Originally, a six-rank petty official like Wu Chaoyue asked for a regimental exercise, but after being sent to the military aircraft department, he did not think that he would be looked at by the minister of military aircraft for ten days and half a month, and it was not uncommon for him to give a reply after a month or two. But because of a casual greeting from Lord Su, Shao Can, the new Minister of Military Aircraft on duty in the Military Aircraft Department, specially asked people to find out this excerpt from the pile of excerpts as high as a hill.

It is precisely because of these five words that Wu Chaoyue quickly got the second official position in his life in the Ministry of Officials - the regimental training supervisor of Songjiang Mansion in Jiangsu Province of the Qing Dynasty, although this is just a part-time errand with no grade and no money, but Wu Chaoyue is regarded as a treasure, holding the official seal and smiling so much that he can't even close his mouth, and without saying a word, he ran to the Ministry of Rites to deliver the errand, and informed Wu Dadao and other dogs to pack their luggage and prepare to return to Shanghai.

In the second year of Xianfeng, on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, Wu Chaoyue, who had only been in charge of the host and guest department of the Ministry of Rites for only one month, said goodbye to the person who should say goodbye, and led Wu Dadao and other dogs and legs to set off eagerly, and after saying goodbye to Li Hongzhang, the only one who came to see him off, Wu Chaoyue looked back at the gray Beijing city wall, and muttered in his heart: "Farewell, the broken place that is conservative and occluded and occupied by mites, Lao Tzu said that he doesn't want to come back again." ”

It took only half a month for Wu Chaoyue, who was heading south along the canal, to return to Shanghai City, which he had missed for a long time, and also met his long-lost comprador grandfather Wu Jianzhang. And when he saw his baby grandson suddenly appear in front of him, Wu Jianzhang's first reaction was of course surprise, but after holding his baby grandson in his arms and howling a few times, Wu Jianzhang came back to his senses, quickly wiped away his tears and asked, "Beyond, why did you come back?" You've only been the head of the Ministry of Rites for a few days, so you're on family leave? ”

"I don't like that ghost place in the capital, and I miss you, grandpa, so I asked Lord Su for help, and got me a messenger from Songjiang Mansion to supervise the regimental training."

Wu Chaoyue explained casually, and told Wu Jianzhang about the story of his return, but when Wu Jianzhang heard it, he complained again and again, and kept complaining, saying: "Little ancestor, I won't stop you if you don't want to stay in the capital, but why do you want to come back under the pretext of holding a group practice?" This supervising regimental training not only has to go around raising money and food to offend people, but also has to take risks to take the regimental training to the battlefield to fight, once the errand is not done well, your official position will have to be lost, why don't you use your brain to think about the pros and cons of this? ”

"It's okay, it's okay." Wu Chaoyue comforted his grandfather and said: "Grandpa, don't worry, I came back this time to handle the group training, the main purpose is to help suppress the group of people in Qingpu who are fighting against food, and the errand is not very difficult to do." And I heard that the leader of the gang of Diao people in Qingpu is Zhou Lichun, he and my Uncle Ayuan are brothers, and I still hope that Uncle Ayuan will come forward and recruit him over. ”

"It's not as easy as you say!" Wu Jianzhang was furious when he heard this, slapped the table and said, "Do you know how big Zhou Lichun is now?" Do you know that Li Chuqi, the prefect of Qingpu, and Zhong Dianxuan, the prefect of Suzhou, sent troops to encircle and suppress twice, but they were defeated by him? Your Uncle Ayuan and him have already turned their faces, and you still want to count on him to recruit Zhou Lichun, are you dreaming? ”

Wu Chaoyue really didn't know how much jubilation Zhou Lichun was making now, and when he hurriedly asked Wu Jianzhang about the situation, he knew that Zhou Lichun had now pulled up a team of more than 2,000 people, repelled the attacks of officers and soldiers twice in succession, and grabbed a lot of knives, guns and weapons used by the regular army in the battle, as well as the most advanced front-loading arquebus (commonly known as bird guns) in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The local government and Yang Wending, the governor of Jiangsu, including Suzhou, were helpless against Zhou Lichun, and could only allow Zhou Lichun to dominate the Huangdu Town area at the junction of Qingpu, Kunshan, Shanghai, and Jiading counties.

After listening to Wu Jianzhang's introduction, Wu Chaoyue also understood that it was almost impossible for him to kill Zhou Lichun with the newly formed group training, but it didn't matter, Wu Chaoyue, who was unwilling to be a slave to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, was now most afraid of being dismissed from office, so not only did he not worry and regret it, but also said to Wu Jianzhang with a smile: "Grandpa, it's okay, the big deal is that Zhou Lichun is not even, the court is angry and picked my top, and I can't die, and I just happened to come back to serve your old man." ”

Encountering Wu Chaoyue, such a baby grandson who does not seek progress, Wu Jianzhang can be regarded as having nothing to say, and in anger, Wu Jianzhang can only scold the baby grandson for a bloody head, threatening that once Wu Chaoyue loses his official position, he will not recognize this grandson, and let Wu Chaoyue take a broken bowl to the street to ask for food, Wu Chaoyue, who knows that the comprador grandfather will never do this, is still a hippie smile, and Wu Jianzhang is angry enough.

