Chapter 181 Ground State Peat

After visiting the polders and fisheries, the Queen of Carthage kindly invited Horn to stay for dinner.

Seeing the Queen of Carthage so enthusiastic, Horn felt it would be a shame to do nothing, so he simply stayed, had a light meal, and tasted the local specialty, fish porridge.

However, this kind of boiling hot boiled food is mostly only available to the queen's family and some female warriors.

Looking out from the queen's thatched palace, Horne didn't see much smoke.

In the rippling white light of the lake, there were two rows of thatched houses and mud houses on the island in the middle of the swamp. From time to time, curious beastman children came out of the houses and looked curiously towards Horn.

Most of them just eat sashimi and rice crackers, adults and children alike.

But Horn then thought about it and understood.

Similar to their seasonal farming and hunting activities, in the relatively humid swamps, probably only plants such as reeds can be used as fuel.

In order to survive the cold winter, they had to save some reeds and firewood for the winter.

You know, even though the swamp has dense vegetation, that doesn't mean all plants can be used as fuel.

Many plants contain too much water to be used as fuel and are difficult to mine.

As for the trees on the nearby mountain, they can be used, but the problem is that they are difficult to transport and may be attacked by giant spiders or monsters if you are not careful.

After confirming with the Queen next to him, Horn's idea was basically confirmed, and he learned another important news.

That is, the reason why those well salts failed to produce enough salt was not because of insufficient brine production, but because of insufficient fuel.

Due to the humid air, most of the time they could only use the salt boiling method to produce crude salt, resulting in a shortage of fuel.

Without fuel, the pottery workshop project may not be able to get started.

After stealing a batch of medicinal herbs and fresh fish from the Kingdom of Carthage, Horn hurried back to the camp.

After handing the fresh fish to Madeleine and asking him to prepare dinner, Horn immediately called together the senior executives present and began to inform them of the news he had just learned.

The aroma of fish porridge floated in the camp, wrapped in the cold wind, and it actually felt a kind of intoxicating warmth when it blew on people.

However, the senior executives present did not feel relaxed at all. Instead, they all frowned.

Thomas, who had just arrived, asked Horn, "Your Majesty, I've seen that if we plant potato roots in the nearby mountains, we will have no problem surviving the winter. There shouldn't be a problem with insufficient food."

"It's enough for most ordinary people," Horn explained to Thomas, "but it's not enough for the military system."

Before the invention of modern clockwork guns, it was foreseeable that for a long time they would have to use heavy clockwork guns to fight against the knights.

Horn had previously investigated and discussed this with Jeshka, Hakuto, and some of the mercenary captives.

So far, the only infantry phalanx that can counter the knight's charge is the Dunjar phalanx.

The Dunjar phalanx was able to resist and even to a certain extent fight against the knights because the ordinary infantry on the outer layer of the spear phalanx was replaced by plate armored mercenaries armed with heavy iron spears.

Most of these mercenaries have the third or fourth level of breathing skills. Except that they have no horses and do not have extraordinary martial arts, with the blessing of the monks, they are almost like little knights.

When they put on plate armor, picked up super-long spears, and combined them with chariot-fort tactics and heavy archers, they often beat the knights of the Kingdom of Leia into a state of frustration.

In the War of Windmill Land, the Dunjar Phalanx forced the knights to abandon their original reckless charging method and pick up the cavalry phalanx that had been abandoned for a long time.

Marshal Dunjar's ability to create this phalanx was not only due to his own talent, but also inseparable from the economic development after the Hundred Years' War.

After the war, with the establishment of the three major markets of the Flesh Court, Norn, and Overseas, cities began to spring up like mushrooms after a rain.

A large number of services, commodities, and handicrafts entered the daily lives of the lords, while cheap food, minerals, and spices from the three major markets entered the empire. The nobles gradually changed their previous pessimistic attitude towards material life and abandoned the practice of pinning happiness on the afterlife.

To this end, the post-war lords gave up the increasingly heavy financial burden (including the maintenance of the infantry system) in order to meet the ever-expanding material needs.

This gave rise to a semi-professional mercenary system, in which a large number of bankrupt armed farmers and even knights from the coastal areas joined the mercenary system.

Through the expensive luxury of war, mercenaries received high incomes and reinvested them in their own development.

Therefore, in addition to the old military system, heavy armored infantry with certain extraordinary powers, such as infantry knights and even imperial mercenaries, gradually appeared in the mercenary system.

If Horn wants to unleash the maximum power of his clockwork gun, he will definitely need extraordinary infantry who can hold the line. He doesn't need many, but at least one or two are always needed.

“So, if our phalanx wants to resist the attacks of the knights, we must let our spearmen and even holy lancers have a certain level of breathing techniques.

We don't have extraordinary martial arts, no blessings, and it's even difficult for us to get potions and sophisticated extraordinary armor. At least at the level of breathing techniques, we still have a chance."

We need to analyze each case individually. Until the clockwork gun is improved to the point where it can defeat the knights before they rush into the army, Horn still has to rely on the old extraordinary system.

Or from a certain level, as long as everyone is extraordinary, then no one is extraordinary, which to a certain extent undermines the extraordinary hegemony constructed by the empire and the church.

Horn said to the people around him, "If the soldiers want to practice breathing techniques, an egg or even two to three ounces of meat every day is essential, and it is best to combine it with potions."

"Let me add one more thing." After getting Horn's nod, Jessica continued, "In the process of training soldiers, especially the extraordinary infantry, the amount of salt consumed is far beyond your imagination."

"Or should we go and help them cut down trees?"

"We don't bring many axes at all." Speaking of this problem, Horn also had a headache. For a team of 25,000 people, he tried his best to bring as much survival supplies and military supplies as possible.

He didn't carry many tools, such as axes.

"Anyway, we have iron ingots, and there are quite a few blacksmiths among the workers who are skilled enough to make them on the spot."

"I have bad news for you." Horn spread his hands, "There is no main material for softening potion here. If we use more softening potion, we will have less. If we want to make an axe, we can only rely on Jeanna to forge it.

We can help them cut down trees as a last resort, but that is the only option left.”

Looking around at the Salvation Army leaders around the fire, Horn scratched his head and suddenly turned his gaze to Pasrick. It was obvious that he was the only one who looked calm and composed.

"Master Pasrick, any ideas?"

"Who is Pasrick? I am Crispa." Although everyone already knew that Pasrick was the high priest of the John Party, Pasrick still gritted his teeth and refused to give in.

"Master Crispa, what can you do?"

Seeing that Horn had agreed with him, Pasrick coughed and said, "In fact, there is a kind of fuel with extremely rich reserves in the Black Bone Swamp, but you just haven't discovered it."

"what?"

“In alchemy, there is a special alchemical product called ground state peat, which can be used as the base for many alchemical products. This peat is extracted from bog soil.

However, under normal circumstances, this kind of peat is almost the same as charcoal, and extracting it would waste the alchemists' limited mana.

So normally, unless this kind of peat is needed as an alchemical base, alchemists would rather buy firewood and charcoal than work hard to extract peat."

Pasrick pointed at the holy gunners holding clockwork guns and said, "But they are different. They have abundant mana and recover their mana very quickly. Moreover, there are many of them, so there is no problem of waste or efficiency."

"You mean... the peat alchemy workshop?"

(End of this chapter)