Chapter 256： Countermeasures

The Duke of Kent held the report in his hand, feeling an urge to tear it up.

Who made Gleiman so much money?

He looked up and saw the porcelain vase on the table, and it was about to fall to the ground as soon as he took it over.

But the Duke's hand was hanging in the air for a long time, and he finally put the vase back to its original place with an awkward expression.

Maltz called the intelligence chief in again, and ordered him to go to the hall to call some of his confidants, and let the others disperse first.

After a while, all the confidantes arrived, including Emerson Wilder. As for the duke's son, he did not come. Recently, he had to come forward in person for a lot of things, such as rectifying the army and recruiting new soldiers, so he has been running around outside.

The Duke told his confidants about his current predicament.

"We must find a weapon that can restrain the Firebolt and Thunder Hammer, and then we can crush them to death with the advantage of numbers."

But how easy is it? The existing bows and ballistas are not as good as the previous two in terms of range and power. Everyone thought hard, but they never came up with a good solution.

"Uncle Kent, I have an idea, I don't know if it will work."

Emerson spoke suddenly, and Maltz immediately said as if seeing a light in the dark: "Oh? Tell me!"

"Have you ever heard of the longbow?"

"Longbow? We also have it here!"

"The longbow I'm talking about is not an ordinary longbow, but a longer and bigger one."

Emerson gestured with both hands and introduced it to everyone in the study.

"This kind of long bow is about 1.5~2 meters long. It is made of yew wood. It can also be replaced by elm and oak, but it is best to use yew wood because yew wood is strong, not easy to break, tough and flexible. Well, it can be opened further."

"Its firing range can reach about 200-300 meters, which is already comparable to the fire crossbow of the people of Arda. And it is very powerful, it can penetrate leather and padding at a distance of about 220-260 meters Armor and fabric, or penetrating chain mail, plate armor or fish scale armor can resist its penetration; but if it is shot from the front within 100 meters, even the plate armor cannot resist; to the range of 50 meters, the longbow is sharp Arrows are almost indestructible."

Emerson's description made everyone's eyes shine. This weapon is terrible.

"Really? Emerson, is the 'longbow' you mentioned really so powerful?"

Emerson pondered for a moment, "Uh... I also heard it from others. It may be bragging, but there is nothing wrong with the great power of the longbow."

Maltz Kent made the final decision: "Try it anyway, can you make this kind of bow and arrow? Or buy it."

"I don't know how to make it, but I know where to buy it. But Uncle Kent, just buying it is not enough. It is not easy to train soldiers to operate a longbow. It takes years of long-term training to become a qualified longbowman. .”

"What is the solution to this?"

"Mercenary."

"Mercenary?"

"Yes, Uncle Kent, spend money to hire longbowmen, preferably longbowmen from a large mercenary regiment."

Maltz Kent narrowed his eyes. He knew the existence of mercenaries. In some war-torn areas, there are a large number of people who work for money. They either walk alone or form groups. Some large groups of mercenaries will grow To a very astonishing scale, the combat power can even match the army of a powerful lord.

However, most mercenaries are extremely morally corrupt and have no sense of honor at all, and it is commonplace for a guest to play a bandit. Although the local soldiers recruited in the territory also rob, they still have some scruples about the feelings of fellow countrymen. As mercenaries who are completely outsiders, they don't have such restraints.

Of course, the latter feature is not within the scope of Maltz Kent's consideration at all. The only thing that makes him a little worried is the price of the employment fee. The price that can make others work hard is definitely not low.

But if he can defeat the alliance of lords who oppose him and annex their territories and wealth, especially that of Paul Greyman, he will eventually get back the money he has paid.

The Duke slapped the table and shouted: "Very well, little Emerson, this is exactly what I need. I have all the weapons and soldiers at once."

Emerson raised his chest, "If Uncle Kent is interested, I'd like to travel all over the place to contact various mercenary groups."

Maltz agreed: "Okay, I will leave this matter to you. The price is negotiable. The main thing is to be able to summon a sufficient number of troops."

Emerson reminded him: "However, it will take time. Before the mercenary group arrives, we still need to think of a way to tie Gleiman's legs. Although his army has stopped moving now, there is no guarantee that they will not stop." Will resume attack."

The Duke said sadly: "Yes, this is indeed an urgent problem."

The intelligence chief who was silent at the side suddenly said: "Your Excellency, please leave this matter to us."

"What can you do?"

The intelligence chief smiled slightly: "Earl Greyman has made his territory more impressive this year, but he doesn't know that two volcanoes have been buried under his buttocks. Although the volcanoes are still relatively small, they will erupt sooner or later."

The duke instructed him to continue.

"As mentioned in the report, Arda has developed a new salt-making method, which can quickly and massively produce table salt. On the surface, this is a very good thing, but..."

"but what?"

"There are a large number of salt people living along the coast who rely on boiling salt for their livelihood. They rely on the traditional method of cooking salt to make table salt. They cannot compete with the new salt production method in terms of cost. Salt merchants do not buy from them, which makes the salt people Almost on the verge of losing our livelihood, as long as we…”

Before the intelligence director finished speaking, someone in the room shouted: "I know what you want to say? This is a bad idea! Your Excellency Duke, you must not use this method."

The stealer was a vassal of the Kent family, and he said righteously: "Although we are at war with Greiman, we are both nobles after all, so how decent is it to stir up untouchables to oppose our lord? "

The confidantes of other aristocratic backgrounds also shouted:

"Yeah, it's downright ridiculous!"

"Treason!"

The head of intelligence stopped talking. Without a title, he couldn't understand what was going on in the minds of the gentlemen. He was obviously about to burn his ass The Duke of Kent waved his hand irritably: "Okay, after this matter Discuss again. Do you have any other ideas?"

Several methods were proposed one after another, but none of them were feasible in Maltz's mind.

"Emerson is going to contact the mercenary group who are good at using longbows. We will retrain an army and try to block the Arda people before the mercenaries arrive."

The Duke finally announced so.

Everyone dispersed, only the intelligence chief was left behind.

"Before you said that there are two volcanoes under Graiman's ass, what is the other one?"

The intelligence chief's eyes lit up, and he whispered, "Countryside."

"What's he doing in the country again?"

"After repelling the pirates, Earl Greiman implemented a decree - 'Land Consolidation', through replacement, the scattered cultivated land of various landlords and self-cultivated farmers was consolidated and concentrated, aiming at better use of the land."

"That decree sounds good."

"Yes, the decree is good. But there are many people in the countryside who conceal the area of ​​their arable land in order to evade taxes, and there are also many people who encroach on a lot of public land because of lax management. Uh...you know, this phenomenon always Repeatedly prohibited."

Maltz gave a wry smile and signaled the supervisor to continue talking.

"In the process of replacing and integrating cultivated land, the first thing to do is to check the real estate of each family and measure the actual cultivated land area..."

"What's more, the quality of cultivated land is good or bad. No matter how hard you try to maintain fairness in the replacement process, some people will feel that they are at a disadvantage."

"So we can make a big fuss here."

After the intelligence chief finished speaking, Maltz Kent thought for a long time without saying a word, and finally just said: "You step back first."

After the supervisor left, the Duke's study fell into silence.