After Lange's wedding, Simon did not stay for a long time and returned to his territory impatiently.

Under the escort of elite guards, no group of robbers dared to block the road and rob. Finally, after two days of rapid horse racing, Simon returned to his territory safely.

Now, he needs someone who can write to help him draft a alliance document. In addition to the priest who is far away in Esbaiburg and Father John of Feldburg, Ludwig, who lives in the village of Cooser, seems to be a good choice. After all, he has been a bard for more than a decade, this thing should not be difficult for him.

Ludwig's new home is in the outer land of the village of Cooser. His farm and the serfs who cultivated the land for him are located on the gentle hills by the Rhine River. It is covered with fuzzy green grass and small groves, and the scenery is very beautiful.

His new house was a long wooden house that was newly built recently. Before that, the houses where the serfs lived were cramped and filled with a lot of rotten rushes and feces. For a baron's vassal, living in such a bad house was a bit unfair, so Simont approved him to build a new home.

Next to Ludwig's new house, a circle of not-high pointed log walls surrounded the house impenetrablely, leaving only a solid gate beside the main road. There was a simple arrow tower in the pointed wooden wall, and a bow-holding militia wearing a shabby leather hat was watching.

In addition, there are small granaries and wells surrounded by stones, as well as a small house for the guards to live in.

In this way, if there are bandits, bandits, and even enemy plundering teams coming to this place, the serfs living nearby can urgently use the small estate as a shelter and wait for reinforcements from Simon's army, rather than staying at home like lambs to be slaughtered.

In fact, in Simon's Baron Corps, there were far more than one such stronghold.

Simon asked all the knights in the Baron's lord to transform their lord's villas like this, and repeatedly told them that they must keep a certain amount of surplus in the granary within the walls.

It can be foreseen that when the enemy's army attacked Simon's territory, small manor strongholds like this would become the most troublesome existences - the attackers either dispersed their troops to besiege these manors one by one, or waited for the soldiers in the manor to take the initiative to cut off the supply line.

"Praise Jesus, Ludwig, it's been a long time since we met," Simon, led by his servant, came to the study and saw his spy leader who was writing at his desk. "Is there any new news recently?"

"Blessed by God, my lord," Ludwig gently put down his pen, stood up, walked to the table beside him and poured two glasses of red wine, "The territory has been peaceful recently. We have eliminated a few suspicious people, and their behavior seems to be here to spy on information, so we asked them to visit the dark dungeon and have a big meal as always. No exception, they are almost all spies sent by Lange. As for outside the territory..."

"Stop keeping it aside!" Simon took the red wine handed over by Ludwig, shook his glass and sniffed it.

"Listen to the news that the spies in Cologne came back, some people said that a group of Magyar plunderers had recently wandered in the Rhine River Basin, and several lords had suffered disasters and suffered heavy losses." Ludwig's expression became solemn.

"Magyar?" Simon was a little surprised.

These nomadic invaders from the Eastern grasslands have always been the "bird catcher" King Heinrich.

Most of them rode their horses and were very fast. Lords from all over the kingdom were often attacked without any news.

When the attacked nobles recruited the serf soldiers, private soldiers and knights in the territory to arrive at the attacked village with great courage, the damn pagans had long since disappeared. Only the ruins of smoke in the village and the corpses of villagers all over the ground proved the traces of their visit.

Ludwig's biological father, Eberhard, Duke of Frankenia, once described them like this: "Because there is no Christian army to stop them, these guys who are good at Turkic tricks did not form a slow-moving army, but divided into agile squads, ravaging farmlands and villages, and burning them down with a fire after the incident. Because it happened very suddenly, they could always surprise them. Less than a hundred Magyars suddenly appeared and attacked their prey, and only after seeing the soaring smoke or the fire in the sky at night can you see where they have been."

It was precisely because of their quicker and faster actions than the Vikings that the Magyars became so unstoppable. At the same time, their robbery range on land was much larger than that of the Vikings, who could only rely on the sea and rivers, and could not leave their dragon-headed warships too far on land.

"Yes, sir. They were mainly engaged in the border areas of the eastern and southern parts of the Kingdom more than a decade ago, but they were powerless to do anything to the wooden forts guarded by criminals and bandits."

The criminals and bandits Ludwig mentioned here were all sinners who were once forgiven by King Heinrich, the "bird catcher". As a condition of atonement, these people would build castles and station them in the border areas where the kingdom was invaded by the Magyars.

