Yang Honghai left, but Wujin did not return to the inner house, but got on the horse and went to the Meihuawei military camp outside the city, what he is most concerned about now is the recruitment of 80,000 reserve troops, which is the key to whether he can compete with Huangfu Xuande.

When he was still about three miles away from Meihuawei, he saw a field outside the woods in the distance covered with dense tents, one next to the other, stretching for several miles, and a clear field was faintly visible with groups of soldiers training in formation.

This unprecedented scene brought Wu Jin an unexpected surprise, he turned his horse's head, rushed out of the official road, the horse's hooves galloped in the wilderness, and rushed towards the barracks without barracks, and in a moment, he arrived in front of the barracks.

Unlike the well-organized barracks of the Meihua Guard, there was no gate here, only a shallow ditch one zhang wide and three feet deep, which made no sense for horses to jump over, but it could prevent the merchants and peddlers who carried the burden and the girls who wore cheap fat powder from entering the barracks.

In the open space outside the barracks, it was particularly lively, selling miscellaneous goods, selling noodles and cakes, selling vegetables and fruits, selling chickens and ducks, and of course, there were also women who were greased and powdered, and there were hundreds of small merchants and peddlers, and the military discipline was not strict.

Wu Jin didn't ask, these are all soldiers who have just been recruited, it is almost impossible for them to have strict military discipline like Meihuawei or the Navy Army, at least after half a year of training, it will be effective.

He crossed the shallow ditch with dozens of guards and rode into the barracks.

The barracks are quite neat, some of the tents are sent by the Metropolitan Governor's Office, and some of them are bought from the Jin Fu Ji Trading House at a high price.

When passing through a tent, Wu Jin heard a sound in the tent, so he took out his knife and opened the tent curtain, looked inside, and saw two soldiers sitting inside.

Wu Jin Suo turned over and dismounted, walked into the camp tent, first a large number, the camp tent was of moderate size, built on the grass, there was a layer of cloth below, there were twenty bunks, ten bunks on the left and right, each bunk was padded with a thick blanket, with a futon on it, and personal belongings were pressed on the blanket.

The two soldiers saw a large group of soldiers walking in with a general, they all looked very restrained, Wu Jin waved his hand to them and smiled: "I'm just passing by here, don't be nervous, please take a seat!" ”

Wu Jin himself sat down cross-legged first, and the two soldiers also sat down timidly.

"Why don't you go to training?"

Wu Jin smiled and asked, "Are you sick?" ”

The two soldiers were quite honest, they both blushed and shook their heads: "It's that running is too hard, we have to run fifty miles today, and we slipped back halfway." ”

"Running fifty miles is not too much, Meihuawei's training has to run a hundred miles a day, and you only have half of it."

"But I have to run every day, and I have to run in armor, which is really unbearable." A soldier said with a bitter face.

Wu Jin picked up a knife from their bed, pulled it out and looked at it, the quality of the knife was not bad, and touched the armor again, it was all made of pig iron, weapons and armor were the most basic equipment, just two soldiers had it, one of them also had a bow and arrow, and the equipment was quite satisfactory to Huangfu Wujin.

This time, the navy recruited 5,000 blacksmiths from all over Chuzhou and Jingzhou in the form of half hire and half requisition, and asked them to build weapons and armor day and night with a high salary of 20 taels of silver per month, and asked them to build 200,000 weapons and equipment within three months.

"Have you ever practiced swordsmanship?" Wu Jin asked with a smile again.

"Practice! I practice every day, I practice in the morning, I run in the afternoon, and I practice in line. ”

Wu Jin nodded, and said to the two of him sincerely: "The purpose of practicing the knife is to protect yourself, so that you can kill the enemy when you fight, and not be killed by the enemy, and running is to exercise physical fitness, and when you are forced to march, you have to run for days and nights, and if you don't practice at ordinary times, you will be tired to death when you fall, and a battle will take several hours, you can have the physical strength to persevere, if you can't hold on, you will die, if you don't work hard now, your life will not be saved at that time." ”

The two soldiers looked at each other and asked in fear together: "General, will you fight?" ”

"Who knows? Now the court and the central government are not peaceful, in case the princes fight for the emperor, don't you say? ”

"If that's the case, it's not much fun to be a soldier." A soldier muttered to himself.

Wu Jin thought they were very interesting, and they dared to tell the truth, so he asked the two of them, "Listening to your accents, they should all be from Runan County!" Why did you want to be a soldier? ”

A tall soldier scratched his head and said, "Actually, it's just for money and food!" Last year, there was a drought in Huaibei, there was no rain for more than 200 days, the small rivers were dry and cracked, the summer and autumn harvests were all lost, everyone really couldn't survive, more than 500 people in our village all fled south, and they just happened to encounter recruitment, three taels of silver a month and one stone of rice, enough to support their families, so the young and strong people in our village basically joined the army. ”

"Since you have taken the silver and the rice, you should not train well!"

Wu Jin's tone became a little stern, "Let me warn you first, don't want to be a deserter, when a deserter is caught, he will be hacked to death, and then his head will be displayed to the public, if you want to survive in battle, if you want to get more silver rice, you have to train well, do you hear?" ”

At this moment, there was a rush of footsteps outside the tent, and only Zhang Long's voice was heard and asked, "Is Your Highness in the tent?" ”

"In!"

