A piece of iron lies quietly in the warehouse, without any thought. But if it had one, it must have expected what kind of thing it would become throughout its life.

Is it the plow that breaks the land?

Or a sickle for harvesting crops?

The door opened, light came in, and the bar of iron was taken out of the warehouse by the craftsman.

It was thrown into the furnace and buried deep under the hot charcoal. The bellows whirred and the flames burned the iron body.

I don’t know how long I endured it, but the iron bar finally escaped from the inferno. Immediately, it was clamped onto the hydraulic forging machine by the craftsman and beaten repeatedly.

Soon, the iron bar disappeared, and what was left was an iron awl that was as long as a forearm, pointed at both ends, and about as thick as a person's hand in the middle.

As soon as the iron cone was formed, the blacksmith threw it at the feet of the apprentices. Before the apprentices could take the next step, the blacksmith had already gone to get another bar of iron.

The iron cone was taken over by the apprentice, and it still contains amazing heat inside.

Its surface was soaped by apprentices: it turned yellow and was returned to the forge; when it turned white, it was buried in hot sand to cool down.

The iron cone was adjusted repeatedly until the color was between gold and silver, and then the apprentice threw it into the oil tank;

When the hot iron cone touches the cold oil, it immediately makes a "squeaking" sound.

In the blink of an eye, it faded from bright yellow to blood red, and was taken out of the oil tank by the apprentices and left to dry in the air;

The color of the iron cone continued to gradually change, the blood red faded, and violet appeared little by little.

It is immersed in oil again and cooled slowly.

While the apprentices were doing this kind of work, a pot-bellied man wiped his sweat, bulging his belly, and walked around among the apprentices with eyes wide open, scolding and correcting mistakes.

Quenching and tempering have always been the secrets of famous craftsmen. Judging the timing of blanking depends entirely on vision, experience and secrets.

If a craftsman is willing to teach his apprentice these two crafts, he is either drunk too much, or the apprentice is his illegitimate son.

Looking around Tiefeng County, the one who is best at these two techniques is none other than the swordsmith and municipal councilor Shao Sha.

Now, Shao Sha showed his ability to keep the bottom of the box. Although the apprentices were scolded, they were happy in their hearts.

Just learning to identify the three colors of steel will benefit them throughout their lives.

After the iron awl is quenched and tempered, it is passed on to the new apprentice for sharpening.

In the strict hierarchical blacksmiths' guild, young apprentices are not qualified to learn more advanced skills and can only grind iron honestly.

The pedal grinding wheel rotated rapidly, sparks flew everywhere, and the iron cone was polished to an extremely sharp point.

Swords are rarely sharpened with a grinding wheel, because the blade will be broken if you are not careful. However, there is no time for fine work now, so naturally it is done as quickly as possible.

After being burned, forged, quenched, tempered and sharpened, the iron awl was sent to the town hall, where the carpenter was waiting for it.

What happened next was simple: the iron awl was smashed into a thick wooden stick, with one end buried deeply in the wood and the sharp tip of the other end exposed.

It was hastily secured with nails and ropes by carpenters, and then carried off to the town square to join its brethren.

At this moment, Tie Tie understood its destiny, that of being a weapon.

…

The fire in the furnace was red, the hammers were roaring, and the forge village was like a fierce horse being beaten desperately by the driver, and it was already running at full strength.

No one is making plows and sickles anymore, both craftsmen and apprentices are working like crazy making weapons.

Swords are too time-consuming, axes and halberds are too useless. When it comes to killing people, the simpler, the better.

The bayonet became the obvious choice. For no other reason than that it was easy to build.

As the name suggests - a mallet with the ability to thrust.

You don't need good steel, and you don't need good wood. An iron awl and a wooden stick used as a farm tool are fixed together to form a stabbing mallet. It is not as good as a spear, but at least it is stronger than a sharpened wooden pole.

The bayonet itself is one of the crudest weapons.

The bayonet made in Forge Township is the simplest among all the bayonet families.

Using a thick wooden rod sacrifices weight and flexibility for structural strength; the iron cone does not have time to be firmly fixed, which means that structural strength is exchanged for time.

There must be some people in Tiefeng County who don't believe that "the barbarians are coming to kill them", but the blacksmiths are convinced.

How could Tribune Montagne order such crudely made weapons if it was not an urgent matter?

