I want to be emperor

Chapter 25 Recruitment
Two months ago, Sun Chengli had made a decision to start recruiting troops after the matters in Sanshui Village were settled.

In the past two months, they have been busy with various preparations.

For example, Sun Chengli was personally responsible for investigating the situation in the surrounding villages and finding out the situation in each village, such as which villages were young and strong, and which villages had people who were willing to join the army.

The reason why they want to find out these situations is that Sun Chengli and the others recruited troops this time, which is different from ordinary rebel recruits.

Ordinary thieves say they are recruiting soldiers, but their recruiting is more like coercion. When they pass by a place, they will directly coerce the local young and strong, and they will not even issue a weapon.

Then, in the process of continuous combat, step by step, those who survived successfully and had combat experience were selected, and then issued weapons for training, and finally became the elite backbone of the bandits.

As for Sun Chengli and the others, they couldn't engage in coercion, after all, they didn't plan to leave Funiu Mountain in a short time.

At the same time, considering that the food production in the entire Funiu Mountain area is limited, the population that needs to be fed with so much food is also limited.

Therefore, it is impossible for Sun Jianli and the others to rashly and directly recruit a large number of young and strong refugees from outside the mountain, because this means that the living space of the original population in the Funiu Mountain area will be squeezed.

And these mountain people's ability to withstand pressure is very low. They are already living a miserable life. If you continue to collect more food, they will not be able to survive. If they cannot survive, they will flee or even resist.

In this way, the entire Funiu Mountain area will be abolished.

For this reason, Luo Zhixue suggested directly recruiting soldiers from the surrounding villages, so as not to cause too much pressure on local food.

Although there will inevitably be a certain amount of food pressure in the future, Luo Zhixue and the others will also grow food in Sanshui Village, so the food pressure can still be tolerated.

As for Sun Chengli himself, he had his own reasons for agreeing to this proposal. Sun Chengli wanted to recruit ordinary young men to train into the army, just like himself.

Sun Lili and the others were recruited from the army. Although they were all poor and poor children before joining the army, they were all good people.

Sun Chengli thought about recruiting good people to train well and train an elite army.

As for the refugees, he has always looked down on them. In the past, Li Tonglin recruited soldiers from the refugees, and Sun Chengli had a lot of opinions.

It's just that Sun Chengli wasn't in charge at the beginning, so it's useless for him to have opinions...

But now it's different, now that Sun Jiancheng is in charge, he naturally wants to follow his own ideas.

Before they attacked Shanshui Village, they also captured hundreds of thieves, but Sun Chengli and the others beheaded more than 30 people on the spot, leaving only about [-] honest and ordinary prisoners of war who were arranged to build Zhaiqiang, Wuliguan, camps, farming, etc.

But until now, Sun Jiancheng has no plan to bring these prisoners of war into the army.

Luo Zhixue knew very well what Sun Chengli was thinking, so he never mentioned it.

Although these prisoners of war had always been under the management of Luo Zhixue, Luo Zhixue also thought about recruiting people from these prisoners of war to enrich the supply camp.

But he didn't do that, he didn't even mention it, because Luo Zhixue knew it would be useless to mention it, and it would arouse Sun Chengli's dissatisfaction instead.

So now those prisoners of war are still just prisoners of war.

Sun Jiancheng attached great importance to the first batch of recruits. He planned to recruit a group of mountain people's children to train and see the effect. There will be more than a few hundred people.

Among the newly recruited people at that time, except for a very small number of people with special skills, such as horse riding and archery, they will be trained as cavalry.

The rest will be trained as ordinary infantry.

Sun Jiancheng intends to create an elite infantry force that is not weaker than the recruits of the official army, and then cooperate with the existing cavalry.

But before that, it is necessary to verify whether it is reliable to recruit soldiers from the mountain people.

-

After Luo Zhixue and Wuliguan returned, they did not stay in Sanshui Village for long, but followed Sun Jiancheng to go out again three days later, preparing to recruit soldiers in surrounding villages.

Looking at the rugged road ahead, Luo Zhixue, who was riding a horse, couldn't help but sigh in his heart. This was the first time he had left the area of ​​Sanshui Village in the two months since he arrived in Sanshui Village on Funiu Mountain.

Not only him, but also Sun Chengli.

When I first arrived in Sanshui Village, on the one hand, it was to keep a low profile, and on the other hand, there were many things to settle down.

Sun Chengli or Luo Zhixue were responsible for many things in camp affairs and military affairs, and the two of them simply couldn't leave.

Now recruiting soldiers is different, because of the importance of recruiting soldiers, Sun Chengli is planning to go there himself.

And this time, in the recruiting, the supply battalion also has 30 places, so Luo Zhixue will not neglect it, and will take Ernst and Young to go there in person.

