Thief Emperor

Chapter 369 You are already very strong!

"At first..."

Du Qian sat on the chair, completely exhausted, and said with a wry smile: "At the beginning, Mr. Wenchuan met me in Jinling City and asked me why Erlang led his troops north. I told him."

"I told him that it was the Pinglu Army that went south first. Since you are so dignified, why don't you go ask General Zhou of the Pinglu Army why they went south?"

Envoy Du smiled bitterly.

"I didn't expect that he would actually go..."

Li Yun was also a little stunned. He didn't know this yet. He thought about it and then said, "He sacrificed his life for justice. Mr. Wenchuan also got what he wanted."

"Brother Yihui, don't take it too seriously."

Du Qian sighed: "Although that's what I said, after all, it can almost be said that the incident was caused by me."

He sighed for a while, then looked at Li Yun and asked, "If he comes to Yangzhou City to see Erlang and asks Erlang to withdraw his troops, how will Erlang treat him?"

Li Yun lowered his head, thought for a while, and said helplessly: "I will probably tell Brother Shouyi the same excuse and ask him to go to Qingzhou to see Zhou Xu."

After hearing Li Yun's words, Du Qian felt a little relieved. After drinking a sip of tea, he calmed down.

"Is Erlang planning to occupy Yangzhou forever?"

Li Yun shook his head: "If possible, I want to push the front line to the Huai River, but now, I don't have enough troops to take Chuzhou, so I can only maintain the status quo."

As he spoke, Li Yun poured some tea on the table and drew two horizontal lines.

“This is the Yangtze River and the Huai River.”

"If we don't occupy Yangzhou and retreat to Nanjing, we can only rely on the Yangtze River to confront the Pinglu Army. The same goes for the Pinglu Army. If they don't occupy a prefecture north of the Yangtze River, they can only confront us at the Huai River."

"Unexpectedly, after suffering a loss, the Pinglu Army did not rush to send troops to Chuzhou or to Yangzhou, but instead maintained a stalemate."

Mr. Li sighed: "Originally, I was ready to fight them in Yangzhou, but now they suddenly stopped moving, which made me a little overwhelmed."

If the enemy marches south in large numbers and enters Yangzhou, and Li Yun cannot defend Yangzhou, then there is naturally nothing to say. But if he can defend it.

In the case that the enemy's troops suffered serious losses, he even had the opportunity to go north and occupy Chuzhou!
"We, Jiangdong soldiers, numbering two to three thousand, defeated the Pinglu army of five thousand outside the city."

Du Qian smiled and said, "If we defend the city, the ratio will be even greater. Erlang can now transfer at least 5,000 to 6,000 people to Jiangbei. With sufficient food, if the Pinglu Army wants to capture Yangzhou, I'm afraid they will have to be beaten half to death."

"Although General Zhou is somewhat tyrannical, he is not stupid. He will not rashly invade Yangzhou again. He only needs to occupy Chuzhou. He can come to Jiangbei whenever he wants. I guess..."

Du Qian said slowly: "Qingzhou should have been recruiting soldiers."

In the era of cold weapons, wars were basically fought through temporary conscription.

Because if there are too many permanent troops, the economy cannot sustain them.

As for recruiting soldiers when a war breaks out, there is no need to worry about not being able to support them, even if there are a lot of soldiers. Firstly, the war cycle is usually not too long, and secondly, when the war really breaks out, the army will suffer heavy casualties.

Naturally, there is no need to pay the dead troops anymore.

This kind of conscription is different from Li Yun's previous conscription which relied entirely on voluntary participation. It is mostly compulsory conscription, so sometimes an army of tens of thousands or even nearly 100,000 people can suddenly appear in a month or two.

In fact, Li Yun can also do this.

He now has at least ten prefectures and counties under his control, and most of them are relatively wealthy prefectures and counties in the Jiangnan region. Although there is no specific number of registered households, the population of each prefecture and county is basically more than 30,000 to 40,000 households, or more than 100,000 people.

If we calculate based on this number, the ten states and counties would have a population of at least one million. If we include the densely populated cities such as Jinling Prefecture, Wu County, and Qiantang County, the actual number would be more than one and a half million!
Even if he calculated it based on the wartime conscription rate of one in ten men, it wouldn't take long for Li Yun to raise an army of 50,000 to 60,000 men, or even more.

This army may not even require too much money in salaries, because the people of the Great Zhou are required to serve the imperial court!

