The next morning, Wang Yongan took care of his home, and then hurried to the barracks and went to Xuzhou to recruit new soldiers with Fang Xianwu, the new head of the Military Affairs Division. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info took the transport ship of Yanghua Shipping Company, and the group arrived in Xuzhou after six days, and was once again warmly welcomed by Chen Nianfan, the 36th Standard of the 18th Association of the New Army of Jiangsu Province.

Chen Nianfan is an honest man and a warm-hearted person, he himself is a native of Jiaodong, Lu Province, and does not want the people in his hometown to be displaced. But Lu Province has always had a characteristic, that is, the population is large, the vitality of Lu Province is extremely tenacious, and the fertility is also very strong, each family has seven or eight children, although the people are prosperous, but it also makes the family life difficult.

He personally persuaded the people of his hometown to eat the imperial food so that they would not starve to death, and the newly recruited soldiers had a settling-in allowance of five taels of silver, and a salary of two and a half taels of silver per month.

After listening to Chen Nianfan's persuasion, the victims of the disaster became moved, not to mention the settling-in allowance, but the military salary alone made people's hearts moved. This year, the weather was not good, with severe drought in North China, Central China, East China and Northwest China, while the southeast region was hit by typhoons and torrential rains one after another, causing the people to live a difficult life. In particular, the grain harvest in Shandong and Henan provinces has dropped sharply, and it looks like winter is about to begin, and in winter, the family can't open the pot, just waiting for people to starve to death.

The salaries of the six main towns of the Beiyang New Army are slightly higher than those of the 24th Mixed Association of the New Army, and their salaries are three and a half taels per month, and the settling-in allowance is seven taels, but the six main towns have sufficient troops, and although the treatment of the 24th Mixed Association is not as good as that of the main force, it is not bad for money. Therefore, after Chen Nianfan's explanation, after Fang Xianwu set up a recruitment station, a large number of young and strong victims were conscripted into the army.

Although the treatment of the 24th Mixed Association is a little worse than that of the main force of Beiyang, Fang Xianwu's recruitment standards are not bad at all, all recruits must be between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, be healthy and strong, have no bad habits, bad records, and have no experience in the military and peasant children. When Yuan Shikai established the new army, he realized that the veterans in the army could spoil the new atmosphere in the army the most, especially those low-level officers who smoked big eyes and sharpened foreign workers, so the recruitment rules he set were to resolutely not have military experience, and only recruit children from peasant families, which created the new atmosphere of the Beiyang New Army.

The total number of soldiers recruited this time was 1,200, and the recruitment time was one month, but Fang Xianwu worked actively, and Wang Yongan was forced to work overtime with him every day, and it only took three days to recruit 400 peasant children, and Wang Yongan led these 500 recruits to return to Yangzhou first.

After Wang Yongan returned to Yangzhou, he reported in the headquarters that he didn't even have time to go back home, so he hurriedly returned to Xuzhou, and when he arrived in Xuzhou, he found that the recruitment of soldiers had ended, and Fang Xianwu had recruited 800 people during this period.

The one-month recruitment deadline, the two of them only took half a month to complete all the work, and this recruitment was not unsmooth. But because it was too smooth, it brought new problems, not only the expansion of Yangzhou's military camp could not keep up, but Xuzhou alone was in trouble.

Since the time to recruit soldiers is a month, so many young people from Shandong Province and Henan Province have come to Xuzhou, Chen Nianfan said depressedly: "Fourth son, you have come here, I will strictly prevent young people from making trouble in the second half of the month." ”

Except for some of the eliminators, the later group of people have better physical fitness, especially a group of young people from near Kaifeng in Henan Province, most of them are from the hometown of martial arts, if it were not for the drought this year, the Yellow River is gradually drying up, these people will not be willing to leave their hometowns.

Wang Yongan asked Fang Xianwu to lead the rest of the eight hundred recruits back, and he continued to recruit here, he suggested establishing a supplementary battalion of 600 people and a support battalion of 600 people, Fang Xianwu immediately stopped: "At this time, without the permission of the general, Brother Jingyun, you are making trouble for yourself." ”

Wang Yongan said with a wry smile: "At the beginning, it was widely advertised that the recruitment time was one month, but now people have left their hometowns and come to Xuzhou, which is really unreasonable." Even if I don't want to recruit, at least I have to find an excuse to refuse, and I can't just accept the sign and leave. This not only makes people think that I have not kept my promises, but also caused trouble for General Chen. ”

Fang Xianwu shook his head and said, "I'm just talking about you, Jingyun, expanding the army without authorization will not only cause trouble for yourself, but also cause unnecessary trouble for General Wang." Besides, the salary, ordnance, and food expenses for these 1,200 people, are you responsible for paying for them, or are they paid for by the imperial court? The court will definitely not pay this money, and what about yourself? Just a momentary pleasure? ”

Wang Yongan accepted the criticism, but he still entrusted Fang Xianwu to return to Yangzhou to ask Wang Yongtai for instructions, Fang Xianwu sighed again and again: "Your brothers are very stubborn, there will be a lot of conflicts in the future, Jingyun, I will persuade you a few more words, General Wang is the biggest in the barracks, you are just assisting him." If the general doesn't allow it, you must not be stubborn. ”

"Thank you Brother Fang for your teachings, and the younger brother will remember it in my heart." Wang Yongan was moved.

Soon after Fang Xianwu returned to Yangzhou, he sent a telegram through Chen Nianfan's troops, and General Wang was only allowed to recruit 800 supplementary soldiers to gradually replace some of the veterans of the 24th Mixed Association Middle School, which was enough to give Wang Yongan face.

After receiving the military order, Wang Yongan was full of confidence and immediately recruited the best 800 people from among the young and strong victims, and five days later, the 800 recruits were recruited, and he personally led the recruits back to Yangzhou.

At the end of this recruitment, the original plan was to recruit 1,200 new recruits, but 2,000 soldiers were actually recruited, aged between fifteen and twenty-five, and all of them were more than 1.65 meters tall. Later, Fang Xianwu began to formulate a plan for the recruits, and transferred 200 Beiyang veterans from the original army as recruit instructors, and the General Staff Department also began to formulate a training program for the new army.

Compared with a year ago, Wang Yongtai is more attentive to this group of recruits, and even personally takes charge of the training outline. However, when he saw Wang Yongan wandering in his memories, his eyes rolled and he immediately said: "At tomorrow's party, everyone will hand in the training syllabus of the new army, and we will evaluate whose training syllabus is more suitable." ”

Everyone looked at each other, what does this mean, Lord Commander, is the training program formulated by the General Staff inappropriate? After the meeting ended, everyone went back to prepare a new training syllabus, Wang Yongan thought it was nothing to do, but was stopped by Wang Yongtai and said, "Adjutant, you also have to prepare one." ”

Wang Yongan's eyes widened and said, "Sir, I also want to prepare one?" I don't have to, I'm not robbing the staff of the job. ”

"Fart! You think you're okay? Hurry up and get busy, so that you don't have to do anything else. Wang Yongtai said, "Do you know that because of the nurses in the hospital, there have been more than a dozen fights in the army this month?" ”

Wang Yongan hurriedly asked, "What's going on?" ”

"Humph! Ask for yourself. Wang Yongtai said angrily.