On the second day of receiving Zhao's envoy, the Prime Minister received a report from Wang Di's army from Hedong: Wang Di's troops had completely occupied Wu'an, and only a few large cities had not yet been captured; If there is no army assembled in Handan, the Qin army will have no worries. After consulting with the crown prince and the king of Qin, Zhang Lu asked Mangwei to draft a fatwa: "Handan must be fought." In addition to protecting Wu'an, he should attack Handan with a partial division, and do not let the Zhao people rest for a while; And skillfully plundered its wilderness. "At the same time, the decree Hedong is ready to meet the army of Handan at any time; Pi Wan was appointed to the party guard, and Zheng Anping was appointed to be Hedongcheng.

The five doctors, Sima Jin and Keqing Mengqiu, were ordered to inspect the defenses of Nanjun and Nanyang County, and after several months, they were largely sorted out, and returned to Xianyang and Fudan in early February. Zhang Lu believed that Sima Jin had a two-generation relationship with Bai Qi, and asked him to visit Bai Qi, and if possible, persuade Bai Qi to come back and lead troops to attack Handan. Sima Jin went on a trip and came back and said that Bai Qi's old head disease recurred, and the headache was unbearable after a little thought; and sad about the loss of his son, I am afraid that it will be difficult to lead the army. Zhang Lu asked, "Doctor, where is he going to Handan?" ”

Sima Jin said: "When the minister first returned, I really don't know the state of Handan. Zuo Shu attacked Handan for several times, which was beyond the reach of the ministers. Zhang Lu had no choice but to give up.

A few days later, according to the recommendation of Sima Jin and Meng Wei, Ye Ye was appointed as the captain of Nanyang, and the former captain of Nanyang was transferred to the captain of Hedong. Sima Jin sent an envoy to Handan to convey Xianyang's intentions to Wang Di, and agreed with Wang Di on a future battle plan. Then send an envoy to Tao County to inform them that they are ready to fight in Handan.

Tao Shoujing Yangjun has only been in Tao County for two or three years, and he has obviously aged a lot. The original "four nobles" have gone to the third, and only their own fruits remain. After two or three years of governance, the arable land of Tao County has increased a lot, but there is still a strong business atmosphere, and the pure farmers are almost only those prisoners brought from Guanzhong. Although the prisoners and the locals got along fairly well, the cultural differences were very great. Merchants advocate freedom, and it is their norm to pursue profits; Farmers, on the other hand, have to work intensively, and field management determines the harvest of a year, and it is almost difficult to leave the land. Despite these differences, it does not prevent the two sides from getting along with each other, and marriage and dowry are often carried out between them.

And the biggest headache for Jingyangjun is military training. According to the Qin law, the Qin people were to be organized according to the township, supervise each other in peacetime, and pull out an army in wartime. However, this is only effective for farmers, and many businessmen are usually not at home, and even if they are at home, it is difficult to live next to each other, and the differences in industry and capital between them are staggering. Up to now, the households in Tao County can only reach the peasant households, and the merchants have nominal households, but they have no real name, and it is impossible to train in peacetime, and it is even more impossible to pull in the army in wartime.

The most difficult thing is that the scale of business operation is different. Small businesses are naturally small households, which are comparable to rural households; And in large merchants, there are hundreds of servants, family members, shopkeepers, and shop owners, and even their own guards. In this case, it makes no sense to count the number of households.

There were even internal disagreements, and Tao Wei Zhang Tang believed that the power of merchants should be gradually eroded by supporting peasant households; And Tao Cheng Cai Donation believes that we should rely on commercial interests and become a soldier. The two had a dispute, so Jingyangjun asked Zhang Tang to be in charge of the farmers, and Cai Donation to be in charge of the merchants, each acting according to their own rules and not disturbing each other.

Xianyang's envoys came to Tao County and conveyed Xianyang's opinions, but clearly pointed out that this was only a "preparation", not to send troops immediately, and Tao County was still focusing on the development of production. At that time, how many troops need to be conscripted, and in which direction to use them, wait for orders. So Zhang Tang strengthened training among the farmers, while Cai Donation increased the intensity of mercenaries.

Ye Peng was led by Hu Yang and participated in the battle of Yanhe. He was promoted to the rank of public doctor for his military exploits. For ten years, Ye Peng served in many counties in Nanyang and Nanjun, but he did not participate in the battle again, and he has always been a princess. Before being appointed as Acting Lieutenant Nanyang, he served as a county magistrate in a county in Nan County.

Nanyang County, like Nanjun, is the land of the old Chu, but unlike Nanjun, which is relatively closed, although Nanyang County is also a basin, there are roads leading to the Han, Wei, and Chu countries, which is a traffic artery, and the defense task is very heavy. And like all the transportation arteries, there are many wealthy merchants here, and it is not easy to govern. However, fortunately, when the Chu State governed this place, it also put the military first, and also built the famous Fangcheng defense system here. After the Qin State occupied the Chu land, due to the great cultural gap between the two places, the Qin king did not impose the Qin law in the Chu land, and retained the customs of the Chu land to a greater extent. The military system of the state of Chu in Nanyang was thus preserved.

The military system of the state of Chu was based on the wealthy families, and the peasant households were the fiefs of the nobles, and the nobles led the troops in their own fiefs. When the country is in trouble, each family brings its own soldiers to the battle. The fiefs of the nobles were generally bounded by natural divisions and limited to counties. After the Qin State occupied this place, the nobles of the Chu State were naturally eliminated, and the residents of the counties naturally became the Qin State land households. However, out of habit, the villagers naturally take the county as the boundary, and their loyalty to the county is much higher than that of the county and the country. It is almost impossible to disperse the civilian army of the counties.

