In the open space next to the German engineers, more than 100 Han soldiers were either armed with guns or with handles, and according to the requirements of the Germans, a surveying and mapping benchmark was set up every few tens of meters.

The German engineers were tasked with protecting a company drawn from the Han Field Army, and the company commander was Lu Rongting, who had just been promoted to captain.

After arranging the tasks of his soldiers, Lu Rongting chatted with the officials in charge of accompanying the engineers, found an opportunity, sat under the camphor tree alone, took out a thick record book, and began to sort out the company's battle records.

War records are not only used to record the combat and training of a unit as a certificate for counting the combat exploits of soldiers and officers, but also a first-hand real case of summarizing and reflecting on the lessons learned and improved in each battle.

Each company and battalion unit of the Defence Force has its own record of warfare

Usually, the company and battalion commanders will count and sort out the battle records and soldiers' reward and punishment data, and then hand them over to the division-level command headquarters of the combat unit to which they belong, and then the division-level command will review and judge the authenticity of the rewards and punishments, and finally the division headquarters will report the list of meritorious soldiers of the whole division to the General Staff Headquarters, and at the same time, the division headquarters will screen out the combat events with educational and reflective significance and sort them out into the divisional combat history records, and preserve them as part of the combat history of division-level military units.

Flipping through the war record book, carefully browsing the list of meritorious soldiers page by page, when he turned to the fifth page, Lu Rongting was so curious that he couldn't help but stay for a few more minutes on the introduction of a deputy platoon-level officer.

"Yan Zhengping, 31 years old, deputy platoon commander of the second company of the 6th battalion of the 1st regiment of the 3rd Division, with the rank of second lieutenant, during the Argentine War, killed and wounded three Argentine soldiers, killed one white soldier of the British army, captured four Indian indigenous soldiers, wounded once, and was awarded two second-class merits and one first-class merit, on October 28, 1879, he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant after the approval of the division headquarters."

Yan Zhengping's military exploits are considered to be above average in the company, but this is not the reason why Lu Rongting pays special attention, what really arouses his interest is the introduction of Yan Zhengping's family.

Yan Zhengping, born in a family of Chinese immigrants in southern Fujian, in 1873, he moved to South America with his father and brother, a family of 4 brothers, 13 sons and nephews, and a total of 9 people joined the army by his father, brother, brother, son and nephew, his father was 47 years old, joined the army in his early years, and was discharged from the army in 1877 with the rank of lieutenant and deputy company commander, at the end of 1878, he was re-conscripted into the army, with the rank of temporary captain, and served as the deputy battalion commander of the garrison army.

The eldest son, Zheng An, aged 16, was a soldier of the 3rd Battalion and 5th Company of the 1st Regiment of the 4th Division of the Field Army, enlisted in the army at the beginning of 1879, captured an Argentine soldier during the war, and was awarded a second-class meritorious service with the rank of first-class soldier. …………”

Three generations of fathers, brothers, sons and nephews joined the army at the same time, and it was the first time Lu Rongting had seen this situation, but after reading Yan Zhengping's family introduction, although there were still some curious people, it was not as strong as it was at the beginning.

Yan Zhengping's father got married at the age of 14, and gave birth to the eldest son in the second year, before immigrating to South America, Yan's father in his early forties had a total of five sons and three daughters, but one of the sons and two daughters died due to famine, disease and other reasons, after arriving in South America, the remaining four sons and one daughter and grandsons and granddaughters had a full meal, which multiplied into a large family of more than 20 people, including daughters-in-law, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, grandsons, granddaughters.

Early marriage and early childbearing, many children and grandchildren, the people at the bottom have nothing, and the children born are coarse and coarse, as long as they can live to the age of eleven or twelve, even if they help the family add an extra laborer, that is, they can increase the family's rations through work and farming, and they can also be used to continue the incense and inherit the family business.

Although the low-level Chinese immigrated to South America, although they did not have to eat enough and starved every day as before, the idea and custom of having more children were firmly inherited under the influence of the government's intentional propaganda and family concepts.

Ordinary Chinese families, unless there are special circumstances, at least three or more children, for each additional child, the government will give an additional five acres of good arable land or 30 to 100 acres of pasture and forest land, if the number of children is less than three within seven years of marriage, the officials will first come to urge, and then do not change, they will have to take back a part of the land as punishment.

