Unknown Knight

After a few days, Old John also found out about Aix and Bandak training in the backyard. He deliberately did not go out that morning. After watching in the backyard for a long time, he thought for a while, then discussed with Bandak and called other members of the caravan and their children over fifteen years old, a total of seventeen people, to train together under the leadership of Old Ben and Aix.

However, the caravan members were not the army, and even the army had little organization and discipline these days. After the enthusiasm of the first few days wore off, people came less frequently. Plus, each family had other jobs that really needed manpower. Even at Old John's repeated requests and the condition of providing a free meal of porridge at noon, there were still only five to ten people coming for training every day.

This cannot be forced. After all, the times are difficult and people of this era have to spend most of their time every day making a living. Those who come here either come to see old John's face or to get the free meal at noon.

Axe knew the necessity of training, especially after the last encounter with the robbers. If everyone was well-trained at that time, they could protect themselves safely by relying on the car formation without Airen's bounty hunters.

Therefore, he attached great importance to everyone's training, and even paid 50 copper coins from his own pocket to let Yamila buy a piece of dried meat, just to make the porridge at noon more tempting and attract everyone to come for training. He even combined his superficial ancient military knowledge and used two nights to develop a set of training methods, but it still had little effect.

Another problem was the training equipment. Spears were easy to deal with, as the caravan already had several, so the others could just use long wooden sticks instead. Crossbows were not so easy to deal with. I went to the weapon shop and asked, and the worst crossbows started at 5 silver coins, and buying 10 would cost 50 silver coins, which was a huge sum of 5000 copper coins. Aix didn't have that much money, and I thought Old John wouldn't pay that much either.

Fortunately, Mutobandak, the crossbow maker, said he could make it. His ancestors were hunters and he had inherited the skills. However, he also had to train every day and had little time to make it. It also took a lot of time to carve out the arrow track with a knife. It would be good if he could make 10 crossbows before the next business trip.

The raw beef tendon used for crossbow strings is not expensive. You can buy one from a butcher for 20 copper coins. However, it needs to be oiled and dried for half a month before it can be used. Since it is made of metal, it needs to be forged by a blacksmith, which is also a considerable amount of money. In addition, the crossbow arrows that match each crossbow are even more difficult to make.

Fortunately, Old John was very happy after knowing this, and decided to pay for the raw beef tendons. He also paid for the mechanism to be made by the blacksmith shop, and went directly to the weapons store to buy ready-made crossbows. He bought 10 arrows at a quota of each. As for the rest, he only had to wait for the raw beef tendons to be dried and then let Bandak assemble them.

Before this, Aix felt that the crossbow training could not be neglected. He first selflessly explained the principle of the three-point-one-line to everyone, and then asked everyone to use a piece of wood of similar weight and length to replace the crossbow, and aim at the red dot on the courtyard wall thirty meters away to practice the three-point-one-line. Each time, they held the wood and aimed for half an hour. This was learned from a very old red movie, and it is said that it can also help improve shooting accuracy, especially for novices with no shooting experience.

After practicing for two days, Bandak saw Axe's method and went a bit perverse and hung a stone under each piece of wood, saying it was their ancestral secret that could improve shooting accuracy. Everyone complained bitterly, and half of the people came the next day.

Fortunately, the members of the last traveling merchant group came to training almost every day. They had witnessed the bravery of Bandak killing people with crossbows and knew the value of this skill firsthand, so they worked very hard and attentively.

Half a month later, the crossbow strings were dried and the crossbow was assembled. The effect of the previous training became apparent. After a few days of test shooting, they found that they could hit the bull's eye seven or eight times out of ten when shooting at a distance of about 20 meters. They were all very excited. Practicing crossbows instantly became everyone's favorite activity. Those who did not come here often also rushed to participate in the training, just to practice crossbows and experience the joy of hitting the bull's eye.

This was beyond Aix's expectations, but after thinking about it carefully, he understood that there was a lack of entertainment in this era, and everyone treated this place as a medieval shooting club. Fortunately, he was happy to see this, but the number of people eating at noon suddenly increased, and the piece of jerky was quickly used up. He had to grit his teeth and give Yamila 50 copper coins to buy more.

After more than a month, everyone's training had achieved certain results, especially in the crossbow. In the atmosphere of combining education with entertainment, everyone was very motivated, and some even had shooting skills comparable to Aix.

