Training Troops

A few days later, Soro's grain merchant caravan, escorted by several thieves dispatched by Zhou Ming, left the Glan Territory and headed south towards the Iron Fortress Kingdom.

Of course, Zhou Ming wouldn't put all his eggs in one basket. In addition to Soro's large grain merchant caravan, he also reached cooperation agreements with some small and medium-sized traveling merchants, asking them to help sell grain and, incidentally, bring back some needed resources for the Glan Territory. How much they could bring back depended on the individual abilities of these traveling merchants.

With the grain sales issue initially resolved, Zhou Ming's focus shifted back to training soldiers.

Yes, Zhou Ming had never entrusted the safety and defense of the Glan Territory to a group of wicked, greedy, tyrannical, and undisciplined bandits.

Although these bandits, under his monetary bribes, servant service, and warm hospitality, were living a life of leisure and pleasure in the castle with facilities like paradise, they were also like ticking time bombs, ready to bring endless hidden dangers to the Glan Territory at any time.

Even though these bandits were relatively obedient to him now.

For example, in April and May of this year, he sent the great thief Roger with a group of people to plunder and wreak havoc in several territories around the Glan Territory, setting traps and killing several knights, so that Earl Lautz no longer doubted that Edward had died at the hands of bandits and acknowledged Donny's identity as the lord of the Glan Territory.

Also, in July and August, to prevent Baron Sean of the Nathan Territory from sending people to investigate Finnie's death after discovering the changes in the Glan Territory, Zhou Ming personally led a group of thieves to cause widespread destruction within the Nathan Territory, burning farmland and houses, poisoning wells, and setting traps to kill three or four knights. Only after confirming that the Nathan Territory had no ability to retaliate did he return to the Glan Territory with the unharmed thieves.

Zhou Ming's positioning for these thieves was to clear obstacles around the Glan Territory and escort the stable development of the Glan Territory before the Glan Territory's regular military force was established and formed. As long as any surrounding territory showed signs of causing trouble, he would send the "Alibaba Thieves Gang" out to operate and nip these threats in the bud.

The thieves were naturally happy to accept this "positioning." After all, their inherent duty was to burn, kill, and plunder, and commit all sorts of evil. The Glan Territory was their lair, and they couldn't prey on their own kind. Other territories were naturally places for them to stretch their muscles when they were bored.

However, this chaotic and disorderly force of thieves could not always serve as the defense force of the Glan Territory. Training a disciplined and powerful regular army became Zhou Ming's top priority.

In fact, if he wanted quick results, Zhou Ming could also have Donny recruit some knights and enfeoff them in the ten knight fiefs of the Glan Territory. After all, there were many wandering knights in this world who had lost their fiefs for various reasons, and some knights would even volunteer to apply. Recruiting some knights wouldn't take much time.

But—

If knights were recruited, the various reforms Zhou Ming had made before would basically be completely invalidated. After the knights were enfeoffed, the villages, population, and farmland within the fiefs would all be self-governed and managed by the knights, and the lord's control over the territory would instantly be lost by 80 to 90 percent.

What Zhou Ming wanted to do now was to seize all the resources of the Glan Territory in his own hands, reform agriculture, develop industry and commerce, strengthen military power, and then embark on a path of continuous external expansion and growth. How could he possibly do that with just a dozen or so knights?

October.

After the busy farming season ended and the farmers of the Glan Territory had rested for over a month, Zhou Ming had a "Winter Training Announcement" issued.

All able-bodied male farmers between the ages of 12 and 40 were required to gather at the castle to participate in two months of "Winter Training."

As soon as the announcement was made, the farmers discussed it heatedly, even causing some localized unrest and panic.

"Are we going to war again?"

"What should we do? Do even 12-year-old children have to go? Their bodies haven't fully grown yet. Isn't going to the battlefield like this just sending them to their deaths?"

"If worst comes to worst, let's run. In that big battle last year, two men in the family already died. Now there are only two boys left. Do we have to send them up too?"

