The plan was over, and many things were done according to the agreed plan, so the camp was very lively for the next few days.

This year, most of Zhongyuan Province and Huainan Province have suffered disasters, and the people are living very hard, and it is difficult to survive by farming alone, otherwise Zhang Feng'er would not have been like this.

Now that the Shenzhou government is recruiting soldiers, if they are selected, they can get an extra share of money and food to support their families, which is still very attractive to the local poor people.

Compared with farming, the salary of a soldier in this dynasty cannot be said to be rich, but as long as he is not owed by his superiors, he can at least ensure his harvest in drought and flood.

Moreover, the treatment of the recruited soldiers in the imperial court was much better than that of the previous Tuntian soldiers, mainly because the recruits had to fight. This kind of hard-working work is often not counted on by the Tuntian soldiers whose combat strength has long been wasted.

In the recruitment, ordinary infantry sergeants can receive nine coins of silver, one stone of grain, and one to two catties of salt per month. And the cavalry is better treated, and on this basis it will be doubled.

Even if some of this money and food are deducted by the boss, the rest of the savings are enough to feed a family of four.

Therefore, as soon as the recruitment notice was posted, a steady stream of people who signed up came around.

Even if you know that in this world, if you are a soldier, you will fight, and you will die, and what you earn is the money you earn to sell your life. But between starving to death and being a soldier in battle, the common people clearly chose the latter.

Lin Fan's recruitment requirements are very simple, strong, honest and diligent, simple and honest. The main thing is to be able to endure hardships, not be afraid of death, and be able to obey orders on the battlefield.

In addition, those who are flamboyant, shrewd, and uncertain are not to be wanted.

Because most of these people in the back are from scoundrels in the market, they have too many eyes and too many brains. They only join the army to make ends meet, and it is difficult to make them desperate, and if they do go to the battlefield, they may become deserters.

Fear and fear on the battlefield are contagious, one person who runs away can take ten, and ten can bring a hundred.

This is the reason why many officers and armies win first and then lose. At the beginning, it was clear that the fight was good, far from the point of failure, but because of a few deserters who lost their courage, it could turn into a great rout that affected the whole army.

Like such a black sheep, Lin Fan resolutely does not want it. The reason why he set such recruitment conditions is to solve this problem at the root.

The recruitment went smoothly, with more than 800 people signing up on the first day. Among them, more than 500 people have passed the screening.

This is also because it is the first day, and many people are far away and have not yet received news. In the next few days, there will definitely be more to sign up for the military.

Of course, the total number of people in Shenzhou is so much, and the number of applicants will inevitably drop in a few days. However, according to this speed estimate, it will take at most half a month for each battalion to replenish the required troops.

And in addition to recruitment, other aspects are not idle. On the day of the start of recruitment, Lin Fan went to the Zhizhou Government Office and asked Wang Ziliang for money, food, and ordnance.

On the grain side, Wang Ziliang agreed very happily, and directly promised Lin Fan that he could first allocate 3,000 stone of military rations from the official warehouse for him to meet the emergency, and the rest would be reported to the military department and the household department, and then officially allocated by the imperial court.

In terms of armor and ordnance, Lin Fan touched a nail. Faced with Lin Fan's request for 3,500 pairs of armor, as well as the corresponding standard ordnance, and even 500 war horses, Wang Ziliang replied with two words very simply: No.

It's not that Wang Ziliang is stingy, but he really doesn't. The system of the imperial court

Armor ordnance is not cheap, on the contrary, these things are expensive.

In terms of armor alone, forging a qualified set of heavy armor requires a lot of manpower and material resources.

Creating a good suit of armor is not only very demanding for the craftsman, but can sometimes take months to complete.

In line with the high cost of heavy armor is his protective power, a military formation composed of heavy armored infantry troops, which is the only weapon to resist cavalry on the battlefield.

If everyone wears heavy armor, the court will raise it. In contrast, it's much easier to create lighter light armor. However, the amount of light armor required by the officers and soldiers far exceeded the amount of heavy armor, which was also very expensive.

Of course, what Lin Fan wanted was not expensive heavy armor, but the same light armor as when he was in the inspection department.

But this is not easy, it seems that Lin Fan was able to make everyone wear armor when he was inspecting the department, and there were a lot of crossbows. But this is mainly because of the small number of people in the inspection department, plus Lin Fan's work up and down, so he can make up so many pairs of armor.

You must know that even the armament of the local garrison in Yongyang is far inferior to Lin Fan's inspection department.

Now, after such a great turmoil, Shenzhou's arsenal has long been empty. Wang Ziliang couldn't get so much armor and ordnance even if he smashed the pot and sold iron, so he could only promise that Lin Fan would send someone to Daoli and the military department to ask for it.

As for the five hundred war horses that Lin Fan said in the end, Wang Ziliang directly told Lin Fan not to even think about it.

After the imperial court lost the largest Longxi horse farm, there was a shortage of war horses. The world's excellent war horses will be given priority to the Liaodong border army to maintain the combat power of the Zhenbei Iron Cavalry.

The rest of the armies, especially the cavalry armies of the southern provinces, could only use the Yunnan horses produced in Yunnan and Guizhou.

The Yunnan horse is short, and its endurance is long-lasting, but its explosive power is not as good as that of the Northland horse. Compared with the Northland horse, the two have their own advantages and disadvantages, the Yunnan horse is better than the packer rather than the battle, in the past in the army most of the role of the pack horse or pull the horse, only a small number of excellent breeds will be trained to fight horses.

