Li Sheng, who has been in Jian'an for eight years, is not much different from him in Jian'an for six years. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 InfoThe only thing that has changed a lot is probably his beard. Although Li Sheng was absolutely unwilling to grow a beard in terms of his own aesthetics, out of the aesthetics of the entire society at present and the majesty of his promotion to the lord, under the continuous advice of Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong and others, he was still forced to keep some. The blue-gray whiskers spread out densely from his man, and slanted down his upper lip like the wings of a wild goose, giving him a somewhat calm feeling. In fact, after two years of Taishou life, he is indeed much deeper than he was at the beginning.

Right now, he was gathering his generals and advisers to discuss the order that had just arrived.

"Lord Liu Biao plans to let Xuande sneak attack Xuchang, and let me be responsible for Xuande Gong's logistics and supplies." After Li Sheng read out Liu Biao's order aloud, he summarized the content above, and at the same time expressed his own opinion: "What to conquer Xuchang, welcome the Holy Lord and so on are all nonsense, Lord Liu Biao actually thinks that our Changsha and Liu Bei Xinye are developing too fast, lest there be a situation where the ministers are strong and the lords are weak, and use this method to weaken our strength." Of course, in this order, weakening the strength of Xuande Gong is the most important, and we are only collateral weakening. ”

"Hmm!" Everyone nodded in understanding.

"So does the lord intend to heed this order? Although we are Lord Liu Biao's subordinates, the lord is the Taishou of the megatron side after all, and the lord still has the right to decide on matters within his territory. After listening to what Li Sheng said, Kong Ming asked first. Although Li Sheng did not announce it personally, Kong Ming and Pang Tong had faintly become the leaders of Li Sheng's subordinate official faction. Many people look to their horses.

"What do you think?" Li Sheng glanced at Kong Ming, Pang Tong, Jiang Wan, and Liao Li, who were smiling, and directly kicked the ball back to them.

"Of course I'm going." The four of them said in unison.

"Why do you say that?" Although Li Sheng also had his own reasons in his heart, he was reluctant to say it, but pretended not to understand anything and asked Kong Ming and them.

"Because we can't arouse Liu Biao's disgust yet! What is the purpose of the 'cultivation' that the lord has been painstakingly doing in the past two years? It's not to paralyze Lord Liu Biao. This is Jiang Wan's reason.

"And weakening Liu Bei's strength is very beneficial for us to obtain Jingzhou in the future." Liao Li added a sentence.

"And the occupation of Cao Cao's city, I like it the most. It's really fun to fight with such a strong person. "Pang Tong is still the same, always bringing some cynicism when he is not particularly urgent.

"With Cao Cao's strength after unifying the north, it is difficult for us to compete with it alone, in order to be able to resist Cao Cao more favorably in the future, we need to have a good relationship with Liu Bei. Liu Bei's generals are very capable, and if possible, they may not be able to turn into a force at our disposal. Zhuge Liang and Li Sheng generally seem to be developing towards the discovery of a calm personality, but he brings more elegance and chic in his calmness. This may have something to do with the fact that he was often dragged by Li Sheng to listen to Zuo Ci's lectures, and unlike Li Sheng, who always slept with his eyes open every time he listened to a lecture, Kong Ming was very attentive every time he listened, and he did listen to a lot of things.

"That means we must do our best to provide all the needs of Liu Bei, and try our best to get through Liu Biao's obstacles in the transportation process and send everything to Liu Beijun?" Li Sheng asked a little depressed. Giving his things to others for nothing, although several of his advisors have cited so many advantages there, he still feels a little suffocated.

"If only someone else gave me something for nothing." Such a whimsical thought inadvertently passed through his head.

"I'm afraid it's not just that." Kong Ming said with a smile, he and Pang Tong glanced at each other but nodded in agreement.

"Not just that? Could it be that there is something else in your mind? As soon as Li Sheng saw them, he knew that the two of them must have ideas that were more beneficial to him.

