Mercenaries and Adventurers

Keir really didn't expect that throwing a gun is just a short wooden pole with a short dagger tip. At most, it needs to be balanced to ensure a good flight trajectory when it is thrown.

How can it be so expensive?

"What do you call it? How can this throwing gun be so expensive? The price has doubled?"

When Kiel bought the guards' throwing guns in the local caravan, the price was only nine copper coins, but the blacksmith shop here dared to sell a standard throwing gun for eighteen copper coins.

The tall businessman waved his hand to make Kiel feel relaxed, and he continued to explain: "Actually, we have just recently entered a batch of high-quality iron ore, and the price of iron materials is still a little lower, otherwise we will shoot This sold for twenty copper coins a piece. The real reason for the high price is the wooden gun barrel!"

As soon as the other party reminded, Kiel realized that it was so expensive because the strange wind grassland where the strange wind town is located does not produce wood, and all the wood is brought in by merchants from other places.

As for wood, to be honest, those merchants who dared to venture through the strange wind grassland trade route were unwilling to pull this kind of commodity with no higher value on their trucks.

Therefore, the only source of wood on the grassland is the chamber of commerce organized by the townspeople of Guefeng Town. They went to the south for a few days, left Kawen Ling of Guafeng Grassland, bought the forest farm and transported the wood regardless of the cost. For sale.

Wood is an indispensable material in society for construction, home furnishing, life, production, and combat.

Use it everywhere.

Even if it is more expensive, this material with a wide range of applicability is inseparable from life.

The businessman on the opposite side explained the reason, and Kiel finally understood: "It makes sense, but I can't tell you the price. I really believe the price. I have to ask around."

"Young warrior, you can inquire as you like. However, it should be noted that although ordinary wood is cheaper, they can't be used as gun shafts for throwing guns. The wood that can be used is more expensive, and it is made by cutting down suitable straight small trees."

The other party explained something, and Kiel nodded: "I understand this. The production of weapons in various places is roughly the same, and our throwing guns are also produced in a similar way."

He turned to the Conquinals blacksmith and said: "You can talk to the blacksmith shop owner about the replenishment of repair materials here. I will go to inquire about the price of local wood, and I will be back soon."

The blacksmith attached to the army nodded, and then talked about it with the businessman who took out a piece of wood on the opposite side. Every time he said a material that was in short supply, the businessman wrote a word on the board, and the materials needed by the Kendal people quantity.

After writing, the businessman called his assistant, a powerful blacksmith, and handed the paper to the other party: "Look, how much do we have in stock, and what do we need? I'll ask someone to go to another chamber of commerce to adjust it. "

He turned his head and said to the Conquinals blacksmith: "Buy the whole family, save a lot of trouble, how about buying everything at my house? The price is guaranteed, and I can send, uh, one, two, three, four, four apprentices Help you to send it back, use the trolley that is easy to walk in the town!"

"That would be great." The army blacksmith immediately thanked him, and the two apprentices behind him and the town militia were relieved. They would save a lot of effort if they were willing to help provide transportation services.

Several people secretly glanced at each other and snickered.

-

Kiel walked out of the 'Metal Grassland Horse' blacksmith shop, caught someone at the door to inquire, and then walked in the direction instructed by him to the chamber of commerce that sells wood.

The place is not far away, just next to the building where the blacksmith shop is located. The main reason why it is not next to the blacksmith shop is that the locals know by experience that the blacksmith shop cannot be put together with the chamber of commerce that stores and sells combustibles.

He quickly walked through the flow of people, and there were fewer people here. On the contrary, there were more trolleys passing by him, piled up with various raw materials.

Looking up, on the building where the chamber of commerce that sells timber is located, the shop fronts of the chamber of commerce in other directions also sell various basic raw materials, and there is even a small shop that specializes in slaughtering and cutting meat.

This kind of shop will only appear in areas with relatively developed economy and trade. There are no such shops dedicated to slaughtering in ordinary human villages and towns. If anyone wants to slaughter their domestic animals, they usually invite experienced family members. Or a familiar butcher to handle the slaughter of animals.

