Chapter Ten A Bowl of Braised Pork Belly

  At that time, the troops were 'seven points of politics and three points of military affairs' and also had to 'talk every day and read every day'. The reconnaissance battalion was a fully trained unit, with half military and half political, training in the morning and studying politics in the afternoon. Since the squad leader was not there, Zhou Liang could only take Zhang Peng to the battalion's new recruit team.

  The classroom for the learning squad was set up in the reading room of the battalion headquarters. The squad leader was a propaganda officer from the military department, who asked about Zhang Peng's situation and gave him two volumes of "Selected Works of Mao", one new edition of the "Little Red Book" and a fourth-grade textbook. Sun Li was also led here by the instructor at this time, hanging his head in shame, looking like he had been "educated" severely.

  The team leader led everyone to read two Mao's selections, talked about the recent "revolutionary" form, and let everyone take classes in groups. There were only Zhang Peng and a girl named Li Ye in the fourth grade, both of whom were in the same class and sat at the same desk. Teacher Xie was the cultural instructor of the regiment, responsible for teaching them, with only Chinese and mathematics courses. Before joining the army, Teacher Xie was a substitute teacher at a village primary school, and he taught very well. Zhang Peng's deskmate was also very good, a quiet and beautiful girl who spoke in a clear and pleasant voice, making him involuntarily take two more glances at her.

  Zhang Peng didn't know that his two eyes had caused trouble. Li Ye's sister, Li Yan, was the platoon leader of the student army and the "highest leader" among the students. She accidentally discovered Zhang Peng secretly looking at her younger sister and determined that this kid had "ulterior motives". After school, the duty officer prepared to clean up, but Li Yan stopped him and called Zhang Peng and Sun Li over, "You two new recruits are responsible for cleaning up, if you don't do a good job, you'll have to continue tomorrow." Zhang Peng had no choice but to stay behind obediently. Who made him the newcomer? What Zhang Peng didn't expect was that this one cleaning session would last half a month. Li Yan always managed to find various faults and punish him with cleaning duty. Sun Li, on the other hand, only cleaned for a few days before being released.

  After dinner, Deputy Captain Liu held a class meeting and had Sun Li make a profound self-criticism. The old soldiers also took turns to "help" him again. Captain Liu summed up by saying: This class meeting made Comrade Sun Li understand his mistakes and strengthened his understanding of the thought of hard struggle...

  After the meeting, some precautions were mentioned and the two new recruits began to tidy up their quarters. The main task was to fold blankets. Yan Xiufang knew the rules of the troops, so she found an old blanket for Zhang Peng. When folding it, she followed the original creases and smoothed out the shape a bit. Zhang Peng quickly passed the deputy's inspection. Sun Li's blanket had obviously been altered by his mother, who had added some padding, making it bulge and impossible to fold into shape. While Zhang Peng was practicing packing his backpack, he was still trying to get the blanket to fit. The old soldiers taught Zhang Peng how to pack his backpack with one hand while moving, which could save ten or more seconds in emergency assembly. This was very difficult at first, but Zhang Peng finally managed to master it by the time the lights were turned off.

  At 6:00 in the morning, the wake-up call sounded, and Zhang Peng quickly got up, put on his clothes, hat, and grabbed his equipment belt. He jumped down from the top bunk, landing perfectly on the shoes he had placed there the night before. He quickly fastened his belt and tied his shoelaces, almost simultaneously rushing out of the door with the other veteran soldiers. After waiting for a while, Sun Li finally ran out, disheveled, and Liu Dajun helped him tidy up before they jogged to the assembly area on the drill ground. The companies were lined up in formation, and the company commander gave a brief lecture before each platoon began their exercises. Zhang Peng had received some military training back home, but it was just for show; now that he was in the army, he was struggling to keep up with the pace.

  The reconnaissance battalion is a fully trained unit, and physical fitness is very important. The morning exercise was a five-kilometer run. The playground of the reconnaissance battalion is 600 meters per lap, after running two laps, the female students of the new recruits basically all "rested", when it came to four laps, the male students also went to one side to "stand at attention". Zhang Peng still followed behind the sixth company's team, running steadily, but his face was a bit red, this amount of exercise was not even comparable to his usual boxing training. After seven laps, each class gradually opened up a distance, Zhang Peng didn't know how many more laps there were, so he could only follow closely behind the deputy captain. In the last two laps, the "top students" of each company began to speed up and prepare for the final sprint. Liu Dayong was the training model soldier of the second company, of course, he wouldn't fall behind. In the last lap, without saving energy, Liu Dayong suddenly accelerated and made a final sprint, closely following the first company commander, and crossed the finish line second. He turned back in surprise to find that Zhang Peng had actually followed him across the finish line third. Zhang Peng couldn't adjust his breathing in time, ran a bit out of breath, wanted to find a place to rest for a while, but was pulled by the deputy captain, asking: "Zhang Peng, is there anything uncomfortable?"

  "It's just a bit hot, nothing else." Zhang Peng said honestly.

  "Really?" Liu Dayong was still uneasy and asked again.

  Liu Dayong saw Zhang Peng nod again and finally felt at ease, pulling him to do some stretching exercises to relax his muscles and prevent cramps.

  Although this time it wasn't an assessment, a new recruit achieving such results still caused a stir throughout the training ground. The battalion commander and instructor didn't quite believe it either, rushing over to verify, and Zhang Peng suddenly became a celebrity. After returning to his squad, the veteran soldiers hastened to help him with his chores. Sun Li said, "Sorry, you do it yourself!" This made Zhang Peng feel somewhat embarrassed, but also made him realize that in the army, the principle of "the strong are revered" still applied.

