October of the year 672 in the continental calendar. After the war in the southeast was completely subsided, and the forces that came to congratulate him from all sides also reached an agreement and sent them away, Chen Wu finally had free time to re-examine the land of the two counties that had just fallen into his hands.

First of all, Matsue County is the richest county.

It has a total territory of five provinces and 23 counties, with a total population of about 6 million.

However, according to the number that Chen Wu learned from the forum before the crossing, the actual population of Songjiang County should be about half more than that.

And these hidden populations, or black households, are undoubtedly controlled by the family and local tycoons.

There is no doubt that these forces that are intertwined in Dengzhou City and the local capital city are a big hidden danger to Chen Wu's rule in Dengzhou.

If he could, of course, Chen Wu would also want to directly kill, wipe out the old forces, and control a territory that belongs entirely to him.

But he started from scratch, with no foundation at all, and he didn't have enough time to plot slowly.

If he really takes such a drastic and extreme move, I'm afraid that he is still fighting with the heroes of the lockdown or Wushan Mansion and the local government.

In order to be able to enter Dengzhou as much as possible, reaching a compromise with these local forces for the time being, and then slowly freeing up his hands to deal with it in the future is the only and best choice for Chen Wu.

This is a matter of gain and loss.

Fortunately, Matsue's fundamentals are really good.

With abundant grain production, well-developed roads and irrigation systems, and an equally developed handicraft and textile industry, Songjiang's raw silk and cotton cloth are the best examples.

With these, as long as Chen Wu makes good use of them, he can completely raise an army of 100,000 with the power of this county.

Compared to Songjiang, the situation in Tiannan County is much worse.

First of all, the area is only about three-quarters of Songjiang County, with a total of four prefectures and 17 counties, and a population of just over 4 million.

Due to its location on the border, it has been affected by the activities of the Omanis all year round, and the livelihood of Tiannan County is relatively weak.

Especially affected by the Tiannan War, the entire Nanfeng Mansion was cleared by strong walls, and the accumulation of years was all turned into ashes, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.

If it weren't for Chen Wu's timely closure of the road to the north, which stuck them in Puyuan, and stopped the outflow, the situation in Tiannan County would have been even worse.

Of course, there are bad places, and naturally there are good places.

The industry of Tiannan County is not useless.

For example, medicinal timber and mountain goods are quite famous.

In addition, the border with the Kingdom of Oman allows the Omanis to smuggle expensive luxury goods, especially pearls and red coral, a specialty, from the Omanis.

As long as it is transported to Zhongzhou, it will change hands and make several times the profit.

In addition, the perennial threat of war, coupled with regular service, makes the people here fierce, and many people are qualified recruits with a little training, which is a good source of soldiers.

After carefully sorting out the basic situation of the two counties, Chen Wu felt a bit of a heavy responsibility in his heart.

As a politician in his position, Chen Wu was only the leader of the rebel army before, and he could drive the displaced people everywhere and destroy them at will.

But now, it is his turn to be the governor and the envoy, and the situation is naturally different, and he must think of stabilizing the situation in the two counties and developing the people's livelihood.

You know, the two counties combined, but there are more than 10 million people!

Glancing back, the map of Songjiang Tiannan County that had been painted red on the wall behind him, Chen Wu didn't sleep all night.

The next day, Chen Wu convened an enlarged meeting for the first time in the governor's palace of the former lieutenant Chichang, as the new governor of Songjiang.

The top brass of the former Taiping Army, including a group of Dengzhou officials who remained in office, participated in the discussion about the next governance and the comprehensive reorganization of the Taiping Army.

At this point, Chen Wu had already prepared the draft, and he also communicated with Dian Yong, Yuan Xingwei and other henchmen in advance.

The discussion at this moment has a somewhat formality.

After two days of article-by-article deliberations, the governor's palace was largely concerned with a general reform of military administration.

The first is military reform.

Up to this reorganization, the Taiping Army had never had a systematic and complete regulation, and the main force was nothing more than relying on the Taiping Battalion, the Volunteer Battalion, and the two battalions to fight.

Even if Chen Wu perfected it once during this period and divided the military intelligence department, baggage battalion, engineering battalion and other departments, it still could not fundamentally solve the problem.

After this military reform, Chen Wu completely abolished the title and original establishment of the Taiping Army, and instead continued to use the imperial military system, and established the Songjiang Army, which included all the existing main forces.

At present, this corps has only one full-fledged division, that is, the Songjiang First Division.

The original Taiping Battalion was changed to the First Brigade of the First Division of the Songjiang Army after its expansion.

Sun Tian, who was most loyal to Chen Wu, was promoted to the brigade commander of the First Brigade this time.

The original Volunteer Battalion was directly transformed into the Second Brigade after reorganization, and Xu Shizhong served as the brigade commander.

The surrendered former Dengzhou No. 1 Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the No. 3 Brigade of the First Division of the Songjiang Army after personnel adjustment and replenishment of troops.

Mo Guohao, who surrendered to Chen Wu after being the former commander of the Longshan City Wing, was promoted to the brigade commander of the Third Brigade.

These three brigades, plus a 1,000-strong division directly under the wing, a total of 13,000 people, formed the first division of Songjiang!

