After the last army expansion, the strength of the new army under Li Congyan increased by about 6,000 men, almost doubling to more than 11,000 people, and the strength of all units had to be adjusted accordingly.

After Li Congyan weighed it, he changed the first-level structure of Zhechong Prefecture to battalions, and each Zhechong Prefecture was numbered by the number of battalions, and the structure below Zhechong Prefecture remained unchanged. At the same time, Li Congyan added a corps-level structure to the battalion system, and the first army set up two battalions, which were led by generals. At present, the new army is organized into a single army as a whole, and Li Congyan himself is temporarily the commander of the army.

In this way, the strength of the new army increased to more than 11,000 people in the first army, which was basically close to the scale of the 12,500 troops in the first army in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.

Here, Li Congyan had just finished readjusting the structure of the new army when he received an edict from the imperial court.

Li Congyan looked at the edict in his hand and was taken aback, this time Li Siyuan released the princes as envoys, several months earlier than the original history, which immediately disrupted Li Congyan's plan. The princes went to various places to grasp the real power, which meant that Li Siyuan's restrictions on Li Congke, Li Congzhang and others were greatly reduced, and everyone could secretly develop their own strength, which was very unfavorable to Li Congyan, who was already weak.

"In this way, Pingbai has lost a few months of training time, and the sudden change in the situation will cause a butterfly effect, and even change the trend of history as a result, directly opening the era of local secession and chaos?"

At this time, Li Congyan was not sure at all, and the originally clear historical trend became more and more blurred, giving Li Congyan a feeling that he couldn't see the way forward.

After thinking about it for a while, at this time, thousands of recruits had already undergone basic training and were able to obey orders, so Li Congyan decided to send troops to suppress bandits and train the newly reintegrated units of the new army with actual combat experience.

So Li Congyan directly called Wu Conghan, Minister of Civil Affairs, and Li Wei, Minister of Military Affairs, and the three of them discussed sending troops to suppress bandits.

A map was laid out on the ground, and Li Congyan and the three of them sat on the ground and began to deploy the troop strategy.

Li Wei said: "Lord Qi, when the Dengzhou family was exterminated, our army had exterminated most of the thieves in Dengzhou, but with the prosperity of merchants from all over Dengzhou, there were many thieves in other states and counties who settled in Dengzhou. This time, even if the lord does not give an order, our military and political department is ready to report and send troops. ”

Li Congyan nodded and said, "This is just right, on the one hand, train the troops, and on the other hand, solve the disaster for the businessmen, killing two birds with one stone." ”

Wu Conghan pointed to a few red dots marked on the map and said, "These are the nests of thieves?" ”

Li Wei replied: "Exactly, these are all found by the Ministry of Military Affairs during this time. ”

After speaking, Li Wei pointed to the map and introduced them one by one: "Qijia Town, Penglai County, there is a group of thousands of thieves here, and its leader is quite methodical, it is said that he once served as an officer under the envoy of Lu Longjiedu, and often robbed the surrounding people, which is very arrogant; Tiangu Mountain, Huangxian County, there is a group of hundreds of thieves here, some of whom are deserters under the command of the Pinglu Jiedu envoy, and the combat power is not weak; At the top of the old temple in Muping County, there are hundreds of thieves here. ”

After speaking, Li Wei looked at Li Congyan and asked, "Lord, which one shall we fight first?" ”

Li Congyan thought for a while, then slapped it on the map and said, "You can't fight one by one, otherwise the rest of the thieves will be alert, and if you want to fight, you can fight the three of them together!" Once these three bandits are exterminated, the rest of the small bandits will flee when they hear the news, and it is not a problem! ”

Wu Conghan frowned slightly, and said: "Lord, the strength of our army is still enough, but the person who leads the army ......."

