By mid-May, Qingyunzi finally led 60,000 elites and returned to Baling.

Lu Yuan immediately ordered that the 60,000 people who had been on the expedition for half a year should be given a vacation in turn, and each was granted a month's leave to let them go home and reunite with their relatives.

After returning from vacation, he went to various places in Baling to rotate and was included in the county's defense forces.

This army has been on the expedition for a long time, and it belongs to the category of the veteran soldiers of the division, and Lu Yuan does not plan to use them in this southern expedition.

After all, there are still ten remaining forbidden armies in Dongting County, and it is too simple to pick out three of them.

You don't have to catch a single unit and use it to the death.

Moreover, in Dongting County, the ten forbidden armies that were originally left behind were basically new recruits, and the oldest ones had only one year of training.

In a year, it only allowed them to be proficient in the banner array and understand the order of military law, and they barely reached the passing standard.

But it is only qualified, but it is the level of the county soldiers.

If you want to become an elite soldier and a brave warrior of the forbidden army, you have to hone yourself in the war, roll through life and death, survive this level, and see blood before you can undergo a qualitative transformation.

When the time comes, I will strengthen my will, and it will take another two or three years to improve my skills and profound martial arts, and I will become an elite soldier.

Now these recruits have just completed the first step, from rookies to qualified soldiers, this is the time for them to go to the battlefield, go through blood and fire tempering, and complete the second step.

Just right.

Compared with the elite of the powerful Zhou State in the north, the standards of the countries in Lingnan are actually very average.

Even among the small countries in the south, the Soviet Union, which is known for its strength and belligerence, is actually the same level of soldiers and horses in the country.

The Soviet Union was just a small country.

The people are only one million, the territory is less than 10,000 miles, no matter how warlike the people in the country are, how many elite soldiers can they train if the basic resources are here?

Among the 50,000 soldiers and horses in the country, it is estimated that there are only 10,000 or 20,000 veteran elites, which can reach the level of the standard forbidden army of the Chu State. Most of the remaining soldiers and horses, that is, the level of qualified soldiers of the local government and county soldiers, should not be of great use at all.

If you want to sweep away the other party, you can dispatch two or three forbidden armies, with an innate grandmaster, and you can basically destroy the Su State.

As for the South China Sea countries, that's even less to say.

Wen Tian and Yan Wangqiu have been dead for five or six years, and for such a long time, the South China Sea Kingdom has not cultivated an innate grandmaster?

Even if we count from the time of the Northern Expedition of the Yue Kingdom, when the South China Sea State was still the South China Sea faction, the faction was faced with a lack of successors.

If you select descendants from this time and start cultivating again, how can you choose a qualified heir in more than ten years, right?

But the fact is that in the past six years of Yue Hongdao, until now the ten years of Shenwu of the Chu State, a full fourteen years, the South China Sea Kingdom has still not cultivated a single innate grandmaster.

You must know that Lu Yuan cultivated Sun Siwen, and it took only five or six years before and after.

It can be seen that as long as there is a foundation, coupled with the inclination of resources, it is actually not very difficult to cultivate an innate grandmaster.

But it's such a thing that is not very difficult, and the South China Sea just can't do it.

The reason for this is that Lu Yuan has also learned something through the investigation of the Imperial City Division over the years.

The reason why the South China Sea State cannot be cultivated is nothing more than a system problem.

Originally, when it was the Nanhai faction, the upper and lower levels of the Ju faction were a sect, and even if Yan Wangqiu was the head of the sect, he was essentially just a disciple of the sect, and he had to be subservient to the sect.

In this case, the Nanhai faction belongs to all the people of the Nanhai faction, and the head is only the elected manager among all the people.

This kind of publicly-owned recommendation system allows the Denanhai faction to put aside its selfishness, select qualified disciples from the sect without any scruples, and cultivate innate heirs.

This ensures the inheritance of the sect.

But this kind of publicly-owned election system had problems in Yan Wangqiu's later years as the head.

Because at that time, when Yan Wangqiu, who was the head of the sect at that time, wanted to cultivate an heir, he looked around the door and found that none of his disciples were talented.

Everyone picked and chosen, but they couldn't find a congenital seed that met the requirements.

Of course, the scope of this selection is limited to the disciples of Yan Wanqiu's lineage, as well as his blood family.

