Chapter 21: The Second Line Troops

  The battlefield was not cleaned up until the second day, and the bodies were concentrated and buried on a small hill. After sweeping the battlefield, Xia Jun led his troops back to Xixiang.

  Behind the troops, more than 500 captured Qing soldiers were being escorted. These Qing soldiers would not be willing to let go, this is free labor, catch them to repair the road for two years, and then release them after reforming through labor!

  In the afternoon, Xia Jun returned to Long Village and immediately called his secretary, Chang Youbin, to write a letter to the county magistrate. In the letter, Xia Jun threatened the county magistrate, saying that if he dared to invade Xixiang again, he would take his head into the county city.

  Xia Jun didn't take these officials seriously at all. These local officials were all thinking of making money, and they wouldn't really help the Qing court pacify the area.

  Moreover, such a disturbance occurred in this place, they are responsible for it, which will affect their official career. These officials generally do not report if they can avoid reporting.

  They will only report when they can no longer cover it up.

  Anyway, after serving out the term, he has amassed enough money to buy a lucrative position and will leave with a clear conscience. If anything goes wrong later, that's someone else's problem.

  At this time, if Xia Jun can be a bit more calm, then the county magistrate and prefect will also be calm.

  The letter not only threatened the county magistrate, but also implied that they would not interfere with each other's interests. After writing the letter, Xia Jun handed it over to Zhang Si Gou and asked him to deliver it to the county magistrate.

  At the same time, Xia Jun had the express delivered to the village gentry, letting them be at ease.

  ……

  The news of the defeat of the government troops by the security team spread quickly, and the village officials who received the news were greatly relieved. The security team had the ability to make Xiangxiang autonomous, which was a good thing.

  However, some gentry were worried that Xia Jun would continue to challenge the limits of the officialdom, and they hurriedly went to Long Village to persuade him, letting him settle down in Xixiang and start self-governance, and not to bother the officials again.

  It is clear that these gentry also saw clearly, the Xiangxiang autonomy at this time has no change, the only thing to guard against is Xia Jun's reckless behavior everywhere. If Xia Jun makes a big fuss about things, the government can't hide it from above, and the Qing court may send troops to come and suppress it.

  Xia Jun nodded in agreement on the surface, but in his heart he was thinking about the silkworm plan. In fact, no matter how big the situation became, as long as it was maintained at the autonomous level, the Qing court would absolutely not be able to send troops from the north to quell the uprising, and at most it would only be the provincial troops.

  In local areas, it is generally first to conquer and then to pacify; if conquest does not work, then they will be won over by amnesty.

  Xia Jun thought that this way should not change the course of history, so he planned to nibble on a few more towns in the near future and make them autonomous like Xixiang.

  The more people under one's governance, the faster the accumulation of merits from the hearts of the people.

  The population of Xixiang is currently unknown and will only be displayed in the Civilian System after it has been incorporated into the Territory System.

  However, judging from the population reported by each village, the population of Xixiang should exceed 15,000. If each person contributes 5 points per month, it would only be 750,000, which means it would take almost a year to build a first-class high-yield rice cultivation base. Apart from high-yield rice, there are also high-yield feed corn, high-yield cotton, and high-yield wheat... each of these requires 10 million points to build a cultivation base.

  To get more points, only by eliminating bandits and pacifying the people. The first batch of soldiers has been trained almost enough, now it's time to train the second batch of soldiers.

  Xia Jun once again had recruitment notices posted and sent notifications to the village gentry, asking them to organize young men from their villages to come and enlist.

  Xia Jun's plan was to train a batch of second-line combat troops and then send them out to suppress bandits. The plan had been set, but Xia Jun still lacked a disciplinary inspection team to maintain military discipline, as well as radio stations and telegraph operators.

  However, after the autonomy of Xixiang, the gentry in each village began to recruit talents for the security team. Many of these gentry had clans, and many clans in Xixiang had a good educational atmosphere. Some young men also passed the imperial examination as juren or jinshi. For this reason, these gentry found some literati.

  At the same time, Xia Jun also ordered Zhang Sigou to go outside to recruit people, all cultural people are wanted.

  ……

  The Security Corps has started a new round of recruitment, but this time the treatment of the Security Corps has been greatly reduced, with only two silver coins as military pay per month.

  At this time, the security team had already gained a foothold at Xixiang Station and formed a certain force. Many people coveted the good treatment within the team and wanted to join the security team.

  There are many benefits to joining the security team, not only is there a monthly salary of six silver coins, but also meat to eat every day, white rice, steamed buns to fill your belly, and a powerful military uniform, with fine steel guns.

  Therefore, a "seller's market" has been formed for security teams, with the initiative in their hands.

  Xia Jun reduced the treatment to two silver coins per month in order to save expenses, but as long as he performed outstandingly in training or made military achievements in battle, the Security Regiment would give him a higher salary.

  Xia Jundeng established a soldier ranking system, dividing soldiers into first-class, second-class and third-class. The third-class soldiers received only two silver coins as military pay per month, the second-class soldiers received four silver coins, and the first-class soldiers received six silver coins.

  After determining the lower ranks of the soldiers, Xia Jun promoted all the soldiers in the regiment to first-class soldier, but Xia Jun had said earlier that whoever committed a military crime would have their rank reduced at any time.

  The Jianzhou Security Regiment's military law, apart from the five clauses that warrant execution by firing squad, has over a dozen other clauses. For example, they cannot harass ordinary people, must return borrowed items, speak politely to ordinary people, and cannot take even a needle or thread from ordinary people...

  Anyway, the three major disciplines and eight points of attention of a certain party were basically plagiarized by Xia Jun. At this time, he wanted to buy people's hearts, so naturally he had to copy from that party.

  Although the treatment of the security team was reduced, the young and strong people who came to respond to the recruitment were still undiminished.

  This time, Xia Jun recruited a total of 400 people and exchanged 400 Springfield rifles from the system. The Springfield rifle is American equipment that uses 7.62×63mm rifle cartridges, just like the M1 Garand, so using the Springfield rifle won't make the supply system complicated.

  The Springfield rifle was a World War I-era firearm, and the Mauser rifle belonged to the same era as an equal-level firearm. The characteristic of the Springfield rifle is that it has extremely high lethality, and its rate of fire is not much different from that of the Mauser rifle.

  The exchange price is very cheap, only 10 points for one, and the points required for an M1 Garand can be exchanged for three Springfield rifles.

  At this time, Xia Jun had already stood firm and the main force troops in his hands were equipped with M1 Garand and motorized. Those troops dispatched to suppress bandits did not need to use such luxurious weapons as M1 Garand, and it was a waste to deal with bandits and Qing army with M1 Garand.

  Xia Jun this time recruited soldiers, starting from two aspects of funding and points to reduce expenses.

  After recruiting 400 people, Xia Jun's monthly expenses should be around 3,500 silver dollars, and there are still 60,000 silver dollars in hand.

  This is the expenditure on military expenses, and administrative expenses. Those cultural people are all high-paying jobs, estimated to be budgeted for thousands of silver coins per month. With the funds in hand, it's no problem to support a year, but after this recruitment, there is no power to expand the army on a large scale again.

  To have a stable financial income, one must develop industry, but industry must be based on agriculture. If people's stomachs are not full, how can they talk about industry? Therefore, Xia Jun still solved the problem of agriculture first, and at the same time, agriculture could also bring in considerable financial income.