Chapter 13: Training Soldiers (Part 2)

  Wei Guanghui said, seeing everyone looking at him in surprise, irritably: "What are you looking at?"

  Several newly appointed team leaders saw his angry appearance and turned their heads, holding back their smiles. Only Zhang Yafei was still smiling at him. "And you," Wei Guanghui shouted viciously at Zhang Yafei.

  Zhang Yafei didn't think much of it, made a face, and turned his head to smile at Song Zhe Wu: "Commander, I know what opinion Guang Hui has, he's complaining about the lack of troops."

  "Yafei, let Commander Wei finish speaking." Song Zhe Wu roughly knew what was on Wei Guanghui's mind, but still wanted to hear him out.

  Wei Guanghui said with some embarrassment: "I have two opinions. First, cavalry can only have impact if there are many people, and I currently only have 2000 men and horses, which is roughly equivalent to one of their regiments. Second, the training has hardly involved cavalry, and the commander favors infantry over cavalry. If not, it would be better to abolish the cavalry, and I will go and become an infantryman."

  Seeing Wei Guanghui still panting, Song Zhe Wu burst out laughing and said: "My Commander Wei, I'll answer your second question first. Both the Chief of Staff and I are infantrymen by training, and among all the people here, only you're an expert who graduated from the cavalry department of Baoding Military Academy. As the saying goes, 'different trades are like different mountains', so this cavalry training plan is up to you, we can't do it."

  Wei Guanghui thought for a moment and couldn't help but laugh. Song Zhewu continued, "As for the first point you mentioned, you're also wronging me and the chief of staff. We're currently in mountainous terrain, where cavalry is not very useful. Cavalry can only play a big role on grasslands and plains. Not to mention that most of our soldiers now don't know how to ride horses, becoming a qualified cavalryman requires a long period of training. Even if they do know how to ride, we won't give them to you now because we have too few men. For now, focus on training your 2,000 troops. Once the training is complete, I'll use the excuse of defending against bandits to let you lead your troops to the edge of the grasslands and choose a place to station. With these 2,000 troops as the backbone, you can freely recruit soldiers. There are many people who know how to ride horses there, and it will take less time to train them. I'll agree to a quota of 20,000 men for now."

  As soon as he heard the establishment of 20,000 people, Wei Guanghui couldn't help but laugh with his mouth open, and the other team leaders also showed envy in their eyes. A cavalry of 20,000 people is enough to form an army according to the current domestic cavalry troops' establishment.

  "Don't be happy yet, listen to me finish speaking and then you can rejoice." Song Zhe Wu continued: "There is also the issue of horses. The horses you have now are mostly Mongolian horses. Although Mongolian horses are strong in endurance, they are small in stature, slow in speed, and weak in impact force. Cavalry horses should be good at speed, cavalry horses from Inner Mongolia's western region and Xinjiang are better. When the time comes, all the horses in your troops will go there to buy them. Also, the domestic steel production is not good, the sabers made from it are easy to break when chopping, I have already ordered 24,000 sabers from Xiao Gezi, the style is the one you've seen before."

  Wei Guanghui had seen Song Zhe Wu's drawings, the slender blade body, with an arc-shaped knife tip, it was a sight to behold.

  Actually, the knife pattern drawn by Song Zhe Wu is the famous Snowflake Knife in later generations. What Song Zhe Wu did not expect was that because he let this knife appear ahead of time, it immediately gained popularity among German soldiers, and soon after, German cavalry switched to using this type of knife. Later, French and former Soviet cavalry also replaced their knives with this one. What made Song Zhe Wu regretful was that since he didn't apply for a patent, only the Germans were kind enough to pay him a fee in advance, while other countries ignored him. The reason he didn't apply for a patent was that in his memory, Snowflake Knives were only used by Chinese people, and no other country's military adopted them. However, what he didn't know was that historically, when the Snowflake Knife first appeared, due to the increase in weapon automation, the importance of cavalry decreased greatly among various countries. Now, however, cavalry is still an important branch of the military, so knives used by cavalry receive the attention they deserve.

  Looking at Wei Guanghui's silly smile, Squadron Leader Zhang Tao jokingly said: "You don't want to be a cavalryman, who let us be classmates? I can only bear the pain and give up, I'll swap with you." The people in the room burst out laughing immediately.

  Ye Changgui was worried about the problem of his special troops, and when he saw Wei Guanghui complaining, he immediately raised his own problem: "Commander Wei said that although there are fewer people now, there are still two thousand people. I don't even have a single soldier!"

  "I've already discussed your question with the commander." Xiao Guodong took over: "Tomorrow, you will go to each regiment to select people, first select 2,000 people." After glancing at everyone, he continued: "Each regiment must actively cooperate with Captain Ye, and whoever is selected, they must be released unconditionally."

  As soon as Xiao Guodong said this, Zhang Yafei and several other regimental commanders immediately blew up. Zhang Yafei was the first to say: "This won't do, Chief of Staff. If you do it this way, he'll snatch away all our backbone cadres." The other regimental commanders also expressed their dissatisfaction with great indignation.

