Our family is in decline

No one will object to this. Recruiting soldiers whose strength far exceeds that of normal people will not lower the average level, because the more mature the army is, the more it relies not on heroism, but on collective strength.

They are even more motivated to fight because others want to join this secret force.

"What's the name?"

If you want to gather the strength of an organization and deepen its sense of identity, the best thing is 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 strong as steel. The first bodyguard is named [Heart of Steel]."

With Lance's strong push, the matter was settled.

However, he was exaggerating, but in fact, [Heart of Steel] only had a quota of one hundred people, and he recruited thirty in the first round.

Those like Barrett, Soubre, and Bahrain who are particularly outstanding and have unique skills have basically predetermined their quotas. The rest is to select the truly brave elite from the entire army.

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

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

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

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

"Where are the prisoners? We have no use keeping them, and they have to be guarded."

"Yes, a lot of money is wasted on treating them, as well as eating, drinking and defecating."

"..."

Everyone has the same opinion on those prisoners, that is, kick them away quickly and don't waste food.

"The reason for treating them is because 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. He has also been there these days to treat these people. Medical soldiers and medical staff can accumulate enough experience by treating various wounds. If you don't practice this kind of thing on others, why don't you practice on yourself? ?

And more importantly, Hamlet did not abuse them, and even expressed his willingness to save them.

When these people go back, the relevant information will spread anyway, and when a fight actually breaks out, the soldiers of Bastia will be more likely to surrender instead of fighting to the death.

Attacking the city is the next step, attacking the heart is the top step.

But what they said makes sense, they need to be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise it will be troublesome for those guys to stay here, and gold coins are more practical.

"Those knights cost five hundred gold coins each. The earl's son named Alvin asked for ten thousand gold coins. As for the baron, he offered for one hundred thousand gold coins."

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

"Isn't five hundred one too many?"

"A knight who leads more than a hundred people may only produce two hundred to three hundred gold coins a year. This is a relatively wealthy territory.

And these are just knighthoods, but members of the Knights without fiefdoms cannot afford the ransom.

As for the earl's son, who is not among the heirs, according to the convention, 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 never be able to collect one hundred thousand gold coins in a short time. "

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

But Lance heard it but didn't care at all.

"It's not them who gave the money. Count Bastia will not be stingy with this money. As for the baron, I have no intention of letting him go back. I will increase it to 500,000."

Alvin can be put back because such an idiot should be put back to trouble the count, but the baron is a truly capable person. If Alvin hadn't held him back, he would never have been captured.

Being able to catch this big fish was just luck. Lance would never be stupid enough to let him go. He would just be looking for trouble.

What's more important is that the baron is Alvin's teacher, the real leader of this knights. Many of these knights come from the baron territory and were trained by him. As long as you handle him, you will have a lot of room for maneuver.

"Actually, the focus is not on the prisoners, but on Bastia."

Lance took out the captured map and unfolded it in front of everyone. He was still in the mood to joke with a smile.

"It seems that Count Bastia is very concerned about Hamlet and knows more about it than I, the lord, do."

Everyone also saw the map from Bastia, but the scope of the thing was a bit beyond Bastia. It even mainly drew the boundaries of Hamlet, and it also marked a large number of towns in the Hamlet area. village.

The ability to draw such a map is enough to illustrate 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 clearly revealed as the map unfolds.

But I'm afraid they didn't expect that Hamlet is not as simple as it seems. 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 had information collected by the Roma people, so he knew a little bit about these things, and he told a few words about Bastia's situation.

Greendale was also listening, but her expression was a little strange, but she didn't speak.

"According to the documents I inherited, the original scope of Hamlet's territory was..." Lance raised his hand and crossed it on the map. In an instant, the pitiful little place expanded rapidly, and a huge territory that almost occupied the northeastern province of the empire appeared.

Lance paused for a moment with his fingertips, then drew a few more lines.

"This is Hamlet's territory now. 70% has become someone else's. The remaining 30% is still secretly controlled by the Ascension Sect. There is also an empire behind Owendo City.

