Three days later, Yuan's army successfully arrived in Xincai Xiaocheng.

Xincai was originally a big county, because it is located in the delta where Yishui and Rushui meet, the land is fertile, what is planted, it is very much to feed a lot of people, in the heyday, the population of Xincai County is enough to have more than 100,000 people, almost as far as a large county in remote areas.

At its peak, the population of Runan was as high as 2 million! It is one of only two large counties with a population of more than 2 million people in the Han Dynasty, and the other large county with a population of more than 2 million people in the Han Dynasty is Nanyang County in Jingzhou, which had a population of 2.43 million at its peak, and the population of one county exceeds that of most states.

In this era when the grain yield per mu is only one or two stones, how many acres of land do we have to feed a million people? So you can fully imagine how fertile the land of Nanyang County and Runan County is!

Nanyang County and Runan County are actually the current Henan, which belongs to the hinterland of the Yellow River civilization, and is fed by the Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese civilization, and its prosperity is reasonable.

However, it was because Runan County, Nanyang County, was too prosperous, densely populated, and rich in wealth, so the three Zhang Jiao brothers were targeted, and as a result, they became the hardest hit area of the Yellow Turban thieves.

By the time the Yellow Turban Thieves were extinguished, the population of Nanyang and Runan counties had already stopped six out of ten.

However, this is not over, followed by the warlord scuffle, first the eighteen towns of the Kwantung princes and Dong Zhuo fought, after driving away Dong Zhuo, the eighteen towns of the princes began to fight in the nest again, more than ten years of scuffle, Nanyang Runan County can not even find a primitive village.

The so-called original ecological village refers to the village under the rule of the Han Dynasty, and there is a pavilion chief and the township chief in charge of the village elder. The bureaucracy is complete. Peaceful years. Except for the barbarian settlements in the Biansai area, all the villages in the Han Dynasty were such primitive villages.

But now, it's all in shambles.

In the current Runan County, the remnants of less than 300,000 people are divided among more than a dozen large and small yellow turban leaders.

These dozen or so Yellow Turban Thieves are more like more than a dozen tribes, and the tribal affairs are all decided by the leader alone, and there is no order at all. And there are often scuffles between various tribes because of the population, irrigation of the land, etc., how can it be a messy word?

Xincai originally had a small number of officers and soldiers, and there were hundreds of residents in the city, like Ruyin Xiang County, it was one of the few county towns controlled by the imperial court, but after the arrival of Liang Gang and Li Feng, the four of them directly defeated the officials and troops and occupied this dilapidated small city.

However, although the city is dilapidated, the land is fertile!

Even large areas of land have been abandoned for many years. It's also not a big problem, due to the close proximity to two rivers. Irrigation is very convenient, so as long as you resume farming, you will immediately have a high yield of water!

Liu Ye pointed to the large wasteland outside the city and said to Yuan Wei: "Childe, this is really a good place!" As long as the homeless people are recruited to resume farming, hundreds of thousands of hectares of high-yield water land are at your fingertips, and this place can be used as the foundation of the son, but unfortunately, this place is too close to Xuchang, it is the side of Cao Cao's couch, but Cao Cao will not allow the son to settle here. ”

"Hehe, Cao Cao doesn't allow me to settle here." Yuan Wei smiled and said, "I didn't want to settle here, how can the Central Plains, a land of four wars, be so easy to stand on?" However, we still have to do the work of recruiting displaced people to return to farming, and we must do it in a big way. ”

Recruiting displaced people to cultivate the waterland in Xincai County on a large scale is naturally to create a momentum, which makes Cao Cao believe that he is not ready to stay in Runan for a long time, and intends to turn Runan into a foundation for hegemony in the world!

Only in this way can Cao Cao's army be lured into Runan, and he Yuan will have the opportunity to take advantage of the situation to cross Yanzhou.

Liu Ye nodded, and said: "But Gongzi, the scale of restoration is limited by the people's strength, but I don't know, how many people are under the command of Zhou Cang and the other four leaders?" ”

Yuan Wei smiled and said, "I'll know soon." ”

The night before yesterday, Liang Gang had said that counting his more than 2,000 people, Liang Gang and the 500 people they brought out from Shouchun, plus Zhou Cang, Pei Yuanshao, Liaohua and Du Yuan's people, now Yuan's army has more than 30,000 people, and Yuan Wei doesn't believe this exaggerated figure.

He, Yuan Ran, and Liang Gang and the soldiers and horses of the four of them are all real soldiers, and they don't even have auxiliary soldiers, but the four of them, Zhou Cang, Liao Hua, Pei Yuanshao and Du Yuan, the so-called more than 30,000 people, must be the same thing as Liu Pi, Gong Du, Huang Shao, and most of them include the old and young women and children.

This is also the consistent style of the Yellow Turban Thieves, when the Yellow Turban Thieves fight, they often go together with the old and the young, women and children.

Therefore, for the Yellow Turban thieves, there are as many troops as there are populations, and the momentum is great in this way, but the combat effectiveness of the army is difficult to compliment, so such a situation often occurs in actual combat, and thousands of officers and soldiers defeat hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban thieves to the ground, and they are chased and killed all over the mountains.

