The Scottish army was preparing for the Pledge of Allegiance, while the Duke of Somerset had arrived at York and was making preparations for the battle.
"His Excellency the Baron! Will the barracks at York be able to accommodate our army?"
Duke Edward hastened to York, and before he could catch his breath, summoned Baron Vitelli Orisard to inquire.
"Your Honorable Lord Duke! We, the Northern Council of York, have arranged for the same barracks where you personally conquered Scotland four years ago! We were afraid of delaying your great event, Duke, and we've expanded it quite a bit!"
Baron Olisard ran all the way over, his somewhat blighted body was a bit overwhelmed, and a few drops of sweat remained on his forehead. But the person with the most power in the whole of England came, could he not come quickly!
"It is expected that the barracks located in the south of the city will be able to accommodate the cantonment of 30,000 troops!"
In response to the Baron's answer, Duke Edward said it was okay, but for Duke Edward, who often led armies, food and weaponry were the most basic configuration for an army to win.
"Then! My Lord Baron! Are you ready with food and weapons?"
"Of course! Your Excellency the Duke! You are aware that the city of York was founded for Scotland, and that the whole of the York Warehouse holds pounds of rye, as well as pounds of oats!"
"This is enough to feed the present army of fifteen thousand for forty days' duration, and to meet the needs of a thousand warhorses for a month!"
In the Middle Ages, warhorses generally just consumed oats to maintain their strength, and the pitfall was that oats yielded only a third of the harvest per acre of regular rye. And the price was more than ten times more expensive than rye.
So, in those days, a horse consumed ten times as much money per day as an ordinary soldier. Even the knights were usually fed with a mixture of barley and oats together, but in times of war, they had to be fed with oats.
"Moreover, we have three thousand longbows in stock, one hundred thousand sharp arrows, five hundred pairs of heavy armor, and more than one thousand fire-rope guns!" Not waiting for Duke Edward to inquire, the baron had already breathed it all out.
"Wait! Is there enough gunpowder for a fire-rope gun?" Duke Edward asked in disbelief when he heard this.
As a general with rich experience in war, Edward was very fond of the use of new weapons such as the fire-rope gun, which he believed effectively reduced the reliance on soldiers and was conducive to fighting the majority with the minority.
"That! His Excellency the Duke! Our army is very unfamiliar with this new type of weapon, so there are only enough portions for a thousand musketeers to use about five times."
"Okay! You go down first! Prepare the fragrant roasted sheep for those soldiers who have traveled far to celebrate!"
Duke Edward knew that the soldiers' hearts and minds were easily bought, and that a meager bit of mutton could give them a high level of morale.
"Huh? Okay! Your Excellency the Duke!" Baron Lord was surprised as to why His Excellency the Duke asked him to do so, but as a subordinate, he didn't ask much.
However, his heart was already dripping blood, preparing provisions for the army was already drying up York's blood, another treat like this would bankrupt York if if he didn't win this war.
On August 13th, Lord Edward the Duke officially arrived at the barracks and summoned the leading nobles to distribute the ranks and gather the archers and knights together.
Another five hundred or so tall infantrymen were selected to wear heavy armor and act as heavy infantry. Then more than a thousand soldiers who could use fire rope guns were selected to form a musketry squad.
After that, the Duke picked out more than a thousand old and weak soldiers to be the logistics battalion, responsible for transporting food. And at this time, Earl Warwick also rushed to York City, commanding the logistics battalion with a depressed mentality.
Duke Edward singled out another thousand or so of his elite militia to serve as his own bodyguard, dedicated to his own protection.
Thus by the fourteenth the whole army was in a new condition, and not at all in the same disorganized condition as when it came.
At this time, this great army of Edward's rule had a battalion of 2,000 archers, 1,000 musketeers, 500 heavy infantry, 1,000 heavy cavalry, 1,000 light cavalry, 1,000 escorts, 1,000 logistical battalions, and more than 9,000 light infantry.
And Scotland possessed near five thousand cavalry, two hundred heavy cavalry, and two thousand archers, and up to twenty-three thousand infantry, and two hundred musketeers.
England's army, led by Duke Edward, broke out of the seventy-three-mile-long Hadrian's Wall, the one hundred and seventeen-kilometer-long Roman Wall, and marched into Scottish territory.
And the army led by the Lord Duke was followed by a large group of merchants, and many chicken women in the men's business slowly following the army forward.
Instead, the great merchants stayed at Yorktown, waiting for the soldiers who had returned victorious to sell their precious goods.
Generally speaking, the soldiers would only sell items of value to those merchants, and very valuable goods could only be swallowed by the big merchants.
The army swept into the Scottish villages like locusts, and the soldiers pounced on the wooden houses as if they were wailing.
The villages were quick to respond as well, but the strength of a few dozen green men was no match for the massive English army.
Soon the gates of several villages near the border were opened, and the cries of women and the indignation of men could be heard not far away, as the militia seized great quantities of food and goods to trade with the merchants behind them.
The only villages that could still remain in the borderlands were those of the great nobles that straddled England and Scotland that had the guts to do so, so the militiamen had the good sense not to kill anyone, but only to loot some food and goods.
Obviously, they also knew that the nobles who owned these villages were ones they couldn't afford to offend.
These nobles across the two countries are mainly due to marriages between the nobles of the two countries.
For example, James I married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Somerset (a nobleman of Henry VII's time), a great English nobleman, and James IV married Margaret, daughter of King Henry VII, and the two had a son, James V, and his descendants, who thus held the succession to the throne of England.
This is the reason why James VI succeeded to the Tudor throne left by Elizabeth I.
The relationship between England and Scotland is thus too intricate to be simply sorted out.
The plundering of villages was but an interlude between the armies, and in no way delayed their advance.
On the fifteenth of August, the army of England, led by the Duke of Edward, came to a broad outcrop of grass, which was called by the Scots the finger-pkie.
As the name suggests it is a canyon as in a human finger, a great place to spar.
And the Earl of Arran arrived with an army from Scotland, and both men, believing they were bound to win, chose this place as the place of the duel without exception.
The regents of the two countries face off against each other, and it's a place that catches the eyes of everyone in both countries.