King’s Landing, somewhere in the Red Keep.
Brown-gold curls covered Tyrion Lannister’s forehead.
He wore a soft leather tunic embroidered with a roaring lion.
Barely over a meter tall, he had a large head on a small body, a jutting brow, and a waddling, awkward gait.
“Hey, brother, didn’t you see me?
Where are you off to?
Has our lovely older sister knighted you as her personal courier?” Jaime Lannister shrugged, slowing his steps.
Tyrion caught up to him.
“Jaime, you should learn to approach me on your own.
My most important role as a Lannister is to stand beside you, highlighting your magnificent stature at all times.” Jaime sighed helplessly.
“Fine, you win.
I confess, I am indeed delivering a letter.” Tyrion immediately broke into a grin.
“Has our lonely sister finally succumbed to taking a lover?
Quick, let me see.” Jaime’s mouth twitched.
He held up the envelope.
“A pity, the wax is already sealed.” He swayed his hand, dodging Tyrion’s leaping attempts to snatch the letter.
“It is no great secret.
I can tell you what it says.” “Oh?
It seems I guessed wrong.” “Yes.
Do not always assume the worst of Cersei.
You are brother and sister.” “Aha, should I expect my dear sister to kiss my little cheek?
Not unless the Seven are dozing.” “Tyrion, do not disrespect the Seven.” “The Seven above won’t care what I say.” Tyrion patted Jaime’s thigh.
“Tell me.” “It is a minor baron from Crackclaw Point.
Cersei intends to bring him along on the kingswood hunt.” “Truly unexpected news.
Our dear sister seems to be in high spirits?” “The little baron wrote to her first.
The boy is a sycophant.” “Haha, you don’t seem to like this little baron, Jaime.
Afraid he’ll steal a sister’s doting love from her brother?” “It is rare for the two of you to share an opinion.
I am not so sordid.
A young man should focus his energies on swordplay, not flattery.” “Isn’t that perfect, Jaime?
As a knight of the Kingsguard, you can take the opportunity to teach him a good lesson, add a class to his upbringing.” Tyrion paused, then added, “Brother, Crackclaw Point is a godsforsaken place.
You are a Lannister; you will never know what it tastes like to lack coin.
When your belly is empty, who has the mood to play with swords?
Crackclaw Point has a tradition of swearing direct fealty to the queen.
It is their ancestral trade.” “Brother, this is a good thing.
At least the little baron isn’t stupid.
He knows the Lannisters have gold, doesn’t he?” Jaime looked a bit embarrassed.
“You two always have the arguments.
I am only fit for running errands.” Three days later, the sky was a washed, clear blue.
The Whispers, inside the bowyer’s workshop.
Grim picked up a finished longbow, about two meters in length, from the wooden workbench.
He drew it back to test the pull—around 110 to 120 pounds.
To survive, most of the smallfolk in the Crabb lands had to both farm and hunt.
The majority knew how to use a bow and arrow.
This draw weight could serve as an entry level, easy to adapt to.
*If paired with systematic training,* Grim thought, *the long-term plan will be to introduce longbows with 150-pound and 180-pound draws.* *The longbow is modeled after the English longbow from my past life’s memories.
The crafting process is simple, and the range is far.* “My lord, I can make three of these a day now.” “Me too!” “Same here.” The men answering Grim were the woodworkers.
Their original trade was bowyery, numbering about ten in total.
Grim’s original plan had been to divide the longbow crafting process into several stages, establishing a simplified assembly line to increase efficiency.
*But I had to scrap that idea,* he reflected.
*The first hurdle is the lack of proper factory managers.
Without effective supervision and management, both quality and efficiency would just tank together.* *Demand for longbows won’t skyrocket in the short term, so the current production speed meets our needs.
Better to let them stick to the traditional methods for now.
Grouping the artisans together means they only have to look up to see how fast the next guy is working.
It creates a bit of a competitive environment—a small step forward.* Grim reminded himself that going too far was as bad as falling short.
*Take it step by step.
If you take too big a stride, you’ll just pull a muscle in a sensitive place.* Overall, Grim was satisfied.
He casually picked up a few more longbows to test them, then gave a few instructions on the finer details.
Grim announced to the room that the weapon would be named the Crabb longbow.
Ser Pell had a formidable reputation within the territory and quickly completed his task.
The 100-man Survey Corps had already begun simple formation training.
The soldiers of the Survey Corps were mostly hunters, bringing their own bows and shortswords.
This fit perfectly with Grim’s plan; the standard issue weapons for the Survey Corps were to be the shortbow and shortsword.
Grim’s definition of the Survey Corps was leather-armored mountain light infantry.
Their primary missions would be scouting and surprise attacks.
Because these simple, honest soldiers brought their own weapons, it took a significant burden off the Whispers’ less-than-abundant armory.
The rest was fine, but Grim noticed that the arrows the hunters brought were subpar.
Most were self-made, and the quality varied wildly.
The arrowheads lacked lethality.
Therefore, the main task of the Whispers’ smithy was now to focus entirely on forging high-quality arrowheads.
*There’s always an endless grind of things to do,* Grim felt.
*First off, helmets are another problem.* There were certainly no spare helmets in the armory.
Equipping the 200 levies of the Crabb lands had already required turning the armory upside down.
Grim thought of the bandanas popular among pirates.
The storehouse had an abundance of grey linen.
Cut to the size of a towel and wrapped tightly around the head, it served as a makeshift military cap.
With 100 men uniformly wearing grey linen bandanas, they actually had a bit of a regular army feel to them.
[Survey Corps cohesion +1] *Next is armor.* *In the future, the goal is to have the entire Survey Corps uniformly equipped with leather armor worn over chainmail.* *Right now, that goal is way out of reach.* The storehouses of the Whispers had plenty of leather, but almost all of it was soft leather.
There was only a small amount of hard leather.
The main material needed to craft leather armor was hard leather.
To ensure basic protection for every soldier in the Survey Corps, Grim mobilized every idle pair of hands in the castle to help craft leather armor.
Time was tight; details and aesthetics had to be abandoned for now.
Cut the hide, punch the holes, thread the straps—a simple set of leather armor was complete.
Empara’s Thorn Company couldn’t be ignored either.
As a lord, he couldn’t play favorites.
But following the traditional method, the amount of hard leather would definitely not be enough.
Grim considered it for a moment, then made the final call: the new style of leather armor for the Crabb lands would eliminate the backplate, retaining only the front piece to protect the chest and abdomen.
This would yield roughly double the amount of armor, just enough to equip the Thorn Company.
*Doesn’t the back need protection?* *As long as you always face the enemy, is there any need to worry about your back?* Grim temporarily added another set of House words to his repertoire: *Death before turning heel.*