Chapter Thirty-Four: Commander-in-Chief of the Military Parade Drill

  "Qu Mingjun." Li Li saw Qu Mingjun passing by outside the door and loudly called out in the office.

  "Got it!" Qu Mingjun hastily signaled to Ding Qiang that he was leaving and quickly entered the company.

  "Do you smoke?" Li Li asked, holding a blue pack of "Diamonds".

  "No, thank you, Captain." Only after chatting with Ding Qiang many times did Qu Mingjun learn that Li Li was actually a soldier who had been promoted directly from the battalion and was an extremely strong military talent with a unique personal charm. He often joked around with the soldiers, without any airs, but of course, he never gave a good face to those he considered inferior soldiers. However, what made the soldiers most admire him was that he never fawned on his superiors.

  Qu Mingjun saw Li Li scolding a soldier at the door on his first day of eating in the company, just because one of his fellow villagers, who was also a small head of the logistics department in the regiment, ordered a warrior to let him find some soldiers in the company to go out for public affairs at noon and move goods for a so-called joint construction unit.

  In this era, the troops had some industries hanging outside, and the management fees for daily use could be used to make up for some training expenses. And this so-called co-construction unit is actually a trading company with a military skin, and there is a head in the company who has some relationship with his logistics old fellow.

  The company's business is not small, but it always wants to save some labor costs and take advantage of the team. So they often find soldiers in the team to do private work. But doing private work is not good to say, so usually they are looking for familiar people in the team to privately ask for public differences.

  This time it was Li Li's old fellow who came to the door. Don't look at Li Li and his fellow having a good relationship, often drinking together when nothing is wrong, but when they really encountered such a dirty thing, Li Li still didn't give him any face. Everyone in their heart clearly knows what kind of stuff that so-called co-construction unit is, according to Li Li's words, what the hell is military-civilian co-construction, damn it, thinking of letting my soldiers do private work, go dream.

  "Let me tell you something." Li Li lit a cigarette, wearing only a camouflage vest in the house with no military uniform on, and the fan above was blowing loudly. "Our brigade is going to have a parade, you know that?"

  "Got it." Qu Mingjun nodded, they already knew about this matter. It was said that the team intended to let their red-card trainees who came for internship form a small squad to participate in the military parade, under the pretext of learning from the military academy students who were good at formation movements. Who knows if they did it on purpose, with a mentality of comparing themselves to others.

  "So, we've all seen that the instructor and the third squad leader are not here. This formation is not particularly standard for me and the other two squad leaders either. I saw your movements were very good during this morning's exercise, so why don't you take charge of this drill training? The other two squad leaders and I will follow your arrangements." Li Li looked at him very sincerely, a rare occasion where he spoke such a long sentence without using any profanity.

  "Me?" Qu Mingjun was slightly shocked, then said with difficulty: "Lian Chang, I'm not good enough, right? You see, I'm just a first-year student, and although I've practiced formation drills, I've never commanded before, let alone something as big as this military parade."

  "Ball!" Li Li waved his hand, "Who the hell was born knowing how to do it? I have a few books on team tactics here, you take them and study them well. Everything has a first time, I believe in you!" After finishing speaking, Li Li pulled out several books on team tactics from the bookshelf and threw them at Qu Mingjun.

  Do you believe me? I don't even believe myself.

  Qū Míng Jùn hugged several books that had fallen into his arms, with a hint of bitter smile.

  "Alright, alright, what's with the long face? Li Li smiled, "It's settled then. Don't tell me you can't even handle this small matter? Is this really the level of a graduate from Shimen Lu Institute?"

  This sentence stirred up the unyielding spirit in Qu Mingjun's heart. What's the big deal about formation training? Haven't you seen a pig run before, or haven't you eaten pork before? At worst, he can just bring out Yan Weidong's training methods and use them on him. After all, during the three months of intensive training, they had practiced this formation many times.

  "Yes! I will resolutely complete the task!" Qu Mingjun stood up and saluted.

  "Come on." Li Li was annoyed by Qu Mingjun again, "I said why are you always so serious? There's no leader here, why do you always have to be so formal with your own brother?"

  "Yes!" Qu Mingjun stood up straight again.

  "Alright, alright, I give up. Go ahead and go." Li Li said helplessly.

  These days Qu Mingjun started to get busy, apart from participating in the normal training within the company, he also had to study books on team teaching methods.

  There is a saying in the troops, called "the team has no will" and "tactics have no opponent". This sentence means that the team can be written out of specific standards, but no matter who it is, it is impossible to follow the standard without any deviation. Especially when it comes to large-scale formation training, it is simply impossible to ensure that every person follows the command standard at all times.

  As for tactics, there is no right or wrong. It's easy to understand that as long as you win, your tactics are correct. If you just talk about tactics without actual combat, then there is no right or wrong. It's like Zhao Kuo from thousands of years ago who talked about tactics on paper but was defeated miserably in battle. He is a typical example.

  Qu Mingjun is now stuck in the misunderstanding that team training is not important, and even the teaching methods book for team training mentions how to do a good job with team training, but it's all very vague theoretical stuff, and when it comes to actual practice, it's often not the case.

