"Uncle, I'm going. ”

"Well, let's go, but in the army, it's not as strict as at home, overseas Chinese govern the army strictly, and the order is forbidden, you must not be careless, you can mix it up, and it is not in vain for me to spend this effort, and it can be regarded as worthy of your father." ”

"Yes, uncle, I've written it all. ”

"Well, it's not too early, so go and write home often. ”

Zhao Ping knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Zhao Weizhong, then got up and picked up his luggage and left the house.

After returning from Shanghai, Zhao Weizhong immediately took Zhao Ping to the recruiting station to sign Zhao Ping up for the army. At the same time, it also made Zhao Ping call himself "uncle" from now on, not the master. Although Zhao Ping is Zhao Weizhong's distant nephew, in Zhao Weizhong's family, he is actually just a servant with a high status, of course, in this era, this is also a common thing.

Although Zhao Weizhong let Zhao Ping join the army because of his own selfishness, he also considered that in case Zhao Ping really had to mix up his personal appearance in the army, overseas Chinese obviously attached more importance to the army than the Qing court, and the status of soldiers in overseas Chinese was much higher than that in the Qing court, so it was obviously inappropriate to treat Zhao Ping as his servant, so Zhao Ping changed his name for himself.

However, because Zhao Weizhong's identity is somewhat special, he is Li Hongzhang's old department, and he has a relatively deep relationship with the Qing court, and now he sends his family to join the army, and I don't know what his intentions are, maybe he is sending his family to the army to go undercover? Therefore, the staff of the recruitment station registered Zhao Ping on the one hand, checked his health, and reported to the Central Military Commission on the other. And soon got a reply from the Military Commission: business is done.

It turned out that Xia Bohai, Qin Zheng, and Xiao Jianjun had a simple discussion and thought that from another point of view, if Zhao Weizhong really sent his nephew to join the army, it meant that he had decided to tie himself to the chariot of the traverser. And even if he sends his nephew to the People's Army to be an undercover agent, he doesn't have to be afraid, of course, the army formed by the traverser is not the same as the army of the Qing court, and has its own system and discipline, just with a small soldier, how big a wave can it afford, if Zhao Weizhong's nephew wants to be promoted to a middle and senior military position, he needs real military exploits, and he can't get mixed up in the army of the traverser by other means.

After receiving the instructions of the Military Commission, the recruiting staff also relaxed, and after checking Zhao Ping's body, they immediately conducted a physical quality test on him, because the current supply of soldiers is sufficient, and there is also a large room for choice in recruitment, and it is no longer a person who comes, at least to select soldiers with better physical fitness, in addition, after passing the physical examination, there will be a ten-to-fifteen-day trial training, and only after passing the trial can he be regarded as a formal soldier.

Zhao Ping's age is not very old, although he is a current person in Zhao Weizhong's family, but the diet can be guaranteed, and the nutrition is not bad, and he has practiced boxing for a few years.

The content of the trial training is similar to the military training in the old time and space, living in the temporary barracks, and carrying out some basic military basic training, on the one hand, to help the recruits have a transitional adaptation process before officially entering the barracks, and on the other hand, it is also a comprehensive examination of whether the soldiers who have passed the initial test have the qualities to become a regular soldier. There is no pay during the trial period, but you can withdraw at any time.

Zhao Ping's results in the trial training are also good, all the trial items are qualified, and he is also literate and can write, which is very rare among the recruits, there are still some literate soldiers, but there are very few people who can write, of course, the writing here is not just to write their own names, but the ability to keep accounts and write letters, so Zhao Ping can be regarded as an intellectual among the newly recruited soldiers. In addition, Zhao Ping also has a skill, which is swimming, so after completing the trial, Zhao Ping was assigned to the navy and became a naval soldier of the People's Army.

The navy is a high-tech service, because a warship in this era represents the highest industrial and technological level of a country, so the soldiers of the navy must have a certain cultural foundation in order to learn to control a warship, an illiterate can hardly work on a warship, and reading and writing has become the most basic ability of the navy soldiers, otherwise there is no way to learn how to operate a warship.

Among the recruited soldiers, all the soldiers who could read and write everything were assigned to the navy, and most of the soldiers who could read but could not write were also assigned to the navy. Because the three giants of the Military Commission are all from the navy, there will be some bias towards the navy, and the army was originally separated from the navy, the two commanders Zhu Yaping and *** are only at the battalion level and the rank of lieutenant colonel, and the seven captains of the navy are also at the deputy regimental level and the rank of lieutenant colonel, so now the army cannot compete with the navy.

Of course, although the army also needs soldiers with a high level of knowledge, it can be solved by learning to read and write, cultural knowledge, and training at the same time, so soldiers have no culture, and the impact on army construction is not great, which is also the biggest difference between the army and the navy, otherwise although the military commission is biased towards the navy, it will not ignore the construction of the army, after all, the warships are not equipped with wheels.

