Chapter 130 Development Bottleneck
In the black water fortress, Shang Ji sat alone in the hall of the guarding general's mansion.
Liu Yi has already led his army back to Wangquan County. He used the excuse of leading the troops for training and could not stay for a long time. As the general of the aboriginal army, Liu Yi could not act recklessly while the Han Dynasty's mighty power was still alive.
Once the news of his appearance on the grassland led by his troops leaked out, at least it would be a charge of leaving his post without authorization, and in serious cases, it could even be said to be arbitrarily provoking frontier quarrels. This is not a simple charge.
Therefore, after Shang Ji led the army back, Liu Yi pretended to train the army, and then returned to Wangquan County. Even the loot he deserved was temporarily stored in Shang Ji, and he would retrieve it when he found a suitable opportunity.
And Deng Yan is still busy dealing with the combat power items. Massive herdsmen's cattle, sheep and horses cannot be handled properly in a short period of time. In this regard, the merchants can't help themselves, so they don't bother.
He is summing up the gains and losses of this battle!
As for the army, because Shang Ji had learned of Luo Duo's arrival, Shang Ji led his army to retreat overnight, so there was no new loss. However, after several battles, the surviving more than a thousand black-armored mysterious knights have basically successfully advanced to the fifth rank. When the injury recovers, it must be the sharpest sword in Shang Ji's hands!
In terms of personal strength, he broke through the bottleneck in the battle with Chenglu and advanced to the level of second-rate generals in one fell swoop. Then he made a big noise at the Nado Clan's banquet, and with Liu Yi's assistance, he killed the first-class military general Zi Su and a large number of third-rate generals. The system evaluation of this battle is very high, and two force points are directly rewarded. Then he fought again and again, and his force value increased a little.
At present, Shang Ji's personal force is 36. Counting the blood-devouring soul-destroyer gun and the force bonus of other Sima officials, Shang Ji's strength is at the peak level of second-rate generals. Compared with real combat power, first-class generals who are not historical famous generals are not Shang Ji's opponents in heads-up.
In addition to force, prestige has also been greatly improved. Rewards for advancing second-rate generals, destroying four Xianbei towns, killing a large number of first-rate generals, after all kinds of victories, Shang Ji gained more than 20,000 reputation in one fell swoop!
At present, the total prestige of Shangji has exceeded the 60,000 mark!
In addition, the biggest gain in this battle is the meritorious service! The young commander of Nadorand is self-appointed and has not been recognized by the Xianbei royal court, so his value is still at the level of an ordinary leader.
But the quality is not enough to make up for the quantity. Dozens of high-level military generals, many of whom are of high status among Xianbei, directly provided Shang Ji with 200,000 merit points!
Because Liu Yi was not a subordinate of Shang Ji, Liu Yi was regarded as an ally at that time, and most of the merit points were divided. Otherwise, Shang Ji's meritorious service income would be doubled!
Of course, without Liu Yi, Shang Ji would have been chopped to pieces by Nadorand. Shang Ji can also readily accept Liu Yi's sharing of meritorious deeds.
In addition to the dozens of mobile merit points, Shang Ji broke through three small and medium-sized towns one after another, defeated tens of thousands of enemy troops, and captured a large number of Xianbei herdsmen. While these have brought huge economic benefits to the merchants, they also come with a lot of meritorious service points!
Accumulated merit points earn 400,000! In addition to what he gained from the previous battle with the Jiegu clan, Shangji's meritorious service value reached a terrifying number of 600,000 in one fell swoop!
If it weren't for other harsh conditions for the official position above Sima in other ministries, Shang Ji's official position could be promoted at least two more levels!
Apart from these things, Shang Ji's biggest gain is the four "Hearts of Town"!
Now the business is basically determined,
Destroy the Xianbei township and you can get a town heart. The four town hearts in Shang Ji's hands came from the four Xianbei towns that were destroyed by Shang Ji.
However, there are still quite a few differences among these four town hearts. Three of them are small town hearts, and one is a medium town heart. The medium-sized one is from Nadoshi Yapaku!
You must know that the Naduo clan was not the original one, but was renamed from the Jiegu clan that was accepted after winning the sacred challenge.
Shang Ji didn't dare to expect the sky-high price of two million gold for each of the three primary town hearts, but as long as each of them could sell for half a million gold, Shang Ji would be happy.
What's more, there is the trump card of the middle-level town heart, Shang Ji seems to have seen Yan Huang wash away for nothing and wait for him to kill him again.
In addition to Shang Ji's personal gains, the generals under his command also gained a lot.
The several generals who accompanied Shang Ji to the grasslands all advanced to third-rate generals. Several people who stayed behind in the black water plug successfully advanced one after another.
In addition, Xiaohu, a non-staff member of the Black Water Plug, also successfully promoted to the third-rate general! The third-rate military general who is less than fourteen years old made everyone secretly start talking. Not surprisingly, Xiaohu has a high chance of being promoted to a super general like Liu Yi!
When Shang Ji was fighting on the grassland, the generals in the Blackwater Fortress were not idle.
Shang Ji's previous plan for the formation of 2,000 Black Armored Xuanqi, 2,000 Giant Axemen, 2,000 Heavy Armored Swordsmen, 2,000 Wandering Dragon Archers, 1,000 Northern Crossbows, and 1,000 Ordinary Light Cavalry has been roughly completed.
Except for the supplementary training that Su Huan had been fighting with Shang Ji for Youlong Bow and Cavalry, the rest of the troops had already been trained!
Even Shang Ji continued the tradition of overstaffing, and there were 3,000 more reserve troops!
Not counting civilian spies, the number of troops under Shang Ji's command has finally exceeded 10,000!
Although there are only 10,000 in number, the overall combat power can definitely beat an ordinary army of 50,000, or even 100,000 can compete with Zhin.
However, the current development of the Shangji Army has also fallen into a bottleneck.
The funds are sufficient. Even if the latest statistics of spoils have not yet come out, the previous accumulation alone is enough to maintain the current development of the merchant army.
The main bottlenecks are official positions and population.
Previously, the soldiers for Shangji's expansion were all recruited from Wangquan County, but Wangquan County is just an ordinary county with a population of only about 300,000. It is an exaggeration to maintain 10,000 troops each for Shangji and Liu Yi.
Don't use the wording of containment, don't even think about recruiting troops from Wangquan County.
This is easy to solve, and it can be recruited from other nearby counties, except for the high cost.
But the official position is more difficult to solve! Shang Ji's current official position is Biebu Sima, who can recruit 10,000 people. Although it is possible to play side-by-side and make some overstaffing in the name of reserve or civil husband, the overstaffing of 3,000 has reached the limit. No matter how much it is, it will easily cause trouble. After all, the majesty of the Han court is still there.
But now the official position above Sima in other departments can no longer be exchanged for merit alone. Zhang Xin had already told Shang Ji clearly before that the position of school lieutenant needs to be recommended by an official at the county level.
And Shang Ji, let alone the county magistrate, even ordinary county magistrates don't know him. If you are not related to someone, why should others recommend you at the risk of being implicated?
At present, there are only three paths in front of Shang Ji, one is to get close to the sheriff and try to win the favor of the sheriff to get a recommendation; the other is to wait for the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising; .
Buying officials and merchants does not have the slightest psychological pressure in his heart, but taking this path will have an extremely bad impact on his reputation. Most of the famous historical generals will hate merchants because of this, and it will be more difficult to recruit historical famous generals in the future!
Unless it is a last resort, Shang Ji does not want to adopt this method.