Chapter 24 The old, the weak, the sick and the disabled
Wang An was a little surprised. The commander of the garrison was a second-rank military officer, which was higher in rank than Zhao Yi's guerrilla general. Logically speaking, once such a position became vacant, someone would quickly find connections to take the position.

However, according to Chen He, the position has been vacant for three years since the previous commander died in battle two years ago.

This... is really unbelievable.

"Didn't the court send anyone to take over?" Wang An said in disbelief.

Chen He looked embarrassed. "Our Jizhou is poor and has bad waters. When people heard that they wanted to come to Jizhou, they all tried to find connections everywhere and refused to come."

Wang An suddenly realized, and then said: "Chen He, please give us a general description of the situation in Jizhou. This is at least a second-rank military officer. I have only heard of people who used connections to get the position, and I have never heard of anyone who used connections to shirk his position."

Chen He was a little hesitant, but thinking that Wang An would know these things sooner or later, he slowly told him.

It is well known that Jizhou is poor, mountainous and has bad water. Although it has a vast territory, its total population is less than 200,000.

Among them, Baicheng accounts for 50,000, and the other 150,000 are scattered in this vast wilderness and Gobi.

The soldiers of Jizhou Guard mainly come from the 50,000 people in Baicheng.

Leaving aside the elderly, the weak, women, children, the sick, the disabled, and some powerful and wealthy gentry and merchants, there were only about ten thousand young and strong people left.

Although there were more than 10,000 people, it was impossible to force all of them to serve as soldiers and farm the land in the garrisons. This resulted in the fact that although the court allocated 11,000 soldiers to the Jizhou Garrison, there were actually less than 3,000.

Among these three thousand people, many are elderly and weak who have replaced their own sons and nephews in military service.

These people are not good at fighting, nor are they good at farming. They can be considered useless.

In addition, there is not much land suitable for farming in Jizhou, which leads to almost no one willing to come to Jizhou to take office.

Because the garrisons of Daliang were almost self-financing, it would be better if there were vassal kings. All the harvests from the military farms would be handed over to the vassal kings, and the vassal kings would naturally have to bear the expenses of the garrisons.

However, the harvest from the military farms in Jizhou was very small, and there was no vassal king to back it up, which led to the Jizhou Wei being so poor that it almost didn't even have mice.

After understanding the reason, Wang An, who had just cheated Zhao Yi of a hundred sets of armor, almost lost all his good mood.

Can it really be defended?

Wang An couldn't help but ask himself.

However, just as his confidence began to waver, Shen Shaozhu's expectant face suddenly flashed through his mind.

"I promised my mother that I would go back to pick her up!"

After calming down, Wang An immediately gave the order: "Immediately dispatch 3,000 garrison troops to the Guancheng parade ground. I want a military parade!"

Chen He nodded and immediately took the order and left.

However, Wang An waited for most of the day. The order was issued at noon, and the army arrived in the evening.

The garrison of the Weisuo Army was less than ten miles away from Baicheng, and even not far from Shuangfeng Pass. A simple mobilization actually took most of the day.

However, this was not what made Wan'an most angry.

But when the three thousand garrison soldiers actually stood in front of Wang An, Wang An finally understood how useless the words Chen He mentioned really were.

All I saw were these so-called garrison soldiers standing crookedly on the parade ground, not to mention their neat armor and orderly military appearance.

Most people were even dressed no differently from ordinary people, and they chatted with each other in groups of three or five, unable to even maintain the most basic queues.

Looking more closely, at least half of the team were old, weak, sick and disabled with missing limbs. Even the young and middle-aged men with intact limbs were either numb or cunning, and they all looked at Wang An with indifference, without the slightest awe at all.

These were the proletarians in Baicheng. They had lost their land or means of livelihood for various reasons and had no choice but to join the garrison troops, relying on the meager harvests from farming to barely survive.

Wang An coughed, and seeing no one paying attention, he frowned and looked at Chen Huaian. Chen Huaian understood, and with a wave of his hand, more than a hundred black-armored guards on horseback rushed into the crowd, waving whips, beating and scolding.

"Line up!"

"No idle chatter!"

"If anyone acts carelessly again, he will be punished by military law!"

Although most of them began to line up reluctantly, there were still some with violent personalities who pointed at the black-armored guards galloping on their horses and shouted curses.

"Who are you, you bastard, to dare to hit your grandfather?"

"We are all soldiers, why do you show off in front of us?"

"Your Majesty, what's so great about you? I haven't even had your meal yet, but I'm already being whipped? There's no such thing as this in the world!"

In the end, these soldiers even directed their attacks directly at Wang An.

"Since you are the prince of the court, you should take care of our food and drink!"

"That's right, even the emperor doesn't lack hungry soldiers!"

"We haven't received our salaries for more than half a year. Let's pay the arrears first!"

Chen Huaian rode his horse to Wang An at this time. Wang An said to Chen Huaian with a sullen face: "Bring those troublemakers to the stage and kill anyone who dares to resist!"

"I obey your command!" Chen Huaian was straightforward and shouted the order directly to the black-armored guards.

Even though there were seven or eight most ferocious ones named Ran, they were escorted to the platform by the black-armored guards who were covered in armor.

Wang An casually glanced at these soldiers. They dared to shout loudly in front of the prince, so they were definitely not ordinary weaklings.

Instead, they were all tall and strong, with fierce faces, and one could tell at first glance that they were used to being tyrannical in the army.

Wang An ignored them and looked again at the garrison troops in front of him whose formation was a little more serious.

After thinking for a while, Wang An said loudly: "I know you don't want to be soldiers. You are neither a soldier nor a farmer. You can't eat enough and you can't make money."

When everyone saw that Wang An was going to give them a lecture, they all looked as if they didn't care.

In their view, the new prince was probably just preaching some moral principles, asking them to train hard and serve the country.

But to their surprise, Wang An actually said such a true statement.

If it weren't for the restrictions imposed by the government, requiring the people to perform military service at a ratio of one in two, who would be willing to waste time in this garrison army?

However, although Wang An was a royal relative who did not abide by principles, if he only spoke the truth, at most people would not dislike him so much.

However, Wang An immediately said, "So I won't force you. If you don't want to serve in the army, you don't have to come tomorrow."

With a "whoosh", the crowd suddenly started to talk in a mess.

"No more military service?"

"The rules that have been set for hundreds of years are going to be changed just like that?"

"These princes and generals are so kind. I think they are probably just teasing us!"

"Could it be that the other party has bad intentions and pretends that we don't have to serve in the military, and then when we return home, they will arrest us as deserters and extort money from us?"

(End of this chapter)