By the end of April, the so-called "village guards" were organized in all the granges where they recruited farmers to cultivate the land, and the able-bodied peasants selected by the head of the farms were regularly trained in military skills and various basic measures for the repair of the granges during the slack period.

The men who can be selected into this "village protection team" can be reduced by one or half percent of the grain harvest they pay each year, which is a lot of food, at least most of the people in the family are half full, and they can eat a full meal for a few more days, which is also a good thing, and they are quite enthusiastic to join.

Of course, it is not easy to enter casually, there is always a similar standard for selecting soldiers, because Li Meng's tuntian, when buying the field, more or less connected into a piece, so in case of something, the village guards everywhere can quickly gather to protect or attack.

The few mansions where Tuntian is located, Li Meng is that day, even the green forest giants did not dare to come over to provoke, and after the force of the escort team, it can be regarded as a stable situation.

Since the formation of the Jiaozhou battalion, there are no too big battles, but there are always many small-scale, unknown battles, and there are always wounded in battles, and there is a great chance of being injured in the training of the Jiaozhou battalion.

Moreover, a small number of the men gathered by Lingshanwei that day were also old, got married, and did not want to go to the front line to fight for life and death.

For these wounded, the old retired people, the Jiaozhou battalion will definitely not abandon them, the old retired people are actually in the prime of life, can go to the shop to work, and then busy with some things on the sale of salt, but those wounded, but they can only spend silver taels a day to support, as well as those dead soldiers, their bereaved families, Jiaozhou battalion is also paid for. All of them add up, and that's a lot of money. Ning Qiangui also talked about this matter with Li Meng in private, and felt that it was better to send a sum of money to send the matter away, and there was no reason for the army in the world to be raised for a lifetime.

Li Meng naturally rejected this proposal, there is no such thing as the Jiaozhou battalion in the whole world, that is what makes people all over the world watch the Jiaozhou battalion from beginning to end, and treat their comrades without abandoning, as long as it is for the Jiaozhou battalion and the soldiers who fight for Li Meng, they don't have to worry about the back road, as long as they move forward bravely.

The soldiers trained by the training system of the Jiaozhou battalion, especially those who were the backbone and veterans in the early stage, even if they were injured, were also a valuable wealth, and the current Tuntian policy was just to make use of all these people, scattered in various granges, and trained the knowledge they gained in the Jiaozhou battalion to train those who had gone through the year of the catastrophe and were terrified. It's the best source of soldiers.

Although it is still investing, when the harvest season comes, the harvest can be allocated a corresponding share to these disabled soldiers, retired soldiers, and the families of the sacrificed soldiers.

In modern times, when he was in the People's Liberation Army, studying military history, Li Meng once received such an education, saying that the Japanese army invaded China, and with the increase of the occupied territory, the limited forces were constantly distributed everywhere to guard, and the forces that could be mobile became less and less, and the strategic situation would gradually fall into embarrassment.

What made Li Meng a little embarrassed was that the Jiaozhou battalion was in such a situation at this time, and its territory had expanded to nearly five prefectures, but the nine thousand soldiers and horses in his hands plus the armed salt were completely insufficient. The salt roads of the smuggled salt are an important source of income and must be guarded, as are the salt pans in the various salt fields. In Jiaozhou City, the silver treasury, the arsenal, the private house, the salt field, the salt field, the big camp, and the private port, these are all heavily guarded.

But at present, only 1,500 people can be stationed in Qingzhou Mansion and 1,000 people in Dengzhou Mansion, and most of the forces are still concentrated in Laizhou Mansion, and they dare not go out lightly.

From April to May, after the Hu Zhuang of Tuntian Grange was roughly organized, Li Meng once again adjusted the proportion of soldiers and horses under his command, at the beginning of the year, there were about 3,000 soldiers, and there were 2,500 soldiers, Ma Gang was stationed in Yidu, the capital of Qingzhou, and Zhao Neng was the division of Laiyang, with 2,000 soldiers and horses, stationed around Laiyang County, and the soldiers and horses in the hands of the two people were half of the new soldiers and veterans. Ma Gang and Zhao Neng can both ask the armed Yanding who guards the town to cooperate, and there are about 800 people each.

Jiaozhou garrison Chen Liu, who has always been stationed in the old camp in Jiaozhou, got a new appointment, changed to Ningyang County Guard, and led 2,000 veterans into Yanzhou Mansion to guard.

Li Meng had 5,000 soldiers in his hands, Tang Er led 2,000 horses and troops stationed between Gaomi and Tingkou Town, and Li Meng led 3,000 soldiers to stay in Jiaozhou.

