So. What did he have at the moment from human resources? One hundred well-armed soldiers and ten neophytes. Not much. True, he had another hundred and fifty servants, among whom more than half were artisans. But letting servants into battle is stupid, although it is often practiced. In the war that he wants to start, he obviously lacks resources, quantitatively. And this needs to be somehow compensated, first of all by improving the quality of general training and equipment. Therefore, within a week he, with the forces of his servants, unfolded a very decent sports ground, on which he drove all his soldiers. The guys were at least experienced, but they did not follow very much themselves, and therefore they needed to be brought into tonus. And in general - the training has not prevented anyone. In addition to a complex of general developing and strengthening exercises on the bar and bars, the guys ran, and decently - every day for five miles, and once in five days - fifteen miles. This 15-mile race took place in the equipment, that is, in armor, with weapons and some supply of provisions. An important gap in the preparation of his detachment was that they were able to fight normally only in equestrian order. Therefore, with them the drill was begun - the development of the column and square. This in our time, drill training has a practical purpose, close to zero, for its real useful use is limited to parades. During the same contact battle from the ability of fighters to keep the construction depended on their lives. So, in addition to the development of personal physical qualities, his fighters developed in terms of traditional drill. In truth, it is not quite traditional, because our hero seriously diversified it by the fact that when working off the column he divided people into two equal parts, built them against each other and set the task to push opponents off the site. Thus, he developed the pressure of the column as the main attacking infantry formation. It must crush the enemy's constructions, break them, like a hammer blow breaks the shell. The training was so intense that the guys just fell from their feet after the lights out, and therefore slept soundly, happy sleep. He began to prepare his army, and therefore needed a charter. In his army there were already officers who ruled the spontaneous groups. This is wrong, because if the number of troops increases even more, it will be very difficult to deal with management. For his troops, he installed a uniform in the form of a cotta that was long in the middle of the thigh and without sleeves, standard colors. The composition of the cottages was simple - in front and behind it was cut into four sections with a vertical and horizontal line exactly in the center. In front of the painting of the squares was the following - white, red, white, red, in order from top to bottom and from left to right, from the back - inverted. Red was chosen a bright scarlet shade. At the intersection of these four sections, the Baron's coat of arms, both from the front and from behind, was sewn. In the left upper section of the chest, on a white field, an improvised badge in the form of a white diamond with a black border was sewn. The rhombus was divided by a horizontal line in half. Above it was a Latin number denoting the number of the company, from the bottom - a Latin letter denoting the rank. In the statute, he envisaged the following system of organization and ranks for the army. The basis of the organization was miles, that is, a warrior. His badge on the chase is the letter "m". From three to six such comrades were united in a group headed by a millet with the designation "p". The four groups were united in a platoon headed by a sergeant, marked with the rank "s". Three to six platoons were united in a company, she was commanded by a lieutenant, on the patch of which the letter "l" flaunted. From three to six mouths was reduced to a battalion under the captain's cap, bearing the letter "k". There were no plans for larger units in his army, but it was easy to deploy further. The scheme was equivalent to any kind of troops, be it infantry or cavalry. From his people, he formed a company, the head of which was Rudolph. The next step in streamlining his military improvisation was the regulation of the patrol and guard service. As in the campaign, and on vacation, his army must have round-the-clock security in order to reduce the chance of occurrence of excesses to a minimum. In addition to replenishing the letters of the charter, a schedule was drawn up, according to which the platoons of his company were on duty. At the gate of the courtyard was installed a booth with a permanent post, there was also placed a room for a resting part of the guard. On the territory of his possessions were laid routes and established the regularity of their passage. Therefore, every new day, with dawn, a new platoon was on duty, which provided protection of the perimeter from strangers. The rest of the units were completely focused on training.