As soon as the curtain was lifted, I saw Zhang Long and five or six officers walking in, and when they saw the chief general, they all knelt down on one knee to salute, "See Your Highness!" ”

The two soldiers had been ignorant of Wujin's identity, and suddenly saw the barracks master come in and kneel, calling him His Royal Highness, his face suddenly turned white with fright, and he knelt down and kowtowed together, "The villain is ignorant, beg the general to spare his life!" ”

Wu Jin waved his hand at them, "This time, spare you, if you dare to be lazy, each of you will be beaten with a hundred military sticks, go for a run, and make up for today's fifty miles." ”

The two hurriedly put on their armor, took the knife and ran out, Wu Jin smiled at Zhang Long and other officers: "General Zhang is exempt, generals, please be exempt!" ”

At this time, the curtain was lifted, and another officer came in, but it was Zhang Yannian, who had just broken up in the morning, Wu Jin then remembered that he was Zhang Long's cousin, and then Wu Jin suddenly had an idea, to leave Zhang Yannian behind, and lead the troops for himself, Jiang Yan and Huineng Zen Master went back to the capital directly, fortunately he had not left.

Thinking of this, Wu Jin also beckoned to Zhang Yannian, "Yan Nian, sit down and talk together." ”

Zhang Yannian originally came to see his cousin, and returned to Xiliang Army early tomorrow morning, but he met Wujin again, he smiled and sat down next to him.

Zhang Long is the chief general in this military camp, so he smiled and reported the situation first, "The effect of this recruitment is very good, 150,000 people were recruited in half a month, according to His Royal Highness's arrangement, 1,000 brothers of Meihuawei were divided into 1,000 to lead the troops, and we have established a total of five temporary military camps for training, this is the largest one, with 50,000 people." ”

Wu Jin only wanted to recruit 80,000 people at the earliest, and to raise these 80,000 troops, the military salary alone would cost 2.5 million taels of silver a year, nearly one million stone rice, and the usual expenses for vegetables and meat, which was also a lot of money.

The military expenses of these 80,000 people are all paid by the Qi family, and he knows that this is the limit that the Qi family can support himself, but now he has made a large windfall in Baishahui, plus the extraction from the tax silver, he can raise at least 200,000 troops, and he heard that 150,000 people have been recruited, he breathed a long sigh of relief in his heart, plus 50,000 water troops, he already has 200,000 troops in his hands.

After he talked to Zhang Rong at the dock, his heart was tense, he needed to know his strength, how many troops had been recruited in the past two months? Now he has 200,000 troops in Chuzhou and 200,000 troops in Xiliang, which is enough to deter Huangfu Xuande, and he is not afraid that he will turn his face with himself.

"Everyone continues to train, and I don't affect everyone."

Everyone got up one after another to salute and went out to train the soldiers, and Wu Jin gave Zhang Yannian a look and asked him to stop.

Wu Jin walked out of the camp tent and slowly walked towards the training ground with Zhang Yannian.

"I just got the latest news, Cheng Chen Zhi in the imperial history has come to Chuzhou with Shang Fang's sword." Wu Jin smiled.

Zhang Yannian was shocked, and hurriedly said: "Is this Emperor Fu Xuande going to turn his face with His Royal Highness?" ”

"It should be like this, Chen Zhilai wants to eradicate my wings and people who may support me, such as Zhang Long, Zhang Rong, Su Hanzhen and my eldest brother Weiming, as well as Qi Ruifu, who is also the target of his attack, in short, before I return from the expedition to the Phoenix Society, he wants all my forces left in Chuzhou to be defeated, and then transfer the Chuzhou army to deal with me."

"But Chen Zhi is the prince's person, will he attack Su Hanzhen and Weiming?"

"It should be said that Chen Zhi used to be the prince's person, and now that Huangfu Xuande wants him to do things, will he listen to the prince again? If I'm not mistaken, Su Xun is already under house arrest, he has a high prestige, and Huangfu Xuande will not let him speak for me. ”

Zhang Yannian nodded silently, before he left, his father also told him that because of the appearance of Huangfu Wujin, Huangfu Xuande would definitely attack King Liang in advance, now it seems that his father's speculation is not wrong, he was silent for a moment and said: "Then what are you going to do?" ”

"What else can I do?"

Wu Jin sneered and said, "Huangfu Xuande wants to kill me, should I stretch my neck and let him cut it?" Now I have 200,000 troops in my hands, and 200,000 Xiliang troops, I can only fight with him to the end, I will not fight anymore in the Phoenix Society, if he wants to start a war, I can only accompany him. ”

Zhang Yannian thought about it, they only had this way to go, he pointed to the army that was training in the distance, "But their strength is still very weak, it can be said that they are vulnerable, of course, I am only compared with the Xiliang army, but they are indeed very weak." ”

"I know this very well!"

Wu Jin stared at the army in the distance and said slowly: "So I need time, no matter what, I have to drag it out, at least two more months, and two more months of intensive training, this army will barely have combat effectiveness." ”

Speaking of this, Wu Jin turned back to Zhang Yannian and said, "I want you to stay and command this army for me." ”

"The young master has an order, I should obey it!"

Zhang Yannian did not postpone it, he knew the difficulties of Wujin now.

At this time, a guard shouted from behind him: "Your Highness! Someone is looking for it. ”

Wu Jin turned his head and looked in the direction of the official road, only to see a gray-clothed one-armed man standing outside the barracks, it was Hei Mi, who was waving to him anxiously, Wu Jin's heart sank, and he suddenly realized that something was going to happen.

(To be continued)