Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 107: Selecting Troops (4k)

Yu Jin watched Su Ze training his soldiers without saying a word. After he finished watching, he said:

"Looking at the entire Luoyang, only Brigade Commander Su is training his troops."

Su Ze was somewhat pleased with himself. Isn't that right? Officers who didn't eat the blood of soldiers were already rare in Luoyang. Su Ze was the only one in Luoyang who would go to beg for alms to train soldiers.

Yu Jin had not yet been crowned and had never led troops. Su Ze showed him the results of his training, which was also a way of showing off.

But Yu Jin continued, "But I have seen that Commander Su is training his troops diligently, but the soldiers lack sharpness."

After saying this, Su Ze also sighed.

Of course Su Ze could tell whether they were elite or not.

People like Su Lin, who strictly follow orders, execute military orders meticulously, and never retreat when faced with danger, are the orange followers, the vanguard among the vanguards.

[Reckless Shield Axeman], although this type of warrior has the defect of negative attributes, he is not afraid of death when fighting in the battlefield. If used properly, he can be regarded as an elite.

Even the blue [ordinary Yulin Army] was serious when performing their tasks. Although they were a little lacking in ability, their fighting will was not weak.

The soldiers of Suzetun Cavalry Camp have been training for half a month, but according to the system's evaluation, they probably can't even be rated green.

This is the result of Su Ze taking the lead in training the soldiers these days. You should know that before Su Ze came to Tunqiying, half of the people in Tunqiying didn't know how to ride a horse!

Su Ze used the system to check the Tunqiying and found that it was a yellow area with a challenge level of only 35.

Su Ze discovered that this challenge level is also a numerical tool for evaluating power.

What does the yellow area mean? There are also level 30 strongholds of the Mahayana demons. In Su Ze's opinion, in the challenge level 30 area, the enemies are at the level of green followers.

It would be better if the Tunqi Camp was composed of a group of green followers. In Su Ze's opinion, these guys did not have much fighting spirit at all. They tried to be lazy during their daily training and were not serious when they took turns practicing riding. After several days of training by Li Tong, these guys' riding skills were still a mess.

Su Ze began to miss the group of Yu Lin who followed Prince Qinghe on hunting trips when he was selected as the vanguard. At least they were able to enforce discipline and their riding skills were superb.

However, those people were all officers in the Yulin Army. Now Su Ze was only the commander of the Tunqiying Camp and could not command those people at all. He could only give them some things on a daily basis to maintain the relationship. Only when Su Ze was promoted in the future, he would find a way to transfer them under his command.

Yu Jin suddenly raised the issue of Su Ze's military training, which surprised Su Ze very much.

Yu Jin saw Su Ze's surprised expression and sighed slightly, thinking that Su Ze would be angry if he told the truth.

Yu Jin was aloof and upright in character. He had been obsessed with military books since childhood and always spoke frankly to point out other people's problems, so he never had the opportunity to enter officialdom.

Yu Jin is regarded as "arrogant" in the circle. With this comment, officials with incompetence will naturally not recruit him. If they are rejected by Yu Jin, wouldn't that be giving him a slap in the face?

Even in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which still retained its martial spirit, arrogance could not be considered a good evaluation.

While other members of the clan were seeking to be appointed to other prefectures and counties, Yu Jin's pride made him unwilling to be inferior to others in order to make a living.

Yu Jin had basically no friends in this circle in Luoyang. Yuan Fotuo had an easy-going personality, was generous, and often praised him, so Yu Jin became friends with Yuan Fotuo. However, the two of them could not be said to be close friends.

Originally, Yu Jin looked down on Su Ze, the commander of the Tunqi Camp. This was not because of the arrogance of a child from a noble family, but because Yu Jin looked down on the Yulin group.

In Yu Jin's opinion, all the Yulin Huben soldiers of the Wei Dynasty, from the officers to the soldiers, were trash, not even as good as the soldiers from the prefectures and counties.

Yu Jin also understood that his arrogance and straightforwardness had caused him a lot of trouble, but that was his personality and he was not willing to waste any time talking to people he looked down upon.

After expressing his thoughts, Yu Jin was ready to leave.

But Su Ze immediately cupped his hands and said:
"Yu Lang, please teach me!"

When Su Ze said this, Yu Jin was stunned for a moment. Seeing Su Ze's sincere eyes, Yu Jin understood that he was really asking for advice.

Seeing Su Ze's attitude, Yu Jin's attitude also became serious. He said:

"The Art of War by Sun Tzu says that war is a matter of great importance to a state, a matter of life and death, a matter of survival and destruction, and must be carefully considered."

