On the first day of May, Liaotun County, at the southern end of the Liaohe Plain.

The Liaohe River is the largest river in Liaodong and has abundant water. Among the 290,000 people in the four counties of Liaodong, nearly 200,000 live in the Liaohe River Basin, and both sides of the Liaohe River are also the largest farming areas in the Northeast today.

The Liaohe River is also a large river composed of three forked tributaries. Two of these three tributaries converge south of Liaotun County. Less than thirty miles north from Liaotun Tunnel, the tributary on the east side will be divided into two strands.

These three tributaries, the one in the west, connects Wangping County and Liaoyang County,

The middle one leads to Gaojuli County (Chenyang) and Xigaima County (Fushun) in Xuantu County,

The easternmost point leads to the county seat Xiangping (Liaoyang).

It can be said that all the county towns in the entire Liaohe Plain are locked by the Liao Tunnel, and if you do not break through here, you will not be able to reach other places along the waterway.

Waterways are the key to ensuring that the attacking grain channels are not cut off, so it is no surprise that both the enemy and us put the core of the battle for the Liaohe Plain in the Liao Tunnel.

Zhang Chun's last 20,000 troops and his Xinla's strong men were mostly distributed in Liao Tunnel and Xiangping.

Liu Bei's men had already set up camp on the east and west banks of the Liao River south of Liaotun County across the river from Liaotun County.

Since the end of April, the Han army's troops stationed south of Sancha River have been increasing. Because the proportion of new recruits is very high, the camp is busy every day. Even if there is no preparation for war, it has to be practiced daily so that the new recruits can form combat effectiveness as soon as possible.

The mansion far away in Changli City was repaired, but Liu Bei and Li Su didn't have time to go, so they stayed in the front camp. For a while, the wild camp on the Liaohe Front became the political center of the entire Liaodong. Any major government affairs would come to the military camp to report and deal with it. Even with famous scholars and warriors who came to join Liu Bei, they all went straight to the Liaohe Camp and stopped going to Changli City.

Considering that Li Su had no family and had always lived alone, there were only a few personal soldiers who helped him wash and clean his clothes over the past year, and he had dinner with everyone in the camp.

When Liu Bei was repairing the mansion this time, he specially picked a few young girls from the hungry people who looked clean and cleaned for Li Su. But because Li Su was on the front line, he couldn't have to serve him for a while.

...

Early in the morning that day, Liu Bei got up and was about to go to the camp to see how the training of the group of new recruits and grassroots officers he had recruited recently, and whether some good talents could be selected.

As a result, when I was still having breakfast, I heard my subordinates report that several famous scholars came to vote.

Liu Bei quickly put down his chopsticks and asked his subordinates to invite Li Su to meet him together.

Li Su is underage and is the time to grow up, so she sleeps more and is not as diligent as Liu Bei. He is almost dragged when he is still washing.

When he arrived at the Central Army tent and said a few words to Liu Bei, he saw two handsome young scholars outside the door coming in to join him.

"Guanning, Bing Yuan, Beihai, I came to see the Duke! I heard that the Duke had stabilized tens of thousands of hungry people in Liaodong in just a few months, and came up with a strange strategy of using labor for relief, so that the people could be convinced and not worry about unevenness.

We were originally living in seclusion in the Da family. Seeing that the world was raging, the Muslim guard was greedy and despised, we had always been determined to be unwilling to be an official. Now, seeing that the lord of the palace loves the people and herdsmen so much, I am moved by the wise ruler, so I come to like each other."

Liu Bei was a little educated and was not very interested in famous scholars. The main reason was that he had never seen famous scholars come to join him before, so he didn't quite understand what level of reputation Guan Ning and Bing Yuan were.

But Li Su read the allusion of "cutting the mat and breaking the relationship between the two" and knew that Guan Ning and Hua Xin were classmates, but Hua Xin was greedy for wealth and glory, so Guan Ning cut off the mat where he usually sat with him and broke up his relationship.

Strictly speaking, Hua Xin is the same as Lu Zhi and Zheng Xuan, so the seniority of Guan Ning is quite good.

