After His Excellency Pi Luo finished the order, he looked at his henchman Duan Jianming, and said softly: "If you don't give some color to see, they will not be obedient, how is our army's preparation." Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

"Lord Zhao, 20,000 elite soldiers have been assembled on the eastern border, and the follow-up 10,000 soldiers and horses can also be reinforced at any time, which is more than enough to deal with a group of rabble in the land."

Duan Jianming said confidently.

"Okay, order the elite soldiers and horses in the east, don't hide anymore, and immediately march to the land to deter the wealthy clan of the land and cheer for your brother Duan Jianwei."

Pi Luo Ge Zhengse ordered.

"Yes, the edict lord, the minister will go down and make arrangements."

Duan Jianming accepted the order and immediately went to prepare.

Pi Luo Ge looked at the map in front of him, and put a pair of large hands in the direction of the planing ground, with a greedy look in his eyes, as if he saw that the planing ground had reached his hands.

###

In the direction of Luzhou City, after more than two months of difficult trekking, Li An and his entourage finally arrived at Luzhou City, the destination of this trip, and everyone was very excited at the moment they saw the city gate.

"Big brother, Luzhou City has finally arrived, and we have finally survived."

"Yes! Big brother, the sick soldiers, can finally have a good rest. ”

"I heard that the wine in Luzhou is good, I must take a few sips, this trip can't be in vain."

All the brothers were excited.

Li An looked at the surrounding environment and found that all around were mountains, and the entire Luzhou was completely mountainous, if it were not close to the river, the traffic in Luzhou would be really a problem.

"The order will go down, the main force will camp outside the city, and the baggage soldiers will cook immediately."

Li An gave an order and rushed to Luzhou City with a small number of soldiers and horses.

The scale of this Luzhou city is not particularly large, the radius is only more than ten miles, because he knew that Li An was coming, the state assassin Shi personally led a group of officials to the city gate to greet him, and the ceremony was quite grand.

However, Li An did not have much interest in these ceremonies, and after a little greeting with the state assassin and others, he went to the post house to live, of course, the state assassin was enthusiastic, and Li An could not be too high, and the welcome dinner still had to be attended, after all, recruitment and training were inseparable from the help of these local officials, if these local snakes were offended, I am afraid that it would be difficult to move an inch in Luzhou.

"Big brother, since Luzhou has arrived, the people can go back, when will they leave?"

Li An nodded and said: "It's really tiring to come all the way, let them rest for a day, and tomorrow morning, let them have a full breakfast, and then pay off their wages and let them go." ”

"Yes, big brother."

"Big brother, the open space outside Luzhou City is large enough for us to train our troops, and it is also convenient to eat and drink close to the state city."

"It's not good to train troops outside Luzhou City!"

"If you want to recruit troops, you must first choose a good training ground, and this is a top priority."

Li An nodded, took out the topographic map of Luzhou he had just gotten from his arms, frowned and thought about it.

Luzhou is mainly mountainous, the whole territory of Luzhou, except for a few places such as the state city is flat, the rest of the places are all mountainous, the continuous mountains have become a unique symbol of Luzhou, and this is obviously not conducive to the development of the economy, but also not conducive to the jurisdiction of the imperial court, of course, these are caused by nature, the cost of man-made change is too great.

"There is a large valley thirty miles southwest of the state city, and there are two smaller valleys next to it, as long as you prepare a little, it can be used as a training ground for our army."

Li An locked his eyes on the position thirty miles southwest of Luzhou City, and asked his confidants for their opinions.

"Combined, these three valleys can fully accommodate 3,000 soldiers and horses, but this place has no village in front of the village and no shop in the back, and the soldiers have to rely on the state city to transport them for food and drink, and the conditions are relatively difficult."

"Big brother, the conditions in the valley are simple, why did you choose to train in this wilderness?"

Li An smiled, and said: "Only under difficult conditions can we train good soldiers, in addition, these are valleys that are almost isolated from the outside world, our training here will not affect the people of Luzhou, as for the food and drink materials of the soldiers, it is not very far to transport them from the state city, it is only thirty miles, and it can be reached in one day." ”

"In that case, I agree."