Dongchang Mansion is a relatively wealthy prefecture and county by relying on Beizhili, but because it is very close to Beizhili and Henan, it is often affected by military disasters, and the local area is very unstable.

But Li Meng's policy made one person pick up a bargain, that is, Zhang Chengye, the thousand general manager of Gaotang Prefecture in Dongchang Prefecture, yes, it was Zhang Chengye, the Nanshan thief who ran faster than the cavalry, when Li Meng and Liu Zeqing were in a tug-of-war, they withdrew the soldiers stationed in Dongchang Mansion.

Originally, this Zhang Chengye voted for Liu Zeqing, and after Liu Zeqing was "inexplicably" defeated by the thieves, Zhang Chengye quickly returned to Li Meng's forces, but the Shandong General Army seized Li Meng's food and salary, and after the uproar in Shandong, this Zhang Chengye calculated that the Shandong General Army was much bigger than the Laizhou General Soldiers, and he saw the opportunity quickly, and quickly took refuge in the Shandong General Army Qiu Lei.

But as soon as February passed, in March, this Zhang Chengye was dumbfounded again, daring to feel that the situation was completely under Li Meng's control, so he immediately made a decision, and sent Li Meng a letter of crying and repentance, saying that it was lard that day.

For Li Meng, Dongchang Mansion belongs to the periphery, a buffer area with Qiu Lei's soldiers and horses, and he doesn't take it too seriously. And this Zhang Chengye is naturally slippery, every time he takes refuge in a certain party, he always doesn't kill things, for example, several times repeatedly, the armed salt of the Jiaozhou battalion is still operating smoothly in Dongchang Mansion, and Zhang Chengye did not betray and frame him because he took refuge in the opponent of the Jiaozhou battalion, so everyone still leaves him a little leeway, and Li Meng is too lazy to take it seriously, not to mention that this Zhang Chengye is now only five or six hundred soldiers and horses, and they are all from his hometown when the people are in turmoil.

Therefore, this Dongchang Mansion is the most neutral place in Shandong, and the Dongchang Mansion City Liaocheng, Puzhou, and Guantao also have military horses from the imperial court stationed.

This Chengye even has several sets of seals in his hand, and now he has taken refuge in Li Meng, and he is immediately stationed in Gaotang Prefecture under Li Meng, a staff general of Laizhou Mansion, and there are also ....... subordinates of the general army.

When Chen Liu left Laizhou Mansion to go to Yanzhou Mansion this time, he once asked Li Meng for his life, and asked for his life quite indignantly:

"My lord, this time I will go to Ningyang County to station, why don't I go to Dongchang Mansion once, and kill the capricious Zhang Chengye, so as not to jump off the beam clown and make the adults upset."

Li Meng waved his hand and said with a smile:

"The Dongchang prefect is my father-in-law, there is no need to make his face ugly, and the troops are also insufficient, there is such a wall grass there, it may still be used at a critical moment, and you must know that the Jiaozhou battalion is the soldiers and horses of the imperial court, and you can't use troops across the border without authorization, otherwise it will be a big rebellion."

This can be regarded as a sequelae of the actions of some time ago, these generals under the Jiaozhou battalion no longer take the decrees of the imperial court very seriously, Li Meng wants them to understand that some things are done in broad daylight, and quietly done, the result is completely different.

Hou Shan now has a team of two or three hundred people, Hou Shan is the big shopkeeper of Jining fragrant salt shop, and the big shopkeeper of Lingshan Commercial Bank to the outside, often going south and north, with his subordinates along both sides of the canal, north and south, Jiangnan provinces, are all walking, of course, the most is the various prefectures and counties and towns in Shandong, Lingshan Commercial Bank sells goods everywhere, are the Zheng family through the sea ship to transport the southern goods and foreign goods, in Shandong is extremely popular, not to mention the rolling financial resources, but also open and honest to explore the news trends in various places, the situation of the people.

Huang Ping's actions are much more secretive, he has several deputies, are the old salt lords who operated the private salt trade in Shandong that day, this private salt business, violating the great law of the imperial court, is a head-killing business, the salt lords and the green forests and rivers and lakes around the country are quite close, relying on these old salt lords, Huang Ping relied on the deterrence and huge wealth of the Jiaozhou battalion, gathered a group of Jianghu people and powerful people from all over the world, and gradually built up the framework of the spy network. It was all handled by Huang Ping and his subordinates in the past, and the results were remarkable.

Incidentally, in May of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, there were more than 12,000 people in the various farms in Jiaozhou Yingtuntian, and the number of people in the village protection team totaled more than 12,000, all of whom were young and strong men.

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