"Whoosh!" An arrow flew out, hitting the straw man a hundred steps away.

Is the legendary 100 steps through the Yang? Everyone looked stupid.

However, they didn't have time to continue to marvel, as the war drums beat, tens of thousands of private soldiers lined up in a sharp arrow formation, heading in the direction of Chen Hou's arrows, and marched towards the wall.

The formation was a little sloppy, and the soldiers were not very skilled, and there were many mistakes and omissions in the process of advancing. But fortunately, it did not cause major chaos, and smoothly advanced to the designated place, completing an attack on the straw man.

"The family's private soldiers, skilled in battles on a thousand-man scale. More than 1,000 people, less than 5,000 people, or they can barely fight a dozen. When it comes to 10,000 people, or when they need to discharge a formation that they are not familiar with, they are full of mistakes and omissions, and they are at a loss. Make a note of it. Shao Xun stood on the high platform, looked at the private soldiers of the various clans who were doing the last exercise, and commanded.

The clerk recorded it on the spot.

Jin Zheng, Wang Qi'er, Man Yu, Tang Jian and others stood on the side, each thinking about it.

They had seen many drills of the family's private soldiers, and found that their basic skills were not too bad. Some elite troops are proficient in all kinds of martial arts, dare to fight, and are extremely brave.

This made them very puzzled, with such strength, why didn't they dare to fight with Wang Mi, Shi Le and others?

After a few exercises, they gradually understood, just like Chen Hou said, the more people there are, the worse the combat effectiveness, and they don't know how to fight.

Most of the soldiers and veterans hired back by the family are lower-level officers and soldiers, and the military inheritance is not comprehensive, and they can't be taught to a certain extent.

The scholars themselves may have had a war strategy in their own family - if the family started with Confucianism and metaphysics and did not have a general, it may not have one - but they may not often practice large-scale battle formations.

One is expensive, and the other is unnecessary.

Over time, that's it.

Compared with the Yuzhou scholars, the Jiangnan family and Haoqiang are really an outlier.

This may have something to do with the political status quo of the Eastern Wu Dynasty, which relied more heavily on the power of the family than Cao Wei, resulting in a more unique political ecology, and in the end, the main body of the army even became a warrior clan and a powerful army.

"After the drill, people will give a silk horse." After seeing that tens of thousands of troops began to collect and assemble, Shao Xun ordered.

There was no surprise and the cheers were enthusiastic.

After a while, the leaders of dozens of family soldiers brought people over to receive the reward after getting the permission of the main family.

"Thank you for the reward." Everyone thanked them.

Shao Xun took the opportunity to encourage him.

He had even memorized the names of some of the leaders of the trilogy, and when they were called out in public, the people who were called by their names were very excited.

This method may not seem very clever, but it is really useful, as long as you are willing to spend time and energy to do it, it will always be effective. Prestige and popular support are often accumulated bit by bit.

After giving the rewards to the sergeants, he didn't plan to take all the rest of the money.

After a rough understanding of the He family's wealth, he only planned to take 30,000 horses of money, and the rest was divided among the clans participating in the war, including those shops.

As for the land, the tribe and the grain, it was naturally accepted by Shao Xun.

In addition, the matter of the He family's henchmen is also digging deeper.

There are many powerful landlords who are attached to the He family, and they just took advantage of this time to cook together, and it is estimated that they can get a lot of money and food.

Money and food serve three purposes.

The first is to resettle government soldiers, their families, and subordinates, and the expenses for the first year must be at least covered.

This part is mainly food expenses, and it may be necessary to buy some ploughing cattle and farm tools, but not much, and the He family even has ready-made ones.

The second is to take out a part of it to buy horses and recruit soldiers, which Wu Qian is responsible for.

The Liangzhou soldiers were about to leave.

Shao Xun asked Wu Qian to bring another batch of gifts to Liangzhou to thank Zhang Liang for giving the horse. By the way, go over there and buy a batch of horses and recruit some soldiers to come back.

He planned to take out 20,000 pieces of silk, 5,000 pieces of money, plus some gold, silver and jade, Central Plains goods copied from He Fu, and go on the road with Beigong Chun and others to return to Liangzhou.

As for when he will return, it will be seen.

Shao Xun felt that most of the Liangzhou soldiers would have to come next year, and they would just return together, so as not to be robbed halfway.

Third, if there is still something to be gained from plundering the He family's henchmen, Shao Xun plans to exchange land with the Chen Junshi clan, concentrate the land as much as possible, and place the Tuntian auxiliaries.

Ideally, a solid ruling area should be formed in the areas of Chenxian, Ningpingcheng, and Xiangxian.

After all, the clans and lands of the family are their own, and they can switch to others at any time without too many restrictions.

But the area under their control is different, the land is relatively even, governed by military law, and it is not so easy to rebel.

At the beginning of April, Shao Xun, who had been in Chen County for a long time, finally received a holy decree: lead his troops north and garrison Xingyang.

In addition, he received two letters.

The first letter was sent by Dunqiu Taishou Lemo, saying that Shile attacked Dunqiu, all the counties fell, and there were many thieves on the fort wall.

So far, he has barely managed to hold on to the county and is unable to regain lost territory.

There are less than 4,000 soldiers in the city, with hundreds of Nanyang Le's tribes, hundreds of Hebei Yi from the samurai as the backbone of the expansion, the battle to this day, there are many casualties, and the grain and grass equipment is not very sufficient, so please lead the army and civilians to retreat south.

Shao Xun wrote back to ask him to insist.

But he didn't say death, and if he really didn't work, he wouldn't be blamed for retreating.

There are no reinforcements outside, and they are alone in the north of the river, how do you let people insist?

