Chapter 60: Heroes from All Sides Gather (Three)

  Zhou Wenbo settled down Hua Qing and Shixiong, then planned to go take a look at the new military recruitment office.

  Even at noon on a cold winter day, Zhou Wenbo specially ordered people to burn several stoves and put them in the new military recruitment office converted from the barracks. In this way, although it was a cold winter day, the indoor temperature also reached over ten degrees, warm and comfortable.

  Zhou Wenbo lifted the thick door curtain and walked into this warm big house, where an old soldier was checking for any hidden injuries or flat feet, while Duan Shichen sat at a desk, asking questions to new recruits and registering them.

  Zhou Wenbo didn't go up to greet him, but stood quietly at the door observing.

  At this time, a young man who was shabbily dressed and very tall and thin was also being questioned and examined.

  "First report your name, age and place of origin."

  Duan Shichen didn't even lift his head and asked directly.

  However, after half a day without hearing any response, Duan Shichen suddenly lifted his head, only to see the young man in front of him looking very uneasy, with dry and cracked lips opening and closing lightly, but no sound came out.

  At this time, the old military officer standing beside the young man and responsible for the body search accompanied him with a smile: "Sir, these rural boys don't understand your elegant words, let me ask him."

  The old soldier turned around and asked: "Youngster, what's your name?"

  "My name is Gou Sheng!" This time it seemed like he finally understood, and the young man hastily replied.

  "How old is he?"

  Seventeen.

  "Nonsense, you're only seventeen? Judging from your scrawny appearance, I doubt you're even fifteen years old. We don't accept half-grown kids here."

  The old soldier took one look at the youth, who was wearing a tattered hemp garment and had chilblains on his feet, with a pair of tattered grass shoes hanging from them, and knew that he must have lied about his age.

  "Master soldier, take me in, I'm really 17 years old, it's just that I eat little and look small. If you can let me eat my fill, I'll have the strength!"

  The young man heard that he was not wanted, so he hastened to get an opportunity to enlist for himself, which was also his only chance to survive at that time.

  "Where is your home? Are there any other relatives?" Old Wu Jun looked at Duan Shi Chen and saw that he didn't refuse the child, so he continued to ask.

  "My family is from Chen Village, last year we had a disaster and my father and sister both starved to death, now I'm the only one left." The young man's eyes welled up with tears as he spoke of his family.

  "Alas, this is a world that kills people." Old Wu Jun also sighed endlessly, "Why did you come to join the army?"

  "I heard those cavalrymen say that joining the army can fill my belly and also get land, so I came! Sir, please be kind to me, take me in, I don't want land, just let me eat my fill, and I'll repay you by being a cow or horse in my next life!"

  With this cry, the young man suddenly knelt down and started knocking his head on the ground with a "thud thud thud" sound.

  "Don't bow your head here, we don't follow that suit!" Old Military Wu took out a bamboo ruler and ordered the young man to stand up straight.

  The dog stood up straight, as if it had already agreed to take itself in, and hurriedly straightened its body, with its toes also slightly raised, as if doing so would allow it to pass the physical examination.

  "Five feet two inches, not bad. At your age, it's great to have this height already. If you eat well, you'll probably grow to five feet four or five in the future!"

  The old soldier carefully measured the young man's height and was very satisfied.

  At this time, Lao Junwu and Gou Rong's eyes were both cast towards Duan Shichen, his next words would decide the fate of this young man.

  "Take it! With your build, you can only be a supporting soldier for now." Duan Shichen had also become somewhat of a down-and-out scholar over the past two years and was no longer an ignorant young master who knew nothing of the hardships of the world.

  He knew that if he refused this young man's enlistment today, this boy who looked like he weighed less than sixty pounds would probably not survive the winter!

  "Are you also surnamed Chen?" asked Duan Shichen in a gentle tone.

  "Master Chen, everyone in our village is surnamed Chen!" The young man was so anxious that he even remembered to address the scholar as "master".

  His life experience was extremely simple and plain, and "Mr." was the most flattering word he could think of.