For the sake of his baby grandson's career and future, Wu Jianzhang still taught his baby grandson some of his experience in helping Lin Zexu handle the group training as much as possible, so that the baby grandson should run the group training even if it was perfunctory, first give an explanation to the imperial court, and then slowly find a way to solve other problems. Wu Chaoyue agreed, but in his heart, he took Wu Jianzhang's words as the wind in his ears, and he only cared about the textile factory that he opened in partnership with a British businessman.

Wu Chaoyue and British businessman Billy jointly opened a joint venture Shanghai textile factory progress faster than Wu Chaoyue expected, the plant has been completed, the equipment has been installed in place, into the commissioning stage, Wu Chaoyue and the British businessman Wu Jianzhang nephew Wu Xiaohua, also with the help of Liu Lichuan to recruit enough workers, is receiving the guidance of British skilled mechanics training. What made Wu Chaoyue even more overjoyed was that his uncle Wu Xiaohua was still a foreign student who had studied foreign books in Hong Kong, he could also speak English, and he also interned in a foreigner's factory for a period of time.

It is not only the factory management that makes Wu Chaoyue worry less, but also after the gathering with a group of foreign friends in the concession, I just heard that Wu Chaoyue is back to handle the group exercise, and the foreign priests of various countries immediately expressed their willingness to contact the ** fire dealer for Wu Chaoyue to help Wu Chaoyue buy the most advanced weapons at the lowest price, and Brown, the business representative of the American Colt Company, who has long known Wu Chaoyue, sent the list of arms and quotations to Wu Chaoyue the next day, and also brought many samples for on-site demonstrations, and strongly persuaded Wu Chaoyue to buy more and buy more. Big buy, big buy.

However, it is a pity that when he was in contact with the United Fleet before, Wu Chaoyue had already learned in detail about the weapons and equipment of the Western armies, and knew the future development direction of the guns, so he was not such a foolish character. Therefore, Wu Chaoyue only purchased 40 Mini guns from Brown, as well as 50 revolvers and corresponding ammunition accessories, and regarded American weapons as auxiliary equipment, and categorically rejected the Hall M1819 and Hall M1833 main rifles that Brown strongly promoted, and decided to purchase 260 Dresser M1841 from the Prussians as the main rifles.

The Dreiser M1841 rifle that uses paper packs to set ammunition is a Prussian firing pin gun that was only announced to the public in 1848, with a rear-loading smoothbore, although it has the proud advantage of all rifles in the world at that time when the bullet loading speed is far away, it is not valued by European and American countries, and it is not very popular even in Prussia, many Prussian generals and soldiers prefer the front-loading smoothbore guns they are used to, and the foreign sales have not been very good.

Therefore, when he suddenly received Wu Chaoyue's barely small order, the Prussian consul A Huawei was overjoyed, not only immediately gave Wu Chaoyue a preferential price and promised to ensure the supply of ammunition, but also immediately contacted the ** ship, asking them to take out 260 M1841 and matching bayonet ammunition from the spare weapons and sell them to Wu Chaoyue, and at Wu Chaoyue's request, he also helped Wu Chaoyue hire a Prussian soldier who could skillfully operate the Dresser rifle to help Wu Chaoyue train the soldiers to operate and maintain the Dresser rifle.

Seeing that Wu Chaoyue chose to use the Prussian rifle as the main combat weapon, the American Brown, who was bent on opening up the Chinese market, was of course very dissatisfied, in addition to constantly counting the shortcomings of the Dleiser firing gun, and trying his best to persuade Wu Chaoyue to buy more American weapons from him, and directly asked Wu Chaoyue: "Wu, why don't you buy more?" As far as you procure these weapons and ammunition, it is only enough to equip an army of two companies at most, but you only plan to form an army of two companies, and what can this army do? ”

Originally, he planned to perfunctory the Manchu court, but Wu Chaoyue certainly didn't want to waste the money that the comprador grandfather had worked hard to embezzle, so he excused himself by saying that he had never had experience in the army, so he didn't dare to make the army too big at once. As a result, Brown patted his chest and said: "Wu, you don't have to worry about this, I can help you train the army, I participated in the Mexican-American War, and I also got medals, I can train your army for you!" ”