"I also agree, let's train here!"

Li An nodded with satisfaction, and said with a straight face: "Training is still secondary, before that, we must first select soldiers, selection of soldiers is a university question, only when we select good soldiers, training can be smoother, and it can be easier to fight." ”

"Recruiting troops? What does the eldest brother mean by choosing those who are physically strong and eliminating those who are thin? ”

"It is necessary to take the strong and go to the weak, but the quality of the soldiers is more important than this, the army I want to train is a force that can fight, and all the people who are slippery in the city are not wanted, and they are specially selected to be hard-working and simple farmers and hunters."

Ang Lee gave the basic policy of recruitment.

"What the eldest brother said is that the soldier oil is absolutely not wanted, and if there is a soldier oil, it will harm the whole team."

"No harm, when and where are you going to start recruiting?"

Li An pondered for a moment, pointed to all the mountain villages in Luzhou on the map, and said softly: "Although we only recruited 3,000 soldiers this time, for the quality of the soldiers, we must expand the scope as much as possible, recruit troops in the entire territory of Luzhou, and rest for a day tomorrow, early the day after tomorrow, our 600 soldiers will be scattered everywhere, and recruit troops in strict accordance with my requirements, and the specific recruitment requirements will be written tomorrow, even if we can't recruit 3,000 soldiers and horses this time, we must ensure the quality of the soldiers, and we must not make up the number." ”

"Understood."

And all the people received the command together.

In the evening, Li An took a group of generals to the mansion of the state assassin to attend the welcome banquet.

In order to express his admiration for Ang Lee, the governor and the important officials under his command were all present, and the food at the banquet was also extraordinarily rich, making Ang Lee and the others feel at home.

During the banquet, Li An inquired about the various situations in Luzhou from time to time, and told the Luzhou Assassin History about his idea of selecting outstanding soldiers in the whole of Luzhou, and proposed that he should train in the valley thirty miles southwest, and asked the Luzhou Assassin Shi Duoduo to help him.

Because Li An selected excellent soldiers and trained in the desolate valley, none of them infringed on the interests of officials such as the state assassin, and the recruitment of troops in the valley could also reduce the interference to the state city and avoid the soldiers from disturbing the people.

At first, they were worried that Li An's arrival would destroy their interests, but they did not expect that the conditions for recruitment and training proposed by Li An did not infringe on their interests at all.

Recruiting industrious and simple farmers and hunters has little to do with them, and training in the desolate valley southwest of the state city will not destroy the farms they own at all, let alone pose a threat to the security of the state city because of the sudden large number of soldiers.

What reassures these local officials the most is that Li An is very easy-going, and he does not have a arrogant attitude at all because he is a general of Pingnan sent by the emperor.

Early in the morning of the second day, the soldiers and horses and people in the capital who were responsible for escorting the materials, after breakfast, left Luzhou City and embarked on the road back to the capital.

In order to recruit the best soldiers, Ang Lee was busy reading various classics early in the morning, recalling various experiences in later generations, and writing down various requirements for recruiting new soldiers.

First of all, anyone with fair skin and thin body cannot ask for it, this is the most basic condition, training is for fighting, and soldiers who do not have a strong body will drag down the entire army.

Secondly, the city slippery gangsters are absolutely not wanted, these people hide behind when they fight, rush to the front when they fight for merit, make mistakes and are caught by their superiors, and they also have enough eloquence to blame others, which can be described as a grain of rat feces, spoiling a pot of soup, once this kind of temptation enters the army, not only can not fight, but will play a role in breaking the morale of the army.

Also, don't be a villain who is fierce and inconsiderate of the people, these people are good at fighting, but they are too gangster, and once they get into trouble, they are likely to do things that harm the people, and in this way, the reputation of the entire army will be completely ruined, and the most basic quality of an excellent army is to freeze to death without demolishing houses, starving to death without plundering.

Of course, in addition to these major aspects, there are other trivial details, for example, some people who have met the officials and know themselves cannot be called into the army, because these people do not even have the most basic sense of awe, and there is no guarantee that they can obey the orders of the commander well.