“So, to command the army, you must first command the people.”

Seeing that Su Ze was listening attentively, Yu Jin spoke more seriously and said:

"In a country, there are both stupid and talented people. To ensure long-term stability, we must promote talented people to high positions and reward those who contribute to the country. We must demote those without talent to lower positions and let talented people lead them. As for those who cannot serve the country and are greedy and cowardly, we must punish them with laws."

"It's the same in the army. I saw that Commander Su was training horsemanship and asked all soldiers to take turns using these twenty horses for training. This is wrong."

Su Ze immediately asked in a respectful tone: "Please teach me."

Yu Jin thought and said, "My ancestor once led a tribe and said that only a few dozen cavalrymen with good archery skills can be selected from a tribe."

"General Su gave twenty horses to everyone to train in turn. Those who are talented have to line up to wait for horse riding training, and those who are incapable are also forced to ride horse training. Is this really good?"

"Everyone takes turns training. Those who practice hard cherish every opportunity to ride a horse, but those who don't practice hard always want to cheat and slip up. In a camp, there are always few outstanding talents and many mediocre people. Everyone is the same, so the mediocre people who make up the majority will laugh at those talented people who practice hard."

Su Ze nodded repeatedly. He also discovered that during the practice, there would always be people who could not grasp the basic essentials, leaving Li Tong with no choice but to explain the basic riding skills over and over again. What Yu Jin said, where poor students united to mock and bully the top students, also happened frequently in later generations.

This Yu Jin is indeed a talented general!
Su Ze asked, "Does Yu Lang have any suggestions?"

Yu Jin said, "Divide the horses."

"what?"

“Give these twenty horses to the twenty most skilled riders for training. Promote them to officers, give them independent camps, give them better food than ordinary soldiers, and give them the power to punish lazy soldiers.”

Su Ze thought about it carefully and felt that Yu Jin’s suggestion was correct.

His core idea is to select "arms of arms".

"Arms" refers to the top soldiers in the army. They are selected and allowed to enjoy better treatment, become grassroots officers, and are superior to ordinary soldiers.

A kind person cannot command an army. Su Ze used to think that if he treated his soldiers kindly, he would gain their wholehearted support. And if he worked hard for the cavalry camp, the soldiers would also train hard.

But in fact, Su Ze was overthinking.

People are lazy, especially when there are many people around.

The other Yulin troops also had large and small drills. Although the food was worse and more military pay was deducted, there was nothing much to do on weekdays.

The cavalry camp not only required training, but also strict military discipline, and soon some soldiers expressed dissatisfaction. The same was true for training, with some being lazy and cunning.

The soldiers in the Tunqi Battalion are just ordinary soldiers. They are not like Su Ze who has foreseen the future and knows that the world will be in chaos and is racing against time to improve themselves. What the soldiers care about is this month's military pay and whether their bodies will be sore when they go home today.

After changing his mindset, Su Ze immediately asked Su Lin to beat the drum and summon all the soldiers to the parade ground.

When all the soldiers gathered on the parade ground, Su Ze selected twenty soldiers one by one, and had the twenty horses presented by Princess Chenliu pulled to the parade ground.

Su Ze trained with the soldiers and could see who had stronger abilities and who trained harder. He called out the names of fifteen men from the army and asked them to step forward.

The soldiers of the Tunqi Camp didn't understand why Su Ze suddenly gathered them. When they saw Su Ze named fifteen people, all fifteen people who were named were nervous.

Su Ze looked at the fifteen people and said, "Starting tomorrow, you don't have to come to the Cavalry Camp for training."

As soon as the voice fell, everyone was shocked, and they only heard Su Ze say: "I will report to the school lieutenant's office and transfer you to other camps."

Hearing this, the fifteen people felt embarrassed and nervous.

After Su Ze took over the Tunqiying, he did not cut back on military pay or food, and did not require them to serve their superiors. It was indeed much better than before.

However, they have to do a short exercise every three days and additional riding training on weekdays, which makes them start to be lazy and slack off.

These people were all veteran soldiers. After being kicked out of the Tunqiying Camp by Su Ze, some of them took the lead and said, "I don't want to do this anymore! Let's go!"

After saying this, they took off their helmets, threw away their weapons and prepared to leave, but Su Ze suddenly said:

"I was talking about tomorrow. Who told you to take off your armor now?"

"Come here! Take them away! How dare you take off your armor without permission in the parade grounds!"

Li Tong stood up and said, "Twenty strokes of the cane."

"Execution!"

Caning was the lightest punishment in the army. At this time, Su Ze's prestige of eating and living together with the soldiers was reflected. Immediately, someone came forward to arrest these fifteen veteran soldiers and began to cane them.

