Winter turns to spring, and after April, even the northern land slowly begins to warm, and the roar of the Yellow River's freezing day and night has long since disappeared, and the remaining threatening ship ice floe on the river will have completely melted.

This means the full recovery of river transportation, and with the recovery of river transportation, this Qinghe City wharf will once again gather merchant ships from all over the world, north, south and east and west merchant ships with this flood, although in winter, after the river is frozen, this Qinghe wharf will fall into depression, but thanks to the special location, it will always recover in a very short time.

At this time, Qinghe was not only the seat of Jiangbei, but also the heart of the Loyal and Righteous Army, and in the military camp outside the city, not only as many as 20 battalions of troops were stationed, but also institutions such as the lecture hall were also set up here.

Under the dam of the Yellow River, several teams of officers and soldiers in red clothes are conducting drills, but it is not ordinary soldiers who are conducting drills, but students of Qinghe Jiangwutang, which opened in October before the new year, and today is their graduation day.

"In May of the third year of Qingli, the Song Dynasty placed martial arts in the Wucheng Wang Temple, and took Ruan Yi as a professor of martial arts, although the martial arts of the Song Dynasty only existed for more than 90 days, which was abolished, but it opened the precedent of the inheritance of my Han martial arts......"

In the school field of Jiangwutang, Zhu Mingzhong, who is also the general office, wore a straight red tweed military uniform, and the 286 graduates in the audience were also wearing foreign military uniforms, which were completely different from the padded jackets worn by ordinary soldiers.

The tweed used to sew military uniforms was entirely due to chance - it was the wool wool brought from the Thomas ship, and the military uniforms made of wool became the exclusive property of senior officers, and in addition, only these graduates of the martial arts hall could get a woolen uniform.

Unlike the left sleeve worn by loyal officers in the past, the style of their military uniforms was borrowed from the military uniforms of the late 19th century, which also led to the addition of collar badges and epaulettes to their uniforms. Different from the set of military rank logos that later generations were familiar with, its shoulders resembled the later Prussian fancy winding, and a unique rank was formed by gold, silver, embroidered edges and four-pointed prismatic stars.

When this kind of military uniform and rank first appeared in front of Zhu Mingzhong's eyes, he even found a certain familiar feeling, because the military uniform and the rank on their body even gave him an illusion, the illusion of the times.

However, this illusion has now turned into adaptation, and although the students of the lecture hall were the first to put on the new military uniforms, with the opening of the woolen factory two months ago, the Italian missionaries from Nanjing brought the woolen production technology to Jiangbei, of course, at the request of Zhu Mingzhong.

However, although the wool production technology of the West was introduced to Jiangbei, because there were no sheep in Jiangbei, wool needed to be purchased from North China and Mongolia, and this was carried out at the same time as the purchase of horses, as a supplement to the price of horses, after all, wool in Mongolia in addition to felt, often discarded useless waste. If you want to buy horses and carry them to Qinghe, these worthless wool can be made into woolen to make military uniforms, thereby reducing the cost of buying horses. After all, now the military horses of the Loyal Army are completely dependent on "smuggling" from the north.

And in this era of the Xiaoice River period with low temperatures, the use of woolen felt as a raw material for military uniforms has its own advantages, compared to cotton it is wrinkle-resistant and crisp, and strong warmth, and it is precisely because of these advantages that wool has become the military uniform of the loyal army, of course, the reason why wool is chosen as a military uniform raw material, there is an unknown secret, it will slowly appear in the future, after all, now, even Zhu Mingzhong himself, is just a speculation.

"Let's look at each other's epaulettes!"

The voice from the stage made Li Qiubai look at the epaulettes on the shoulders of his classmates, and everyone's eyes were a little puzzled.

"Do you see the four-edged star on your shoulder? Whether it is a general, a lieutenant, a four-edged star is white, its metaphor has no other meaning, but it is innocent! ”

Zhu Mingzhong, who was on the stage, looked at the students in the audience, although these students were admitted from the Chongxian Hall, but more of them were ordinary soldiers who had made military merits, and they all wore the Medal of Loyalty and Courage on their chests without exception, although they were resisted when awarding the medal, Zhu Mingzhong finally awarded the medal, of course, the privileges of the medal holders have been reduced to a certain extent.

