Ma Chao asked, "Has the hidden dragon developed to such a point?" ”

Jia Xu smiled and said, "This is mainly the credit of the lord. The lord's budget requirements for Qianlong have always been generous and responsive. However, because the time is too short, Qianlong can only obtain information in the Huangfu Song's department, and maintain the connection between the young master and the capital Jianshuo. ”

Ma Chao said: "It's okay. At present, the information we need is mainly the 100,000 army of Huangfu Song and the capital. ”

Ma Teng said: "How many tens of thousands of Huangfu Song's army are still there, not necessarily. Mr. Jia, hurry up and open the Flying Pigeon Biography! ”

Jia Xu nodded, and carefully held the white pigeon with his hand, which had a small bamboo tube tied to its legs, and there was a plug at the top of the bamboo tube. Jia Xu carefully pulled out the tiny plug with his index finger and thumb, and a small roll of cloth was exposed in the bamboo tube. Jia Xu pinched the small roll of cloth, stuffed the stopper, and put the pigeon back on his shoulder, before carefully placing the cloth in the palm of his hand and slowly unfolding it.

Ma Teng, Ma Chao, Yang Fu, Pang De and others couldn't help but stretch out their heads to look, only to see that the cloth read: "The infantry army died 10,000, the cavalry died thousands, and the enemy's morale dropped slightly." In addition, the left chariot seems to have a move to replenish the troops. ”

Seeing this, Ma Chao frowned slightly. Ma Chao originally thought that this battle could be conservatively estimated to allow the official army to lose 20,000 foot cavalry (it turned out that this was really a conservative estimate, because the official army actually lost 25,000 foot cavalry in this battle), which should greatly reduce the numerical advantage between the official army and the Xiliang army. Ma Chao originally thought that as long as he could gradually eliminate these 100,000 living forces, he would be able to hold Liangzhou and cut off the imperial court's "non-divisive thoughts" about Liangzhou.

But if Huangfu Song wants to expand the army, the battle will become very difficult to fight. As long as Huang Fu Song can still maintain the numerical superiority of the official army over the Xiliang army, then Huang Fu Song still has a great chance of defeating him.

After Ma Chao read it, he passed the information to everyone.

Zhang Xiu looked at it and said puzzledly: "If Huangfu Yi really wants to replenish the lost troops, it will cost at least twenty or thirty thousand." Where did he get so many soldiers? ”

Ma Dai thought for a moment and said, "There are hundreds of thousands of displaced people from Nanyang in the Sanfu Land Boundary. This group of displaced people is numerous, and the able-bodied ones are also numerous. Moreover, they are hungry and precarious, as long as the emperor is willing to give them food, of course those homeless people will come in droves and be recruited as officers and soldiers. For example, Bao Hong, who is right-wing, is one of the 10,000 parts of his work, and he recruited Nanyang refugees. ”

Ma Teng shook his head and said, "What Dai'er said is impossible. Even though there are many people in Nanyang who are displaced in Sanfu, it is a very large and cheap source of soldiers. However, if the displaced people want to become officers and soldiers who are worthy of war, they must go through strict selection and long-term training. And the threat of our Xiliang army is imminent, and Huangfu Song has absolutely no time to recruit and train troops. ”

Ma Dai suddenly realized and said, "It's still my uncle's foresight!" ”

Zhang Xiu said: "Since the homeless people can't be recruited, how should Huangfu Song replenish the troops he lost in today's battle?" ”

Jia Xu lightly spit out two words: "Family." ”

Yang Fu also thought of it and said: "The Sanfu family has many families, rich grain reserves, fields and ponds are spread in counties and counties, and there are thousands of servants. The most important thing is that the family has a large number of soldiers and customers. Each family, according to the strength of the heritage, can be divided into three levels. The first level is for those with the deepest background, with thousands or even tens of thousands of soldiers; the second level is for those who are slightly inferior in foundation, with three or four thousand soldiers; The third level, which is for those with the lowest foundation, also has a thousand. These three levels can be called the family family.

There are also many clans, whose strength is very weak compared to the third-level family clan, and they cannot be called family clans. They can't afford to keep too many servants, so in order to prevent the attack of the Yellow Turbans and the resistance of the farmers in their homes, they usually choose to form clan soldiers mainly with the children of the clan.

Moreover, because the founders of the Zongbing were powerful families and clans that occupied a large area of land, the Zongbing were often very sophisticated, well-trained, and well-armed. Therefore, it is completely feasible for Huangfu Song to supplement his troops with the soldiers of the Sanfu family. ”

Zhang Xiu was even more surprised: "Since the Sanfu family has such a deep strength and heritage, it is unlikely that they will obey Huangfu Song's orders, and Huangfu Song will ask them for the Zongbing, so they will obediently serve it, right?" ”

Yang Fu shook his head and said, "The Sanfu family will obediently offer it, because they know that the remaining 75,000 steps of Huangfu Yizhen is already the last lonely city in front of my Xiliang army. If Huangfu Yizhen is completely defeated, and it is difficult for the imperial court to raise another large army, then our army will sweep Sanfu and include Sanfu in the bag.

Sanfu is owned by my Xiliang Army, which is what the Sanfu family does not want to see. Because the lord and the young lord had just suppressed the family in Liangzhou, bought or robbed, and took away the dock fort, servants, and fields of the Liangzhou family. The Sanfu family must hate this to the core.

What made the Sanfu family even more frightened was that the lord implemented the uniform land system in the entire territory of the twenty counties of Liangzhou, and the fields were owned by the Thorn Shifu and distributed to the people with the right to cultivate, and firmly grasped the ownership of the fields and the right to distribute and dispose of them. This virtually cut off any possibility of annexing the land.

And the reason why the family family has swelled into a family family is that it relies on the continuous annexation of fields. The implementation of the uniform field system and the severance of mergers is to draw wages from the bottom of the kettle of the family and kill them with one sword.

Therefore, the Sanfu family will never sit idly by and watch our Xiliang army defeat the official army. Surrender the Zongbing and push Huangfu Song to resist our Xiliang army, and they will definitely be willing. ”

Pang De said: "In this case, Yang Saijiu is from a family, and you know the most about the family. From your point of view, if the Sanfu family dispatches all the sect soldiers to fully support Huangfu Song, then how many troops can they provide for Huangfu Song? ”

Yang Fu said a little heavily: "The Sanfu family has always boasted of being a high-ranking family, although we also have a family in Liangzhou, but in the eyes of the Sanfu family, our Liangzhou family is far inferior to them, so the Sanfu family and our Liangzhou family have never been married. The heritage and strength of the Sanfu family are unimaginable. However, according to conservative estimates, they can also provide Huangfu Song with a maximum of 40,000 or 50,000 troops, or at least 20,000 or 30,000 troops. ”

Ju Yi listened and smiled: "Hi! The last general listened to the description of Yang Saijiu, and thought that the Sanfu family could provide Huangfu Song with an army of 100,000! Unexpectedly, their sect soldiers are only twenty or thirty thousand! ”

Ma Chao said in a deep voice: "You are from Xiliang, and you are used to seeing the scale of Xiliang Iron Riding hundreds of thousands, more than two hundred thousand, so you disdain twenty or thirty thousand people." In fact, the reason why my rebel army in Xiliang can always have a scale of 200,000 is only because of the special situation in Xiliang. In other states and counties except Liangzhou, twenty or thirty thousand troops are already considered to be very large, and they can play a great role. When Ruguanghe suppressed the Yellow Turban Army in seven years, the official army assigned to Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun by the imperial court was only more than 40,000 people. ”