500,000 soldiers seems to be a big number, but it is not too much to really spread the land of the four states under Yuan Shu's command.

Unlike the chaos in the north, the south under Yuan Shu has not suffered too much from the scourge of war. Yuan Shu did not encounter much resistance to take Jingzhou and Yizhou, after all, Liu Biao and Liu Yan were two goods, one was just airborne and could not control Jingzhou, and the other was to die by himself and proclaim himself emperor.

And Yuan Shu has always had very high requirements for the discipline of the army under his command, and with the cooperation of the family, the population of the south has not suffered much loss.

On the contrary, due to the war in the north, a large number of people migrated, and the population of the south continued to grow. The population under Yuan Shu's command has exceeded 10 million, and it is approaching 15 million.

According to the conscription limit of one out of ten in troubled times, it is completely possible for Yuan Shu to pull out an army of one million. However, the price of doing this is that Yuan Shu's economic pressure will be very great, and the development speed will slow down. Yuan Shu naturally wouldn't do this kind of thing of killing chickens and taking eggs.

Although Yuan Shu needs a lot of troops, the more soldiers the better, and there are too many records in the Three Kingdoms with fewer victories. The three major battles were all defeated by the weak over the strong, and the results were very exaggerated.

Normally, a general can control no more than tens of thousands of troops. Han Xin's more troops the better, but there is really no demon Yuan Shu like Han Xin who can wield hundreds of thousands of troops like arms. All the famous generals under Yuan Shu's command combined, commanding an army of 500,000 is almost the same.

But what Yuan Shu wanted to do was not only that, in addition to conscription, he felt that the military system should also be reformed. There was a very useful system that came to his mind, the reserves.

Pick out a large number of young people who are busy farming and training in their spare time, so that they can train for a year. Then recruit the best performers as reserves. Combining the advantages of conscription and conscription not only reduces the pressure on the people, but also ensures the elite and loyalty of the soldiers.

In ancient times, there were generally two ways to obtain soldiers, conscription and conscription.

Conscription is similar to compulsory conscription, and it is compulsory for young and strong people under their command to serve in the military. The advantages of conscription are obvious, as was the case in the Qin, Western Han and Tang dynasties, which was an important reason for the strength of these countries.

Relatively speaking, the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Song Dynasty and the late Qing Dynasty, where the conscription system prevailed, did not necessarily have this reason. Especially in the current troubled times, it is also caused by the conscription system. It can be said that with the advent of troubled times, the prevalence of the conscription system is fundamental, and the state pastoral system and relatives are just adding fuel to the fire.

What is conscription? Just like a mercenary, Cao Cao got a million displaced people in Qingzhou, and took 300,000 of them to form Qingzhou soldiers. His advantage is that the recruitment is based on merit, and those selected are all young and strong, unlike the uneven conscription system. But the disadvantage is that it is easy to produce private soldiers.

Like in the late Han Dynasty, the Xiliang soldiers under Dong Zhuo only listened to Dong Zhuo's words, and even Li Yu and Guo Yan made trouble. Conscription soldiers are not as loyal to the country as conscripted soldiers, many of them are loyal to individuals.

Generally speaking, conscription will make the country strong, and a large number of reservists will be reserved in the civilian population. However, since all the people are soldiers, problems will easily arise over time, and a large amount of national strength will be lost, resulting in things such as pulling strong ding, and the strength of the army as a whole will decline due to problems such as land annexation.

The conscription system is a competition for posts, although it costs a little more money, but it recruits elite soldiers, and countless good generals stand out in this way. However, the disadvantage is that these soldiers have no loyalty at all, and they are prone to mutiny. Of course, the peculiar conscription system like the Song Dynasty was not among them, it was entirely an act of death by a group of literati to suppress the generals.

The compulsory soldiers that Yuan Shu wants to engage in now are to use the conscription system to provide a source of soldiers, but he does not all regard them as soldiers. Instead, on the basis of the conscription system, the conscription system was adopted, and the elite of them were selected as soldiers. Anyway, now that he's so rich, it's not a big deal to spend a little more effort.

