All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 328 New Army
In the second year of Zhenguan, locust plagues broke out in Guanzhong.

The aristocratic families whose interests were damaged by Li Er's forceful grasp of power quickly launched a war of public opinion, accusing the emperor of being cruel and sending down a locust plague as punishment.

As I said, the ancient times were full of superstition.

When faced with famine and life-and-death situations, people need a channel to vent their anger.

At this time, someone has to stand up and take the blame.

In history, Li Er was forced into a very desperate situation and had to issue an edict of repentance to quell public grievances.

But this time it was different. When the public opinion war launched by the aristocratic families quickly reached its peak, the means of locust control that had been prepared long ago appeared one after another.

Large-scale spraying of pesticides, large-scale use of the plant pesticide neem, and large-scale expulsion of poultry such as chickens, ducks, and geese for biological inactivation.

The locust swarms, which had no drug resistance at all, were killed in large numbers by chemical agents such as the homemade DDT.

The white-feathered chickens raised by Chen Ran swarmed out and chased the locusts to eat them.

"Taoist Master."

Xue Wanche ran over and shouted, "Some villagers from Lantian County have caught a dozen white-feathered chickens and said they are sending them back to us."

Chen Ran nodded. The people in Middle-earth at this time were still very simple and honest.

The poultry from other people's homes ran to our fields to eat locusts, and after eating they refused to leave, so we took the initiative to send them back.

If this happened a thousand years later, hehe~~~there wouldn’t even be any chicken bones left.

"Thank you for your help."

Seeing these villagers from Lantian County, Chen Ran smiled warmly and said, "Please come and make the trip."

"Don't dare."

The villagers were a little restrained, and the village elder came forward to say, "We are deeply grateful to the Taoist priest, and we dare not thank him for such a small thing."

Lantian County is not far from Lanqiao Station, and they are the first to benefit.

From advanced medical care to the subsequent promotion of planting of corn, cotton, rapeseed, etc., they were the first to start.

These villagers wore cotton clothes and ate cornmeal cakes, so they were naturally grateful to Chen Ran for his kindness.

"Take these chickens back home and raise them." Chen Ran instructed.

"Every household can come and get ten chickens, half male and half female. And they just need to return a hundred eggs after one year."

The villagers were horrified and dared not to say anything.

Isn't this blatant taking advantage?

"I have limited space here," Chen Ran explained. "I can't raise too many. The right thing to do is to promote it as soon as possible so that everyone can eat chicken and eggs every day. By the way, remember to feed them with corn."

The villagers looked at each other in surprise. The corn yield was indeed very high.

But most of them were taken away by the government as seeds and sent to other places for further planting.

What they had left was just enough for people to eat.

"If it's really not enough, you can grind corn cobs into powder and use it as feed. But when grain production increases in the future, corn kernels will still be the best choice."

The villagers happily carried the chickens back home, but Chen Ran looked at Xue Wanche, who was puzzled.

Scratching his head, Xue Wanche was puzzled. "Master, what's wrong?"

"How are you doing with the Militia Training Manual?"

Hearing the question, Xue Wanche immediately patted his chest and said, "I'll let you know, Taoist priest. I can't learn other things, but I can learn this very quickly."

"Reconnaissance, surveillance, marching and camping, military training, terrain survey, and weather identification are all involved."

"Very good." Chen Ran looked at him and said with a smile, "In this case, I will recommend you to Li Er to build a new army."

"Ah?" Xue Wanche was dumbfounded. "But I am the prince's man."

"When did you get in touch with Li Chengqian?"

"Li" Xue Wanche was speechless "I mean the former crown prince."

"When Li Jiancheng comes back from killing the locusts, he will talk to you in a nice way. You should prepare yourself and it is best to write a training outline first."

".yes."

A few days later, Li Er came to Lanqiao Inn again, his face full of joy that he could not hide.

The locust plague has been basically brought under control, and the public opinion offensive launched by the aristocratic families was instantly slapped in the face.

Li Er quickly fought back and severely beat up a group of people.

After the whole process of confiscating property, beheading and exile, the court became much cleaner.

Every time he came, he almost always arrived at mealtime.

This time is no exception.

"Soybean stewed pig's feet?" Li Er picked up the chopsticks skillfully. "I love this the most."

As expected, he is a man of military origin. Let’s not waste any more time and eat and drink our fill first before talking about things.

There was a big pot of pig's feet stewed with soybeans, six in total, and Chen Ran and Li Er each ate half and finished them all.

After rinsing his mouth with a sip of water, Li Er asked nonchalantly, "The Imperial Censor reported that you were trying to win over the people in Lantian County by giving ten chickens to every household?"

Chen Ran picked up the tea bowl, took a sip and then responded, "Where is the censor?"

"He was exiled to Lingnan."

This topic just passed by so lightly.

As for winning people's hearts, Li Er felt that the more such methods of winning people over, the better.

Next, let’s get to the point.

"You sent someone to tell them that you wanted to train the troops?"

"It is to form an elite army." Chen Ran added, "Using the training method I provided to actually operate it can just verify whether it is effective."

Li Er narrowed his eyes. "Military power?"