Like Harvey, after coming back from his last business trip, he would go out to fool around whenever there was nothing to do in the warehouse. He would come back drunk every night and would not even pay attention to Aix. Later, he had to participate in training under the scolding of Old John. During one training session, he saw Yamila wiping the sweat off Aix's face, so he started to compete with Aix. He often challenged Aix to compete with him in crossbow skills. Aix couldn't win over him, so they competed several times. As a result, their results were surprisingly comparable. This made Bandak very excited and he listed Harvey as a key training target.

Although everyone felt the spear training was ordinary and uninteresting, after repeatedly practicing these simple moves of stabbing, pushing and blocking, Axe believed that next time they meet the enemy, everyone will definitely not use the spears as sticks as they did last time. As for formation and coordination, don't even think about it. It's good enough to be able to do it like this. Who else needs a bicycle?

The olive harvest season is approaching. Recently, Bandak has been going out with Old John every day and coming back very late. According to Yamila, it was like this in the past. Now they mainly go to various villages to negotiate the purchase price of olive oil.

On this day, Aix was leading four or five people to train with spears when suddenly there was a commotion outside. When everyone ran to the outer hall of the warehouse, they saw Bandak, with blood all over his face, running in carrying the injured old John on his back.

Both of them had bruised faces and noses, and blood was still oozing from Bandak's forehead. Old John was even worse off than him, with wounds all over his body and already in a coma, unconscious. His left calf was abnormally twisted, and was obviously broken.

Seeing this, Yamila was at a loss. The little girl squatted down and burst into tears. Fortunately, Catherine was calmer. She ordered everyone to carry Old John to the long dining table. She felt Old John's breath, checked his whole body, sighed and said:

"He fainted from the pain of a broken leg."

He saw that the forehead of the old classmate opposite was still bleeding, so he kicked Yamila next to him and asked her to bandage Bandak. Then he ordered everyone to hold down old John's hands and feet, saying that he wanted to straighten his shin bone.

This person is usually not very conspicuous, but she is very decisive at the critical moment. With a "click" sound and Old John's howl of pain, his shin bone was repositioned. At the same time, Old John struggled desperately in pain and almost knocked over the people who were holding him down. It seemed that Catherine was very experienced. If no one had held him down in advance, he would have fallen off the table.

After everyone worked hard to treat the injuries of Old John and the other man, Axe learned the whole story from Bandak.

It turned out that the two men went to a village called Lurens outside the city early in the morning to negotiate the purchase price of olive oil with the village chief. As a result, they met Mrs. Anna's steward Grans. Steward Grans immediately scolded old John and told him that from now on the olive oil business in Suno City had nothing to do with him, and that the olive oil produced in the territories of the city lord, Marquis Craggs, and his dependent nobles would no longer be sold to him.

Bandak was so angry that he went up to argue with them, and as a result, the two of them were beaten up by six or seven people brought by Butler Grans. If it weren't for the bravery of the two of them, especially Bandak, who grabbed a wooden stick, protected the injured old John, and waved it desperately to force Grans and his men back, otherwise the two of them would probably have died in Lawrence.

After listening to Bandak's explanation of the whole process, Harvey jumped up, grabbed a spear, and called five or six people to fight to the death. However, he gave up after being scolded by Old John and intercepted and dissuaded by the onlookers.

Seeing this situation, Old John was afraid that something might happen again, so he called Bandak and Aix to come closer and told everyone in front of everyone that the caravan was currently under the charge of the two of them. He then gave everyone some instructions, especially Harvey, not to cause trouble, and then he fell asleep.

Upon seeing this, Axe and Catherine and others hurriedly carried Old John to the inner room. Bandak confiscated the weapons from the guys who were about to fight one by one, and locked all the weapons in the front and back yards in his room. He then persuaded the neighbors who were watching to leave, and the warehouse returned to peace.

It was not until late at night that Old John woke up again in pain. He was in better spirits at this time and called everyone to give him some instructions. He also told Harvey not to go out and fool around, especially at night, and asked Axe, Bandak and Harvey to take turns to guard the outer hall at night to prevent the enemy from doing bad things.

At first, Aix agreed on the surface but did not take it seriously in his heart, thinking that everyone was in the city after all. However, he still underestimated the vulnerability of people of this era. In the second half of the night, when Bandak was on duty, someone came to set fire. If Bandak had not been well prepared, shot and injured two people with a crossbow, scared away the other arsonists, and shouted to the neighbors to put out the fire in time, the consequences would be unimaginable.

After this incident, Aix gained a new understanding of the dark Middle Ages and realized that he could no longer use the standards of the original world to measure the people and things here.

The next day, the other members of the caravan were all very nervous when they heard about it. As everyone knew, dozens of people depended on the caravan for their livelihood. If the caravan was gone, some families would starve to death. So the next day, everyone discussed and decided to send three people to help guard the warehouse every night. Aix divided the night watch into three shifts, with two people in each shift, so that they could take care of each other.

