Li De, as the lieutenant general of the right guard, had 8,000 troops under his direct command, of which 3,000 were the rangers brought by Li De. When Li Deshang was under Liu Chenglin, the rangers once reached more than 5,000 people.

The rangers do not have a fixed subordination, they directly obey Li Ze's orders, and where there is a need, they will be requisitioned and transferred to wherever they are, which is also the most combat-effective cavalry under Li Ze's command except for the wolf cavalry. However, the number of wolf riders is limited, and more often they are used as surprise soldiers.

Out of the need to balance Zhang Jia's right guard, Li Ze transferred Li De to the right guard, and the new ranger commander was also taken over by Ma Yao, who came from the rangers.

Li De was stationed in Pinglu and Zhang Jia was stationed in Shuozhou. At the same time, Shuozhou City is also the seat of Xu Ziyuan, the assassin of Shuozhou.

When Li De returned from hunting with his newlywed wife and stepped into Pinglu City, outside Shuozhou City, Xu Ziyuan was conducting a routine lecture.

He was listened to by the first batch of prisoners of war from Pingzhou.

In the Battle of Pingzhou, Deng Jingshan's tens of thousands of troops were jointly wrapped in dumplings by Right Xiaowei and Zuojin Wuwei, but in the end, out of political needs, Deng Jingshan was able to reach an agreement with the direction of Zhenzhou, he was released, and at the same time was allowed to lead the army of 5,000 henchmen to leave, but the other soldiers laid down their arms and became prisoners of war of the Zhenzhou army.

These prisoners of war, together with those who were previously wounded and captured, numbered more than 20,000.

The vast majority of them will be resettled in Shuozhou, Ulzhou, Yunzhou, Yanzhou and other places. Among them, Ulzhou and Yunzhou were extremely damaged during the war, in order to facilitate the rule, but also to strengthen the power in this area, in order to contain Hedong, Tiande and other regions, Li Ze merged Ulzhou and Yunzhou into Shuozhou, and Xu Ziyuan served as the assassin of Shuozhou.

The right guard Zhang Jia was originally the main general of the cloud guard, in the last battle of Gao Biao, he was also put into the list of sacrifices, after a fire with Zhang Zhongwu, Zhang Jia's strength was greatly damaged, and he was once in danger of being swallowed by Han Qi, and even Tiande commanded Peng Fang to covet Zhang Jia's core three thousand Hu Qi.

In the end, Zhang Jia threw himself into Li Ze and became the most powerful card that Li Ze inserted into this region, and of course, Zhang Jia also got a great reward.

From the worst time, he only had 3,000 horsemen left to fight hard, and now he has an army of 30,000 people. not only fought against Li Cunzhong in Hedong, but also made Peng Fang panic all day. From a commander from the fourth grade, he became a general of the Tang Dynasty's twelve guards and three products.

Zhang Jia is now very satisfied.

Of course, when his status, his power was fully enhanced, he also paid the price. He lost the right to interfere in civil affairs, and all the local civil affairs were attributed to Xu Ziyuan. Now Zhang Jia has become a simple general.

Unlike Li Cunzhong, who has absolute control over the Hedong Army, Zhang Jia has a Zhonglang general like Li De under his command who controls nearly half of the army, and under his command, the army recruited later was infiltrated by the Yixing Society. Zhang Jia is naturally clear about these, but he doesn't care.

Because of the generals under Li Ze's command, which one is not like this?

The more he participated, the more he believed that Li Ze's future would not only be limited to the current position of prime minister, but also that it was possible to take a few steps further, and the more deferential he behaved now, the greater the rewards he would be able to get in the future.

Although he is not Li Ze's descendant general, nor does he belong to the group of old people under Li Ze's son Li Anguo, Li Ze does not look at him differently. The quartermaster of the Right Guard is exactly the same as the other guards, and since last winter, he has been supplemented with additional military expenses, ordnance, and supplies.

This made him understand that Li Xiang would make a big move in this direction in the next step.

It got him excited.

Zhang Jia, who put all his thoughts on the training of the army, lived an extremely fulfilling life. Now he doesn't need to worry about the soldiers having no food, no armor, no weapons, no salary, no more, so he just goes to Xu Ziyuan to ask for it. What he has to do now is to make the fighters of the Right Guards more combative.

Shuozhou, in fact, has entered a preparation for a loose outside and tight inside since last winter.

This group of prisoners of war had actually arrived a year ago, and they were held in the barracks for more than ten days, and it was not until the end of the New Year that the distribution of these prisoners of war was put on the agenda.

The first refers to the arrival of more than 2,000 prisoners of war.

Zhang Jia was actually very interested in these prisoners of war. These people are all serious soldiers, and the combat effectiveness of Lu Longjun, he is extremely familiar with it, when he was under Gao Yu, he fought with Lu Longjun many times, and he was extremely happy with the arrival of this group of people. Because this means that he can quickly recruit more qualified soldiers at a certain time.

