Chapter Twenty-Four: Lonely as Snow

  Near the Spring Festival, those new recruits had been trained for nearly three months and were already quite skilled, except that their formation was still a bit off.

  Because the New Year is approaching, Xia Jun gave soldiers and security teams in various departments a rotating holiday. Only one platoon was left in the military camp, which would be on holiday during the second day of the new year, and another platoon would arrive during the second day of the new year.

  At this time, Longcun suddenly snowed.

  It's colder this year, and Xixiang is located in a mountainous area with a relatively high altitude, so it snows quite often, but the villagers aren't too surprised.

  The barracks were empty, and Xia Jun didn't know what to do. He stared at the snowflakes falling outside and listened to the firecrackers going off in the distance, feeling a sudden and intense loneliness.

  If I hadn't traveled through time and space, I might be celebrating the New Year happily with my parents! Then I would have been dragged by those classmates to KTV to be an audience for a whole night.

  Working hard for decades, one night back to before liberation.

  Xia Jun suddenly thought of this crooked phrase, and couldn't help but chuckle. Soon after, looking at the snowflakes outside, his heart was again difficult to calm down. Was this the cost of crossing over?

  Maybe so!

  Heaven gave this angry youth a chance to change history, and also took away the most important part of his life.

  Desolate and quiet!

  Indeed lonely like snow.

  Xia Jun found himself lacking a sense of home, strictly speaking, he is now a person with no relatives to rely on and no place to call his own.

  Li Shijin's lovely face appeared in his mind, and he thought to himself whether it was time for him to settle down and start a family, so that he wouldn't be so lonely.

  Xia Jun smoked while eating high-end snacks and drinks exchanged from the system.

  In this winter, powerful material things still cannot warm up Xia Jun's heart.

  Ashes and scraps of paper were scattered all over the floor...

  ……

  "Squad leader, you're being summoned by the council."

  "What do they want me to do? Fix the toilet again?" Xia Jun was stunned when he heard that the group of rural officials wanted to find him. Those guys took 5,000 yuan from his pocket last time for fixing the toilet, and now they're asking for more investment before even collecting taxes. He doesn't have a stable income now, and if there's a problem with funding, he won't be able to declare bankruptcy, so he's naturally very unhappy.

  "No, it's not." The guard almost laughed out loud and quickly composed himself, saying: "They said they came over to spend the New Year with you and make some noise together."

  "Ah!" Xia Jun nodded, feeling a warmth in his heart. He led a group of guards to the Assembly Hall, which was originally the village theater, but had been taken over by the autonomous council.

  Those villagers obviously knew that Xia Jun had no home to return to, so they privately discussed it for a while and decided to come to Longcun Village to spend the New Year with Xia Jun.

  Those rural gentry also respected Xia Jun very much. This team leader, although young, was actually quite capable, not only making Xixiang autonomous, but also loving the people. This year, Xixiang even repaired roads, and after the Chinese New Year, the village will set up a new school, which also provided them with high-yielding rice varieties.

  Xia Jun was deeply moved in his heart and thought that since these guys came to spend the New Year with him, he would not pursue the matter of repairing the toilet.

  A group of gentry in Long Village accompanied him through the New Year's Eve and the first day of the new year, during which time the council was mostly in session. Originally, the gentry from various villages asked Xia Jun to send people to hunt wild boars, but Xia Jun brought up the matter of training militia instead.

  Like Japan's rural autonomy, the most important function is to train militia, which is a worthwhile advantage to learn from. In the future, when the Security Corps takes the stage of history and has a war with Japan, Xia Jun needs elite soldiers.

  The Qing government's current imitation of Japan's local autonomy is quite inappropriate. Xia Jun's rural autonomy, on the other hand, has a huge difference with Japan.

  The proposal to train the village braves was discussed for half a day and then decided, each village will concentrate on young and strong men during the slack season, the security team will issue them weapons and dispatch training personnel to various villages to train the village braves.

  For the matter of wild boars, the security team will dispatch some personnel to each village. Once the village guards are trained, they can handle it themselves!

  These wild boars are quite rampant, often destroying the villagers' crops. And each village doesn't have a very good way to deal with them, and using those old-fashioned bird guns is too dangerous.

  Xia Jun had a plan to train snipers, which was to issue hunting guns to young people with good physical fitness and certain talents.

  Anyway, there were plenty of game on the mountain that was to die for, with wild boars, long-tailed pheasants, muntjacs, mountain goats, eagles, jackals and rabbits everywhere, providing ample targets for them to practice their marksmanship.

  Normally, they receive some disguise training and are basically good snipers. Once they expand their army, there are also many soldiers with good marksmanship who can be recruited.

  ……

  After the Spring Festival, the soldiers returned one after another, and the campaign against bandits also began. Xia Jun divided two companies into six classes and dispatched them to various places.

  Each squadron is equipped with one telegrapher and two instructors.

  The telegrapher is in charge of liaison with headquarters, the instructor is responsible for strengthening ideological education, and at the same time supervising military discipline, recording meritorious service.

  In terms of equipment, the dispatched troops were all equipped with Springfield rifles and also had Springfield sniper rifles, hand grenades, and two three-wheeled motorcycles installed with Vickers heavy machine guns. Ordinary soldiers were equipped with a bicycle.

  Many soldiers still can't ride bicycles, but that's okay, there's plenty of time to practice. With equipment in place and training almost complete, the six platoons set off towards their respective areas of responsibility.

  Xia Jun was anxious, so he decided to go to the county town to take a look at Li Shijian. This was an era of arranged marriages, where "the early bird catches the worm" and "slow and steady loses the game". If one didn't make their move quickly, they would regret it for life.

  ……

  Jian'an County, inside the Li family's large mansion, Li Shijin was extremely depressed, huffing and puffing as she sat in her room reading the newspaper. A middle-aged man walked in.

  "Dad, I want to go out and play." Li Shijin stood up and grasped the middle-aged man's arm, acting coquettishly.

  "Don't go, Father doesn't even know where you want to go." Li Shilin pulled a long face and directly refused, "Don't provoke Xia Jun, the security team leader in Xixiang."

  "Why?!" Li Shijin exclaimed urgently.

  "No reason, it's just not going to work."

  ——————

  Today's first update is here!