Slaughtering and cutting meat is not something everyone can do. It is not easy for animals to be slaughtered. They will be afraid, run away, and even hurt people.

It takes a lot of experience to restrain the animals safely and kill them safely and quickly.

It's fine for you to ask Keel to kill a large animal, but if you ask him to skin and dismantle the animal's various bones and bones in an orderly manner, then he can't do it.

It's easy to split most of the animal's body with a single sword, but he doesn't understand if it is carefully cut and disassembled.

Inquiring about the prices of commonly used timber at the chamber of commerce that sells timber, Kiel was a little bit tongue-tied, it was indeed not cheap. In other places where the price is low, and even in areas where no one specializes in selling wood because of its proximity to the forest, not only the price of wood in Guaifeng Town has increased by more than ten times, but also the wood raw materials of various qualities and different species have been carefully determined. Various prices were placed.

It simply squeezed out all the profits here.

He rubbed his teeth with his tongue, and felt that the residents of Weird Wind Town were really hard-working people. It was obvious that the local chamber of commerce that they paid for and established in order to obtain enough wood for life had completely become an exploitation that monopolized the local wood consumption market. The profit monster is gone.

He can use the weapon in his hand to defeat the man-eating monster majestically, but there is no reason to fight with a sword against this kind of 'man-eating' monster.

If he was a native of Guefeng Town, he might still be involved in this kind of thing, but as a member of the foreign army passing by, he had no reason to get involved.

-

Pretending to pick out a few different woods, the excuse he used was that he wanted to prepare a wooden sheath for his great sword, but he looked left and right, and shook his head dissatisfied. He didn't like cheap wood , It seems expensive.

So after dawdling for a while, he asked the price and left here.

Soon returning to the 'Metal Grassland Horse' blacksmith shop, he saw his own people in a slightly empty corner of the blacksmith shop.

Under the direction of the Conquinals blacksmith, they were counting the incoming supplies.

Kiel glanced at it, and saw thick leather of the same size, blacksmith tools that were easily damaged and not easy to make, dark coal and charcoal blocks of the same dark color, as well as huge metal needles and tough fine twine.

These things are all kinds of consumable materials used by soldiers for maintenance.

Damaged leather and wood armor needs to be repaired, damaged swords need fuel to be reforged, and torn armor needs to be repaired and redone.

This army blacksmith who had dealt with Kiel last year, although he was not as capable of making a full set of armor as the Ganna craftsman Kiel knew, but it was easy to make some repairs to various weapons and equipment.

"It's just in time for you to come back. Look at the quantity and price of these items, compare them, and wait until you have to sign and pay for the final purchase receipt."

Kiel found a piece of paper handed over by the craftsman, which was filled with the names and quantities of various items, the unit price, which company they came from, the total price, and so on.

For some materials that have already been shipped, the price has been calculated clearly on it, and a circle is drawn behind it.

For other materials that are being transferred, the quantity is available, but the unit price is not filled in, and the total price is naturally empty.

"Very well, you should carefully control the quality of the supplies. After all, you are the one who will use them in the end. Take them apart and check them. Not only are the quantities consistent, but you should also check carefully if the items are good. Anyway, they are all idle. , then they check, you confirm."

Kiel assigned the task, and the apprentices and militiamen who came with him started to get busy.

Handing over the work of material preparation to the blacksmith accompanying the army, Kiel found the blacksmith merchant boss who was instructing people to contact other chambers of commerce to transfer materials.

"How is it? Am I right? The price of wood in our strange wind town is really expensive, you can just ask someone and you will know."

The businessman said with a smile, and at the same time he waved his hand to let the idle blacksmith apprentice bring a whole bundle of packed throwing guns.

"A bundle of ten, all of which are short-throwing guns with standard length, weight and materials. The length is 1.2 meters, and the tip of the gun is thin, which can penetrate ordinary leather armor. A young soldier can easily throw a distance of tens of meters, very powerful."