  Song Zhe Wu coughed heavily and everyone knew he was about to speak, so they all fell silent immediately.

  Song Zhe-wu saw everyone calm down, and in a resolute tone said: "The method the Chief of Staff just mentioned for selecting personnel for the special forces, I completely agree with. Captain Ye, you go to each regiment tomorrow to select people, battalion commanders will follow your selection, each regiment must fully support."

  Ye Changgui had obtained Song Zhewu's treasured sword, and the personnel issue was considered resolved. He was overjoyed, but several regimental commanders glared at him with gritted teeth. Ye Changgui knew he had offended many people, so he hastily put on a smiling face and said to everyone: "I'm just carrying out Commander-in-Chief's orders, it can't be helped! Everyone please don't take offense, bear with me."

  Song Zhe-wu continued to say seriously: "I want to emphasize one more thing, that is, everyone should not have localism and mountain stronghold mentality, do not divide your own clearly. I hope everyone understands that only if the Security Regiment is good can you all be better. The task of the Special Battalion I still cannot reveal now, it's still a secret at this stage, and you shouldn't ask around either. However, I can tell you that at this stage, establishing the Special Battalion is our Security Regiment's most important task." After thinking for a moment, he added: "Captain Ye, when you select people, you can tell those who are selected that anyone who enters the Special Battalion, whether soldiers or officers, will have their military pay doubled." Song Zhe-wu was afraid that these few regimental commanders would not openly oppose but secretly instigate their subordinates to not go, and with high military pay, they wouldn't be able to stop them either.

  After seeing Song Zhe Wu's attitude, everyone knew that it was useless to say anything more, so they all hung their heads in silence.

  Song Zhe-wu saw that the atmosphere was a bit dull, so he smiled and said: "You all shouldn't be unhappy yet, there's something even more uncomfortable waiting for you. After I finish speaking, you'll all have headaches together." Seeing everyone's spirits lifted, he continued: "All training subjects will undergo assessment, which will take place in the last week of each month. A review panel consisting of Xiao and the regimental chiefs of staff will conduct cross-assessments of each regiment. In other words, a certain regimental chief of staff cannot assess his own regiment. Both individual subject scores and overall scores will be recorded, and after six months, they will be evaluated together. Regiments with unqualified overall scores will have their regiment-level officers collectively demoted one rank, to be used for one year. If the unit's training performance improves within a year, their original ranks will be restored; otherwise, they will be demoted to battalion-level positions." Seeing all the regimental officers anxiously waiting for what came next, Song Zhe-wu secretly smiled to himself, took a sip of water, and continued: "Although the overall score is not last place, if any subject scores are last place, the regimental officers will collectively be fined one yuan, and it will be publicly announced on a bulletin board throughout the brigade."

  A huge sum of money! Everyone was amazed that only one yuan was deducted. To put it into perspective, the military pay for security guards is high, and even higher for officers. For example, a regimental officer in the Central Army, which has the highest domestic military pay, earns between 100 to 150 yuan, while those in the Security Regiment earn between 350 to 400 yuan. With such a high salary, deducting only one yuan was bound to leave them astonished.

  Everyone stared at him in surprise, Song Zhe Wu and Xiao Guo Dong exchanged a glance, and smiled knowingly.

  It was Zhang Yafei who first came to his senses: "I say, Commander, this move of yours is too vicious! This is no better than demotion, you're humiliating people!"

  Song Zhe Wu and Xiao Guo Dong couldn't help but burst out laughing.

  "Does anyone else have any questions? If not, let's adjourn the meeting. It's almost noon. Today, I and the Chief of Staff will treat you all to lunch." Song Zhe-wu said, looking at his watch.

  Zhang Yafei looked at Song Zhe Wu and said, "Commander, can we not have dinner in the brigade headquarters anymore?" This time it was Song Zhe Wu's turn to be surprised. Although the food in the security brigade was very good, these regimental officers were even better off. However, Song Zhe Wu had always been particular about his food. The brigade headquarters had a chef from Beiping who made dishes that were much stronger than those made by their own cooks. Usually they all tried to find ways to eat here and couldn't be driven away, but today someone didn't want to eat.

  "Of course, it's settled." As soon as Song Zhe-wu finished speaking, everyone stood up and rushed out of the door. In an instant, only Song Zhe-wu, Xiao Guo-dong, Wang Xing-gang, Ye Chang-gui, Chu Feng-he and two recording advisors were left in the room.

  After being stunned for a moment, Song Zhe Wu and the others burst out laughing. Ye Chang Gui said with a smile, "It's good that they've all left, I'm not leaving." Chu Feng also smiled and said, "You don't want to leave, but even if you did, it would be useless now, you don't have any soldiers yet. They're all in a hurry to go back and hold meetings, preparing for training matters. I reckon they won't even eat lunch today."