  New recruits haven't arrived yet, and the old soldiers' morning training is just a casual drill of formation and equipment. It's the most comfortable time for the old soldiers. Liu Dàyǒng decided to use this period to train Zhang Peng and Sun Li's formation. At ease, attention, left turn, right turn... These common senses were learned by Zhang Peng and Sun Li in their school military training during "National Learning of PLA Movement". After a short training, Liu Dàyǒng thought it was almost enough, so he let them stand at attention on one side.

  When standing at attention, adopt a posture: head straight, neck straight, chin slightly retracted, head up, eyes level and looking forward, lips closed, chest out and abdomen in, legs together and heels on the same line, toes open to 60 degrees, arms naturally hanging down, fingers together and attached to the seam of the pants. Liu Dayong explained the key points once, let the two stand well, he came back and forth to inspect, occasionally correcting the movements of the two, a group of trained old soldiers ran over to watch the excitement.

  Zhang Peng didn't feel much, he usually stood still for longer periods of time and it was even more unbearable. More than ten minutes later, Sun Li couldn't hold on anymore, sweat flowed down his hair, itching unbearably, his legs started shaking uncontrollably. Twenty minutes later, Sun Li's body also began to shake, the clothes on his back were already soaked through, but Zhang Peng still didn't feel anything.

  "He's going to fall, he's going to fall!" a group of old soldiers shouted. As soon as the words fell, Sun Li classmate 'unyielding' straightened up and fell down. The old soldiers from Class 6 rushed forward and carried Sun Li under the shade of a tree to pour water on him.

  Thirty minutes, forty minutes??? An hour later, Zhang Peng just felt that the sun was dazzling his eyes a bit, and the old soldiers' voices were a bit noisy, surrounding him like watching a monkey show. Suddenly, Zhang Peng felt someone kicking his leg, instinctively exerting force, muscles tensed up, and shook outward.

  "Ah yo!" The company commander touched Zhang Peng's back to test whether he was slacking off, but ended up getting shocked instead.

  "Hurrah!" The surrounding veterans burst out laughing.

  "How long has it been?" Lian Zhang patted his butt and stood up to ask.

  "Report, it's been an hour," said Liu Dayong.

  "Mother's, let him rest for a while, he is still a child, playing the piano randomly!" Lian Chang was anxious.

  "Rest!" Liu Dayong hastily gave Zhang Peng an order.

  Liu Dayong wanted to go forward and help, but Zhang Peng ran under the tree shade to drink water as if nothing had happened.

  "Damn it, this kid was born to be a soldier!" The company commander shook his head and said with emotion.

  Before lunch, everyone sang a pre-meal song. Lian Zhang walked to the steps in front of the cafeteria and said loudly: "Say two sentences." Everyone quickly stood at attention.

  "Take a short break. Given the outstanding organization and training of the second platoon's sixth class, the battalion has decided to award them once. Zhang Peng, an outstanding trainee, will be commended. Everyone is welcome!" Liu Dayong was overjoyed, his heart racing: With this award, the advanced class is secured!

  After a round of applause, the instructor came up again. "The company has decided to add dishes for lunch for the second squad's sixth class - braised pork in one pot!" This was one of the instructor's tricks for 'grasping revolution and promoting training'.

  At mealtime, a small bowl of braised pork in oil was added to the table of Class 6. Liu Dayong took the bowl and passed it around to other classes for everyone to try, but only those at Lian's table each symbolically picked up a piece. The quartermaster had meat in his mouth, but "pain" in his heart - one bowl of braised pork could have allowed the whole company to taste some greasy food, which was equivalent to a day's worth of food expenses for an entire class! The instructor, of course, was delighted in his heart. He wasn't calculating the "economic account", but the "political account". The trainees were all children of cadres, and if they achieved good results in training, it would bring glory to their fathers' faces. He was overjoyed, and his own future prospects looked very promising! Alas, the only drawback was that Zhang Peng's father was just a staff officer - if only he could be promoted to a higher rank!

  Zhang Peng looked at Ban Le's big mouth, walking back and forth, letting others eat meat with a "owe" expression, which was supposed to be polite, but in fact it was blatant show-off. The rice bowls of the sixth class had an extra small spoonful of braised pork without exception, and Zhang Peng naturally had two large pieces of oily fatty meat more than others.

  The power of role models is infinite. In the cafeteria, the squad leaders who are learning to be soldiers ignore the rule that prohibits talking during meals and start "educating": "See? Wolves travel a thousand miles to eat meat, dogs travel a thousand miles to eat shit, if you don't train afterwards, you can't even eat hot shit."

  The soldiers all expressed their determination: "Squad leader, don't worry. We've made up our minds to 'overcome a thousand difficulties' and definitely bring back a hot meal for you."

  Class Monitor: "!!!!!!!!!......"

  A pot of meat had its effect that night, no steamed buns were left to fight over, and in the troops they only talked about 'comparison', the squad leaders used the time before lights out to drive all the new recruits to the playground to practice physical training. But these things had nothing to do with Zhang Peng, he was in his room using a towel to cover his eyes and backpack 'fighting' (sleeping), it's just that when he slept he sneezed continuously, worrying Liu Banfu for a whole night.

  A few days later, when Zhang Peng found that the students always kept a distance from him, while Sun Lidou was very polite to him, he finally felt what it meant to be a lonely master and why those who stick their heads out are always the first to rot.