Ning Chen stayed at the northern frontier pass for nearly three days.

In those three days, he had the frontier troops reorganized into new units and all their weapons and armor put into the armory.

From here on, Qi Yuanzhong would retrain the frontier troops and quietly get rid of every officer Chai Jiayu had left behind, replacing them with his own men.

The rank and file weren't worth worrying about. They did as they were told.

Officers were different. Men with power have ideas of their own.

So everyone tied to Chai Jiayu had to be gotten rid of or replaced.

Only once that was done could the armor and weapons go back to the soldiers.

The Wu Kingdom's army was camped not far off, there to overawe them, of course.

He meant to have these hundred thousand and more troops firmly in his grip.

All that could be left to Qi Yuanzhong.

He had to get to Mangzhou as fast as he could.

Over two hundred thousand troops were under his command now. It sounded impressive, but only he knew how hard it really was.

With that many men eating and horses chewing... the grain and fodder and the soldiers' pay all had to come out of his pocket now.

Xuanwu City made a lot of money, but the war had hit it hard... The De Emperor had cut off trade with the Wu Kingdom, so far fewer merchants were coming through, and times were getting harder and harder!

What gave him the worst headache right now was grain and fodder.

Xuanwu City had had a good harvest last year, but not good enough to feed over two hundred thousand troops.

Silver he could manage for a while; the fortune he'd built up before would cover things for now. But without grain and fodder, silver alone was no use.

He couldn't keep asking the woman emperor for grain and fodder. The Wu Kingdom wasn't all that rich either.

So he had to take Mangzhou as soon as possible.

Since trade with the Wu Kingdom had opened, Mangzhou had…