During the battle, more than a dozen boats were burned, and their wreckage sank to the bottom of the river, and during the night attack, Liu Liangzuo sent ships to block the north-south channel, and the sunken ships must also be salvaged before the fleet can continue to move forward.

There are thousands of corpses floating on the surface of the river, and the bottom of the river is full of fallen knives, guns, weapons and various materials. The floating corpses need to be salvaged and buried, and the knives and guns can still be used when they are scooped up.

During the whole battle, more than 1,000 soldiers were wounded, and those who were slightly injured needed to be bandaged and treated, and those who were seriously injured and could not continue to march and fight were sent back to Huai'an to recuperate.

The most troublesome thing is the handling of prisoners, more than 15,000 prisoners, this number is too large.

The first step to do is to eliminate the old, weak, sick and disabled, and those who cannot fight will be given two taels of silver to return to their hometowns, and the homeless can go to Huai'an, and the government will be responsible for resettlement.

The soldiers in Gao Jie's army all fled from northern Shaanxi, and most of the old, weak, sick and disabled died on the march, and those who survived were all strong and strong. However, Liu Liangzuo's army was a bit uneven, and in order to expand the army, he brought many people into the army. In the end, there were about 1,000 old and weak people who brushed down, and all of them were given a sum of money to return to their hometowns.

Then, Chen Yue ordered again that all the surrendered troops who did not want to continue to serve in the army could also receive two taels of silver to return to their hometowns, and then another batch left, but the rest were still more than 12,000.

Because for most soldiers, they have become accustomed to being a soldier and paying to fight in the army, and they don't know what to do when they lay down their arms. And for many people, the reason why they are soldiers is basically that they can't survive, and even if they return to their hometowns, they can't make a living. In particular, Gao Jie's subordinates, whose hometown is thousands of miles away, are simply homeless.

Of course, there are also people who are willing to return to their hometowns with silver, such as Li Benshen and Gao Jinku.

Lu Zhenfei promised Gao Jie that he would not be involved, so Li Benshen and Gao Jinku were not implicated because they were Gao Jie's cronies. However, the two knew that they could not get along in the Pingnan army, so they left with Gao Jie's wife Xing and young son. Chen Yue did not embarrass them, and gave a sum of silver to let them go, of course, but they themselves left, and they were not allowed to take away weapons and troops.

Chen Yue was very embarrassed about the use of these surrendered troops, and the most convenient way was, of course, to let the original officers lead the troops, everything was as before, and these surrendered troops could be pulled onto the battlefield without much training. But then he would lose control of the army, and they might betray him again at some point. Just like the Ming Dynasty army that surrendered to Li Zicheng, when Li Zicheng was defeated, they surrendered to the Manchu Qing one after another, because Li Zicheng did not adapt these armies at all.

Therefore, these surrenders must be reorganized before they can be used, of course, this is very troublesome and takes time.

The army at the end of the Ming Dynasty has always been a soldier, and soldiers are almost the private property of generals. In order to break this pattern, in order to sever the connection between the officers in the surrendered army and the former family guards, Chen Yue ordered that all officers above the general banner should follow the army to attack Nanjing, of course, these officers were not allowed to bring any personal guards.

There were more than 400 officers in this group, and Chen Yue organized them and the 600 square infantry of the Southern Army into a battalion, known as the training battalion, which was personally led by Chen Yue himself, and Chen Ping was transferred to the rank of deputy general.

Regardless of whether they were adjutant generals or staff generals in the army, they all started as small soldiers when they entered the training camp and learned the military system and military rules and precepts of the Pingnan Army.

Chen Yue told them that the Pingnan Army was different from other Ming armies, and if they wanted to serve in the Pingnan Army, they had to adapt to the various regulations of the Pingnan Army. Chen Yue promised them that after they adapted to the Pingnan Army, they would still serve in the newly reorganized army, and the size of the officers would depend on their ability and whether they had made military achievements, and of course their previous official positions would also be referenced.

Of course, if you don't want to start as a small soldier, you can also leave the army and leave with the money. For those who are difficult to control with ambitions, Chen Yue is reluctant to accommodate them.

To Chen Yue's surprise, most of the officers chose to stay, even if they were only small soldiers now. This made Chen Yue very puzzled.

In fact, there is nothing incomprehensible, because for these officers, after taking the money and leaving, they will have nothing, and it will be difficult to survive without the army. And staying in the army, there is still hope of being an official again, and this hope is very great, because the reorganized army will definitely need a large number of officers, and with the degree to which Chen Yue is trusted by Chongzhen and the momentum of his rise, there will definitely be more and more troops in the future, and with Chen Yue, their future is still very bright.

However, we can no longer think about the matter of treating the army as our own private property and embezzling military salaries and oppressing non-commissioned officers as we did before.

If you leave, you will have nothing, and there is hope to stay, and this choice is not difficult to make.

With all the officers in the surrender army in control, you can rest assured that you can boldly reorganize and surrender the army. Chen Yue ordered to select two thousand honest faces from the surrendered army to be incorporated into the army to supplement the losses of each department. The infantry was restored to the left and right battalions, which were commanded by Li Yi and Jin Xin, of which Li Yi's battalion was basically the original old battalion of the Xishan Army, with a total of 1,500 people, in order to ensure combat effectiveness. The Jin Xin battalion had 500 veterans and 1,000 soldiers.

Half of the remaining 1,000 troops were replenished into Lütai's water battalion, and in the battle in the canal, his water battalion suffered heavy losses, nearly half of the 2,000 soldiers. The other half of the troops were added to Jin Shenghuan's regimental training camp, and now the scale of the regimental training camp has reached more than 1,500 people.

There were still 10,000 soldiers left, and Yang Zhengping was ordered to be the chief soldier of the newly formed army, and led 500 square veterans of the Southern Army to be responsible for the preparation and training of these surrendered troops. After a few months of training and reform, these surrendered troops would be reorganized, which was also the time of the rapid expansion of the Pingnan Army.

Yang Zhengping went to Huai'an with 10,000 surrendered troops, where they were reorganized, and Chen Yue was unwilling and did not dare to take them directly to the battlefield, so he simply sent them back to Huai'an. Chongzhen issued an order and ordered Xu Yong, the prefect of Huai'an, to fully cooperate with Yang Zhengping, and the military salaries, grain and grass should be temporarily allocated by the Huai'an government.

Huai'an is an important town of Dayi, and it is also a place where salt and grain are distributed, and its wealth is not inferior to Yangzhou, so there should be no problem in raising 10,000 troops. In order to proceed smoothly of the reorganization, Chen Yue privately handed over 200,000 taels of silver to Yang Zhengping, which alone was enough for the army for half a year. The accumulation of the Xishan Army over the years, the hard work of transporting it all the way by sea and land, and finally brought more than 500,000 taels of silver to the south, have finally come in handy.

At present, the strength of the army consists of two battalions of 3,000 infantry, one battalion of cavalry of 1,200, Jin Shenghuan's regimental training battalion and Lu Tai's water battalion of 1,500 each, plus more than 1,500 people in the standard battalion of the Huaiyang governor led by adjutant general Wang Xie, and the teaching battalion led by Chen Ping, with a total strength of more than 9,000 people and less than 10,000 troops.

Although the number of troops was far outnumbered by the enemy, after a victory, the morale of the whole army was so high that it did not pay attention to the enemy in front of it at all.