The situation in Ki is slightly better, but it is also difficult. It's just that the old man has been an official over there for a long time, and he has won several battles to defend the city, and his preparations are relatively sufficient, so he can hold on longer.

The second letter was written by Concubine Pei.

Shao Xun sweated on his forehead after reading it, which was too ......

******

"Summer and April, big water. Yanzhou earthquake. ”

The Suiyang Canal was dug by hand.

In the seventh year of Jian'an (202), Cao Cao went to Junyi, "governing Suiyang Canal".

In fact, it is to organize the rivers, lakes and wetlands between Junyi (Kaifeng) and Chen County (Suiyang) to form a complete canal.

North-south rivers such as Suiyang Canal, Bianqu, Whirlpool, Yingshui, and Surabaya are very important, and the Gayin Yellow River and Huai River are roughly parallel, both of which run east-west, and if you want to communicate the two, you must rely on these natural or artificial canals in the north-south direction.

The Huai River and the Yangtze River are the same, and the same needs to be communicated by the north-south river.

The entire transport network was built on these east-west, north-south rivers.

The Suiyang Canal is not wide, and the water volume is not very abundant, and it has always been relatively "gentle".

However, in the summer of the fourth year of Yongjia, with the heavy rainfall, the water potential rose sharply, and the artificial canal of Suiyang Canal was also a little hideous.

The slender men shouted the trumpet, hesitated on both sides of the Suiyang Canal, pulled one heavy boat after another, and went upstream.

On the front and rear decks of the ship stood five or six sergeants, swords and bows, and they were majestic.

They were the soldiers of the Silver Spear Army. This time I went north, I didn't have to walk on two legs, and I took a boat directly, which was very easy.

The cabin was full of sacks of grain, some of which were seized from the He family and partly supplied by the Yuzhou scholars.

After last year's severe drought, it was also difficult for people to go up and down Yuzhou, and the grain was not very abundant. This time to raise food, it really cost them their lives.

But what can be done if the world is like this? The Huns are coming, and I am afraid that they will ask for more.

No matter how much food is insufficient, priority should be given to supplying military supplies. As for whether people will starve to death because of this, it doesn't matter.

This is the cruel reality, the bloody reality of troubled times.

On the post road on the west bank of the canal, more soldiers, chariots and horses are marching.

They mainly came from Yingchuan, Chenjun, and Qianguo, totaling 7,000, including 500 cavalry and more than 6,000 infantry troops.

In addition to the cavalry, most of them served as auxiliaries for the 7,000 soldiers of the Silver Spear and the Second Army of the Righteous Army

To put it simply, the soldiers and horses commanded by Shao Xun included 6,000 soldiers of the Silver Spear Army, more than 800 soldiers of the Volunteer Army, 500 cavalry troops provided by the Three Counties Clan, plus his own soldiers, about 7,500 soldiers.

In addition, there are 2,000 auxiliary soldiers under the command of Hao Chang and more than 6,000 auxiliary soldiers in the three counties.

The total strength was around 16,000 men.

There are not many soldiers, but the quality is relatively high. Especially the 6,000 Silver Spear Army soldiers, they are the well-deserved backbone of the battlefield.

Without these 6,000 people, the remaining 10,000 are just chickens and dogs.

On the sixth day of the fourth month, the army arrived in the western suburbs of Junyi County.

A large group of horsemen came into view, peeked at it, and then left.

They were not enemies, theoretically even allies: the Wuhuan cavalry of the beggar army.

Guangzong, Junyi, and Liang Guo all had a large number of Wuhuan and other miscellaneous homeless people, who followed the beggars to eat everywhere.

They would shoot arrows on horseback, but many of them had been reduced to infantry. After all, they've gotten mixed up to the point of asking for food, and they still want to ride a horse?

On the grassland, if it is not a necessity of life, the herdsmen are not willing to raise horses at all, it is too uneconomical!

The hundreds of cavalry in front of him are probably the only formed cavalry unit that can be handled by the beggar marshal Chen Wu.

After a few days of rest, the army continued its journey westward.

At this time, Shao Xun received the news that Shi Le built a pontoon bridge in Dunqiu, as if he was going to cross to the south, and Sima Yue relieved the siege of Baima and stationed in Puyang.

While Pan Tao conveyed this military information, he attached a line of small characters.

Shao Xun only felt a heavy mood after reading it.

Sima Yue fainted again.

After waking up this time, he had a great temper, often killed servants and maids, and forgot a lot of people and things.

Shao Xun was not worried about Sima Yue, but even more worried about the tens of thousands of troops who followed him, and was also worried that after Sima Yue's death, Chen Wu, Qi Ji, and Wang Ping would no longer respect the order, and go their own way, from friendly troops against the Xiongnu to "wild monsters" who are difficult to distinguish between friend and foe.

On April 15, the army arrived in Xingyang.

Li Zhong led 2,000 Yamen troops to join him, and sent a batch of military supplies and vehicles to deal with the cavalry, and then returned to Changshe, where he wanted to organize the troops left behind in the rear.

On April 20, the first batch of Cao ships set off from Hefei, intending to enter the Yellow River and go to Luoyang via Qiaoguo, Chenjun, Chenliuguo, and Xingyang County.

The Guangling Duzhi Yamen was restored, but the grain and grass had been burned, and it was difficult to raise it for a while.

Almost at the same time, Liu Cong arrived in Hanoi with tens of thousands of people to take charge of the military affairs at the front.

The Han and Jin sides confronted each other across the river on a frontline of hundreds of miles from Hanoi in the west to Dunqiu in the east, and a major war around Cao Yun was about to break out.