  It's already mid-July, and the August 1st military parade is approaching, so time is tight. After Director Quan Mingjun led the entire company to practice basic movements twice, Company Commander Li Li refused to continue.

  "I'm telling you, Xiao Qu, this won't do, we don't have much time left, what's the point of all these standing at attention and rest positions?" Li Li was getting a bit anxious, taking advantage of the break in formation training to discuss training matters with Qu Mingjun.

  "This is basic." Qu Mingjun emphasized strongly.

  "I know, I know." Li Li sighed with a bitter smile. "But we've been training new recruits for over half a year now, can't say they don't have any foundation at all. Count me as a useless company commander, didn't teach them the correct formation, but taking them out should still look somewhat decent, right? Time, that's what we're lacking now, no time to start from scratch, we've got to rush towards the August 1st military parade."

  "What can we do then?" Qu Mingjun thought for a moment and also made sense.

  "Don't ask me, you're the commander-in-chief, I'm just a consultant." Li Li spread his hands and walked away like that.

  "You're really carefree, aren't you?" Li Dagu asked, and Qu Mingjun smiled wryly.

  This Li Li said to take responsibility for himself, and he also came running with a title that he called an advisor, isn't this just like a mother-in-law, and he is the poor daughter-in-law who suffers.

  Helpless, Qu Mingjun adjusted his thinking and directly began to organize the troops. The company had three platoons, nine squads, 88 soldiers, a communications officer, a clerk, two platoon leaders, and one company commander. There were 93 people in total, minus the two team leaders, one flag bearer, leaving 90 people.

  Then ten people formed a row, and there were nine rows in total. Under Qu Mingjun's order, everyone, regardless of their class or rank, lined up in a long queue according to their height. The company commander and the two platoon leaders led the team at the front with flags, and all soldiers joined the formation.

  "Count off from one to nine!" Qu Mingjun adjusted his combat belt and gazed out at the long line of people in front of him.

  "1, 2, ..., 9, 1, 2, ..." Soon, the whole string was divided into nine rows according to their heights.

  The first row of ten people are the top ten warriors in Quanlian, huh, looking good, even if it's an apple seller, they have to put their best-looking apples in front.

  The team was assembled and Qiujun began the joint training. They started with synchronized steps and standard steps.

  It's okay, although there are a few soldiers who are always a beat slow, under Qu Mingjun's personal demonstration and the active cooperation of the old soldiers around him, the team quickly had a basic shape and could be simply pulled out to play. Li Li was particularly satisfied with this.

  However, the two squad leaders were a bit of a headache. One squad leader had to carry the large flag at the front of the formation, which was something Qu Mingjun hadn't done before, so he just let that squad leader practice on his own; the other squad leader had to partner with Li Li as the leading team, and no matter what mistakes were made, Li Li would always glare at him, poor guy, it was obviously Li Li's fault.

  They've been grinding for almost a week, and the gun training has started. At first, Qu Mingjun didn't let them practice arm movements, only leg movements, because this time the machine gun squad is going to march with guns. Originally, Qu Mingjun thought they would be carrying heavy machine guns and small cannons in formation, but he had no idea how to do that, nor had he ever seen it before. The training commander almost quit halfway through, but later Li Li explained to him that within the regiment, regardless of branch, this was also an infantry regiment, and each squad was equipped with eight rifles.

  Qu Mingjun originally thought that there were some things in this group that didn't quite add up and weren't realistic, but as a result he was ridiculed by Li Li.

  "Is it necessary? It's just a military parade, what's being inspected is the soldiers' spirit and appearance, not their combat effectiveness. According to your logic, there are also armored vehicles, motorcycles, command vehicles, and even bridge-laying tanks in the brigade, should they all be brought out for a spin too? Isn't that enough of a waste of national gasoline?"

  Qu Mingjun only then realized that the training expenses and plans for the team were fixed at the beginning of each year, and it was not necessary to use this equipment for a small-scale mobilization within the unit. It seemed that if one didn't go to the grassroots level, there would be many things taken for granted.

  When it comes to armed training, there are simple and complex ones. For example, Qu Mingjun and others now have gun-slinging training, which is to put the gun on their shoulders, with both hands holding the gun stock and handguard, and then everyone walks in step. This step is even simpler than unarmed step, because both hands do not move throughout the parade process.

  The reason for practicing the rifle drill is that there are no regulations on bayonet training for the 81-type automatic rifle in the current team's command, but rather the bayonet training for the semi-automatic rifle used by the three armed forces' ceremonial teams.

  However, Qu Mingjun and his team learned the bayonet advance of the August 1st automatic rifle with the drill instructors from the Military Basic Teaching and Research Office at the end of last semester. The instructors said that this move was first created by Shimen Lujun and has been reported to the headquarters for inclusion in the new generation of drill commands, which will become a new standard for August 1st automatic rifle drill training in the future.

  "Hmm, the gun training is too simple, isn't it? Even if a machine gun company trains well, they can't show off in a regimental review. How can they demonstrate their level then? Shouldn't we play something with higher difficulty? Qu Mingjun thought to himself, stroking his chin with its fine and dense fluff."