"We want the lord to take all the generals to Liu Beijun in Xinye to see the development of this battle throughout the whole process. Although it is not too difficult to obtain these information with the intelligence network we have assembled, what is written on paper is not as touching as when we actually watch it. For Cao Cao's various or Liu Beijun's various things, we all need to have a deeper understanding. Kong Ming calmly suggested to Li Sheng.

"Observe the enemy? This is also a prudent approach. Li Sheng nodded with a smile: "Then it's decided, Gongyuan is responsible for providing Liu Beijun's logistics; Ji Chang is responsible for opening up the joints of Jingzhou officials, so that our things can be transported smoothly as much as possible; Gongyan was in charge of the administrative affairs when we left; As for the rest of the generals, hurry up and take care of your staff officers, do a good job in the training of each battalion and village in your hands, and as soon as Liu Bei sends troops, I will take you to Xinye to take a good look at how the two heroes in the world fight. ”

"No!" Everyone got up to receive the order, and went away with their own busyness.

Watching them leave excitedly one by one, Li Sheng couldn't help but show a faint smile on his face. He stood up from his main seat, and after greeting Zhou Rui and Zhao Yun, who were still in charge of his safety, he quickly ordered people to prepare horses and go out of the city to the manor in the bamboo forest in the southeast of the city.

The manor is no longer like a manor, the stone wall is as high as two zhang, although it is not as thick as the wall of Changsha City, but it is far more than the needs of the general manor. A manor like this can no longer be called a manor, it is like a small castle, it has a common name in the world. Unlike Li Sheng, who originally only wanted to build a summer home here, this has now become a place for Li Sheng to train private soldiers, and it has become a point for him to secretly increase his strength.

After experiencing wars again and again, the central court's control over the local area has reached a very low level, although no one in the world dares to call the emperor and disobey this court, but no one takes the court in Xu County as a thing on the surface or secretly. Even with Cao Cao's strength, people's respect for the imperial court was only maintained at the outermost level. This was an era when the prestige of the imperial court was lost, and the localities were doing their own thing. Powerful people everywhere have taken up the territory of the Han Dynasty and become de facto "emperors".

As "emperors", they could disobey the orders of the Han court, appoint their own officials at will, and assign their own territories at will, but they allowed their subordinates to do the same as them. With the help of the provisions of the Great Han Decree, which had long existed in name only, they drew a lot of rules and regulations for the places under their rule. Among them, restricting the garrison in the hands of the local Taishou is undoubtedly a very crucial one. Under the constraints of this order, Li Sheng, who was treated favorably by Liu Biao, was allowed to retain 5,000 troops because he assumed part of the responsibility for defending the Jiangdong offensive, but he was not allowed to have the right to expand the number of troops. No matter how long he was in charge, no matter how much the population of his men increased, he could not recruit even one more man on top of the five thousand soldiers. Because he is Liu Biao's direct subordinate, not a guest general with a certain degree of independence like Liu Bei.

There were 5,000 soldiers in Changsha, which was more than the rest of Jingzhou, but it was not enough to launch a rebellion and overthrow Liu Biao's regime. Therefore, Liu Biao felt at ease with Li Sheng, especially after Li Sheng devoted himself to cultivation and concentrated on the development of Changsha's internal affairs, he did not doubt Li Sheng too much. Although in this plan, he also had the idea of weakening Li Sheng's strength.

Li Sheng is definitely an unruly person, although he behaves very well-behaved on the surface, but in fact, he took advantage of the loophole of Liu Biao's private army, and vigorously used the money and grain secretly intercepted in Changsha to build a dock fort to develop his military strength. In two years, Li Sheng established five dock forts around Changsha and Hengshan, and privately recruited more than 15,000 private soldiers for training. With sufficient money and food, and a large number of homeless people as a source of personal soldiers, Li Sheng's family was the same as the soldiers in the county except that they were not nominally soldiers, including the astonishing level of training and enviable sophistication.

