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I brought Lugh back to the City Lord’s mansion, to be more accurate, the new City Lord’s mansion.

I naturally abandoned that broken down, dilapidated City Lord mansion; I didn’t want that thing. I brought Aleya and Felita with me and we moved into Pierce’s residence. In any case, the house owner was already dead, so this couldn’t be called occupying another’s home. At best, it could be considered confiscating an ownerless home.

After sitting down, I first asked him several indirect inquiries to make sure that he wasn’t a spy from another territory.

Doing this is actually a bit superfluous, but it’s still necessary in my opinion. After all, this is the first ever army that I’ll be organizing in West-Resisting City. If the army leader is a traitor, then I might as well give up the army. But facts proved that due to how weak I appeared in other people’s eyes, there simply were no undercover agents hidden in my West-Resisting City.

After I let out a sigh of relief, I felt a bit sad for some reason.

Lugh didn’t have as many thoughts as I did, but he was nervous as his body appeared stretched taut as he asked:

“Sir Feudal Lord, is there anything I need to do?”

I glanced at this 24 or 25 year-old man; he had a sturdy figure, a head of disheveled black hair, and facial hair that seemed like it hadn’t been shaven for quite a while. In short, he gave off the feeling of an unruly customer. Seeing this, I answered with a deadpan voice:

“Shave your facial hair.”

“Hah?? Shave??”

I nodded:

“Yes, that’s right. This is a requirement part of military discipline, I’ll give you the entire list later, it’s just some military regulations. Rest assured, it’s nothing impossible to do, it’s merely to urge ourselves to not slack off. Apart from this, you must note down that our army isn’t like the ones from the outside; there are several essential points you have to remember. First, we don’t seize things from the masses; everything from rewards to punishments is carried out by our City Lord mansion. Second, ideological education must be implemented in our people’s army to improve their ideological consciousness, especially the team leaders. Third, you must train them so hard that they don’t develop any bad habits. In addition to this, there will be regular competitions with various kinds of prizes; later on, I’ll allocate some extra money to the military budget in order to fund these prizes.”

Lugh seemed to only half-understand what was being said, but still took it very seriously.

I continued:

“Besides this, there’s also the problem of food. There should be meat to eat when needed. We need to guarantee that there’s meat in everyone’s meal every 2 days; this is the foundation. I’ll provide the money for this too so there’s no need to worry. In any case, there’s no need for you to worry about the money. Also, don’t practice any form of formation yet, we still don’t have any talented people in this aspect. What you need to do is to help everyone lay down a good foundation. Right now, they aren’t considered any army, just a reserve army.”

Lugh commented:

“So all I need to do is help them lay down a good foundation……this actually isn’t difficult.”

Isn’t difficult??

Let’s see if you’ll be saying that after receiving Aleya’s “guidance”.

When the time comes, don’t forget the words you just said as your bleeding, badly mangled skin is basked in the sunlight while carrying a heavy grindstone on your back, and your throat is dry as you sweat buckets……

I laughed in my heart as I said:

“That’s fantastic. I’ll leave the army to you for the time being since the army isn’t part of our current plan. It’s enough to make the soldiers think of danger in these times of peace and train them every day.”

Lugh nodded, then hesitated a bit before inquiring:

“But meat every 2 days……isn’t this going to be expensive?”

I shook my head:

“It’s fine. There will also be a fair amount of vegetables to go along with it. When Aleya’s teaching you guys in the future, you’ll have to learn cooking from her too.”

Lugh humbly nodded.

It was right at this time that Aleya entered with a plate of food and informed:

“Young master, it’s time to eat.”

I casually returned:

“Just place it here.”

Between the utensils was a bowl of stewed radish with cabbage; chewing through that bland flavor was a kind of torture. But I still strove to keep my face straight as I spoke:

“There’s still the issue about our army’s name. For the time being, let’s just call it ‘the reserve army’. Tell the soldiers that when they formally enter the battlefield, I will personally confer this army its name. Let them work hard for this day.”

“Understood.”

I pushed a bowl of stewed radish with cabbage in front of him and helped him get a pair of chopsticks while I was at it and remarked:

“If you’re hungry, how about eating a bit?”

Lugh appeared flattered by the favor, but still shook his head in refusal after thinking about it over and over.

For a lower class person, the pressure of eating with the City Lord was too high.

In reality, I was just hoping to find someone who would help me eat up these flavorless things……

It seems like it’s still up to me to finish it.

With a sigh of regret, I continued:

“There’s also the matter of our army song. I’ve already thought of one, are you able to sing? I’ll sing it once for you to hear, you’ll be teaching it after you memorize it.”

Lugh put on the appearance of being all ears.

I cleared my throat.

“U~nity is pow~er! U~nity is pow~er~this power is——”

Aleya earnestly told me:

“Young master, you’re off-tune.”

I asked her with dissatisfaction:

“Have you heard the original song?! How would you know if it’s off-tune?”

Aleya replied:

“No. But young master has sung many versions of this for these past few days, and each time it has been different.”

After being speechless for a while, I ultimately told Lugh:

“In any case, it’s roughly this feeling! Understand? It’s to magnify the sense of unity. You can discuss it among yourselves later on, I won’t manage it.”

Lugh held back his laughter as he nodded in consent.

I sent him away with nothing more to say.

What I didn’t expect was that before even two days passed, there were mysterious rumors floating about within the city. Their contents were ‘the newly arrived City Lord Li De is diligent and thrifty. He eats stewed radish with cabbage every meal, yet still demands that the army eats meat every 2 days. He’s practically a saint that wholeheartedly helps others while not caring for himself, he’s the model City Lord.’ The masses were greatly moved upon hearing these rumors and spontaneously delivered their home-grown radishes and cabbages to the City Lord mansion, which piled up into a small hill.

“Isn’t this great, young master? This way, we really do have enough to eat for several months.”

Aleya exposed a rare smile.

That day, I had to hide in my sheets to cry for a good, long while.