Chapter 199: One after another come to vote
After leaving Shiting, Zhang Hongping took a large ship and arrived in Wuhu two days later.

When Cao Yuanjing heard about it, he and his brother Cao Cheng immediately went out to greet him, "We have been thinking about Mr. Zhang day and night, and finally he has come back."

Zhang Hongping cupped his hands and said, "Thank you, Your Majesty, for your concern."

After several people entered the city together, Zhang Hongping told them what he had seen and heard in the past ten days, and put forward his own suggestions, "Eastern Yan will attack Jingzhou. If I send troops again, Cao Xuan will die. If Cao Xuan dies, Eastern Yan can attack Guanzhong from three sides, and Western Yan will also be gone. For the long-term plan, we should not bother with Cao Xuan for the time being, and let him focus on resisting the Yan army."

Cao Yuanjing was silent when he heard this. He was naturally extremely angry towards Cao Xuan. The two sides were fighting over the legal legitimacy as well as the resentment of betrayal.

But what Zhang Hongping said does make sense.

If it weren't for Prince Liang's rebellion, which caused Great Yan to be divided into Eastern and Western Yan, neither Eastern Wei nor Western Wei would have had a chance to emerge.

Even now, Eastern Yan in Luoyang still nominally occupies most of the world. Once Luoyang takes back Jingzhou, the Western Yan regime occupying Guanzhong will be in danger.

By then, Jiangdong will be unable to stand alone.

Therefore, the current situation is that if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.

Seeing Cao Yuanjing still hesitant, Zhang Hongping continued, "Your Majesty, we attacked Ruxukou last year and suffered heavy casualties. Why? One reason is that the Yan army was defending at a dangerous place, and the other reason is that although our army is numerous, it is far inferior to the elite Yan army. This time I went to Shiting to meet Li Yangzhou and saw that his troops were well disciplined, orderly, and well-equipped, and could be called elite. However, our army has hundreds of thousands of troops, and only the generals' personal troops can be called elite. To drive the troops, this method of warfare is enough to traverse Jiangdong, but it is far from enough to compete with the heroes of the Central Plains. If the Yan army wants to attack Jingzhou, I should select the best soldiers as combat soldiers, dismiss the old and weak as auxiliary soldiers, cultivate land, and train them diligently so that each unit can understand the military tactics and battle formations, so as to prepare for the future."

After saying this, Cao Yuanjing finally nodded, "Mr. Zhang is right, but our Pengze and Chaisang have been captured by the Western Wei."

Zhang Hongping said: "This is easy. Just tell Cao Xuan that Luoyang is going to attack Jingzhou, and he will definitely return Chaisang and Pengze and write a handwritten apology."

"Okay, let's do as Mr. Zhang says."

Cao Yuanjing finally agreed with Zhang Hongping's opinion, and the relationship between the two could definitely be described as a harmonious relationship between monarch and minister.

Afterwards, Zhang Hongping presented to the Cao brothers the army reorganization plan he had made after spending more than ten days in the enemy camp.

The first thing to do is to screen the huge army, that is, to select the young and strong as regular soldiers, and select the old and weak to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land.

Then, based on the military system of the Han and Wei dynasties, the military system and official positions were re-established for the Eastern Wei.

On the other hand, soldiers of the Eastern Wei army shot arrows directly into Pengze City with the news that Eastern Yan was going to send troops. The defenders of Pengze did not dare to delay and immediately sent the letter to You Zilu, the commander-in-chief and general of the navy stationed in Chaisang. After seeing the news, he immediately sent people to chase Cao Xuan's army in a light boat.

Soon, Cao Xuan, who had just captured Chaisang not long ago, received the news while passing through E County on his way back.

After seeing the letter, Cao Xuan thought about it again and again, and discussed with a group of generals, but still could not make a decision to give up Chaisang and Pengze.

After all, it was a hard-won territory, and it was hard to give it up. Besides, it was unknown whether these things were true or not. So Cao Xuan felt that there was no need to make a quick decision.

Like the Eastern Wei, the Western Wei also needed to reorganize its army.

Originally, Cao Xuan wanted to take military power back into his own hands, reduce the army from hundreds of thousands to about a hundred thousand, and take the opportunity to take back military power and improve the military system.

But the current situation made him a little hesitant.

Reducing the military power and simplifying administration is not a problem, but if the military power of these generals is taken back, there will be problems when facing the invasion of the Yan army.

