Chapter 2 Tiger Cub (Part 1) Chapter 2 Tiger Cub (Part 1) On the second day, Li Jiancheng recommended more than ten old soldiers to help Xu Zi accepted them with great gratitude, and temporarily appointed them all as
Low-level positions such as team leader, team deputy, recorder, and military enlistment were secretly assigned some tasks and asked them to report to the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp on their own. Then, Li Xu took Liu Hongji and persuaded some aspiring people in the food protection army.
Honorable officers, he asked them to temporarily serve as his staff. Before taking up his new post, Li Xu forced fifty veterans from the Tiger Wing Brigade who were skilled in bows and horses and had always been close to him to serve as personal guards and handed them over to Zhang.
Xiutong
In the next few days, Xuzi was very busy in his new position. The situation in the Xiongwu Camp was just as Liu Hongji had expected. It was a mixed bag of people. Not only were the soldiers not as honest and obedient as the brothers in the food protection army, but they also
The senior generals also relied on each other's background and did not pay attention to the new young general at all.
According to the suggestions of several old aides in the Tang Palace before the banquet, Li Xu did not immediately attack. While placing the officers brought from the food protection army into key positions, he also took the time to pay homage to the generals who had shown kindness to him.
When he arrived at the camp of any general, no matter whether the other general had done anything beneficial to him or not, he would thank him for his recommendation. Then Asahi, in the name of a junior, asked the seniors in the army to give advice on how to manage the army. Several generals met with their juniors.
With such knowledge, even though he was a little dissatisfied and disappointed, he had to put it aside for the time being. After personally teaching him some well-known "secrets", he began to recommend his capable subordinates to "help" in the Xiongwu Camp.
Li Xu accepted the "virtuous talents" recommended by the generals one by one, without appointing them to any posts. He temporarily accepted them as ordinary staff members. At the same time, he also smiled and accepted all the heroes who came to join the army with various letters of recommendation and famous posters.
, placed by his side as a personal guard
After the thorny leaders of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp made a fuss for a few days, most of them got the instructions behind the scenes and took the initiative to stop their activities. There were also a few who did not want to lose face and deliberately wanted to force the new generals away. Li Xu first tolerated everything and waited.
The "thornheads" made such a fuss that they broke out suddenly and ordered the soldiers they brought from the food protection army to arrest the person who was leading the trouble. They first accused them of "contempting their superiors and disobeying military orders".
After being beaten with eighty sticks, regardless of their original position, they were all demoted to ordinary soldiers.
Someone had a grudge, and in the middle of the night, he brought someone with his face covered to Li Xu's sleeping tent to exact revenge. As soon as he entered the tent, he was surrounded by soldiers who were ambushing him in the dark.
He bent his bow and shot and shot the masked men like hedgehogs, and the next day they were paraded on the flagpole as Gao Gouli's spies.
The soldiers of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Battalion did not expect that the new young general would be so ruthless, and most of their limelight was immediately wiped out. Li Xu then began to rectify the order in the army. First, based on the observations of his confidants, he
A group of low-level officers with evil intentions were demoted, and the vacated positions were filled with strong men recommended by your lords. Then based on the secret reports of Zhang Xiu and his soldiers, some incompetent civilian officials were also kicked out of the military camp, and the generals were
Recommended "talents" to supplement their positions. As for those who are honest, willing to work, and conscientious, they are rewarded with a lot of meat, so that they can work without complaint.
A few days later, the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp finally looked like a military camp. Li Xu beat the drum and gathered the generals, telling everyone that His Majesty the Emperor was about to come to the camp to review the soldiers. If everyone works together, I will receive the Emperor's commendation, and the benefits will naturally be indispensable to everyone.
If someone deliberately causes trouble, I will definitely do some killings to establish my authority before I am dismissed from office.
