Chapter 71: The Long Gunner is the Best to Train

  Li Qin is about to be promoted, and the expansion of the army must be completed before his promotion. Everyone in the Fu Jiao Fortress group is thinking about their own future, including Jia Xiang.

  The subordinates of the Colonel had not only a military governor, but also a military assistant, who was a civil servant. Jia Yu estimated that the military assistant must be him, as there was no one else who could sit in this position!

  In the whole team, the only one who is not worried about his future is Dian Wei. He said to Li Qiang: "Young master, I don't know where Tang Biao is. When I was outside, I didn't see him. People say he ran away. This 'running away' I'm not quite clear about, whether it's this time to avoid you, young master, and hide at home, or leave Fuping and escape to another place?"

  Li Qin nodded and said: "Just now I was too excited, and I actually forgot about Tang Biao's matter. By the way, Zhang Jiu promised to give me 50 iron armors, I wonder if he still counts."

  Dian Wei was overjoyed when he heard this and immediately put aside the matter of Tang Bao. He exclaimed: "But what about the iron armor worn by those Imperial Guards?"

  Li QIN nodded and said: "Right, it's actually what they're wearing on their bodies. Unfortunately, it's not new anymore."

  Jia Yu hastily said: "This has nothing to do with new or old, as long as it's iron armor, it's a crucial military equipment. Since Zhang Jiou has agreed, we must remind him, you're not suitable to go, I'll go and remind him. This matter can't be delayed, if it's delayed, it will be useless, those Imperial Guards definitely won't want to give it away, what if they whisper something in Zhang Jiou's ear, let alone iron armor, we won't even get an iron sheet!" As he spoke, he turned his horse around and was about to head back.

  Meng Mu said: "I'll go with you, and on the way, I'll hand over my duties to County Magistrate Tang. Then I won't have any more worries." And with that, Jia Yu followed him and left.

  Li Qin said to Shen Yi: "You take a few people to help!"

  Shen Yi immediately agreed and nodded at several strong men, who followed Jia Xian together.

  Dian Wei said: "Young master, the iron armor is coming, get me the largest one."

  Li Qin nodded and said, "Choose whatever you like."

  Everyone rushed back to Fu Jiao Village together, and no one mentioned Tang Biao's matter again. He was just a stinky rascal who had lost power, and there would be plenty of opportunities to deal with him later, so there was no need to rush at the moment.

  Others didn't take Tang Biao seriously, but he himself was very concerned about his own affairs. He ran away halfway and didn't follow Tang Jie to the city gate. After circling around, he found that Li Qin hadn't broken in, so he went to the county government office again, only to find that other officials were cold towards him. With great difficulty, he found someone relatively familiar to ask, and only then did he learn that his escape had been discovered by Tang Jie, who had also scolded him as a beast.

  Tang Biao knew he was finished, unable to continue in the official circles of Fuping, and since Tang Jie was his uncle, he had abandoned him at a critical moment and escaped, meaning he could no longer stay in the Tang family either and would certainly be expelled from the family.

  Tang Biao knew that even if he went to plead, it would be useless. His ruffian behavior might work on ordinary people, but it wouldn't work on Tang Jie at all. On the contrary, it might even backfire and make things worse, and he would end up getting punished even more severely.

  He could only leave Fuping. After dawn, Tang Bao left the city gate and went to rely on others. In his life, he had only made friends with one heroic character, named Gao Shun, and he was going to rely on Gao Shun.

  Gao Shun was a capable person who believed that only those with greater abilities than his were worth following, but he had yet to meet such a person. Since Gao Shun was not willing to be a thief, he instead made a living by helping the government capture bandits and collecting rewards. At that time, this was a highly respected profession. Jing Qi admired this profession and called those who practiced it "great heroes".

  Gao Shun had previously gone to Fuping to capture a notorious thief, but after arriving in Fuping, he lost the thief's trail. However, he coincidentally ran into Tang Biao, who mobilized his henchmen to search for the thief's hideout in order to share the reward money, and helped Gao Shun catch him.

  Gao Shun was very grateful to Tang Bao, although he looked down on Tang Bao's character, but thought that Tang Bao had saved his reputation for never losing a battle, so he wanted Tang Bao to come to him for help if he ever got into trouble in the future, in order to repay this favor.

  Tang Biao is now in trouble, with nowhere to go. The only person he can find is Gao Shun. He heard that Gao Shun was making a name for himself in Bianzhou, so he thought of going to Bianzhou to look for Gao Shun and get some food to eat. If Gao Shun could help him take revenge on Li QIN, that would be even better.

  Li Qin returned to Fu Jiao village with the villagers, and it was lively again. The people who stayed in the village didn't sleep all night, worrying about him. After seeing his parents, Li Qin told them what had happened. Li Tian was both surprised and delighted, never expecting that his son would be promoted again. It had only been a short time, and he might actually become a captain!

  They then dragged Li QIN to worship their ancestors, and Li Tian and He believed that their son's success was the result of their ancestors' blessings.

  Li Qian had not slept all night, and at dawn the next day, he had just lain down on his bed to make up for lost sleep when he heard someone shouting outside. It was Jia Yu who had returned, and he quickly got out of bed and went out of the house. The courtyard inside and outside was packed with people, and in the middle of the courtyard, Jia Yu was directing Shen Yi and others to move the iron armor.

  When Li Qin came out, Jia Yu laughed and said: "Fifty sets of iron armor, not one less, all must be returned. Fortunately, I went to remind him, Zhang Jiudan simply forgot about this matter. Colonel, you didn't see the scene at that time, when those imperial guards handed over their iron armor, their faces were so ugly, even uglier than Shen Yi's face!"