Under such suffocating circumstances, no one would care about the change of ownership of a forge - except for the great Goncharov.

Dagancha didn't know what happened.

Anyway, young Vinicius went to Gevaudan, and when he came back, all the procedures were completed smoothly.

Without a sound, the Vinicius family's forge had been traded to Shaosha, and the publicity, voting and other processes were all simplified.

Dagancha suffered a frustrating loss. After all, the nominal leader of the blacksmith guild is still Mr. Shaosha.

As for who is behind Shaosha? Dagancha can guess who it is with his knees.

At this moment, the man was standing in front of him.

"Lord Tribune." Dagangcha smiled carefully and said, "Three hundred stabbing maces and six hundred iron awls have been loaded on the truck."

"Not bad." The military tribune nodded.

The young military tribune was dressed in military uniform, holding a riding crop in his hand and a long sword on his waist. For some reason, Dagoncha felt a little out of breath.

"Thank you for the compliment, sir. I really can't take it... I don't take it seriously."

"Five of the seven forge masters ran away. They all took their families and hid in Gevaudan. Only your three brothers and Mr. Vinicius Jr. are willing to stay." The military tribune showed a smile: "

You are really good, I hope I can use you again in the future."

Cold sweat broke out on Dagancha's forehead, and his spine was also chilly. He didn't feel relieved until he walked very far.

Winters had no intention of knocking Da Goncha, but the latter performed well, so he reminded him casually.

As for what Dagoncha thinks, that is Dagoncha's business. Winters has no control over it and doesn't care.

In the square of Forge Township, a convoy was ready to go, and the troop responsible for escorting it was Tamas's first company.

"There is no need to save horsepower, the sooner it can be sent to Lieutenant Bard, the better. Tell Lieutenant Bard that this is the first batch, and there will be a steady stream of them sent over later." Winters told Tamas: "When we get there,

Leave the cart horses there and bring back the horses that have been scattered among the farms.”

"Yes!" Tamas saluted heavily.

Winters fixed the helmet on the first company commander and sighed: "Don't embarrass me again."

Tamas felt so wronged that his nose felt sore, and he saluted again: "Yes!"

…

Just this afternoon, the first company commander was severely criticized by Winters in public.

If it were not for the inconvenience of changing the order at will due to the new organization, First Company Commander Tamas would now be Twelfth Company Commander Tamas.

Because after Winters personally inspected it, he found that the ration preparation situation of each company was a mess.

In particular, a short soldier from the first company brought a piece of bread, which was far from the standard of "two weeks".

Slightly fermented dough has been baked twice. It is light and does not take up space. It is military food. A fluffy food like bread cannot even be considered dry food.

Winters doesn't take care of the soldiers, he takes care of the company commanders, especially the first company commander.

According to legion tradition, the order of each company is closely related to its combat effectiveness. The first company has the strongest combat effectiveness, so it is the first company.

Upon inspection, the first company's preparations for war were the worst.

On the contrary, Second Company Commander Bart Schalling did a very good job.

On average, each person in the Second Company carried three and a half weeks' worth of dry food, and there was no situation where "some soldiers had more soldiers and some had fewer soldiers", which was extremely commendable.

Winters took out a Gold Cross on the spot and hung it on the flag of the second company.

[Note: Andre’s one and Winters’ two have been melted down]

…

"Okay." Winters waved his hand: "Let's go."

Tamas mounted his horse, raised his hand in salute again, and rode away.

Winters watched the carriage rumble out of Forge Country until the convoy disappeared behind the curtain of night.

He could not allocate troops to Bard, not even a company.

Tiefeng County is bounded by a river. If there are sufficient troops or a fleet of ships, then the best strategy is obviously to defend along the river.

However, he had neither soldiers nor fleets.

He had to clench his fingers tightly and punch the fire roaster hard on the bridge of the nose. Even the difference in strength of a ten-man team might affect the success or failure of this punch.

Therefore, he cannot allocate troops to Bard, and Bard and the refugee camp can only rely on themselves.

A one-armed middle-aged soldier stood behind Winters and watched all this silently.

The one-armed soldier asked softly: "If you don't give a single soldier, is it really possible for Lieutenant Bader to do that?"

"You have to do it if you can, and you have to do it if you don't." Winters was silent for a long time: "I trust Bud, and he trusts me."
To be continued...