With the continuous development of the fief, the population had reached more than ten thousand, and Cecil's army had also undergone a new round of expansion. The system similar to that of a construction army and the great help of magic to production and construction allowed Cecil to maintain a relatively high ratio of soldiers to civilians, and at the same time, it did not affect the development and operation of the fief too much.
Gwen always believed in one thing: chaos was coming, whether it was the monsters in the Gondor wasteland or the war between the human kingdoms, sooner or later, they would find their way to him, and in order to deal with the impending danger, it was necessary and inevitable to build a strong armed force.
With the expansion of Cecil's army and the gradual improvement of the administrative framework in the fief, Gwen's training of the army became more and more formal and rigorous. Compared to the many superficial rules and regulations in the early days of the fief, Gwen had made clearer, stricter, and easier to calculate rewards and punishments. He stipulated the allowance for each rank of sergeant, the basic conduct of the soldiers, how to supervise the army, how to calculate the merits, and how to punish dereliction of duty. In order to enforce these rules and regulations, he also ordered the two Knights, Philip and Byron, to select a group of literate, honest, and reliable people to serve as grass-roots commanders. Thanks to the efforts of the night school teachers, now that the number of literate people in the fief was increasing, it was not difficult to select a group of grass-roots commanders.
Gawain himself did not know much about military affairs, but fortunately, Gawain Cecil was an expert in this field. Coupled with the little bit of theory he had accumulated as a keyboard warrior in his previous life, he was finally able to build a framework for this.
After the framework was built and the rules and regulations were set, the rest was almost like brainwashing the recruits' education, and endless drills. All the rules and regulations were turned into a conditioned reflex, engraved in the bones of every Cecil soldier.
In the military zone on the east of the fief, the recruits were undergoing their daily physical training. These people who were just ordinary farmers and handymen not long ago were now wearing the standard Cecil armor, with training backpacks as heavy as combat backpacks on their backs, and steel gauntlets that were almost the same size and weight as the magical terminal strapped to their arms. With this equipment, they were training in formation on the open ground. Gwen, Byron, and Philip, the two Knight, stood together, watching the training progress of the soldiers.
From time to time, the veterans who were acting as instructors were scolding from the field, but today, there were no complaints or jeers from the recruits.
"To be honest, the formation training that you advocated at the beginning is really useful." Byron looked at the recruits who had been able to line up neatly in just a few days and could not help but sigh. "After some training, at least their obedience has gone up."
Knight Philip was sighing about something else. "Using the simplified Knight's Code of Conduct as a soldier's code of conduct, and requiring everyone to follow it, I really didn't expect it to be possible."
"As long as the training is in place, let them remember the daily learning content like a conditioned reflex, then even if they don't understand the Knight's Code of Conduct, they will follow it," Gwen said casually. "The Cecil Combat Regiment is a very special army. They want to protect this land and its people, and the people must fully support them. Only in this way can we gain a foothold in this dangerous wasteland border."
Knight Byron sighed. "Most of the ordinary private soldiers of the nobles are rascals and ruffians. Even if they were born as civilians, as long as they wear the insignia of the nobles and have swords in hand, they will not hesitate to extort civilians because the nobles only need these private soldiers to protect their castles. Occasionally, there will be some nobles with the Knight's Code of Conduct who will pay attention to the discipline of the army. They will be strict with their soldiers, but only strict. Like you, who set up a lot of rules and regulations to restrain the soldiers … This is the first time I've seen such a thing."
"Personal morality will eventually die with the death of the individual. Only a perfect system and regulations can ensure that discipline remains effective after the rotation of personnel," Gawain said with a smile. "Of course, even with perfect systems and regulations, there is no eternal kingdom or order in the world. But at least a group with system constraints will survive longer than a group that disintegrates as soon as the leader dies."
"Individual morality will eventually die with the death of the individual …" Knight Philip showed a look of admiration, but when he heard the second half of Gwen's sentence, he could not help but frown. "You mean, even with the perfect system constraints you set, Cecil Hill will one day … follow the footsteps of those who died?"
"If the future generations don't know how to cherish it," Gwen spread out his hands. "No matter how good the foundation is, there will always be such a day."
Knight Philip's face turned serious. "You don't have to be so pessimistic, you —"
Gwen did not wait for Knight Philip to finish and waved his hand. "Don't say nonsense like 'your great cause will be eternal'. That's just fooling fools and the dead. I don't count on that. When I was buried, someone engraved 'Your great achievements will last forever' on my grave. But when I opened my eyes, my grave was dug up. From that day on, I no longer believe in such compliments."
