Self-recommendation

  Zheng Kezang's purpose in organizing the Boy Scouts was to have a force that could protect himself, but he also hoped to expand this small army into the main force of Ming Zheng one day. Therefore, the organization of the Boy Scouts he drafted had undergone significant changes compared to the current system of the Zheng Army.

  Zheng Jun's current system was established by Zhu Xian when he successfully crossed Taiwan in the east, and it is a five-five system.

  Its highest organization was the army, with five armies: front, rear, left, right and middle. The five armies were commanded by a high-ranking military officer called the General Governor of the Five Armies, each army had a commander-in-chief, a general manager, two deputy generals, and other officials to command troops. Under the army was the garrison, with different names such as Wu Chang Garrison, Wu Bing Garrison, Wu Xing Garrison, Wu Yuan Garrison, Wu Chong Garrison, Wu Xuan Garrison, etc., each garrison had a garrison commander, supervisor, camp manager, array officer, and military secretary. Under the garrison was the brigade, each garrison had five brigades: front, rear, left, right, and middle, led by a brigade general. Each brigade had five regular leaders, who were in charge of two deputy leaders. The deputy leaders were in charge of one sergeant and one storm officer. The sergeant and storm officer were each in charge of five soldiers. With this organization, one brigade would have about 200 people, and one garrison should not be less than 1,000 troops, but in fact, due to the Zheng army's many battles and loss of mainland recruitment sources, there were many vacancies, so often even half of the number could not be reached.

  Not all of Zheng Jun's troops were severely undermanned, at least the five guards directly controlled by Zhu Jin himself were mostly full. The five guards refer to the Left Wuwei Town, which was reorganized from the Zhen Ding Town, the Right Wuwei Town, which was reorganized from the Left and Right Rongqi Towns, the Left Huwei Town, which was reorganized from the Left and Right Xiaoji Towns, and the Ruan Yiwei Town, which had a special organization and jurisdiction over the front, rear, left, right, and middle five camps. In order to distinguish them from ordinary towns, each town of the five guards had one general, indicating their high status.

  Zheng Kezang had only 150 regular troops, so he could only divide them into groups of five, with one vanguard officer per group, three groups per squad, and each squad had a squad leader. Three squads formed a team, and each team had a team leader and a messenger. In total, there were 50 people. Then the three teams of 150 people combined to form a battalion, with Zheng Kezang as the battalion commander.

  ??

  "Everyone has finally arrived, and this children's camp can be considered officially established."

  Standing on the reviewing stand built by the young boys, Zheng Kezang, wearing a small suit of armor, looked majestic.

  "I am Zheng Ke Shuang, Wang's eldest son and your camp officer." A murmur of whispers and the voices of instructors reprimanding rose from below the reviewing stand, clearly this was not a well-disciplined army. "Now that we have formed an army, we must formally begin training," Zheng Ke Shuang continued after the noise had died down. "However, before that, there is one more thing to do." Zheng Ke Shuang paused. "That is to appoint three platoon leaders and nine squad leaders, twenty-seven charge officers from among you."

  The shouting started again, followed by the sound of teachers' canes hitting people's bodies and the pitiful cries of the students in pain. Zheng Kezang continued to wait until it became quiet downstairs.

  "I forgot which book I read a sentence from, that is, a soldier who doesn't want to be a general is not a good soldier," The team was a bit stirred up, but the guys who had just been beaten with a rattan stick were still fresh in their minds, so although some... no one dared to speak out. "Do you see the white line on the ground? Well, now those who want to be a vanguard officer or squad leader, go stand in front of the white line."

  Zheng Kezang's words fell, but the scene of scrambling to be the first did not appear. The little boys were eager to move, but seeing that no one around them was making a move, they also restrained themselves and prepared to follow the crowd.

  Upon seeing this scene, Zheng Kezang coldly smiled and flipped his hand to take out a glass hourglass given by the Yingui merchant: "If you can't come up with an answer before the sand runs out, then I'll assume that you've all given up on this opportunity. Don't regret it later."

  The hourglass started timing, and the team was in a state of oppression. But how much self-control can teenagers have? After waiting for a while, someone finally couldn't resist the temptation and slowly walked out of the team to stand in front of the designated white line. As soon as there was a leader, there was a second one, and soon the third, fourth, and fifth also ran out of the lineup. Before long, the area in front of the white line was crowded with people of all heights.

  "Stop the rest of them." Zheng Kezang ordered loudly, and the hesitant children could only watch with envy as those who had crossed the line. "Sun Youlao, count the number of people in front of the white line." The numbers were quickly reported, 41 candidates for 36 reserve spots. "Not bad," Zheng Kezang nodded in satisfaction. "Except for the first one to come out, the remaining 40 will turn their backs," With his order, 40 bowls were placed behind the 40 candidates, and the others also received green beans. "Although it's too late to become a vanguard or class leader now, I'll give you an opportunity to choose from these 40 reserve candidates who you think is suitable to be a vanguard or class leader." The children with their backs to the team were still a bit confused, but the others started whispering to each other again. "You only have one chance," Zheng Kezang's voice suppressed the murmurs of discussion. "Once you cast your vote, there's no going back."