The premise, of course, is that these prisoners of war are reformed first.

This is the discipline set by Li Ze.

When they arrived in Shuozhou, the only way for these people to transform was to enter one reclamation point after another, and to transform themselves through labor and redeem themselves.

After the merger, Shuozhou was short of people, and in order to solve the food needs, Xu Ziyuan established a number of cantonment points, which were cultivated by the army in turn at first, and then handed over to the people one after another.

And the way the people came from is strange.

Miscellaneous beards and savages are the targets of Xu Ziyuan's naturalization. People like Xu Ziyuan, who came out of Wuwei Academy, believe in teaching without class, and believe in the creed that Di Yi will be China if he enters China. Therefore, those miscellaneous beards and savages who have come back with their families, even if they are penniless after coming, they will immediately gain the trust of Shuozhou, and divide houses, livestock, farm tools, seeds, and fields. Those who are single and have nothing to worry about will need to work for a certain period of time in the advanced cantonment site before they can get the same rights.

And the second way is to dig the corner of the east of the river.

Miscellaneous beards and savages entered these areas in large numbers, making the proportion of various ethnic groups in Shuozhou somewhat unbalanced, in order to balance this gap, Xu Ziyuan set his sights on Hedong.

After thoroughly mastering Shuozhou, taking advantage of the inextricable connection between Shuozhou itself and Hedong, Xu Ziyuan spared no effort to dig the corners of Hedong.

Shuozhou's series of preferential conditions for peasants were extremely attractive to the landless tenants, the poor and even the urban proletarians in Hedong.

First a small-scale migration, then a large-scale escape, until Hedong began to wake up and sealed the border, Xu Ziyuan still did not stop.

You have a good plan, I have a wall ladder, and in Xu Ziyuan's Assassin Mansion, there is even a special department, which is to assist these people in Hedong to escape from Hedong and come to Shuozhou.

And Zhang Jia raised his hands in favor of this policy, and his resentment against Han Qi, Li Cunzhong and others was from the bottom of his heart, for this reason, he even sent troops to patrol the border to meet these people who fled Hedong, for this reason, his right military guard and Li Cunzhong's left military guard clashed on the border.

In the past two years, tens of thousands of people have flowed into Shuozhou from Hedong.

And these people are the powerful means that Xu Ziyuan used to contain and balance those miscellaneous and savages.

In Xu Ziyuan's view, Han Qi and Li Cunzhong are loyal to the Tang Dynasty, not Li Ze, and now everyone is still in the same boat, but one day, everyone will go their separate ways, so now every time Shuozhou digs a little bit from Hedong, Shuozhou is a little stronger, and Hedong is a little weaker.

So, he never gets tired of it.

Xu Ziyuan was quite happy that the Pingzhou prisoners were placed in Shuozhou, so that Shuozhou had not only batches of strong labor, but also strong combat effectiveness, and on this point, he agreed with Zhang Jia. As for whether these prisoners of war are well managed, he is not worried at all.

First, what Yixing Society is best at doing is to rebel and appease such things, and secondly, these people are too far away from their hometown now, even if they are a dragon at home, but when they go out and go to a place where they are unfamiliar with life, most of them will become a worm.

It's hard to go out at home, it's not something to talk about.

Standing on the high platform, looking at the prisoners of war who were curled up and squatting on the ground on the school field below, Xu Ziyuan's eyes were full of smiles, and Zhang Jia beside him looked at these prisoners of war up and down one by one.

Xu Ziyuan walked to the edge of the high platform, waved his hand, and a soldier beat the drum vigorously, and with the sound of the drum, the prisoners of war who were squatting on the ground stood up one after another, and looked up at the red-robed Zhenzhou high-ranking official on the high platform.

"Your commander has forsaken you." As soon as Xu Ziyuan opened his mouth, he poked at the hearts of these people, causing most of the prisoners of war to change color.

Yes, they are outcasts.

When the Tang army allowed Deng Jingshan to leave with 5,000 soldiers, they were not one of the 5,000 people, and the anger and sadness of being abandoned had been with them for a long time.

"But you should rejoice, you are our prisoners of war. From Pingzhou to Shuozhou, thousands of miles, in such a cold winter wax moon, you did not starve to death, did not freeze to death, were injured, sick, all of them have been properly cared for and treated, so you are still alive and well. Xu Ziyuan shouted from the high platform.

And every time he spoke, ten soldiers with loud voices repeated his words in unison, so that all the prisoners of war could hear them clearly.

Indeed, along the way, although they were prisoners of war, they were not mistreated, and arrived here safely, although they were still apprehensive in their hearts, but these people did not have much worry about whether they could survive, so why bother to kill them?

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