But all this is temporary, small steps and fast running, everything has to come step by step, to rebuild a mountain, far more difficult than to tear down a mountain, by no means overnight.

However, this is not the reason why Zhu Mingzhong gave a speech in the vernacular, the most fundamental reason is that as early as Jiangyin, he directly drove the flowery literary language out of the army's language, because for the soldiers, they do not need to use the flowery language to exaggerate the art of war and tactics, but should use the most concise and accurate words and figures to express all this, only in this way will it not be confused.

Looking at the silvery-white, square square edges made of white copper, Li Qiubai's face was full of thoughtful looks.

"Why the Quadrangular Star!"

Staring at the students in the audience, although he knew that any military academy, its first-term students often could not have any names, but it did not prevent Zhu Mingzhong from placing high hopes on them, after all, they were first-time "professional" students, although now including teaching, including tactics and other academic issues, are all groping, but in the past five months, they have at least glimpsed a little bit of military command from the instructor's mouth.

"Those who are metaphorically officers must act in the right way! At the same time, this square prismatic star also symbolizes the "four dimensions of the country" of "courtesy, righteousness, honesty and shame", such as comparing the country to a "house", and the "four dimensions of the country" are the four huge walls that support the house that will never collapse. And the army is the foundation and fundamental ...... of the four walls of the house."

"Coaxing", although the students in the audience were strictly disciplined, but when they heard these words, they were still stunned, because they never thought that the military would be the foundation of the country, although Jing Luo did not say this directly, but the metaphor of words is exactly like this.

For these people who were once contemptuously called "vulgar martial artists", they never thought that one day, they would get such praise, Lei Jian, who was in the field, looked at the strategy on the stage dumbfounded, if it weren't for the fact that his family was killed by the Qing captives, he who had already been admitted to the Xiucai fame, would never have joined the army, after all, it was a matter of course that he had never despised martial artists since ancient times.

"Why, do you think that Zhu's words are a little exaggerated?"

Seeing the dumbfounded looks of these students in the audience, Zhu Mingzhong immediately said,

"My Han people are martial traditions, the Spring and Autumn Period Chinese in the army, since the Warring States period after the law of farming and warfare has become the tradition of my Han people, since then on the horse for the soldier, off the horse for the farming and warfare of the three military system, to the Han Dynasty there is "no military merit is not a marquis, non-marquis is not a worship" saying, if the military husband is vulgar and how can there be this statement? How can a vulgar martial artist who takes military merits be a phase? ”

Although the weather was still cold, and although the roar of Ling Xun on the Yellow River continued to come from the river, for these 286 students of the Martial Arts Hall, everything they heard today was tantamount to a thunderclap at the head, so that until the end, when Zhu Mingzhong used Li He's "Why don't you take Wu Hook and collect Guanshan Fifty Prefectures." Please go to Lingyan Pavilion temporarily, if you are a scholar and a marquis? As an end, when they congratulated them, their minds were still haunted by those seemingly simple words. Those few words completely covered their perception of soldiers, and even an invisible idea rose in the minds of many of them, this kind of thought was - swear to die and serve the strategy. Because only Jinglu would "exalt" them so highly, and when they took the knife with the inscription "Take Righteousness and Become Benevolence" Tang-like saber, everyone held this saber tightly, and there was a different firmness in their eyes than before.

Of course, their sabers are different from the sabers that were awarded to those officials before, and the words "Jing Loyal to the Country" are missing, and even the order of the words has changed, becoming "taking righteousness and becoming benevolent", rather than "becoming benevolent and taking righteousness", if those officers were rewarded with "ceremonial swords", then now, these students only get "swords", just a symbol of their officer status. But despite this, these students holding sabers still secretly swore in their hearts one by one that they would never live up to these four words.

In fact, not to mention these people, even Zhang Jinsheng, who is Zhu Mingzhong's confidant, looked a little confused when he left the lecture hall.

"Jinglu, this, will this be too much?"

Sitting on the four-wheeled carriage, Zhang Jinsheng muttered, he never thought that the four-edged silver star would have such a meaning, so that now it was pressed on his shoulders, which only made him feel a little heavy, and even a little overwhelmed. He was a little out of breath.

