Chapter 016: Striving to be an Inferior Student

  The Tianjin Military Academy was the first modern military academy in Qing Dynasty, and it was the hope for the future of Qing Dynasty. From Empress Dowager to Emperor, Li Hongzhang, down to local officials in Tianjin, all attached great importance to the academy. Therefore, the management of the academy was extremely strict, the whole academy was like a heavily guarded military camp, even more formidable than a prison.

  The school has a strict assessment system and attendance system. The fourth period of Tianjin Wubei Military Academy recruited more than 500 students, divided into four departments: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineering, with 100 people in each department. Every day, there are three roll-calls in the morning, noon, and evening, and at night, there is also a check on the dormitories. If there is any slight mistake or violation of rules, the students who violate the rules will be detained together with their team leader.

  The school is surrounded by a three-zhang-high city wall, with strict guards and sentry posts on the wall. The gate is strictly checked, and to leave the gate, junior new students must have a special permit signed by the general manager and the conference manager. For senior students, it's slightly more relaxed, but they still need a pass signed by the teacher and supervisor.

  If any student dares to attempt to escape and is caught, they will be treated as deserters and beheaded in public!

  What's even worse is that due to Zhou Xuanzhang's special admission, he became a special figure in the school, always at the focus of attention from both the school authorities and his fellow students. Every move he made was under intense scrutiny, leaving him with almost no private space.

  In other people's eyes, Zhou Xianzhang has three strong backers, and one is more powerful than the other!

  He is a fellow student of the great master's brother and will be able to introduce you to the great master himself, and he is also on very good terms with Foreign Master Ede.

  Jiao Xi is an official of the Imperial Academy, needless to say. Hui Banzheng is a high-ranking official in the imperial court, and Jin Hui Banzheng is even more so, being from a Manchu noble family, able to participate in central affairs! As for the foreigner Ai De, it's even more so, because in the Great Qing Empire, foreigners are often half a level higher than officials!

  A person with these three major backers can be said to have a bright future and unlimited prospects!

  So, from top to bottom in the school, everyone admired Zhou Xuanzhang. From the school supervisors, inspectors, and head teachers to the cooks, servants, and ordinary students, they all showed great affection for Zhou Xuanzhang.

  However, for Zhou Xunzhang himself, these three powerful backers turned out to be three disasters, or rather, the three little devils that sent him to the gates of hell!

  Making Feng Guozhang a sworn brother was out of desperation, and to make matters worse, Feng Guozhang used his head as a bargaining chip, which made Zhou Xuanzhang extremely angry. This big brother is really too ungrateful!

  As for making foreign teacher Mr. Ed a friend, that was purely a misunderstanding. Mr. Ed witnessed Zhou Xuanzhang's entire enrollment process and was also very close to Feng Guozhang, so naturally he was closer to Zhou Xuanzhang. In the eyes of others, it seemed like Zhou Xuanzhang's friend. However, Zhou Xuanzhang knew that Mr. Ed was the witness to Feng Guozhang's bet with Nuo Jin, and once Sino-Japanese relations began, Mr. Ed would have to stand up and prove that Zhou Xuanzhang should replace Nuo Jin in being beheaded!

  Zhou Xuan Zhang secretly planned for half a month, searching everywhere for an escape route, but the school's defenses were as tight as an iron barrel, not even a fly could fly out.

  Seeing no way out, Zhou Xuan Zhang had to find another way out.

  It wasn't long before Zhou Xuanzhang discovered a simple and feasible way out.

  This way out can make him leave Tianjin Martial Arts Academy with a humiliated face but in a fair and square manner.

  That's being expelled from school as an inferior student.

  The Tianjin Military Academy was the highest military academy in the Qing Empire, and the trainees would become officers of the new Qing army. The quality of the officers determined the quality of the troops. Therefore, the academy had extremely strict requirements for its students, with rigorous training. There were monthly exams, quarterly exams every three months, and each time, the imperial court would send a high-ranking official to preside over them. Sometimes, Li Hongzhang, the Minister of Beiyang Trade Affairs and Governor of Zhili Province, would even personally examine the students. Each exam result was recorded, and if a student failed to meet the standards three times in a row, they would be classified as inferior and eliminated.

