In the first month of the third year of Guangshun, the weather was as cold as usual. The political situation in the Great Zhou Dynasty was undergoing a secret change.

His majesty, Guo Wei, who was seriously ill, appointed Chai Rong as the chief tutor of the procurator and the chief of the procuratorate, was appointed as the chief of Jin, and promoted him to the prefecture of Kaifeng and the chief of the military affairs inside and outside. His adopted daughter Fu was named the Lady of Wei. Knowing that the Taizu Guo Wei was not many years old, he finally chose the heir to the throne.

In Cangzhou, the new Cangzhou Jiedushi and the Chief Procurator Li Hui also took office and came to Cangzhou, which had just experienced turbulence. As soon as Li Hui arrived in Cangzhou, Cao Han, the young general who was temporarily guarding Cangzhou, was about to return to Chanzhou.

The morning before Cao Han left, he did not notify Hou Dayong and brought his personal guards directly to the Black Eagle Army camp.

Cao Han knew that Taibao Chai Rong asked Hou Dayong to lead 1,200 military and horses that day, which had three meanings: First, to win over Hou Dayong. Taibao Chai Rong directly appointed him from a fugitive as the commander of the fifth rank, in order to make Hou Dayong be known for his kindness; Second, Taibao admired Hou Dayong's military talents, and letting him lead 1,200 military and horses was a test of his actual command and organizational ability, to see whether he was a real general or Ma Su; Third, Cangzhou is located on the border and needs a guard, and the elite soldiers cannot be all concentrated in Li Hui's hands. Chai Rong still remembers the lessons of the past.

As soon as Cao Han arrived at the military camp, he was stopped by the soldiers. The school beside Cao Han scolded and said, "It's General Cao." The soldiers bowed and said, "I recognize General Cao, but the commander of the Black Eagle Army has an order. No one is allowed to enter the camp, otherwise I will be severely punished, please don't blame the general."

At this time, Kuang Cao, the officer on duty at the Hu Camp, happened to pass by. When he saw that it was Cao Han, he quickly ordered it to be released. Kuang Cao was Cao Han's old subordinate and said respectfully: "Don't blame him, General, this is the order of General Hou. Without the officer on duty, no one is allowed to enter. If he is released privately, he will be severely punished."

"It should be like this, it's okay." Cao Han said as he walked into the camp gate and saw two slogans engraved on wooden signs and stood on both sides. One was "Sweat more in peacetime" and the other was "Free bleeding during wartime."

"Okay, okay, these two well-written truths with profound connotations are simple and clear, catchy, and the soldiers are easy to understand and remember." Seeing that the barracks were rectified, Cao Han was very energetic, and he kept nodding and admiring. However, he soon discovered a question. The entire barracks were empty and there were no soldiers to practice, and Hou Dayong and other officers were nowhere to be seen. He asked Kuang Cao: "Where has the commander Hou Du arrived?"

Kuang Cao said: "Except for a lieutenant on duty and on guard, all the soldiers in the battalion have to run ten miles of cross-country every morning."

"What is the subject of ten-mile cross-country?"

Before Kuang Cao could answer, Cao Han heard the sound of running "Long, roar" coming from outside the camp gate.

Hou Dayong ran in front of him with his clothes covered in sweat. Seeing Cao Han, Hou Dayong raised his hand and the soldiers stopped. Although the soldiers from outside kept pouring in, they were still not messy and very neat.

"Mr. Commander Hou Du, what kind of military tactics are you practicing?"

"General, the subject we are practicing is called Shili Cross-country Run."

"This is not included in the charter set by the Privy Council."

"The Black Eagle Army has a lot of lessons in the charter set by the Privy Council. This is the practice method I learned from the beasts in the mountains. Sergeants run in full armed space to enhance the physical fitness of the sergeants, and can practice formation."

At that time, the Central Plains infantry was mainly used for defense and positional warfare, and cavalry were used for breakthroughs, so there was no running subject. When Cao Han saw the Black Eagle Army running, he was a little strange. It was reasonable to hear Hou Dayong's explanation. He knew that five-kilometer cross-country was a compulsory course for modern army. Of course, Hou Dayong could not explain it clearly to him, so he simply used the saying of a beast to make excuses.

