Sun Tu, who was far away in Qingzhou, didn't know that he had been regarded as a thorn in his eyes by Gao Qiu and Liang Shicheng, and wanted to get rid of him and get out of here. Of course, even if he really knew the attitude of the two, he might not be too relieved. Staying away from the court, Qingzhou is his territory. Are you still afraid of them?

And the more important point is that Sun Tu is now devoted to the two major issues of comforting the people and strengthening the army, so he has no intention of worrying about other details.

Although the control of Qingzhou was regained and those officials killed, the military and civilians in Qingzhou were still seriously injured. It was not possible to make up for it by killing a few officials to expel the anger. For more than half a year, the people have lived a difficult life, and many people have been wrongly imprisoned or forced to enlist in the army. Some even fled directly and stayed away from Qingzhou. This is a place of failure.

Therefore, after Sun Tu re-in charge, the first thing he had to do was to release the people and give them enough compensation. As for the old and weak people who were forcibly recruited into the army, they naturally had to let them go. Fortunately, officials such as Gao Xiang did not transport away the money they plundered from here. After the money taken from the people of Qingzhou was confiscated by Sun Tu, they would return it to the people, so the government did not need to provide additional compensation.

With Sun Tu's proper handling and comfort, the people of Qingzhou, who had already respected him, naturally settled down again. Shortly after the news came out, some fugitives returned one after another. At this time, people were most at ease. If they hadn't really lost their way, who would have been willing to leave their hometowns and work hard to make a living?

The people's problems are actually solved. It is even more difficult to regain a Qingzhou army like the one more than a year ago. Because the Qingzhou army suffered too much damage this time, not only ordinary soldiers were killed or killed, but also middle and lower-level officers were not even ten. If they wanted to train, they had to re-explored talents, which could not be achieved in a short period of time.

The only benefit is that the army has sufficient money and food. The Qingzhou army was considered a wealthy village army in hundreds of prefectures in the Song Dynasty. This was not only because Sun Tu would not deduct the military pay for his soldiers, but also because they had previously pacified the bandits of the three mountains, thus obtaining a large amount of money, grain and property. These materials were piled up in the military warehouse a year ago.

In fact, all the money and grains were embezzled into his pockets by He Mo and others, but like Gao Xiang and others, they did not rush to send the corruption proceeds out of Qingzhou, but just kept them in their mansion. When Sun Tu came back and caught them all, all the property, including the family assets they brought from elsewhere, also fell into the hands of the Qingzhou army, which increased the military supplies.

However, sufficient money and food still cannot solve the problem of scarcity of soldiers. Even though Sun Tu has sent people to convey messages everywhere in the past month and has sent out various list documents, the number of veterans of Qingzhou Army who have returned is still not large, only two or three hundred.

This is easy to understand. Although the Qingzhou army at its peak had 5,000 or 6,000 people, nearly half of them were surrendered troops of the bandits in Sanshan. At that time, they were forced to join the Qingzhou army in order to save their lives, and they were far from fully returning.

After experiencing the past six months of changes, especially after seeing the unnecessary casualties, these people naturally had the idea of ​​escaping. So even if they really saw Sun Tu’s essay elsewhere, they would never come back. Those who could come back were all local soldiers from Qingzhou, and they were also considered core members of the Qingzhou army.

As a result, whenever in and out, the number of Qingzhou troops is not much different from when Sun Tu returned. There are still less than two thousand soldiers. The only thing that is thankful is that the combat effectiveness has been greatly improved.

The daily training also started again. The military camp that had been silent for more than half a year, and the sound of uniformity sounded again. It was spreading from all over the city to make the people feel at ease. In the past, it was not clear that since the changes in the past six months, everyone discovered that the Qingzhou Army had become the guardian god in everyone's mind. Only when they heard the sound of training were safe.

But Sun Tu was obviously not satisfied with this. He has been thinking about ways to recruit troops from other places for a while, but as of now, the effect is not obvious.

Today, after coming out of the military camp, Sun Tu gathered all the important people under his command. After everyone gathered, he was surprised to find that there was a special person in the hall - Hu Rong. Although she was dressed in a manly outfit at this time, she looked particularly heroic, but the unique soft and charming aura of women was still very different from the masculinity of everyone.

Everyone actually recognized Hu Rong and knew how much she had made to Sun Tu before. Many people secretly believed that she would become Sun Dujian's second wife one day. But even though she has a noble status, it still surprised that she appeared in such a serious meeting. I wonder what Sun Dujian sold in it.