The training did not stop during the day. All the young and strong people from the caravan families came to the warehouse to participate in the training voluntarily. Moreover, everyone changed from laughing and joking in the past to being serious and hard-working. Even Yamila and Catherine asked to participate in the training. Bandak took the conditions of the two girls into consideration and asked them to focus on practicing crossbows. As a result, they all performed very well, especially Yamila, who soon reached the level of Aix.

After a few days, under the training methods that Aix summarized from his limited military knowledge, and with Bandak's scolding and kicking, the people were able to fire their guns and shout in unison, and they had the power of a regular army. The entire warehouse had people training during the day and people standing guard at night, and it was majestic and orderly, just like a small military camp.

After the arson, the enemies never dared to come to the warehouse to cause trouble again, but the city defense troops came several times. The city defense officer said that he came to inquire about the beating of Old John and the arson that night, but he didn't ask much about the situation of the caravan at that time. He kept sticking his head to look at the training ground in the backyard. Axe felt that he was here to investigate the case but was actually trying to spy on the case.

Bandak went forward and told the truth about what happened, but the city defense officer only nodded perfunctorily, saying that he would do his best to investigate and resolutely not let any bad guys go. As a result, the matter was left unresolved and there was no further news. From then on, the city defense soldiers patrolled near the warehouse entrance, as if they were afraid that a riot would occur on the caravan side.

More than a week passed, and it was almost time to purchase olive oil. During this time, Bandak went out several times on behalf of Old John, but failed to make a single purchase. Everyone in the caravan was anxious when seeing this.

After dinner that day, Old John could no longer sit still, so he called Axe and Bandak to discuss. Except for his leg injury, all his other injuries had healed, but his spirit had become worse. His eye bags were prominent, his eye sockets were sunken, and he looked haggard.

"What's going on outside?" he asked Bandak.

"Alas, I have asked the village chiefs of the surrounding villages, and they have all received warnings. They said that Grans has said that they are not allowed to sell us a drop of oil. If any village dares to sell oil to us, they will resign as village chief. I have also asked some self-employed farmers with a lot of land, and they are also unwilling to sell to us. I am afraid that our caravan will have nothing to do with the olive oil business in the future." Bandak said with a frustrated look on his face.

"What about the remote village of Yilindaha? Their village chief and I are brothers who fought in the battlefield together." Old John still didn't give up.

"Same, Grans and the others told him several months ago. They have been planning this for a long time, old man."

After hearing the news, Old John was like a deflated ball. He immediately became weak and could no longer utter a word, only crying continuously.

Seeing his future father-in-law in such a dilemma, Axel couldn't help but feel pity for him. Besides, this old father-in-law was quite good to him, so he wanted to go forward and say a few words of comfort, but he didn't know where to start.

At this moment, Old John suddenly looked up at him, his eyes full of hope, just like the last time he met the robber, he wanted to get some solution from him, but what solution could Axe have at this time, except that he looked confused.

"Mr. Axe, do you have any solution?" Old John asked without giving up.

"Um, well, well, don't we have any other business to do besides the olive oil business?" Aix habitually used the wisdom of modern people to push the unsolvable problems back to the people who asked the questions.

“It’s not that there aren’t any. For example, some time ago, I bought wheat in Dhrim and sold beer. In the summer, I went to Paraven to buy flax. The beer there was also good and it was very popular in Suno. In previous years, when I went to the Kingdom of Nord to sell olive oil, I also bought some salt, salted fish, cheese and other specialties there and sold them back in Swadia. However, these goods are not valuable and the profit is not great.

The profit from selling olive oil accounts for about half of the caravan’s annual income. If the olive oil business is gone, everyone will starve. Alas—” Old John sighed as he spoke, obviously at a loss.

Seeing his distressed look, Aix comforted him:

"Don't worry, I'll first understand the situation and think about it carefully. There will always be a solution."

"Well, I believe you will find a way. After all, you are... uh, you have extraordinary insight. You will definitely be able to come up with a solution for everyone, right?"

Finally, he looked at Bandak and said this, hoping that Bandak would also agree with his uncertain idea. Old John, who had injured his leg, was already feeling guilty and had no confidence at all.

"Yes, Mr. Axe will definitely find a way." Bandak delivered comforting affirmation in time.

After hearing this, Aix felt miserable inside, but he couldn't bear to refuse. After all, this was also his responsibility. He could only force himself to remain strong and said:

"Don't worry, take a good rest, old John. Let me think about it. I will find a solution."