Jinling's underground battlefield has its own secret mansion to be in charge, Xu You didn't pay too much attention, the foreign marquis after the last heavy blow, even if he recovered a little, it was only a problem of scabies, and it was not enough to worry, and when he figured out the law of their activities, he could give a big gift to the Northern Wei Dynasty when the time was right.

In the following period, the people who investigated, recruited, and selected gradually gathered in Jinling from all directions, and all the assistants of the General's Mansion were in place. Fifty percent of them are from the family of the gate lords, thirty percent are from the humble scholars, and two percent are from the shrewd and capable common people selected from the army, and these commoners can only deign to the position of second. Although their abilities may be stronger, they are from a low background, this is the original sin, and if it were not for Xu You's insistence, it would be almost impossible to directly enter the Great General's Mansion, the military hub of the empire.

This ratio is not optimal, Xu You is not satisfied, but at present, he can only do this, but the children recommended by the gate valves are all talented, and there are no corpse vegetarians.

On the day of Wuchen, it is sunny, and it is appropriate to sacrifice, pray for blessings, and discuss matters.

Xu You is wearing vermilion purple, clothes painted with flowers, insects, algae, fire, powdered rice, yellow, and yellow elephants, called the seven chapters, wearing a crown on his head, adding gold, attaching cicadas as a text, mink rat tail as a decoration, wearing a mountain Xuanyu on his waist, carrying a jade sword on his shoulder, ascending to the seat in the middle of the festival hall, the left and right sides of the hall are separated, and thirty-two wingmen bow down and bow down, and call the general together.

He didn't say a long speech, but simply said two sentences, "...... I am familiar with some of you, and some of you are not very familiar with it, but if you can enter the mansion, you are all the best in the world, and in the future, you should work together, have the courage to do things, take the responsibility of guarding the border and the people, and deter thieves and rebels outside, and be loyal to your ......duties."

After that, Xu You had a one-on-one one-on-one conversation, and in addition to his old acquaintances, three more people attracted his attention. One is Yu Teng, the son of the secretary Cheng Yubai, the nephew of Shang Shuling Yu Hao, born in the door valve, in his early twenties, but somehow, his temperament is extremely old and serious, Xu You asked him questions, often wanted to answer in the first half of the day, but he was concise and to the point, straight to the core, and immediately shut up after answering, and refused to say a word.

The other is Wei Bairong, Huiji Hanmen, his family died in the rebellion of the white thieves, he joined the Cuiyu Army after being exiled in Qiantang, entered the seventh phase of training in the Tiger Hall, and made many military exploits on the battlefield of Qingxu. He is completely opposite to Yu Teng, every time Xu You asks a question, he blurts out without thinking, although it is not perfect, but it has a bit of a sense of overall planning.

There is also Jin Cao Peng Cai Xi, Jin Cao is in charge of internal and external treasury collections, power measurement matters, very important, originally Jin Cao Peng's suitable candidate was Ji Qinghe, but Lu Bozhi left Fengying, Ji Qinghe needed to stay to cooperate with Han Baoqing's work, so Zu Xiao recommended Cai Xi. Cai Xi is a disciple he accepted many years ago, quite an economic talent, Xu You had an in-depth chat with him, and made sure that this son is no longer under Qinghe, and he will not be one of the candidates for the household branch in the future.

Tan Zhuo and Lu Bozhi are both leaders of the army, adhering to Xu You's will, governing the general's mansion with military law, punctual every day, and those who do not come to the three-way drum will be dismissed from the palace, and will report to the court and never be used. It also streamlined the cumbersome deliberations, handling affairs, and feedback regulations of the imperial court offices, implemented vertical management, divided responsibilities to people, did not allow prevarication, and clearly defined rewards and punishments, and soon made this newly born military government operate perfectly.

He Wei led the people who joined the army to join the army, followed the old example of the Cuiyu Army, through sand table deduction, arranging troops, calculating the strength of the enemy and us, plus various factors such as weather, terrain, people's hearts, and river transportation, and formulated multiple sets of strategic and tactical plans. Xu You went in and out of the Inner Dynasty, and An Xiulin and the ministers discussed the use of troops, this time the Western Liang was a battle to destroy the country, how to mobilize superior forces, form a thunderous blow, and still have the strength to deal with the possible intervention of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which became the most concerned issue of the Inner Dynasty.