Hu Rong also felt a little awkward when sitting among the large group of men. From time to time, he looked at Sun Tu who was sitting upright above. If he hadn't forced himself to come, he would have wanted to leave on excuses.

After everyone arrived, Sun Tu ignored everyone's strange eyes and asked Qi Desheng first: "Are there many soldiers who have come back recently?"

Qi Desheng smiled bitterly and shook his head: "At the beginning, there were dozens of brothers coming back every day, but now there are still one or two people coming back a day. I'm afraid it will be difficult for our army to increase further in the future."

Sun Tu frowned: "Then is there any progress in recruiting troops in other states?"

The answer was Yang Zhi this time. He also opened his face bitterly and said, "Last year, there were really many people coming to join the army, but this year's situation was completely different, and almost few people came. This should be affected by the heavy casualties of our Qingzhou army before. In addition, the Liangshan bandits are now very powerful. Everyone knows that after joining the army, they will likely go to fight with the Liangshan bandits, and ordinary people dare not come."

"Yes, the century-old promotion of literature and military suppression has caused most of my Song Dynasty men to dissipate blood." Sun Tu also said with a worrying look: "But only relying on these two thousand people at present, let alone making achievements, it is very difficult to defend the land of Qingzhou, which is a little bit more. So I think the soldiers still have to find ways to expand!"

"It's not easy... Unless you use the same methods as Gao Xiang and others to force the men to join the army, it will be difficult to achieve results in a short period of time." Huang Wenbing said without much confidence.

Looking at everyone's frowning look, Hu Rong was also a little anxious, but she didn't understand the facts very much, and couldn't say anything to boost people's hearts for a while, so she could only bow her head. But then, she found that Sun Tu was looking at her at this moment, which made her both ashamed and a little confused. What was he staring at herself at this time?

Others also discovered this and were also full of doubts, but they did not ask questions for a while, which made the scene a little awkward. After seeing Hu Rong for a while, Sun Tu slowly spoke: "I originally didn't plan to use this method, but now it seems that only in this way can I strengthen my Qingzhou army in a short period of time."

"Is there any way to do it?" Everyone was suddenly excited and asked quickly. With their understanding of Sun Tu, he would never talk nonsense about such a big thing, and he must have really had an idea.

Sun Tu looked at Hu Rong and said, "There are too many male men in Qingzhou City that have joined the army, so it is natural that they cannot force other young and strong people to join the army. But this city is not only men who are willing to serve the country, but women are actually the same, so I plan to recruit women in the city and train an elite female soldier!"

"What?"

"this……"

Everyone in the hall exclaimed in surprise, all of whom were in disbelief. If it weren't for the fact that this was really said from Sun Tu, they would have thought it was someone who was so stupid that he said crazy!

Who would have thought that Sun Tu would put his ideas on the woman in order to solve the problem of the shortage of Qingzhou army? He actually planned to practice female soldiers. Not to mention his experience, everyone has never even heard of it. What's the use of a group of weak women joining the army?

After a while of silence, Lu Da was the first to speak: "Sanlang...Maintain, don't make any mistakes in solving the problems of the soldiers. This woman has never heard of as a soldier. How can they go on battle and kill the enemy?"

"Yes, Dujian. Once this matter is done, the people in the world will think of our Qingzhou army. At that time, the court will think that the Qingzhou army is not in good shape!" Yang Zhi also spoke out and persuaded.

"It's fine if you are a woman who takes care of her husband and children at home, and it's just a matter of sewing and repairing them, but what's the point of picking up a sword or a gun..."

Everyone was talking about their objections. Before Sun Tu could react, Hu Rong's pretty face turned red and her eyes were filled with anger. After enduring for a while, she finally plucked up her courage and shouted: "Who said that women must not be as good as men? If you don't believe it, you can compete with me!"

"Well, Sanniang has always been a woman of men. Yang Zhi, Qi Desheng. Do you really dare to say that you can defeat him?" Sun Tu asked with a smile while everyone was stunned, but this made it difficult to answer these things. He could only stop talking and not argue with Hu Rong.

The smile on Sun Tu's face gradually faded away, and he said seriously: "In the fields of Qingzhou City, we can always see many women working hard on behalf of their husbands. There are many things at home that are helping men. So why can't women replace men when joining the army? Sanniang's martial arts are not inferior to you, so other women can be trained into a elite army of hundreds of battles. Since Qingzhou men can no longer be recruited, why can't they recruit some women?"

These questions were thrown out one by one, and none of them could answer them. At the same time, they also understood that Sun Tu was probably planning this matter long ago, and today he came just to convince them.
Chapter completed!