The businessman patted the throwing guns held by the apprentices. These throwing guns were obviously in stock, and there was a little dust on them, but it didn't bother them. The metal tip was greased and very sharp, just to slam into the target's body after throwing.

Of course, the sharp metal tip is also easy to break, especially when encountering metal shields and full metal armor with excellent defense, this kind of weapon is not very useful.

But the target they deal with is not against heavily protected opponents.

This kind of lightweight short-throwing gun traditionally targets light infantry with no protection or only simple protection. It is very powerful and has a fast response speed. It is also easy for soldiers to train, because not everyone knows how to open a bow and shoot an arrow, but throwing things It's an innate instinct of human beings.

For heavy protection targets, there are also corresponding armor-piercing heavy-throwing guns, and armor-piercing long-throwing guns.

The length of the former throwing gun is also unchanged from 1.2 to 1.5 meters, the tip is heavier, and the barrel is also a little heavier. The tail of the throwing gun will also be equipped with a metal counterweight to ensure that the weapon of about four kilograms will not be lost after being thrown. balance, a rollover occurs.

The latter directly increases the length of the throwing gun to about two meters, which is a little higher than the average human height, but the weight of the shorter throwing gun is heavier. The increase in length directly increases the length and weight of the gun barrel, allowing soldiers to throw it farther , the increased weight comes from the lengthened gun barrel, relying on a longer attack distance and weight to increase the armor-piercing ability.

Keel stepped forward and untied the neatly packed bundles of throwing guns. He untied the bundled ropes and took out one to play with.

First, feel the weight of one in your hand, and then take out one for comparison, and find that the weight of the two is the same.

Then there is a comparison of the length of the gun shaft and the metal gun tip of the gun head. The front and rear two are the same as those made in the same mold.

"Very good. If it's all like this, the price should be more expensive. Take out the quantity I need, and I'll pay when I see the goods."

The businessman laughed: "It's direct enough, efficient enough, come here, go to the warehouse and take out this amount of throwing guns."

After giving the order, the businessman chatted with Kiel again. Kiel knew that a businessman who could open a blacksmith shop of this size was obviously very powerful in the local area, and the news must be well-informed.

So he asked emphatically about the information about the Calvin Territory they were going to reach after passing through the Strange Wind Grassland, as well as the news about the southern province.

"Cavin collar, that's a good place, densely populated and powerful. The two noble viscounts in the area can speak for themselves in the entire western province because they have a large population, a lot of supplies, and a lot of money. The horses there are cheap. If your army wants to improve something, I suggest that you can replace all your horses with the strong prairie horses in our western province. Even if you don’t use them yourself, you can exchange them for three in other places. A one-for-five exchange for ordinary local horses."

"Tall, strong, strong endurance, although the appetite is also large, but this is for sure, right? Only the strong can eat more."

But when talking about the southern province, the businessman hesitated: "I can only say that the local situation is not very good, and it is not suitable for businessmen like us to go there. If a sheep is in the mouth of a tiger, people go there and can't come back. Of course, the army is of course no problem." , No matter how chaotic the local situation is, it cannot be as chaotic as the real battlefield. Hey, chaos is not without benefits, look."

As he spoke, he picked up the iron ore waiting to be melted into the iron material by the nearby furnace.

"This is iron ore from the south recently. How is it? It's in good condition! More good iron can be produced."

Keir smiled bitterly: "Sorry, I don't understand this, but it looks pretty solid."

As he spoke, Kiel squeezed hard, and the ore in his hand was crushed.

The businessman on the opposite side was stunned for a moment, and he picked up another iron ore and squeezed it, but his hand hurt and he didn't move at all. He shook his head suspiciously: "Anyway, it's a good thing. Originally, my shop only made iron ore that I bought. Forged, but the war in the south brought this kind of cheap, good, and abundant iron ore, so I prepared a furnace for smelting iron materials.”