Seeing that although the training of the Black Eagle Army was strange, Cao Han was strict and the military camp was in order, and the soldiers advanced and retreated in an orderly manner. In just one month, the Black Eagle Army was already very powerful, so he didn't ask much, and his evaluation of Hou Dayong was a little higher in his heart.

Cao Han briefly introduced the important personnel changes in the Great Zhou Dynasty to Hou Dayong, and said that he would return to Chanzhou. The new Jiedushi and the Chief Procurator Li Hui had arrived in Cangzhou. He would hold a dinner at the Jiedushi's mansion tonight to welcome Li Hui and send Cao Han. All the civil and military officials of Cangzhou must attend.

"Houlang, Cangzhou is an important town in the north. The King of Jin ordered you to be in Cangzhou, so that Lang would be able to practice more in the border and make achievements. Today, we have seen the Black Eagle Army in just one month and have achieved results. It shows that Houlang is well-trained, and I feel very comforted."

"General, don't worry, I am here. If the Liao people attack, they must know the consequences of the Black Eagle Army." Hou Dayong admired Cao Han very much. He was in charge of Cangzhou and dealt with Cangzhou in a calm manner. He was actually a capable person. He wanted to reveal some secrets to Cao Han, but when he thought that Chai Rong was going to be emperor, there were not many twists and turns, so he wanted to speak but stopped.

At the dinner, Li Hui, the new governor of Cangzhou, was in the middle, followed by Cao Han. Cao Han summoned generals from various army in Cangzhou and met Li Hui, the governor of Li Hui. Li Hui also asked the accompanying officials to meet with the officials in Cangzhou.

As a newcomer, most of the people here don’t know each other. When they think about working together in the future, they are interested in contacting the officials. Hou Dayong’s name is known to everyone in Cangzhou. The officials know that he will have a prosperous career and are enthusiastic about returning the gifts, and the atmosphere is very harmonious.

When introducing a military general, Hou Dayong bowed to the military general and said, "I am Hou Dayong, the commander of the Black Eagle Army."

Unexpectedly, the general was very cold to Hou Dayong, and he avoided Hou Dayong sideways, snorted, "What's the matter!" and turned around and left.

All the officials were quite surprised, not knowing what kind of holidays they had, but Hou Dayong seemed to know Duwei Zhao Wen.

Hou Dayong soon learned from Shi Hu that the military general who embarrassed him was named Zhao Wen, Zhao Wu's cousin, the most proud disciple of the Zhao family of the martial arts family, and the first young generation of the Zhao family. Zhao Wen followed the governor Li Hui and gradually promoted him to the Zhechong Commander with his military merits, and was above the fifth rank, slightly higher than Hou Dayong.

"This person seems to be like Zhao Wu, with a narrow mind and should be more careful in the future." Hou Dayong did not attack on the spot, but just raised his vigilance in his heart. "Zhao Wen is the person of the Jiedushi Li Hui. I will not provoke him at the moment. Let's talk about it. The first thing is to practice internal skills and make the Black Eagle Army stronger. With a strong army, the Jiedushi cannot do anything to me."

With this idea, Hou Dayong decided to improve the equipment of the Black Eagle Army and strengthen the training intensity. Improve equipment is not just about changing it. There are relevant regulations on all weapons used by the army. Build weapons without authorization and buying horses is suspected of treason, which is very easy for people to seize the handle. Hou Dayong came up with a plan and asked someone to make a list of military supplies needed by the troops. Needless to say, the damaged ones are all counted as bad ones, and several large pages are arranged in a dense manner.

Hou Dayong sent the book to Li Hui and said, "Jingdust, the Black Eagle Army suffered a lot of losses when attacking Cangzhou. Now the weapons in the hands of the soldiers were seriously damaged and the horses were also seriously insufficient. Cangzhou is an important border town, and the Liao soldiers may invade at any time. The Black Eagle Army has no swords and horses, how can it resist the Liao soldiers?"

