The substitute prince: Reported the emperor's brother at the beginning

A few days later, Ning Yi personally went to Luer Mountain, which was fifty miles away from the capital and could be reached in half a day by galloping.

It is surrounded by high mountains and has several military camps.

There are only two roads leading to the outskirts, one to the east and the other to the west. This is an important place guarding the west gate of the capital.

As one of the Beijing camps, the Yongying Camp had 10,000 soldiers on paper, but in reality it had less than 6,000.

The commander of Zhang Dajun is a very corrupt general.

The intelligence department has already obtained evidence against a large number of officers in the Yongying Battalion.

Kidnapping, extortion, blackmail and threats, all kinds of means are used.

That’s not all. According to Ning Yi’s wishes, they were also given strict written education.

For example, each of them carefully wrote a lot of evidence to curse Emperor Wu, and these evidences alone were enough for them to confiscate their property and exterminate their clan.

As for those who refuse to obey, just kill them.

Just give a random reason, he died of a sudden illness in the army, and when his family came to claim him, he had already been burned to ashes.

They are all corrupt and exploit soldiers. What sympathy do they have?

The entire Yongying Camp was driven out by Ning Yi and went to set up a new camp twenty miles away.

In the old camp, there were only a few hundred people with good performance who were selected from the group of refugees that Wu Lingyun had gathered.

The several blacksmiths who came with Ning Yi were all arranged here.

And everyone has a lot of apprentices.

In addition to the hundreds of refugees who stayed behind, we first need to tidy up the military camp of the Yongying Camp.

Ning Yi took Qin Haifeng to a small river behind Luer Mountain.

Qin Haifeng explained, "Your Highness, this river flows eastwards and merges with the Grand Canal. Because the water is too shallow, apart from the villagers on the shore who come here for drinking, not many people come here."

This was where thousands of brave soldiers were stationed in the past.

Now that it has been occupied by Ning Yi, this place must be put to good use, and the nearby villages have all been relocated.

It is enough to give them some silver, or at least use the excuse of delaying the training of the Yongying Battalion as an excuse.

Ning Yi told Qin Haifeng: "Let someone build a good road here first, and then build a weapons workshop by the river. We can use water wheels here to manufacture weapons faster."

In this era, water wheels were already in use, but they were too heavy and not taken seriously.

After careful discussion with the craftsmen, Ning Yi was able to produce a lightweight waterwheel, and ironmaking was not a major problem.

Qin Haifeng wrote it down immediately.

Ning Yi gave some instructions everywhere and felt that this place was very suitable for training troops.

Qin Haifeng asked, "Your Highness, this place is indeed a good place. If we can train a few thousand elite soldiers, it won't be a problem."

"A few thousand?" Ning Yi shook his head slightly: "Too few. This prince plans to train at least ten thousand elite soldiers."

This is where the Yongying Battalion trains 10,000 elite soldiers, so it is naturally large enough to accommodate them.

But Qin Haifeng frowned in worry: "Your Highness, we can use the name of the Yongying Battalion to secretly train and stockpile a few thousand elite soldiers."

"But if there are too many, people will notice it."

After all, you are a prince, but you have stockpiled tens of thousands of troops. What do you want to do? Rebellion?

Wasn’t it because of the problem of gathering disaster victims that Ning Yi was first arrested?

Ning Yi didn't care: "That's easy. Let the Yongying Camp fire all the old and weak ones."

"A bunch of blood-sucking bastards, gathering so many old, weak, and sick people to fool people, it's better to open them all."

In this way, the rapid reduction in the number of the Yongying Battalion itself would be of sufficient benefit to them.

Also, this place is very hidden, and no one would have thought that the Yongying Camp had already been actually controlled by Ning Yi, and he had trained an elite army in the name of the Yongying Camp.

Your Highness is right. Qin Haifeng was still worried and said, "Your Highness, if that's the case, it's a stretch, but we don't have enough generals."

"Ten thousand elite soldiers, but only a hundred skilled generals are there in the army."

What he was talking about was a hundred generals, one person managing a hundred people, and this seemed to be the only way to stabilize the entire army.

But Ning Yi didn't care: "This prince has his own decision."

"Okay, let them take good care of this place. You can come and inspect it often."

He doesn't have many people available now, especially management personnel, so he can only pick the best from the worst.

He believed that in a month at most, this place would become a brand new military camp.

Who will know when the flag of the Yongying Camp is raised?

After inspecting Luer Mountain, Ning Yi returned to the capital and the first thing he did was to ask, "Have you chosen the two hundred new servants that I asked you to select?"

This time I let the butler choose directly.

Anyway, it’s just a selection of a servant, and Ning Yi doesn’t care what others will find out.

Only now did he realize that the Fourth Prince had thousands of elite soldiers hidden in the capital, and there were thousands more soldiers serving as servants in the Prince's Mansion.

Although the Second Prince only has a few hundred guards in the Eastern Palace, he also has thousands of elite soldiers hidden in the capital, and 30,000 private soldiers outside.

They are so blatant, what is there for Ning Yi to be shy about?

It won’t work if I just choose some younger servants.

Moreover, they were all selected from the victims of the disaster. Whether they were servants or guards, it seemed like a piece of cake.

If this kind of thing was reported to the Martial Emperor by that annoying Fourth Prince, Ning Yi believed that with the Martial Emperor's current physical condition and temper, he would definitely scold him for being bored.

The butler bowed and said, "Don't worry, Your Highness. I have already chosen for you."

Another guy who just turned forty and called himself an old slave. Ning Yi was already used to it.

Looking back at the huge open space in the front yard, there were two hundred sixteen or seventeen-year-old children standing there, wearing tattered clothes and with pale faces and skinny bodies.

Ning Yi attached great importance to these servants. He always gave them good speeches and told them about the benefits he had brought to them.

This group of young men who had just been selected from the disaster relief camp were all very excited.

Qin Haifeng, who was standing next to him, didn't know what to say.

I couldn't help but persuade him: "Your Highness, there is no need to recruit any more servants."

"The cost of training your servant is enough to recruit thousands of elite soldiers."

Ning Yi spent a lot of money on these servants. Whether it was food, daily necessities, or trained war horses, they were all good things.

Considering the large number of disaster victims outside the city, it is very easy to recruit soldiers. You don't need much money or food to find people willing to take up arms and serve as your soldiers.

But Ning Yi's approach was even better than his treatment of the Imperial Guards. He even specially found an old teacher to teach them how to read and write.

Ning Yi remained unmoved and said calmly, "They are very important to this prince."

"For example, those little brats who have been trained for less than two months." Ning Yi looked at the people standing beside him who were pointing and talking at the new servant, with mocking looks on their faces.

"In two months at most, with the current intensity of training, we can all become elite soldiers."