He said with his ears: "These two are famous scholars today, as famous as Hua Xin, and are similar to their respected teacher, Mr. Lu. Although they are known for their simple conversations, they do not know whether they have administrative experience. However, as an official of culture and education, they are sure to be competent in etiquette and law education."

Liu Bei nodded and planned to retain the two of them as education officials in Liaodong.

And at this moment, the curtain of the central army's tent was knocked open, and a general rushed in: "Brother! I heard that Mr. Guan, a famous Liaodong scholar, is here? Where is it? I want to pay a visit!"

Liu Bei didn't have to look at it. He just heard the sound and knew that it was his third brother Zhang Fei, the old habit of "famous scholar control", had occurred, and he came to curry favor with famous scholars again.

He had to smile awkwardly: "I made my two gentlemen laugh. This is my younger brother Zhang Fei, who has always admired wise men. Since gentlemen are worthy of prestige, they will be the chief of rituals and music in Liaodong vassal states. Although the salary level is not high, it is only 300 stones, so please do not think it is slight."

Guan Ning said solemnly: "It is a great blessing to be able to get what you want. The salary and qualities are not important. The emperor and the people of the government do their best and are willing to use our rituals and music to educate them. They dare not serve them. However, the grandson said: Those who are capable but the king will win. Everyone has their own strengths. When they are in their daily governance, they will teach and not teach anything. I hope the emperor will not ask about it."

After saying that, Guan Ning and Bing Yuan bowed deeply to Liu Bei.

Liu Bei agreed with his promise: "That's natural. As long as it is not a remark that harms the court, you two can handle it themselves if you want to educate the people in Liaodong."

People like Hua Xin were recruited by the court in the name of "righteousness", but Guan Ning was noble and did not accept the conscription.

Therefore, even if Guan Ning's research is useless, as long as he is willing to do things for Liu Bei, it can greatly increase the attractiveness of Liu Bei's camp to the upper class and improve the brand image.

Look, even Emperor Ling of Han asked the three Dukes to conquer Guan Ning and instead of going there, he found that Liu Bei was determined to build a paradise, to safeguard the people, and to support the people, so he came to invest. What a sharp contrast!

In addition, if you talk more, Guan Ning's knowledge is really useless. What he likes to verify the most in his life is the sacrificial rituals of various dynasties in ancient times.

For example, since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, what should be done to the emperor/the princes ascend the throne, what should be done to the Fengshan period, funerals, weddings, birthdays, canonization... a bunch of flashy things, peaceful years can demonstrate the prestige of the court, but in troubled times, birds will be useless.

In addition, Guan Ning also likes to verify the origin of various aristocrats, the origin of all Chinese surnames, and the initial feudal divisions, in short, it is a lot of work of textual research.

If Liu Bei was a man of a different surname with a lowly bloodline, then the emphasis on Guan Ning might have an additional benefit, that is, "test how awesome your surname and ancestors are" so as to make a fortune for yourself.

For example, the Gongsun family has done this in history. They approached Guan Ning to verify the origin of the surname "Gongsun", and wanted to recognize a great ancestor and become nobler.

But Liu Bei is a relative of the Han Dynasty. The surname of Liu no longer needs Guan Ning to verify these things, so Guan Ning can only be a mascot.

...

Liu Bei spent half a day to comfort and win over these famous scholars, and personally accompanied them for lunch, and delivered some daily necessities that were not very valuable but could show the care of the Fujun.

Finally, Zhang Fei was asked to send them back to Changli City in person and find another Qingjing Pavilion to settle down.

Guan Ning said that he did not want to live in Changli City and wanted to set up a hut in the rural areas outside the city. In addition to serving as the official position of the chief of rituals and music, he also wanted to work hard and collect disciples in his spare time and run a private school.

Liu Bei also agreed and asked Zhang Fei to get them two sets of residences at that time, and have their own museums in the city, and find a quiet place outside the city to build another villa.

After seeing Guan Ning away and Bing Yuan, Liu Bei had time to patrol the camp to see if the newly recruited officers and soldiers in the last ten years had any talent to stand out. Liu Bei himself must take time to inquire about this kind of inspection work every ten days, and he usually gave it to Guan Yu for training.

Today, because Li Su is here, I will take Li Su on a whim:

"Brother Boya, it's better to accompany my brother Yu to take a walk after dinner, just to digest the food and see the military power of the newly recruited troops."