The generals already understood the power of General Lang, and obeyed his orders with awe. Li Xu arranged the short-term training tasks one by one according to the suggestions of Tang Gongfu's staff and his own training experience. The review was coming soon. At this moment, it was obvious that he could practice his true ability to face the enemy.
It's too late, but what aspect can best reflect the military appearance and what aspect can best fool the superiors? The experts in Tang Gongfu have already made clear plans for Xu Zi, so although everyone is cramming now, they won't have no clue.
From then on, whether it was windy or rainy, the soldiers of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Battalion became a scenery along the Liao River. They were all neatly armored, with shining weapons, shouting slogans, and trotting along the river bank in formation, regardless of the officers or soldiers.
In the morning, they ran in formation for ten miles, and in the afternoon they had to run back in formation. In the evening, they had to stay up late to practice formation in the camp.
On April Geng Wu (27th), other armies crossed the Liao River and went to besiege Liaodong City. A dozen Xiaoguo camps were unable to form combat effectiveness, so they were all left to the west of the Liao River as a reserve force by Yu Wenshu, the commander of the left army.
This way, Li Xu would have more time to train from early morning to midnight every day, ready to perform in front of His Majesty the Emperor at any time.
The Sui Dynasty has always implemented the Fubing system, and Fubing is mainly the nephews and nephews of good families. Traders, son-in-laws, criminals, beggars, etc. are usually not accepted by the army. Even if they have the opportunity to join the army, the military merits and rewards they receive are often higher than
The number of soldiers from good families is less than half. Last year's army marched eastward and wiped out all 300,000 elite soldiers. That's why this year the court came up with the idea of recruiting Xiaoguo into the camp.
His Majesty the Emperor has personally promised in an imperial edict that, regardless of his or her origins, as long as he joins Xiaoguo, he will be treated as a good family member from now on. With this order, gangsters, idle villains, and unsuccessful son-in-laws from all over the country will be granted amnesty to the prisoners who have returned home.
These people who entered the camp one after another have some skills in fighting in groups. Therefore, although the soldiers of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo camp are loosely disciplined, their physical fitness is much better than that of the soldiers in the regular army. No matter how intense Li Xu's daily training is, there is no need to worry.
In order to prevent Li Xu from being moved down as soon as he climbed up to the high position, Tang Gong Li Yuan and Ying Yang Lang General Liu Hongji also opened the door to provide military rations, ordnance, wine, meat and other supplies as priority.
Li Xuze, who supplies Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp, in order to make a living for himself and not to make others laugh, he eats and lives with the soldiers every day. Whenever he has time, he goes for runs and participates in drills personally.
The soldiers had some complaints at first. They were frightened by the corpse hanging on the high pole, so they had to practice hard. Later, they saw that Master Lang was suffering with them. The armor, equipment, and food treatment of the troops in this unit seemed to be better than those in other Xiaoguo camps.
Slightly higher, the dissatisfaction in his heart gradually subsided. After Li Xu rewarded several brigades with excellent training with heavy sums of money, and promptly recommended several brigades who were not directly from the direct lineage to be captains, everyone was even more convinced of him.
After half a month, the three thousand temporarily recruited Xiaoguo actually showed some elite demeanor.
At this time, the fighting on the other side of the Liao River was already in full swing, and the emperor's chariot also arrived at Liaodong City to supervise the battle. Because this time the expedition to Liao learned the lessons from the last time, the generals were allowed to fight freely, so the war went smoothly.
In early May, Wang Rengong led his army to attack Xincheng (today's north of Fushun, Liaoning). He defeated the enemy's 30,000 troops with a thousand cavalry, and then besieged the city.
The veteran generals who lost the last battle were attacking and plundering everywhere and making great achievements. By mid-May, except for Liaodong City, which could not be captured for a long time, Gaimou, Xincheng, Jian'an, Fuyu and other small cities near the Liaohe River fell into the hands of the Sui army.