Please don't doubt how Li Sheng was able to intercept so much money and grain in just one year while satisfying Liu Biao. In fact, Li Sheng's initial strategy of seizing power from a distant county helped Li Sheng a lot, because he had grasped the rights of each county under Changsha in advance, and after Li Sheng eliminated Ke Xing and completely gained control of Changsha City, Changsha County obeyed Li Sheng's orders from top to bottom.

Li Sheng, who came from later generations, did not fully understand those things in later generations, but as far as he already knew, he did not intend to teach it to everyone in the world very generously as a kind of reputation propaganda. The so-called "valuing truth and ignoring fame", Li Sheng only taught some of the selfishness he knew that he thought was useful for the present, and selectively taught him that he could be trusted. All these people were promoted by him, and all of them were loyal to him. In the initial and later grasp of Changsha, these people were dispersed by Li Sheng and became one of those who held the real power in the prefecture and county.

With the confirmation of the order that later decided to withhold Changsha's money and grain, those officials who had been trained by Li Sheng knew how to make two accounts to settle Changsha's taxes: one was prepared to be checked by Liu Biao there, using the statistical methods that were already very confusing in the Han Dynasty; The other is the accounts that Li Sheng himself needs, which are recorded entirely using number crunching. Through this record, Li Sheng successfully turned half of the actual income of Changsha City into the funds of his own private army, which provided the most reassuring guarantee for the training of his family.

The development of two years and the establishment of five dock forts were only the beginning of the expansion of his army for Li Sheng. With Li Sheng's hope, he wanted to form an army of more than 60,000 people before the arrival of the Chibi Beacon. He believed that only in this way could he gain an advantage in the confrontation with the Sun family. Although it is very likely that the Sun family was his ally at that time, he was very uneasy about such an ally in terms of Li Sheng's history from later generations: throughout the Three Kingdoms period, the Sun family did not do much more than constantly pull the hind legs of the Eastern Shu Kingdom in the rear. It is a fact that its domestic power is restrained by Shanyue and difficult to develop, but under such difficult development, the Sun family has a face that can't see others better than himself, but the more Li Sheng understands, the more he hates it.

"What Sun Quan is a hero? In fact, Sun Quan is far worse than his father and brother. In terms of ability, he is just a lord who guards the house, and in terms of personality, he is also just an out-and-out villain, but this villain is a little smart. Li Sheng understands so.

In order to take some precautions against this, two of the five dock forts that Li Sheng has built now are built next to the harbor to train sailors. Since Li Shengjun's warships were not enough, Li Shengjun could only desperately build some "merchant ships" in the name of the Dongting Chamber of Commerce, while at the same time letting these private sailors he had formed take turns with the regular sailors led by Gan Ning to take turns to get on the ship. As for the soldiers who were replaced, Li Sheng not only sent people to train them in martial arts, but also let the people in the officer training class on his side teach them some knowledge of ship maintenance and repair, and let them get out of this illiterate industry.

As far as Li Sheng is concerned, the navy is definitely a "high-tech" branch of the era, especially now that he has decided to introduce some projectile weapons and early fire weapons into the navy battle, the quality required by the sailors is getting higher and higher. This is not to say that without this set of cultural training, the sailors will not be able to fight. It's just that before these trainings, the accuracy of these soldiers in handling weapons was very low. If they are allowed to grow up on their own with experience, it is obviously impossible without several years of repeated practice and a few thrilling battles. Although this is a very normal request, such a request is impossible for Li Sheng to achieve. After all, for Li Sheng, time is precious, and he can't waste half a bit, the enemy is not suitable, and the only opponent who exists is too strong. Therefore, Li Sheng can only rely on training and education to improve the combat level of his soldiers, which is more or less a way out.

