"Okay, then I'll leave this matter to you."
Magistrate Cui nodded, feeling quite satisfied.
He still quite trusts Lu Yuan's ability to lead troops.
After all, it was this person who led the troops to quell the Wugang bandits and also suppressed the Miao rebellion.
These are all real achievements and cannot be faked.
Then the two discussed some more, mainly discussing how much money to pay, how many times to allocate it, and which soldiers to recruit.
Lu Yuan naturally asked for more money and to pay it early. This time, Magistrate Cui said that he would handle it as soon as possible.
As for the source of troops, it is naturally the same as before, recruiting some hunters from the mountains.
Anyway, the most indispensable thing in the mountainous area of Shaoyang Prefecture is these brave mountain people.
It was not until nearly noon that all these issues were finally finalized.
Cui Changqing stayed with Lu Yuan for another meal before letting him leave.
After returning to the house, Lu Yuan asked Liang Hu to be called, and he arrived soon.
"Sir, are you looking for me?" Liang Hu saluted.
"The prefect asked me to recruit another six hundred soldiers. I plan to leave this matter to you."
Lu Yuan looked at Liang Hu and ordered: "It is better to recruit those mountain people, with young people and good shooting skills as priority."
"My lord, don't worry. It's very chaotic outside now, and the people below are having a hard time. There are so many people who want to be soldiers to find a way out. I will help you recruit them in less than ten days." Liang Hu said in a loud voice. replied.
This old man who is obsessed with government has become more and more energetic since he started patrolling. After working hard in the military affairs, he did not look old, but looked rosy.
Last year I even took in a concubine. At the age of forty-seven, I am not afraid of being squeezed dry by that little girl.
Not long ago, he heard that the concubine had given birth to a fat son for him, which made the old man so happy that he even gave Lu Yuan wedding candy.
"Well, go ahead. I can rest assured that you can handle the matter." Lu Yuan nodded and waved people to leave.
After explaining the matter of recruiting troops, Lu Yuan continued to retreat at home in the next few days.
Today's meeting and conversation with Cui Changqing gave him a heads up.
Nowadays, Dai Viet's power is getting worse and worse, and no one knows when it will end. When the world is left without a master, and all dragons are vying for the throne, there will really be no peace.
By then, even Lu Yuan wouldn't be able to escape if he could.
After all, even if he practices now, it will still require the assistance of a large amount of medicinal materials. As long as you buy medicinal materials, you will definitely have to contact the outside world.
The world is in chaos, and it will even have an impact on his cultivation.
Unless he can hide in the mountain wholeheartedly, stay there for decades and not come out. After retreating from this circle, he can wait for the world to be peaceful and then be free in the world.
However, this choice was only the lowest for Lu Yuan. I would never choose it unless I had to.
"Although troubled times are turbulent, they also represent opportunities. I am not immune to the competition among heroes. How can those Jianghu gangs with big families and businesses be spared?"
Lu Yuan couldn't help but reveal a hint of coldness in his eyes as he thought about the mental technique he had gradually mastered.
In troubled times, people kill.
The order of the world has collapsed, which is not a bad thing for him.
"After all, in troubled times, strength is respected. If you have enough strength, no matter how many people you kill, no one will care."
The current situation in Dai Viet is relatively stable. In fact, on the one hand, it protects Lu Yuan. But on the other hand, it is also a constraint on him.
With pressure from the imperial court, Lu Yuan had to worry about the risk of being hunted down by both Jianghu and the imperial court, even if he wanted to kill people to gain credit from those powerful factions.
But the court was gone, and there was no one to maintain order. Everyone was minding their own business, and there were no restrictions on many things that could not be done originally.
For example, leading troops to attack the Lake Gang.
If the imperial court is present and the troops are mobilized without authorization, that is rebellion.
But without the imperial court, the thousand soldiers and horses under Lu Yuan would not be able to obey him.
Whatever you want to do, do it.
"It's time to pay close attention to this military training." Lu Yuan thought.
Originally, he planned to train a hundred soldiers, but now it seems that this number may be increased to two hundred or even four hundred.
Although this would increase his annual expenses by several thousand taels of silver.
But when you think about the benefits from training these soldiers, this little effort is nothing.