Ye Peng is faced with such a military pattern: nominally, it is a household and a common people, but in fact, each county is relatively independent and must be used as an independent unit.

Not only that, Qin's Nanyang County was not limited to Chu Nanyang, but also included Han, Wei and other counties in Nanyang and its surrounding counties, these counties had different customs, different food and clothing cultures, and a different set of strategies were needed to govern those places. At the beginning of the establishment of Nanyang County, the Marquis took a group of ministers to rack their brains for the governance of Nanyang, and initially established a set of laws different from Guanzhong. Ye Peng served in many counties in Nanyang and Nanjun, which laid a good foundation for him to deal with these difficult affairs.

Sima Jin and Meng Fu inspected Nanjun and Nanyang County, with the aim of dispelling Chu's covetousness for the two counties. The battle with Zhao has a tendency to be protracted, and it is inevitable that some people will have different intentions to fight Nanyang and Nanjun, the most likely of which is the Chu State.

After ten years of recuperation, the population of Chu has almost completely recovered, and it is no secret that the whole army is armed and military. If the state of Chu uses troops, the first direction is naturally to restore its original place. The attack on Nanjun from the state of Chu was mainly based on waterways, which was the business of Nanjun. And to attack Nanyang, Fangcheng is the only way, so the defense center of Nanyang County is Fangcheng of the old Chu State!

Fangcheng is not only a city, but a defensive system similar to the Great Wall built against the mountain. Within the scope of Fangcheng, there are two large counties, and the defense task of Fangcheng is mainly undertaken by these two counties. Since the people here have been guarding Fangcheng for almost generations, they have long made the mountains and rivers here clear, and a mature defense plan has also been formed. After the decline of the Chu State, the defenses here were relaxed. The Qin State established Nanyang County, reactivated Fangcheng, and invested money and grain into these two counties again, so that the defense here could be restored faster.

Ye Peng took office, and this is his first stop. He had served as Ye Wei, and Ye County was just outside Fangcheng, so he could only watch from a distance and could not be immersive. Now, revisiting the old place, Ye Peng is full of emotion. Seeing that the original ruins and remnants were re-tamped and became a winding dragon, I suddenly felt pride. Looking down the mountain, Ye County is vaguely in sight. Yecheng changed hands among many vassal states, and was not only the object of Fangcheng's defense, but also an important component of Fangcheng's defense circle. Now, Yexian belonged to the Qin State, which greatly strengthened Fangcheng's defense capabilities.

There were also many convicts in Nanyang, and according to Qin law, conscription began with convicts. But in Chudi, this article is difficult to implement. In the Battle of Changping, the 20,000 convicts who had been requisitioned from Nanjun were personally rectified by Bai Qi for half a year, and all his pro-camps were thrown into it, and they were barely available until the battle began. When Sima Jin and Meng Fu came to inspect this year, local officials suggested that they should follow the tradition of Chu and use the peasants of their own townships to go out on the expedition, so that they could go directly into battle almost without rectification. After the two reported to King Qin and Zhang Lu, they were approved. The conscription of Chu can also not be carried out in accordance with the customs of the Qin State, as long as the full amount is in place on time. Although Ye Peng served as an official in Chudi, he was from Guanzhong, and he was quite touched by the interests of the prisoners. There may not be many prisoners in a county, and it is enough to put there to build roads and cities; However, a county, especially a large county like Nanyang, has dozens of counties and tens of thousands of prisoners, and it would be a serious waste to put such a huge number of prisoners away and prevent them from making meritorious contributions and eliminating their sins. Although he actively supported the use of villagers as soldiers according to the customs of Chu, he could not stop thinking about how to combine the customs of Chudi with the use of prisoners, and use the power of prisoners.

Unlike Nanjun, whose defense was limited to the state of Chu, Nanyang faced the three vassal states and had to monitor the movements of the three parties at the same time. Fortunately, Nanyang has developed commerce and trade, and there are many business travelers, so you can always get effective information from merchants from all over the world and judge the trends of various countries. Almost every day, merchants from Luoyang, Korea, Wei and Chu gathered here to trade goods, and Wancheng or Danshui estuaries were particularly prosperous.

Coming down from the mountain, Ye Peng, his entourage, and the guards sat and rested on the side of the road at will. I saw a group of merchants passing by from a distance, and when I saw that there were soldiers here, I stopped three or five miles away early. Ye Peng thought it was interesting, so he ordered a military envoy to go over and call the leader over for questioning.

A short time later, the envoy brought with him three merchants in long robes. It's late spring, the weather is mild, and people who have walked long distances can already wear short brown on the road. The three of them were wearing long robes, and it was obvious that Yu Tu didn't need them to do any hard work, and they were the ones who came up with ideas and solutions. After the three of them came over, they recognized at a glance that the person who was sitting around the guards was the highest status here, and he bowed to the ground from a distance, and the leader said, "Wei Shu and others are here to see the doctor." I don't know that the doctor is coming, the offense is offended, and the doctor is guilty! ”

Ye Peng saw that the man was speaking a relatively standard Luoyang official dialect, and knew that he was a merchant who was often engaged in cross-border trade, so he went over and asked, "Where did the merchant come from and where will he go?" ”