However, this is only Yuan Shu's general idea, and it is not mature, and he will decide the specific details after weighing it and discussing it with Tian Feng, Jia Xu and others.

......

"Yes, if we take Yizhou, we will have four southern states, and the army of 500,000 is about the same." Yuan Shu nodded.

"But what about the Kansai problem, should we do it now? If Cao Heizi and Liu Daer are allowed to seize the opportunity, it will be difficult for us to do it! ”

Jia Xu said calmly: "Don't be impatient. In this battle of Jiangbei, we suffered heavy losses, and more than 70,000 troops died on the battlefield. And Cao Mengde and Liu Xuande's losses are not small, and they will definitely not be able to plot against Kansai in three or two years. The lord doesn't need to worry too much, let's wait until he controls Xuzhou! ”

Xun You agreed: "That's right, although Yizhou has been taken by Han Sheng, it has not completely fallen into our control. Recently, a letter came from Hansheng that there was a riot in the Nanban region, and it seemed that someone had stirred up those barbarians to riot and urgently needed to be pacified. We really can't handle the Kansai affair right now. ”

Xun You is telling the truth. In his opinion, there was nothing wrong with the elite army policy pursued by Yuan Shu, and it was not a small one to defend Jingyang Erzhou with an army of 300,000. However, this attack on Yizhou, Yuan Shu is indeed a little overbearing, if he recruits another 100,000 troops before, this time it will be foolproof.

Conscripting soldiers is not something that can be recruited to go to the battlefield, Yuan Shu is not a prince like Liu Bei and Cao Cao, in order to win the battle, even twelve or thirteen-year-old boys, forty or fifty-year-old people can be sent to the battlefield, regardless of whether you are a recruit or not.

After Yuan Shu's soldiers were recruited, they all had to go to Ji Ling for training for half a year before they were assigned to various armies for training. Otherwise, Yuan Shu would not have to worry about the pit dug for Liu Bei and Cao Cao.

However, this is also because Yuan Shu is not in a desperate situation, if he is really in a hurry, he will recruit 200,000 troops within a month and play. Liu Bei can do it, and Yuan Shu can naturally do it too.

"But I'm afraid of Li Yu and Guo Yan......" Yuan Shu said with a frown.

People are unpredictable, and no one knows what these two fools will do. If these two people have some other ideas in a year or two, won't he be busy in vain?

Jia Xu affirmed: "Don't worry, the lord has already arranged it, and it will be foolproof." ”

What Yuan Shu was worried about Jia Xu had already considered, knowing people and faces but not hearts, no one knew when such a thing as loyalty would disappear. Jia Xu had already made multiple insurances, otherwise he would not have mentioned this matter like Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu looked at Jia Xu's confident appearance and nodded thoughtfully.

Indeed, if this old fox who is bent on self-preservation can tell himself about this, it means that he is at least ninety percent sure, otherwise even if he trusts him again, he will not dare to trust him in the future.

Xun You had no waves in his heart, he and Jia Xu were the same kind of people, so his confidence in this matter was even more than Yuan Shu. According to his understanding of Jia Xu, this product has definitely left at least three layers of backhand, one ring after another, and it is absolutely guaranteed to be foolproof.

"Who do you think should be sent to solve the problem of Nanban?" Yuan Shu said with a little distress.

For this group of brainless barbarians, he really had a headache. You can definitely fight, but if you kill too much, you will be fighting with the other party, and it will be difficult to manage Nanban in the future. But if you lift it high and put it down gently, it is not enough to deter the other party, is it possible that you really want to learn Zhuge Liang to catch and release seven times?

"In this battle of Jiangbei, Dezu performed well, how about letting him go?" Xun You secretly glanced at Jia Xu and said calmly.

Yuan Shu's eyes lit up, and he turned his head to look at Jia Xu: "Wenhe, what do you think?" ”

Jia Xu secretly glared at Xun You, and knew that he was looking for trouble with me! However, Yang Xiu was his apprentice after all, and he couldn't see death without help.

"Lord, Dezu has an impatient temperament, so he can only help from the side, and the lord needs to send a competent person to negotiate specifically."

"Who?"

"Lu Zijing!"