"Then it's decided."
The tone was set, and Lu Yuan was in a much better mood.
Dai Viet fell and fed himself.
This time, he would take advantage of the fall of the imperial court to have a good meal, preferably to the fullest.
A few days later, Liang Hu, who was in charge of recruiting troops, returned to Fucheng with 600 men who had just been recruited from the mountains.
Lu Yuan personally returned to the barracks to receive it.
After confirming that these recruits are all around fifteen to twenty years old, they are the most malleable.
He couldn't help but nodded with satisfaction, then turned to Liang Hu and said, "You did a good job in this matter. Go to the bank to get fifty taels of silver. This is your reward."
The patrolman's monthly salary was twenty-five taels of silver. After receiving two months' salary at once, Liang Hu was immediately happy and thanked him repeatedly: "Thank you, sir, for the reward."
Then, he went to collect the money.
Now, Old Man Liang has a wife, a concubine, three children, and five servants in his house. This monthly expense is not small.
Even with twenty-five taels of silver a month, it is still hard to live a decent life.
Now he can get fifty taels of silver, which is enough to support his family for a long time.
…
After accepting the new recruits, Lu Yuan did not return home. Instead, he stayed in the barracks and personally supervised the training of the new recruits.
In fact, he doesn't know how to train troops. There are dedicated people in charge of various formation flags in the military camp.
Lu Yuan stayed mainly to let these new recruits know who is the boss, who pays them, and whose orders they should listen to in the future.
To put it simply, it is to let these big soldiers recognize their master and know their surname.
However, although he did not intervene in the training, Lu Yuan still selected 250 people among the new recruits and veterans while supervising them.
Together with the fifty-man soldiers recruited previously, a 300-man barracks was built.
After passing down the exercises to these 250 soldiers, Lu Yuan spent two days teaching them. Then let the old soldiers take five of them each and be responsible for teaching those who come after them.
After practicing like this for a month, these selected soldiers all gained a lot. Some of them were talented and even developed their internal strength.
This made Lu Yuan couldn't help but be greatly surprised, and he was even thinking about whether he should pick out a few more good ones and accept them as registered disciples.
After all, a top-notch master in the world only has one true disciple and five registered disciples, which is really a bit shabby.
But even though he was moved, he didn't take action directly.
Instead, he was prepared to take another look, wait until these seedlings performed better and emerged among the soldiers, and then accept them as registered disciples.
In this way, you can not only gain disciples, but also use their deeds to inspire the new recruits and make them practice martial arts more diligently.
Wouldn't it be nice to kill two birds with one stone in this way?
Just as Lu Yuan's military training was in full swing, in October, news came from Xichuan County. After being besieged by the Shu army for two months, Xichuan County finally could not hold on and was captured by the Shu army.
The Emperor of Western Shu, Li Xiong, directly set his capital in Xichuan County, and even held a new heaven-sacrifice ceremony to once again declare his hegemony over Xichuan County.
Then the Western Shu army raised 100,000 troops, marched eastward, and successively attacked the remaining two palaces of the imperial court in Xichuan.
It was not until when they were in Wushan Prefecture that the imperial court urgently transferred a group of reinforcements from Dongting County, and relying on the local terrain, they were able to barely block the Xishu army and save the last place in Xichuan County.
But even so, nine of the ten prefectures in Xichuan were occupied by Shu, and most of Xichuan County fell.
Facing Xishu, which has established its own country and is in great momentum, it may not be so easy for the imperial court to take back Xichuan County from this traitor.
However, as a martial artist, Lu Yuan was not aware of the news of the fall of Xichuan County and the loss of Xichuan County. Although he was also shocked, what he was more concerned about was the details of that time when the county town was breached.
“The imperial court was originally stationed in Xichuan County, with 20,000 elite soldiers stationed there.
Later, the men in the city were urgently recruited, and 50,000 defenders were collected. There was no shortage of money and food, which could last for more than a year, enough to wait until the court sent reinforcements next year.
But the result of this battle was that the defenders only lasted two months before the city was breached. This is really weird. "
Although the morale of the defenders plummeted, there were many examples of cities being easily captured.
But Lu Yuan always felt that the imperial troops in Xichuan County should not be like this.
