Chapter 303: Horse bandits must be eliminated at any time
What Horn meant by "taking responsibility for it" was that Horn had to deliver the goods to the door.

Martin mentioned before that Kush Territory and Kasha County are actually bordering each other.

But of the two main roads leading to Kasha County, one land route was blocked by Knight Ibe of Jinhe Township, and the other water route was blocked by the Lower River County Church.

Among the several possible transportation routes, Horn proposed three conditions:

First, it must be able to be transported on a large scale.

Second, it would be easy to be harassed by the Temple Knights of Lower Rifo and the Ibe Knights of the South.

Third, the distance should be close enough, with fewer detours, to make transportation and passage as convenient and fast as possible.

The Holy Gun Cavalry explored everywhere and finally found the only road that met Horn's requirements - the El Ancient Road in the dense forest of caves in the southwest of Kush Territory.

If you take this ancient road, the total distance from Jeanne d'Arc to Little Pond is 250 kilometers.

Based on the speed of a fully loaded carriage, it would take four to five days to arrive, and a round trip would not take more than ten days.

The reason why it was abandoned is mainly because after the canal was built, the safety and carrying capacity of the waterway were much greater than this ancient road, so it was abandoned.

After decades of abandonment, it has become a base camp for refugees, bandits and robbers.

Every year they would use this as a base to attack the manors and villages in the three nearby counties, and also rob passing merchants.

The nearby lords tried to wipe them out several times, but failed to completely wipe them out. They always let them escape and they would revive within a few days.

Later, these bandits learned their lesson, found the pain points of the market, laid out new tracks, and replaced robbery with collecting protection fees.

Over the years, he has lived a fulfilling life for more than a decade by sustainably exploiting nearby estates and passing merchants.

But such peaceful days will no longer exist.

Because Horn wouldn't allow such a powerful person to exist in Kush Territory!

"Have the Black Hats finished recruiting yet?" Although Horn's voice was still as lazy as before, Busak could clearly hear a lot of clanging sounds in it.

"It's all finished. All eight legions have been replenished, and the two new legions are currently in training." Busak did not dare to neglect and replied after a moment's thought.

Horn nodded: "Are they all recruited according to my requirements?"

“Yes.” Busak nodded, “They are all clean-handed crusaders with excellent physical fitness, and they are very close to the Holy Father.

By mixing these new recruits with the two old Guards Corps, we can probably make up four Guards Corps, but it will take some time to get used to each other."

Horn currently has 20 people under his command, and is qualified to be picky. Naturally, he will not accept all of them as he did in the past.

Therefore, Horn required all the new soldiers recruited near Joan of Arc to be of the same standard as the Guards.

According to Horn's idea, under the brand of the Savior Army, two regiments may have to be separated, namely the Black Hat Regiment and the Guards Regiment.

The Black Hat Corps currently has six legions, and two more will meet the requirements.

As for the Guards Regiment, which only had two legions, the gap was too great, so Horn decided to carry out a wave of reinforcements first.

"Then the Black Caps and Holy Gun Cavalry are still available, right?"

"The Black Hats are available, but the Ibe Knights in the south have been making some unusual moves recently, so the Holy Gun Cavalry will have to monitor them."

"Why don't we let the North Mountain Knights monitor the Holy Gun Cavalry?" Horn made the arrangement casually.

René on the side suddenly walked to Horn's ear and whispered, "Your Majesty, the cave forest is a valley forest terrain, which is not suitable for the Holy Gun Cavalry, but is suitable for the North Mountain Knights.

Besides, there are only about a thousand bandits at most, so there is no need to start such a big fight..."

Horn was slightly stunned, and then he suddenly realized that he had risen too fast and was still stuck in the mindset of playing all-in-one every day. They were obviously a group of weaker enemies, but Horn still wanted to mobilize all the strongest forces available, instead of deploying troops reasonably.

Looking ahead without considering the future is the case.

"Then let's keep the Holy Gun Cavalry stationary and let the Norse Knights attack the bandits."

Noth Knight, so useful.

This thought flashed through Horn's mind.

According to Horn's idea, to implement this plan, he first had to collect 400 donkey carts and horse carriages from the carriage shops and the public throughout Kush Territory.

Although the territory of Kush was not large, it still had 400 carriages.

During the Battle of Pavia, Knight Ibe and the Imperial Company sent Horn a lot of draft horses and riding horses, so the number of horses was definitely enough.

Today, the church uses an economic blockade strategy against Horn, cutting off trade routes.

Maintaining these carriages was a considerable expense for local citizens and farmers.

Therefore, the decision of the Papal Palace to centrally rent carriages was actually good news for them.

Since the food needed to be transported, Horn had to hire people to do the transporting and absorbed a group of unemployed people, thus ensuring the livelihoods of some of them.

These wagons were organized into teams of twenty, with a group departing each morning and noon. Each freight wagon could carry 2000 to 3000 pounds of cargo.

Then ten days later, when the first freight wagons returned, Horn would be able to harvest more than 10,000 gallons of grain every day.

It not only filled the food gap in Kush Territory, but also accumulated military rations for the southward movement at the end of May.

One million gallons, at the current rate, would take about three months.

Three months later, it will be the harvest season in July, which is just the right time to connect.

However, during the period when the carriages were mobilized, that is, before May, Horn had to defeat these agile bandits in the mountains.

Fortunately, he had a premonition of this matter and sent the Cheka in advance to gather information and terrain, and even prepared money and food for the troops.

Horn turned to look at René who was leading the horse over: "Have these bandits noticed our actions?"

The Cheka director who was personally leading the horse said in a deep voice: "We have become somewhat alert. These bandits are extremely well-informed.

We found out that every time they were surrounded by the lords, they were able to react and escape in advance.

The Cheka has not yet found the source of the information. I suspect that the citizens and merchants in the town are in collusion with them. Can you authorize me to start an investigation?"

"Don't worry." Horn put his five fingers together and shook the palm of his right hand towards René. "Go check the village near the cave forest. There might be a surprise."

"You mean, those villagers are colluding with the bandits?" René's usually calm eyes flashed with a hint of doubt, "But aren't they forced to pay tribute by the bandits every day?"

"There is a rule for suppressing bandits: the people and the bandits are one. Even if all the bandits in the mountains are killed, there are still bandits in the villages to be killed.

Do you think the mountains are a good place? They have to make a living, who will help them sell the stolen goods?
The necessities and daily necessities of life will not fall from the sky.”

Lazily trying to put his elbow on René's shoulder, Horne failed.

Turning his head and looking at Rene's broken ear, he realized that the boy was almost as tall as himself.

Horn withdrew his hand in dismay and said in a deep voice: "Two monks from the Holy Father Society died nearby. You can start from this aspect."

René bowed slightly: "Yes, Your Majesty."

(End of this chapter)