There are many benefits of having more babies, and having fewer babies not only gets less land than other people's families, but also lags behind other families in the competition of the next generation, so in South America, there are many brothers, sons and nephews like Yan Zhengping, and the phenomenon of three generations joining the army at the same time will be more in the future.

After staying under the tree for about half an hour, Lu Rongting put away the war record book, and when he was about to get up, he saw Wang Shizhen walking away from this side, Wang Shizhen was younger than Lu Rongting, and was promoted to lieutenant and deputy company commander after the war, staying in the same company as Lu Rongting, and was responsible for assisting Lu Rongting in handling company affairs.

"Company commander, it will take more than ten minutes for the Germans to complete the surveying and mapping work, and Lord Zhou asked me to inform you to arrange for the troops to be gathered in advance."

"Okay, let the first and second platoons on the guard task withdraw, and the third platoon helps the Germans put away the surveying and mapping instruments, and tells the brothers in the third platoon to be careful, and don't pull down bits and pieces."

"Yes, company commander, I'll send someone to order."

After arranging the task, Lu Rongting saw that the other party was still standing there and asked, "Is there anything else?" ”

"Company commander, the result of my last application came out, and the division headquarters came with an order, asking me to pack up my things and report to Chang'an City within half a month, and then take the transport ship of the ocean shipping company and leave with sixty grassroots officers who went to Songkhla to serve as military instructors."

"You've thought it through?"

"Before submitting the application for transfer to serve in the Nanyang Legion, I had been thinking about it for a month, the Argentine War was over, the local army was reduced and reorganized, even if I stayed on the mainland, there was no war in recent years, the situation on the Nanyang side is more complicated than the mainland, and when I get there, maybe when I will fight with the indigenous forces, although the conditions on the Nanyang side are a little harder, but there are more opportunities to fight, so I want to serve there for a while, and by the way, I will find an opportunity to entrust someone to bring my mother and aunt back from the mainland."

"After His Royal Highness the King of Han ascended the throne and became emperor, the Manchu court will definitely be more jealous of the Han State, you enlist in the army in South America, and leave the two aunts on the mainland, in case the news leaks and is investigated by the Qing court, the situation of the two aunts will be dangerous."

Lu Rongting nodded understandingly, and said, "The Military Intelligence Department has set up a branch in the Nanyang region, and the work of receiving the families of local officers and soldiers left in the area has always been the responsibility of the Intelligence Department. ”

"Thank you Brother Lu for reminding me that if the Ministry of Intelligence comes forward directly, it will be more convenient to pick up my mother and aunt from the mainland."

Visiting and searching for the families of officials stranded on the mainland is one of the main tasks of the Military Intelligence Department, but because the Military Intelligence Department acts in a secretive manner, not many people know the details.

It was only when Lu Rongting was consulting the company's early battle records that he found brief information about the intelligence department's visit to find the families of the soldiers who died during the 1868 uprising, and only then did he have a one-sided understanding of the intelligence work of the military intelligence department in Nanyang.

The Military Intelligence Department's search for the relatives of officers and soldiers left behind on the mainland is semi-public information, and generally only officers and men at and above the battalion level and some of their family members are known to them on the mainland.

In order to stabilize the morale of the army and solve the worries of the Chinese workers, Li Mingyuan solemnly promised to give each Chinese worker in the uprising 300 to 1,000 mu of land, even if the Chinese workers died in the middle of the uprising, Li Mingyuan would personally hand over the land that belonged to them to their living relatives.

After the Chinese workers moved thousands of miles to the southern Brazilian states, in order to fulfill his promise to the Chinese workers who rebelled, Li Mingyuan successively sent more than 10 groups of people to the mainland, on the one hand, according to the information on the home addresses left by the fallen Chinese workers in the uprising, to find the families left behind in various regions of the mainland, and on the other hand, to establish a mainland intelligence network to lay the foundation for subsequent immigration and intelligence collection.

Eleven years have passed, and the families of the Chinese workers who died and survived the uprising, except for a small number of people who died because their addresses were unknown or because they suffered natural or man-made disasters, the vast majority of them were brought to live in South America.