After Arina and her knights parted ways with us, I began to realize my own mistakes and reconsider my place in this world.
If not for sheer coincidence, if Elena and her men had not been present when the second attack happened, countless people might have been killed. Turns out, beastman attacks were far more frequent than I had expected. I also now understood that a random noble could appear at any time with an army and attack me for their own personal vendetta, like Arina. I also knew, now without any doubt that wyverns existed, from a skeleton in my dining room.
So in conclusion, this world was fucking dangerous.
In the end, I decided that a true army reformation must begin now, not later. No more conscripting temporary levies, but a real professional army of soldiers armed with proper weapons and armor. And every domestic issue still lingering within my domain must be dealt with in parallel as well, in quick succession—aka, within just one month, before I travel to Venetia.
----
Firstly, on the matter of Bureaucracy.
I deployed a strategy best described as finding a random, empty, abandoned warehouse in the middle of the city, putting a big "City Hall" sign on the front, and calling it a day. I reassigned maids and butlers who had previously served as personal caretakers to my passed relative straight into bureaucratic front-desk roles.
Surprisingly, it worked quite well.
They were already accustomed to handling menial administrative tasks, as my relative had frequently burdened them with such duties in the past. As a result, they could efficiently collect and categorize data on most matters within the city, including population numbers, unemployment, crime statistics, and other civic records.
They archived daily complaints from townsfolk pleading for my attention, organizing them numerically based on how many complaints each issue received, allowing problems to be addressed in order of urgency rather than volume of shouting.
They could also plan and organize public projects remarkably well. This was likely because most of them knew every corner of the city like the backs of their own hands, having been born and raised here after all.
Yet their most impressive capability turned out to be tax administration.
They collected taxes, issued tax notices, and categorized how much was actually received, allowing corruption among tax collectors to be rooted out efficiently. Those found guilty would subsequently, with the approval of the baron, be sent straight to the newly opened coal mines as forced labor.
----
Secondly, on the matter of Hygiene.
I went fully draconian and passed the "Public Hygiene Safety Act", a law that clearly stated the following:
1.Food workers and barbers are forbidden from using rusty or dirty tools.
2.Food must be inspected before sale.
3.Rotten food found for sale shall be seized and burned.
4.Grain storage must be raised off the ground.
5.Rats and vermin must be exterminated.
6.All water wells must be covered with lids.
7.Latrines are mandatory in every village center and household, and ash or lime must be added weekly.
8.Drinking water must be drawn upstream from latrines.
9.Washing animals in drinking streams is forbidden.
10.Dead animals may not be thrown into streams or rivers.
11.All citizens must bathe at least once per week.
and about thirty other rules.
Anyone who failed to follow these rules and regulations would be sent straight to the pillory for public humiliation. Serial offenders, or those actively promoting rejection of the laws with ill intent, would, with the approval of the baron, be sent directly to the newly opened coal mines until they complied, regardless of gender, excluding minors.
Those who violated the law with intent to cause harm or terror—such as throwing dead animals into drinking water, poisoning food with lethal substances, deliberately using rusty or dirty tools as food workers or barbers after repeated warnings, or selling rotten food while resisting enforcement with force—would, with the approval of the baron, be publicly executed by guillotine, excluding minors.
----
Thirdly, on the matter of industry.
I went all in.
The coal must be mined.The iron must be extracted and smelted into armaments.At any cost, for the sake of my people.
I pursued this goal through a step-by-step method, building a well-oiled manufacturing machine from nothing.
Firstly, I utilized my already existing woodworking industry to produce large numbers of prefabricated living huts. These were placed en masse near the three hills, forming crude settlements resembling small villages. Their numbers were calculated precisely according to unemployment data gathered by City Hall.
They were cheap, small, thin-walled, and poorly insulated, built solely as temporary living spaces. Comfort was not the goal. Survival was.
Secondly, I assembled a labor force from the unfortunate and the desperate, promising them wealth, food, drink, and most importantly, "better tomorrow" in the form of their own small plot of land to the north, if they could fulfill their own contract.
In exchange, they would have to endure the horrors of the coal and iron mines, hellishly long work shifts, brutally short rest periods, and the near-total absence of safety protocols. Proper tools and modern equipment simply did not exist in this era. Accidents were inevitable.
Thirdly, the raw iron ore would be transformed into a sea of wrought iron within facilities housing gardens of bloomery furnaces erected near the hills.
Working conditions there were guaranteed to be just as dangerous as the mines. Smoke choking air, Sweat draining heat, Visibility was so poor it's violate every OSHA protocols. It's simply happen because I could not construct more advanced or safer furnace designs due to limitations in cost, resources, and time. Perfection was a luxury I could not afford.
Fourthly and finally, iron would be cast into ingots in effectively unlimited quantities and stored in secure, secret locations. There would be no quotas and no restraint for "Nature/Environment" sake, for since I was transmigrated into this world, I haven't seen even a slight bit of kindness in mother nature, just pure malice and pain.
Instead, I foresaw infinite demand of weapons, armor, tools, infrastructure, and further industrial development. To be thrown in the face of whatever mother nature sends to exterminate me and my people.
And that was the extent of my iron industry.
The foundation upon which all other industries would rise in the near future.
----
Lastly came the matter of the army. It was the most important reform of all, and by far the one that demanded the greatest organization and planning.
I completely discarded the traditional "levies led by knights" model of medieval warfare entirely. In its place, I set out to create a force of highly trained, well-disciplined, and tightly coordinated "professional soldiers", motivated not by feudal obligation, but by pay, pride, and right to have their own live to live.
To my surprise, it was not difficult.
My flawless victory at the First Battle of Farville had elevated my reputation among the common folk to something bordering on the divine. In their eyes, I had become a strategist chosen by fate, a man who would lead them to victory with a perfect record. The notion was ridiculous from my perspective. All I had done was copy Jan Žižka's homework and improvise just enough to make it fits situation and terrain.
Had anything gone wrong in that battle, the defeat would have been catastrophic. Luck, more than genius, had carried the day.
In the end, I gathered roughly one hundred men.
Every single one of them was drilled relentlessly in discipline and cohesion, trained primarily by John, and occasionally by Elena. I preferred John's instruction. Whenever Elena appeared, troop focus plummeted for reasons that required no investigation.
They were trained first in standard pike wall formations, again and again, until muscle memory replaced thought.
Then came trench warfare. They learned to dig complex networks of trenches, how to connect them, how to defend them, and how to maneuver through them under pressure.
Formation drills followed, increasingly intricate and increasingly punishing.
Finally, I introduced something that made no sense to them at all.
Dry-firing drills.
Each soldier was issued a wooden staff shaped roughly like a rifle and drilled relentlessly in coordinated movements, aiming, spacing, and timing. They did not understand the purpose, nor did I explain it.
They would understand next year, assuming everything proceeded according to the plan that existed only inside my head, for obvious security reasons.
----
And so, when the month came to an end and winter's white veil finally began to recede, my path turned southward.
Toward the great independent city-state of Venetia.
To meet my so-called "Viper" friend, alongside my newly acquired "Lion" and "Bear" friends.
The board was set.The pieces were moving.