"Zuo Menggeng gave me another supply, including some food and more military equipment." Zhao Jin finally said.

Li Ping, who was sipping tea, put down his tea bowl and looked at Zhao Jin with some surprise. He did not speak, but waited for Zhao Jin's next words.

But Zhao Jin had no follow-up, and this guy was checking Li Ping's IQ again.

"Quite a few, right?"

Li Ping hesitated for a while and then asked tentatively.

Zhao Jin's place is now a private courtyard, and other people can't reach it. If the people above send something, if it's not a lot, Zhao Jin's character should be able to put it all into his pocket with peace of mind, just like what he did last time.

Same.

There is no need to be coy here. It is enough to give them a few symbolic average points at most. No one knows how many there are anyway.

Unless it was specified that they should be given supplies to the entire battalion, and then there was still a lot? This made him embarrassed.

But this is unscientific!

"Well, there are quite a few."

Zhao Jin actually admitted it happily!

"How is it possible? Why?"

Li Ping was really surprised.

Zhao Jin actually dared to admit that there were quite a lot of them, and they must be indispensable. This was something Li Ping never dared to think about.

Li Ping knew that Zuo Liangyu's crazy military expansion operation had rapidly expanded his total military strength to 200,000 people.

Yes, that's right, 200,000.

This is not a secret, because everyone says so, and Zuo Liangyu himself often talks about this number.

Even, it is said that the public communication to the foreign government is called 300,000, which is the number 300,000.

This is a very shocking number, and also a mind-boggling number.

Because this is simply explosive growth.

Of course, the quality is just mediocre.

Whether there is really 200,000, Li Ping feels that there is still some moisture.

Even the 4,000 troops reported by Zhao Jin were seriously false even though they included women, old and young. It is estimated that other troops were not much better. After all, as a newcomer, Zhao Jin did not dare to be too courageous.

But regardless of men, women, old or young, if only the heads are counted, the water content should not be very large. After all, most of the middle and low-level soldiers under Zuo Liangyu are newcomers, former little people, just like Zhao Jin.

And the most important thing is that the local officials of Xiangyang Prefecture are not vegetarians. The tradition of disharmony between civil and military officials in the Ming Dynasty makes the civil servants keep a close eye on military generals, and the civil servants have completely independent channels to report the actual situation of the generals.

Of course it is normal to confuse the enemy army with the number of 300,000 but there are actually 200,000, but the actual 200,000 are not allowed to have too much water, because the civil servants have to prepare food and equipment accordingly, the emperor

The government and the imperial court need to know the actual military strength of the generals. Once they are false, they will be in great trouble.

A veteran like Zuo Liangyu should not make such a stupid mistake.

Moreover, Zuo Liangyu, who is well versed in the bad habits of military affairs, may have appropriately reduced the data reported below, so that even if the civil servants went from battalion to battalion to inquire and summarize, there would be no big problem.

As for whether all the 200,000 people who pretended to be soldiers could be used as soldiers, the civil servants were at a loss. Zuo Liangyu said that if they were soldiers, they had to be soldiers, but the civil servants objected to no avail.

In front of 200,000 people, Zhao Jin's so-called 4,000 people are really nothing. Even if they are under the direct control of a small boss like Zuo Mengeng, they are still nothing.

What is even more troublesome is that the Xiangfan area has been depleted due to wars in recent years. Especially last year, Zhang Xianzhong successfully raided Xiangyang and looted all the supplies that had been accumulated in the surrounding areas for a long time, exacerbating the shortage of local supplies.

This means that the local government in Xiangyang is simply unable to support such a huge army. Not to mention weapons and equipment, 200,000 people, the number of people eating horse chews every day is an astronomical figure!

In fact, the support of Zuo Liangyu's army is borne by the entire Huguang, and the local government of Huguang is also supplying Zuo Liangyu with food and grass according to the number of 25,000 people.

That's right, it's 25,000. This is their best effort.

There have been many natural disasters in the Ming Dynasty. Huguang, a major grain-producing province, also suffered from a serious drought of locusts last year. Although there was no locust plague this year, the drought was severe. The government's ability to scrape together this food was indeed almost at its limit.

Although the early rice harvest has just been completed, we can't give all the newly harvested grain to Zuo Liangyu's army!

The local government was unable to provide for it, so of course Zuo Liangyu couldn't take care of it, otherwise he wouldn't have let everyone rob it.

"Zuo Liangyu brought back less than a hundred people from Zhuxian Town, and the defeated troops gathered later did not exceed a thousand, and we still accounted for a small three hundred." Zhao Jin revealed the important inside story that he finally found out.

"What?" Li Ping was stunned, and then he seemed to understand something.

"Do you still remember the personal soldier of Zuo Liangyu who led us into Xiangyang?" After Li Ping nodded, Zhao Jin continued: "What he revealed was just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, Zuo Liangyu's old troops are basically

It no longer exists, and now he relies solely on surrendering soldiers and rebel generals and bandits and bandits to support his appearance."

"It's not a good thing to have strong branches and weak cadres, and these people are not trustworthy, let alone entrusted with big responsibilities." Li Ping frowned.

"That's right, so he wants to catch us even more. We have now become one of his important bases, because we are from the official army, we are more or less his original soldiers, and we are more trustworthy."

Zhao Jin laughed.

"That's it." Li Ping finally understood everything.

Zhao Jin was promoted suddenly, and they were stationed in Xiangyang City. All doubts were suddenly cleared.

Zuo Liangyu, who has already lost his pants, really needs to hold on to them.