The vast sea area has been given to pirates, and even the safety of the coastline cannot be guaranteed. There are also large areas of ruins cut off by wilderness. This is the only area left that we really control. "

Lance raised his hand and drew a circle. Following his movements, in everyone's eyes, less than 30% of Hamlet was left in an instant, 70% was divided up by various forces, and less than 10% was actually controlled.

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

"Our family is in decline..."

Several other people are still immersed in this continuous shock. To be honest, the only ones who have an accurate idea of ​​the earldom here are Barton and Barristan.

But the problem is that the average earldom cannot be that 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 his past glory, and 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 have always questioned why I didn't expand my scope of influence and send troops to regain those lost territories."

Lance raised his hand and tapped the map in his hand. His attitude was no longer as relaxed as it was at first, but instead looked a little serious.

“The Ascension Sect’s control over Hamlet is so deep that even Bastia, who has coveted Hamlet for a long time and is constantly infiltrating, is unable to resist.

Do you dare to imagine that these knights of Bastia, who thought they were in control of the situation, were stabbed to death by peasants with pitchforks while fully armed?

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

Maybe he was talking and laughing with you one second, but the next second he pulled out a knife and stabbed you. How do you want me to recruit troops from among these people? How do you want me to manage these cultists?

Why do I have to go so far, to Ovendo, to Totnes? In order to get rid of the control of the Ascension Sect, it was these new arrivals who opened the road to Hamlet's revival.

If we rashly start to regain territory before completely dismantling the Ascension Sect, we will fall into their trap, and what happened to the Knights will continue to happen to us.

They will use every 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 the heir of Hamlet, since he took over the territory, he would rather spend a lot of money to relieve refugees and develop wilderness and farms than to regain those lost territories.

This is not in his interest.

"Similarly, now is definitely 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 eliminate those Ascension Sects, destroy the rituals they arranged here, and end the nightmare that has been circulating here for many years. "

Lance named Hamlet's current main enemy, but Barton objected.

"But are we just going to watch Bastia and the surrounding nobles encroach on Hamlet? We can recover more land, accept more refugees, and accelerate development."

Barton now truly sees Hamlet as his home and is unwilling to see it invaded.

There is also the fact that the construction of artillery requires going through war, and scattered small groups of cultists are not as suitable for firing artillery as the aristocratic army.

But when Lance heard it, he smiled and shook his head.

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

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 those guys would rush in and kill all the unruly people, so that he wouldn't have to slowly differentiate between the cultists.

Then he still holds great righteousness, and he has the final say where Hamlet's army will stop at that time.

To be honest, it's not that Lance looks down on them. Even if the nobles' armies can reach the level of the Knights, they are still rotten fish to Lance.

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

In the era of cold weapons, this was how extraordinary power would crush ordinary people to a certain extent. However, Lance could not tell what methods the church's extraordinary people would use, so he still had a little awe for them.

Not fear of the church, but fear of the unknown.

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

After the meeting, everyone else dispersed. They needed to implement the content of the meeting, but Greendale did not leave.

Lance didn't take this as a hint. Although the window between them was broken, it was still important to talk about business during work hours.

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

It was obvious that Greendale also meant this. She was not surprised by Lance's appearance. After all, the meeting just now showed that he was under great pressure.

"No, but maybe I have something to explain about Bastia."

Greendale directly told her the reason for staying, and Lance just remembered something and nodded for her to continue.

"I thought you mentioned it before."

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

In fact, not much of the medicine we refine is consumed in the mountains. The real bulk is sold to the whole world, and this middleman is Bastia. "

"So Bastia is where it is today because of your cooperation with them?" Lance looked a little amused.

"Our tribe has no idea what's going on inside the empire. I didn't even know what happened here before. He has mastered the pass. If we want to transport the medicine out of the mountains, we can only trade with them."

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 for a moment when she heard this...

Thanks to [End Anni] for the 100 reward.