The next day, the Zhou clan started a vigorous joint training in the name of preparing for thieves and protecting the clan.

The reserve soldiers who originally belonged to the reserve team were all turned into regulars, and finally a total of more than 500 people were recruited by the Wudu Zhuangzhuang team, with Zhou Bai leading the battalion and Zhou Yuan leading the deputy battalion.

Some time ago, the Zhou people had just been attacked by bandits, and at this time, there were conflicts between the border wall of Cangbei County and the Jin State, and the situation was unstable.

The training of 500 clan soldiers may be a bit eye-catching in a mere red mud township, but it is nothing to the entire Pingcang County.

However, for the sake of prudence, when Zhou Bai went to the county government to sign the mountain lease agreement, he asked Ji Hongzhe for his consent to make up the documents for temporarily practicing the township patrol of Hongni Township.

This is a common practice in the countryside of Daxu in the face of emergencies, especially in the border states, the situation is often unstable, and the government forces sometimes do not take care of the countryside, so they will allow the countryside to form village soldiers to defend themselves.

In addition, at the cost of 50,000 taels of silver from the family treasury, Zhou Bai successfully bought 20,000 acres of barren land at the foot of Cangshan Mountain, plus 100,000 acres of Cangshan Mountain land for a five-year lease period.

In fact, to put it bluntly, these 100,000 acres of mountain fields are all incidental products for buying serious fields.

The barren mountainous land that others don't look down on, but in Zhou Bai's eyes, it is a treasure land a few years later, but unfortunately it is only a five-year lease, which makes him have to find a way to really get his hands on Cangshan.

Perhaps the conditions of Jinshi and the first can be used for this? Or is it a meritorious knighthood and a fief of Cangshan?

At the foot of Cangshan Mountain, the Zhoujia Huzhuang team, which served as the township soldiers of Hongni Township, had just finished a cross-country training, and they had already shown a strong soldier demeanor according to the training of the martial arts.

It's a pity that although the quality of the soldiers is enough, the real generals are still insufficient.

Except for Zhou Yuan, the rest of the team are all first-class core generals, at most, they are ordinary red lives, and it is a little reluctant to be able to lead an army of hundreds of people.

At present, I can't see the importance of generals, and when the territory is large, qualified generals are very key talents.

After accompanying Zhou Bai on the military parade, Zhou Yuan wanted to share his worries, so he put forward his own suggestion: "Lord, there are not only robbers and bandits in Cangshan, but also many people who used to live in the mountains to escape the war, and many of them have elite soldiers and strong generals."

In Zhou Yuan's telling, Zhou Bai knew the cause and effect, it turned out that they had gone into the mountains to suppress bandits and accidentally hit the mountain settlements, and the quality of the mountain people left a deep impression on Zhou Yuan.

"You said that there are generals among the mountain people, and you need me to recruit them personally? Then I want to see what kind of person the general recommended by the first general of my Zhou family is!" Zhou Bai was in a good mood when he heard the news that there were generals.

On the top of Cangshan, the mountains and forests are dense, the roads are difficult to walk, and the various paths are not locals, and it is difficult to find out the direction.

However, Zhou Yuan led his troops to clear the Cangshan group of bandits, and he was already familiar with the terrain around here, and after the thirteen villages of Cangshan were all destroyed, what was left for him to remember, that is, the mountain settlements.

All the way over the mountains and mountains, through seven forked mountain roads, through two cave tunnels, and then over a mountain forest full of poisonous snakes and beasts, Zhou Yuanfang took Zhou Bai to a mountain dwelling. ….

It is also a cottage, and unlike the bandits, the mountain people who live here are self-sufficient and do not make a living from looting.

Looking at its luck from a distance, it is scattered, mostly rising wisps of white gas, much less than the normal villages under the mountain, and the people's morale is not attached.

And there is often gray gas around this cottage, obviously the mountain people are not living in this mountain is not stable, and even survival is a problem worth thinking about from time to time.

