Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1090 Entrustment
When Cao Cao thought of his two sons, he became more and more annoyed. No matter what Cao Zhi and Cao Pi would achieve in the future, even if they could grow up, they would not play any role in the current situation because they were too young. What Cao Ying needed now was someone who could take charge immediately!
Because Cao Cao focused on his official career when he was young, he did not have many children. He was thankful to have a son like Cao Ang who was flawless in every way. He thought it would be safe to have him by his side. Unexpectedly, in the Battle of Wancheng, Cao Ang and Cao Anmin were killed, and Cao Cao almost died as well. This was the most devastating loss Cao Cao suffered since he started fighting for the world.

Whenever Cao Cao thought of him, he wanted to kill Yuan Xi as soon as possible. Of course, Cao Cao knew that Yuan Xi felt the same way about him. He destroyed the Yuan family and killed Yuan Shao. Yuan Xi also wanted to defeat him completely to avenge himself, right?
It is unknown whether the Cao family will fail in the future. Cao Cao dare not lose, nor can he afford to lose. He can only muster up all his strength and fight with Yuan Xi until the day when the winner is decided.

However, it seems that his body is about to collapse. Cao Cao dare not imagine how the Cao family will deal with an opponent like Yuan Xi after his death, coupled with Liu Bei and other enemies of the Cao family. Therefore, he cannot fall down now, and he must not fall down!

He began to write secret orders one after another, dispatching the troops of Jizhou, Yanzhou, Yuzhou and Sili. Since the evil tiger wanted to plot against him next year, he would prepare for it in advance and strike first if necessary!

As the days passed, autumn was coming to an end and winter was approaching. Wars became less frequent in the world and the country gradually entered a temporary period of calm.

Yuan Xi was in the military camp outside Jicheng, supervising the training of Zhao Yun and others.

This group of new soldiers were recruited and trained by Gao Shun in Bingzhou. Their composition was quite complex, including Han, Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Qiang people.

Because of the harsh climate and the tough customs of the You and Bing people, they have developed a habit of advocating the use of force. In the north where Hu and Han people live together and food is limited, if you want to survive, you have to be stronger than others to get a better chance of survival.

The soldiers from You and Bing grew up in such an environment, which made them naturally better at fighting than the soldiers from the Central Plains and Jiangdong. Of course, there were such examples in Jiangnan in later generations, such as the Yiwu soldiers recruited by Qi Jiguang. Because the local area was poor and the villagers fought every day and were extremely stubborn, they were fearless in battle.

In times of chaos, peaceful and wealthy places cannot produce soldiers with high combat effectiveness. This is why there are few strong soldiers in places like Xuzhou and Jingzhou. Most of the soldiers who can fight are from poor people and thieves. Jiangdong also relies on the Danyang soldiers from the Shanyue area to maintain its appearance.

As for Yuan Xi's forces, Youzhou is naturally an excellent place to produce soldiers, but in recent years, with the improvement of Youzhou's overall living environment, a side effect has inevitably occurred.

The living conditions of the people in the core area of ​​Youzhou have been greatly improved, and the number of people engaged in agriculture, commerce, and handicrafts has greatly increased. They rely on the dividends brought by the improvement of Youzhou's advanced tool technology. As long as they work hard, it is enough to support their family.

In the past, when the princes were fighting, if the common people wanted to support their families on their own, they could only join the army and fight for their lives. Now, if they can earn a similar living cost in a stable and peaceful environment, why would they still join the army?

As a result, the number of Youzhou soldiers decreased year by year as their living conditions improved. Yuan Xi knew that this was the general trend, so he did not deliberately try to stop or change this phenomenon.

His countermeasures were, on the one hand, to increase the soldiers' salaries accordingly, and on the other hand, to find suitable soldiers from the barren border areas.

After all, in troubled times, there is no shortage of lower-class people who want to join the army and change the fate of themselves and their families. After Yuan Xi occupied Bingzhou, he recruited new soldiers mainly from Bingzhou in the past two years.

Although the Bingzhou soldiers had good physical fitness, because Bingzhou had long been at the center of conflicts among various ethnic groups, the soldiers were unruly and extremely difficult to manage. The solution Yuan Xi came up with was to train the soldiers step by step.

After recruiting soldiers, Gao Shun, who was stationed in Bingzhou, first trained the new recruits using the methods of the soldiers in the Xianzhen Camp. After honing their morale for half a year, he sent them to Jicheng for rotation training.

The people who trained the new recruits in Jicheng were Ju Shou, Zhao Yun and others. Although their methods were gentler than Gao Shun's, the focus of training shifted from military training to education.

Education includes knowledge, writing and labor. The former is to enable soldiers to have basic tactical qualities. Trained soldiers must be able to understand the orders and combat intentions conveyed from above and have certain organizational skills.

Soldiers trained in this way will at least have the qualities of a sergeant or even a squad leader, rather than being stupid privates who only know how to follow orders.

Although this approach costs a lot of time and money, it also has many benefits.

First, when the team encounters a tough battle, the losses are heavy, and the squad leader is killed in battle, there are still others who can take over.

Secondly, when temporarily conscripting soldiers to expand the number of soldiers, there are enough junior officers to lead the recruits to execute orders, rather than throwing them onto the battlefield like a pile of loose sand, leaving the recruits to fend for themselves, which not only often has a negative effect.

So although Yuan Xi's soldiers seemed few in number, they were able to deal with many emergencies, just like the last Battle of Hefei where he defeated Sun Quan. Yuan Xi incorporated tens of thousands of surrendered Jiangdong Shanyue soldiers and completed the reorganization in a very short time. Later, they played a significant role in defending Shouchun which was attacked by Cao's army.