In addition to recruiting soldiers, they went out this time for another purpose, which was to investigate the specific conditions, terrain and roads of the villages in the Funiu Mountain area.

On the one hand, it is to lay the foundation for the subsequent autumn grain collection. On the other hand, it is also to better deal with the enemy when facing the enemy's attack. It is best to block the enemy directly in the outer area of ​​Funiu Mountain.

Now, be it Sun Jiancheng or Luo Zhixue, they have already taken Funiu Mountain as their territory, and the population and food in the surrounding villages as their own resources.

With this mentality, they naturally hoped to keep the enemy out of Mount Funiu, not just defending Sanshui Village.

Everyone walked east along the mountain road, but the mountain road was difficult. After walking for a long time, they arrived at a village, but the village was already in ruins.

The fields have been abandoned and overgrown with weeds, and the rough and dilapidated thatched wooden houses were either burned or collapsed into ruins. Even the few thatched huts that are still well preserved are mostly covered with weeds.

Seeing this scene, Luo Zhixue couldn't help sighing: "Fandilong and the others have done too much. It didn't take long for them to occupy Sanshui Village. It took only a month or so, but they destroyed both villages. Already!"

"This place was originally called Lihuang Village by the mountain people. There used to be more than two hundred mountain people. However, after the scourge of Fandilong and the others, many mountain people were killed and injured, and the rest also fled."

Sun Chengli said with disdain: "I've seen this kind of thing a lot. Those thieves are all the same. They do things that don't have assholes. It's fine to collect food, and they burn, kill and loot. If they can have a trace of humanity, This village will not be destroyed!"

"There is another village to the east that was also abolished by Fandilong and the others. There used to be more people there. It is said that there are more than 400 people."

Luo Zhixue also disdains and even hates Fan Dilong and his group's actions!

Everyone cuts leeks, but he just dug up all the leeks...

Not to mention anything else, the two villages near Sanshui Village used to have a large population, and the total number could be several hundred people. Moreover, the terrain is relatively flat, and there is also abundant water flow, so food production is not bad. .

If these two villages remain, they can control the two nearby villages and directly use the local population and food for their own use.

but now……

The village is deserted!

Now that they want to recruit soldiers and food, they have to go all the way...

Sun Jiancheng looked at the sky, then looked around and said: "It's getting late now, and if we continue to walk outside, there is a barren mountain and wild forest, and there is no place to spend the night. Let's camp here in Lihuang Village tonight!"

Luo Zhixue nodded yes, and soon took people to arrange camping affairs.

Not many people came out this time, only about 20 people, but even if there are few people, there are rules for camping.

After all, they are not ordinary thieves, but rebels who came from officers and soldiers.

Choosing a camp and arranging sentries are all necessary.

After the arrangements were made, Luo Zhixue found Sun Chengli again: "General, I just stopped by to see this Lihuang Village. The land here is still good, and there are mountains and rivers to irrigate. It is better than our Sanshui Village. There is more arable land, and this place is only one day away from our Sanshui Village, and it is also the only place near our Sanshui Village that is more suitable for farming."

"If we arrange human cultivation here, not only can we meet our daily needs, but we can also stockpile some food!"

"We will recruit more soldiers in the future, and we don't have so much food. The newly recruited people are going to be cultivated. Although there are still some places in Sanshui Village, it is always a good thing to have more food for reclamation."

Sun Chengli also felt that it made sense: "This is a good way. These days, no matter how much food there is, there is not enough food."

Reclamation of Lihuang Village is only a funeral matter, and whether it will take shape depends on the subsequent recruiting situation, so the two only discussed briefly and did not discuss in depth.

Early the next morning, they left Lihuang Village and arrived at their first destination after walking for a long time.

Standing outside and looking at the village, Luo Zhixue slowly said: "The mountain people here call this place Huangjia Village, and they say that the first family to settle here was a family of mountain people surnamed Huang who fled famine and entered the mountain, hence the name. "

"More than ten years ago, there were only three or five mountain families living in huts here, but with the frequent natural disasters and human chaos outside, more and more people came in from the mountains. There are about sixty households with more than three hundred mouths."

"By the way, the yellow carpenter we recruited before is from here."

"Because Carpenter Huang went to work in our Sanshui Village, I also sent people several times to let Carpenter Huang bring them here for fair purchases. After contacting them a few times, the people here will naturally know that we are different from the people in the previous Dilong. No burning, killing, looting."

"So the people here have let down their guard against us now, at least people who won't see us will just pack up their belongings and sneak into the mountains like before!"

Hearing this, Sun Chengli took another look at Luo Zhixue, and now he felt more and more that recruiting and reusing Luo Zhixue was the right choice, and at the same time said: "We plan to recruit troops here, we must not make people panic, we must Otherwise, all the people will run away, and we will go there to recruit soldiers and food, Mr. Luo, you have done a good job."

(End of this chapter)