Li Hui, the governor of Jiedu, was very familiar with the tricks of generals in the army, so he often did this. However, he also needed to properly distribute some swords and horses to win over generals in the army. However, Cangzhou Prefecture had no money, so he said in embarrassment: "The commander of Hou Du, it's not that I don't give the Black Eagle Army weapons, but the horses are really no money in Cangzhou Prefecture."

Hou Dayong heard the secret joy, "It's weird if you have money, the money in Cangzhou Prefecture is with me."

The first time he failed, this was something that Hou Dayong expected. All he needed was failure, but Li Hui's authorization. Immediately afterwards, Hou Dayong found Li Hui to complain when he had the opportunity, which made Li Hui upset when he saw Hou Dayong.

Seeing that the time was almost right, Hou Dayong came up at a banquet, and Hou Dayong suggested to Li Hui: "How many horses are old in the Jiedu team? My family has a little bit of production. The two years ago, a few good horses were sent from the north to give them to the Jiedu to show that they were not satisfied. If Cangzhou Prefecture really has no money, can I open an ironwork workshop to serve the Cangzhou army?"

In order to save the expenses of Cangzhou Prefecture and prevent Hou Dayong from talking nonsense, Li Hui agreed after pondering for a moment.

With the consent of Li Hui, Hou Dayong immediately started to improve his military equipment. He asked Fu Gong to the north, followed the channels established by Liu San before, and started a business of smuggling horses with the north. Soon, more than 200 war horses were secretly transported to the Great Zhou territory. Hou Dayong gave ten horses to Li Hui. Seeing that Hou Dayong was trustworthy, Li Hui gave ten best war horses, and he opened up the gap between the fights and fighting that occurred in the Black Eagle Army from time to time. The Black Eagle Army quickly mixed from infantry and cavalry to a pure cavalry team, with greatly enhanced mobility.

Hou Dayong went to various places for a high price to hire skilled craftsmen to expand the scale of the original Liu San blacksmith shop. Thinking of Dou Tian, ​​a skilled craftsman who casts iron lions, Guo Baoyu ran to Li Yun to poach the corner. Hou Dayong tried to persuade him and dug Dou Tian from Li Yun. Originally, Hou Dayong wanted to dig Guo Baoyu together, but Li Yun refused.

Hou Dayong carefully observed the working method of the blacksmith. The craftsmen tied the pig iron and soft iron sheets together, sealed them with mud, and smelted into the furnace. Since the pig iron and wrought iron were smelted together, the steel used to make the sword blades was obtained with relatively high carbon content and good quality. The blower equipment used to use fans, and it seemed that there was no piston bellows. Hou Dayong drew a piston bellows style based on memory, so that Dou Tian could not take any more attention. Dou Tian didn't care, and after looking at the style, he could no longer move.

"Can it be made?"

"There should be no problem. If you don't know the effect, you can tell the commander how to know this style."

"I saw in a strange book that you can increase the temperature and create a better sword."

While purchasing equipment, Hou Dayong further improved the training intensity. As the saying goes: One force reduces ten times. Hou Dayong saw that the strength training of soldiers is mainly based on stone-lifting locks. The physical strength of ancient people is generally better than that of modern people. There are really many strong men in the military camp. Based on modern sports training methods, Hou Dayong formulated a set of easy-to-accept and relatively interesting training methods for soldiers. It includes: weight-bearing resistance exercises, mainly stone-lifting locks, sandbag sit-ups, and moving sand in front.

Conventional methods such as bags; confrontational exercises. Both sides of this exercise have equal strength and rely on the opposition between the other party's different muscle groups. They mainly include double-heading, double-hand pushing, pulling, etc.; exercises that utilize external environmental resistance, such as running in sand, grass, water, etc.; exercises to overcome their own weight, such as squats, upside-down push-ups, vertical jumping, upright burps, echelon push-ups, etc. Hou Dayong also asked people to do several simple horizontal bars to teach basic movements such as pull-ups to the sergeant.

The strength training method formulated by Hou Dayong was unexpectedly loved by officers and soldiers. After all, most of the Black Eagle Army soldiers had experienced wars, had a full understanding of the cruelty of the war, and were conscious of targeted training, not to mention that these exercises were more interesting than simply lifting stone locks.
Chapter completed!