In addition to knowledge education, what is more important is labor education, allowing soldiers to participate in labor with local people and live and eat together.

When Yuan Xi first promoted this approach, many of his generals did not understand it. But after two years of implementation, the generals gradually discovered the mystery behind it.

Most of the soldiers in Yuan Xi's army came from the lower-class working people. It was fine for such people in times of peace, but if they were not guided in times of chaos, they would cross the bottom line in order to survive and do things that hurt other lower-class people.

They can become refugees or bandits. They can revolt to rescue others, but they will plunder and kill civilians due to lack of military rations.

This force, if not properly restrained, will backfire, and Yuan Xi's approach is to make them realize that the meaning of war is not only victory, but also protection. Military law can certainly achieve this, but in the final analysis, it still requires the most simple, natural class feelings, that is, they farm together with the people, help each other, and even understand each other.

This approach seemed to have no direct benefits, but the generals under Yuan Xi clearly felt that after their soldiers conquered a place, the calls for massacre in the city were greatly reduced.

You have to know that in this era, it was rare not to massacre the people when attacking a city. After all, the soldiers hoped to massacre the people and loot the women and property. If they were to stop this idea, they would have to give them greater benefits. Otherwise, they would most likely be like the Qingzhou soldiers under Cao Cao, always on the verge of rioting.

The increased salary for the soldiers was obviously not as profitable as the massacre in the city. The reason why the soldiers could remain relatively rational after fighting for so many years was largely due to the labor education.

Now Yuan Xi was on the high platform in the parade ground, and Zhao Yun was riding on a horse below the platform, holding a wooden spear in his hand, leading the cavalry to gallop across the field. Wherever the wooden spear went, the cavalry of the other side fell off their horses one after another.

Although Zhao Yun was using a wooden spear and everyone was wearing armor, they were still unable to stop Zhao Yun's charge. Although his opponent Yan Rou was good at riding and shooting, he was much worse than Zhao Yun in close combat, so he was defeated one after another and was on the verge of defeat.

Sitting next to Yuan Xi was Taishi Ci, who was half leaning on a wooden chair, wearing a fur coat. Although the weather was not too cold at the moment, Taishi Ci's health was deteriorating and he dared not catch a cold, otherwise he would suffer a serious illness.

In fact, Taishi Ci's health had already failed as early as the last battle of Hefei. It was very difficult for him to walk, sit or lie down. He had less than 30% of his fighting strength left. The fact that he was able to kill Han Dang in a battle was already an above-average performance.

From then on, Taishi Ci completely withdrew from the position of commander-in-chief and devoted himself to training troops in the Jianghuai navy.

This time, Taishi Ci came to Jicheng in person to bid farewell to Yuan Xi.

Yuan Xi understood that for a proud man like Taishi Ci, making such a decision would undoubtedly be very difficult. It was precisely because of Taishi Ci's self-esteem that he was unwilling to continue to receive a salary in the army for free.

Next to Taishi Ci is his only son, Taishi Xiang. He was a snotty-nosed kid a few years ago, but now he is a ten-year-old boy. He has grown taller and has some of his father's charm.

However, Taishi Ci said that he had no talent for martial arts and did not let him learn martial arts, but let him concentrate on studying. Yuan Xi had tested him several times before and found that Taishi Xiang answered them quite well.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuan Xi saw Taishi Ci staring at Zhao Yun in the audience, his fingers on the handles of the wooden chair trembling slightly. At first he thought Taishi Ci was chilled, but then he discovered that the rhythm of his fingers matched the timing of Zhao Yun's gun draw, and then he realized that Taishi Ci was simulating the moves he would use in a fight with Zhao Yun.

Yuan Xi sighed inwardly. Taishi Ci must have felt very unwilling when he was once able to compete with Sun Ce on equal terms, but now he could only lie down and watch his peers perform martial arts.

Taishi Ci felt Yuan Xi's gaze, so he turned his head and said to Yuan Xi, "Ci went to the tombs of Wen Hou and Dezhou to pay homage the day before yesterday."

"Both of them were famous in the north, but both died in battle. However, they became neighbors after death, which made Ci very envious."

"I originally wanted to be buried in the same place as you two after my death. Maybe I could drink and chat happily with you two in the afterlife. But my mother insisted that I return to my hometown, so I had no choice but to obey. I am afraid that I will never see you again."

Yuan Xi felt a little uncomfortable and consoled him, "Ziyi, take care of your health. You still have a long life ahead of you."

Taishi Ci laughed, "Thank you for your kind words, my lord."

He changed the subject and said, "It is useless for my useless son Ci to follow me. Besides, Ci has many enemies. I hope that the lord can arrange a job for him as a gatekeeper so that he can live a peaceful life. Ci will be very grateful."

Yuan Xi said in a deep voice: "Don't worry, Ziyi, this child is talented in literature. I will let him accompany Rui'er to study."

A trace of relief flashed across Taishi Ci's eyes, and he shouted to Taishi Xiang, "Hurry up and kneel down to thank the lord!"

Taishi Xiang came up to pay his respects obediently. Yuan Xi pulled him up and said to Taishi Ci, "Ziyi, take good care of your health. I want you to see the peaceful and prosperous times we have created together."

Taishi Ci said in a deep voice: "Whether you live or die, Ci will watch, and will always remember the days under my lord's command."

Both of them were silent. For a moment, the only sound between heaven and earth was the neighing of horses in the parade ground. This sound, accompanied by the sound of the wind blowing from the sky, spread far in all directions, giving off a faint sense of sadness and grandeur.

(End of this chapter)