Li Congyan said: "Wang Zuhe was promoted to the commander of the left battalion, Li Ren was promoted to the commander of the right battalion, and Wang Yong was promoted to the commander of the left and right Guoyi of the left battalion, Xu Hui and Zhu Ming were promoted to the lieutenants of the left and right Guoyi of the right battalion. ”

Li Wei and Wu Conghan glanced at each other, and their old partners began to be promoted, and they were naturally happy in their hearts, but they also had a hint of worry.

Li Wei forked his hands and said: "Lord, the captains of each regiment will be vacant, and if they are temporarily promoted, they will ......."

"Li Siye is the captain of the first regiment of the left battalion, and Chen is the captain of the third regiment of the right battalion. The rest of the regiments are mainly old tooth soldiers, promoted from the firing line of various departments! This battle is a battle of inspection, those who are not qualified are dismissed after the war, and those who are qualified are officially appointed by the Ministry of Military Affairs after the war! ”

"Whoa!"

Then, Li Congyan said: "Order Wang Zuhe to lead the left battalion to exterminate the thieves in Tiangu Mountain in Huang County, and order Li Ren to lead the right battalion to exterminate the thieves on the top of the old temple in Muping County." Ordered Li Siye's department and Chen Zhi's department to act alone, and I personally led these two regiments to exterminate the thieves in Qijia Town, Penglai County. All departments will set off in two days, and there must be no mistakes! ”

"Whoa!"

This was the first battle after the reorganization and rearmament of the new army, and all departments of the Ministry of Military Affairs immediately became operational. The Baggage Division and the Treasury Department urgently prepared all kinds of baggage for all units of the New Army, replenished all the armor, and completed the mobilization and assembly of more than 11,000 officers and men in only two days.

Li Congyan was very satisfied with the speed of the Ministry of Military Affairs and the various departments of the New Army: "This is the power of specialization!" ”

On the fourth day, Li Congyan led two regiments, Li Siye and Chen Zhu, to the north of Qijia Town, Penglai County. On the same day, Li Congyan ordered the army to camp on the spot and sent a small number of soldiers to inquire about the news.

After two days of marching, Li Congyan still sent some problems, such as the new army does not have special baggage soldiers, and the armor and baggage of the soldiers can only be carried by some soldiers, which will greatly reduce the combat strength of the army.

Moreover, the new army did not set up cavalry, there were no professional scouts, but there were some alert soldiers who were responsible for finding out the news, and as for the vigilance, each department could only take turns to be responsible.

Li Congyan wrote down these problems one by one, and they will all be solved in the future.

"It seems that there is still a long way to go!"

In the afternoon of this day, Li Congyan received news that the thieves in Qijia Town had just returned from plunder, and they were gathering in the town to eat and drink, and they had no precautions.

Li Congyan was overjoyed when he heard the news, so he called Li Siye and Chen Zhu, and ordered Li Siye to lead his troops to attack Qijia Town from the north, and Chen Congye led his troops to detour to the south to launch a surprise attack.

"The divisions went on attack after nightfall, with three sounds."

Li Congyan instructed: "This gang of thieves has just returned from plundering, there may be people who have been taken captive in Qijia Town, you must remember: the elderly, children, and women should be protected as much as possible, and as for the men, they will all be tied up on the spot, and they will be identified by women and children after the war, so as to prevent the thieves from disguising themselves as ordinary people." ”

"Whoa!"

Then Li Siye said: "Lord, I will take the soldiers and horses away, what should I do with the battalion?" ”

There were only more than thirty shogunate guards around Li Congyan, all of whom were carefully selected by Li Congyan from the archers patrolling Dengzhou City.

Li Congyan said with a smile: "It's okay! I've got enough of these thirty. ”

Late at night, Li Siye and Chen Zhi divided their troops to attack, and nearly 3,000 soldiers of the New Army of the two regiments suddenly attacked, and the thieves entrenched in Qijia Town were suddenly in chaos.

Li Siye was wearing Mingguang armor as a corporal, and stood directly at the front of the battle formation.

