At the end of November in the 11th year of Jian'an, the first snow of the year fell in Jingxiang.
With the heavy snowfall, the entire Xinye City has also entered a New Year atmosphere. There are fewer and fewer people walking on the streets, and the frequency of drills in the military camp has also changed from once every two days to once every five days.
There is no other way. The only option for soldiers in these days to protect themselves from the cold is simply to add clothes.
But most of the clothes in this era were made of coarse linen, which had limited cold-proof effect. Even if you wear two more clothes, you can't withstand the biting northwest wind. If it snows again, it will be even more difficult.
Even Zhang Fei, in this kind of weather, was hiding in the military tent and living by the stove.
In this kind of weather, no matter how cruel Zhang Fei is, he will not arrange training for his soldiers.
In this era when general nutrition cannot keep up, per capita physical fitness is low, and there are not enough measures to keep warm, the best way to protect soldiers in winter is to keep soldiers in the military camp.
The reason why Li Jing's "Assault on Yinshan Mountain on a Snowy Night" and Li Su's "Invasion of Caizhou on a Snowy Night" have remained famous throughout the ages is because no one thought that there would be people who could start a war on a snowy day.
It's too disrespectful of martial ethics.
In days without fighting, even Zhang Fei would not ask his soldiers to drill in heavy snow.
Zhang Fei is already showing off, so what can Zhang Xi, the second in command in the army, say.
Besides, Zhang Xi couldn't solve the problem of keeping his soldiers warm in this kind of weather. At this time, Bai Diezi was still lying down in the Western Regions.
In addition, the morale of the soldiers is not high in this kind of weather, and the quality of training cannot be guaranteed. It is better to follow the habits of this era.
In the military camp in winter, when you clock in for work, you just chat with the general.
By the way, I can also get some updated and more timely information from Zhang Fei.
For example, Liu Bei took Xu Shu to Xiangyang in mid-November and has not returned yet.
Although the person has not come back, he has conveyed some news.
One of the most important things was that Liu Biao, despite the objections of his subordinates Kuai Yue and Cai Mao, agreed to Liu Bei's suggestion to let Guan Yu move to Fancheng and defend Xiangyang.
This is good news for Liu Bei.
On the one hand, Liu Bei at least has a strategic buffer. He is not just a small new county like before, facing the pressure of Cao Jun alone. He doesn't even have a strategic retreat.
On the other hand, it also shows that Liu Bei's position in Liu Biao's heart is now much more important than before.
Fancheng is Xiangyang's barrier. In the past, it was absolutely impossible for Liu Biao to leave such a place to someone he didn't trust to defend it.
But now, Liu Biao not only agreed to let Guan Yu guard Fancheng, he even suppressed the objections of the heads of the Jingxiang, Cai and Kuai families... It can be seen that Liu Biao's attitude towards Liu Bei has changed to a certain extent. .
In addition, there are rumors that Liu Biao's health is getting worse year by year... This matter sounds like great news no matter how you listen to it.
This is also the reason why Liu Bei never came back after going to Xiangyang - taking this opportunity, Liu Bei also wanted to establish good relations with some people from aristocratic families in Xiangyang. If something unexpected happened in the future, Liu Bei could also save a lot of money. A little heart.
The worst thing is that he has to prevent these wealthy families from holding him back.
Of course, these aristocratic families definitely do not include the Cai family.
Cai Hao looked down on Liu Bei at all. He felt that this was just a bumpkin who came from nowhere. How could he win over a wealthy Jingxiang family like the Cai family?
As for the Kuai family... Haha, the Kuai family is a normal family.
Kuai Yue still turned a blind eye to Liu Bei and ignored him, but his brother Kuai Liang treated Liu Bei with courtesy.
Of course, given the status of the Kuai family in Jingzhou, Kuai Liang would treat each other with courtesy, which does not mean that the Kuai family would turn to Liu Bei because of this... Liu Bei also knew this, so he did not force it.
Liu Bei's main goal now is to make friends with the other two of the four great families in Jingxiang, the Pang family and the Huang family.
Although the Pang family has no children occupying high positions in Jingxiang, Pang Degong is so famous that most Jingxiang officials have received the teachings and favors of Pang Degong. This intangible asset is obviously not measured by the number of officials in the family.
On the contrary, the Huang family has declined somewhat in recent years.
In the nominal center of Xiangyang, few of the Huang family's descendants could get the attention of Liu Biao, but in the basic base of Jiangxia, even Huang Zu now had a vague feeling of being a sect of his own.
This makes the Huang family very embarrassed.
Therefore, the Huang family has always been the most interested in Liu Bei's friendship... If there is an emergency in the future, wouldn't the Huang family have made the right bet?
Other slightly smaller aristocratic families, such as the Ma family, Fu family, and Liao family, basically follow the lead of the four major aristocratic families. Whoever these four families choose in the end will follow suit.
So Liu Bei is very busy now, busy doing public relations work in Xiangyang.
Guan Yu was also very busy, busy familiarizing himself with the environment in Fancheng and rearranging the city's defenses.
In theory, Zhang Fei should also be very busy. He was appointed by Liu Bei to stay in Xinye and be responsible for the normal operation of Xinye County together with Zhao Yun.
But Zhang Fei is not a person who handles government affairs.
Therefore, he and Zhao Yunyi worked together and the two of them made a division of labor - he, Lao Zhang, was responsible for Xinye's military issues, and all government affairs issues were handed over to Zilong.
