After Xiao Cai and the others agreed, they immediately sent sergeants to announce Wu Yingying's military orders everywhere, and when they heard that they could rest for a day today, the soldiers couldn't help cheering, and they all went back to the camp to recuperate.

Entering the tent of the Chinese military camp, Wu Yingying sat down and said: "After the cowardice is eliminated, there will be 2,500 elite divisions, I want to take the carefully selected 500 people as the tooth barracks, and the remaining 2,000 people according to the courage and cowardice, the slightly weaker 1,000 people are the front barracks, and the remaining 1,000 people are the rear barracks." What do you two think?"

It has become a common practice for generals in the fifth generation to select elites as tooth troops, so Xin Xiao and the others have no objections, so Wu Yingying said: "Tomorrow's competition will be limited to the positions of the chief and centurion, and then the centurion of the front and rear battalions will each elect captains." The new army is established, everything is complicated, Xiao Jiu can take the post of Du Yu Hou, responsible for assisting me in military affairs, Xin Gu is still a captain, and I am in charge of the Ya military camp, I don't know if you two are willing? He believes that in the combat of an army of less than 100 men in this era, the role of an officer's individual courage far exceeds his resourcefulness, and besides, there is no time to train an army that truly relies on collective combat, nor does he have the opportunity to discover whether these subordinates really have the ability to make decisions on the battlefield, so they can only rely on relatively fair competition to select junior officers. At the same time, this kind of unequivocal strength is the most convincing to the soldiers, and the establishment of a command system on this basis has at least the executive power required by the army.

In this era, the distinction between the upper and lower levels of the army was extremely strict, and although the soldiers could dismantle the commander in eight pieces when they mutinied, they often obeyed orders on weekdays. The contradictions between the upper and lower levels of servicemen often accumulate out of control, seriously affecting the combat effectiveness of the army. Wu Yingying wanted to establish a kind of friendship in his army, so he would fight for the opinions of his subordinates, especially Xin Gu and Xiao Jiu.

But it turns out that it is sometimes unimaginable to change habits, Xin Gu and Xiao Jiu looked at each other and said in unison: "The subordinates obey orders." ”

Seeing that Wu Yingying nodded with satisfaction, Xiao Jiu said again: "The expedition is imminent, I don't know when our army's armor will be issued?"

Wu Yingying smiled: "Don't worry about this, Huangfu Jixun said in front of His Majesty today that he has prepared the armor to be handed over to our army, and you can take someone to the Divine Guard Army to handle the handover later." ”

Seeing Xiao Jiu's relieved "oh", Wu Yingying asked again: "What is the situation of the equipment in the army now?

Xiao Jiuyi replied one by one, in addition to swords, guns and shields, the Arsenal Department actually sent five hundred strong crossbows and five thousand crossbow arrows a few days ago, so that Wu Yingying, who was originally not hopeful about the army's long-range attack power, had a sense of surprise, Wu Yingying smiled: "After tomorrow's big competition, all these strong crossbows will be distributed to the rear military camp, so that the soldiers can step up their practice of stacking and shooting." ”

Although Xin Gu and Xiao Jiu didn't know what the stacking method was, they heard too many new terms here from Wu Yingying, and although they often didn't understand it at the time, Wu Yingying would have a detailed explanation when they practiced later, so they didn't ask more questions after getting used to it. After the three of them discussed for a while, Xiao Jiu found dozens of sergeants to drive the ox cart to the Shenwei Military Camp to hand over the armor, while Wu Yingying took Xin Gu to comfort the soldiers one by one in the camp. Above the temple of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the dispute between Jiangbei and Jiangnan scholars was very fierce, Wu Yingying, as a newcomer to Jiangbei, deliberately made a look of not paying much attention to military affairs some time ago to avoid others saying that he had bad intentions. A few days ago, Cai Yu had a good trust in him, and Wu Yingying had already regarded Jinfan as a starting army, and he would soon lead the Xincheng army to fight on the battlefield, so now he redoubled his efforts to collect the hearts of soldiers.

The room and bedding of the commanding envoy were prepared in the army a long time ago, and Wu Yingying slept in the barracks that night, dreamless until dawn.

On the morning of the second day, the soldiers first decided the leader in a ten-person squad by means of a contest, and then the whole army formed a large circle in the school field, and the 250 winners were divided into ten groups by lot, and each group decided a person with the highest martial arts skills by means of a challenge competition. After a full meal at noon, the winner of the morning accepted the challenge of all the disobedient soldiers in the school field as the champion master, and the soldier who defeated the champion would accept the challenge of others in his place, and finally the person who remained on the field was appointed as a centurion by Wu Yingying at dinner time, completing the first leap in their military career.

After the contest was over, the soldiers formed twenty-five phalanxes, and the newly appointed centurion stood straight in front of the hundred-man array, although many of these people had blue noses and swollen faces, but they had already shown a rare sharpness in the Southern Tang army. At first, they didn't believe that officers would be selected completely by competition, everyone thought that the new general would arrange at least a few trustworthy personal soldiers, or those specially transferred veterans who had fought side by side with Wu Yingying as centurions, but Wu Yingying not only directly appointed Xiao Jiu as the marquis of Duyu, but even the centurion of Xingu was defeated by defeating several challengers.

More than a dozen temporarily appointed centurions failed to win the contest, so Wu Yingying arranged them into the Ya military camp and used them as personal soldiers.

The most important thing in the army is to rely on their skills, and the vast majority of the soldiers did not complain, and the soldiers consciously obeyed the orders of the new officers, and lined up neatly in a phalanx to listen to Wu Yingying's teachings.

Wu Yingying looked at Xin Gu, Xiao Jiu and the officers standing in front of him, everyone showed expectant eyes, and couldn't help but mutter: "The generals of this era really need some special talents." Trying to make a friendly appearance, he patted a centurion standing beside Xingu, smiled and asked, "What's your name?" This is a veteran who was specially transferred from the Hukou battalion, and he replied loudly: "The last general, Bai Sheng, is willing to die for the general." Wu Yingying asked again: "Bai Sheng, where are you from?" Bai Sheng replied loudly: "Chuzhou." Wu Yingying's heart moved, nodded and said: "Chuzhou Baisheng, how old is this year?" Bai Sheng said loudly: "The last general is twenty-four this year." "Well, yes, Twenty-Four is already a centurion, do a good job, and Wanhu Hou is no problem. Wu Yingying reached out and patted him on the shoulder, walked to the next phalanx, and asked the centurion standing in front of him, "What's your name?"

In addition to talking to the twenty-five centurions, Wu Yingying also chatted with several soldiers, each time it was these three questions, and he thought ill-intentionedly: if many foreigners were recruited in the Heavenly Army, would the "Three Questions of General Wu" become a classic joke instead of that emperor, no, all the foreigners who joined must learn to use basic Chinese conversations. After walking around, Wu Yingying returned to the rostrum, and couldn't help but feel a little regretful in his heart, it seems that he used to see on TV that when the leader reviewed, the people below had to shout a slogan or something, it seems that the ancient folk customs are relatively simple, he cleared his throat and began his first speech to the army.

"Soldiers, officers, you are about to go to battle with the enemy from the north, and many may never return home. As soon as the words fell, the soldiers in the phalanx erupted into a "buzzing" sound, after all, most of them were ordinary people who had just been recruited from the people, and going to the battlefield was tantamount to a regional terror for the people of this era.

Military discipline, Wu Yingying frowned, and the newly appointed officers immediately played a role, and with their reprimand, the military formation, which had just been a little commotionous, quieted down again.