Knight Philip was stunned and could not say anything for a long time. Knight Byron, who was beside him, patted Philip's shoulder and laughed so hard that his ribs were about to break. "Who told you to brag in front of an experienced person?"
Gwen glanced at Byron, who did not look like a Knight at all. "Don't laugh. I asked you to come up with a new melee weapon that matches the combat style and magical technology of the Cecil soldiers. Do you have any idea?"
Due to the discovery of Disobedience, the ruins in the mountains were being cleaned and restored on a large scale. Gwen wanted to restore the middle zone of the ruins and turn it into Cecil's' Ancient Technology Research Center 'and the second industrial base. Considering that Knight Byron had been organizing explorations in the ruins before winter and had made such remarkable achievements, Gwen gave him a few days off so that he could go back to the surface and spend time with Pea. However, in line with the principle of making the best use of people, Gwen also gave Byron an easier task. He asked Byron to think about what his soldiers needed so that he could come up with a plan to improve the melee weapons of the Cecil soldiers.
Byron was just asking casually. He did not expect the usually sloppy mercenary Knight to come up with any results so quickly. But he did not expect Byron to immediately show a proud smile. "You asked the right question. I do have some ideas!"
"Oh?" Gwen was a little surprised. "Let's hear it."
"Wait a minute, I have a blueprint!" Byron said happily. "It's at home. It's not far from here. I'll be back soon!"
Byron was very fast. After he got Gwen's permission, he sprinted and charged and disappeared from the training ground, leaving Gwen and Philip looking at each other. Knight Philip said after a long while, "He can draw magic blueprints?"
Byron's residence in Knight Street was very close to the barracks. Plus, a professional Knight was very fast. Gwen did not have to wait long before he saw the Knight running back. He was holding a large scroll of paper in his hand. That must be the blueprint he was talking about.
"This is it." Byron came to Gwen and excitedly unfolded the blueprint. "I worked on it with a few rune craftsmen in the machine building. You know, I'm not very good at drawing blueprints …"
Gawain nodded in understanding. At the same time, his attention was attracted by something on the blueprint. It was indeed the blueprint of a melee weapon. It was shaped like a sword, and it was obvious that it was just a conceptual framework. There were places reserved for runes and magical devices on the hilt and the base of the blade, but there was no exact structure there. Beside the blueprint, there were many functional requirements and ideas. Obviously, the discussion was not over yet.
Byron also noticed the imperfections on the blueprint. He smiled and said, "The discussion is not over yet. There are many things that are controversial."
Gwen had already seen some of the things he was looking forward to from the blueprint. He immediately said, "I'm not afraid of controversy. Tell me what you think."
"Well, you should know that I used to be a mercenary. The difference between a mercenary and a professional Knight or soldier is that we don't have so many fixed patterns and rules. Whether it's weapons, equipment, or combat methods, they are all based on practicality. Laymen may think that our equipment is messy, but we know that every weapon and equipment exists because it is' needed '. It has its own corresponding use environment and scenario." Byron rarely took the initiative to talk about his mercenary experience and began to talk about his thoughts. "So I'm thinking — under what circumstances do our soldiers need to use melee weapons, and what kind of battlefield these melee weapons have to face?"
He paused for a moment and continued, "The Cecil Combatants already have heat ray guns. It is said that the higher-level arcane missile launchers and electric spears have also entered the design phase. These weapons are more powerful than the previous one, and if the soldiers use them in groups, they can even directly kill mid-order Transcendents. These long-range attacks are enough for them to destroy most of the enemies. So there are only two reasons why they use melee weapons: first, their own long-range weapons cannot be used for some reason, for example, they are broken. Second, the enemy has very strong magic resistance or simply has a 'Stray Arrow Deflection' or something like that.
"The second situation is obviously the most important one to consider countermeasures.
"The soldiers do not lack magic attacks, what they lack is more powerful physical lethality. The rune craftsmen and I have ruled out the traditional plan of adding elemental enchantments on the blade to increase magic damage. Instead, we are thinking of ways to increase the pure destructive power of the sword. The more common methods in this regard are physical enchantments like Sharpness, Weight, and Armor Piercing. But these enchantments are either limited in their enhancement, or there is no way to convert them into magic circles, so we did not consider them …
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