"You should practice martial arts as much as possible in the future. This is very important for your future happiness!" Wan'er looked at her sister's blank eyes and whispered. People who marry such a gentle girl should live a happy life. She
The smile on his face grew stronger and stronger, as if he had once again seen the galloping black horse in the sun.
That spring, when the black horse passed by, some flowers fell all over the ground.
The next day, Li Jiancheng recommended more than ten old soldiers to help. Xuzi accepted them with great gratitude, and temporarily appointed them all as team leader, team deputy, recorder, army officer and other low-level positions, and arranged them secretly
He asked them to report to the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp on their own for some tasks. Then, Li Xu took Liu Hongji and persuaded some officers who were aspiring to gain fame in the food protection army, asking them to temporarily serve as his staff. Before taking office.
, Li Xu also forcibly took fifty veterans from the Tiger Wing Brigade who were skilled in bows and horses and had always been close to him, as personal bodyguards, and handed them over to Commander Zhang Xiu.
In the next few days, Xuzi was very busy in his new position. The situation in the Xiongwu camp was exactly as Liu Hongji had expected. It was a mixed bag of people. Not only were the soldiers not as obedient as the brothers in the food protection army,
General officers at all levels 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 attack immediately. 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 favor to him.
.No matter which general he arrived at, no matter whether he 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 military strategies. Several senior officials
Seeing that the younger generation was so knowledgeable, the general felt dissatisfied and disappointed, so 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.
For the "virtuous people" recommended by the generals, Li Xu accepted them one by one, without appointing them to any posts, and temporarily used them as ordinary staff. At the same time, he also accepted all the heroes who came to join the army with various letters of recommendation and famous posts.
Xiao Na, arranged for him to be 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 instructions from behind the scenes and took the initiative to stop their activities. There were also a few who did not show any face and deliberately wanted to force the new generals away. Li Xu first tolerated everything.
, when the "thornheads" made too much trouble, they suddenly broke out and ordered the soldiers he brought from the food protection army to capture the people who were leading the trouble. First, he used "contempt of superiors and disobeying military orders" as the excuse.
After being given a name, each of them was beaten with eighty sticks. Then, regardless of their original position, they were all demoted to ordinary soldiers.
Someone had a grudge and led someone to Li Xu's sleeping tent in the middle of the night with his face covered to take revenge. As soon as he entered the tent, he was surrounded by soldiers who were ambushing in the dark. Li Xu did not ask the person's background, and ordered him to marry him.
The soldiers bent their bows and shot. They shot the masked men like hedgehogs, and the next day they were paraded on the flagpole as Goguryeo 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 suddenly wiped out. Li Xu then began to rectify the order in the army, first based on the observations of his confidants,
A group of low-level officers with evil intentions were demoted, and the vacated positions were filled with strong men recommended by the adults. Then, based on the secret reports of Zhang Xiu and his soldiers, some incompetent civilian officials were also kicked out of the military camp.
Their positions were supplemented by "talents" recommended by the generals. As for those who were honest, willing to work, and conscientious in their duties, they were rewarded with a lot of meat, so that they could 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.
A share. If someone intentionally causes trouble, I will definitely do some killing 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 referred to the suggestions of Tang Gongfu's staff and his own training experience, and arranged the short-term training tasks one by one. The review was coming soon, so now he would practice the real skills of facing the enemy.
It's obviously too late. But what aspects can best reflect the appearance of the military and what aspects can best fool the superiors? The experts in Tang Gongfu have already made clear plans for Xu Zi. So even though everyone is cramming now, they won't miss anything.
clue.
From then on, whether it was windy or rainy, the soldiers of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Battalion became a scene along the Liaohe River. They were all neatly armored, with shining weapons, shouting slogans, and trotting along the river bank in formation. Regardless of the officers,
Soldiers marched ten miles in formation in the morning and came back in formation in the afternoon. 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. However, because they were unable to form combat effectiveness, more than a dozen Xiaoguo battalions were left to the west of the Liao River by Yu Wenshu, commander of the left army, to make preparations.
Team.
In this way, Li Xu would have more time to train. He practiced 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 a system of government soldiers, and the government soldiers are mainly sons and nephews of good families. Traders, son-in-laws, criminals, beggars, etc. are usually not accepted in the army. Even if they have the opportunity to join the army, the military merits and rewards they receive are often higher than
That's less than half the number of soldiers from good families. Last year, the army marched eastward and wiped out all 300,000 elite soldiers, so 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 family background, 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 pardoned for the hardship of returning home.
