A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 643 Development and Training

After the snow fell, the weather became freezing cold and the roads became difficult to travel on.

Neither the imperial court's officers and soldiers nor the Xianbei and Wuhuan in the north were likely to invade.

Of course, Lu Cheng couldn't continue to expand for the time being. Even if he himself was not afraid of the severe cold, his soldiers couldn't stand it.

In order to train troops in winter, Lu Cheng had personally designed it and had people build barracks in Tuhe, Bintu, Fang County and other places in advance, build indoor training grounds in the barracks, and store a certain amount of wood for heating.

After taking Changli City, soldiers from various cities began to carry out physical training, spear stabbing training, etc. under the leadership of military officers.

In fact, these trainings are secondary. The most important thing is the training and improvement of discipline and obedience, as well as targeted ideological education.

To this end, Lu Cheng combined military books and strategies from various eras with some fine traditions of our army in later generations and compiled a set of fool-proof training rules. Military officers and garrison commanders only needed to strictly follow the training rules. Even if they could not train an elite force, at least they could make these ragtag armies composed of refugees, bandits and local garrisons move closer to the formal army.

In fact, the soldiers under the command of the princes of this era did not receive much formal training. Some were simply temporary conscripts, given a spear at random, and were lucky enough to know how to advance when the drums were beaten and retreat when the gongs were sounded.

As for ideological education, it is nothing more than telling the soldiers who they are fighting for and why they are fighting.

Sufficient military pay, good treatment, a complete system of death pensions, and brainwashing-style loyalty education are enough to make this group of ignorant soldiers three times more courageous than other armies.

Of course, the most important point is cultural education.

The literacy rate of this army is so low that even the selected military officers have a low level of education, let alone the grassroots village chiefs.

What grassroots officers need to learn is to read and understand military orders, to be able to train soldiers according to training regulations, and to convey the army's discipline to soldiers.

Senior officers like Zhou Cang need to learn more about the art of war, such as how to conduct field battles, how to attack a city, how to defend a city, how to set up ambushes, and how to scout the terrain.

"The military has no fixed position, just as water has no fixed shape. The way to use the military is to use the right combination and the unusual to win. When training soldiers, the first thing to do is to train the formation, the second is to train courage, the third is to train the ears and eyes, and the fourth is to train the hands and feet..."

"There are six ways to organize the army. The first is to rectify the names and positions, so that the hundreds of thousands of soldiers can be commanded in an orderly manner and their orders can be carried out; the second is to punish corrupt officials who rob the army..."

After the morning class, Lu Cheng called Zhou Cang over again, took out a bottle of primary body-building pills, and handed it to him: "Yuanfu, this pill can strengthen your body and bones and increase your strength. Take it back, take one pill every day, and then strengthen your muscles and bones, it will definitely have miraculous effects."

"Thank you General!"

Zhou Cang has already proved his loyalty with actual actions. In addition, he has good talent and physique, and is worthy of training. Naturally, Lu Cheng will not be stingy with this body-building pill.

With the help of the body-building pills, and Lu Cheng's personal instruction in martial arts and military tactics, I believe Zhou Cang will be able to become a first-class general in the future.

Afterwards, Lu Cheng called Xu Hu again, gave him some encouragement, and gave him a pill.

Xu Hu just turned seventeen this year. He is born with strong muscles, agile movements, and flexible thinking. He is a potential special forces commander. His potential is no less than Zhou Cang's, and he is also worthy of key training.

Of course, now Xu Hu is mainly responsible for the scout team under Lu Cheng.

After capturing Changli City, Lu Cheng obtained five hundred Wuhuan cavalrymen, and together with the war horses collected from several other cities, he barely put together a cavalry team of over a thousand people.

At present, this cavalry team is led by Lu Cheng himself.

As the city was blocked by heavy snow, the cavalry could not conduct training, so Lu Cheng focused on ideological education for these cavalrymen to strengthen their loyalty.

In addition to training the troops, Lu Cheng also cleaned up several newly captured cities, dealt with some wealthy families, and confiscated some food, supplies, and property. The food could be used for training the troops, and the money and jewelry were collected by Lu Cheng. He selected the more precious ones and stored them together for future use.

The currency in the Eastern Han Dynasty was mainly copper, and the currency in circulation was the Wuzhu coin.

Of course, precious metals such as gold and silver also began to circulate, mainly made into various jewelry utensils, or made into silver cakes, gold cakes, and horseshoe gold as treasures given and rewarded to each other by the upper class. Among the treasures collected by those powerful families, there were some horseshoe gold.

During the reign of Wang Mang, a currency reform was carried out, stipulating that one jin of gold was worth ten thousand coins. The first-class silver weighing eight liang was worth one thousand five hundred and eighty coins.

However, Wang Mang's reforms at that time somewhat violated economic laws. Due to insufficient reserves of gold and silver, gold and silver did not circulate as currency. But this also provided an important reference for the exchange rate of gold, silver and copper.

To this day, the exchange rate between gold and silver is still 1:5.

If you want to bribe and buy an official position in the future, it will certainly not be convenient to use the five-zhu coins pulling a cart. These horseshoe gold coins will be more useful.

While Lu Cheng was conscientiously managing and digesting the seven cities he had acquired, the generals from various parts of the Central Plains who had led the campaign against the Yellow Turban Army also received rewards from the imperial court.

However, there were eunuchs in the court who controlled the government. When it came to rewarding people, they did not consider the size of the merits, but instead focused more on who paid more money as tribute.

The three brothers Liu, Guan and Zhang fought in many battles and made many contributions, but in the end, because they had no backing and did not give money to their superiors, they only got the official position of Anxi County Lieutenant.

Because of his connections, Sun Jian was appointed as Sima of some counties.

Cao Cao was born into a family of officials. He became the prime minister of Jinan State and governed more than ten counties.

As for Dong Zhuo, he had been through many battles before the Yellow Turban Rebellion. He had served as a Yulin Lang in his early years, and was later promoted to Langzhong, Western Region Wu Ji Cavalry Captain and other official positions due to his merits. He also served as the Governor of Bingzhou and the Prefect of Hedong County, and had been operating in the northwest for many years.

In fact, Dong Zhuo's family background was not very good. His father was a county lieutenant, and then resigned and returned to his hometown. When he was young, Dong Zhuo loved to do good deeds and make friends. He once made friends with the leader of the Qiang people.

Later, when Dong Zhuo returned to his hometown to farm, some Qiang leaders came to visit him. Dong Zhuo took them home and killed his own cattle to entertain them. The Qiang leaders were very moved and went back to collect a thousand cattle to give back to Dong Zhuo.

While serving in Longxi County, Dong Zhuo led his troops to defeat the invading Hu people, making them afraid to attack. Later, he was recommended and appointed Yulin Lang. Dong Zhuo was quite powerful, with great strength, and was even better at riding and shooting. He often wore two quivers, so he could shoot left and right while riding a horse.

In contrast, when he was young, Cao Cao was unruly, had no moral character, and did not study hard. He was a typical playboy.

However, even two figures like Dong Zhuo and Cao Cao, who also used the emperor to control the princes, had very different outcomes.

All I can say is that the world is ever-changing, life is unpredictable, and history is sometimes more tortuous than fiction...