The conscription drive in Weishan Commandery went smoothly. In just four days, they had recruited all two hundred men allotted to them. Of the six counties under Weishan Commandery, every county except Midiao County on Lake Heart Island contributed forty recruits.
The eight commanderies north of the Han Tribe were much the same. Hanyang Commandery, Ruyang Commandery, Liuyang Commandery, Muye Commandery, Xingang Commandery, Weishan Commandery, and the southern commanderies of Nanzhang and Dongxin all recruited their allotted two hundred soldiers. The only difference was that each commandery had a different number of counties, so the quotas assigned to each county varied as well.
Compared with the eight northern commanderies, conscription in the Three Commanderies of Hong Lake Grassland was much simpler. Kaiyuan Commandery, Zhangwu Commandery, and Binhai Commandery had no counties at all. Each had only a commandery city, which was essentially a Han Tribe outpost where the herders of the grasslands could trade with the Han Tribe. Most of the people living in the cities were herders.
The herders under the Han Tribe's rule lived even farther out, though they all had fixed pastures. With the Han Tribe's help, they had learned to manage their pastures scientifically, changing from nomadic herding to rotational grazing at fixed locations.
In other words, they divided their pastures into several sections. They let the cattle and sheep graze on one section first, while reseeding the areas that had already been grazed. Once the animals finished one section, they drove them to another. This method had transformed their nomadic way of life into a settled one, which was more suitable for the Han Tribe's administration. It also allowed them to expand the scale of their animal husbandry, increase the number of livestock per unit of pasture, and bring the herders more income, so they