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Chapter 343: 193: Five Thunder Enters the Door

Fortunately, through the big battle, the new soldiers had experienced bloodshed, and their courage and experience had been tempered. After several months of training, even the youngest among them had served for one year and could be rightfully called elite soldiers.

However, 50,000 elite soldiers were still too few in number.

At the court in Baling City, there were 50,000 elite soldiers, and throughout the country, there were more than 200,000. The Zhou people had even more, with hundreds of thousands of troops stationed on the river.

Both sides far surpassed Lu Yuan.

Therefore, to gain the qualification to negotiate with these two sides, achieve the goal of securing a prefecture for himself, and expand his army in the next round was already imminent.

After arranging for people to go to Dan Ding Path to collect grain and silver, Lu Yuan then dispatched his disciples to visit three counties, Jianan, Southsea, and Yulin, to start recruiting soldiers.

The recruitment quota was 50,000 people.

Wait, why not recruit in Dongting and Yuzhang Prefectures?

After successive recruitment by the court and Lu Yuan in these two prefectures, there were no more suitable soldiers left.

While it was not impossible to recruit by force, the leftover rabble brought to the battlefield would be no different from the militia Zhou Qing had previously led: they would crumble in a single blow, unable to even defeat the Miao people and would not serve any significant purpose.

Haven’t you seen the difficulty the court faced in Yueyang Prefecture? Shangguan Ming did not even conscript civilian workers, knowing full well their inability to be utilized effectively.

After these years of fighting, anyone with vigor and courage willing to choose a soldier’s life had either died or already joined the various armies.

Those who remained were either too afraid to take up arms or had been passed over by others.

Thus, Jianan, Southsea, and Yulin counties, which were not core areas under the court’s rule and had been less affected by the war, still had quite some vitality left.

Throughout the entire Da Yue world, it was only these three prefectures that still had a substantial number of suitable soldiers available.

As such, Lu Yuan could only recruit from these three places.

However, he had already recruited quite a number of people from these places in the past.

This time around, by the time 50,000 were recruited, there would likely not be many good soldiers left in these three prefectures.

But that was just right.

With all the elite soldiers and strong generals recruited, others would be left with nothing but rabble.

As Lu Yuan’s strength grew, others would become weaker in comparison.

Under such circumstances, the gap between them would gradually accumulate.

After settling the recruitment matters, Lu Yuan had more or less dealt with the military affairs at hand.

Meanwhile, after half a year of governance by Sun Siwen, the southern three prefectures had gradually come back to life.

Refugees in the region had been properly resettled.

This year’s autumn rice had been urgently planted and it was soon the harvest season.

With the harvest at hand, and grain supplies purchased by Sun Siwen’s people from Yuzhang Prefecture and South Sea Prefecture coming in, the livelihood of the people in the southern three prefectures was more or less guaranteed.

During this time, Lu Yuan’s earlier plans to hide his troops and assign Miao wives and daughters to his subordinates had been gradually implemented under Sun Siwen’s arrangements.

The 20,000 Miao households had quickly been assigned to the 20,000 soldiers stationed in Yangshan Prefecture, along with dozens of acres of farmland and houses.

The southern three prefectures had long suffered from war, causing a significant decrease in population; furthermore, a large number of the local rich families had been killed by the Miao people, leaving behind empty and unclaimed lands.

As a result, Sun Siwen had no trouble carrying out land redistribution in this area.

With the establishment of new families, the population of Yangshan Prefecture instantly increased by 20,000 households.

Soldiers hailing from all over the world now had families, putting down roots in Dongting Prefecture, and naturally developed loyalty for Lu Yuan as they were provided with wives, land, and houses.

His foundation in the army grew even deeper.

After the distribution of 20,000 Miao households, there were still 21,000 households left undivided.

So Lu Yuan planned to recall some soldiers from Zhou Qing’s side to change with the settled soldiers here; it was not reasonable to let them fight on the front line indefinitely.

This took two months, and once the soldiers in the front and back lines had been alternated, the remaining 21,000 Miao households had also been assigned.

As the new families were formed, the soldiers who supported Lu Yuan started to settle across the southern three prefectures.

With the backing of these loyal soldiers, Lu Yuan’s rule over Nanshan Prefecture gradually stabilized.

During this time, Lu Yuan’s disciples, who had been sent to recruit in the three prefectures, returned with 50,000 new soldiers.

At that time, Zhou Qing sent a message from Wuling Prefecture, stating that the situation in the North was unstable and that the Zhou people and the Poison Sect seemed to be making some moves. To avoid any unexpected events, he requested reinforcements.

So Lu Yuan simply took the 50,000 new soldiers and moved to Shaoyang Prefecture, training the soldiers while closely monitoring the situation there.

As for the five prefectures in the south, they were left in the hands of the 30,000 soldiers who had just been rotated out, with no major problems expected.

Shaoyang Prefecture City.

Lu Yuan trained the soldiers in the barracks outside the city, focusing on the training of new recruits.

Since breaking through the Innate realm, his martial arts cultivation had slowed down significantly.

Without the next step in his technique, his Chi Yang Divine Skill had reached its peak at the Innate realm, and to progress further, he needed either to find a complete Innate technique or to switch to a new one.