After arriving in the mountainous area south of Vienna, Marin immediately sent people to log wood and set up tents. Then, Marin repeated the same trick and began to promote straw sandals in the entire array...

When I heard that dead grass could weave city shoes, all the newcomers who had just joined the "Black Cross" were curious. When comfortable and light straw sandals were worn, many people thought it was good, except for the three knights. After all, they are knight masters from major forces, and some of them wear leather shoes, so they naturally would not wear straw sandals like those civilians.

After the straw sandals were woven, they naturally trained in a queue. Marin did not hide his own secrets, and directly weaved the entire square formation into four groups (archers were marshaled separately), and conducted queue training. The first requirement of queue training was to let the soldiers distinguish left and right. Then, the recruits were surprised to find that the veterans asked them to take off their right-footed straw sandals...

"Shoes!" various team leaders shouted, and then the recruits stretched out their left foot forward.

"Foot!" The recruits fled back their left foot in panic and stretched out their bare right foot...

After repeating this, it took only 3 days for everyone to have a deep understanding of left and right. Of course, Marin asked the team leader to gradually start using "left" and "right" instead of instructions such as "shoes" and "foot". At the beginning, it still needs to be mixed.

The sand mixed with the emperor and the earl was not mixed in vain. When the recruits completely distinguished the left and right, the report on the quick training method of distinguishing the left and right was sent to the emperor and the earl's desks respectively...

"This Marin is still very smart. He even thought of such a strange idea. It seems that the effect is quite good..." Maximilian I was quite interested. So he printed this method into a booklet and distributed it to officers from the Habsburg family territory.

And the Earl of Hohenzollern was also very impressed:

"I didn't expect that such a small change would allow those stupid untouchables to distinguish the left and right so quickly? Ordinary officers may not be able to do it after spending a month." In this medieval era, where the cultural level was generally low, it was not easy to make it clear that the people could distinguish the left and right so simply.

In fact, the question of distinguishing the left and right seems to be a small problem. However, the outbreak of war is full of suddenness. If a group of new recruits are recruited, just a waste of time on distinguishing the left and right is a waste of time, which will greatly miss the opportunity for war.

You know, during the Napoleonic War, the French army mobilized troops, and the average training time was only about two weeks, and they would be dragged to the battlefield. If it took a month to distinguish the left and right, the daylily would have been cold...

Since the team was mixed with sand, Marin did not intend to expose all his knowledge. So, he gave up the agitation speech and deception he made every day when he first started training the 100 people, but instead turned to a stick drive.

Anyway, he is now a genuine Imperial officer, and it’s nothing to call new recruits. Unlike when he was the first, he just summoned 100 people temporarily. If those people were dissatisfied, they could leave at any time, and they could only coax them. Even if these Imperial new recruits were beaten, these people would generally not leave.

With the demonstration and help of the 100 veterans trained by Marin, these recruits also made rapid progress. After all, the power of role models is infinite. Marin had never trained soldiers before. The days when he trained the 100 veterans were difficult, and everything was exploring. Now, Schwartz and the 25 team leaders were both experienced in training. Moreover, Marin's training requirements were also reduced. Before, the 100 people had to run two 5 kilometers of cross-country every day, but now, these recruits only need 1 5 kilometers per day.

So, what the three knights sent by the emperor and the earl saw were Marin's old subordinates beating and abused the recruits...

Moreover, even if the new recruits wanted to resist, Marin was not afraid. His 100 veterans were much cunning than these new recruits. Under Marin's training, these veterans quickly formed a formation in battle, and had initially learned the "secret" of splitting and sieging and then fighting in groups. Even if the new recruits made trouble, they would not cause trouble together. At most, some of them were dissatisfied. And these people could not make waves at all.

In this way, Marin spent the whole month of March watching his old subordinates beat the recruits. But Tara and the kitchen squad he led brought many surprises to the soldiers.

Even the big pot dish that Marin couldn't stand was very delicious among the recruits, including the three knights. Tara and the others were very exaggerated in cooking, and they directly used engineer shovels to stir-fry, which made Marin's toothache. Fortunately, under Marin's strict requirements, Tara washed the engineer shovels before cooking. Moreover, the engineer shovels that had shoveled horse manure were absolutely not allowed to be used to cook.

In order to convince everyone, Marin also ate big pot dishes with everyone. Moreover, Marin trains the queue with everyone every morning. Only in the afternoon's 5 kilometers of off-roading will he be lazy.