Previously, the Cangshan bandits were the main body of contradictions, and the scattered and settled mountain people were ignored by Zhou Bai, but after all, Zhou Bai wanted Cangshan to be the foundation of management, and at this time, he only recalled slightly, and a steady stream of memories came to mind.

It turns out that the ancestors of these mountain people were not real mountain people, but they came to live in the mountains to escape the war and heavy taxes, because they could communicate with outsiders normally, and there was no big difference in their habits.

"Knock knock~" The guards guarding the door of the cottage saw Zhou Bai and a group of strangers coming, and hurriedly rang the gong and called out to the villagers in the village.

Soon, hundreds of mountain people rushed out with hoes, woodcutters and other weapons, dressed in all kinds of simple fur clothes, looking like a group of rabble.

But for such a large cottage to gain a foothold in the mountains, there must be warriors, and the dozen or so people who walked in the front were all armed with swords, and some even held longbows.

"Who are you, aren't you the new mountain boss who is going to build a mountain here?!" A sturdy mountain man with bare arms, who seemed to be the leader of the lead, did not give the order to attack rashly, but took the initiative to negotiate and inquire.

The leader is not stupid, although the number of these dozens of people in front of him is small, but all of them are fully armoured, and their bodies are all strong and burly, and their origins are obviously not simple.

"My name is Zhou Bai, I am the patriarch of the Zhou clan, this year's Dingzhou Xie Yuan, this time I came to recruit you on behalf of the Zhou clan." Zhou Bai smiled slightly, and explained his intention directly.

"It's refreshing, but our village is used to life in the mountains and forests, and we don't want to go down the mountain to accept the imperial court." The leader replied cleanly, too.

"Then if I tell you that the government has approved 100,000 acres of mountains and forests for the Zhou family to use, are you willing to come and cultivate the mountain fields? These fields are tax-free for the first five years, and as long as you join the Zhou clan, you can plant them for free." Zhou Bai continued.

"We ......"

Without waiting for the other party to hesitate and refuse, Zhou Bai directly made the conditions clear: "You can also trade with the outside world, salt, food, clothing, don't you want to bring a better life to your people?"

"You know that the bandits in Cangshan were exterminated by us, so do you know that my Zhou family still has the help of gods? The mountain ghosts who came to you for blood food have been exterminated and driven away by the protective gods, and only by joining us can you have a safe place to live!"

There were obvious benefits, there were naked threats, and all the mountain people fell silent for a moment.

In the past, the places where these mountain people settled would also suffer from the persecution of mountain ghosts, but the mountain people were reluctant to use human sacrifices, so most of the prey they had worked hard to catch was dedicated to the mountain ghosts.

In addition, the grain production grown in the mountains is also pitifully low, which makes their lives very difficult all the time, and they are often hungry and full.

The leader of the mountain people glanced at the soldiers who were waiting around Zhou Bai, and sighed, "Alas, we must maintain our independence and cannot be swallowed up by you."

It is difficult to disobey the power, and after getting along in the past few months, they found that the Zhou family outside is indeed easier to deal with than the imperial court, and now as the patriarch of Yizhou Xie Yuan, he will come to the door in person, and he will never do it.

Living in the mountains and forests does not mean that the mountain people do not understand the gold content of Xie Yuan, which means that the Zhou people must have a lot of say in the imperial court.

Zhou Bai promised: "This is natural, you can even continue to live here, and I will send people to be stationed in your cottage to communicate affairs."

"I've seen the patriarch!" After the mountain people looked at each other for a few moments, they all put down their rudimentary weapons and leaned over to greet Zhou Bai.

Suddenly, the originally scattered white qi of the cottage began to gather, and a wisp of mountain people's qi tended to Zhou Bai, which was the initial way to gather people.

In the dark, Zhou Bai seemed to hear the sound of the carp jumping out of the water, and these strange foreign folk sentiments can nourish the growth of the dragon carp.

This gave Zhou Bai a kind of enlightenment, I am afraid that he can't just rely on a single clan, and embracing all rivers is the right way to fight for dragons and gather people.

Travel from the South