My father Liu Xuande

Chapter 88 Elite Danyang Soldiers

However, after a quick look, the level of these thousand people is at least above average, and surprisingly, there are no elderly or weak people among them.

After asking, I learned that the elderly and weak had already been taken away by Zhao Yun and Tian Yu.

That's understandable, after all, Liu Feng is the young master, and these four thousand troops were all recruited from Cao Bao by him.

Zhao Yun and Tian Yu were both upright and incorruptible. They were too grateful to Liu Feng to bother picking off all the elite troops and leaving only the old, weak, sick and disabled for him.

Therefore, Zhao Yun and Tian Yu deliberately swept away the old and weak, leaving only the soldiers of average to above-average skill.

Liu Feng was secretly grateful to Zhao Yun and Tian Yu, while Pan Zhang and Xu Sheng, who were standing to the side, were watching with shining eyes.

Pan Zhang, in particular, was eager to start selecting people immediately, but he was hindered by Liu Feng's failure to give the order.

In fact, from a combat strength perspective, the twenty armored soldiers that Pan Zhang had previously led were far stronger than these soldiers.

Putting everything else aside, if Pan Zhang were to lead the troops in heavy armor, a single charge could potentially wipe out this entire thousand-strong force.

Because these armored soldiers were not only tall and strong, but more importantly, they were all wearing armor.

Although it was made of leather armor inlaid with iron plates, it was still armor, and it was full-body armor at that.

It should be understood that having armor or not makes a world of difference. Among the thousand men in front of us, none of them are wearing armor, not even the most basic leather armor. The soldiers are all dressed in cloth and carrying weapons.

Even these were elite troops from Danyang, which shows the scarcity of equipment and the preciousness of armor in that era.

Liu Feng later inquired and learned that these Danyang soldiers were not entirely without armor. The battalion of one thousand men had a total of nearly two hundred sets of leather armor, but they generally did not wear them during training to prevent damage, and they were all stored in the barracks for safekeeping.

There is nothing we can do about this.

Although the Eastern Han and Western Han dynasties were nominally a continuation of the same dynasty, they were actually two separate and completely different dynasties.

The Western Han Dynasty was far superior to the Eastern Han Dynasty in both mobilization and tax collection capabilities.

The Eastern Han Dynasty could only adopt a policy of weakening the borders and focusing on the interior, highly eliteing the central army while suppressing and weakening the local commanderies and kingdoms.

As a result, over time, the local county and state armies not only became extremely small in number and poorly equipped, but also completely lacked the ability to sustain themselves.

The entire equipment production mechanism of the Eastern Han Dynasty was basically concentrated in the central government and a few other places such as Nanyang and Xuzhou.

This resulted in a situation where, during the warlord era at the end of the Han Dynasty, most of the warlords in Guandong were essentially weaklings fighting each other, lacking effective protection from armor, leading to a high casualty rate and a very low survival rate for veterans.

Liu Feng desperately wanted to change all of this, but given the current situation, it seemed quite difficult.

Xuzhou originally had the potential to generate wealth, but unfortunately Tao Qian deliberately provoked Cao Cao, leading to the destruction of Pengcheng Kingdom by Cao Cao.

The Iron Official Camp, built in Pengcheng Kingdom, naturally vanished into thin air.

Xuzhou's other hope lies in Tieguanying, located in Guangling, but Guangling is no longer under the control of the prefecture, so Xuzhou can only look at it but not take it.

"Wen Gui, Wen Xiang, you go and make the selections. These people will be temporarily organized into three groups. Wen Xiang will serve as the military commander and will also be in charge of the four hundred men in the first group. Wen Gui will serve as the military commander of the second group and will be in charge of the men in the second group. The remaining two hundred men will be organized into the third group."

At this point, Liu Feng remembered something and added, "By the way, the personal guards you two brought can also be included. Just send their names to the Military Affairs Department later."

Pan Zhang and Xu Sheng were overjoyed and led their men forward to make their selections.

The men Pan Zhang led were naturally the twenty armored soldiers. These soldiers had been transferred by Liu Bei to Liu Feng's command, but were still under Pan Zhang's command.

Xu Sheng brought several hundred relatives with him, including more than a hundred young and strong men.

He personally selected thirty of them, bringing with him weapons and leather armor from the family's stockpile.

In the Han Dynasty, possessing armor was a serious crime, punishable by the extermination of one's entire clan. This applied not only to iron armor but also to leather armor.

However, the Eastern Han Dynasty was not as powerful as the Western Han Dynasty. Local powerful families had long been able to accumulate armor, but they dared not show it off too ostentatiously.

Although the Xu family was not a prominent clan, they were still a powerful family in Ju County, so taking out a few sets, or even a dozen sets, of leather armor was not a big deal for them.

When handing over his troops, Cao Bao specifically removed his own trusted officers.

Otherwise, once the officer is handed over to Liu Bei and his son, should the officer be kept or not?

If we keep them, then who will this army listen to in the future?
If they don't keep him and drive him away, wouldn't Cao Bao be slapped in the face and lose all face?

Cao Bao wouldn't do something so foolish; he summoned his trusted confidants away long ago.

With so many officer positions vacated, it was fortunate that twenty armored soldiers and Xu Sheng's relatives filled them; otherwise, Liu Feng might have had to use the manpower of Liu'er Camp.

After Pan Zhang and Xu Sheng followed Liu Feng, they also developed the habit of making preparations in advance.

They had already arranged positions for junior officers, and now that they have taken office, they have quickly assigned officers to these positions.

Who is Cao Meng?

Liu Feng called out to his troops, and a burly man wearing leather armor rushed out and saluted Liu Feng: "Reporting to the young master, I am Cao Meng."

Cao Meng was the only officer Cao Bao left behind.

This man was one of Cao Bao's confidants, and he was specially left behind to help Liu Feng train his troops.

According to Cao Bao, Cao Meng was a capable and courageous fighter, and also loyal. He wanted to keep him as a trusted confidant for Liu Feng.

Liu Feng naturally couldn't refuse; he couldn't possibly embarrass Cao Bao like that.

Therefore, after obtaining Liu Bei's consent, Xu Sheng's unit was adjusted, now comprising three understaffed sections instead of two fully staffed sections.

Liu Feng nodded and instructed, "Go and organize the troops. You will be in charge of the garrison of the two hundred men in the third division. If you do a good job, I will promote you to the rank of commander."

Upon hearing that he had a chance to become a military commander, Cao Meng was overjoyed and immediately knelt down to express his gratitude: "Thank you, young master!"

Thus, with the command system restored, the Thousand Legion regrouped.

Liu Feng stood to the side, his brow furrowed with tension.

He was very disappointed with the quality of the soldiers from Danyang.

Even with officers directing them, the formation was still very slow, and some soldiers even had to run several times before finding their positions.

And this is still the elite force of Danyang.

It can only be said that the so-called Danyang elite troops were only brave enough to fight, but it does not mean that these soldiers were actually very strong. Otherwise, they would not have been repeatedly defeated by Cao Cao's troops from Yanzhou Commandery.

Yet these soldiers, with their lax discipline and lack of training, were still considered elite.

It can only be said that in this era of numerous warlords, the feudal lords were truly incompetent at fighting each other, while those in the imperial court who truly knew how to train troops were either killed or fled in Luoyang.

By the time Grand Tutor Dong took power, all that remained were his field corps, a mix of troops from Liangzhou, Bingzhou, and the central army of Luoyang, and professional soldiers.

With the death of Grand Tutor Dong, the situation became even more chaotic.

(End of this chapter)