"Too much?"

Looking at Zhang Jinsheng, who seemed to be a little frightened, Zhu Mingzhong, who knew that he couldn't accept such a change in identity at once, shook his head and said.

"It's not too much, but it's a fact, the military can be called the mainstay of the country, if there are no soldiers, when the foreign invades, the so-called pillars of the country, the seeds of study, in addition to waiting for the neck or selling themselves to the enemy or hiding from the world, what other options do they have?"

There was a slight sarcasm on his face, and then Zhu Mingzhong said with a solemn expression.

"So not only what I said today, but even a little too modest, this soldier is related to the survival of the country, so the soldier must hold the heart of "I die to survive the country, I live to die to the death of the country", and since the Song Dynasty, because of the late Tang Dynasty feudal towns are full of warlords to plague the country, so that there is a Song generation, suppressed by the soldiers in every way, since then, the status of the military has plummeted......"

Shaking his head and sighing that the thousands of years of martial traditions in Chinese history have disappeared in just a few hundred years, and finally turned into a "two-legged sheep", Zhu Mingzhong looked through the glass of the car window and looked at the snowfield outside the window that had begun to melt, and said.

"Although it is Zhu's wish to restore the Ming Dynasty, but in Zhu's opinion, even if he succeeds in the Northern Expedition, it is just a three-hundred-year extension of the Han people.

Zhu Mingzhong, who was staring at the distance, burst out with a strange look in his eyes,

"If you want to change this bad luck, you have to regain the martial tradition of our Han people, but if you want to restore the way of farming and warfare of getting on the horse for the soldiers and getting off the horse for the people, it is naturally impossible, and how can the centuries-old illness change overnight? Kim Sang......"

Retracting his gaze from the window and looking at Zhang Jinsheng, Zhu Mingzhong asked rhetorically.

"Do you know why, since the Song Dynasty, the status of the warriors has become increasingly low, even if the founding commander is more noble than the literati and doctors, he is just barely maintaining his dignity with the position of lord?"

"This, this...... Jin Sheng is dull. ”

Zhang Jinsheng naturally didn't know about these problems, and even now he just hired a gentleman to teach him poetry, books and articles, and he also wore Confucian robes when he was at home.

"Because of the poverty and wealth, because the practice of martial arts costs a lot, it is beyond the reach of ordinary people, so there are more than one million scholars in the world, and the country uses the imperial examination to select scholars, so that scholars and scholars are in collusion, and how many founding nobles in the world can there be?"

In the final analysis, the simplest reason is that the reader is a broad social class! In contrast, whether it is the royal family or the nobles, they are only a narrow class of elites, who may have a very high status, but their influence on society is far less than that of scholars from all aspects of society.

It is precisely because of this that not only did Xun Gui slowly become a "weak" in front of scholars, but as for those martial artists, because of their limited number, they also became disdainful "martial artists" in the literati.

"Shinong industry and commerce, the four people of the world. For example, although people today are still Shinong industrialists, they don't know that the "shi" in this Shinong industry and commerce is a lame man, this shi...... Or a scribe? ”

Scholar!

It has never been a "weak scribe", but a "scholar" who has been able to practice martial arts, and the practice of martial arts is a necessary talent for "scholars", but because it costs too much to practice martial arts, it is not affordable for ordinary families, and the imperial examination system is based on articles to select scholars, so that this martial arts will naturally be discarded, and those "lame" who abandon martial arts are even more out of context to find some truth for their own "abandonment of martial arts", and even more through the distortion of Confucianism to find a theoretical source for their contempt for martial artists.

Lame?

Looking at Jing Luo in confusion, Zhang Jinsheng was completely confused, what is a lame person?

Although he saw the doubts in Zhang Jinsheng's expression, Zhu Mingzhong did not solve his doubts, but just stared at the snow field in the distance.

"Jin Sheng, look at the rivers and mountains outside the window......"

Staring out the window, Zhu Mingzhong muttered.

"Such a great river and mountain, but how can a hot-blooded man endure it to sink into the hands of a foreign race? It's time, it's time to arouse this blood! ”