maintaining a 60% armor coverage rate, this quantity was estimated to equip another one and a half battle regiments.

If the Gray Furnace Town operated at full capacity, it could make up for the remaining half of the battle regiment by the end of the year.

Including the 1600 sets of infantry armor sent by the King of Franconia, there was an estimated conscription quota for two and a half battle regiments.

And there was no need to worry about clockwork rifles; the Holy Rifle Workshop on Autumn Twilight Island currently produced three to four hundred clockwork rifles per month.

This was still the result of restrained production, after all, there were more than 7000 clockwork rifles in the inventory, more than enough to equip four battle regiments.

Looking at the draft on the table, Hoen sighed silently.

His throat was getting hoarse from spitting; when would Xiluo Fu be able to solve the Demon-Devouring Fungus?

Back to the topic.

So, should he conscript according to two and a half battle regiments? Enlist 13,000 new soldiers and merge them with the original local garrison regiment into three new battle regiments?

Hoen's gaze shifted upwards, and he saw the key words 'clockwork cannon' in the draft again.

Currently, the Gray Furnace Town Dwarven Cannon Foundry could cast a 3-pound cannon in about two weeks, while a 6-pound cannon took three weeks.

If it were a 12-pound or 24-pound cannon, it would take more than a month, because the molds needed to be cast in segments.

This was just the casting time for the whole cannon; if only the barrel was considered, it was actually very fast. What really slowed down the speed was the clockwork chamber.

Currently, only 6 12-pound cannons and 1 24-pound cannon had been cast.

Most of the dwarven cannon founders cast the 3-pound and 6-pound cannons, these two main field artillery pieces.

Currently, the cannon foundry had 4 cannon casting groups, each of which could cast 2 falcon cannons or 1.33 saker cannons per month.

In addition to supplying Meria Ti and the city defense cannons, Hoen had only filled the clockwork cannons for the two Salvation Army battle regiments in February this year.

Currently, there were 32 falcon cannons and 2 saker cannons left in the inventory. It was definitely difficult to supply two and a half battle regiments with clockwork cannons.

It would even be a bit difficult to supply two battle regiments, after all, there were only two or three months of preparation time.

If the dwarven community in North Mander County could be brought under the wartime system, as long as there were no problems with the raw materials, the supply of clockwork cannons could be doubled in a very short time.

Because the alchemical reaction dish plus mercury water could achieve 7 pounds or even 5 pounds of refined iron to refine 1 pound of orichalcum.

So, at least 7 pounds of the previous 14 pounds of refined iron were wasted, right?

Basically, one ton of steel (refined iron) could now refine 400 pounds of orichalcum, enough to make 200 falcon cannons or 1200 clockwork rifles.

When Hoen had to worry about steel not keeping up with orichalcum, he wouldn't need to consider where the steel came from.

In cannon casting, the most critical thing was the construction of the clockwork chamber.

Apart from dwarves, very few people could make this thing well.

This, in turn, depended on the progress on Halkin's side.

Hoen picked up the latest three issues of 'The Truth Newspaper', which almost every issue was attacking the Steel Guild of North Mander County.

The first issue was the dwarves revealing the scandals of the dwarven masters, and the apprentices tearfully exposing the tyranny of their masters.

The second issue was explaining the current situation in Thousand River Valley, explaining the steel production of Thousand River Valley, and subtly pointing out the dwarves, mine owners, and nobles of North Mander County.

The third issue was announcing the construction of a new smelting town in South Mander County, and enthusiastically soliciting names from the general public.

'The Truth Newspaper' was relatively neutral because it was linked to the public bulletin system and hadn't torn its face apart.

Commercial newspapers under Megede, as well as various tabloids and pamphlets flattering Hoen, were frequently making outrageous statements.

Things like 'North Mander County, the sinner of Thousand River Valley', 'The Steel Guild is the enemy of civilization', 'Heavy punches must be used against the dwarves of North Mander County' were all coming out.

They should be bowing their heads soon.

After thinking about it, Hoen finally wrote down the number 8000 on the draft, which could probably form two battle regiments (excluding service soldiers).

It wouldn't be too late to conscript the second batch of 12,000 people next spring when the equipment was complete.

After all, with two new battle regiments, cooperating with the two field battle regiments of the Salvation Army, the new battle regiment built by the mountain counties, and the Protectorate Army, there should be about 30,000 people.

The number of troops to meet Meria Ti in the future could be stacked to around 40,000, which was about right.

When the second batch of 12,000 people enlisted, it would be time for a strategic counterattack.

After listing this plan, Hoen called Pettier and handed him this pile of drafts.

Newest ⊥ novel ⊥ the ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥ books ⊥ ⊥ bar ⊥ ⊥ first ⊥ release!

Blankly taking the draft, Pettier was about to leave, but turned his head and said, "Ms. Istra seems to be waiting outside the door. Do you want to invite her in? When I asked her, she just smiled and didn't answer."

"Istra? Let her in."

Soon, the witch came to Hoen's presence, pushed by the servant.

"Is there anything you need?"

Istra didn't say much, just handed a few pages of notes to Hoen.

Hoen blankly took the notes, and after only a few glances, his eyes froze.

"This is…" Raising his head, he looked at Istra in surprise, "You are trying to reverse the mana of orichalcum?"

"To be precise, it's not me, you'll know when you look further back." Istra still smiled with her eyes closed.

The so-called reverse mana of orichalcum was a conjecture put forward by Seniuss, an outsider to alchemy.

That is, after tightening the orichalcum spring with brute force, whether there is mana inside.

According to the laws of alchemy, spiritual attributes and material attributes will affect each other.

Since the spiritual attribute of orichalcum can convert mana into potential energy, can potential energy, this material attribute, be converted into mana?

Because there was no mana observation instrument, this problem had been shelved until now.

Scholar Kerben believed that mana could not appear or disappear out of thin air.

Without external input, there could be no mana inside the orichalcum spring.

But on this incomplete note, an alchemical ritual that Hoen couldn't understand proved that a spring tightened by brute force would store mana!

The author of the note was still trying to find the source of these mana, but unfortunately failed.

So the author of the note designed a new alchemical ritual that Hoen still couldn't understand, trying to "take out" the mana in the orichalcum spring to identify its nature.

"Unfortunately" for the author of the note, it was not at all a pity for Hoen.

This meant that originally only relatively turbulent water flow or dams could charge the spring.

But now, even wind power could be used to charge a light spring, and then this ritual could be used to concentrate mana and potential energy on a heavy spring.

Currently, the only thing worth investigating was the efficiency of this ritual.

It's just that this ritual was incomplete, with only about one-third of the content. Fortunately, some experimental data and failure cases were available.

"Do you have the missing parts of the ritual?" Hoen raised his head and asked impatiently.

"No." Istra's tightly closed eyelids faced Hoen, "But you can completely deduce it yourself."

Hoen's enthusiastic emotions suddenly cooled down: "There is a shortage of manpower at the moment. You know that we have identified countless fake recipes during this time…"

"This will definitely work." Istra interrupted Hoen, her soft voice wouldn't make people feel rude.

"You are so confident? This is an unverified recipe. Perhaps it was made by some crazy alchemist who had hallucinations."

"Why don't you look at the author's signature?"

Hoen quickly flipped through these pages of paper, until he saw the last page, he was surprised to find a familiar name.

"Kerben?" Hoen suddenly raised his head, "This is Kerben's research, how come I don't know about it?"

"Of course you don't know." Istra showed a mysterious smile, "Because, this is Mr. Kerben's research results ten years later."