"Let Xue Wanche lead the team. He is very knowledgeable. By the way, although Fang Yiai is young, he can also join the army for internship. The others can all be instructors."

Chen Ran said with a smile, "Let me show you how to train a group of farmers into elite soldiers." Li Er stroked his beard and said after a moment of silence, "Do you know that if someone else dared to say such a thing, he would have been dragged out and chopped off long ago."

"Then do you know that the knowledge I bring out is something that many people cannot even obtain?"

If the knowledge was not useful, if it was not good things that could actually improve the living standards, how could Li Er tolerate it until now!

A few days after Li Er returned, the imperial edict came down.

Qin Qiong was appointed General of Cavalry in charge of the Military Command Office (Zhechoufu) of all counties in the capital.

Three thousand soldiers were drawn from various counties and sent to Lantian County for concentrated training.

Xue Wanche was appointed General of Chariots and Cavalry, in charge of training matters.

Xue Wanche was very happy and went to say goodbye to Li Jiancheng before leaving.

Such a stupid operation was really unbearable, so Chen Ran stepped forward and kicked away Xue Wanche, who was stopped outside the door by Li Jiancheng and was not allowed to enter.

"You have no vision at all, so go and practice!"

He is about to take control of the military power, even if it is only temporary, even if he only has partial power, but it is still military power.

If you go looking for Li Jiancheng at this time, wouldn't that be pure idiocy?

The Lanqiao Station cannot accommodate a military camp of more than 3,000 people, so the training is carried out in Lantian County.

The first is military affairs.

They folded their quilts and put on leg wraps, paid attention to personal hygiene, spread lime powder in the barracks, and sprayed DDT to kill insects.

During training, we start directly from military posture, then to formation, then to team training, and finally to individual ability training.

The most important point is that this kind of training is long-term, with five consecutive days of training followed by one day of rest.

In theory, this is a professional army based on conscription.

In the Tang Dynasty under the military system, basically all soldiers were farmers, which means they all had their own land to support themselves and their families.

To put it simply, there is no military pay.

Not only was there no military pay, but even weapons, equipment, horses, etc. had to be prepared by themselves.

This point has been made clear in "The Ballad of Mulan".

Of course, ordinary people are not qualified to serve as palace soldiers.

The household registration in the Tang Dynasty was divided into nine levels, based on family wealth.

The lower three classes of people are not qualified to be government soldiers.

Only families in the upper six classes are eligible.

There was no military pay or armaments, and the only real benefit given was exemption from taxes.

They would only get together for training once in a while on weekdays, and normally they would hone their martial arts skills at home.

The new army proposed by Chen Ran is different. It is already a real conscription system. It will cause chaos if the soldiers are concentrated and trained for a long time and then follow the system of the government soldiers.

So he asked Li Er to pay military salaries to the new troops.

Li Er came from a military background, so he naturally understood these things.

After some thought, he agreed.

The main reason is that I want to see the level of Chen Ran’s military strategy.

The so-called military pay during the Han and Tang dynasties was naturally not based mainly on money and goods as in the Ming and Qing dynasties, but mainly on food and other supplies.

With the large-scale production of corn, cotton and oil, Li Er simply used cornmeal, cotton cloth and rapeseed oil as military pay, which can be said to be the result of getting the most out of the money.

With sufficient military pay, the soldiers were able to reluctantly accept long-term training.

The way to boost their morale is to receive extremely high treatment.

The army has three meals a day, not only is there enough cornmeal, but there must be meat at noon, and the meal is very greasy.

That’s not all. The weapons and equipment that they should have purchased with their own money were also provided uniformly.

The horses and weapons were all directly allocated from the armory, there is nothing much to say about this.

The most important armor is plate armor made by hydraulic machines!

Compared with the armor used by other soldiers, the armor forged by Shuili was of very high quality. In the words of Qin Qiong's letter to Li Er, "Thirty steps of crossbows can't penetrate the armor!"

Even though the powerful crossbow was used to shoot at a distance of thirty steps, it couldn't penetrate the armor.

The quality is absolutely impeccable.

With good food and good supplies, coupled with a brand-new training method, the combat capability of this new army has improved rapidly and visibly.

Li Er came to see it several times and felt that the army was dignified, with measured advances and retreats and proper command.

But more than that, it cannot be seen.

"It doesn't matter if you can't tell." Chen Ran suggested to him, "Find a strong army to fight against us, and we'll know everything."

Li Er agreed with this.

In order to show his importance, he actually dispatched a black armor army!
The first day's battle was a head-on confrontation wearing armor and using wooden weapons.

Casualties are inevitable, but it is also closer to real combat.

The result of the head-on confrontation was that the Black Armor Army won a tragic victory with heavy casualties.

Li Er was not happy, because those were the elite Black Armor Army in the world.

The fact that they were facing a group of soldiers who were hastily assembled and trained for only half a year was enough to explain the problem.

The next day, it’s free play.

Xue Wanche led his troops and horses, abandoned their horses, and retreated to the Qinling Mountains.

The Black Armor Army, filled with rage, naturally chased after them.

When they came out again several days later, the Black Armor Army was dejected as they were judged to have been annihilated.

(End of this chapter)