Every day during the day, these recruits were tortured to death. In the middle of the night, they were also not relaxed. Once the birch whistle sounded, they had to gather quietly at the barracks door as quickly as possible. Therefore, everyone complained.

However, the group of veterans who had been accustomed to being abused by Marin were used to it. Even if they took off their clothes, they only took off their coats, and some simply did not take them off. Once they heard the whistle, they put on their shoes, put on their jackets and vests, and carried their spears to gather.

What surprised Marin was that night blindness seems to be rare in Europe. But when it comes to European recipes, Marin felt relieved. Europeans eat more meat, often drink milk and cheese. These are rich in vitamin A. Therefore, fewer Europeans suffer from night blindness. Therefore, there are not many problems when gathering in the middle of the night.

The information Marin trained was constantly sent to the emperor and the earl's desks. The two bigwigs' evaluation of Marin was a brutal officer who liked to abuse soldiers. However, he was very smart and could invent ways to quickly distinguish the left and right directions...

In addition, the straw sandals "invented" by Marin aroused great interest from the emperor. Because the emperor found that straw sandals were very cost-effective. For a poor emperor like him, saving money was definitely very attractive to him. The Earl of Hohenzollern was a pure officer and was not so sensitive to the function of straw sandals.

When Marin abused the recruits, the Italian side was in trouble. The French pushed forward all the way on the Apennine Peninsula and directly occupied Naples, one of the five major Italian powers (Papal State, the Republic of Venice, Florence, the Principality of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples), and did not encounter much resistance.

The French's crushing attitude frightened the Italian states. The powerful Italian rulers led by Venice, the Pope and the Principality of Milan (Florence was also made similar to a vassal state by France). You should know that Florence and Naples are both one of the five major powers in Italy. Unexpectedly, these two Italian powers were destroyed by the French.

Moreover, to the shame of the pope, the French army entered Rome and forced the pope to crown Charles VIII as the king of Naples. It was obvious that this was a force of force, not a pledge of the pope.

In the whole of Italy, only Venice and Milan were not attacked by the French army. In fact, this was because the French had clear goals and went south directly, ignoring the Principality of Milan and the Republic of Venice.

In order to prevent the French from destroying themselves next, Venice, the Pope and the Principality of Milan formed a self-protection alliance - the "Sacred Alliance".

While forming an alliance, the Three Kingdoms also sent envoys to invite the traditional French enemy, the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain, to join this alliance.

In fact, whether it is the Holy Roman Empire or Spain, they are very dissatisfied with the French annexation of the Kingdom of Naples and control of Florence.

France itself is very powerful. If Italy, which is the richest in Europe (Italian agriculture and commerce, ranked first in Europe at this time), has more sufficient financial transfusions, Shinra and Spain will face the dilemma of being beaten by France.

For this reason, Shinra and Spain responded positively. However, Shinra's poor emperor Maximilian I was a little reluctant because of lack of money. But seeing that the French successfully controlled Naples without any casualties, Maximilian I put down his reserve and soon joined the "Sacred Alliance" aimed at opposing France's invasion of Italy.

In April, the Holy Roman Empire gathered 1,000 heavy cavalry and 10,000 infantry, including Marin's "Black Cross" and began to cross the Albis Mountains, head to Venice, Italy, and meet with the Venetians.

Venice, the Principality of Milan and the Pope also began to recruit local Italian mercenaries and some Swiss mercenaries. Spain's controller Ferdinand II (the husband of King Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castilla), also began to recruit troops in the country.

Spain is the least prepared among the several countries, because they are the farthest from Italy. Moreover, Spain is divided into two countries - Aragon and Castile. The Kingdom of Aragon, which is close to Italy, is very active in getting involved in the Italian war. Because King Ferdinand II of Aragon is more visionary and knows that they cannot sit idly by and watch the French be strong. However, the nobles of the Kingdom of Castile are more opposed to breaking up with France. They are worried that if the intervention fails, the war may be burned to the border between the West and France. But Ferdinand II insists that the failure of so many countries is certain that the French will fail and will no longer have the ability to fight back.

Moreover, not only the five countries participating in the alliance, but other Italian countries, saw that the "Sacred Alliance" was powerful, they also changed their minds and joined them, expressing their willingness to send troops to participate in the war. It seemed that the situation was very good.
Chapter completed!