It's not that Zhang Fei is lazy, the main reason is that he has a confrontation with those clerks... the kind of confrontation that makes him fall asleep after just a few glances.
Zhao Yun also had nothing to do with Zhang Fei. He had a good temper and could not live up to his lord's trust, so he took on most of the embarrassing things by himself and discussed with Jian Yong, Mi Zhu, Sun Qian and others to deal with it. .
Although Zhang Xi feels that he is a civilian official, his current position is a proper military position, and his immediate boss is Zhang Fei. If Zhang Fei does not agree, no one can transfer him.
Therefore, Zhang Xi now follows Zhang Fei and has a rest.
It's good to be free, there aren't so many things to deal with.
Of course, there are also disadvantages. For example, now Zhang Xi has to face all kinds of troubles that Zhang Fei makes when he is idle and bored.
The first one, of course, is drinking.
Drinking is an old problem.
Although Zhang Fei has greatly reduced the frequency of drinking under Zhang Xi's "force", he cannot change this problem.
In the past, he drank secretly behind Zhang Xi's back, but now that winter has come, Zhang Fei, a gangster, used the cold weather to start drinking openly.
Zhang Xi couldn't help it either.
One of them doesn't want to really fall out with Zhang Fei, and the other...it's really cold today.
I don’t know what happened this year. It’s extremely cold in Jingxiang. Sometimes I can’t stand the cold even when warming myself by the fire in the military tent. If it weren’t for drinking some hot wine to warm up, Zhang Xi himself wouldn’t be able to bear it.
Therefore, Zhang Xi could only turn a blind eye to Zhang Fei on this matter.
The second question is still about military training.
The current training frequency has dropped to every five days, and Zhang Fei is also a little worried. Even if he has survived this winter, these fools will forget all the formations they finally practiced.
But in the middle of winter, it’s not easy for people to stand in a military posture in the cold wind. It’s too boring to always arrange physical training such as running... Zhang Fei had a problem.
Zhang Xi swears, Zhang Xi really didn't bring this up on his own initiative.
That day, Zhang Xi was chatting with Zhang Fei about Huo Qubing, and they happened to mention that Huo Qubing liked to let the soldiers play in the military camp. Zhang Fei was quite dissatisfied with this, thinking that Tai Shigong was slandering his hero again.
Then Zhang Xi said "Abba, Ababa" several times, but in the end he did not defend Tai Shigong.
Later generations of literati thought that "playfulness" in the military was probably because Huo Qubing hired a group of dancers to sing and dance in the military camp all day long, while he drank and picked up girls... This kind of thing was very common in the residences of civil servants. Later generations of literati thought that Of course, I think Huo Qubing did this in the army.
This is definitely not possible. Playing in the army is too dissolute. Tai Shigong is right, he is a person who relies on "lucky" to get to the position.
But the actual playfulness in the military was not what the literati imagined.
The fun in the army mainly involves Cuju, wrestling and fighting.
Although it seems to affect the image of the military and is prone to gambling and other problems, it is different from the playful way of civil servants, and it is not the kind of decadent life.
Of course, Tai Shigong was definitely not an ignorant scholar from later generations, and he definitely knew this... So it is unjustifiable to accuse Huo Qubing of this.
Zhang Xi can't say anything for Tai Shigong here. After all, although Tai Shigong did not lie, playing in the army is not the place to accuse the general. Tai Shigong was indeed wrong on this point.
Even in the military, playing when they are not generally training is a means of maintaining the morale and combat effectiveness of the army.
For example, when the famous Qin general Wang Jian first took over Li Xin's army to destroy Chu, because the army had just experienced a defeat and its morale was low, Wang Jian restored the morale of the army through playful means.
Even when Ban Gu wrote the "Book of Han", he officially listed playing in the army as an important training method, with the purpose of training unity and cooperation among soldiers.
Zhang Fei was born in the army. Although he was only a monk halfway, he had been fighting for more than ten years. Of course he knew what it was like to play in the army. Naturally, he didn't understand why Tai Shigong used this spray of Huo Qubing to say that Huo Qubing was curing the army. Not strict.
Then, Zhang Fei felt that he had to arrange a play for his soldiers to ensure their morale in this winter.
To this end, he also took out five jars of his own collection of fine wine as a reward and prepared to hold an army-wide Cuju competition.
The Cuju of this era is not the Cuju of the Song Dynasty that used tricks for the sake of appearance, but a hand-to-hand Cuju that is a bit like rugby rules.
Otherwise, Cuju in this era was used to train the army. If the Song Dynasty people used it incorrectly, it was the fault of the Song Dynasty people, not Cuju's fault.
But Zhang Xi didn't know. He was a modern person in his previous life, and he was a scholar in this life, the kind who only knew how to read. In his two lifetimes, he had no concept of what Cuju was like in this era.
As the commander-in-chief of the army, Zhang Fei was only responsible for giving orders, and the specific matters had to be left to Zhang Xi to coordinate and arrange.
Zhang Xi didn't know anything about Cuju, so he drew a football field according to modern football standards and asked the soldiers in charge of logistics below to handle it.
But on the day of Cuju, the soldiers did not see the familiar "Dragon Gate" at all, but saw two wide and large goals... Not to mention the soldiers, even Zhang Fei stared at Zhang Xi in a daze Woolen cloth.
