Then half a month passed, and this martial arts tournament officially began.
There was a lot of traffic in King's Landing, and people who had nothing to do and wanted to watch the excitement rushed towards the venue of the tournament.
"It finally begins!"
"I heard that Her Majesty the Queen will attend the event today with her two princes and princesses."
The crowd was noisy and chattering non-stop, and the venue for the tournament was set up in King's Landing City, located outside the 'First Ring' city wall to within the 'Second Ring' city wall, on a piece of land newly developed by the empire.
This is actually the venue for the tourney during King Robert's time.
Because Junlin has undergone three expansions, the external land resources are abundant, and there is no shortage of land resources and high land resources like the inner city.
Therefore, after municipal planning, a school ground large enough to accommodate ten thousand people was rebuilt in advance on the original site where King Robert held the tournament. It will be used to host a series of large-scale events such as victory parades and tournaments in the future. It will be used as a competition venue on weekdays.
Open to the outside world.
And the first time it played a real role was to host this tournament.
"Set off!"
"I must come back with a victory today!"
Knights from all over the country are gearing up and preparing to show off their skills in the tournament with great interest.
"Lord Dickon Tarly is extremely brave and will definitely achieve a good result."
"Don't talk too much."
A group of knights from the Reach gathered together to chat. The young heir to Horn Hill heard the compliments of his companions and shook his head humbly. Then he couldn't help but turn his head and look behind him.
His eldest brother Samwell Tarly actually disapproved of his younger brother competing for the spot in the Kingsguard because it was very dangerous, but Dickon didn't think so.
My father disappeared on the battlefield. He was neither alive nor dead. I once thought about it, but after so many years there was no news, this thought was discontinued. Randyll Tarly should have transformed under the dragon's flames.
Fly ash.
With the fall of the famous general in the Reach, the eldest brother Samwell inherited the position of Earl of Horn Hill with the support of his mother. The Tully family of Horn Hill slowly declined. Living up to its former glory, the family's private soldiers
Many have also been laid off.
But the eldest brother, Samwell Tarly, ignored it and concentrated on studying books. He obtained the maester's link. In the past, if you obtained the maester's link, you would have to give up your secular title, but now the city has been demolished.
Once they are separated, the previous rules will naturally disappear.
Therefore, Dickon saw it in his eyes and was anxious in his heart. He must take up the responsibility and restore the glory of the family. This time, competing for the spot in the Kingsguard is the best opportunity.
"Will definitely win!"
Then the burly young knight slightly clenched his fists, cheered himself up, and thought to himself.
Because this tournament is to select the Kingsguard, which requires both loyalty and bravery, the threshold for participating in the tournament is set at knight level and above, and only members of noble families can participate.
Loyalty is more important than martial arts. Some high-level mercenaries and wandering knights are not qualified to participate in this martial arts tournament.
However, even so, the number of people in this tournament has broken the previous record. The maximum number of people in the tournament held during King Robert's time was only one or two hundred people.
This time, the threshold was limited to knights, but more than a thousand knights and noble members came from all over the country.
There are even some lords from one place, who don't want to be good nobles, but come to compete for the spot in the Kingsguard.
The same goes for the knights who can become village chiefs in the outside world. They can dominate in the countryside, but when they come to King's Landing, they find that there are more knights than dogs. A brick thrown can hit three knights.
.
The main reason for this phenomenon is that Viserys lowered the threshold for knights. During the war to conquer Westeros, he sent out many knights' titles in batches to boost morale.
And he did this not only to boost morale, but also to dilute the power of the nobility.
Therefore, a tournament to select the Kingsguard is now held in King's Landing, and thousands of knights have gathered from all over the country.
And if there are so many people fighting two by two, they will fight for who knows how long. Therefore, the first audition of this martial arts tournament is a group battle.
There is a competition for every fifty people, divided into two camps. Twenty-five people in each camp are randomly selected and then freely choose weapons. They are all wooden blunt spears, long swords, wooden bows and arrows, and you can even choose to ride a horse.
Although these wooden weapons cannot completely prevent the occurrence of casualties, participating in a martial arts competition actually requires you to be prepared for injury or even death. Wooden weapons can already minimize casualties and protect the knights participating in the competition.
The number of fifty people is actually considered. In addition to ensuring the efficiency of the audition, we must also try our best to ensure that individual abilities shine on the team battlefield. Otherwise, it will violate the original intention of this tournament.
In a battlefield of twenty-five versus twenty-five, it doesn’t matter whether it’s too much or too little. Knights with strong personal abilities still have the opportunity to single-handedly lead the team to break out of the siege and defeat the opponent.
Otherwise, if the scale of the battlefield expands and becomes a group battle of fifty people versus fifty people, or even a hundred people versus a hundred people, then no matter how powerful the knight is, even the rebirth of Arthur Dayne, the Sword of Dawn, will not be able to survive.
Unable to change the battlefield situation, knights with extremely strong personal abilities may be buried in the team competition.
Therefore, after considering the above considerations, as well as the need to take into account the efficiency of the audition and not delay the audition for too long, the team battle was finally determined to be a battlefield for fifty people.
Today, more than a thousand imperial knights need to hold more than 20 group battles in total. On average, about five games can be held every day, and it takes four to five days to complete the audition.
As the name suggests, auditions are meant to weed out many people, and a group competition of four to five days is enough to weed out more than half of the people.
Because injuries or even death are inevitable in team battles, and some people will choose to quit midway even if they win. After eliminating more than 500 people, there are about 500 knights left.
The number of these five hundred people is still too much, so a team competition must be used to filter out half of the people.
However, the second team competition will not continue to use the fifty-person battlefield, but will be reduced to a twenty-person team competition, and a ten-person versus ten-person competition.
In this way, you can maximize your personal strength without being affected by the level of your teammates.
The twenty-five rounds of the second round of the team competition also required several days of competition. Counting injured players and players who abandoned the competition, there were probably more than 200 knights left in the end.
These more than 200 knights have entered the finals and participated in the real martial arts competition. At that time, they will be assessed from three aspects: horse fighting, foot fighting and archery, and the top ten with the best overall results will be selected.
The imperial royal family will then select a place in the Kingsguard from these ten people, taking into account loyalty, bravery, responsibility and force, regardless of ranking.
The Kingsguard does not necessarily have to be a champion, but loyalty is more important. Although there are currently five places, it is better to be short than to waste. If there is no suitable candidate, I would rather give up than stuff them in to fill the number.