Sun Ji actually had the intention of expanding the Three Guards, there were too many rich places in Nanzhili, and he had no confidence in the local Ming Dynasty garrison, and only hoped that there would be a strong army to ensure that this wealthy land in the south of the Yangtze River would not be poisoned by thieves.

And Sun Jie's worries are not groundless, have his worries been confirmed not long ago? The Jiangdu City, where the governor of Zhejiang Province personally sat down, was breached by the Haikou Kou, and the Duke of Wei suffered a crushing defeat in the Taiping Mansion.

The more unfavorable the situation, the more demoralized the people will be, and the war will be greatly affected by this disability. If this sloppiness is not reversed, once it becomes the norm, it will enter a vicious circle. In Sun Jiao's view, at present, Nan Zhili has the ability to reverse this situation only Li Xin, and in fact, he can only trust Li Xin.

Sun Ji thought seriously for a while, but did not give Li Xin an accurate answer.

"I can't say a well-founded figure for a while, you go back to Chen Wenshan to do some research, write a charter report according to the actual situation, how many recruits should be recruited....... cough...... Ahem......"

A rapid cough interrupted Sun Ji's words, and it was not until his coughing face turned red that he stopped his voice, but he was still speechless. Li Xin had rarely seen anyone cough like this, violently and rapidly, and he was really worried that Sun Ji would cough up his internal organs in one go.

But seeing Sun Ji waving his hand, he said to Li Xin and Shao Hualong in a weak voice: "That's it!" That's all for now......" He looked directly at Shao Hualong solemnly, "The defense of Nanjing will be handed over to you!" ”

Shao Hualong was obviously not satisfied, and he wanted to say something more, but Sun Ji had closed his eyes extremely tired, his body was like a paralyzed noodle, leaning on the Taishi chair. The Sun family on the side was sweating in a hurry, and secretly complained about why the two generals didn't leave......

Seeing Sun Jiao's appearance, the words that came to his mouth were swallowed back by Shao Hualong, so he had to give a salute and leave, and Li Xin also got up and left the main hall. At the door, Li Xin and Shao Hualong looked at each other, but they did not shoot out sparks of friction.

Shao Hualong greeted him very calmly, and then strode away. Li Xin looked at his back, his steps steady and firm, just like his people. If this person has the heart to embarrass himself, he will be a strong opponent.

Recruiting good sons into the army was not an easy task in the Ming Dynasty. Especially in a rich and prosperous place like Nanjing, who would enlist in the army and be with those lowly Qiu Bajun Han? A good man is not a soldier, this mindset has been deeply imprinted on the psychological side of every common man in the Ming Dynasty. If you want to change, how can you do it overnight?

Do it even if you know you can't do it. Li Xin had to go on hard. He didn't have to return to Longtan today, he went directly to Yingtianfu after leaving the governor's yamen, Chen Wenshan was planning to go outside the city to deal with the civil unrest, and the town captive marquis went and returned, knowing that he must have something important to do, so he had to hand over the affairs outside the city to a subordinate official first.

"Why did the Marquis of Zhenyu go and come back?"

"Good thing! Sun Butang allowed the Three Guards to recruit good sons in Yingtianfu and expand the Three Guards! ”

Good things are good things, but they are not necessarily half good, Li Xin is a little worried. Chen Wenzhi had to accompany him from the side, and he didn't even have a good way to do it, what good way could he come up with?

Suddenly, Li Xin's eyes lit up, "There you have it!" How do you forget Mr. Nanlei? ”

Li Xin's buttocks got up to leave before he could sit up, and when he walked to the door, he remembered it again, turned his head and said to Chen Wenshan: "Sun Butang asks for a charter, how many people must be recruited to defend these prefectures and counties in Nanzhili, and then report it." This matter is left to you, list it now, the sooner the better, without further ado, it will change later! ”

Seeing Li Xinfeng leave in a hurry, Chen Wenshan smacked his tongue, the first time he saw that the marquis of Zhenyu was so impatient, and recruiting new soldiers was not a march to fight, where did it come late and change? Besides, there is such a thing as recruitment, and he directly sent Soap Li to ten miles and eight towns to inform the villagers that the compulsory conscription will not be long in coming? Why bother? But since the Marquis of Zhenyu doesn't use this method, I think there is a reason for him. There is also the statute of this count, since it was handed down by the Marquis of Zhenju, it is necessary to do this thing beautifully.

Li Xin said that it was not superfluous to change later, and several scholars in the political hall did not agree to recruit good families, and there were wars on the left and right, and there were so many prisoners in prison, wouldn't it be better to requisition these people? However, Li Xin didn't want to recruit these traitors into the army, they all had criminal records, and they were fierce and fierce, but they were brave, but they were not pure, and they were not the best candidates for recruitment.

What Li Xin really wanted to recruit were good people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, who were like unpainted canvases and were excellent candidates for conscription. But the home of the people in Jiangnan, who will enlist in the army if they don't go to Cheng Dù, who can't live a life?

