After Liu Heng got on the horse, Li Yunqi said: "There are more Liaodong refugees coming to our Lingqiu than to other places. Moreover, our people have inquired with these Liaodong refugees privately. Many Liaodong refugees are from Xuan. Came from the mansion."
"You mean there are people behind these Liaodong refugees who are doing this deliberately and secretly guiding these refugees from Liaodong to come to Lingqiu?" Liu Heng frowned.
Li Yunqi said: "My subordinates suspect that someone is deliberately spreading rumors behind the scenes, hoping to make refugees from Liaodong gather in our Lingqiu."
Liu Heng frowned deeply and asked, "What do you think of this matter?"
Li Yunqi said: "According to the speculation of the Attendant, the person who did this should be someone from the Xuanfu, or someone close to the Xuanfu. The Fan family in the Xuanfu has the deepest hatred against our Tiger Flag, so this matter It is most likely that the Fan family was behind this, causing some refugees from Liaodong who originally went to Xuanfu to come to our Lingqiu."
"What is the purpose of the Fan family doing this?" Liu Heng said, "The Tiger Flag is not a government government, so it has nothing to do with us how many refugees come."
Li Yunqi replied: "The Attendant has made several speculations. The most likely one is that the Fan family wants to bring more refugees from Liaodong to Lingqiu to cause chaos in Lingqiu, and then give Xu Tong a reason to send troops. Xu Tong’s hand removes our tiger-character flag.”
Liu Heng looked thoughtful, and after a long while he said: "With the ability of our Tiger Flag, how many refugees from Liaodong can we take in?"
"The Attendant has calculated." Li Yunqi said, "As long as there are no more than 40,000 people, there will be no large-scale riots. Even if there are refugees from Liaodong causing trouble, they will be suppressed immediately by a few soldiers. If the refugees are If the number of people exceeds 40,000, there will be a food shortage problem. Once the refugees from Liaodong are unable to eat enough and cause widespread civil unrest, even if a few soldiers can suppress it, it will give Xu Tong reason to send troops to us. "
"Forty thousand people?" Liu Heng frowned and said, "Is this the maximum number of people our Tiger Flag can support?"
Li Yunqi nodded and said: "Before the autumn grain comes, forty thousand is already the limit."
"Zhao Wu." Liu Heng turned his head and looked at his guard Zhao Wu.
"My subordinate is here." Zhao Wu took two steps forward on horseback and came to Liu Heng.
Liu Heng said: "Call the Intelligence Department to check whether someone deliberately let the people who escaped from Liaodong come to our Lingqiu."
"yes."
Zhao Wu agreed, broke away from the team on horseback, and galloped away.
Liu Heng then said to Li Yunqi: "Pass this order, all the bureau-level people in Tiger Character Banner, as long as they are in Lingqiu, will come to Xujiazhuang immediately to discuss matters."
"Yes." Li Yunqi agreed.
Instead, he arranged for several attendants in the team to spread the news everywhere.
"Go back to Xujiazhuang." Liu Heng said, knocking the horse's belly with his heel and urging the horse to run.
Just after noon, except for Li Shuheng who was far away in the grassland and Zhao Yutu from Xuanfu, the rest of the people came to the meeting hall of Xujiazhuang.
These people all rushed to Xujiazhuang as soon as they received the order from the Attendant.
Around the long table in the conference hall, senior officials of the Tiger Flag were seated.
Liu Heng put his hands on the table and said to Li Yunqi: "Tell everyone about the situation our Tiger Flag is facing now?"
"Yes." Li Yunqi turned around, holding a document in his hand, and said, "The Attendant suspected that someone deliberately spread rumors, causing Liaodong refugees to rush to Lingqiu in large numbers. Now the number of Liaodong refugees coming to Lingqiu has almost reached Twenty thousand. As rumors spread, more refugees from Liaodong will definitely rush to Lingqiu. However, based on the carrying capacity of our Tiger Character Banner, we can accept up to 40,000 people. If more than this number is exceeded, there will be a problem of food shortage. , this situation will not be completely resolved until the autumn grain arrives.”