As for the entire sect, the Nanhai Sect has 100,000 people, and of course they can find qualified innate seeds.

But Yan Wangqiu, compared with the previous leaders, is undoubtedly a very selfish one.

Compared to choosing an heir from another branch of the door, and then taking away the right to his own lineage.

Even because of their own partiality, the clansmen's disciples have been like parasites, lying on the torso of the Nanhai faction, devouring too many interests and powers that originally belonged to everyone, and have formed a form that cannot be lost.

When the new head takes office, there are certainly not many choices that can be made in the face of this kind of intertwined interests of the old leader.

Thinking that in the future, the next head of the sect may launch a purge of his disciples' descendants and destroy his own inheritance and family.

Yan Wangqiu would rather have no innate heir in the sect than pick an executioner who would behead his descendants in the future.

This is the reason why the Nanhai faction obviously has 100,000 disciples and the strength of the sect is several times that of the Jiuchuan Sword Sect, but it can't even find an heir.

It's all just selfishness.

This was still the case during the Nanhai faction, and even more so during the Nanhai period.

When it was originally a sect, it belonged to the public world.

Although this so-called public world, in Yan Wangqiu's understanding, it only belongs to the public ownership between his disciples and his clansmen, not the public ownership of all branches of the entire sect.

But even this kind of narrow public ownership is actually advanced and selfless compared to later times.

Because in the later period of the South China Sea Kingdom, after becoming the lord of the country, looking at the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains in the country, millions of Li Shu, listening to everyone bowing down and saying long live, listening to the people saying long live, Yan Wangqiu, who originally had a trace of public heart, completely changed his mind.

Just like the ancient Zen let go to the world.

Yan Wangqiu, like Dayu, wants to pass on the whole world to his son, and then let his blood descendants rule the South China Sea for thousands of years and become the lord of the country forever.

This idea, in a sense, is indeed good and belongs to the advanced.

After all, the country and the sect are different, and the sect can play with the promotion without any scruples, and whoever belongs to the strong can go up.

But in addition to being strong, the country also needs stability.

Therefore, the strongest force is in the hands of the royal family, which can naturally be used as a deterrent, plus the name of righteousness, to stabilize the country.

Otherwise, the lord of the country is the Yan clan, but the innate grandmaster is someone else.

One holds the highest reputation, the other holds the strongest power, and the most important name and instrument of the country are respectively controlled by the two forces, and in the end it will inevitably lead to a situation in which there are many political departments and complement each other and unify them.

What awaits the South China Sea will only be war and destruction.

Either the name and the instrument will be unified, the Yan clan will be destroyed, and the innate grandmaster who has the strongest power will re-establish his own regime.

Either an external force invades and takes advantage of the civil strife in the South China Sea to destroy the country, and the fate of the Yan clan is not much better.

No matter which of the above ones, the South China Sea Kingdom and the Yan clan will not end well.

Don't be alarmist.

At the beginning, Dayu was located in Xia Qi, and after Xia Qi ascended the throne, the Hu clan opposed the rebellion, and was finally led by Qi to pacify.

Later, his son Taikang succeeded to the throne, but Dongyi Houyi took the opportunity to seize the royal power and destroy the national Zuo of the Xia Dynasty.

Even Dayu, a virtuous person who has the merit of controlling water, and his son wants to transform from the public world to the family world, some people stand up against it, and finally even lose the country for a time.

How can you Yan Wangqiu?

Is it to revitalize the sect and carry it forward?

Or is it to save the sect from fire and water, and have the merit of survival and reconstruction?

None of the above two points.

On the contrary, he was selfish and selfish, and he did not cultivate a qualified heir for the sect and maintained the status of the Nanhai faction's innate faction.

The second did not save the sect from fire and water, but let his disciples lie on the sect to suck blood, and in the end, in order to escape responsibility, he destroyed the sect with his own hands.

used the bones of the South China Sea faction in exchange for a South China Sea country of its own.

With the above many bad deeds, and Yan Wangqiu, the usurper, who personally demonstrated, how can he rest assured that after his death, the innate grandmaster he cultivated will not usurp his own foundation?

This, of course, is impossible to reassure.

Not only Yan Wangqiu, but also the Yan family could not rest assured.

