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Chapter 893: Chapter 377 Defense Adjustment_3 Chapter 893: Chapter 377 Defense Adjustment_3 Without powerful people to oversee these two prefectures, it’s impossible to stabilize the local areas.

Even the relatively better South Sea Prefecture faced a great problem with a large number of former Nanhai Country naval forces scattered around, numbering up to ten thousand.

All these naval forces are directly affiliated with the Nanhai Country, with officers either from the Yan Family children or hailing from the Nanhai Sect, bearing the grudge of national and sect extinction against Chu State.

These people, unwilling to follow the nobles of the Nanhai to retreat to Ning Country, also refused to surrender to Chu State.

In the end, they banded together and began to wreak havoc within the coastal territories of Chu State.

From time to time, they would land ashore to harass, attack cities, break through towns, and plunder money, which had become a major problem in South Sea.

Queen Lan Cai’er, who was responsible for defending the area, was extremely troubled by this issue in the past few months.

She led the surrendered naval forces of Nanhai Country several times in search of these pirates, but the results were negligible, killing only a few hundred pirates before returning in frustration.

Therefore, to deal with the great pirate menace and guard against possible incursions by Ning Country’s naval forces, South Sea Prefecture also needed an Inborn Grandmaster for defense.

In this way, each of the five prefectures required an Inborn Grandmaster for oversight, in order to guarantee their safety.

At the same time, in the west, there also had to be official arrangements for local military affairs.

After consideration, Lu Yuan ordered his disciple Li Liang to take charge of the defense of Yulin County, Zhuang Hua to serve as the defender of South Sea Prefecture, Han Shun to serve as the defender of Hanzhong Prefecture, and Zhang You to serve as the defender of Xichuan Army.

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He tasked these four disciples with overseeing local governance on his behalf, each managing the military affairs of their respective prefectures and soothing internal and external tensions.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ɴονǤο.ᴄο

Han Hua, the former defender of Xichuan Prefecture, was transferred to serve as the defender of Hegu County.

Additionally, the Protector Shenwu General Han Hu was appointed to defend Tonghai County.

In Dongting Prefecture, Sun Siwen, the Left Prime Minister, stationed in Baling, would now reside permanently in the country, handling government affairs, allocating food and fodder, and would not go on expeditions except in special cases.

Moreover, with the cessation of hostilities, Han Liang, the defender of Qianzhong County, Grand General Zhou Qing, the defender of Xiangyang Prefecture, Li Xiong of Kunhai, Chilih of Li River, and other external forces each led their troops back to their prefectures and countries for rest and recovery.

Ah, just last month, after successive defeats on various battlefields, Yang Jing’s unit of the Ning Army, which had been stubbornly entrenched in the three prefectures east of Xiangyang in the north of Yangtze River, finally gave up the battlefield there.

They boarded naval warships with their remnants and fled in embarrassment, returning to Jinling.

Zhou Qing then took advantage of the situation to take control of Ning Country’s Xiangyang Prefecture, unifying the lands north of the river.

Now, except for the three prefectures of Xiangyang Prefecture of Zhou Country, located to the north of Han River in Central State, all other areas of Xiangyang below the river had fallen into the hands of Chu State.

Over on Chu Wei’s side, Lu Yuan also ordered him to return to the naval forces, taking charge of the water forts at Xia Kou and Pengli, occupying the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and fully enhancing Chu State’s naval defense.

With an Inborn assigned to each of the old territories of Chu State as well as the Lingnan prefectures, every prefecture is now guarded as impregnable as a metal cauldron.

As for the two prefectures of Yuzhang and Jian’an located in Jiangnan, right at the front lines next to Ning Country, Lu Yuan appointed Huang Xuan as the chief of Yuzhang Prefecture and Qingyunzi as the chief of Jian’an Prefecture, with the total command over all military and political tasks of their jurisdictions.

In addition, Lu Yuan, along with Queen Lan Cai’er and Princess Spiritual Woman, will be regularly stationed in Yuzhang Prefecture.

Chu Wei also led the naval forces stationed at Pengli naval camp.

The recently joined Yin Huixuan, upon returning to assume his post, would also be assigned to Jian’an Prefecture as Qingyunzi’s assistant, to keep watch on Ning Country.

Thus, on the front lines, Yuzhang would have five Inborns and Jian’an two, with more than four being Second Realm Grandmasters or above.

With this level of strength, even if the remaining eleven Inborne of Ning Country attacked together, they could be well counteracted.

In the domain of Inborn Grandmasters, Chu State is now flawlessly arranged.

Prefectural and county soldiers, naval forces, and Inborn Grandmasters have all been fully assigned.

In terms of the Forbidden Army, Lu Yuan has also made adjustments.

After reorganization, Chu State now has thirty-five Forbidden Army contingents, totaling seven hundred thousand men.

Of these armies, Lu Yuan restored the structure of three Forbidden Army contingents each in Hanzhong, Xiangyang, and Dongting prefectures.

The other prefectures of Xichuan, Qianzhong, and South Sea each stationed one Forbidden Army contingent.

Given the proximity to Dali and Song Country, Tonghai County and Yulin County required heightened defense, so Tonghai Army hosted two Forbidden Army contingents, while Yulin County hosted three, making up five in total.

Hegu County, situated on the frontier and rear, did not station any Forbidden Army, with local county soldiers taking responsibility for defense.

In total, twenty-three Forbidden Army contingents were utilized across these eight prefectures.

Of the remaining twelve Forbidden Army contingents, totaling two hundred forty thousand soldiers, Lu Yuan placed five in Jian’an County, while the seven left remained in Yuzhang Prefecture to handle front-line defenses.

Thus, the post-war series of military and defense adjustments in Chu State, after being sorted for three months, finally completed by the beginning of August in the eleventh year of Shenwu, just before the arrival of autumn.

In the following years, barring major unforeseen events, there would likely be no further adjustments.

Chu State would enter a longer period of consolidation.

The lands of Jiangnan, right before unification, were bestowed upon a brief remnant of peaceful times.

Lu Yuan, having finished all his official business and leaving Xuan Chengzi hanging for a month, finally found the time to meet with this Purple Cloud Taoist Master.

In the past month, Yin Huixuan, who had returned to his sect to handle internal threats, had already cleared up other dissenting voices within his sect; subsequently, he led three thousand disciples of Liuyang Sect to pledge allegiance to Chu State.

After evaluation, Lu Yuan dispersed these Liuyang Sect disciples, assigning them to local prefectural and county military positions, as well as to the Catch officer positions belonging to the Government Office.

He did not keep this a secret; with the channels of the Purple Cloud Dao, it was easy to obtain such information.

Also, Chu State’s series of military and defense arrangements were not concealed, and any interested party could easily find out the basics through simple inquiry.

However, with the spread of all these pieces of information, Xuan Chengzi, who had been left out to dry in the post house of Nanchang City, remained utterly unmoved, spending his days in the guesthouse with a calm and composed demeanor.

According to reports from those Lu Yuan sent to supervise and watch over him, the man spent each day practicing meditation, reading scripture, and cultivating, seemingly content and undisturbed.

This cunning Daoist appeared to have no fear of Chu State making a move against his Purple Cloud Dao.

Seeing this, Lu Yuan knew that leaving him to wait would be pointless.

So after completing his urgent affairs, he had someone send word to Xuan Chengzi to come and have an audience at his mansion.