Chapter 309 (2/2)

In fact, archers often had the highest value of force, and all excellent archers were good at hand-to-hand combat. But who would ask them to fight against enemies on the battlefield without any weapons? That was wasting manpower!

However, when archers were going to draw their swords and fight, it meant that the Hill Lord was going to be killed. And when that time came, who would take care of others, especially when everyone was in danger?

But Crick’s practice was totally different from others. Among the 30 people he had recruited, there were no archers, swordsmen, shield-men, or uniform lancers.

The armors he had prepared for the lancers were not the ordinary thick leather armors, but the uniform plated armors instead. Although these plated armors were crudely made, they could still work even with their low quality.

A plated armor, even if it was crudely made, would cost more than 100 gold coins. The batch of plated armors for 30 people would cost nearly 3500 gold coins at a time. If the territory didn’t have any stock and the Eagle Kingdom had not gained any relics, Crick, who was not well-funded at present, would have been very stressed in buying these armors.

But it was undeniable that the 30 soldiers who wore the plated armors and held spears in their hands looked magnificent standing in their formation. Their momentum had already impressed everyone a lot.

The training program given by Crick was very strange. It was not to prick scarecrows and stab targets but to form a line and walk in steps instead.

“Do these things really work?” Howard James asked privately.

Crick himself was not so sure about it, but he thought that people had been recruited and money had been spent anyway, so he had better finish the experiment no matter what happened.

Under his command, these soldiers who were farmers and small helpers before, all stood in lines and marched after having enough food and drink. In addition, they also received physical training, such as long-distance running. Generally speaking, they were not like soldiers but like a group of actors.

What’s more, Crick would visit the barracks every few days and give them political lessons. He told them, “You guys as soldiers, but you are not fighting to earn a living but instead to guard the present peaceful life. Although death was terrible for soldiers, failure and escape are much more terrible.” He asked them to recall the miseries of the past and cherish today’s happiness. Essentially, he tried hard to motivate them in various ways.

To be honest, his ways didn’t work well.

Indeed, these soldiers’ intelligence was not high. The highest intelligence was only nine, and there were several soldiers whose intelligence was only seven. Even still, they weren’t outright foolish. They would not act like some pushovers who would only bow down and worship the protagonist when he made any sounds in the old-fashioned novels written by a famous Chinese writer named Long Ao’tian.

After all, they came to serve as soldiers just to earn more money so that they could live a better life.

For them, nothing was more terrible than death. In fact, they hadn’t been ready for the killing or being killed, nor had they completed the transformation from ordinary people to soldiers.

That was why when one recruited soldiers, one usually recruited those who could kill and fight.

Crick was not worried at all. He still trained them to stand in lines, walk in steps and exercise every day. He also paid regular visits to them and gave them lectures and talks.

About one month later, they were all in neat lines and walked in steps. Therefore, the training went to the next stage—long spear stabbing.

The long spear marksmanship was actually a huge system. Generally speaking, this system was divided into four parts: smashing, stabbing, sweeping and peaking. Smashing meant to smash from top to bottom, and this was very useful when dealing with enemies whose weapons were also long spears. Stabbing meant penetrating, and that was the main attack method. Sweeping meant to sweep around with a long spear in order to drive away monsters like goblins, and that was very useful in expelling the mob. Peaking meant to fix the long spear on the ground thus forming a gun forest, and that was used for dealing with the cavalry, though it was impossible to use in reality.

An experienced soldier would spend more than half a year just learning the four main tactics of a long spear. But Crick ignored the other three tactics directly, leaving only the aspect of stabbing.

In this way, the training speed had been accelerated greatly, but the combat effectiveness of the soldiers was also greatly reduced.

Knight Howard James worried again. He privately tried to persuade Crick to train the other tactics as well.

“I don’t have enough time,” Crick said. “First, they need to master the following tactics: ranking, walking in steps and stabbing. Then they have to practice their physical fitness. Next, they can fight with enemies after wearing armor.”

“This way may not work…”

“Anyway, they are just going to wipe out the goblins for the time being,” Crick laughed and said. “They don’t need the other tactics at present.”

The knight whose IQ was nine was persuaded again, though he still felt something went wrong.