However, to put it bluntly, the soldiers recruited in this way are at most used as auxiliary troops, responsible for logistics and some marginal tasks, and rarely directly participate in combat.

The 10,000 troops that Li Yun personally led were all "combat soldiers."

Of course, some generals like to use these auxiliary troops to consume the enemy's manpower and morale, thereby gaining a better opportunity for the main force to attack.

Every general has different ideas about leading troops, and on the battlefield, any way of fighting is normal.

Du Qian looked at Li Yun and said, "I came to Yangzhou to discuss this matter with Erlang. I can look after Yangzhou for Erlang, and Erlang can go back to Jiangnan and forcibly recruit an army."

"The various forces will attack each other, and a chaotic situation may soon emerge in the world."

Du Qian said in a deep voice: "From the history books of past dynasties, once this situation is formed, within a few years, several forces will confront each other in the world."

"Then, we will fight for the Central Plains." "Forced conscription..."

Li Yun touched his chin and thought seriously.

He has not yet seen an opportunity where he would have to fight. He currently has 10,000 troops, which are flexible and maneuverable enough to at least deal with all current situations in Jiangdong and Jiangbei.

However, the power must continue to expand, otherwise, as Du Qian said, in the upcoming melee, it will become the target of swallowing up by others and become the "nutrients" of future major forces.

As for Li Yun’s current situation, if he wants to expand the main combat force under his command, the maximum size will probably be around 15,000 people.

If there are more, we won’t be able to support them. Military salaries are one thing, but weapons and equipment are also difficult to supply.

If they want to expand rapidly, it seems that there is only one way left, as Du Qian said, which is to raise an army with sufficient numbers and low costs through forced conscription!
"This issue…"

Li Yun rubbed his brows and said slowly: "I need to think about it."

One cannot be too hasty, nor too slow when doing things, and the timing, or the sense of proportion, must be judged by the leader himself.

"Ah."

Du Qian nodded and chuckled, "You can also wait a while. The imperial edict to promote Erlang may already be on the way. When the imperial edict arrives, if the official position is suitable enough, Erlang can take the opportunity to raise a large enough army in Jiangdong or even the whole Jiangnan."

He looked at Li Yun and continued, "There is one thing that Erlang must see clearly."

Du Shijun said solemnly: "We are not weak at all now. At most, we are slightly worse than those Jiedushi. If we only talk about the main combat force, the Pinglu Army..."

"At most twenty thousand."

"As for the so-called 100,000-man army, it's mostly for scaring people. The 50,000 Shuofang troops in the Central Plains almost swept away the rebels. I'm afraid that less than half of them can be called elite combat forces."

Historically, there have been several ways to count troops.

In some eras, not only the number of auxiliary troops but even the number of civilians were taken into account, so the army could easily be 500,000 or even one million.

In some eras, if only the main force and auxiliary troops were counted, the scale was basically less than 100,000 people.

In another world, when the Qing Dynasty went on an expedition, the number of troops often counted was only more than 10,000 or even 7,000 or 8,000. This number mostly only counted the main combat forces.

Li Yun touched his chin, thoughtfully.

Just as he was thinking about something, the guard captain Yang Xi hurried in, came to Li Yun, bowed his head and said, "Envoy."

This startled Li Yun out of his deep thoughts. He came to his senses and frowned, "What happened? Didn't you see I was discussing something with Brother Shouyi?"

Yang Xi bowed his head and said, "Envoy, Xu...Xu..."

He scratched his head and said, "Master Xu, arrest Envoy Yu and Lü Biejia."

"Lü Beijia is in the prison, clamoring to see the envoy."

Li Yun was stunned for a moment, then he burst into laughter.

"I see."

"Go and release Lu Yan. Let him go home and wait for news. As for the man named Yu."

"Just keep it closed for now."

Yang Xi responded and was about to go down when Li Yun called him back: "Go to my backyard again, bring Mo Daozheng out and hand him over to Xu Ang."

Yang Xi bowed his head again: "Yes."

After saying that, he turned and left.

Du Qian was somewhat curious and asked with a smile, "Why were both the chief officers of Yangzhou arrested?"

"These two people have dirty butts. If they meet King Xu, they will certainly not get away with it."

Li Yun said with his hands behind his back and a smile.

"Let's go and have dinner. I'll welcome Brother Shouyi."

"By the way, let me tell you some interesting stories about the chief officers in Yangzhou City."

(End of this chapter)