The establishment of the two dock forts brought Li Sheng's naval army, including Gan Ning's soldiers and horses, to 9,000 men, accounting for nearly half of Li Sheng's current strength. This is the result of Li Sheng's first attention to the water army. Because Li Sheng knew that the navy was different from other arms, he needed a lot of time to train, and just one or two years of kung fu was not enough to see. In Li Sheng's final plan, the navy army should recruit at least 10,000 more troops, and maintain the strength at about 20,000, accounting for one-third of the total strength, so that it can cooperate with the new ships he gradually built to give Soochow a strong deterrent and shock on the Yangtze River.

"Looks like we'll have to pick some places to build ten more dock forts." Li Sheng undoubtedly had such thoughts in his heart. He didn't worry about what Liu Biao would think of him for such a large-scale expansion of the dock fort. Because he had already put the ownership of these dock forts in the names of several important ministers under him at the beginning of the construction of the forts, such as: Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Huang Zhong, Wei Yan and others all had a dock fort attached to them. Liu Biao just wanted to investigate and only find out the top of these people under him, so he thought that he, Li Sheng, was purely just seeking benefits for his subordinates, and wanted to be stable, and probably could not have any ambitions.

"This may be regarded as a distinction between public and private!" Li Sheng laughed and walked into the dock fort located in the bamboo forest. This was the dock fort he was personally in charge of, and just like the orders he gave to his men, he had to make proper arrangements for the training of the soldiers in the fort for the rest of the period before leaving for Shinno.

As Li Sheng's private army, the men and horses in several dock forts were not completely organized in accordance with the establishment of the Han Dynasty from the beginning. Specifically, the private soldiers in Li Sheng's hands were one less branch and several more officers than the Han army.

One of the missing classes is military prostitutes. Since Li Shengjun was a private army, it was impossible for him to be exposed to the eyes before the time came, and naturally it was impossible to set up a military prostitute camp in broad daylight. And Li Sheng himself hates this kind of slut behavior. Although considering that these soldiers have been in the army for a long time, there will inevitably be some kind of demand for the big men there, but Li Sheng still discussed with Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Huang Zhong, and Wei Yan, and carried out a series of persuasions and justifications to eliminate this "damned" military prostitute camp.

How to solve the needs of the soldiers in the military prostitute camp? Li Sheng came up with a way, that is, to allow a few holidays for those trained soldiers to go to the city to solve the problem before sending out some cases every month. It's a last resort and a reward. Although it is just for you to solve your own needs, since the officers have sent you the money, it is your business to do what you want. As long as you don't break the law, no one will pay attention to you.

And Li Sheng also gave these soldiers a hope, although only a part of this hope may be true for now, but for the soldiers who were locked up in the dock all day, it was always better than nothing: Li Sheng promised them every year that he would select one hundred of the most hard-trained soldiers from among the soldiers, help them solve the marriage problems, and strive to have all of them marry within ten years.

"That's a good feeling. Even if you don't train as a soldier for food, you have to work hard just for your future succession. Under Li Sheng's method and promise, the morale of the private soldiers was suddenly boosted, and they all trained as if they were desperate. Such a hot scene undoubtedly convinced the generals who were still a little skeptical about Li Sheng's abolition of the military prostitute camp. They immediately approved Li Sheng's arrangement to add certain official posts in the battalion.

In order to enhance the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the entire army, Li Sheng added battalion participation and camp supervision to the composition of the army at and above the battalion level. Among them, the task of joining the army is to assist the camp Sima in the planning of tactical plans, and better complete the orders issued by the higher level. The purpose of the camp superintendent is to control the morale of the soldiers, solve the problems of the soldiers in their lives, and assist the battalion Sima to complete the training of military orders and the literacy of the soldiers. Generally speaking, in Li Sheng's army, Sima Xingying was the leader of the military camp without reproach, and the camp participation in the army and the camp superintendent only existed to assist the Xingying Sima in exercising his rights. However, on the battlefield, in the midst of the crisis of the situation, the battalion and the camp superintendent have the right to dismiss the camp Sima, so as to establish a new camp supervisor.