Li Su smiled and agreed: "I dare not obey my orders. It just so happens that I haven't ridden a horse for a few days and lacks exercise."

As he said that, Liu Bei pulled him to ride a horse to the schoolyard.

This is the first time Li Su has visited the schoolyard of Liaohe Daying this month because of his busy government affairs.

Before we got closer, we saw dust and sand, with about 3,000 new recruits lined up to practice. The officers were also watching and supervising the soldiers, and selected grassroots backbones who could serve as leaders and team leaders based on their martial arts.

Soldiers also need to participate in the selection of wooden swords and wooden swords, or display their skills in archery to determine the preliminary division of troops.

Li Su saw that these soldiers were very young, most of them were in their early twenties, and even had teenagers aged 17 or 18.

"These soldiers look young and strong, which is really good." Li Su sincerely exclaimed.

Liu Bei pointed at the whip and turned his head to Li Su, saying, "This is not because he listened to his brother's advice. In order to ensure the loyalty of the soldiers, he tried his best to choose hungry people with brothers. After the elder brother had married his wife and had not married his younger brother, he asked his younger brother to join the army and sent it to his younger brother and sister-in-law to farm.

In this way, they will feel that they are fighting to defend their homeland, and their morale will be rising, so that they will not be as easy as ordinary soldiers without relatives. At the same time, they can also have the courage of soldiers without relatives, and be indifferent to life and death."

Li Su smiled, but did not respond.

Because the reason Liu Bei said was indeed Li Su made a fool of himself last month.

But Li Su's original intention was to make Liu Bei try to select younger soldiers when expanding his army, so as to extend the service life of the soldiers and lay a solid foundation for the long-term transition in the future in troubled times.

As for the excuses like "work hard, do it well, and I will marry you a sister-in-law next year", it was purely made up by him to convince Liu Bei.

In fact, Li Su also sympathized with these poor brothers who were recruited and took out military wages and rations to raise their poor brothers who were both hungry people in the military farm.

"I didn't expect these people to have brothers and sisters-in-law in the family, and I was not married yet. Among the tens of thousands of hungry people in the military farm, I could actually choose as many as six or seven thousand as many as this." Li Su couldn't help but be surprised and confirmed.

Liu Bei: "It is impossible that this is the case. In order to expand the army to 20,000, there are really not so many that are perfect, so I can only hurry up and follow the power. There are about 4,000 people here, which are the kind of younger brothers you mentioned with their own barbarians, and there are more than 2,000 people, who are pure barbarians who have no relatives in their 18 to 20 years old.

However, these people fought for no reason, and their military discipline would be worse. They could not form a single army. They would also be tested more if they were to serve as grassroots officers. I have ordered Chief Yun that if they encounter unknown origin and no relatives, they would be awarded an additional test firing and defensive technique. They would be reused directly with comprehensive skills, so as not to easily mix in with the details."

This is also a common human nature. If people with unknown origins want to climb up, they must have to withstand more tests, which is not unfair.

Liu Bei pointed at the tip of the whip and there was a shooting range at the end of the school ground, which was competing for archery shooting, including standing shooting and riding on horseback. There was a place where people with unknown origins and potential for officers were taught martial arts.

Since he came, he and Li Su would go over and observe.

Li Su was interested in seeing how Guan Yu selected his soldiers' martial arts skills. After watching for a while, he found that several young people were shooting well, and Guan Yu also awarded them the leader or team leader respectively.

Just when Li Su was a little numb, there was a young man with a thick beard in the field. He seemed to be in his early twenties, taller than Liu Bei, but shorter than Guan Yu and Zhao Yun.

When Li Su saw the man picking up the bow, he had a sense of intuition: Did he meet a master?

Because I felt that the man's aura of holding the bow was somewhat similar to that of Zhao Yun.

"Bang~bang~bang~bang~" Three arrows, neatly and all hit the bull's eye.

Guan Yu's eyes lit up and he slapped his thighs: "Okay, indeed, martial arts are good. I will test your military discipline again. If you know how to read and clarify discipline, you can just teach you the head of the village. How dare you ask about the origin of the hero?"
Chapter completed!