Early the morning before yesterday, Zhou Cang Liao Hua Du Yuan and Pei Yuanshao said goodbye to Yuan No, returned to their respective stations to gather their men and horses, Zhou Cang's four people's nest is not far from Xin Cai, the four agreed to lead the troops to Xin Cai this evening to meet with Yuan No, and then "participate in the righteous act".

Calculating the time, Zhou Cang and the four of them should almost arrive.

In the evening, Zhou Cang Liaohua Du Yuan Pei Yuanshao really came according to the agreement, and they all brought all their men and horses, after seeing the "part" of Zhou Cang's four people clearly, he praised Liang Gang of Haikou in front of Yuan No, and his face immediately collapsed, Ni Mei, is this also called the army?

But I saw that most of the army of Zhou Cang's four people were old and young women and children, and the strong men were hidden among the old and young women and children, but they were almost impossible to find, Liang Gang estimated in his heart that the army of more than 30,000 people, let's call him the army, among the army of more than 30,000 people, it is already good to be able to pick out five or six thousand strong men.

Liang Gang was very disappointed in his heart, but Yuan Gang was not disappointed at all, because this had already been expected by him.

In fact, Yuan never expected to be able to recruit soldiers in Runan, even if he could recruit soldiers, he couldn't afford to raise them without a stable territory, right?

You know, soldiers aren't just people.

In addition to people, a soldier must also have a constant supply of ordnance, food and grass!

The supply of grain and grass can also be solved through the tuntian, but the supply of ordnance is a big problem, the current Runan is dilapidated, all kinds of workshops and businesses are almost gone, no matter how capable Liu Ye is, it is impossible to conjure up armor, weapons, robes and flags out of thin air.

Yuan Wei had already been mentally prepared, but the expression on his face was still gloomy.

Seeing Yuan Fu's gloomy expression, Zhou Cang Liaohua Du Yuan and Pei Yuanshao were worried, in fact, on the issue of whether to bring the old and young women and children, the four of them also had disagreements, Du Yuan Pei Yuanshao advocated that only the strong ones should be taken away, and the remaining old and young women and children should be left to fend for themselves.

Zhou Cang Liaohua sternly refused, advocating to take them all away!

Now seeing that Yuan Di's expression was not right, Zhou Cang Liaohua immediately sank in his heart.

Du Yuan lost no time in stepping forward and said, "Childe, if you are not happy, we can send these old and young women and children away, leaving only the strong to follow Childe......"

"No way!" Liao Hua categorically objected, "If there is no strength, these old and young women and children will not survive this winter, they will starve to death, the son is in Juchao Tuntian to feed 100,000 Li Shu, the name of benevolence and righteousness is known to the world, presumably they will not do this rebellious act, yes or no?" ”

"What Yuan Jian said is extremely true, the old and young women and children will not be ignored, and the son has never abandoned the bad habit of the old and young women and children." Yuan Wei gave Liao Hua a reassuring pill first, and then immediately showed his fangs.

After a slight pause, Yuan Wei continued: "However, your subordinates are uneven, both old and young, and the combat effectiveness is not much stronger, so it is necessary to carry out a unified reorganization, select the strong ones to form the team, and the rest of the old and young women and children will go to the reclamation, you should have any opinions, right?" ”

Unified reorganization, this is Yuan No's true intention.

As for why it is necessary to unify and reorganize, the reason is also very simple.

If it is not reorganized, how can the order be unified? Without unified orders, can an army have combat effectiveness?

If there is no combat effectiveness, how can it attract Cao Cao's attention, and how can Cao Cao bring in a large army to clean it up?

If it weren't for the question just now about whether to leave the old and young women and children, Yuan Nuo directly proposed a unified reorganization, it would definitely be regarded as a great distrust by the four of Zhou Cang, and if it wasn't good, the four of them would leave directly with the people, after all, the four of them had not had deep contact with Yuan Ran, and they had always been lawless.

But with the appearance of the old and young women and children, the four of Zhou Cang and Liaohua have a preliminary understanding of Yuan No's benevolence and righteousness, and know that Yuan No is not a person who sells fame and reputation, even if they are still dissatisfied in their hearts, the emotional backlash will not be so intense.

Sure enough, the four of Zhou Cang glanced at each other and said that they had no opinion.

In fact, the four of Zhou Cang didn't realize what kind of reorganization this was, and they said that they were just picking out the strong, and whoever was originally the unit would be returned to whom, but they didn't think about whether Yuan wanted to take their soldiers.

Yuan immediately ordered Ji Ling to start screening and reorganizing the Yellow Turban Thieves.

After half a day of screening, Ji Ling picked out a total of five thousand strong men.

Yuan Wei divided 500 people from his 2,000 elite soldiers, plus Liang Gang's 500 remnants and Ji Ling's 5,000 people, to make up the number of 6,000, and divided these 6,000 people into eight departments, and appointed Liang Gang, Li Feng, Chen Jile, Zhou Cang, Liao Hua, Pei Yuanshao, and Du Yuan as captains of the eight departments.

In addition, Yuan Wei also appointed a large number of veterans transferred from the Xiao Cavalry Battalion to serve as middle-level officers such as Sima Jun Hou Tunchang, Qiaojiawu War, many veterans of the Xiao Cavalry Battalion were promoted to three levels, but they only hung up an empty title, in fact, there was no more soldiers and horses under his hands, but now, it is finally in line with the name. (To be continued......)

Chapter 188 Captain of the Eighth Division: