In the forty-sixth year of Wanli, May 13, Qinghe City Xiguan Tun Soldier Playground.

The drum horns are melodious, streaking across the sky and breaking through the silence of dawn. On the training ground, the sound of shouting, commands, steps, and stabbing and killing sounded all together, majestic and loud, mixed but not chaotic. Hundreds of men in strong suits practiced lining up in the middle of the clearing, and the standard-bearers held homemade pennants of various colors, on which were written the words Zhenyong, Yangyong, Weiyong, and Wuyong. There were also more than a dozen colonels wearing officers and soldiers' uniforms and armor on the side, shouting and scolding the drill at the side, and if they saw anyone making a mistake, they would kick it.

There were a lot of people gathered around the playground, and it seemed that there were almost a thousand people. One by one, they looked at the teams practicing in the playground with different expressions. They are the family members of the various families in Qinghe City, and at this moment, they are also chaotic at the moment practicing queues and banner training amid the shouts of several leaders.

There are many officers and soldiers in the city who are condescending to watch the scene of chaos on the playground, and they are worried that the Jianyu will come at any time these days, but there is no news from the imperial army for a long time, and these officers and soldiers are all up and down in their hearts. Now that there are militia drills below, they can strengthen their momentum, and it is also a small comfort to them.

Zhang Yuncheng and Zhang Min were also watching from the city, Zhang Min was seven feet tall, in his thirties, and he was born very strong. He wears a cooked copper tiger helmet and a red helmet. With a pair of iron leaf chains and a long knife on his waist, he looked very fierce, and he looked like a brave general. He looked at the drill below and pursed his lips, his face full of disdain.

"A rabble, who can't even stand in a queue, how can they be expected to go into battle? The imperial court doesn't know what it's thinking, it's serious to send reinforcements quickly, but what kind of righteous brigade do these land scoundrels have? If you look at the appearance of these people, you don't expect them to help you when you really fight, and it's good not to join the enemy. ”

"Anyway, there are thousands of men, and now we can't just expect the imperial court to send reinforcements. It is said that although these people do not practice military discipline, they are quite brave people, so they can use it. Zhang Yuncheng said good things for the people below, and at the same time secretly said in his heart, people are a rabble, I think that the officers and soldiers are almost all about the same now, and it may not be much stronger than these militia groups if they are really pulled out.

"I think the middle team is still like it, and the rest are just responding to accidents. I've been practicing for a few days in a row, and I haven't grown at all, you see, that, until now, I can't even tell the difference between left and right. Hey, this team leader should be beheaded for public display. Whose militia is that team in the middle? ”

"That's Yue Ziyi's family, and among the battalions that practiced, they made the fastest progress and had the strictest discipline."

"Yue Ziyi, no wonder. There are no weak soldiers under the strong general, and I think his men and horses can be used. I heard that something happened to their family, and his old lady was bedridden after a stroke? ”

"I heard that the eldest son's life and death are still uncertain, and the old man is too sad and sick. This Yue Ziyi is really amazing, his father is bedridden at home, and he doesn't do his filial piety in front of the bed, he only cares about leading the soldiers to come out to practice every day, and he really has some meaning of sacrificing small righteousness and taking care of righteousness. Some people gossip about him, saying that he reads so many sages in vain, and does not know the slightest filial piety, and he does not pay attention to it. This person can do what others can't, dare what others don't dare, regardless of the world's eyes, I think the future achievements will be not small. ”

"Humph! What do those sour people know? I can't even tell the priority, now I can fight at any time, and one day I will fight over, and I won't even have a home, so what's the use of doing filial piety? It is not too late to enter filial piety after defeating the Tartars. I think this Yue Ziyi is quite with a certain family's appetite. ”

"Looking at their banners, they have been assigned to the Chinese army, and the military gate seems to be the first to strike. Pick the fruit and pick the good first. ”

"Where did they get their weapons? There are sharp blades in each hand. ”

"What do these clans want on the ground of Liaodong that they can't get? It's just that our government is so shabby, I haven't heard that the soldiers say that it is better to be a soldier in the imperial court than to be a pawn for them, at least people don't owe money. Fuck it's not easy for me to be a five-grade official, and I fucking want to pick a pick. The current people in my battalion, except for the old, weak, sick and disabled, are not thinking about going out to fend for themselves. ”

"Those dog officials in the household department of the imperial court should all have their heads cut off. Lao Tzu fought the frontier, but they didn't even distribute money and food. Then I'll have a fart fight! Zhang Jing scolded and scolded, and Zhang Yuncheng also hated the same enemy. The two of them said a few grumbling words, and then went down the city to the other place. And on the playground under the city, there is still chaos and commotion.

Yue Xiang was wearing a set of red iron mesh copper buckle cotton armor, an iron helmet on his head, and a pair of tiger-headed combat boots. On the cowhide belt around his waist, there is a waist knife, which makes this twenty-five-year-old young general even more sleek, handsome, and handsome. There were two personal soldiers standing beside him, but it was Ma Sandao and Li Shoucai, holding his weapon for him, a three-pointed two-edged knife that was nearly three meters long and shining with cold light.

He walked towards the training ground. When he appeared in the middle of the field, several small schools immediately ran up to him and shouted, "See the adults!" "Kneeling on one knee, like a wave, the hot playground, suddenly fell to his knees in a mess.

Yue Xiang is used to this scene, this is the military salute of this era. Even these simple things couldn't be done uniformly a few days ago, but now it's finally like some army. He said aloud: "No courtesy, continue to practice." Although the order was given, the strong men still did not get up. The junior colonels on duty responded to the order, stood up, bowed down a few steps backwards, and turned around to order: "My lord has an order, continue to practice!" With the sound of the command that resounded throughout the audience, the playground boiled nervously again.

Yue Xiang carefully reviewed the queue splitting training, the boss was in front of him, the family members were even more energetic, sweat rising, the knife frost was cold, the movements were neat and brave, the spirit was bold and excited, and the air around them was also stirring and rolling.

Okay, I've been training for several days in a row, and I still have a lot of morale. Yue Xiang nodded, at least on the surface, he looked quite imposing. He used to be a platoon commander when he was in the army, and at most he commanded forty or fifty people. Now that he has hundreds of people under his command, he was excited at first, but now he feels at a loss.

In this era, he was completely unfamiliar with the way of warfare, there were no planes and tanks, no weapons of mass destruction, and the casualties to inflict on the enemy in a war depended on the soldiers' fight with a knife and a gun. The kind of knowledge he knew about modern warfare was completely useless. Be a qualified commander here, you will be able to do what the soldiers can, and you will be able to do what the soldiers can't. There is no such thing as a professional officer here, and generals must be all-rounders.

Generals must be proficient in the military law, which is the formation training of cavalry, infantry, chariot soldiers, and baggage soldiers. To put it bluntly, who stands in what position when the battle begins, who goes before and after when marching, who encounters what situation and how to deal with the action, the flags and plates of each unit, the various etiquette rules between officers and soldiers, the various rules and regulations in each unit, the various miscellaneous provisions in the army, what weapons and equipment are received for various tasks, how many quantities, and how to transport these equipment, the generals must clearly understand everything and then teach it to the soldiers below.

Yue Xiang then knew how much he used to talk about soldiers, thinking that the soldiers would train themselves when he gave the order, or he could arrange someone to be responsible, you must know that this kind of thing is the main general must personally worry about, the whole army is the main general at the beginning of a person to understand, the main general will be handed over to the Chinese army, the thousand general, the general general, and then they will teach the following hundred generals, the hundred general will be handed over to the flag general, the flag general will be handed over to the team leader, and the team will be taught to the soldiers, so that it will be passed down one level at a time, and finally spread to the whole army.

If the general doesn't know anything, it's over, this is a typical soldier with a bear, and a nest of bears. And Yue Xiang happens to be the kind that doesn't know anything.

In the past, I thought that this kind of tactics was rigid, and I didn't know how to adapt to the situation. But now he can't come up with anything when he asks him to give his own opinion, and he realizes that he may be worse than that, because he has no experience at all, and he doesn't know where to start.

Thousands of people gathered together, and passing on an order here is not like saying it on the radio in the future, but now it is transmitted by people's legs and mouths, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and once the battle is engaged, most of the time in that chaotic situation, it is impossible for the commander's order to be conveyed to the designated troops in time. If you don't adapt to the situation, you will become independent, and if you don't design a formation in advance, you can't command it at all. He found that he knew what the problem was, but he didn't have a solution. The technological limitations of this era are insurmountable.

There were no radios, no modern maps, no perfect command and order system, and no system of what was later called the staff officer corps. After Yue Xiang and others saw the actual situation, they realized that the so-called military training was much more difficult than he imagined.

Generals must also practice courage and martial arts, and they have to take the soldiers below to practice together. This is a kind of political propaganda, which pays attention to what the soldiers should bring so that the soldiers "rely on them as if they were their biological parents", so that they will give you their lives when the critical time comes. There are also all the regulations, the rules of rewards and punishments, the standards of merit and demerits, the 17 prohibitions and 54 beheadings of military laws and regulations in the army. This is what the Lord will teach to his men.

Of course, Yue Xiang didn't know anything about this, he only knew what was modern, and he didn't know what the ancient ones were. But that's not the worst of it.

What is even more difficult is that there are also banners and bugle cannons for command, and it must be understood that the current army command actually relies on this means. The Lord will not know anything else, and he must know this, otherwise it will not work at all to shout at the top of his voice when he goes to the battlefield. What gong and trumpet represent what command, what drum is beaten to represent forward, and what drum is to prepare for battle. What do the various letter cannons represent, the deployment of the troops represented by the flags of various colors, and the advance and retreat actions represented by the various flags. How the officers and men of each unit read the flag orders of the higher level in turn according to the orders, how they answered them in the flag language, and the cooperative relationship and subordinate relationship between the various flutes, flags, drums, and artillery horns.

Up to now, Yue Xiang even has four hundred flags and eight flags, all of which are yellow flags. The flag is a white heart, blue edge, and yellow belt. I have a general flag, nearly four meters high, larger than the hundred general flag, is a white heart and yellow side yellow belt, which means that the Chinese army is the left of the Chinese army under the command of the right commander.

Yue Xiang has been saying that it is not good for Raokou's title, and his team flag is often confused with the flag of other people, the way to recognize the flag is to look at the flag center flag side flag belt, the flag of the Chinese army is mainly yellow, and several teams are in the middle of the military camp, and the colors of the five army flags are alternately corresponding to each other, and it is easy to be confused. More than once, people from outside the team have come to disrupt his team in a daze.

There are also methods such as marching in the field and so on, how to fight when encountering the enemy, and how to cooperate with each other; how to attack in which terrain and how to defend when the enemy attacks; how to set up camp, what terrain and how to lay out the camp; How to survey the terrain, how to build a bridge when encountering water, how to open a road when encountering a mountain, and how to cross a forest; How to prepare the luggage during the march, the various marching disciplines, etc., are also extremely complicated.

These Yue Xiang didn't have any confidence at all, his original idea was to train them how to defend the city wall, but now he doesn't want to say that he won't, even if he will, he feels that it is not interesting to practice.

Field warfare was not a tactic that the Ming army was good at, and the idea in Yue Xiang's mind was to use artillery with a strong city.

There are also the conditions that the generals should have, that is, to be a military general must learn some internal cultivation, which is also part of the training, for the generals to pay attention to the right heart, aspiration, life and death, distinguish between interests and disadvantages, be a good person, stick to ethics, width, sound and lust, stubbornness, financial interests, victory and harm, welcome harm, malaise, merit and fame, still humble virtue, cherish officials, diligence, discernment, learn the art of war, learn martial arts, correct status, love soldiers, priests, Ming Enwei, strict moderation, clear security and other 26 criteria.

Only by doing these twenty-six articles can he be regarded as a good general, and Yue Xiang can even understand the meaning of these twenty-six articles, let alone do it.

Only then did he know the excellence of those famous generals in history. In this primitive information transmission environment, he felt powerless to command and manage hundreds of people, and those people often operated and commanded thousands of troops and horses, relying on the ability of only one person. It's hard to imagine how they conveyed orders to the various teams one by one in a timely manner, and how they made timely adjustments according to the changes in the situation on the battlefield.

This requires a terrifying sense of insight and the ability to coordinate and command. Yue Xiang even imagined that they might not have to sleep, and they had plenty of energy for twenty-four hours a day. The miscellaneous things in his hundreds of people are enough to give him a headache, and the things in the hundreds of thousands of troops are not like mountains to crush people to death?

Famous generals are famous generals, no wonder there are only 100 famous generals in Chinese history, and more than 100,000 people can be managed by him alone, probably that day can be done. Yue Xiang asked himself that he was probably out of play, maybe he was the material of the platoon commander, at most he was the battalion commander, and he might not be able to manage it if he managed more people.

Besides, he himself didn't know how to train those contents, but fortunately, Zou Chuxian sent a group of people to listen to him, so he was able to hold the situation in time. It wasn't until the training started that he realized how much attention was paid to. There are strict rules for a small team of eleven people, who stands in front and who stands behind, and who moves first and who moves last.

In the past few days, he has been memorizing these things every day, Zou Chuxian ordered the secretary office to copy dozens of things similar to the outline for them to memorize, in fact, this is still Yue Xiang's own request, but he didn't expect it to be so complicated. It made my head bigger, and I looked at these damn classical Chinese every day, as if I had returned to the years of hard study when I was taking the Xiucai exam.

He turned around and went to Dong Mingchuan, who was assigned to the Chinese military camp like himself. He also mixed up, but when he saw him, he was sitting on a small pony, holding a booklet in his hand, and muttering a password with a sad face.

"The center right division holds the general flag, with a white heart and a yellow edge and a red belt. Hundred total flags, white hearts, yellow edges, and red belts. Flag general flag, red. Team Helmet, Red. The left part of the thousand flags, blue hearts, red edges, and yellow belts. The left left division puts the general flag, the blue heart and the blue side and the red belt. Hundred total flags, blue hearts, blue edges, red belts. Flag general flag, red. Team Helmet, Red. The left and right divisions put the general flag, and the white heart and blue border ......"

He suddenly couldn't carry it anymore, and he couldn't think of it when he sat there as if he was constipated. Yue Xiang heard that he was carrying the banner of the cavalry battalion, and couldn't help but open his mouth, just at this time, Dong Mingchuan's eyes lit up, and the two said in unison: "Red belt." ”

"My head is going to be big on the back of these flags, and I have been dreaming of these flags for the past few days......" Dong Mingchuan seemed to have eaten bitter melon, and his expression wrinkled.

"There's no way, we're officers and soldiers now, and we recognize the wrong banner, but we have to eat military law. Only forty percent of my people now know the banner, and according to the law, this is the lower and the higher, and how is the punishment from the top......"

“…… Forty ...... of tying up" is a bitter and helpless sound.

After swallowing their saliva, the two looked at each other and smiled bitterly......