As for reviewing the new recruits, His Majesty the Emperor himself had long forgotten about it. Li Xu didn’t know how to use money, so naturally the big bosses in the court would not give him the opportunity to show off in front of the emperor.
Formation, after practicing the formation and coordination, finally started training on subjects such as bow and arrow coverage required for actual combat, light cavalry detours, etc., but still no chance to perform.
The heroes were jealous of other people's achievements and asked Li Xu to fight one after another. Li Xu saw that his morale was available, so he wrote a letter of invitation and sent it to him, but it was like nothing. In order to stabilize the morale of the army, he had to think of other ways to distract the soldiers' energy.
Large-scale competitions, wrestling games, and bounties were used to divert everyone's attention. Later, the competitions and wrestling games became boring, so he simply divided the more than 10,000 soldiers into two parts, and played offensive and defensive drills on the west bank of the Liao River.
In his notes, there are many detailed discussions about battle formation coordination. Li Xu just memorized it by rote to please his master, without any in-depth understanding. At this moment, he compared it with the actual situation of Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp, combined with his own observation and practice in Su Chuanbu.
With her experience in the food protection army, she re-examined this note. Many things that she had not understood before suddenly became clear. After understanding the training methods, Asahi recalled the operations, planning, detours, battles, ambush, and force discussed in the notes in turn.
Suddenly and so on, my understanding of the use of troops has been improved to another level.
Every time he realized something, he would secretly practice it in his camp. Anyway, the Xiaoguo people were busy with their leisure time. The more new tricks Mr. Lang Jiang could play, the better they would pass the time. Slowly, Li Xu learned about some field formations and
He also gained some experience in the face of unexpected changes in battle. Whenever the battle reports from the east bank of the Liao River came back, he could analyze the pros and cons with his cronies.
The days waiting for the expedition were simple and busy. Li Jiancheng still visited his camp frequently, dragging Liu Hongji and Xuzi to drink and chat in unnoticed places. Li Shimin also came to ask for martial arts lessons every now and then as before. He would be happy if he gained something occasionally.
Exceptionally, Li Waner rarely showed up again. Even if she appeared in front of Xu Zi once, she would lower her head, say a few words and then walk away in a hurry. She no longer acted willfully and nonsense as before. Her attitude of quickly becoming cold made Li Xu feel a little depressed.
, then he thought about the identity gap between them, and the young man felt relieved quickly.
"After all, she is the daughter of Duke Tang, I can't reach her!" Time and time again, Xuzi looked at Wan'er's figure and thought with a smile. He felt a faint bitter taste in his mouth, and at the same time, he was ignited by this bitterness time and time again.
Desire to be cast down
At the end of May, the eastern expedition army from the left approached Mazhaishui again. Under the personal command of the emperor, the army from the right made millions of cloth bags and piled them up to 30 paces wide outside Liaodong City, as high as the Yuliang Avenue of the city.
His Majesty the Emperor of the Sui Dynasty gave an ultimatum to the Liaodong garrison, 'If you don't surrender, no chickens or dogs will be left when the city is broken!'
The defenders of Liaodong wrote back, "I only wish to fight!" His Majesty the Sui Emperor was furious and mobilized an army of 600,000 to lay waste to the city. The two sides fought on the city wall for a day and night, and it was difficult to tell the winner. Just when the soldiers were exhausted, someone suddenly
It was discovered that the Sui Dynasty still had a new force on the west bank of the Liao River.
"Your Majesty, I heard that the Xiaoguo Camp is training troops in Huaiyuan, and it has grown to a large scale in recent days!" Pei Ju, the Huangmen servant, leaned into Yang Guang's ear and whispered in a low voice.
"Yes, I would have forgotten it if I had not reminded you of it!" Yang Guangma was delighted and immediately pulled out the command arrow.
On the first day of the sixth lunar month, the emperor ordered 120,000 Xiaoguo to cross the Liao Dynasty, and the Xiongwu Camp ranked first among all the camps.