Kiel put the crushed iron ore fragments back into the raw material pile next to the furnace. The businessman didn't care, anyway, the iron ore had to go through crushing, screening and other processes before smelting.

Broken just right.

Kiel took another one and looked at it in his hand. This small mineral was gray-black with red, and looked ordinary, but Kiel felt that the red color on it was more like the color of blood.

Because of these things, nobles have waged wars and will continue to do so.

The number of people who died last year is hard to count, the number of people who died this year is still unknown, and the future is hard to say.

Maybe stop there, but it's also possible that the associated deaths won't stop until the veins are exhausted.

And it's not just the casualties caused by the army's scramble for the mine veins on the surface, but also in the unnoticed places behind, in the chaotic rural areas of the southern provinces, in the dark and deep mines, countless human beings are also silently dying or injured.

Keel pursed his lips and was silent for a while.

"Can you give me this raw iron ore? It's the first time I've seen iron material smelted from this kind of thing."

The businessman waved his hand and agreed easily.

He didn't talk about other daily business tonight, but he made a lot of money from the business of the young soldier in front of him, so he was naturally in a good mood at the moment.

-

After a while, in the adjacent gaps of the buildings in Guaifeng Town, the silver-white moonlight shone in through the gaps.

But these bright moonlights elsewhere are slightly inferior compared with the artificial lighting made by humans.

At this moment, Keir is leading the people to the building where the army will spend the night. Except for him and the blacksmith accompanying the army, everyone else is holding a trolley full of supplies, and is walking along the narrow road between the local buildings. Squeaking and moving.

As promised, the merchant sent four idle apprentices from his shop to help with carts.

Just in time, Keel saw that the other party must be going back after delivering the goods, so he proposed to pay a small amount of money to rent the extra trolley in their blacksmith shop, and let his people from Kiel push the supplies back together, so that the throwing guns bought tonight There is no need to make another trip with supplies.

All the goods can be sent back to the army station in a single trip.

As for the extra trolleys, when the blacksmith apprentices return, they can stack the extra trolleys on top of other trolleys, one on top of the other, or even two on each, and they can easily take the extra trolleys back.

Seeing that Kiel was quick to spend money and bought materials that made him a lot of money, the tall businessman agreed to this request.

So when Kiel opened the gate of the building where the army was stationed ~www.readwn.com~ and called a team of soldiers to help unload the goods, the apprentices from the blacksmith shop quickly pushed the cart away.

"Little Keel, Knight Crowe said he has something to look for you, and told you to go find him as soon as possible after you go back."

A town guard leading a night patrol stopped Kiel and broke the news to him.

"Thank you, I will go over immediately after I have completed the work of purchasing these materials."

With a word of thanks, Kiel talked to the guard who had dealt with him, and then found the logistics clerk who hadn't rested yet, and handed over the extra coins and material purchase list to the other party for inspection.

The list has his signature of Kiel, the signature of Conquinals, the blacksmith accompanying the army, and the hot emblem of the merchant's guild to which the 'Metal Prairie Horse' blacksmith shop belongs.

The so-called scorching emblem is a simple tool modeled on the emblem of the noble ring.

The ring surface is equipped with a metal ring surface that is easy to heat, and the special name and distinctive mark of the chamber of commerce are engraved on the ring surface, which can be regarded as a simple trademark. When using it, put the back of your hand close to the hot metal to heat the surface of the ring, and then burn the graphics directly on the paper where it needs to be printed.

This has special requirements for paper, which requires special paper that can easily change color when heated, and is generally used in transactions between chambers of commerce.

You ask, won't the ring burn the user's finger when it comes into contact with hot metal?

When the ring was made, the ring surface that was in contact with the hot metal and the ring body were connected with non-heat-conducting materials.

When the clerk confirmed that everything was ok, except that the price of the gun needed to be reported by Kiel to the senior clerk in charge of the money, there was nothing to do.

Keel tidied up and went to look for Knight Crowe to see what the other party wanted to find him.