  "I'll give you a name, let's call you Chen Shaojun! It means 'young man joining the army', now that you've entered the gates of my Tiger Troop, from now on you must follow military orders, bravely fight the enemy, the army doesn't feed idle people, do you understand?" Duan Shi Chen also had a good impression of this young man, and when registering his name, he didn't write "dog leftover", but instead lightly wrote down the three regular script characters "Chen Shaojun".

  "An adult gave you such a good name, don't you hurry up and thank them?" Old Wu Jun looked at the young man who seemed to be staying there, and quickly pushed him.

  "Thank you, sir, for giving me a new name! From now on, I'll be called Chen Shaojun! As a young soldier, I will bravely fight and kill the enemy!" The youth, no longer known as Dog Remnant, stepped forward with heartfelt gratitude to thank him.

  It was at this moment that the three people inside the house discovered Zhou Wenbo leaning against the door, looking over here. Duan Shichen was also startled in his heart, and didn't know when Master had arrived.

  Zhou Wenbo walked quickly over: "Chen Shaojun, what a great name! You're at the age where you need to eat more to grow strong. De Ran, you've been busy all day, take Shaojun out for dinner first, I'll handle the registration here."

  Zhou Wenbo's tone was already commanding, and Duan Shichen had no choice but to obey.

  Behind the row of houses where the new army recruitment office is located is a small school field, where Liu Meng and others are responsible for the examination of strong soldiers and regular soldiers. All new soldiers who pass the test are brought here to register at the new army recruitment office.

  Just as Zhou Wenbo had just sat down at the desk, reviewing the new recruit files previously registered by Duan Shichen, he heard a noisy sound coming from outside, seemingly made by many people.

  Just a moment later, the soldier in charge of guiding at the gate came running to report: "Sir, there are nearly 100 men and women, big and small, who have come together to join the army. They say they are refugees who can't survive!"

  "Oh? Take me to see." Zhou Wenbo was still encountering this kind of elderly and young people coming to rely on him for the first time today, so he got up and followed the soldier out of the gate.

  Zhou Wenbo walked to the gate of the military camp, but saw that outside the gate there were more than a hundred people crowded together. Upon closer inspection, most of them had pale complexions and looked weak and feeble, with an air of exhaustion and helplessness about them. It seemed likely that these people who called themselves refugees were not deceiving him.

  However, when Zhou Wenbo carefully scanned the crowd, he found that most of them were middle-aged men, and there were only about twenty elderly women and children. If they could really be gathered under his command, the task would have been completed by one-tenth.

  This group of people is exactly the one from the mountain cave on the outskirts of Yikuan County, and they really did bring their elderly and young children with them. They set off at dawn and walked for over ten miles, but didn't arrive until after noon. Fortunately, there were many strong young men in the group who helped support the others, so no one fell behind.

  The leader was a discerning person, and at a glance, he saw the exquisite soft armor on the young man following behind the soldier and his noble demeanor, knowing that this must be someone with power in the military, perhaps even the commander's own son or adopted child, and couldn't afford to be slow.

  He stood up straight: "General, we were originally villagers in Hebei Province. Last year, bandits ran amok, and our neighbors suffered from robbery and looting, unable to make a living. That's why we brought the elderly and children with us, crossing the river to the south. However, after crossing the river, we had no place to settle down, and within half a year, more than half of us died from cold and hunger. Now that we've heard that General Zhao is recruiting new troops, today we bring our fellow villagers to join up. As for those of us who are still lucky enough to be alive, most of us are strong and able-bodied men. If the general is willing to accept us, in the future we will definitely repay the general's kindness with our lives!"

  Zhou Wenbo carefully sized up the leader who had stepped forward to speak.

  All I saw was that this person had thick eyebrows and big eyes, with a square face covered in sideburns. His body was robust, about 1.8 meters tall, if not for the fact that he had been malnourished for a long time, he would have been a strong and majestic man.