When Wu Chaoyue heard that he was overjoyed, he decided to hire Brown as his military instructor on the spot, and promised to purchase a large number of American-made weapons from Brown after expanding the team in the future. As a result, it was also at this time that Wu Chaoyue, who had felt that something was wrong before, finally remembered a big question and hurriedly asked Brown: "Mr. Brown, where are the grenades?" Why don't you have a grenade in your weapons list? ”

"A grenade?" Brown paused, and then said: "Wu, although I admire your understanding of Western weapons, but you still don't know a point, with the reduction of castle offensive and defensive battles, the weapon of grenade has gradually been phased out in the Western army in the first and twenties of this century, it has neither a gun to shoot far, let alone a cannon with great explosive power, so our Western army has rarely used this weapon." ”

"That's in the West!" Wu Chaoyue almost didn't vomit blood, and said: "The current squadron is still dominated by knives, guns, bows and arrows, and the most advanced guns are only primitive arquebuses, and there are still many castle offensive and defensive battles, so grenades still have great uses on the Chinese battlefield, and I also need this weapon to make up for the lack of firepower." ”

Brown was embarrassed when he heard this, saying that he did not have this kind of weapon in the warehouse in the concession, and if Wu Chaoyue wanted to buy it, he had to wait for himself to report to the country and deliver it from the country—not necessarily yet. Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to decide to purchase this weapon from other countries in the concession, in exchange for Brown's complaint again, "Wu, your army should adopt unified equipment, don't buy some weapons from this country, buy some weapons from that country, accessories and ammunition are not interchangeable, maintenance and repair are even more difficult, and it will exhaust your logistics department." ”

At the same time, as Lin Ruzhou said, Wu Jianzhang, who had some experience in handling group training, also helped Wu Chaoyue a lot in another direction, and personally came forward to persuade the wealthy businessmen and gentry in Shanghai to agree to provide food, grass and military salaries for the group training formed by Wu Chaoyue. And when Wu Jianzhang, who hated iron and steel, asked Wu Chaoyue about the scale, when he learned that Wu Chaoyue only planned to set up two sentinels with a scale of about 200 people, Wu Jianzhang's nose was almost crooked, and he yelled and asked his baby grandson what is the purpose of forming a group practice with only two sentinels? Wu Chaoyue was helpless, so he had to continue to waste his saliva, explaining to Wu Jianzhang what it means to be a soldier and not too expensive, as well as listing the expensive cost of forming a Western-style army, but Wu Jianzhang didn't listen to it at all, and just roared and asked how to explain to the imperial court for the regimental training of two sentinels? Wu Chaoyue was still helpless, so he had to take a step back and agree to expand the scale of the regimental training to more than 500 people in a battalion - it was only the other 300 people who asked them to carry knives and spears to pretend to be indiscriminate, so that they could cheat Wu Jianzhang into buying weapons from foreigners.

In this way, without paying much attention at all, Wu Chaoyue finally played the banner of Songjiang regimental training in Shanghai and posted notices to recruit soldiers. However, at this time, Wu Chaoyue had another conflict with Wu Jianzhang, Wu Jianzhang asked his precious grandson to recruit only Cantonese soldiers into the army, because Wu Jianzhang believed that Cantonese people were hard-working and their own countrymen, and their loyalty was guaranteed. And Wu Chaoyue was most disgusted by this kind of township party army, insisting on opening the recruitment door to all qualified soldiers, and never giving in, the two grandparents also quarreled for the first time, and finally Wu Jianzhang was furious, and while brushing his sleeves away, he also threw down such a sentence, "No matter!" If you do a group exercise, the old man will never care! Toss it up however you want! ”

That is, it doesn't matter what he says, Wu Jianzhang is such a lone grandson as Wu Chaoyue, and it is impossible to really care about his grandson, so on the day Wu Chaoyue recruited troops, Wu Jianzhang still quietly sent someone to inquire about the news. However, in the afternoon, the eyeliner sent quickly ran back to the customs yamen and said to Wu Jianzhang, who was busy with official business: "Master, go and take a look, Young Master Sun is very lively there, everyone says that they have never seen such a recruitment." ”

"The old man is not going! Just tell me how he did it! ”

Wu Jianzhang replied angrily, his eyes were helpless, so he had to report to Wu Jianzhang about Wu Chaoyue's recruitment, saying that Wu Chaoyue's recruitment conditions were very harsh, the first is that the age must be between seventeen and twenty-five years old, and cannot be the only child in the family, the second is that the height must reach more than five feet three inches, the third is that the children of peasant families must not be from the city, and must not smoke big cigarettes, the fourth is that the eyesight and teeth must be checked by a foreign doctor, and the fifth is that you must go into the room to strip naked and check your body. The more Wu Jianzhang listened, the more angry he became, so he interjected and asked, "Why did you go into the room and strip naked for inspection?" ”

"I heard Wu Dadao say, Young Master Sun doesn't want Lian Yong with tattoos on his body, and he doesn't want the soles of his feet to be flat." Speaking of this, the eyeliner couldn't help but laugh a little, and said in a low voice: "Also, don't ** too small soldiers." ”

"Why?" Wu Jianzhang was completely dumbfounded.

