On the same day, Master Zhao's father asked Que Guanzi for advice on many strategies for governing the country, and Crane Guanzi gave advice one by one, and Meng Zhong also listened carefully.

So far, Meng Zhong has learned a lot of ideas and propositions in governing the country, such as the Taoist idea of "Wu Wei", the Yang Zhu School's idea of "noble self", Mencius's thought of "benevolent government", and the idea of "rule by legal system" described by Que Guanzi today.

In contrast, the "noble self" of the Yang-Zhu school will make people more "self-interested"—even if this school actually advocates not infringing on the interests of others; Mencius's idea of "benevolent government", although it is good, still has no specific regulations on how to implement it, and the outdated state system of the "Jingtian system" alone is not enough to support "benevolent government" - the Teng state, which was overthrown by the Song state, is the best example.

Only the idea of "rule by law system" is the only one.

It's just that the ideological proposition of Que Guanzi is really very similar to Legalist thought, and the difference is only that the ultimate goal of Crane Guanzi's ideological proposition is still to "rule by doing nothing", unlike the ultimate goal of Legalism is to "change the law and make it stronger" - the ultimate focus of the two is different.

That night, when Que Guanzi finished telling his thoughts and ideas, it was already dark, so after that, Meng Zhong simply reported to Master Zhao's father that "five hundred soldiers have been selected from the leadership of Yang Wenjun and Zhao Bao", and Master Zhao's father was also drunk because he was drinking with Que Guanzi, Meng Zhong, and Pang Xuan while discussing the strategy of governing the country, and did not ask about this matter in detail.

After returning to his lodgings in the evening, Meng Zhong lit the lamp, recorded the thoughts and propositions of the Crane Guanzi on the bamboo slips, and prepared to send them to Zhuangzi, Mencius, and Hui'an in triplicate as before, and listen to their evaluations.

In fact, it is mainly to listen to Mencius and Hui An's evaluation of this, as for his teacher Zhuangzi, the latter pays more attention to the moral education of "people", that is, how to improve the moral standard of the world, and Zhuangzi has never been interested in this aspect of national politics.

And Meng Zhong still wrote to Zhuangzi even though he knew about it, just to tell the teacher what he had seen and heard in Zhao State, nothing more.

The next day, Meng Zhong got up early to bid farewell to Lord Zhao's father, and prepared to go to the military camp of Yang Wenjun and Zhao Bao to train the five hundred soldiers.

At this time, Master Zhao's father thought that he had already received the relevant report, knew the process of Meng Zhong's surrender of the five hundred soldiers yesterday, and gave Meng Zhong a high evaluation of this matter.

He smiled and said to Meng Zhong: "I thought that the five thousand cloth coins were to buy those five hundred soldiers, but I never thought that you would buy the hearts of the soldiers. ”

I have to say that on that day, Master Zhao was still skeptical about "whether the soldiers who can be bought with money are trustworthy", but he didn't expect that Meng Zhong's methods were more clever than he expected, and he directly "bought" the hearts of the five hundred soldiers, and by the way, he also established the initial trust for the Xinwei army.

This makes it even more important.

After bidding farewell to Master Zhao's father, Meng Zhong took Meng Hu, Meng Sui and others back to the military camp of Yang Wenjun Zhao Bao, and met with Le Yi and others who stayed in that military camp to discuss the next things.

The problem of the non-commissioned officers has been solved, and the problem of the garrison barracks has also been solved, so the next step is to discuss the adjustment of the 500 non-commissioned soldiers and the corresponding training methods.

The so-called adjustment of the arms, as the name implies, refers to the adjustment of the proportion of various arms in the army, which also involves many factors.

For example, Menghu advocated a chariot team, that is, all 500 soldiers were built into a chariot, and three armor soldiers were counted on the same chariot, which required more than 160 chariots.

It must be admitted that if the "chariot convoy" is built in the way suggested by Meng Hu, these 500 armor soldiers will be very attackable, even if they can defeat ten times the average foot soldiers on the frontal battlefield.

But the weakness is also obvious: the lack of long-range strike capabilities, and the enemy's rain of arrows may be too heavy to inflict on them.

Following Menghu, Mengsui suggested transforming into cavalry.

In the Central Plains at this time, cavalry was still a unique type of troops in the Zhao State, and compared with chariots, it had the advantages of faster speed and higher mobility, especially after the cavalry training of "cavalry archery", in fact, it also covered the ability of "bow cavalry".

But again, the shortcomings of cavalry are obvious.

First of all, the cavalry was too expensive.

Under the normal establishment, a cavalryman needs to be equipped with two war horses, exchange horses, so that there is always a war horse to maintain sufficient physical strength, and war horses are very precious war materials, which need to be raised, selected and a series of related domestication after many years, not to say that any wild horse can be used as a war horse with the reins - the kind of horse that is not tamed by artificially will definitely bury the life of the cavalry on the battlefield.

Secondly, the training of cavalry was too difficult.

In the absence of bilateral stirrups and saddles, it would take years of training for a cavalryman to master the art of riding, but it would take only one arrow to bury a cavalryman.

This is also the reason why cavalry is not yet able to be the main force on the battlefield, because its defense is too weak to withstand weapons such as bows and crossbows.

As for the third point, that is, the cavalry is not good at attacking and defending the city, and since Xinwei is the guard of Lord Zhao's father, then it must have the defensive ability to defend against foreign enemies, while the cavalry's defensive ability is very weak - from a non-strategic perspective.

"Let's mix the crossbows."

After thinking about it for a while, Meng Zhong told his friends his considerations.

Bu, that is, foot soldiers, is well understood, in view of the different weapons used, it can be divided into halberd soldiers, Ge soldiers, etc., mainly long weapons.