Prisoners entered the camp one after another. These people were more or less capable of fighting in groups. Therefore, although the soldiers of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo camp were undisciplined, their physique was much better than that of the soldiers in the regular army. No matter how intense Li Xu's daily training was,
There is no need to worry about exhausting people to death. In order to prevent Li Xugu from being moved down as soon as he climbed to the high position, Tang Gong Li Yuan and Ying Yanglang General Liu Hongji also opened the door to provide military rations, ordnance, wine, meat and other supplies.
, were given priority to the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Battalion. Li Xu, in order to make a living for himself and not to be laughed at, ate and lived with the soldiers every day. Whenever he had time, he would run and participate in drills.
The soldiers had some complaints at first, but 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, and the armor, equipment, and food treatment of the soldiers seemed to be better than those of other heroes.
The battalion was slightly higher, and the dissatisfaction in his heart gradually subsided. After Li Xu rewarded several well-trained brigades with heavy sums of money, and promptly recommended several brigade captains who were not directly from the direct lineage, everyone was even more enthusiastic about him.
I was convinced. After another half month, these temporarily recruited Xiaoguo actually showed some elite demeanor.
At this time, fighting was already in full swing on the other side of the Liao River, and the emperor's chariot also arrived at Liaodong City to supervise the battle. Because this expedition to Liao learned the lessons of the previous expedition and allowed the generals to let go of their hands and feet, the battle was going on quite smoothly.
It went smoothly. In early May, Wang Rengong led his army to attack Xincheng (now north of Fushun, Liaoning Province), defeated the enemy's 30,000 troops with a thousand cavalry, and then besieged the city and defeated it in one fell swoop. General Jing Yuanheng of the Xiaowei on the left, Zhang Jin on the right of the Imperial Guard, and Marquis Wu of the right
General Zhao Xiaocai and other senior generals who had 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 Liao River had all fallen.
Hands of the Sui army.
As for the review of new recruits, His Majesty the Emperor himself had long forgotten. Li Xu didn’t know how to use money, and the big bosses in the court would naturally not give him a chance to show off in front of the emperor. The Xiaoguos of the Xiongwu Xiaoguo Battalion had finished their formation training
After practicing the formation and coordination, I finally started training on subjects such as bow and arrow coverage and light cavalry detours required for actual combat, but I still didn't get any 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 good, so he wrote a letter of invitation and sent it to him, but it was like nothing happened. In order to stabilize the morale of the army, he had to think of other ways to distract the soldiers' energy. First,
He held some small-scale competitions and wrestling games, and used bounties to divert everyone's attention. Later, the competitions and wrestling games became boring, so he simply divided his more than 10,000 soldiers into two groups and started offensive and defensive drills on the west bank of the Liao River.
,
In the notes given by Master Yang, there are many detailed discussions on the coordination of battle formations. At that time, Li Xu just wanted to please Master and memorized them by rote without any in-depth understanding. Now he compared the actual situation of Xiongwu Xiaoguo Camp and combined with his own
After observing the Su Chuanbu and his experience in the food protection army, he re-examined this note. Many things he did not understand before suddenly became clear. After understanding the training methods, Asahi recalled the operations and planning discussed in the note.
Detours, formation battles, ambushes, sudden attacks, etc., 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 so idle that the more new tricks Mr. Langjiang played, the better they passed the time. Slowly, Li Xu learned about some field battles.
He also had some experience in formations and unexpected changes. Whenever 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 often visited his camp, dragging Liu Hongji and Xuzi to find places where no one noticed to drink and chat. Li Shimin also came to ask for martial arts lessons every now and then as before, and occasionally gained something.
must be extremely happy. Li Waner rarely showed up again. Even if she appeared in front of Xuzi once, she would lower her head, say a few words and then walk away in a hurry. She was no longer willful and random as before. Her attitude of becoming cold quickly made Li
Xu felt 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!" Xuzi looked at Wan'er's figure again and again, thinking with a smile. He felt a faint bitter taste in his mouth, and at the same time, he was ignited by the bitterness in his heart again and again.
The desire to impress others.
At the end of May, the eastern expedition army on the left approached Mazhai River again. Under the personal command of the emperor, the army on the right made millions of cloth bags and piled them outside Liaodong City into a Yuliang Avenue that was thirty paces wide and as high as the city. At the same time, 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 all day and night, and it was difficult to tell the winner. The soldiers were exhausted. , someone suddenly 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 battalions are training in Huaiyuan, and it has reached a large scale in recent days!" Pei Ju, the Huangmen servant, leaned over Yang Guang's ear and whispered in a low voice.
"That's right, I would almost forget it if I didn't remind 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. (To be continued)
