Chapter 741 - 326: The Wind Eagle Battle Begins_3
Chapter 741: Chapter 326: The Wind Eagle Battle Begins_3
Lu Yuan prepared to recruit another 100,000 people in the country and train five new Forbidden Armies.
Now, Chu State’s various standing armies only amount to 490,000, just barely meeting the basic defensive needs in this age of great contention.
It’s a situation of having enough for defense but not enough for offense.
Like this expedition to Hanzhong, besides the local garrison troops in Xichuan and Xiangyang counties, the Chu Central Government could only deploy 60,000 troops for the war, including 20,000 naval forces.
This strength naturally left Lu Yuan feeling unsatisfied.
However, due to financial constraints, Chu State could not afford to maintain a large army before.
Even if the army was insufficient, there was no way around it.
But now, with the 100 million taels of silver backed by the Snow Plains Nomads, military expenses are no longer a problem.
Recruiting 100,000 new soldiers is nothing, even recruiting 500,000 would be affordable for Chu State.
But although Chu State could afford to maintain 500,000 new soldiers, Lu Yuan wasn’t crazy enough to recruit that many directly.
The current soldier-civilian ratio in Chu State is already 16:1.
That is, out of every 16 people in Chu, including men, women, the elderly, and children, one is a soldier.
If Lu Yuan really recruited another 500,000, then the army’s scale would go up to one million, meaning one in every eight people in Chu State’s population of eight million would be a soldier, with every household having someone in the army.
How crazy would that be?
If he did that, not only would the quality of the recruits vary widely, but there would also be a large number of old and weak soldiers.
Moreover, it would severely impact Chu State’s local production, leading to a lack of people working the fields, a massive reduction in grain output, a decline in urban labor and business, and a significant drop in tax revenue.
Lu Yuan certainly wouldn’t engage in such a shortsighted and reckless behavior.
So for this recruitment, he only planned to enlist 100,000 people, maintaining the soldier-civilian ratio at around 13:1, or one standing soldier for every two or three households.
This way, it would ensure the quality of the source of soldiers and keep the local impact within a controllable range, without affecting production and tax revenue, and there won’t be any significant loss to the power of Chu State.
Meanwhile, 100,000 soldiers should almost meet Chu State’s needs.
At least with these 100,000 people, plus the existing 100,000 Forbidden Army in Dongting County, 30,000 county soldiers, 5,000 Jinwu Guards, and 5,000 palace guards, Dongting County will have 240,000 standing troops.
With so many troops, plus two Inborn Grandmasters, Lu Yuan and Sun Shiwen, they won’t have to worry about advantage even if Ning Country launched an all-out attack, as long as they don’t take the initiative to attack.
Just right.
Over in Jiangdong’s Ning Country, they are recruiting 150,000 new soldiers, planning to expand their internal army size to 800,000.
Lu Yuan is also recruiting 100,000 soldiers now, expanding the army to 600,000.
If there’s still a need to expand the army later, after conquering Hanzhong County and gaining over one million people, new sources of soldiers can be recruited from there, a few tens of thousands more.
After marrying the spiritual woman from Great Mohism, Chu State will further expand its number of Inborn Grandmasters and conquer Nanhai Country and Su Country.
After conquering Lingnan, even more troops can be recruited.
After a few rounds of such a snowball effect, Chu State could also increase its army to 800,000 strong, like Ning Country, without affecting domestic production.
For every step of future development, Lu Yuan has a clear plan, and now he is just following the proper procedures.
However, bearing the heavy responsibilities of guarding the rear and expanding the army, Lu Yuan naturally has no more energy left to deal with other things.
Therefore, whether he likes it or not, he cannot intervene in the battle of Hanzhong this time and can only entrust Huang Xuan and Qingyunzi to do it.
Luckily, these two are his avatars, so letting them lead the army wouldn’t worry Lu Yuan.
Even if he wanted to, he could contact them through divine thoughts and directly manipulate the battle from a thousand miles away for an indirect command.
However, there isn’t much need to do so.
Both Huang Xuan and Qingyunzi have inherited part of Lu Yuan’s memory and abilities, so they both have extraordinary military strength and command capabilities, not requiring his main body’s intervention to complete the task well. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om
This has already been proven during the previous Jianchuan campaign in the southwest.
With an army of tens of thousands, Huang Xuan didn’t exert much effort yet managed to defeat Jianchuan and plunder some of Nanzhao’s territories, which was quite impressive.
With this example, in the current war in Hanzhong, and Chu State’s many preparations amid Zhou people’s lack of vigilance, Lu Yuan naturally had nothing to worry about.
“Also, letting Qingyunzi take action this time has a benefit.
Since this avatar will be intimidating the southwest in the future, it won’t have any military achievements, and people won’t be convinced.”
Inside Baling City, it is now the third day of October, and after dealing with some trivial matters about recruiting, Lu Yuan’s gaze unconsciously looked towards the far north, as if he could see the battlefield of Hanzhong thousands of miles away.
The previous reason for Huang Xuan’s ability to intimidate the southwest relied on his achievements in defeating Jianchuan and his several displays of personal strength.
As Huang Xuan’s successor, Qingyunzi also needs merits and achievements to intimidate the people of the southwest.
By leading the troops to capture Hanzhong County and, if successful, killing the Southern Pillar State Grand General Dongfang Wuyun of Zhou people, the Qingyunzi’s charisma could be attested by the achievement of capturing a county and killing an Inborn Grandmaster.
Having both of these would surely suffice to intimidate the unruly Yi people and rebellious vassal states when this True Person avatar arrives in the southwest.
Meanwhile,
Two thousand miles away from Baling, at the border between Xiangyang and Hanzhong counties, over 10,000 Zhou soldiers, with more than 100,000 conscripted Hanzhong civilian workers, are pushing carts and looking towards the direction of Han River downstream.
And in their sight,
A fleet of ships bearing the “Chu” and “Grain” banners is breaking through the fog on the river surface under the early morning sun, quickly heading towards the pier.
However, on these ships, there is no grain that the Zhou people are hoping for, but elite Chu soldiers who are ready to pounce as soon as the ship docks.
At the forefront of the fleet, a figure dressed in a green robe stands with his hands behind his back, facing the wind, and commanding an imposing presence.
It is Qingyunzi.
By now, he has taken control of this fleet, as well as the tens of thousands of Forbidden Army troops on board.
With such a powerful army behind him and facing the unprepared Zhou soldiers, as well as the Zhou officer bearing the banner, who wants to come forward to negotiate,
Qingyunzi’s face shows a cold smile: “Pass the order, prepare the bows and arrows, fire!”
As they get within a hundred feet, with the order, clusters of black clouds fly up, and the terrifying man-eating beast tears off its disguise.