So Li Xin thought of Huang Zongxi's "Bulletin", it is better to ask him to make some recruitment advertisements, but Li Xinxing rushed to the halfway point and gave up this idea in a dejected manner, this is in the Ming Dynasty where the literacy rate is only a single digit, although the influence of the "Bulletin" is not small, but it is also in the Nanjing scholar class, who will spend money to buy a few newspapers that are not suitable for food and clothing?

In the end, Li Xin still sent a proclamation to the government to preach to Shili and Eight Townships in accordance with the conventional method, and the conditions were similar to the methods of most of the current conscription of good sons into the army, which was nothing more than that he still retained his civilian status and was inferior to military households. In order to make the conscription look more attractive, Li Xin added another clause, as long as he participated in the Three Guards, the silver money service of the imperial court would be paid by the Three Guards.

As a result, the number of people who came to sign up for the army was far beyond Li Xin's imagination, and the recruitment office set up outside the Yongji Gate was crowded with people, and the two registration offices that were originally prepared were not enough, and Li Da, who was personally in charge of the matter, urgently transferred ten more, but it was still not enough......

Outside the Yongji Gate, there were crowds of people gathered from good families, and the small traders also sniffed out the business opportunities, and soon many people came to Yongji Gate with carts and began to set up stalls along the street to sell.

Xiong Mingyu, the secretary of the Ministry of Works, who passed by the Guangji Gate, noticed that there was something wrong outside in the sedan chair, opened the curtain, and was startled by the crowd of people, thinking that there had been a civil uprising. Urgently ordered the family to return to the city. But when he learned from the mouth of the city gate guards that those crowded people were all good sons who had been conscripted into the army, he cursed a few words hatefully, and went out of the city in a sedan chair as usual.

On the first day, the number of applicants registered in the register reached as many as 5,000, and several bookstores kept writing and writing, and their hands were almost tired. The next day, the number of applicants rose to 7,000, and in the end, a few scholars in Nanjing couldn't sit still. Who will serve the conscripts assigned by the imperial court?

So, under the instigation of Xiong Mingyu, the old guys put pressure on Sun Ji on the sickbed, and asked Li Xin to recruit new recruits at around 5,000. As a result, Sun Jiao immediately threw the charter written by Chen Wenshan overnight in front of Gao Hongtu.

"Nan Zhili anti-thief, it's not just you and me sitting in the room and saying a few numbers casually, these are the numbers obtained after research and investigation, if the number of recruits is not enough, the thieves will be bad in the future, and there will be chaos, Gao Shangshu, do you bear it?" If you insist on doing so, Sun should obey! ”

Gao Hongtu was recommended by several Shangshu to put pressure on Sun Ji and let him take responsibility alone, which is unacceptable in any case. Sun Jiao's charter is reasonable and well-founded, and it undoubtedly gags his mouth.

"Alas! If it weren't for Wei Guogong in Taiping Mansion except for Chachi, why would it be like this now, why would it be like this! ”

Gao Hongtu's voice trembled a little, and his mood had a complexity and anxiety that was not for outsiders, even Sun Jie, who was tired on the bed for the sake of state affairs, couldn't say it.

Xiong Mingyu's attempt to stop Li Xin failed, and the Three Guards selected a total of 20,000 recruits as candidates for the soldiers, but Li Xin did not plan to let them go back to the nearly 10,000 unsuccessful recruits, and organized these people into an indispensable auxiliary battalion in the composition of the Three Guards.

The tactics used by the Three Guards were a mixture of musket and spear phalanxes, and Nanking had neither qualified muskets available nor suitable spears. Originally, there were many arsenals in Shanxi, but it was obviously impossible to transport them to Nanjing from there to the mountains and rivers. Therefore, getting the musket became the top priority facing Li Xin.

However, there is no need to rush the matter of muskets, the first thing that these 20,000 soldiers have to train is to queue and absolutely obey military orders. At the same time, they have to get used to one thing, and that is the trust they have in their colleagues. This run-in process cannot be achieved overnight, and it must be repeated and trained for a long time, and even go to the battlefield at the cost of one's life to achieve success.

However, the training was only three days old, and a fast horse galloped into Nanjing. Immediately after that, the officials who remained on duty in the government hall became panicked.

Gao Hongtu, the secretary of the military department, asked the messenger from Jiangbei with difficulty: "You, you say it again!" ”

The messenger's repetition made Gao Hongtu's heart suddenly cold, and a few old tears flowed out of his cloudy eye sockets.

It turned out that just seven days ago, the thief Li Zicheng led a large army to capture Luoyang, and Yang Sichang retreated in Kaifeng City and no longer dared to fight. What made the Ming officials chill the most was that King Fu of Pingbo Zailuoyang was actually cooked alive by Li Zicheng. The most favored prince of the Wanli Emperor ended up like this.

Now, the situation in the Central Plains has deteriorated to this point, which will definitely have a great impact on the situation in the south of the Yangtze River, and the first to bear the brunt must be the Duke of Wei who encouraged and supported him in the Taiping Mansion. Thinking of this, Gao Hongtu's body trembled involuntarily a few times.