After speaking, Li Yunqi retreated and stood behind Liu Heng.
Liu Heng looked at everyone and said: "The current situation is like this, so I am planning to set up a baggage team and select baggage troops, which can be used to provide logistical supplies to the war troops, and can also be used to manage the refugees in Lingqiu."
"This baggage soldier sounds similar to a civilian husband." Chen Xunping said.
"It's different." Liu Heng waved his hand and said, "The civilians are just common people who transport supplies to the government and the army. Our heavy troops also need to be trained, and they are trained in the same way as the soldiers. In the future, there will be a shortage of soldiers, or there will be an expansion of the army. When the troops arrive, they can be replenished directly from the baggage train. In this way, it saves the time for the soldiers to train new recruits. In the future, the transportation of supplies by the soldiers can also be left to the baggage train. After training, the baggage soldiers can be established. The patrol team manages the refugees and reduces chaos and trouble among the refugees."
Chen Xunping asked: "How many people are needed for the baggage army? How big is the baggage force?"
"Tentatively four thousand people." Liu Heng said, "Officers are selected from several thousand-man teams and martial arts halls. Some of the heavy troops are selected from refugees from Liaodong, some are selected from the people of Lingqiu and Guangling, and the remaining part are selected from Pick among the miners.”
Jia Liu said with a worried look on his face: "Chen Hongtao told me several times that he wanted to replenish the miners. Now that the miners are working as heavy supplies, there are even less miners in Dongshan."
"Aren't there still people who fled from Liaodong? There are tens of thousands of them!" Yang Yuan reminded.
"I almost forgot about these people." Jia Liuyi patted his forehead.
Only then did he remember that with the group of Liaodong refugees who had fled to Lingqiu, not only were their Tiger Flags no longer short of manpower, but they had enough manpower that they could never use it up.
"Proprietor," Huang Zhong said, "There are four thousand more troops in the baggage team all of a sudden. Soldiers and armor are a big problem. It is impossible to gather so many soldiers and armor in a short time."
Liu Heng said: "The matter of soldiers and armor is not urgent, and we are not going to go out to fight immediately. For the time being, we will use the weapons replaced by several thousand-man teams for training. If there are not enough, we can use wooden sticks to replace them. We will slowly replenish the soldiers and armor in the future." "
"Then it's no problem." Huang Zhong breathed a sigh of relief.
If he really wanted to get the armor of four thousand people out at once, it would be impossible. Besides, there was also the task of making other iron tools. The iron business was also a major source of income for the Tiger Flag. It was impossible to use all the manpower to build the armor. .
"Who will give the baggage train to?" Chen Xunping asked.
Several thousand-man team captains present looked at Liu Heng.
A thousand-man team only had more than a thousand people, and a baggage team had four thousand people. This made several of their thousand-man team captains excited.
Liu Heng glanced at these people, and he couldn't guess what these people were thinking. However, he was not going to hand over the baggage team to them, so he said: "Don't think about it, you guys, the baggage team is going to be composed of the third thousand people." Zhang Sancha of the team serves as the captain, and his level is half a level lower than the captains of your thousand-man team, and is tentatively designated as deputy director level."
Hearing this, Chen Xunping and others were slightly disappointed.
Although the captain of the baggage team is half a level lower than them, he still has many soldiers in his hands, and the baggage soldiers are trained according to the combat soldiers, so their combat effectiveness will definitely not be much worse than that of the combat troops. The position of such a baggage team captain is definitely not higher than theirs. These thousand-man troops have poor captains.
Zhang Hong also envied Zhang Sancha's good luck.
The captain who had just been promoted when the 3,000-man team was formed has already become the captain of the baggage team in just over half a year.
However, envy is envy, and he is not jealous.
He knew that this was the master's compensation for Zhang Sancha's contribution to opening up the Tumut trade route, and Zhang Sancha was really capable. He was also an old man who had fled to the bandit camp. The position of captain of the baggage team was given to Zhang Sancha in the future. The trained baggage soldiers will never be bad.
