Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The next step was simple: he distributed land to the soldiers' families, along with farming tools, draft horses, and seeds.

He needn't worry about the rest — did peasants need him to teach them how to farm?

Lonely soldiers looked on enviously as other soldiers waved their arms frantically to their families.

They dared not call out because military discipline restrained them.

"Don't hold back!" Winters ordered loudly, "Shout it out!"

There was silence in the ranks at first.

"Jenna!" Suddenly, a soldier cried out for his wife.

In an instant, countless names were flung in all directions.

The soldiers' families also called out their names; some women covered their faces and wept, while soldiers surreptitiously wiped away tears.

"Dad!" Tamas shouted to the sky, "Mom!"

The soldiers watched as the Centurion yelled himself hoarse, but few knew that Tamas's parents were no longer of this world.

The Iron Peak County Infantry reformed on the dirt road amid the fields, watched by the families of soldiers.

Winters read out the "Twenty Hectare Decree" to everyone.

The decree was straightforward: modeled on Dusack's land grant system, each male was granted twenty hectares, serving a term of seven years;

Achieve merit, and the term of service is reduced;

Gain promotion, and be granted more land;

If killed in action, the land is directly inherited by family members;

Show cowardice, desert, or violate military discipline, and, in addition to punishment, land grants are partially to completely revoked depending on the severity.

Afterward, Xial and Heinrich distributed three silver shields to each soldier along with a deed.

"Three silver shields, that's your first term of military pay. On the paper, the complete 'Twenty Hectare Decree' is printed."

Winters rode slowly past the front of the column, inspecting his troops again: "From today on, you are my soldiers. As long as I am alive, as long as I haven't been defeated, this land is yours, and no one can take it away!"

The soldiers of Iron Peak County Infantry looked at Commander Montaigne, each with a different expression.

Winters didn't expect to turn peasants into warriors in the blink of an eye; they would need tempering.

Only through tempering could they be transformed from raw iron into weapons.

Winters also didn't expect to win the soldiers' loyalty immediately with the "Twenty Hectares."

Only when the soldiers sweated on their own plots of land, only when they walked the furrows with a plow, only when they personally harvested the heavy heads of wheat.

Only then could he truly earn their loyalty.

Winters was well aware that if he failed, all this would vanish like smoke in the air.

He had to erect an enemy, turn the enemy into something like a "person" but not a "person."

This was a skill Winters learned from the White Lion, a cruel yet realistic Machiavellian tactic.

"The land, I have given it to you," Winters took a deep breath, his voice demanded an answer, "But what if someone disagrees, what then?!"

"If someone wants to snatch your land back from your hands, what then?!"

"If someone wants to turn you back into serfs, hired hands, tenants, what then?!"

"Will you agree to hand over the land again?"

"We won't agree!!!" Tamas shouted loudly.

"Only you disagree?" Winters sneered, "What about the rest of you? Are you all spineless, deserving to be bullied? Oppressed? Doomed to be laborers generation after generation?"

"We won't agree!" the soldiers began to speak.

"I can't hear you."

"We won't agree!!" the soldiers raised their voices.

"I! Can't! Hear! You!"

"We won't agree!!!" The newly independent freehold farmers yelled at the top of their lungs.

"Good," Winters lifted his riding crop, "Then follow me into battle! Defend everything you have gained today! The devils that come to seize your land, slay them all!"