There must be some issues that others don't know about.
Sure enough, just when he felt something was wrong, Cui Changqing came over again.
"Li Xiong, the puppet emperor of Shu, was promoted to Xiantian three months ago, and then he personally went into battle and attacked Xichuan County."
The first words Magistrate Cui spoke shocked Lu Yuan.
Li Xiong was promoted to Xiantian?
Hearing the news, he felt enlightened.
No wonder, no wonder.
A congenital master with profound martial arts skills, he can be called a master in martial arts. This type of character is capable of defeating an army alone, and can come and go with ease even when faced with an army of ten thousand people.
If an innate master were to steal the city, it would not be surprising that Xichuan County was breached.
After all, the Xichuan Army is just a remote border county of Dai Viet. Although it is rich, the martial arts is not prosperous there due to the closed terrain, and no innate master has ever been born.
'Now that Li Xiong has been promoted to Xiantian, should we say that times create heroes, or heroes create times? Lu Yuan sighed in his heart and couldn't help but feel a little envious.
Others have become innate and become emperors.
But now that he has traveled through time for more than ten years, he is still only a senior first-class person, and he does not even have any further skills, let alone the innate realm.
Even Li Xiong's path pointed out a direction for him.
'Perhaps I can also try to rebel and proclaim myself emperor, and then lead the army to plunder all the way. Maybe in a few years, I can become an innate? '
Lu Yuan didn't believe that Li Xiong was able to break through his innate talent so quickly.
There are so many talented people in the world, but few of them can break through the innate world?
Therefore, Li Xiong was able to break through so quickly because he was probably rebelling. What good things have he obtained in the past few years? Just like the blood jade centipede that Lu Yuan got back then.
With this kind of divine blood variant, it is possible to break through realms one after another in a short period of time and achieve innate status along the way.
This kind of routine of killing people and seizing treasures is more in line with normal logic.
And it was precisely because of this experience that Lu Yuan was so jealous when he saw Li Xiong who was further away on this road again.
Because successful examples are right in front of you, it is really difficult not to attract others to imitate and copy them.
'No, directly rebelling and proclaiming himself emperor is too eye-catching. That is equivalent to walking directly from the back to the front desk, attracting the attention of the world. This is not conducive to my wretched development strategy. Lu Yuan used great perseverance to suppress this somewhat crazy idea.
With the first shot, Li Xiong proclaimed himself emperor and achieved a breakthrough.
But his behavior will undoubtedly lead to crazy revenge from the Dai Viet court.
Although many places in the world of Dai Viet have been destroyed.
But even if you only rely on the remaining strength to defeat a Xishu rebel, it is still a piece of cake.
As for innateness?
If nothing else, there is an innate grandmaster suppressing Dongting County right now?
It must be said that the commander-in-chief with innate strength in the county was also one of the reasons why Lu Yuan did not dare to rebel.
Because it's too close.
If he dares to rebel here, tomorrow the captain will dare to kill him and directly take his head from him.
Don't doubt the strength of the innate master, whether he can do this.
Too many unfortunate people have lost their lives because of this in the past, and Lu Yuan doesn't want to be the next example to warn future generations.
Various thoughts were surging in his mind, while Cui Changqing next to him continued: "Xichuan County has fallen, and we, Dongting County, have to face the Shu thieves directly. Therefore, the county governor has ordered that we and other prefectures and other prefectures should immediately organize and train local braves and form militia groups. Guard the place.
Therefore, I decided that in addition to the originally recruited 1,000 government soldiers, Fucheng would recruit 5,000 rural warriors, and the other counties would also recruit 1,000 people. Including the government soldiers, we would get 15,000 people.
In addition to the government soldiers, these village warriors serve the people during farming and as soldiers in their spare time. They train endlessly to guard the countryside.
You are the commander of the mansion and the head of the military attache, so you should be responsible for this matter. "
It seems that the establishment of the Shu Kingdom in Xichuan did put great pressure and shock on the prefect. At this time, he changed his past conservative style and radically began to recruit so many sergeants.
You know, even if they are peasant soldiers, for a small mountainous government with a population of only more than 200,000, recruiting 15,000 people at once is a huge burden.