In fact, to put it simply, the recruits that Li An wants to recruit are the kind of simple people with strong arms, strong muscles, who look more honest, and have a sense of reverence for their superiors.

In the evening, Li An handed over the conditions of his recruitment to his henchmen, and asked them to make a hundred copies, half of which were given to the soldiers under his command who were in charge of recruitment, and the other half to the local officials in Luzhou City, so that they could start recruiting troops as soon as possible on this condition.

"Big brother, are the conditions for your recruitment too strict, such a recruitment, can you really raise 3,000 people in the entire territory of Luzhou?"

Li Kunxiong looked at the recruitment conditions written by Li An, and had a trace of doubt in his heart.

"Yes! Big brother, this condition is too harsh, I have never seen so many conditions required for recruitment, we are selecting soldiers, not selecting generals, it seems that there is no need to be so strict. ”

Li An smiled lightly: "Do you think that there are not 3,000 people in the entire Luzhou who meet the conditions of the eldest brother?" ”

"Big brother, even if there are so many people, they may not all be willing to join the army, and those who are not willing to be soldiers must be excluded?"

"Don't want to be a soldier?"

Li An grinned: "The military salary we offer is much higher than that of ordinary troops, and the reward and punishment system is also very clear, as long as you make meritorious service, you will be rewarded richly, and the people of Luzhou, most of them are poor peasant households, how can they not be tempted?" Have you forgotten that a few days ago, we paid people along the way to help us transport supplies, and the price offered was not too high, but in order to get this money, the people along the way all enthusiastically signed up to join our team, and this recruitment was the same. ”

"There will be brave men under the heavy reward, and the people are still willing to join the army as long as they are given enough conditions and hopes."

Li Fei Shouyu felt that what Li An said was reasonable, as long as there were enough considerable benefits, the poor people of Luzhou were willing to join the army.

Li An nodded with a smile, looked at several henchmen, and ordered: "Early tomorrow morning, leave one hundred soldiers and four hundred heavy soldiers and horses to guard the supplies, and the remaining five hundred soldiers, divided into fifty groups, with the assistance of local officials in Luzhou, go to various places to collect soldiers and horses, and within ten days, bring all the soldiers and horses collected to Luzhou City to gather." ”

"Yes, I'll understand."

All the henchmen and generals received the order together.

Li An looked at Kunxiong and Feiyu, and said: "Kunxiong, Feiyu, early tomorrow morning, you will accompany me to the valley thirty miles southwest, and what the terrain there is like can only be determined by looking at it on the spot." ”

"Yes, big brother."

Li Kunxiong and Li Feiyu said in unison.

After dinner, Li An asked his henchmen to start preparing separately, and asked the officials in charge of recruiting troops in the city to prepare as soon as possible, after all, they had to disperse to various places early in the morning of the second day to recruit troops, and it was still very necessary to make relevant preparations in advance.

Before going to sleep, Li An was still in his mind, making a final assumption about the confirmed recruitment conditions, and constantly predicting the soldiers that might be recruited and the unexpected situations that would be encountered.

On the second day, as soon as the sky was bright, Li An took Kunxiong, Feiyu, as well as local guides and more than ten guards, and galloped to the southwest.

"General Li, bypassing the mountain peak in front of you is the entrance to the gourd valley."

The guide stretched out his hand and pointed to the mountain peak directly in front of him, and reported in a positive color.

"Gourd Valley, a very nice name, it must be because the valley here is shaped like a gourd, so it was named!"

Ang Lee confidently guessed.

"The general is wise, it is indeed the case, the valley here is a straight line that stretches for more than ten miles, but in this straight line, there are three places that are relatively wide, among them, the middle one is the largest, and the area on both sides is slightly smaller, so it is like two gourds nailed together, and the locals call it the gourd valley."

The guide hurriedly chimed in.

"The valley in the middle of the gourd valley is not small, why are there no people living here?"

Li An had long known that this was an uninhabited area, but he had not had time to ask the specific reason, and at this moment, since he had arrived in Hulu Valley, he naturally wanted to ask.

The guide sighed slightly and looked at Li An: "The general doesn't know that there is a group of bandits near the Hulu Valley. ”

"Bandits?" (To be continued.) )