After returning to the capital Xiangyang, Cao Xuan immediately summoned the prime minister Kuai Wenxian, the minister of war Xiang Gong, the chief minister Ma Ding Jingzhen and others to discuss the matter.

First of all, the idea of ​​taking back military power and unifying commands failed, and military power had to be left in the hands of a group of generals.

He also sent someone to inform Huang Niu Jiao in Wancheng, asking him to be on guard against the invasion of the Yan army.

After receiving the order, Li Yuanhui was also preparing for war.

In the battle of Wan County, eight thousand surrendered soldiers were captured, most of whom were young and strong. Li Yuanhui ordered the guard Xiao Shizhi to select the strongest among them, and got more than six thousand people, and established the "Guide Army".

The meaning was obvious, this was to tell them that you had surrendered to the virtuous party. Then he handed the newly surrendered soldiers directly to Xiao Shizhi for command.

The rest were all sent to the military farm.

This is definitely a great use for Xiao Shizhi.

Although he had been promoted to Yingyang Langjiang, he was not a direct descendant of Li Yuanhui, nor was he a relative or old friend. Therefore, the reason why he was given such an important position was because Li Yuanhui saw that he was talented and had the ability to command the army.

"Thank you very much for your appreciation, General. I will definitely live up to your trust."

Inside the big tent, Xiao Shizhi bowed and thanked Li Yuanhui for entrusting him with the important task.

Li Yuanhui smiled and said, "General Xiao, there is no need to be polite. This important task falls on your shoulders. Within half a year, I want an elite force that can advance and retreat with moderation and is happy to hear about war!"

"The last general takes orders."

Xiao Shizhi clasped his fists in response, then took his leave.

Li Yuanhui sat in his seat, thinking about the next step of the Jianghuai Army expansion plan.

At present, the Eighteenth Battalion has initially formed combat effectiveness. Although there is still some gap with the elite central army, it is a dimensionality reduction attack compared with the two neighbors, Eastern Wei and Western Wei.

Moreover, with the current grain accumulation and tax levels in the three counties of Jianghuai, the size of the army can be expanded.

The best option, of course, is to allow the 18th Battalion to continue expanding its organization. A few hundred or even thousands of new recruits will not affect the combat effectiveness too much.

Moreover, having the veterans guide the new recruits can help the new recruits quickly become familiar with the military rules and formations, and quickly integrate into the army.

As for the difficulty of forming a new army from scratch, it is completely different from expanding the organization of an already established army.

However, at present, all the troops were stationed in different places or had missions, so he learned some training methods for new recruits in later generations.

First, each department should select a captain or colonel to lead the team leader, squad leader and sergeant to be responsible for training the new recruits.

As for conscription, all counties were informed to cooperate.

However, what surprised Li Yuanhui was that as soon as the news of conscription was released, local tyrants in Lujiang brought their troops to join the army, led by Zhou Ben's uncle Zhou Qiu and cousin Zhou Ao, as well as Shu County tyrants Li Su, Li Yigong brothers, and Qiao Xiaojie, the head of the Qiao family, a large family in An County.

These powerful families and wealthy people did not come to join the army with just a few dozen people, but they came with the intention of entrusting their entire clans to the army. Each family had at least several thousand troops.

Li Yuanhui was shocked by the enthusiasm of these people, and hurriedly put on a courteous attitude to entertain them well.

After that, he discussed with Li Qinglian, Guo Fenghe and others before finally deciding on the resettlement method.

The fact that these big families have joined the army as a whole clan means that you cannot give them official positions that are too low.

As a result, Zhou Qiu, Li Su, Qiao Xiaojie and six others were all granted the title of Yingyang Langjiang.

In addition, there were dozens of people including Zhou Ao, Li Yigong, Liu Jinqing, Cheng Jun, Wang Jun, etc., all of whom were colonels.

After granting each of them their official positions, Li Yuanhui divided these people's troops, totaling more than 24,000 people, into six groups, led by Yingyang Langjiang, and appointed Lu Xiang, the prefect of Lujiang, as the Jiangbei Protector General and the protector of the six groups.

Li Yuanhui knew clearly that without the ideological work of Lujiang prefect Lu Shishu, these wealthy families would never be so willing to join the army with their entire families.

Therefore, returning a favor is a good virtue.

(End of this chapter)