After two years of establishment, Li Sheng's 15,000 private soldiers were divided into six battalions. It generally starts with the march, with five people as the team, the second team as the line, the five lines as the team, the five teams as the song, the two songs as the department, and the two as the battalion. The first battalion was 2,500 soldiers, which was the smallest establishment that Li Sheng used to garrison the locality, and it was also the largest establishment that Li Sheng now had. As for the camp, Li Sheng still has the idea of reorganizing the five camps into one army, but that is only a matter for the future. At least at present, Li Sheng's private army only has three battalions of the army and three battalions of the navy, which are not enough to form an army.

Entering the dock fort, he naturally ordered someone to find Sima from each battalion to explain the matter. Because of the large dock fort standing in the bamboo forest, Li Sheng stationed two battalions of troops here, and called these two battalions the Zhuzuo Battalion and the Zhuyou Battalion according to the left, east, right and west of the barracks. Among them, the Sima of the Zhuzuo Battalion is Song De, the Camp Commander is Chen Xu, the Camp Supervisor is Ye Jin, and the Camp Sima of the Zhuyou Battalion is Xing Daorong, the Camp Joins the Army Xiang Lang, and the Camp Supervisor Guo Yuzhi.

Although these people have different backgrounds, they are either "old men" who have followed Li Sheng for a long time, or smart people who have been promoted by Li Sheng in the ranks, or poor scholars who have fallen into the army, or bandit bosses who have admired them, all of them were appointed to this corresponding position after Li Sheng's layers of assessments. Li Sheng trusted them very much, and Ping Suli completely handed over the two battalions to them to lead, almost ignoring them. Although he came in now to tell him what happened after leaving, for the few people who had always handled things clearly, Li Sheng really didn't have much to order. He only roughly said what he was going to do, and then handed over the rest of the work to them, and at the same time ordered: "Song De and Daorong, you two must also arrange the work at hand, and I plan to take them all to Xinye this time to a battalion officer like you." After all, in the future, you will all become a member of my command, and the main general will compete with Cao Cao. ”

"Really? Can we go too? Listening to what Li Sheng said, the two who originally thought they were going to miss this rare opportunity suddenly became excited. They also want to see how strong the Jingzhou army is, which can win more with less and will unify the north.

"Of course." Li Sheng nodded with a smile.

"It's amazing." The two young men cheered loudly like children.

Compared with their happiness, Chen Xu, Ye Jin, Xiang Lang, and Guo You, who couldn't go together, were extremely envious of them, and at the same time, they also felt the weight of their burden. "Without two masters who can suppress that group of soldiers, can I, the 'mediocre generals' and literati who are not skilled in martial arts, still manage this military camp as before?" After a few people were inexplicably worried for a while, their hearts did not sink. Young and energetic, they showed their hidden energy and decided to do a big job in these days when they were missing their superiors to prove their strength. For this stay, they see it as a challenge for themselves and as an opportunity. In Li Sheng's army, both soldiers and officers were all selected for the 100 people. This undoubtedly made them excited, after all, several of them were Wang Lao Wu.

In June of the eighth year of Jian'an, the rainy season in the south has come to an end slightly, the weather is gradually no longer humid, and the sun is far less hot than in July and August, which is a good time to send troops. At the beginning of this season, Li Sheng, who had been well prepared, finally received the news that Liu Beijun of Xinye had sworn to the Northern Expedition. Li Sheng was excited at that time, he quickly took the "observation group" that had even tied the package for many days and embarked on the journey to Anzhong, he knew that the route of Liu Bei's march was from Wancheng to Xuchang, and Anzhong under Wancheng was the first stop of Liu Bei's army to the north.

Because they had made full preparations for this matter in advance, Li Sheng and the others walked quickly. Along the way, I rode lightly, took more land routes, and made less ferries, but it only took five days to reach Anzhong. Li Sheng thought that he could see Liu Bei under the city of Anzhong, but he didn't think that after Anzhong, he heard that Liu Bei had captured this place as early as two days ago, and at this moment, in addition to sending the general Guan Yu to guard here, he had already led his troops to another city in the east and another city located on the west bank of the Shushui River.