After passing the trial, Zhao Ping was sent home to rest for three days, of course, it was also the time for him to prepare his luggage, because once he officially entered the barracks, he couldn't go home easily, so he had a lot of things to bring.

Today is Zhao Ping's official military day, and Zhao Weizhong bought back a batch of goods from Shanghai, and the two shops were reopened for business, because the materials in the Tianjin market at this time were still relatively poor, so Zhao Weizhong's business was good, so during Zhao Ping's trial, Zhao Weizhong recruited six new guys in one breath to ensure that after Zhao Ping left, there would be no shortage of manpower around him.

After bidding farewell to Zhao Weizhong, Zhao Ping picked up his luggage, left the house, and came to the recruitment station. Because the navy's barracks are located at Dagukou, and Zhao Ping's batch of recruits has a total of 23 people, the recruiting station organizes them to report to the navy barracks.

It is about 40 kilometers from Tianjin New Area to Dagukou, which is a short distance in this era, and if you rely on foot, it will take at least half a day. However, the recruiting station was also prepared, and arranged three donkey carts, and after all the recruits arrived, they took the donkey carts and headed for Dagukou.

It turned out that the traverser in the previous battle, also captured some donkeys, horses, livestock and vehicles, these things were naturally left in the army, after all, the transportation of this era mainly relied on animal power, horses were naturally incorporated into the cavalry troops, and donkeys were used to pull carts and transport goods, of course, some vehicles were changed to carry people, just like the one that Zhao Ping is riding now, are four-wheeled vehicles, pulled by two donkeys, each car can carry eight people, as well as the luggage that he carries.

Three days ago, the road from Tianjin to Dagukou had been fully opened, but the road construction project was not yet completed, because the original plan was to build half of the road first, so that it could be opened to traffic as soon as possible, and then the other half was repaired.

The three donkey carts left the Tianjin New Area and drove along the road that had just been completed and opened to traffic towards Dagukou. Although the new road was only half completed, it was already much wider than the old road, and there were almost four horse-drawn carriages running side by side, after all, this road was built according to the standard of a four-lane road in the old time and space, and in this era, even if it was only half, there were few wide roads built. And the road surface is flat, and the four-wheeler already has a suspension damping system, so it rides very smoothly on the road.

Most of the recruits are going out for the first time, and when they sit in the car, they don't feel the bumps at all, and they all watch the scenery on the side of the road with great interest, as well as the construction scene on the other side, and talk and laugh with each other. Although Zhao Ping's age is not very old, he has followed Zhao Weizhong since he was a child, and has been to Dagukou no less than a dozen times, each time he takes a Chinese-style two-wheeled carriage or donkey cart, one is that the Chinese-style two-wheeled vehicle itself has no suspension system, and the other is that the road is undulating, so every time he walks down, the whole person is about to fall apart, and it is so comfortable this time.

The car was seized from foreigners, but this road was built by overseas Chinese after they entered Tianjin, and it only took more than two months before and after to build such a flat and wide road, which also made Zhao Ping not surprised how overseas Chinese did it. You must know that if a road like this is built under the auspices of the Qing court, it will take at least a year or so.

At this moment, someone suddenly said in the car: "Look, what is that?"

Everyone looked for the sound, only to see that on the other side of the construction, there was a huge cart, high and long, about six feet wide, and the front wheel was a huge round simple with a diameter of four feet, no donkey and no horse pulling, driving on its own, and making a piercing roar. In addition to the car's passing, floating soil, crushed sand, fine stones and other materials were pressed into a flat road surface. I just saw that everyone was dumbfounded, and I didn't know what this thing was.

In fact, the traverser uses a medium-sized smooth roller with a total weight of 18 tons, using the technology of rear-wheel drive and front-wheel rolling, which is one of the commonly used machinery for road construction in the old time and space. Generally, the construction of secondary roads, tertiary pavement, or the primary highway, primary and secondary pavement of the base and subbase, can be compacted and rolled by medium-sized smooth rollers.

Now through the group, there are a total of six such medium-sized smooth rollers, in addition to two heavy-duty smooth rollers and six light rollers, the construction of the Jingu Highway, the temporary executive committee to the construction team two medium-sized smooth rollers, two light smooth rollers, and these four rollers, so that the efficiency of the entire road repair has been greatly improved.

Zhao Ping has a lot of knowledge more than others, and knows that this must be a machine specially used to build roads, no wonder overseas Chinese can build a flat and wide road in such a short time, it turns out that there is such a machine. Zhao Ping has seen foreigners build roads, that is, using donkeys to pull a huge stone pillar and rolling it repeatedly, in fact, it is not much better than the Qing court, and has never seen foreigners use machines similar to overseas Chinese.