  The courses set up by the Academy include basic tactics, applied tactics, map-based tactics, strategic studies, fortification studies, ballistics, military regulations, field service, infantry drill manual, and aerostatics. Cultural subjects also include arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, geography, Chinese and foreign history. These brand-new Western courses were extremely unfamiliar to the Qing students who had been born and raised in China. From a young age, these students received private school education, studying only the Four Books and Five Classics. Moreover, until the late 19th century, the way the Qing Empire selected military officers was still through the Wuju examination, which tested skills such as weightlifting, archery, and shooting, which were completely incompatible with modern infantry tactics.

  The instructors at Tianjin Military Academy were basically all Germans, and Germans are naturally rigid and unyielding.

  Therefore, many students are completely unable to adapt to school education. In the fourth period of enrollment, only three months after the first semester exam, out of 500 students, 48 were eliminated. The elimination rate is close to 10%!

  Being eliminated from the school is an extremely dishonorable thing. Each student is a top-notch soldier recommended by the battalion commander, and if they are eliminated, not only will they be looked down upon, but the commander will also lose face and at least gain a bad reputation for being unable to recognize people.

  However, in the face of life and death, Zhou Xuan Zhang couldn't care about reputation or not, as long as he could leave this beheading place.

  So, Zhou Xianzhang's goal is to become a mediocre student with all his might!

  This goal is easy to achieve, as long as you are good at being lazy, this skill is something that everyone has. Moreover, with the constitution in the new barracks of the 21st century, the results were the worst, as long as he continues to maintain this state in the 19th century, it will be enough.

  However, what Zhou Xuan Zhang did not expect was that in order to become a qualified inferior student, just like becoming a qualified superior student, it is impossible without hard work!

  In the 21st century, Zhou Xianzhang couldn't understand the Type 95 assault rifle, Type 03 rifle, Type 97 sniper rifle, Type 95 light machine gun, QJY88 general-purpose machine gun, and QJZ89 12.7mm heavy machine gun.

  However, Zhou Xuan Zhang, who had played with Han Yang-made guns for over a decade, was extremely familiar with infantry weapons from the late 19th century. Whether it was imported Mauser rifles, Snider rifles, Winchester rifles, or Schneider rifles, or even the Qing dynasty's own production of Zhuang guns and Kuai Li guns, once they were in Zhou Xuan Zhang's hands, he could master them after a brief familiarization.

  Moreover, Zhou Xunzhang was incredibly versatile, and his operation and tactics of various artillery equipment commonly used by the Qing army, such as Gatling guns, mountain guns, and field guns, were also highly skilled. With just a brief demonstration from his instructor, he could fully grasp them, and even extrapolate further.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang's mastery of 19th-century firearms can be attributed to two factors.

  He first followed his grandfather to play with the old Hanyang rifle, which was similar in structure and principle to the 19th-century rifles.

  Secondly, Zhou Xuanzhang, although only a primary school graduate in the 21st century, has actually reached the level of mathematics education at the highest military academy in the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century. It is worth noting that in the late 19th century, students in the Qing Dynasty had just begun to learn arithmetic, geometry, and geography from Western learning, and those students had no foundation, while Zhou Xuanzhang has a solid foundation.

  So in Tianjin Wubei Xuetang, Zhou Xuanzhang can play and become an excellent student.

  Of course, Zhou Xuanzhang's goal was to be a mediocre student rather than an excellent one. To this end, he always kept his head clear - being mediocre would save his head, while being excellent meant losing it.

  So, Zhou Xuan Zhang kept a low profile, hiding his vast knowledge, shooting blanks, answering questions randomly in the written test, and when asked by the teacher, he would respond with a "one question, three unknowns" attitude, pretending to be a stupid fool.

  In this way, without three months, he can openly and honestly walk out of the heavily guarded school.

  However, eight months have passed and no matter how hard he tried, the school did not expel him!