Therefore, when the original Nanhai faction, Yan Wangqiu still had his own disciples, which could be used as a congenital alternative.

But when it came to the Nanhai Kingdom, he was left with only his own family members, and even his direct descendants, who could be used as alternatives.

Because the Nanhai faction turned the faction into a country, it also encroached on the interests of Yan Wangqiu's disciples.

Originally, those disciples of his might inherit the position of head of the sect and become innate grandmasters.

But after the appearance of the South China Sea, it has become inevitable that the father will die and the son will succeed, except for Yan Wangqiu's descendants, the rest of the people will not be qualified to inherit the throne at all.

Do you say that those disciples who have been deprived of opportunities can be willing in their hearts?

In this way, it is natural to deprive a group of selected people of innate seeds.

After leaving Yan Wangqiu's direct bloodline, how difficult is it to select a qualified innate seed from among the dozens of people in that area?

Not to mention, Yan Wangqiu's descendants had actually been screened during the Nanhai faction.

Those who are not elected are not qualified at all.

After this old man became the lord of the country, he sang songs every night, and before he died, he gave birth to more than a dozen children a year, which may not all be because of the greed for beauty.

Having a few more children and finding a few more heirs, so as to pick out the innate seeds from them, this is probably Yan Wangqiu's inner thoughts.

It's just that he is not Lu Yuan after all.

There is no way to use the immortal aura to directly wash the body and soul of your own children, and rely on this method of broadcasting to select heirs, the efficiency is too low and low after all.

And the time, too, is too short.

Therefore, since the establishment of the country by this old man, for more than ten years, the Nanhai Kingdom has not been able to select a qualified congenital heir from the Yan bloodline.

In other words, there may indeed be a qualified candidate in the Yan clan, but this person is not in the interests of those in power in the Yan clan, so even if he knows that the other party is suitable, he does not cultivate this person.

Once the signs of infighting and suspicion are opened, it is like the murmur of the devil, and it is difficult to break it again.

The Nanhai Kingdom, the Yan clan, the establishment of the country is not right, and the rise of the clan is also accompanied by a conspiracy and shamelessness, and from the day it was established, it has already revealed the fate of its demise in the future.

Just like after Sima usurped Wei, a sentence of Fu Wei Holy Dynasty ruled the world with filial piety, and fell into the embarrassment and ugliness of the Western Jin Dynasty.

You must know that before the Jin Dynasty, all dynasties and dynasties ruled the country with loyalty and filial piety, even Cao Wei.

Yan Wangqiu, who stole the sect and served as the country, the South China Sea State he established was just like the Western Jin Dynasty, which naturally lacked a layer of righteousness and law, had no justice, was ridiculed by the people of the world, and could not be truly recognized by the hearts of the people at all.

The same is true of the political landscape of the South China Sea countries.

Officials are corrupt, officials are corrupt, and the people at the bottom are not as good as pigs and dogs.

In order to maintain their rule, the Yan family, which lacks justice and legal principles, has to give up a large amount of benefits in order to curry favor with the powerful people in China in exchange for their support.

In today's Nanhai Kingdom, the Yan family is more like the puppets and nominal representatives of those powerful families in China.

On the surface, he called him the lord of the country, but in private, he couldn't tell how to laugh at it!

The lords of the country are not right, and their words are not good.

Not to mention those officials, nobles, and families below.

In the entire South China Sea Kingdom, from the monarch to the lowest level of officials, none of them really regarded the South China Sea Country as their own.

They all regarded the whole country as a vessel that could suck blood, and desperately lay on this vessel, absorbing blood nutrients to strengthen themselves.

This situation and this scene are very similar to the appearance of Yan Wangqiu with a group of people lying on the South China Sea faction desperately sucking blood.

Now that the old scene has reappeared, the only difference is that the South China Sea faction has been replaced by the South China Sea country.

The people who were sucked by blood have also changed from the original public world to the current family world.

When I wanted Yan Wangqiu to contribute to this scene, I was also desolate and helpless in my heart.

In such a country, in such a world where everyone is selfish, the underlying foundation has long been rotten to the limit.

To destroy the South China Sea Kingdom, Lu Yuan doesn't even need to dispatch the Innate Grandmaster, he may only use a forbidden army, only 20,000 people, and cooperate with the co-optation and attack, which may directly affect this country that has problems at the root.