"However, brother, your contribution is also great. We are not his old base after all, and it is not easy to be accepted and trusted so quickly. There is no such thing as pie in the sky." Li Ping then complimented Zhao Jin.

This can't actually be considered a compliment.

There are so many armies, and everyone wants to climb up to the top of the Zuo family, be promoted, and make a fortune. The competition is naturally very fierce. And getting supplies means that they have been recognized as one of the absolute few new direct descendants of the Zuo family. The effort spent in this can naturally be considerable.

Just imagine.

"That's right. Without me, you would just wait to drink from the northwest wind!" Zhao Jin looked proud and readily accepted Li Ping's compliment.

"The grain is coming from Huguang, but where do the soldiers and equipment come from? Hasn't Xiangyang already been emptied by Zhang Xianzhong?" Li Ping just remembered this important issue. A small amount is understandable, but a large amount is abnormal. The production of those things is difficult

Very time consuming.

Zhao Jin blinked and finally slowly started talking.

It turns out that a fleet of ships unloaded a large amount of allocated supplies at the wharf in Fancheng a few days ago. Xiangyang is empty, but Huguang is not empty, and Daming is not empty either. And there are very convenient waterways in Xiangyang from other areas.

It is naturally very convenient to transport supplies.

The imperial court is re-arming Zuo Liangyu's army. Zuo Liangyu's craziness has succeeded, and it is said that there will be more in the future.

When Zuo Liangyu has supplements, his trusted troops will naturally be given priority. Sure enough, Zhao Jin received some food and a large amount of armor and equipment from Zuo Mengeng yesterday, which also means that they are constantly being recognized.

Then the problem came.

After receiving these things, how to divide them becomes the key.

This guerrilla camp is not only Zhao Jin himself, but also several other powerful general camps below, and there is no way to hide so many things, unless Zhao Jin only plans to command his own personal troops in the future.

However, if Zhao Jin is really willing to only command his personal troops in the future, Zuo Mengeng and Zuo Liangyu probably won't do it!

However, Zhao Jin does not agree with the complete equal division. After all, the differences in the number of men and horses in each general camp are relatively large.

"How do you plan to divide it?" Li Ping was also very straightforward.

Zhao Jin called him here, he probably already had a plan, and now he just wanted to hear Li Ping's opinion.

Zhao Jin did not beat around the bush and said bluntly that he planned to roughly divide these things into five equal parts. He would have two parts for himself, Li Ping, Shi Ming and Wang Chengwu would each get one part, and Li Shengcai and Liu Shixiong could only get a symbolic amount.

After listening, Li Ping was not eager to express his position, but asked how much he could get for this share?

About thirty dan of grain, twenty blunderbuss, seven or eight barrels of gunpowder, half a barrel of lead, dozens of spearheads, a dozen lancets, seven or eight bows, and about a dozen pairs of cotton armor.

When Zhao Jin spoke eloquently, Li Ping, who was already prepared, expressed quite a surprise. This once again exceeded his expectations.

From this point of view, the Ming Dynasty's military production system is still alive and well, and its inventory and production capacity have not been completely exhausted.

But the distribution plan proposed by Zhao Jin is very interesting. There are many twists and turns in it. It is no wonder that Zhao Jin wants to listen to Li Ping's opinions or seek Li Ping's support.

Li Shengcai and Liu Shixiong's subordinates currently only have more than a hundred each, which is only about one-tenth of Shi Ming's and Li Ping's subordinates. Most of them are old and weak. However, they are very clearly distinguished from Zhao Jin in normal times.

They didn't take Zhao Jin seriously. Zhao Jin really had no reason to want to distribute supplies to them.

These days, it is said that Li Shengcai spends most of his time fooling around with a group of Ming army petty leaders nearby, completely treating himself as a boss.

Although he lived with Shi Ming, he rarely met him. Of course, every time he saw Shi Ming, his mouth felt like it was filled with honey.

It is said that Liu Shixiong and Zhao Meiling often quarreled. After receiving the manpower support from Shi Ming, they went out to fight a few times. Even if they had the opportunity to recruit someone to join the gang, they would make a big fuss.

But the effect was not good, and he suffered losses twice. In the end, Shi Ming had to transfer more people to the two of them, including a dozen serious young men, so that their total number of people could be maintained.

Men, women, old and weak finally passed one hundred.

Li Ping originally didn't care about these nonsense, but he had Song Baolai as a living treasure, and Zhao Lanyue and Gao Lei were still with Song Baolai every day, so Li Ping naturally knew about it.

What is very poisonous about Zhao Jin's plan is that it makes full use of all these subtle factors. It is not simply that if you are weak, I won't fuck you, but that it incorporates co-optation, differentiation, suppression and establishment of authority. Once implemented, it will

This directly clarified the pattern of the four poles and further consolidated Zhao Jin's position as the boss.

The only possibility that could easily lead to big controversy is that Zhao Jin plans to have two copies to himself, but this may also be a test to see if everyone recognizes his superior position, and we should be able to continue discussions.

After figuring out the joints, Li Ping immediately smiled and said that the material distribution plan was very well thought out. He completely agreed and teased Zhao Jin with a smile, "You are still smarter when you are older."

Seeing Li Ping change from thinking to smiling, Zhao Jin knew that Li Ping agreed, which made him relieved.

Brothers have to settle accounts openly. What Zhao Jin is most worried about is that Li Ping has objections. He doesn't want to be alone, otherwise there is no need to be so formal.
To be continued...