As Chen Wu's deputy general and the most general-style Dian Yong, he served as the division commander of the First Division of the Songjiang Army.

This is also the strongest main combat force under Chen Wu now.

In addition to these 13,000 men, the Taiping army had at least 10,000 recruits left.

Some of these troops were divided into city defense battalions, which were responsible for the local security of the four prefectures of Wushan on Yuyang Pond.

The rest was used by Chen Wu to form the Dengzhou Garrison Division, which is not yet in full strength, and only has two garrison brigades under its jurisdiction.

Among them, the 1st Garrison Brigade is stationed in Dengzhou to guard the security of Dengzhou; The 2nd Garrison Brigade is stationed in the area on the edge of Osan and Lockdown provinces with Ninghai County to contain the recent rise of cross-border pirates.

After such a clear division of responsibilities, the Dengzhou Garrison Division was only responsible for the security of the locality, and its status was equivalent to that of the second-line combat troops of the empire.

The Songjiang 1st Division was responsible for external battles and was an out-and-out main force.

Just one division, of course, is not enough to meet the needs of Songjiang's reality.

However, the meal had to be eaten one bite at a time, and the army had to be expanded little by little.

Under the existing conditions, the weapons and equipment of the officers under Chen Wu were extremely lacking.

Chen Wu plans to set up the framework of the Second Division first, and slowly form and improve it in the next six months to a year.

In addition to the two forces of the Dengzhou Garrison Division of the First Division of the Songjiang Army, Chen Wu also had some other forces.

Yan Dongxing's cavalry was rewarded by Chen Wu for their outstanding performance in this battle against the Omani army.

Although the total number of cavalry at present is less than 800, Chen Wu insisted on giving an independent cavalry brigade of 4,000 people, attached to the name of the Songjiang Legion.

Yan Dongxing, a horse bandit from the Northland, also became a brigade commander commanding 4,000 cavalry.

This promotion and commendation undoubtedly made Yan Dongxing overjoyed, and he deeply felt how wise he was to take refuge before.

However, after the joy, the sorrow followed.

Although the establishment was in place, and Chen Wu promised to try to get him enough horses, he was personally responsible for the training of the personnel and the selection of the site for the independent cavalry brigade -- the training of recruits in the War Readiness Department only included discipline and basic ability, and did not include how to initially train them from recruits to qualified cavalry!

You must know that from Taiping County to Songjiang, now a year has passed, and the cavalry of the Taiping Army has grown from scratch, and there are only so many people in total.

To expand to 4,000 people in one fell swoop, God knows how much effort and time it will take.

For Yan Dongxing, this is undoubtedly a huge test.

Fortunately, there is also Ning An, the deputy brigade commander of the cavalry brigade, who can help him share some of the pressure, which makes Yan Dong not worry too much.

In addition to the cavalry brigade, the infantry battalion was also expanded.

This class of troops had the most reliable long-range strike force in the feudal era.

Even early artillery and muskets failed to completely replace the role of archers.

It wasn't until the advent of the more powerful black powder and the elimination of the flintlock pistol that the bow and arrow really withdrew from the battlefield.

For this reason, the role of the bow battalion is very important at this stage.

Chen Wu already had less than a wing of archers, which was simply not enough to meet the demand.

For this reason, he also gave Gao Yueli the establishment of an independent brigade.

Compared with the war horses that were not produced in Songjiang and Tiannan counties, Chen Wujun had craftsmen who could independently make bows and arrows, which saved a lot of trouble.

According to the plan and specific steps formulated, the entire reorganization will be completed within a month, and the change of guard and preliminary training will be completed in the next two to three months, integrating to form a more powerful combat force.

However, the reorganization of the original strength of the Taiping Army alone was not the whole discussion at this meeting.

The integration of the military forces of Tiannan County is also an important issue.

Compared with Songjiang County, which Chen Wu had basically eaten, it was much more difficult to integrate Tiannan County.

The five prefectures of Songjiang County were basically fought by Chen Wu one by one, and the civil and military officials who dared to oppose them were basically resolved.

Even the last Dengzhou was a symbolic battle.

Tiannan County was different, Chen Wu relied on Zhao'an, and nominally obtained command by administrative means and the emperor's will.

As a result, local officials and city defense battalions from all over the country were still there, and many of them were resistant or even hostile to the Taiping army.

In addition, more important is the existing force that cannot be ignored in Tiannan County - the Tiannan Army!

Despite the heavy losses in the Battle of Tiannan and the fact that it was defeated to the point of collapse, in fact, the remnants of this legion still had more than 40,000 troops.

After the war, after the initial collection of some of the scattered forces, and the repatriation of some wounded soldiers who were seriously wounded and difficult to recover, the total number was still as high as 41,000.

That's almost the strength of three divisions!

These soldiers of the Southern Army are already a few strong troops in the empire.

They have participated in the Battle of Nanfeng Fortress and the Battle of Tianlong City and survived, as if they are already iron-blooded elites.

After being rearmed, the combat effectiveness is terrifying.

Both in terms of number and quality, they far surpassed Chen Wu's Taiping Army.

If you want to integrate the power of Tiannan County, you can't bypass the Tiannan Army no matter what!