Of course, it is impossible to force people to be in power for free to guard the border, even if it is based on the condition of restoring freedom. Therefore, every robber who goes to guard the border is allocated land outside the castle.

This was originally just a helpless move by King Heinrich in the face of internal and external troubles, but what no one expected was that the "bandit army" performed quite well in their new homes. After all, people would spontaneously protect it when they had land and assets. Therefore, these former Green Fortress heroes burst out with amazing construction passion and combat effectiveness, and actually built the Meze Fort in just a few years.

"Now, all signs show that the Magyar tax signed eight years ago can no longer stop their growing wolf ambitions due to greed. Now these Magyar raiders who appeared in the Rhine River basin may be their pioneers in spying on the road conditions." Ludwig said his worst thoughts.

"We have to plan the worst." Simon also realized the seriousness of the matter. Because these damn Magyars, as vassals of the Duke of Cologne, Simon had to pay an additional Magyar tax every quarter, which would eventually become a tribute to the Magyars every year in exchange for peace.

However, according to Simon's view, the tax may not be paid soon. The king has not been so humble that he was beaten by others while paying the other party. When the large-scale attack begins, it is time to tear up the peace treaty.

"We have to prepare in advance. I heard that in Brandenburg, the Sax and Thuringian areas, a policy called military peasants is being implemented." Simon put down the wine glass that was originally shaking in his hands. He is obviously not interested in drinking now, and alcohol will dull his brain.

"You said it well," Ludwig did not put down his glass. He showed confidence in his alcohol content. "There are one person in every nine military peasants who had to go to the fortress to guard the fortress. In normal times, the garrison would have to live in the fortress' residences of eight other people, and would be provided for them in wartime. In return, the other eight would pay him one third of his assets to provide him with his salary and weapons."

Simon's territory is different from those in these areas. First of all, this is the northwestern frontier of the kingdom. In addition to the occasional Viking attack, this place seems too stable compared to the southeastern part of the kingdom where wars continue.

Secondly, in the German region, it was originally necessary to support a knight in three hundred to five hundred acres of arable land and about fifty leaders. However, given that the promotion of farm fertilizers has doubled the grain output, Simon was able to have more food and money to build the territory and maintain an elite standing army.

In the past few knights and vassals and twenty or thirty private soldiers, the remaining soldiers had to recruit untrained serfs to count on a large scale. Once the war lasted for a long time, the serfs serving in the army could not cultivate and take care of the farmland in the territory, which would cause chaos.

Simon's standing army seemed more professional - they were neither lord private soldiers who did not need farming, nor shabby village militias, nor cannon fodder peasant soldiers who were temporarily recruited.

They spend most of the week receiving salaries to participate in training and patrols, and can help their family take care of farm work when they are not trained on Saturdays and Sundays. They are well-equipped, provided by Simon, and most of them are veterans who survived the last battle, with rich experience.

Even if a large-scale war occurs, they will not have much impact on the production in the territory when they are in the conquest. All this is due to the numerous refugees Simon accepted from the wars in the northern lowland countries in the past two years and the serfs and craftsmen purchased from slave traders.

However, Simon thought that it would not be possible to always follow the elite troops. He could not guarantee that his standing army was the "Eternal Victory Army". Once there were huge losses in war, the recruitment of peasant soldiers who protected the safety of the territory would always be those with large bases.

At that time, he did not want the main laborers in his territory to guard their homes to be still weak chickens wearing tattered clothes and holding pitchforks, and were harvested by the enemy as if they had to save huge casualties. When they also suffered huge casualties, Simon could not even guarantee the most basic food production in the territory.

It was a real disaster.

"We must mobilize every leader," Simon thought carefully and spoke his thoughts to Ludwig. "We must strengthen the defense of every small stronghold, build an armory, store weapons and armor, and temporarily distribute them to the recruitment of peasants when necessary, and improve their armored rate and combat effectiveness."

"Sir, you should know that a farmer wearing knight's armor will be easily dealt with by a knight wearing peasant's clothes." Ludwig reminded kindly.

"I certainly considered this, so we have to train these serfs who are powerless. This training is regular and takes turns. The number of serfs drawn in each training cannot affect the cultivation of the fields too much. For those serfs who are trained, we will provide them with lunch and dinner. I think for them, no one will refuse to work without having to work and can help them learn to protect themselves, right?"

"This will add a lot of extra expense to our territory, whether it's food or the cost of hiring instructors. However, if you're willing to draw a portion of the veterans of the standing soldiers stationed in Foldberg and Esbaiburg to be instructors, I think that will save a lot of money."
Chapter completed!