Such a congestion of people required appropriate measures, first of all hygienic. Therefore, for each person who was in his subordination, at least three identical sets of clothes were sewn, which he gave before going to bed, getting a new one. The delivered set was washed, dried and left to be ventilated. In addition, every third day, before going to bed, the entire staff, regardless of who he was and what he was doing, went through bath procedures, where he was thoroughly washed and shaved. As for shaving, it was introduced very extensively. Men were shaved head and armpits, and women had armpits and genitals. And this procedure went through all without exception. Water procedures, except for a bath, were used very widely - morning washing, washing of hands and the face before reception of nutrition, washing before a dream. At first, of course, the people whined and yelped from laziness and self-pity, but slowly got involved and after a couple of months considered such behavior a norm, albeit unusual. Of course, so that the comrades did not consider such measures as tyranny, active explanatory work was conducted with them. The same situation was with the food that was organized in the common dining room. There was established a kind of kosher, in particular, before cooking only fresh and thoroughly washed products were allowed, as well as filtered water. The basis of the diet was fresh vegetables and meat in a boiled or well-fried form. And mostly without bread. Every morning an oatmeal served on milk with pieces of fruit was served. Once a week served boiled rice, brought from afar, and therefore very expensive. Drank milk, juices and a weak grape wine. And they lived like that. For those times their food was very chic. Eric did not spare money to bring his people to tone, and nutrition was one of the most important components of this process. It is worth noting that not only soldiers were well-fed, but also servants, who also did not pass the fate of forced sports, so that they would not become obese. Every day he drove them all away for ten miles, true, light and not fast. Strongly load them did not make sense, for they would get tired. And the workers needed him to the extreme, because he developed a stormy activity, including construction and production.
The construction campaign concerned first of all the preparation of a shooting range, where active collective classes will begin at the end of the summer. Production was much more extensive - from sewing underwear to making armor and ammunition. In terms of armor, it was generally something grandiose. In addition to the fact that he himself had eight blacksmiths, he contracted in addition almost all local people who carried out orders for him for certain details. The task he set for himself was to pack all his troops in reliable armor. The simplest solution was the manufacture of brigandine. That the device of this armor was not disclosed, he ordered the foreign smith exclusively details, and the same type, according to the template, and the assembly was already in the yard of the farmstead, far from the eyes of others. For the basis was taken Brigandine type I, which was to be worn on chain mail and aketon. How was it done in conditions of such a low level of technology? Yes, very simply - from the inside of a tightly quilted base of coarse linen cloth riveted large iron lap plates. The belly was covered with six plates running across. The breast was covered with three plates, which stood upright. The back was formed by a group of 16 vertical plates that covered it up to the shoulder blades, and three vertical plates that covered the area between the blades. The thickness of the plates is about a millimeter in average. Nothing complicated, but the scope of work was very respectable - there were about two hundred similar sets to be made. Alas, but this was not limited to the front of the armor work, as it was necessary to make still another type of closed helmets, simple shoulder pads and legguards in large numbers. With a helmet, he did not become wimpy, continuing the production of potchelm, since they are not bad at all. And it was the best, in fact, what can be done from that disgusting material with which to work. The only serious revision was that the helmet was mounted a suspension of the "parachute" type, which is a mesh that is fastened at eight points along the perimeter. This allowed to put the helmet on the balaclava not close to the metal, but holding it on the elastic retainer. Of course, the strap for fixing the chin was introduced. It was necessary, because the experience of exploitation simply required such refinement. Shoulders were not that easy. Actually these were the only parts that had to be pulled into the cup-shaped form. They were made exclusively on the territory of the farmstead. Legguards were tire, that is, long vertical strips are collected by butt on a quilted base. The lower part of the leopard protruded slightly downward, in order to protect the knee. As for ammunition, the campaign was divided into two parts. The first part made crossbow bolts, twisting the poles on a simple, improvised lathe with a drive from the foot. And the second part consisted in a massive contract of local rockets, which, according to the pattern, were to cut diamonds from granite about five centimeters in diameter. The weight of these balls was slightly less than two hundred grams. They were preparing for the training of those hiroballist that will be made closer to winter, and since the work on grinding balls is long, the order was made in advance. It was important to get for each car three hundred - four hundred shots, that is, a thousand - one and a half balls. The price of this round pleasure was obtained in the region of eight marks - per denarius per core. Returning to the bolts, I would like to note that they were ground from dried maple blanks and equipped with a rigid plumage and a trihedral tip, which was fastened to the shaft by means of a rather long bushing. It was impossible to drive the tip, so as not to destroy the shaft, so a channel was drilled under the bushing, in which fixation took place by means of joinery glue. The shaft itself had a kind of spindle-like shape, which in the second part sharply thinened, passing into the feathering zone. Immediately after the end of the basic installation, the raw version was sent for balancing and final polishing. After finishing machining, the bolt was covered with varnish in order to protect it from excessive influence of moisture and temperature. The layer of varnish was applied by two thin layers with intermediate polishing. For the manufacture of bolts, a primitive conveyor with a division of labor was organized, and as a result, 100 highly-executed ammunition, each weighing 50 grams each, were delivered every week to the warehouse. Thus, Erik spent his first two months in Constantinople in works and cares.