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  The boy who received the green beans walked behind each candidate in turn and casually threw the green beans to his chosen object. The candidates were anxious to know if they had got votes, but there was a teacher holding a rattan stick staring at them tigerishly, so they could only stand there in anxiety.

  The voting went slowly, but the results came out quickly. The reason was simple and obvious: only twenty-five bowls had beans in them. These people were naturally overjoyed, but there were still ten seats that needed to be re-elected.

  It's now down to the final 15 out of 10, and those who haven't been selected are getting even more anxious.

  The final result came out, and the five boys who were not selected suddenly burst into tears.

  "You're all bad, why didn't anyone choose us?"

  "Stop crying." Zheng Kezang had already walked down from the stage and stood among the candidates, his words like a splash of cold water. Two of the five eliminated candidates stopped crying, while three others continued to wipe away tears. "A real man sheds blood but not tears. Do you think you can be vanguard officers or squad leaders with this kind of behavior?"

  "Why not?" one of the little fat boys replied, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "I don't believe those guys they chose are stronger than me or can run faster than me."

  "All right, don't say anything. I won't give you the chance." Zheng Kezang pointed to the two who didn't cry. "Sun Youlao, take these two back to the troops. From now on, the three of you will be my personal bodyguards in the central army."

  The little fatty stopped crying and pulled the two remaining people to run to Zheng Kezang's back. The two who didn't stay behind had a sad face, but Zheng Kezang didn't look at them. Everyone knew that children who cry get milk, they wouldn't have good relationships with others in a group of boys or complain in front of their superiors, so naturally they would be given bitter fruit to eat.

  "As for you few," Zheng Kezang pointed at the thirty-six winners. "You, the first one to come out, what's your name."

  "Back to the young master, no, Officer Hong." This boy was obviously two years older than the ones on the side, so he was quite clever. Just now, the first one who spoke up didn't say anything, and as soon as he opened his mouth, he found that Zheng Kezang wasn't pleased with the words "young master", so he immediately changed his tone. "I'm Hong Hui, my father is Hong Kui, and I'm 14 years old this year."

  "Oh, the son of Captain Hong." Zheng Kezang looked at him unexpectedly and nodded. "You were the first to come out just now, you did well, so I appoint you as the class leader of the first class." The other children looked envious, Zheng Kezang saw their expressions and smiled slightly on his face, very satisfied that he had successfully stirred up their competitive spirit. "I will also select eight class leaders from among you, still following the old rules, line up and let those below vote, the top four with the most votes will be directly elected, and the remaining four will be re-elected in the second round."

  After this election that everyone remembers, the nine class leaders finally settled. Among these nine people, in addition to Hong Hui, there are five others who are descendants of Zheng's generals: Wang Xuan, the 14-year-old son of Wang Xiuzhi, the original commander-in-chief of the Five Armies and the guardian of Xiamen; Yang Long, the 13-year-old grandson of Yang Zu, the original left vanguard; Lin Kang, the 14-year-old nephew of Lin Ji, the original participating general; Liu Wenlai, the 12-year-old grandson of Liu Jun, the original front town general.

  For a 12-year-old Liu Wencan to be elected as class monitor, Zheng Kecang was also very surprised, but this is not important. What he really worried about was that most of the class monitors were from wealthy families - although Zheng Kecang suspected that some powerful families were trying to curry favor with him, speculation is not necessarily reality, which made him worry about the control of the Boy Scouts. After all, before the concept of national identity took hold, family was still the first choice for people's loyalty. Fortunately, there were also three commoner students elected as class monitors: Ma Ying, son of a fishing family, An Long, descendant of Minnan immigrants, and Li Shun, Hakka descendant, which allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief.

  Zheng Kezang led the new class of squad leaders and charging officers onto the parade ground, introducing them one by one to the Scout troops below, then solemnly warning them.

  "Although you have been selected as class leaders and vanguard officers this time, whether you can continue to do so depends on the performance of your respective teams. My principle is that those who are capable will rise, while those who are not will fall. Of course, there's no need to say more today, you'll understand when the time comes."

  Here is the translation:

  With that said, Zheng Kezang didn't care whether they could understand his true intentions and proceeded to make an assignment on his own. He assigned the 27 storming officers to each of the squad leaders in turn, of course intentionally disrupting the order of their family backgrounds during the assignment. The aristocratic sons who served as squad leaders were arranged to have commoner-born storming officers under them as much as possible, and vice versa. After completing the assignment, he also instructed the young scouts below to tell each of the storming officers.

  "A group of five, the squad leader can be in charge of four people. The good and bad relationship between soldiers will be evaluated by each group. You go down one by one to select, each round selects one person, so as not to distribute unfairly, and there will be trouble later."

  After everyone had finished selecting, there were still three people left in the empty field. At this time, Zheng Kezang summoned Sun Youlao: "Sun, have you prepared the candidates for the team leader as ordered?"

  Sun Youlao responded with a sound, waved his hand, and three soldiers came out.

  "Three children were left, one person took one as a messenger." They all picked up the leftovers, and the soldiers didn't have much to choose from, so they randomly divided them and considered it done. Seeing this scene, Zheng Kezang signaled each squad leader to return to their team, and after each group, class, and team lined up in order, Zheng Kezang shouted loudly. "Now, let's present the flag, Team A leader, take the flag."

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