Chapter 160: Chapter 127 Family Treasure—3
Translator: 549690339
Master’s great kindness, he failed to repay it fully.
He could only offer these things as a token of his filial piety.
The morning mist gradually dispersed, and golden sunshine scattered.
In the blink of an eye, two hours had passed.
The two people, each with their own thoughts, rested on the ship for a while. When they felt their inner strength and physical strength recovered, they immediately set off towards Xichuan County.
The journey ahead was uncertain, but they both had high hopes.
Lu Yuan didn’t know that his good disciple was preparing to do something big, with a do-or-die determination and even making preparations for a grand gift to him.
At this moment, he was bothered by the busy training of soldiers.
With a stroke of his pen, Prefect Cui Changqing recruited 14,000 of the Village Braves in the prefecture.
However, such a large-scale recruitment basically gathered all the young men of the right age, and the quality of the soldiers that were recruited can be imagined.
For these illiterate farmers, who might have been farming just a moment ago, it would not be easy to teach them the concepts of front and back, left and right, and how to use spears and short knives.
Why did Lu Yuan previously recruit Mountain Folk Hunters?
It’s because they were used to using knives and arrows on a regular basis, and after recruitment, they didn’t require much training. With a little disciplining, they would be able to form a formidable fighting force.
However, the farmers were used to farming tools. While they could use hoes to dig soil, using a long spear to stab someone was difficult for them.
Even if they managed to do the action correctly, overcoming the psychological barrier would be quite challenging.
Lu Yuan tried training a group of militia for a few days, but then gave up.
It’s not that these people were stupid. It’s just that being resourceful and having the courage and discipline are totally different.
The Mountain Folk Hunters, who lived among wild beasts, naturally had the courage to fight life or death with people. They were also used to cooperating during their hunts, so they understood the importance of discipline.
Therefore, training these hunters in military formations and martial arts went smoothly as they caught on quickly.
But for ordinary farmers, all they needed to know was how to farm. Courage and discipline are different matters entirely.
Why do you need to learn these things?
So that the Master can collect taxes more easily?
At one point, Lu Yuan even guided a farmer through using a spear to stab a straw man.
However, even with such guidance, the farmer still trembled as he held the spear, and hesitated when confronted with the inanimate straw man, fearing what he was doing.
As if he was not just piercing a straw man but breaking the psychological limitation of taking a life.
Not everyone has the courage to kill or even perform an act of killing another person.
Lu Yuan didn’t Imow what to say about this situation.
Perhaps the only way to change their mindset would be to find someone to kill in front of them, allowing them to break through the psychological barriers, and then seeing if there’s a change.
But whether the outcome would be a good soldier or a demon is difficult to tell.
After all, lunatics driven insane by killing are not a rarity in the world.
With their physical and mental foundations too weak, they were simply not suitable for combat roles.
In the future, if he wanted to recruit soldiers, he needed to focus on Mountain Folk Hunters. They were more efficient to work with.
With a thousand well- trained mountain folk hunters, he had the confidence to confront a mixed army of ten thousand farmers.
This was the gap in power.
Worn out from the failed training of soldiers, Lu Yuan simply stopped trying.
He handed over the task of training soldiers to his subordinates.
After all, those people were the experts and were keen to experience the feeling of commanding thousands of troops, so they had no qualms stepping up.
As for Lu Yuan, he just needed to manage his one thousand elite soldiers.
As long as these elite soldiers were with him, he didn’t have to worry about the Village Braves causing trouble.
However, this failed attempt at training made Lu Yuan less apprehensive about the huge armies of the imperial government and other countries.
If the tens of thousands-strong army were just farmers like these, Lu Yuan would dare to take them on even with just a force of ten thousand men.
It’s not that he was arrogant, but the simple fact that these farmer soldiers were just too weak.
“I heard that Emperor Li Xiong of Xi Shu has an army of a hundred thousand strong, with an air of invincibility. But I guess out of those hundred thousand, if there were ten thousand as elite as my soldiers, it would already be quite impressive.
By this estimation, the central government would only need two Inborn
Grandmasters to completely conquer Xichuan.”
After suspending military training, Lu Yuan continued to practice martial arts in seclusion at home and sometimes couldn’t help thinking this way.
According to the conversion rate of one Inborn Grandmaster equaling the power of ten -thousand elite soldiers.
Xi Shu only had one Inborn Grandmaster, Li Xiong, and then another ten thousand elite soldiers. Indeed, they could be destroyed by just two Inborn Grandmasters.
Of course.
Such thoughts were merely wishful thinking.
Enacting such a plan would not be as simple as it seemed.
Not to mention that the Inborn Grandmasters of the imperial court were needed to suppress various regions and could not be mobilized so easily.
Even Xichuan’s stronghold would not be easily toppled by just two Inborn Grandmasters if a battle were to take place.
If things were indeed so simple, the imperial court would have long taken the risk, gathered the Inborn Grandmasters, and executed a beheading strategy.
“In the end, this is still a world of martial arts. The power of martial arts has its limits, and one person can’t truly suppress the world.” Lu Yuan sighed helplessly.
Taking the jade piece from his chest, he had this magical relic for more than a decade now.
But even now, the only use it had was to temper his inner strength. Although this in itself had already helped him a great deal, the feeling of being unable to fully utilize the jade piece remained frustrating..