At the beginning, when Ma Shuo reorganized his men and horses and formed four cavalry battalions and five infantry battalions, there were not many people left for Mark, not that Ma Shuo was reluctant to hand over his men and horses to Mark.

At that time, Ma Shuo's plan was to hand over all five infantry battalions to Mark, who would serve as the commander of the infantry battalion. However, Mark did not agree to this arrangement. Mark's idea was that he would take a small group of people alone into the barbarian-occupied areas, establish bases behind enemy lines, and expand his power by absorbing the rebels and border people in the enemy-occupied areas.

All Ma Shuo needs to do is provide him with material support.

I have to admit that Mark's move is still very bold and courageous. Don't look at this guy's age, but his courage is not small, and this guy always has an idea, that is, he doesn't want to always grow up under the protection of his brother, he wants to use his own strength to help his eldest brother do things and share the pressure of his eldest brother.

When Mark set out, he took only three hundred people with him. However, these 300 people are all retired veterans of a hundred battles, although everyone is disabled, but they are all in the upper body, some have missing a few fingers, and some have broken half of their arms. However, with the help of prosthetic limbs, these veterans are even more effective than when they were able-bodied, because those prostheses are specially designed to be used as weapons in battle.

In order to ensure Mark's safety, Ma Shuo provided Mark's team with the best equipment, which can be said to be armed to the teeth. Not only that, Ma Shuo also arranged an elite hidden guard in the shadows, on the one hand, they could provide information to Mark, and on the other hand, they could constantly report Mark's situation to Ma Shuo.

Mark's men and horses set out from Huangsha City, passed through Xiaolongkou, and traveled all the way west, and soon entered the barbarian occupation area. After entering the barbarian-occupied area, Mark led the team into the dense forest, specially choosing those inaccessible routes to walk, with the aim of avoiding the barbarians and going as deep into the interior of the barbarian occupied area as possible.

At present, the scope of the barbarian occupation area covers about 16 counties of the original Yumen County, and in a vast and sparsely populated place like Western Xinjiang, the scope of 16 counties is very broad, which is almost equivalent to the territory of five or six counties in the interior compared to the interior.

Mark's preferred target location this time is Luochuan County, one of the 36 counties in Yumen. Luochuan County, among the 36 counties of Yumen, is not ranked high, the most typical feature of this place is that there are many mountains, dense forests and little arable land, and it belongs to the relatively poor county in the 36 counties of Yumen. If it weren't for the fact that this location was relatively close to the barbarian domain, it is estimated that the barbarians would not be willing to invade this place.

However, because of this, this place has become the first choice for border people to flee, as long as they get into the mountains and forests, it is very difficult for those barbarians to find them.

Naturally, this kind of place is also the most ideal hiding place, and it is the most suitable place for Mark to establish a base behind enemy lines.

There are hidden guards to fight the front station, and Mark naturally has no shortage of intelligence. In this case, after Mark arrived here, he first took down a cottage with a thunderbolt, and after destroying the leader of the mountain bandits in the cottage and some murderers who were stained with the blood of innocent border people, the other mountain bandits were directly absorbed by him.

The cottage is not large, and the mountain bandits who were finally recruited were less than 300 people. At the same time, the bandits here are also poor enough, and there are not many food or money in the entire cottage.

None of that was crucial for Mark, though. Mark's focus is still on people. As long as there are enough people, there will still be a way to get supplies at that time. In the days that followed, with the help of the hidden guards and the mountain bandits who had been recruited, Mark took several of the surrounding cottages under his command.

After some maneuvering, Mark's command finally had a team of more than 2,000 people.

After reaching this size, Mark did not blindly expand his ranks, but began to reform and train the mountain bandits who had strengthened their co-optation. Most of these mountain bandits are border people who have fled from the local area or from outside, and their nature is not bad, but they have embarked on this road under the persecution of life. So, the process of accepting the transformation is not complicated.

As for training, there was a bit of trouble at the beginning, that is, the physical fitness of these people is really not very good, and long-term malnutrition makes many people seem very weak. Therefore, at the beginning, the main thing to do was basic training and discipline awareness training. In the process, Mark managed to ensure the food supply, and also obtained a batch of flesh through hunting and other means, which greatly improved the lives of everyone.

The problem of the stomach was solved, which made these mountain bandits who had been co-opted very happy, and they even regretted that they had been co-opted too late. Naturally, in this case, they were able to accept the increasing intensity of their training in the future.

Mark drew on his past training experience and combined the characteristics of these bandits to formulate a clear system of rewards and punishments for training. Well-trained, there is meat to eat. If the training is not up to standard, there is no meat to eat, and this person who has no meat to eat is not just a person who is not trained to meet the standard, even with it, the team that this person is in will have no meat to eat.

For the sake of management, Mark's men here don't exactly follow the way they used to. He divided the ten people into a team, set up a squad leader, a deputy squad leader, and a total of twelve people in the squad. Ten squads form a squadron, with one squadron leader, one deputy squadron leader, and ten squadron guards. A squadron totaled 134 people.

Ten squadrons formed a brigade, with one captain, one deputy captain, and twenty guards of the brigade, totaling 1,362 people.

At the same time, these centaurs that Mark has incorporated can almost form two brigades. The captain, deputy captain, squadron leader, deputy squadron leader, and some squad leaders were all served by the three hundred people brought by Mark. Only some of the squad leaders were selected from the mountain bandits who had been recruited.

At the same time, in order to motivate these bandits, Mark also stipulated that every once in a while, ordinary soldiers would be allowed to challenge their squad leader or deputy squad leader, and as long as they defeated the opponent, they could seize the opponent's position. Similarly, the squad leader can challenge the squadron leader, and the squadron leader level can challenge the squadron leader, and the rules are similar, the winner goes up, and the loser goes down.

As soon as Mark's rule was announced, the whole team immediately boiled. Because according to this rule, everyone has a chance, and everyone has a pressure. For a while, without Mark's supervision, all the teams began to train. All people, as long as they have kung fu, will improve their strength in different ways, and no one dares to slack off.

In addition to individual challenges, there are also group competitions. In the group competition, in addition to whether you can eat meat, there are some other rewards and punishments. For example, the losing team has to wash the socks of the winning team, etc.

Losing is small, face is big!