"Eh..? No No, there is no need to worry, The three of them are fine, I think... There has been no detailed report about them lately, but if something happened to them, we would certainly have been informed because their relationship with you is well known..." Mile hesitated a little and then replied.
"Unsure of their condition? What exactly is going on there...?" Confusion began to appear on Robin's face
"How can I tell you this... The Burton family's army there at first was about 25,000, but now, after nearly half a year of battles, their number has dropped to become about 14,000, even after sending many reinforcements the numbers are still decreasing..."
"Wh- WHAT..?! This isn't just a small rebellion being quelled, this is a total war!!" Robin stood terrified.
"Technically it is… We're talking about an area of half a duchy with tens of millions of citizens! There are too few soldiers there to try to subdue that number and control such a vast piece of land,
every city the Burton army invades and subjugates, they leave behind a small garrison before they move on to the next city, but the people of that city would attack the garrison as soon as the main body of the army leaves! So we would lose troops is the invading process, and with the death of the garrisons, and still can't hold to what we put our hand on...
the people of Dolivar have enjoyed their independence for thousands of years and have a pride that reaches the sky, they just can not stand the idea of submission under another kingdom by force."
Robin sat quietly for a few moments after hearing this, "... Really a problem, if the verse turns and Dolivar occupies our lands, the people will do the same as well... I think that this is one of the main reasons that made controlling an occupied land by force for an extended period very difficult... But even though, from where do they get the organization and sufficient armament to confront our army and kill such a number of our soldiers?!"
Mila shook her head, "We don't know, the territory is extremely vast and we can't monitor everything that is going on, they're obviously getting help but we don't know how or where..."
"If it continues like this..." Robin muttered to himself, and then remained silent...
The old man and the little girl finally brought the ordered dishes.
After a few minutes, Robin ate with the two girls in an absent-minded silence, then put ten gold coins on the table and stood up to leave.
"Hmm? Uncle, that's too much, twenty silver coins are enough." The little girl was surprised when she saw how much Robin had put on the table and hurried to tell him
The child's innocence put him out of his bad mood for a moment and he smiled, "This food is worth a lot more than ten gold coins, you should help your grandfather and keep the restaurant open until next time I come, okay?" Then he turned and headed towards the door, which was still crowded with people
This time, in no mood to walk among them slowly, he rushed straight towards the Burton Family's administrative zone
Leaving hundreds of people besieging the small restaurant as if it were a temple...
Robin didn't know that with those words he spontaneously said to the girl, the fate of this little family would forever change.
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The Burton family administration zone- the patriarch's office building
*knock knock*
"Robin, the guards told me you are coming. Get in, get in." The patriarch's voice came from behind the door
Robin entered directly and with Mila and Zara, he found the Patriarch, Billy, and Saint Edward also in the office!
Robin furrowed his eyebrow slightly, "That does not seem right...what brings the three of you together here?"
Robin came to inquire more clearly about the situation in the new lands from the patriarch personally, but seeing three saints gathered in this way means that something big is going on...
"Haha, there is no problem here. Don't worry, we were just having a little chat about the batch of soldiers we will send to the new lands in the coming period." Billy chuckled and spoke directly.
The Patriarch nodded, "During the past months we have been sending a few hundred of our old soldiers every few weeks, but this obviously did not work very well for us... so we have decided to send the legion that General Edward has trained since he arrived."
"I told you this won't work! It is true that there are currently 50,000 soldiers under training and I have taught them the main formations, but they haven't even completed 5 months of training yet,
Secondly, they do not have any categorized armaments, and they are not equipped with any talismans! What is the difference between this and sending citizens to the battlefield?!" Saint Edward shouted, obviously the conversations weren't going well before Robin entered
Robin came forward and sat with them, looking puzzled, " wait a minute, I understand that there are no talismans yet because Zara is making them for sale for the nobles and not large quantities for wars, But what were you saying about armaments? Second, is gathering 50 thousand Soldiers that easy? why didn't we do it before...?"
"Noble Robin, the number of those who can carry weapons is never a problem, even your previous small lands accommodates a couple of millions of citizens.
the soldiers need food for themselves and some money to send to their wives and children to be able to live when they are serving in the army, no offense here, but your family was very poor and they couldn't raise enough money to spend on the food of a medium army, forget about giving money to the families of those soldiers!
Only recently, The Burton family's treasury began to recover a little after the spoils of war, the money you brought with you from Sage Albert, and the auction profits, so now your family can afford a bigger army.
Regarding your other question, good categorized weapons and armors, shields and bows, can not be found thrown in the streets! Rather, noble families make them, buy them, or even take them from the arsenals of other families after annihilating and looting them... it's a long process that takes a lot of time
We were not able to loot any significant equipment in the recent war, All armament with the dead enemies left behind was Basically in tatters, and what we have gained from the personal arsenals of the barons and Viscount Setina does not even make up for what we have lost.
The point is that good weapons and armor that have a category (low - medium - high ) accumulate over thousands of years in noble families, and it is one of the most important factors for winning wars between armies under the realm of knighthood...
Imagine two people of the same level but a person carrying a wooden shield and skinny sword riding an ordinary horse, against another who wears full metal armor and a low-categorized sword and rides a warhorse, what will happen? One-sided massacre!
Basically, the Burton family did not have a good stock of weapons and armor and even horses, the war 13 years ago wiped out a large part of them, and the war against Dolivar also destroyed a huge part, and is still destroying them as we speak...
All the Burton family's stock of these resources has almost run out, a large part of the Soldiers of the Burton family army in the New Territories hold easy-to-break weapons and wooden shields, and there are only less than 500 war horses left!
As you can see, these types of equipment are a problem for the main forces there, so what about the new forces that I am training? Of course, you can give them garbage to fight with and go to die as long as you don't care about the lives of your kin and affiliates, but what's the point in my training then?!" General Edward was visibly agitated.
"what? categorized armaments are that scarce? but I remember that Caesar bought a high-level halberd in Bradley's pearl city with 100 gold coins!" Robin's allowance before was 20 gold coins monthly, so the weapon was worth a 5-month allowance of that of genius in a noble family... something that no ordinary citizen can hope for...
but still, something that can be bought with money shouldn't be scarce!
Billy shook his head "Those weapons are most likely worn out in battles before and are sold to raise funds for the family, or maybe a soldier stole or found one in a battle field and secretly sold it, or maybe some random knight wanted to make money so he made some trash to fool the youngsters, all in all, the categorized are no easy to find, especially real medium and high categorized weapons and different armaments can never be sold in a random store in the street, and are absolutely not that cheap!"
Robin was stunned for a minute before nodding, he always pondered on how that Remus guy broke Caesar's *high categorized* halberd to three pieces!!