To this, Lu Yuan naturally had no objections and readily agreed: "No problem, leave this matter to me."
As a commander, the more soldiers and horses in the mansion, the stronger he is and the greater his power.
As for the highest military and political officer in the government, Cui Changqing. In name, all the troops and horses are under the control of this prefect. Is it a problem that he is just a subordinate?
If a mere civilian official actually issues an order, and whether the army will carry it out or not, then he, the commander, will not be able to nod his head?
Of course, if you really disobey orders, it's almost like rebellion.
Because of Sun Siwen's relationship, Lu Yuan and Cui Changqing got along quite harmoniously, and he would not do this unless necessary.
However, after receiving the order, Lu Yuan still subconsciously asked: "Master Cui, in addition to our mansion, do other provinces in the country also want to recruit local warriors?"
Cui Changqing nodded and said: "Yes. The county governor decided that in order to resist the invasion of Shu thieves, it is also to counter the rebellion in Japan. It is estimated that a total of 200,000 troops will be recruited from the ten prefectures in the county for national use."
Two hundred thousand troops...
Hearing this number, Lu Yuan fell silent, and then became more determined to be a respectful and good official in the court.
Dongting County alone has an army of 200,000.
Faced with such a scale, even if he completely controlled the 15,000-strong army of Shaoyang Mansion, he would not be able to cause trouble at all.
Not to mention, there will definitely be other troops from the imperial court dispatched in the future, which will be even more terrifying.
Facing the court that has been driven crazy...
Can't afford to offend, really can't afford to offend.
Just comparing the strengths of both sides, Lu Yuan decided to follow his heart.
It's great that the world is peaceful, so why are you always thinking about rebellion?
As a good official who cares about the people, he feels it is necessary to contribute to the stability of the place.
…
Just when Lu Yuan made up his mind to be a good officer and began to actively train soldiers, on the other side, his good apprentice also made a choice that would affect his life.
Dongting County, Tianmen Mansion.
The surging river, like a running dragon, flows eastward in an indomitable direction.
A large ship floats on the river, hazy and looming in the mist.
Zhou Qing sat on the bow deck, took out a coarse cloth and wiped his sword. After wiping it twice, he threw away the coarse cloth stained red with blood, then sheathed the sword.
Suddenly the wind blew over, and the strong smell of blood assaulted his nostrils.
On the deck in the distance, scattered corpses were seen on the ground, and a large amount of blood had stained the deck red.
However, regarding all of this, Zhou Qing showed no emotion at all, and remained calm. He just turned his head to the side and asked another sitting figure: "Brother Guo, are you really sure you want to return to Xichuan?"
The figure next to him is named Guo Yunshan. He is a young man in his twenties, dressed in green clothes and handsome in appearance. However, his expression is slightly depressed and gloomy at this time, which greatly diminishes his temperament.
When he heard the inquiry, he nodded and said, "Yes, I want to go back."
Zhou Qing frowned and said: "Now Xichuan has been captured by Shu thieves, and the Shu thieves emperor Li Xiong is the enemy who destroyed your whole family. Now that you return to Xichuan and enter his territory, it is tantamount to entering the dragon's pond and tiger's den. Once discovered, then Nine deaths and no life.”
This friend he has recognized these days is a direct descendant of the famous martial arts family in Xichuan County and the Guo family in Yuzhong.
Originally with this background, Guo Yunshan should be a prodigy in the world.
But all this was ruined with the Qiang rebellion three years ago.
Just as Lu Yuan guessed.
Li Xiong was able to achieve a breakthrough in his innate ability in such a short period of time by plundering the resources of various martial arts families and sects and piling them up.
The Guo family in Yuzhong became a martial arts family not only because of the powerful martial arts they inherited, but more importantly, their family has mastered a kind of divine blood variant called the Green-blooded Spirit Snake for generations.
Relying on this spiritual snake, the Guo family can produce geniuses from generation to generation, ensuring that the family has no shortage of top-notch experts and has maintained its wealth for thousands of years.
But because of this, when the order was broken and the rebels came.
This kind of spiritual snake also became the trigger for the demise of the Guo family.
Because Li Xiong, the emperor of Shu thieves, came to ask for it.
