He could spend his whole life hunting, feasting, and sleeping with his wife in the manor, and occasionally, during the spring plowing, put on a show by going down to the fields and helping with the plow in front of the commoners and peasants. That alone would earn him a thumbs-up from the three village elders, who would praise him as a wise and good lord.

Of course, he also needed to fulfill certain obligations—providing military levies to his liege lord, namely the head of the The Carters family, and, when summoned, leading the garrison soldiers from his fief for his lord’s service.

The Spring and Autumn period was a class-based society. Stephen Ford and Matthew Hill were at the very bottom of that hierarchy, born slaves and servants for generations, dealing with cattle and horses. If they became the first “assistants” of William Carter, they would naturally follow him to his fief as household retainers, and their status would rise accordingly.

Seeing William Carter make his promise, the two of them immediately knelt without hesitation, bit their fingers to smear blood on the corners of their mouths, and swore an oath to Taiyi, pledging their loyalty to William. The other stable boys looked on, filled with envy and jealousy.

William Carter quietly waited for the ceremony to end, then took the “pledge” on which the two had pressed their bloody handprints on a stone tablet, and carefully put it away. Although he was somewhat unaccustomed to it, he understood that all feudal lords of the gentry had their own dependent servants—this was simply the rule of survival in the Spring and Autumn era.

His own cheap old man, Edward Carter, later even set a record by having thousands of scholars pledge their loyalty and swear oaths to him at once—a feat later known as the “Houma Covenant”...

Once the master-servant relationship was established, William gave a blunt order: “Go pick out three good horses, and bring out the saddles I’ve made these past few days. We’re not taking the carriage—we’re riding!”

People of the Spring and Autumn period didn’t value individual horses nearly as much as heavily equipped war chariots, so with William’s status, he could still requisition a few. As for the stable and herding officials, their status was far below that of the chariot officer Wang Sunqi, and they weren’t even considered formal household retainers, so how could they dare to actually control William Carter?

One reason for the lack of emphasis on individual riding was that, in the Spring and Autumn era, saddles didn’t exist yet—let alone stirrups.

The horses William Carter saw in the stables already had bridles and bits, but only a mat of hemp cloth on their backs, with ear-shaped flaps hanging down on either side. Though simple, these allowed the rider to avoid chafing their thighs. This thing was called a “jian,” and as the later Ballad of Mulan goes: “In the east market, buy a fine horse; in the west market, buy a saddle and jian.”

In the era before saddles, riders had to straddle the bare backs of horses, relying only on gripping the reins or the horse’s mane and squeezing the horse’s belly with their legs to avoid falling off at a gallop. But this method was unreliable—long rides were exhausting, and it was hard to use a bow and arrow effectively while bouncing on a running horse.

After being sent to the stables, William Carter didn’t idle away his time. On a whim, he recalled the high-pommel saddles he’d seen in later times and sketched out a design. Then, using whatever was at hand—cowhide, sinew, discarded bronze and tin—he directed the stable’s “craftsmen” to make a few simple saddles.

With the saddles done, as for horseshoes, stirrups, and spurs—he wasn’t planning to make those just yet...

Because those things weren’t technically difficult, and could be easily copied once seen, he was a bit worried that his little butterfly’s wings might let the northern nomads who rode horses get the advantage, becoming a major threat to China ahead of time—that would be a disaster.

Besides, his current influence was limited to this small stable. When he eventually took charge of the The Carters clan and acquired the fine horses of Jibei, Yan, and Dai, it wouldn’t be too late to unveil this trump card and fully promote cavalry.

For now, it was just for emergencies.

Moreover, considering the snail’s pace of technological diffusion in this era, William Carter felt a bit more at ease. For example, in the long-agricultural Jin and Lu states, ox-drawn plows and ploughs had already appeared, but it would take until the Han dynasty, three hundred years later, for them to spread to the southern Chu and Yue regions.

You have to realize that commercial exchange wasn’t that frequent, and the Rong and Di tribes scattered across the Central Plains didn’t even focus on cavalry. In fact, the ancient meaning of the character “Rong” was simply “infantry.”

Before long, Stephen Ford and Matthew Hill led out three fine horses, ready with the “saddles” invented by their new master, waiting outside the pen. The stable boys and herders had scraped together, with great effort, a set of clothes without patches for the two of them. Though his little force was still rather shabby, William Carter couldn’t very well form a “beggar knight squad” and make a laughingstock of himself.

When William Carter appeared, the quick-witted Stephen Ford hurried forward, knelt on one knee, and fastened a short sword to his waist. The honest-faced Matthew Hill lay down on the ground, arching his broad back and said, “Master, please mount.”

William Carter shook his head slightly. No matter what, he still had his bottom line and principles—he couldn’t bring himself to treat people as livestock or use them as stools.

He pulled Matthew Hill up with one hand, patted his sturdy shoulder, and said, “Xia, you’re a man of seven feet tall—don’t keep getting down on the ground. You’re my assistant, not my ox or horse. From now on, let’s not do this anymore.”

Matthew Hill actually looked disappointed... Such is the ingrained servility of those long enslaved.

William Carter didn’t care what Stephen Ford and Matthew Hill thought. He grabbed the horse’s back and vaulted up.

He was a decent rider, and it wasn’t something he’d just learned in the past ten days. In the scattered memories of this life, his silent, now-blurred-featured Di mother used to put him on horseback when he was very young and ride with him around the stables.