A regiment of soldiers of the new army opened the way with crossbowmen, and a brigade of sword and shield men held shields to form a shield formation to cover the crossbowmen to shoot the thieves. In the rear, the spearmen of the two brigades opened their bows and arrows and fired continuous volleys, and the first brigade of Mo swordsmen pressed the formation in the rear, ready to launch a charge at any time.

The officers and men of the new army have practiced the battle formation hundreds of times, and the daily drills have already penetrated deep into the bone marrow, and now they are really on the battlefield, although many soldiers are worried in their hearts, but the long-term drills have formed muscle memory and perfectly displayed their combat skills.

Tang Yi was arranged in Li Xiye's department as a spearman. At this time, Tang Yi struggled to shoot an arrow, and he couldn't see if he had hit it at night at all, so he took the arrow again under the order of the brigade commander, and released the arrow again and again.

"With such a violent rain of arrows, those thieves should have been defeated, right?"

Just when Tang Yi was thinking in his heart, Li Siye in front gave the order to attack.

"Rush!"

The brigade commander next to him roared, Tang Yi and his colleagues around him put the longbow back into the quiver, replaced it with the spear on their back, and then began to move forward with neat steps.

The crossbowmen at the front of the battle formation also put away their crossbows, pulled out the horizontal knives at their waists, and crushed forward with the sword and shield hands.

At this time, Tang Yi was extremely nervous, but then he felt the texture brought by the heavy iron armor on his body, and felt the indestructible steps of the comrades around him, and a hot current suddenly surged in his heart, and a battle intent rushed straight to the top of his head.

"Kill the thief and make a meritorious service!"

Tang Yi only had these four words left in his heart, and followed the team directly into Qijia Town.

"Huh?"

The battle that Tang Yi expected did not happen, only the footsteps of the soldiers of the new army advancing in Qijia Town, and the sound of iron armor, those thieves seemed to have disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, Tang Yi tripped over something, and when he looked down, he was startled. At this time, the ground was littered with the corpses of thieves, all of whom had been shot by a rain of arrows.

Seeing this, Tang Yi and all the soldiers breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time, a strong self-confidence rose in their hearts: "This battle will be won!" ”

Ahead, Li Siye looked around, and saw that he had not encountered any bandits to resist, so he directly ordered all units to immediately spread out as a brigade unit to encircle and annihilate the thieves in Qijia Town.

At the same time, Chen's subordinates also rushed into Qijia Town, also broke into pieces, and began to encircle and annihilate the thieves.

The more than 1,000 thieves in Qijia Town have been defeated, under the strong attack of the new army of the two regiments, only a few rounds of arrows were shot and killed by three or four hundred people, the thieves have no armor protection at all, not even a shield, can only resist.

Then the surviving thieves fled directly, and the leader of the thieves was trampled to death when they fled, and the remaining hundreds of thieves were completely wiped out by the soldiers of the new army of the two regiments without even half an hour.

Li Congyan entered Qijia Town at midnight and first asked Li Siye and Chen Zhu about the casualties of each department. In this battle, only eight soldiers of the two regiments of the new army were killed, all of whom were recruited from the expansion of the army, but they killed more than 800 thieves and captured more than 300 people.

In addition, the battle also rescued more than 2,000 captive civilians, as well as a large amount of money, food and materials.

Li Congyan nodded with satisfaction, such a battle loss ratio can be regarded as a comprehensive crush, if the soldiers of the new army practice for a period of time, they can achieve zero casualties against such thieves.

Li Congyan inspected the situation on the battlefield and said: "Behead the captured thieves on the spot, put all the heads into a Jingguan, and deter the rest of the Xiaoxiao." All the rescued people were screened, and then transported back to Dengzhou City with the capture. ”

"Whoa!"

At noon the next day, Li Congyan finished cleaning up the battlefield and led his troops back to Dengzhou City.

On the way, Li Congyan successively received good news from Wang Zuhe and Li Ren, and the two bandits on the top of Tiangu Mountain in Huang County and Laomiao in Muping County were all wiped out, and the two were leading their troops to clean up the battlefield and prepare to return to Dengzhou City.