Time flies, and more than two weeks have passed in the blink of an eye.

While Ye's shops are developing in full swing, the recruitment and selection of talents in various counties have also come to a perfect end.

At this time, the total strength of Le'an County had reached an astonishing 50,000 people. It contained 5,000 cavalry and 25,000 infantry. In addition to the original 20,000 troops, a total of 30,000 new troops were expanded, accounting for less than one-twentieth of the 670,000 population of Le'an County. Ye Hao is a strategy of using business to support war, and it can be said that he is now a standard middle-level prince!

It's just that only a few people know the specific number of troops, and even the soldiers don't know how many soldiers there are in Le'an County. At the same time as the expansion of the army, Ye Hao also agreed to improve and improve the arms and equipment of the troops, and every soldier, like ordinary farmers, was issued with a nameplate as an identity, that is, an ID card as the saying goes.

Their names are engraved on each nameplate, indicating their respective branches, ranks, and the specific status of their place of origin and the unit to which they belong. These are also registered in great detail.

This gives each soldier a collective sense of honor and adds a bit of pride. Even if a soldier dies on the battlefield one day, with this iron nameplate, their families will still be taken care of, and their deeds will be commemorated for future generations to recite and respect.

Under the discussion of several major generals, Ye Hao drew 2,000 strong soldiers from the 25,000 infantry to reorganize into a heavy infantry regiment. Each member of the heavy infantry wore high-quality heavy armor forged from the arsenal, and each was equipped with a steel spear eight feet long, a large iron round shield with a diameter of one meter and three meters, and four or five javelins on their backs to throw at the enemy, and a heavy sword hanging from their waists. It's a real heavy infantry. It has become a torrent of steel made of steel.

Under Ye Hao's orders, the Ye family heavy infantry regiment was conducting drills in the Macedonian phalanx every day. After the Battle of Isas in 333 and the Battle of Gogamila in 332, the Macedonian phalanx soon spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, and the Macedonian enemies trembled at the mention of the name of the phalanx, because Alexander the Great made the phalanx a kind of legend. A myth, that is: he is invincible!

The Macedonian phalanx, with its strict formations, can easily defeat an enemy who is superior in numbers, and this is not a problem. For example, when the Ye family's heavy infantry regiment was engaged in a battle with the enemy army, the hoplites would hold a large round shield in their left hand and a spear about four meters long in their right hand, and then line up in a dense and neat formation shoulder to shoulder, prostrate forward like a giant hedgehog. Anyway, like this, does the enemy still dare to approach?

The most important thing is this phalanx. The round shields in the hands of the soldiers not only protect their left side, but also cover the right side of the body of their neighboring comrades. In battle, once the soldier in the front row falls, the soldier in the second row will quickly fill in the gap. The essence of the whole phalanx tactics lies in the concerted efforts of all the soldiers, plus Ye Hao's innovation for this Macedonian phalanx, adding swords and short javelins for the heavy infantry, as well as attacking the enemy from a distance and hand-to-hand combat. The combination of attack and defense is infinitely powerful. Nearly invincible.

The Ye family's heavy crossbow corps was also officially established, and a hundred brand-new repeater crossbow machines were all put into use, and each soldier's members were also equipped with large shields, heavy armor and steel guns, and other kinds of crossbows, waist crossbows and crossbows. Even a rhubarb crossbow. It can be said that it has been bloody.

The crossbow repeater improved by Ma Jun is a kind of bow and crossbow that fires arrows with a foot stepping machine. It is a kind of evolution and modification of the bow on the basis of the bow, assembling a trailer and installing an accurate bracket on it, and after the bowstring is opened, it is magnetically fixed by the launcher. The arrow is placed in the slot, and the bowstring is connected to the tail of the arrow. When firing, the launcher is activated, and the arrows are fired in rows along the arrow trough without the need for soldiers to load arrows. Thirty feathered arrows can be fired in a row. It can not only attack cities, but also fight in the field, and it is powerful.

The crossbowmen in this heavy crossbow regiment were required to be skilled, and it was a pity that there were only 500 men, of which 300 soldiers from the Tiger Battalion were drawn and 200 crossbowmen who were skilled in shooting. At the same time, this heavy crossbow regiment also has three short guns behind it, which can be responsible for overdrawing the enemy and giving the enemy a blow to prepare for self-defense.

The remaining 23,000 infantry were divided into four units, a force of 3,000 archers, and a force of 5,000 lightly armed sword and shield men. The other 10,000 were pikemen. The last 5,000 men were a mixed corps of pikemen, halberders, and hammermen.

Ye Hao also selected two hundred Tiger Battalion cavalry from the three thousand Tiger Battalion cavalry who were good at hand-to-hand combat to form the Ye Family Army Guards Battalion, and the special group protected his safety. In addition, the 100 important generals of the whole army are equipped with the Mingguang armor developed by Ma Jun.

After doing this, two-thirds of the gold seized in Ye Hao's hands has been used. If it really wants to develop, the remaining 50,000 or 60,000 taels of gold will be exhausted in less than half a year. Fortunately, everything that needs to be done has been done, otherwise it will become a waste of resources.

During this period of time, far away in Beihai County, the father-in-law Kong Rong, who led the Qingzhou Prefecture Pastor, also gave his strength and recommended Ye Hao to the imperial court. This incident made Ye Hao ecstatic.

In terms of the appointment of talents, at Xu Shu's suggestion, Ye Hao cheekily sent a letter of request directly to Kong Rong of Beihai County, and soon after, more than 20 officials came, which was considered to have completely solved the talent. The affairs of the displaced people have also been properly resolved, a large amount of grain, grass and farm tools and other materials have been distributed, allowing farmers to reclaim wasteland and plant some semi-seasonal crops.

Four or five days ago, Ma Jun passed by a farmland and saw that there was no way to bring water to irrigate the land, and found that this large farmland had been barren. So after repeated research and testing, Ma Jun finally created a kind of overturned car (also known as keel waterwheel). This overturned cart diverted water from the river to the slopes, and the people were finally able to grow vegetables and water them. Ye Hao was quite emotional, and he was more and more impressed by Ma Jun's creative ability.

The kind of overturned car made by Ma Jun is a major innovation in China's ancient irrigation tools. Before the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were two main kinds of water lifting tools used by farmers: one was the orange tree, and the other was the wheel. The orange tree has been used as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and its method of lifting water is: on the tree next to the well or on the wooden shelf with a rope to fix a horizontal log, one end of the horizontal wood is tied to a bucket, and the other end is a stone. When lifting water, the two ends fall together, and the lever principle is used, which is more labor-saving and convenient. (To be continued......)