When the torture was over, the fifteen people looked at Su Ze with hatred, and one of them shouted:

"You and I want to stay in the Cavalry Camp? Just to have an extra meal and train day and night! Are you guys stupid?"

This time, Su Ze did not pay any attention to them or try to stop them. Instead, he named eighteen more people while cursing.

The eighteen men stepped forward tremblingly. This time, Su Ze personally walked down the training ground, led a horse and came in front of a soldier.

"You have been training hard, and this brigade commander has seen it. From now on, the entire battalion will no longer conduct equestrian training."

Some soldiers breathed a sigh of relief immediately. Riding training had been their nightmare these days. They suffered from back pain after practicing every day.

Only the eighteen soldiers selected by Su Ze felt a little regretful, as they trained the hardest on weekdays.

Su Ze handed the reins to the first soldier and said:

"Yang Chounu, this horse is yours from now on. From tomorrow on, the eighteen of you will be team leaders and each of you will be given a war horse. Only you will continue with your riding training."

The soldier named Yang Chounu looked at Su Ze in disbelief. He came from a poor family but had loved horses since he was a child, so he especially cherished the opportunity for riding training.

Since Su Ze took charge of the Tunqi Camp, he has trained most diligently and cherished every training opportunity.

Yang Chounu was originally very depressed when he heard that Su Ze would no longer conduct riding training, but he did not expect that Su Ze personally gave him a war horse and promoted him to team leader!
The market price of the best war horses in the army is as high as forty pieces of silk!
Yang Chounu could never afford such a good horse in his life, but Su Ze gave it to him on the spot.

Yang Chounu was so grateful that tears and snot came out. Su Ze patted his shoulder and said, "Train him well, and I will buy you a better horse in the future!"

After the eighteen people received the reins handed over by Su Ze himself, they stood side by side in the parade ground. Su Ze pointed at the remaining two horses and said:

"Anyone else want a horse?"

The remaining soldiers looked at the new captains who were awarded horses with envy. The salary of a captain was much higher than that of ordinary soldiers. More importantly, war horses were precious, and owning a horse of one's own was the dream of many people.

Even the fifteen men who were flogged looked at the soldiers who were given horses with enthusiastic eyes. These were top-quality war horses!
Among the remaining soldiers, some regretted not training well in their daily lives, while others were unwilling to accept the result and thought that they were better than these eighteen people.

Su Ze said, "From tomorrow on, they will be the team leaders. Anyone who is not convinced today can ride a horse to compete with them. Whoever can outrun them will be awarded these two horses."

Hearing this, the remaining soldiers started to make a commotion. After a while, another soldier came forward, clasped his fists towards Su Ze and asked:
"Commander, are you serious?"

"No jokes in the army!"

The soldier's name was Zhang Jian. He stepped forward, picked out the smallest of the eighteen, Yang Chounu, and said, "I want to compete with him!"

Yang Chounu snorted coldly. Zhang Jian's family background was better than his. He relied on his good nutrition when he was a child and was taller than him, so he often bullied him.

He also often laughed at his own people for practicing riding seriously, but not as excessively as the fifteen people who were fired.

"Compete!"

Yu Jin stood on the parade platform and watched the two men mount their horses at the same time and start racing on the parade ground.

As expected, although Yang Chounu, who was favored by Su Ze, was not good-looking, he was very talented in horse riding. He quickly distanced himself from Zhang Jian and won the competition with a huge advantage.

After the competition was over, Su Ze asked again: "Are there still those who are dissatisfied?"

The remaining soldiers lowered their heads and no one dared to show up again.

Su Ze stepped onto the martial arts stage again and said solemnly: "The country has its own laws, and the army has its own regulations. Today, I reiterate the military order. All those who are in the right position in the army..."

Su Ze reiterated the captain's privileges and said, "There are vacancies in the army, so we will temporarily have five people per team. From now on, you will be under the jurisdiction of Captain Yang."

This included Zhang Jian, who had just lost in the competition.

Zhang Jian's face turned pale. He had bullied Yang Chounu so often in daily life. Now that he was transferred to work under him, he didn't know how much revenge he would suffer in the future.

Finally, Su Ze pointed at the two horses that had not been awarded and said, "We will have another military exercise in the parade ground in a month. Those who stand out can be made captains or given horses. Now we are dismissed!"

After the soldiers dispersed, Yu Jin said to Su Ze: "Su Lang, you can't give away the war horses in the army privately! I only asked you to train them, not to give them directly as rewards!"

(End of this chapter)