"I heard Wu Dadao say, Young Master Sun said that it is too small and what **** hormones are insufficient, and the courage is too small to be reliable." Eyeliner replied with a wry smile.

With a bang, Wu Jianzhang slammed his fist on the table, knowing that not only was his family going to become a laughing stock in Shanghai, but the wealthy businessmen and gentry who promised to bear the money and food were also likely to recur. And the eyeliner that was not long-eyed was still chattering, and said: "There is even more outrageous, Young Master Sun must not have been a Lian Yong or a green battalion soldier, anyone who has been a Lian Yong or a green battalion soldier before, or has a criminal record, will not be wanted, so only now have a hundred or so people picked." ”

"Enough!" Wu Jianzhang couldn't bear it anymore and shouted: "Leave him alone!" Whatever he wants, the old man doesn't care anymore! ”

As Wu Jianzhang expected, in the evening of the same day, the wealthy businessmen and gentry who had promised to pay money and food to help organize the regimental training really came to visit Wu Jianzhang collectively, and asked Wu Chaoyue if such a recruiting condition was nonsense and absurd? What is the use of the group training that they pay for and pay for? Wu Jianzhang had no choice but to continue the good habit of wiping his ass for his baby grandson, explaining that his grandson was building an army with a foreigner's method, and the ghost said that the regimental training done in this way was bigger than the foreigner army, but those rich businessmen and gentry had the same confidence as Wu Jianzhang, although Wu Jianzhang's affection was embarrassed to say that he regretted not giving money and food, but also asked for a part less, Wu Jianzhang had no choice but to reluctantly agree to cut the scale of the Shanghai regimental training by half, and fulfilled the wish of the baby grandson in disguise. Only then did they send away the rich merchant gentry.

After receiving the news that the wealthy merchants and gentry were only willing to bear the money and food of two hundred and fifty Lian Yong, Wu Chaoyue breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he finally didn't need to raise more than half of the idlers for nothing. But after thinking about it again, Wu Chaoyue felt extremely depressed again, and said secretly: "Pang Qingyunzi Lushan, his regimental training is called Shanzi Battalion, his rival is called He Kui, and the regimental training is called Kuizi Battalion, Lao Tzu only recruited 250 soldiers when he first became an army, so he should not be called 255 battalions in the future, right?" ”

…………

Not to mention, there are really people who are called like this, when Wu Chaoyue finally selected two hundred and fifty qualified soldiers, reported the establishment scale upwards according to the rules, and sent the official document to the yamen of the governor of Jiangsu, his protégé Yuan Zupi Yang Wending, the governor of Jiangsu who had been escorted to Beijing to ask for the crime, was happy to see this number, and immediately said: "Two hundred and five!" It's two hundred and five! Anyway, he is also a six-grade principal, and when he went to the local area to handle regimental training and help suppression, he only recruited 250 people to train and become an army, and he would definitely not be able to run away with a perfunctory charge of prevarication in the first place! ”

"Futai, do you want to play impeachment?" The master next to him, who was familiar with Yang Wending's thoughts, immediately asked.

"You can't be in a hurry, you can't make the mistake of being too hasty in the first two times, and at this time, impeach him, this little two hundred and five still has a chance to make up for it by immediately expanding the regimental training." Yang Wending shook his head and said with a cruel smile: "Let's talk about it after a while, after a while, this official will first transfer this 205 to Qingpu to participate in the counterinsurgency, and when this little 205 suffers a defeat, this official will play impeachment, and then he will be most sure." ”

There is also Zhou Lichun who is called so, Wu Chaoyue went back to Shanghai to run a group to practice and help suppress, the primary target was originally Zhou Lichun's Qingpu Rebel Army, Zhou Lichun, who heard the rumors, of course, also sent eyeliner to secretly monitor Wu Chaoyue's every move, when he learned that Wu Chaoyue was ready to use such a group practice to deal with himself, Zhou Lichun of course laughed, mocked Wu Chaoyue is indeed a small two hundred and five, and swore to give Wu Chaoyue a good look on the battlefield and avenge the previous few times!

While Zhou Lichun laughed, of course, several important assistants he was present also laughed out loud, not taking Wu Chaoyue's people in his eyes at all. Only Zhou Lichun's daughter Zhou Xiuying remained silent, the light in her beautiful eyes was dim, and she said silently in her heart: "I really didn't expect that when I meet you again, it will be on the battlefield." ”