If the two armies go to war, one side is the tall and explosive Northland horse, and the other side is the short and weak Yunnan horse, one can imagine what the consequences will be if the two armies clash in front of the battle. Nowadays, the official army will use the Yunnan horse as a combat horse, and it is also a retreat, which is a last resort.

The gap between the war horses was no longer negligible, but the actual situation was far worse than this, because the imperial court could not even supply the slightly inferior Dian horses.

It is said that a cavalry is to be equipped with two horses in battle, and the Zhenbei Iron Cavalry is even more confrontational with the fierce Manzhen cavalry, and some of their elite rangers even have to be equipped with three or four horses when spying on the enemy and marching rapidly.

However, the number of war horses produced by the imperial court was seriously insufficient, and the supply of Zhenbei Iron Cavalry was still stretched, and sometimes it had to be replaced by slightly inferior war horses, not to mention the rest of the cavalry in various places.

At present, the rest of the cavalry in the world except for the Zhenbei Iron Cavalry is difficult to guarantee even one person and one horse.

The situation in Huainan Province is also different from that of Zhongyuan Road and Liaodong Province, and the north is mostly an endless plain, which can be galloped by cavalry at will, unimpeded. However, the territory under the jurisdiction of Huainan Province has many hilly water networks and broken terrain, which is not conducive to large-scale cavalry operations.

Therefore, the number of cavalry in Huainan Province is not much, and the number of war horses is even more stretched. If you really give him the five hundred war horses that Lin Fan wants, I'm afraid that the cavalry side will have to rebel immediately.

This is not to say that Huainan Province can't get so many war horses, in such a big place as Huainan Road, no matter how small the number of war horses is, there are still hundreds of them, mainly because it is still unnecessary.

In the words of Wang Ziliang

It's just that you're a foot soldier, what do you want so many war horses for? If the precious war horse was given to you, what would you make the cavalry think?

Five hundred horses don't need to be thought about, but it's not like a horse if you don't give one, you can't let military attachés at all levels run on the ground with bare legs, right?

Lin Fan said so badly that Wang Ziliang agreed to equip them with two hundred war horses, which was the maximum he could do.

As a result, Lin Fan's idea of forming an elite cavalry army all the time went bankrupt.

Wang Ziliang's idea was very simple, the cavalry in Shenzhou would not be of much use. At most, the battalions in Shenzhou are engaged in matters such as suppressing bandits, and using cavalry is instead killing chickens with knives, which is too cost-effective. On the contrary, it is better to use infantry to save money and effort, and there is no need for Shenzhou to feed so many cavalry.

A cavalry, even if it does not fight, is not a small amount of people eating horses every day. If you can't use it, why spend more money and food?

But Lin Fan didn't think so, his gaze was already beyond Shenzhou and even Huainan Dao.

Although Lin Fan was confined to a corner of Huainan, his husband had been fighting against the Manzhen tribe on the Liaodong front.

As the governor of Liaodong, Fang Ping stood high enough, and he was in the harshest place in the world, it was difficult for anyone to understand what war was all about better than him.

He would often teach Lin Fan some of his ideas and ways of using troops through letters, including the combat methods of the Manzhen cavalry. Therefore, although Lin Fan had not seen it with his own eyes, he still knew the power of the Manzhen cavalry.

The Manzhen cavalry came and went like the wind on the battlefield, and their riding and archery ability far exceeded that of ordinary officers and soldiers.

The best way to deal with the Manzhen cavalry is, of course, to win and annihilate them in the field. It is a pity that except for the Zhenbei Iron Cavalry, which is full of men and horses, there is hardly any army in the world that can compete with it head-on in the field, let alone win the battle.

But the number of iron cavalry in the north of the town is only a few thousand, and the excessive armor also limits their speed, and they are a little powerless in the face of the numerical advantage and speed of the Manzhen cavalry.

If the field battle is not good, the only choice that the Liaodong border army can choose is to hold on to the city. Compared with the strong combat power in the field, the Manzhen cavalry is relatively lacking in the ability to attack fortifications, and they will also lose the speed they rely on most when attacking the city. The city with high walls is the most effective way to defend against them, and the Manzhen army will retreat on its own when they find that they can't capture the city.

It's just that the best result is to be undefeated. The Manzhen army can come and go freely on the battlefield, and no one can stop them whether they are fighting or leaving.

However, the officials and soldiers of the imperial court could not do this, and once the city was besieged, the soldiers and civilians in the city could only be trapped in the lonely city. Not only that, but it was difficult for the defenders in the city to wait for reinforcements, because if the officers and soldiers of the nearby city went out of the city to rescue, they would be eaten by the Manzhen army who were waiting for work.

In recent years, such things have been staged repeatedly, and now most of the officers and soldiers in Liaodong no longer dare to go out of the city to rescue, and can only watch their comrades being surrounded. Therefore, many cities outside the pass waited until the food was exhausted before the Manchu army broke through the city or had to open the city and surrender.

What Mr. said gave Lin Fan a farther vision than others, although Lin Fan didn't need to face the Manzhen cavalry at the moment, but Lin Fan had a hunch that they would meet on the battlefield sooner or later. In the face of the terrifying combat power of the Manzhen cavalry, he had to prepare early.

He couldn't contend with an army full of infantry against the Manchu cavalry, and no matter how complacent he was, he knew that he was letting his men die.

However, the idea of forming a cavalry did not work, and Lin Fan had no other way for the time being, but fortunately, he still had time, so he could only make plans later.