  This man must have also read books, speaking logically and calmly. Moreover, Zhou Wenbo saw that the group of young people were not numb or arrogant, but rather had a few adults, women, children and elderly people, so he knew that what their leader said was true.

  The historical crossing of the early rise, the protagonist often recruits some city thugs with a wave of his hand, can make this group of people reborn, bravely kill the enemy, and sacrifice their lives. This plot is naturally extremely unscientific.

  Why? Because this group of people is the dregs of the so-called petty bourgeoisie in its early stages.

  The vast majority of them are deceitful and afraid of the strong, greedy for life and afraid of death, with no loyalty or benevolence in their hearts. They are truly the dregs of society. In this chaotic world, many people still have the blood of innocent civilians or good people on their hands, and who knows how many heinous crimes they have committed in secret.

  Even if famous generals like Zhou Yafu, Yue Fei and Qi Jiguang came to train them, they might not be able to form a proper army. How could Zhou Wenbo, who is only good at talking about military tactics on paper, possibly lead them?

  The method of selecting soldiers is indeed the first pass that Zhou Wenbo, who wants to be a commander-in-chief, faces.

  So who was most suitable for being a soldier in ancient history?

  The Tang Dynasty's light cavalry was the most outstanding, and the standard for recruiting soldiers naturally prioritized those who were skilled in riding and shooting. The imperial guard troops that protected the emperor were all known as "Flying Cavalry", "Hundred Cavalry", "Thousand Cavalry" and "Ten Thousand Cavalry", selecting only the bravest and most skilled shooters among the soldiers.

  By the Song Dynasty, due to the loss of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, the Central Plains lost its best horse source, and from then on, cavalry was in urgent need, and only infantry could be recruited.

  Emperor Taizu of Song, Zhao Kuangyin, personally selected tall and strong soldiers as "soldier models" to be distributed across the country as recruitment standards. Later, finding this method too troublesome, he changed it to using a wooden stick called "equal length stick", recruiting soldiers by height measurement, with the tall and strong ones being selected for the Forbidden Army, while the short and thin ones could only join the auxiliary army.

  The method of recruiting soldiers by General Qi Jiguang was quite peculiar: the slick and cunning people in towns and villages were not wanted, nor were old oil sellers, nor those who were familiar with officialdom, nor those with pale and tender faces.

  A simple and honest countryman who is afraid of officialdom.

  Qi Jiguang relied on this group of rural soldiers recruited from Zhejiang, first defeating the Japanese pirates in the southeastern coastal areas, thus eliminating the harm caused by the Japanese pirates to Jiangnan for many years during the Ming Dynasty. Later, they also fought in Xuan-Da and Liaodong, and were a powerful army that dominated the world.

  At the end of the Qing dynasty, when Zeng Guofan was building the Xiang Army, he directly adopted Qi Jiguang's method of selecting soldiers, so that at that time everyone knew that Zeng Guofan recruited soldiers as long as they were farmers with calluses on their hands.

  In fact, Zhou Wenbo also hoped to recruit new troops in accordance with Qi Jiguang's method.

  To know that since the end of the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, all soldiers were arrogant and domineering, often overthrowing their superiors. Zhou Wenbo didn't think his own recruited troops would be like this either. Just thinking about it is frightening, such as a sudden mutiny by soldiers while sleeping.

  However, at the beginning of his venture, with many enemies lurking around and in this critical moment, he had no choice but to set standards for Jianzu, Zhengzu and Fubing.

  If they are truly talented, have exceptional abilities, or have extensive experience, most will be assigned to the Jianzuoying camp. These people will be handed over to suitable generals for training and cultivation in accordance with traditional methods.

  Most of the honest rural people selected according to Zhou Wenbo's standards, Zhou Wenbo had planned to use a set of methods he had spent years studying and sorting out history for writing books to train them, as for whether they can achieve good results, this is what needs to be personally verified to get the result.

  As for the nearly hundred people in front of Zhou Wenbo, although they were displaced due to war and chaos, they had not become thieves due to famine or other reasons, but were still qualified soldiers in Zhou Wenbo's ideal.