The journey was also hard, and Li Sheng decided to take a rest in Anzhong first. Inquire about the good news and meet the famous martial saint in history. There's nothing wrong with that. Although Li Sheng was very young, after all, he was in charge of Liu Beijun's logistics as the Taishou of Changsha, and he easily met Guan Yu, and after the guests and hosts greeted each other, he quickly asked this question: "How could it be so fast?" It was only ten days from Liu Yuanjun's oath to the capture of Anzhong, how could he advance so quickly? ”

"Zixu wants to know what happened?" Maybe it was because Liu Bei had Guan Yu's emphasis on explaining after knowing that Li Sheng was in charge of cooperating with him, or maybe it was because Li Sheng also had a reputation as a young Taishou in Jingzhou, in short, Guan Yubing, who was facing Li Sheng, did not let Li Sheng see the legendary arrogance. For Li Sheng, he did not call Li Sheng an adult with trepidation, nor did he look at it with slanted eyes and contempt, but ordered people to serve tea like a kind elder.

"Yes. I came to Xinye this time and brought a lot of my subordinates over, and they all admired Uncle Liu very much. I originally wanted to see my uncle's military prosperity here, but I didn't want my uncle's movements to be so fast, and it was only a few days. And he took the fortified city of peace. It's amazing. Li Sheng said half flatteringly, half sincerely. It was really unexpected that Liu Bei could capture An Zhong so quickly, so he thought a lot more highly of Liu Bei.

"Huh." Guan Yu laughed happily at the praise of such a nephew as Li Sheng. Although Li Sheng praised his brother Liu Bei, he always thought that he and Liu Bei and Zhang Fei were one and the same, and he thought that praising Liu Bei was also praising himself. Looking at Li Sheng's eyes with a deep sense of sincerity, he became more and more graceful, and while stroking his black beard that hung down to his chest and abdomen, he squinted his slender Danfeng eyes and explained to Li Sheng slowly: "The eldest brother has long known that Anzhong is a strong city, so he knows very well that if he wants to take this place, he can't use a strong attack. Therefore, the eldest brother extended the time for combat preparations, ostensibly because the armaments were still somewhat insufficient, but in secret, the eldest brother sent General Chen Zhi to lead a vote of chivalrous people to infiltrate the city of Anzhong. They lay ambush in the city for a few days, and as soon as the eldest brother's soldiers and horses appeared under the city of Anzhong, they led people to kill the head of the city, and fought hard to kill Cai Yang, who guarded it, opened the city gate, and welcomed the army into the city. The siege was less than a day. ”

"Huh? In this way! Uncle Liu is really wise. Li Sheng stroked his palms and praised him unconsciously.

Guan Yu saw that Li Sheng was sincere, and was about to laugh, but saw a small school outside shouting "great victory" and holding a bamboo slip and rushing into the future. Guan Yu asked Li Sheng to stay less at the moment, and took the bamboo slip to watch, but he couldn't help laughing out loud: It turned out that Liu Bei led troops to attack Yuyang, and Yuyang's guard Gao Ran was not afraid of Liu Bei's army and forcibly attacked, but Zhang Fei led the cavalry into the formation and stabbed a spear under the horse, but it was very easy to capture Yuyang.

"Now that Yuyang and Anzhong have been obtained by me, there is no obstacle on the way to Wancheng except for Thorn Yang and Yuyang. I want to attack Haoyang, and now I ask the second brother to choose one person to defend the city, and lead the headquarters of the soldiers and horses to meet with me outside the city of Haoyang, and gather troops together, and go to Wancheng together. There was such an order in the back of the bamboo slip, which made Guan Yu's blood boil. He looked at Li Sheng who was beside him, and said to his "nephew" with a smile: "The eldest brother has captured Yuyang, and he is about to ask me to take the army to Yuyang." If Zixu doesn't mind, how about you come with me? ”

"Good!" Li Sheng smiled and stood up, clasped his fists at Guan Yu and said.