It was not until the beginning of December that the court finally reached a consensus and decided to mobilize 30,000 Qingxu, 100,000 Chinese troops, 30,000 Yangzhou troops, 50,000 Jingzhou troops, 20,000 naval troops, and 20,000 people under Liangzhou and Yao Jin in March next year, a total of 250,000 people, known as 800,000, to conquer Liangguo by four routes.

The 250,000 regular soldiers, plus the auxiliaries and servants, consumed an astronomical amount of grain and grass every day. Although the state of Chu was full of national strength, and the treasury was full, such as Nanyang, Xiangyang, Shouxian, Hanzhong and Pengcheng and other strategic towns all had permanent liquidation, it was also quite pressure to ensure sufficient supply on such a long front. In order to alleviate the cost of logistics supplies, Xu You soaked in Hu Rong and foreign soldiers Cao all day long, and summoned old men who had been with the army for more than ten years from the army, and invited cooks with outstanding pasta skills from the city, preparing to imitate some convenient and portable military food production methods for later generations.

For example, the perforated baked cake of the Ming army, crispy and salty, poked with small holes, and strung with ropes, which is convenient for soldiers to carry and eat, and is very popular with the Ming army. Xu You once read Liu Bowen's "Multi-energy Unloading" in the early Ming Dynasty, which recorded very clearly that two catties of white flour were added to a cup of fermented juice, mixed into a dough, and then embedded with a piece of soft noodles on top, and placed in a warm place to rise. When holding the noodles, warm the dry noodles on all sides and mix them with soup. Mixed into the dough, when fermenting, add dry noodles, pour warm water and evenly, after the decing piece is executed, it can be steamed with a kneading agent.

The biggest problem here is fermented juice, the ancient dough fermentation technology has probably gone through five stages, the first is the white cake method in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which uses wine to brew and noodles; The second is to make cake fermentation method in the Wei and Jin dynasties, boiling it into porridge with glass slurry and japonica rice, etc., to obtain cake leaven, and then use it for noodles; the third is the fermentation method of yeast in the Song Dynasty, which is equivalent to the fresh yeast in modern food additives; The fourth is the alkaline fermentation method of the Yuan Dynasty, which is mixed with fermentation, salt and alkali and warm water, mixed with white flour, and formed into a dough, which is equivalent to the dry yeast in modern food additives; The fifth stage is the fermented juice dough method of the Ming Dynasty, which is equivalent to the liquid yeast of modern food additives.

If you want to make perforated baked cakes, you must make the noodles well, otherwise it will be dead noodles, and you can only make the soup noodles and gnocchi that people often eat at the time, which cannot be stored for a long time and transported over long distances, and cannot be carried on the march. Xu You knew that grapes could be used as liquid yeast, but the specific proportion, suitable temperature and storage time needed to be tested, so when he said his idea, Hou Changmin, the owner of a time-honored restaurant in Jinling, said with a smile: "The perforated baked cake that the general said is somewhat similar to the 餢龍......

"Hungry?"

Xu You really hadn't heard of it, and after Hou Changmin's explanation, he understood that the so-called 餢锢門 was kneaded into a huge ring with good flour, fried in the pot, golden and crispy, and taken out to dry. When you go out on a long trip, hang it on the carriage, take it down and eat two bites when you are hungry, and then hang it up after eating. However, this thing is too brittle and will break when touched, and it will not work as military rations.

But with the dumpling as an example, it is not difficult for everyone to understand the baked cakes described by Xu You, especially Hou Changmin is very interested in liquid yeast, and he can't wait to make it quickly.

In addition, in the Ming Dynasty, the men dehydrated and dried cooked rice to make dry rice, and when the hot water was soaked during the meal, they could eat a steaming meal, which could shorten the meal time to the greatest extent, and it was quite practical in emergency warfare. However, this kind of instant rice appeared as early as the Han Dynasty, and it was called "glutinous rice" at that time, which was not unusual, and now it is necessary to study how to increase the shelf life of dry rice, and add appropriate salt and non-staple food.

