It was a chilly winter. It was snowing in the north.
With Jiang Pengji's financial and food support, An Cui's work of recruiting people in the Red Lotus Group went very smoothly.
An Cui was a smart man. Even if he had to recruit and buy the hearts of the people at the bottom of the Red Lotus Group, he didn't let his guard down. He didn't pick people who were very eye-catching. He specifically picked people who could be useful but had a low presence and were more reliable. Unknowingly, he had already won over hundreds of people.
On the other side, Jiang Pengji put the focus of this winter's work on three things.
Recruiting talents, recruiting soldiers, and training troops.
The first task was thrown to Feng Jin and Wei Ci. The former was familiar with the situation in Shangyang County, while the latter was meticulous and methodical in his work.
With the two of them working together, Jiang Pengji didn't have to worry that no one would take the bait.
The second task was given to Feng Zhen. Jiang Pengji had just taken over Shangyang County. Her territory had doubled in size out of nowhere. The 20,000 soldiers and horses that were considered plentiful were not enough. It was imperative to recruit more soldiers and buy more horses. Feng Zhen was too lazy. He hugged his blanket and slept until noon in the middle of winter.
Jiang Pengji couldn't stand it anymore, so she simply gave him heavy work. What if he couldn't finish or slacked off halfway?
Hehe, for the whole year next year, he wouldn't get a drop of wine!
Feng Zhen's already pale face suddenly turned as white as a sheet when he heard Jiang Pengji's words.
With a lord like this, Feng Zhen wanted to jump ship at any moment.
Forbidding a prodigal son from drinking?
What did humans do?
However, his thin and small arms couldn't win against Jiang Pengji's powerful legs. Feng Zhen could only do as she said. After a few days, heavy eye bags appeared under his eyes. He secretly bit his handkerchief at Wei Ci. "Zixiao, according to this situation, will the seven days of rest during the New Year still count?"
Wei Ci comforted him gently. "A gentleman keeps his word. My lord doesn't make promises easily. Once she makes a promise, she will definitely keep it. "
However, Jiang Pengji wasn't a "gentleman." She was a "woman."
Wei Ci silently swallowed his words back into his stomach. His face was still smiling like a lily — a man with his own background music and background music.
Feng Zhen had only joined this group in the middle of the year. He didn't know the practices of previous years, so he reluctantly believed Wei Ci.
To be honest, recruiting soldiers was not a hard task, but Jiang Pengji pursued the path of "elite soldiers."
When other people recruited soldiers, they trained for a month or two, or even three to five days before they could be deployed to the battlefield.
She was different.
Winter training lasted for three months, summer training for three months, spring ploughing and autumn harvesting, and daily training went on day after day.
According to Feng Zhen's understanding, Jiang Pengji had 20,000 elite soldiers under her command. Every soldier had to go through a rigorous training period before they entered the battlefield.
In Jiang Pengji's words, a soldier who had not undergone rigorous training could not be considered a soldier. An unqualified soldier was not suitable for the battlefield. It was more suitable for him to go home and drink milk from his mother. Such a soldier would be cannon fodder on the battlefield. Apart from sacrificing his own life, what else could he do?
Therefore, there was a certain threshold for Jiang Pengji to recruit soldiers. Not everyone could enter.
As the person in charge of this mission, Feng Zhen was in charge of it. He also needed to register every recruit who successfully "applied."
After a few days, Feng Zhen felt like he couldn't even straighten his right hand. He had held the brush for too long, and his fingers were stiff.
"By the way, you haven't found the right person yet?"
Even a carefree prodigal like Feng Zhen couldn't help but go berserk when faced with such a heavy workload.
He finally understood why Qiguan Rang, who was in charge of the Household Registration Department, always had a deadpan expression on his face, as if everyone owed him a million strings of coins.
Wei Ci and Feng Jin leisurely sipped their tea.
"No rush, no rush. The net has been cast. I have a feeling that the rewards this time will be bountiful."
Feng Zhen wanted to spit on him. "I'd be a fool to believe you!"
They recruited talents. To put it bluntly, they held all kinds of poetry gatherings and invited the scholars of Shangyang County to participate. On the surface, they only talked about romance and not politics. In reality, they used this opportunity to understand the temperament, abilities, and talents of the scholars.
If they felt that it was not bad, they would test the other party's willingness in private.
What made Feng Zhen most envious was that all the expenses were paid by Jiang Pengji. Feng Jin and Wei Ci enjoyed it at public expense.
Because of this, Feng Zhen couldn't help but suspect that the two of them were deliberately slacking off so that they could enjoy it longer.
F * ck!
These two animals were so shameless. Why didn't they bring him for such a good thing?
If they didn't want to bring him, then so be it. Why didn't Feng Zhen see a single talent for half a month?
No talent meant that Feng Zhen had no helpers for his work.
"If you guys slack off, be careful that my lord will complain about you."
Feng Jin couldn't help but laugh. Not only was he not angry, but he was happy.
What did this mean?
It meant that Feng Zhen was already suffocating from the heavy workload. He was exhausted from working overtime.
As for the third task, training the troops, Jiang Pengji directly threw it to the generals.
Similarly, the female troops were all trained by Jiang Nongqin.
In the previous battles, there were a few female troops who performed well. They were all praised and promoted. Now, they were also acting as instructors to train the new female troops. However, Shangyang County was a special area. It was prejudiced against female troops, so there weren't many female troops recruited. There were only about a thousand of them.
To be able to recruit more than a thousand people, it was because too many people couldn't afford to keep them. They sent them over dubiously.
On the other hand, the recruitment of male troops went smoothly. The total number of men reached 8,000.
"You're really something. Zi Shi's ability is really impressive. How long has it been? You've already recruited so many people? "Jiang Pengji was surprised.
Feng Zhen smiled bitterly. He admitted that he was capable, but he didn't dare to take all the credit for this matter.
"My lord, you're exaggerating. How is this true ability? It's clearly because my lord is too generous and the conditions are too good. "
Although Shangyang County hadn't been conquered by the Tsing Yi Army or the Red Lotus Group, it had been besieged for a long time. Moreover, there was a great drought this summer. The entire year's harvest wasn't high. The people's lives were poor. Some people's food was mixed with pig's feed.
Why was Jiang Pengji said to be generous?
The recruitment notice she gave clearly stated that the troops had three meals a day. Each meal consisted of two bowls of rice, one vegetable dish, one meat dish, and one soup.
Afraid that the people wouldn't understand, the notice also stated the weight of the two bowls of rice and the ingredients for the meat and vegetable dishes.
The notice had 200 words. 160 words were recipes, and the other 40 words were recruitment requirements.
This was probably the weirdest recruitment notice Feng Zhen had ever seen in his life.
Jiang Pengji obediently recruited and trained the troops. She didn't make any moves against the aristocrats of Shangyang County.
This instead made the latter suspicious. They were afraid that she would launch a surprise attack.
In the end, Jiang Pengji only changed some unimportant positions. There weren't any lucrative positions. The people who were replaced were still the poor local scholars.
Although it was a little painful, it was still within the acceptable range of the local aristocrats.
Seeing that the end of the year was approaching, Jiang Pengji was doing the year-end statistics. The messenger outside reported that the nominal county chief of Shangyang County had come to visit.
She thought about the date. It wasn't the time to pay a New Year's greeting, was it?
"Invite him in."
Jiang Pengji said.
The county chief brought her an opened letter. When she opened it, it was stamped with the words: "Blessed by the heavens, I will live long and prosper."
The imperial jade seal?
She was surprised. She quickly scanned through the contents of the letter.
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