  Shen Yi heard this and shouted: "Mr. Jia, your words are too unpleasant! I, old Shen, am quite handsome!" As he spoke, he looked around and saw that Qiao Nu hadn't come to watch the commotion, which made him breathe a sigh of relief, not wanting Qiao Nu to hear that he was ugly.

  Li Qin crouched down, picked up an iron helmet in his hand and weighed it, saying: "The material is quite sufficient, I'm afraid it's several kilograms. But if you wear this thing on your head all day, won't you get dizzy?"

  Dian Wei squeezed over and shouted: "Young master, I said to give me the largest one, I'm not afraid of dizziness." He took the iron helmet from Li Qiang's hand and pressed it onto his own head.

  Everyone burst out laughing, especially the horned soldiers, who were all staring at Tie Nang and thinking of getting a share of his good stuff.

  Li Qin stood up and said, "Everyone has worked hard, last night was very tiring, go take a nap. By the way, don't put these iron armor here, take them to the threshing ground, gather the children together, let them wipe the iron armor clean, whoever wipes it well will be rewarded with sugar."

  Jia Xun nodded and said, "Not bad, it's just right, having obtained so many iron armors, we should let others know about it. Aren't iron armors meant to be worn by people?" This is also a good propaganda for recruiting soldiers!

  Li QIN spoke a few words, then went back into the house to make up for his sleep, got back on the bed again, feeling deeply tired. Too many things had happened yesterday and he was overthinking, as soon as he closed his eyes, he fell fast asleep before long.

  He slept until the late afternoon, when his stomach was hungry and he woke up. He got dressed and went out of the house, but didn't see his parents. There were no other people in the courtyard either, and he had no idea where they all went.

  Li Qin walked out of the courtyard and headed towards the threshing ground. As soon as he arrived, he saw that the entire area was packed with people, even the trees and rooftops were crowded with onlookers. The crowd was so dense that it was impossible to see what was happening inside. Li Qin had no choice but to climb onto a rooftop himself, looking down into the threshing ground.

  This doesn't seem to be a big deal, and he couldn't help but laugh. On the threshing ground, a row of iron armor was laid out, with a large gate board standing in front of it, as if someone's door had been dismantled and placed there. In front of the iron armor stood Jia Yu, who was teaching the villagers to read, still full of energy.

  In front of Jia Yu sat several rows of children, behind them were villagers, even Liu Sheng was among them, sitting on a stool, learning to recognize characters with Jia Yu.

  Li Qin narrowed his eyes and looked over, only to see the door panel with three words written in ink: Yi, Er, San. He guessed that the next word would be Si.

  In front of the blackboard, Jia Yu wrote another character and said: "Just now we learned one, two, three. Now let's learn this character. When you've finished writing it, who can recognize this character? Read it out loud for me."

  The little horse in the children immediately stood up and said loudly in a crisp voice: "This character is read as 'four'!"

  The common people all nodded in agreement and praised Ma Chao, saying that he was really clever to recognize the character "four" when they themselves did not know it.

  Jia Xian burst out laughing and said, "You think you're so clever! I've always said you're just a little kid. You still don't believe me? How about this: the character is pronounced 'wu', not 'si'!"

  The little horse was extremely embarrassed. He pouted his mouth and sat back down, saying in a low voice: "Isn't the number after three obviously four? I can count!"

  Ma Tie sat beside him, snorted his nose and said: "Big brother, I can count too!"

  At this time, Jia Xian wrote another character and asked: "Which of you knows what this character is pronounced as?"

  The villagers all shouted together: "This one must have read for four years!"

  Jia Yu was quite pleased with himself and said: "Wrong again! You're not much better than this little kid. This character is pronounced 'liu', not 'si'!"

  The villagers were furious and shouted together: "Where's the fourth one? How did you leave out the fourth one? Change teachers, change teachers, we don't want you to teach anymore!"

  Jing Qi rushed to the front of the gate and shouted: "I'm here to teach, this word is pronounced 'four'!" He wrote a character "" with charcoal.

  The villagers finally woke up and said that Jing Qi was a good person after all, and didn't play tricks on everyone.

  Li Qīn waved at Jiǎ Huì from the rooftop, beckoning him to come over. Jiǎ Huì squeezed out of the crowd and also climbed onto the rooftop, sitting down beside Li Qīn. Jiǎ Huì said: "Colonel, you see, it's not that I didn't want to teach, but they wouldn't let me teach."

  Li Qin smiled and said: "Each profession has its own specialization, it's better to invite a teacher to teach. Brother-in-law, from now on don't call me Colonel, hmm, just call me Ah Qin, I find it more intimate."

  Jia Xiang hesitated for a moment and nodded in agreement.

  Li QIN pointed to the people below and said, "With so many people, I don't think it will be a problem to recruit soldiers, and more people will come in a few days. I want to establish an infantry of 400 people, and then establish a cavalry team of 100 people. I think relying solely on long gunners is a bit monotonous, we also need archers, shieldmen, axe men, if conditions permit, we can make some broken horse knives for equipment, and also do some javelins, more importantly, there should be a special vanguard team to scout out the enemy. However, these are easy to say but difficult to train, so even if we have all kinds of soldiers, we must still emphasize one aspect, making it the trademark of our Fu Jiao army, which aspect do you think we should emphasize?"

  Jia Xun thought for a moment, then said: "Of course, the elite troops are the knife-shield soldiers, but other armies also take knife-shield soldiers as their main force, which doesn't make us stand out. I think we'd better train long spear soldiers, with other soldiers as auxiliary."

  He paused for a moment and said in a low voice: "Long gun soldiers are the best to train, and easy to supplement, cheap!" The last two words were as faint as a mosquito's hum.