Eating only rice does not guarantee that the soldiers will have sufficient physical strength and desire to fight, and must be paired with reasonable non-staple foods to adjust the taste. Xu You's idea is to use three liters of tempeh mixed with five liters of salt, mash them into a puree, make them into cakes, expose them to the sun to dry, and peel off the size of a fingernail when eating, which is enough to meet the needs of seasoning. The benefits of this are still portable, and they are more hygienic and aesthetically pleasing than the usual vinegar and salt cloths, and the cost is lower.

Solved the rice, cakes, salt and vegetables, if possible, Xu You also wants to provide meat, of course, meat cannot be guaranteed to be available at every time, and it is impossible to guarantee that all combat units have it, but at least there must be hoplites like Bashandu, and special operations forces like Zhenhaidu, right?

This is easy to do, Xu You directly copied the practice of the Mengyuan army, killed a Lin Niu for food, dried hundreds of catties of beef for a month, the weight will be significantly reduced after dehydration, and about one or twenty catties of jerky will be generated, and then put these beefs into a sun-dried cow bladder bag, which is easy to eat when carrying, nutritious, and the most rare thing is that there are enough calories.

In addition, there is an old man in the army who proposed to emulate the Han Dynasty Han Xin and Wei Wangbao when they invented the noodle, he is an expatriate who fled from the north, his ancestors lived in Hanzhong, and learned the craft of noodle, but Jiangdong doesn't eat much pasta, so he hasn't done it for many years, if it weren't for Xu You's search for a way to find those easy-to-carry food, he can't remember.

Noodles can be regarded as the earliest instant noodles in China, probably made with a mixture of buckwheat and wheat, boiled into a few ripe large flour cakes, flushed to eat, the specific method has long been lost in later generations, and those shops that sell noodles in Shaanxi are actually fakes that have been improved and recreated, Xu You heard that this person is an ancestral craft, and he was immediately overjoyed.

got together for several rounds of brainstorming, and Xu You quickly set the tone, with Hou Changmin in charge of the research and development of military rations, with the assistance of Hu Yu and foreign soldiers Cao. This method of working directly broke people's preconceived notions and implemented the principle of professional people doing professional things, and the generals who were usually high in the general became the role of providing services and support.

Tan Zhuo, who was quite dissatisfied with Xu You's unscrupulous work at the beginning, was completely convinced when he received Hu Cao's report, and privately said to Lu Bozhi: "In the past, Emperor Xuan (Sima Yi) persuaded Cao Rui to say, 'Thousands of miles of food, the soldiers are hungry; After Qiao Su, the division is not full. In the case of going deep into the enemy's territory, it is impossible to fly, the food is far away, and it is a taboo to march'...... Now, if according to the general's strategy, people can hold three buckets of dry food, which can be used for several decades, which can greatly relieve the pressure on the rear, which can be called a good strategy! ”

Lu Bozhi said with a smile: "This is nothing to the general, I heard that Mr. Zu Hu built two new types of boats in the Tiangongfang, whether it is to transport troops or food, it is more rapid and stable than the current ships, it seems that he also followed the general's advice to take shape." ”

Tan Zhuo sighed: "The general is really a god! ”

Xu You, who is known as a god, is in the inner room to meet Wu Shan's henchmen sent from Ming Yushan, he sent Wu Shan's secret letter, saying that there is a change in Buddhism, Zhu Wuxian wants to take people back to Jinling to face the saint, reopen the mountain gate of Ben Wuzong, and some monks have a dispute, hoping that Xu You will show how to solve it.

After the beginning of spring, the war was imminent, Xu You felt the need to go back to Qiantang, many things needed to be arranged by him personally, and he had to meet Zhang Xuanji. Immediately begged the emperor for leave, and left Sha Sanqing, a small grandmaster, to sit in the General's Mansion, with the three hundred elites in Cang, enough to protect the safety of Zhan Wenjun and He Wei and others.