This country is the easiest of the three Lingnan countries to destroy.

The reason why it has survived until now is only because Chu Ning checks and balances each other, and in order to retain the buffer zone, it is allowed to exist.

At this time, Lu Yuan was ready to break the balance and start the eastward crusade to unify Yangzhou.

With such a buffer, there is no need for it to continue to exist.

Let this rotten country be completely destroyed.

It is not very difficult for the two countries of the Soviet Union and the South China Sea to seek peace.

One of the two is weak in national strength, and the other is congenitally unright, and it is natural and simple to perish.

But the last remaining Song State in Lingnan is a little difficult to fight.

The Song Kingdom was built by Xie Ning, and Xie Ning came from a Linhai family.

According to the tradition of the Linhai family to give in to each other and take turns to be emperors, theoretically speaking, Xie Ning was born with the legal principle of being called king and emperor.

And so it is.

In the face of Xie Ning's independence, in view of the fact that the Song State was thousands of miles away and was separated from the Ning State by many mountains and rivers, the Jianwu Emperor of Jinling finally sent an envoy to recognize the independence of the Song State and give him a canonization.

Therefore, in terms of orthodoxy, there is nothing missing in the Song Kingdom.

And on the national heritage.

After a series of conquests and more than 20 years of recuperation, the ruined Jiuzhen County has long since regained its vitality and began to prosper again.

Counting the newly opened Yinsheng County, the population of the entire Song Kingdom has reached 2 million, and the number of soldiers and horses has also expanded to 100,000.

These 100,000 soldiers and horses are all elite soldiers of the standard of a big country, which is completely comparable to Lu Yuan's Chu State Forbidden Army, which is a real powerhouse in the world.

In addition to these 100,000 soldiers, there are about 50,000 county soldiers in Yinsheng and Jiuzhen counties of the Song Kingdom, and these soldiers and horses are not weak, and they can also be worthy of a battle.

With 150,000 soldiers and horses, plus Xie Ning, the innate grandmaster, the entire Song Kingdom, just like the original Changsha Kingdom, can be described as a hard bone with thorns, and his martial arts are extremely strong.

To build a small remote southern barbarian country into a military power with rich people and strong countries and great martial arts, Xie Ning fully showed the world, what is the family heritage, and what is the civil and military heritage?

Compare it to.

Su Xuange, who also blindly expanded the army at the beginning, but made the entire Soviet country miserable, rebelled everywhere, and finally fell into this ruined situation, he can simply apologize for his guilt in shame.

To be honest, even after Lu Yuan got the information of the Imperial City Division and synthesized the information of all parties, he couldn't help but be shocked.

Maybe it's because the Song Kingdom has always been low-key, or maybe the location of the Song Kingdom is too southern, located in the southernmost part of Kyushu, and it is even more remote than the Yi countries in the southwest.

Therefore, the news of the Song Kingdom has rarely been transmitted to the Central Plains of Kyushu.

Even the few small countries adjacent to it all stared at the Chu State, and few looked south.

Under many factors, it also caused the news of the Song Kingdom to be blocked, and it was miraculously "hidden" in the eyes of the countries, and no one cared about the special situation.

If it weren't for Lu Yuan's preparation for the southern expedition in the past two years to unify the three kingdoms of Lingnan, he specially strengthened the intelligence collection of the three countries of the Soviet Union, the Song Dynasty, and the South China Sea, and sent more people to investigate.

Otherwise, he was really deceived by this silent Song Kingdom.

And the Song State secretly accumulated so many strong troops, and it was so low-key, it seems that it has a big plan.

It is a full 150,000 soldiers and horses, one-fifth of the Chu State.

This kind of strength, placed in those small countries to the south, is enough to sweep.

At this time, the reason why Song Guo did not move was most likely because he was afraid of Chu State, and he had been secretly waiting for the opportunity.

In the face of such a powerful, patient, and planned enemy, anyone will feel a headache.

Lu Yuan is no exception.

In this southern expedition, the two countries of the Soviet Union and the South China Sea are not to be worried.

The only one who can be an enemy, Song Guo is also.

To deal with the Song State, he planned to use all his energy and all the forces he could mobilize to attack and destroy the country.

This is Lu Yuan's greatest respect for the Song Kingdom.

You're strong, so I'm going to double down on you, at all costs.