Seeing that this localized panic had a tendency to turn into rumors and spread rapidly, Zhou Ming had to issue another explanatory announcement, stating that the "Winter Training Announcement" was just to gather farmers at the castle for two months of winter training. After the training period ended, the farmers would all go home and would not be taken to fight.

Only then was the panic among the territory's farmers appeased, and they gathered at the castle one after another to participate in this winter training.

The training ground in front of the castle.

Looking at the 11 phalanxes gathered together by village and town units below, Zhou Ming had the training instructors of each phalanx count the number of people.

"From naive 12-year-old boys to middle-aged men of 40, the entire Glan Territory has a total of 1067 able-bodied men who can wield weapons. If we were to select qualified soldiers who can go to the battlefield from among them, I wonder how many we could select?"

That's right, the purpose of Zhou Ming's collective winter training was to screen out a group of high-quality soldiers who could fight and dared to fight.

He would train a group of Crossbowmen, Pikemen, and Light Cavalry from these soldiers, imitating the organizational structure of the Qin State Tiger and Wolf Army.

Crossbowmen would be equipped with powerful Ballistas, Scorpions, or longbows with a relatively long range, serving as long-range attack units to strike the enemy army.

Pikemen are responsible for withstanding the charge of heavy cavalry. During training, discipline is extremely strict. Facing the charge of heavy cavalry, they must stand firm like a mountain and not fear death.

The role of light cavalry is mainly to cover their own flanks, harass the enemy's flanks, and annihilate the enemy's fleeing forces in pursuit battles. In the later stage, a batch of heavy cavalry can also be developed based on light cavalry, depending on the need.

The army formation composed of crossbowmen, pikemen, and light cavalry is the most balanced and cost-effective combination of all troop types. This formation, not to mention facing heavily armored heavy cavalry, will not gain any advantage against any single troop type, no matter how powerful it is.

However, the shortcomings of this army formation combination are also relatively obvious, which is that it requires a large number of soldiers. Without a large number of soldiers to form an army formation of sufficient depth, it will not be able to exert its due great power on the battlefield.

Zhou Ming estimated that he would need to train an army of at least 1200 people, including 300 elite light cavalry, 300 elite crossbowmen, and 600 elite pikemen, to be able to crush all other military forces within the scope of Rose Territory.

But the potential soldiers standing before Zhou Ming now, male laborers ranging from young boys to middle-aged men, numbered just over 1000. After excluding those who were physically weak, timid and cowardly, and those with many concerns, Zhou Ming felt it would be quite impressive if he could select 200 people in the end.

"Let's train them for two months first, pick out the good prospects among them, and then issue the Military Enlistment Reward Regulations and the Combat Merit Reward Ordinance. I don't believe we can't recruit a batch of qualified soldiers!"

So, in the following two months, under Zhou Ming's personal supervision, these ordinary farmers were trained according to the training outline he had compiled.

Zhou Ming didn't get tired training them. They ran two thousand meters in the morning and evening, and in between, they conducted formation marching and standing posture training, learning to turn forward, backward, left, and right, as well as simple bow and arrow and spear training. He also brought in dozens of horses, allowing the farmers who could ride or wanted to learn to ride to undergo simple riding training.

During the breaks in the monotonous training, Zhou Ming would also organize these farmers to carry out some interesting activities, such as passing the flower while the drum beats, folk song competitions, impromptu performances, and special skill displays, etc. Just like the military training he participated in at university, it was full of fun. Many farmers who were originally not very interested in the Winter Training gradually grew to like this training.

Not only that, Zhou Ming also set up an honor roll. The top three fastest runners, the top three most accurate archers, and those with the best performance in riding and spearmanship were publicly praised and given material rewards. For a time, a training atmosphere of friendly competition emerged among the farmers.

Nearly two months later, the weather became colder and colder, making it unsuitable to continue training. As this Winter Training was about to end, Zhou Ming dropped a bombshell in front of this group of farmers.