And the crossbow refers to the crossbowman who holds the crossbow machine.

In the early years, South Korea has developed a crossbow machine that can be used by a single soldier, and then it was quickly imitated by the Central Plains countries, becoming a more terrible long-range lethal weapon than the bow, although it is not as good as the bow in range, but at a medium distance within the range of tens of zhang, the lethality of the crossbow machine is very considerable, and the army's standard cowhide armor can not block this weapon at all.

Secondly, the training of crossbowmen is the easiest.

The rest of the troops, whether it is charioteers, cavalry, or archers, must go through long-term and rigorous training, taking archers as an example, the angle and strength of the bow will determine the direction and range of the arrows, which every archer needs to be familiar with.

But crossbowmen don't need it, they just need to know how to aim, how to pull the trigger, how to reload the crossbow, and they can go into battle immediately.

But on the flip side, the shortcomings of crossbowmen are also obvious.

First of all, crossbowmen will be restrained by archers due to their range;

Secondly, the speed at which the crossbowmen reload the crossbow arrows is slow, and the shooting interval, not to mention the cavalry and chariots, even the foot soldiers are enough to take advantage of this gap to rush in front of the crossbowmen, and once they are attacked by the enemy, the crossbowmen's counterattack ability is far inferior to that of an ordinary foot soldier;

Thirdly, the lethality of a crossbowman depends on the crossbow machine in his hand, and if the crossbow machine fails, the crossbowman is probably not as good as a foot soldier.

This is also the reason why when Meng Zhong said the word "crossbow", Le Yi's face showed hesitation, because in his opinion, the limitations of crossbowmen are very large, and when they are used on the battlefield, a chariot that is good at advancing can kill crossbowmen without leaving a piece of armor.

As for Meng Zhong, he explained: "I believe that Wei, as the guard of Lord Zhao's father, pays first attention to defensive ability, and the establishment of mixed infantry and crossbow is the most suitable for defense. ”

Le Yi was relieved: just as a guard, the mixed arrangement of crossbows is actually enough.

However, although he planned to adopt a mixed method of infantry and crossbows, Meng Zhong hoped to do better, to put it bluntly, he hoped that each soldier would take into account the ability of infantry and crossbowmen at the same time.

After learning of Meng Zhong's thoughts, all the friends were a little stunned, and Le Yi couldn't help but ask, "Do you want to train a group of 'Wei Wushu'?" ”

Wei Wushu, that is the most powerful army in Wei and even the Central Plains, trained by the famous general Wu Qi himself, called "Wu Shu", each soldier wears triple armor, holds a halberd, hangs a long sword on his waist, carries a crossbow, and can deal with various situations on the battlefield, once set a feat of defeating the 500,000 army of Qin with 50,000 soldiers, so far no army in any country has the ability to be like Wei Wushu.

"If you're going to do it, why don't you choose a higher goal?" Meng Zhong said with a smile.

Hearing this, Le Yi looked at each other with Meng Hu, Meng Sui, Xiang Yu and others, and immediately, his heart seemed to be ignited with enthusiasm.

After all, it was Wei Wushu, who was once the most capable army in the Central Plains until now, and there is no one.

"But Wei Wushu's foundation ......," Le Yi still raised the last trace of doubt in his heart.

There is no other, because the most critical foundation of Wei Wushu is the special treatment given by Wei to these soldiers, such as high pensions, tax exemption, etc., which enables these Wei soldiers to die for the country without worries, and Xinwei does not have such privileges.

In this regard, Meng Zhong smiled and said: "Take your time, I believe that Wei is Lord Zhao's father's guard, and he will be able to get some special treatment after all." ”

Hearing this, Le Yi nodded, and then asked with some excitement, "How do you do it?" ”

Meng Zhong thought for a while and said, "I will find a way to deal with the treatment, armaments, and food, as for the training...... The most important thing for a martial artist is physical fitness, first strengthen training in this area, Ah Yi, first you will train the physical fitness of the soldiers, and let Ah Hu and Ah Sui assist you. ”

Le Yi and his friends nodded.

So, on the same day, Le Yi carried out physical training for 500 Xinwei, to put it bluntly, it was weight-bearing running, at the suggestion of Meng Zhong, Le Yi asked each Xinwei to cut down a tree in the woods outside the camp, cut off the branches and turn them into logs, and then carry the log around the barracks.

Meng Zhong, on the other hand, visited Zhao Xiangfeiyi again and asked the latter for armaments.

I have to say that when he saw the weapons and equipment listed by Meng Zhong on the bamboo slips, Fei Yi was also a little stunned, because Meng Zhong asked him for 1,500 sets of leather armor, 500 sets of halberds, 500 sets of long swords, 500 sets of crossbow machines and corresponding crossbow arrows.

"This son's heart...... It's huge.'"

Fei Yi secretly sighed.

But even so, Fei Yi readily agreed, after all, Xinwei is Lord Zhao's father's guard, even if Meng Zhong asked for a lot of weapons and equipment, it is also within the allowable range - after all, there are only five hundred people.

Soon, this matter spread all over the celebrities in Handan, and reached the ears of people such as Anpingjun Zhao Cheng, Fengyangjun Li Dui, Yangwenjun Zhao Bao and others.

An Pingjun Zhao Cheng said with a smile: "Does this son actually want to train a group of 'Zhao Wushu'?" ”

Fengyang Jun Li Dui also shook his head and said, "Then Meng Zhong, do you think he is Wu Qi?" ”

Few people took this matter seriously, but felt that Meng Zhong was too arrogant, and he actually wanted to emulate the Wei Wushu of the Wei State, which was simply unbelievable.

"Let's see how this son ends up in the future."

The men secretly sneered at this.

They felt that in a few days, Meng Zhong would find out how stupid his lofty ambitions were.