Quang Nam Province has jurisdiction over Fuzhou and Baoning counties. Baoning County, located in the southeast www.biquge.info of Yunnan Province, at the junction of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guizhou provinces, connects Funing in the east, Xichou County in the south, Qiubei in the west, and Xilin County in Guangxi in the north, and is one of the traffic arteries leading from Yunnan to Guangxi and Guangdong. Quang Nam is rich in resources, there are many ethnic minorities, there are many businessmen, the market is prosperous, and the people are thriving.

In the thirtieth year of Guangxu, Ding Zhenduo served as the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and saw that Wang Wenshao distributed the Yunnan garrison as a garrison Tuyong, but the result was unsatisfactory. So it was decided to "change the name of the defense army and change the name of the patrol team". The patrol team is formed by battalions, which is to select the old green battalion and the brave battalion to be strong, and recruit the people to form a group, and its establishment is divided into horse teams and infantry teams, and the two patrol battalions of Quang Nam Province are infantry teams, and the whole battalion of the infantry team has a total of 301 officers, ben and husbands, and each battalion is divided into three posts: left, middle and right. There are 43 battalions in the province, with a total strength of about 10,000 people. The 10th battalion of the southern defense, the 11th battalion of the western defense, the 3rd battalion of the general defense, the 5th battalion of the river defense, and the 14th battalion of the railway patrol are stationed according to the five routes. The Quang Nam Provincial Patrol Brigade has one battalion each under the jurisdiction of the patrol battalions of Baoning and Funing counties, which happens to belong to the two battalions in the southern defense.

When he returned to Guangnan, in order to save a lot of troubles in the future, Xiao Mubai first went to visit the local head snake, that is, his top boss, Guan Xiaoyan, who is also the deputy camp office of the southern defense and the supervisor of the Guangnan Yunnan Salt Bureau, both sides are acquaintances, and Xiao Mubai has not dealt with Guan Xiaoyan in the past six months. Guan Xiaoyan is an honest official, because the imperial court opened a new policy, and he is very supportive of Xiao Mubai to open a mine and build a factory. After Xiao Mubai explained his intentions, the prefect of Guan happily promised him that he would pay the patrol team 10,000 taels of silver every year, and diligently sent his master Zhang Baocheng to take Xiao Mubai to the patrol team.

Zhang Baocheng is a middle-aged man in his early forties, who seems to be down-to-earth and generous, and is very enthusiastic about Xiao Mubai. Along the way, Xiao Mubai was constantly introduced to some people and things within the patrol team, as well as various networks, which also benefited Xiao Mubai a lot. Seeing that Zhang Baocheng spoke well and had an extraordinary temperament, Xiao Mubai also had the idea of making friends.

"Thanks to Brother Zhang's mention just now, Brother Zhang and I hit it off at first sight, you might as well make a friend and get in touch more in the future, okay?" Xiao Mubai said with a smile.

At this moment, Zhang Baocheng was a little uncomfortable, he thought that Xiao Mubai was an unsmiling person, but he didn't expect that all of a sudden the change would be so big. Hurriedly laughed for a while, and then said: "Where, it is an honor to be good friends with Lord Xiao." ”

The two talked and laughed and went all the way to a playground. The barracks here look very old, the walls are mottled, and all the houses are not only bungalows, but the tiles on the houses are lacking, and it is not known if they leak when it rains. Seeing this, Zhang Baocheng told Xiao Mubai that all the houses here were the barracks of the patrol team, that is, the places where the soldiers under Xiao Mubai were stationed.

After Xiao Mubai thanked Zhang Baocheng, he asked Master Zhang to go back to the yamen to do his own business. As for himself, accompanied by Chang Er and Chen Chuan, he slowly walked to the camp.

Hou San and Zhou Xiaohu at the gate of the camp stood listlessly, and when they saw Xiao Mubai and the three of them walking by, Hou San shouted impatiently: "Stop!" Hold it! What are you guys doing, didn't you see that this is the patrol camp? The idlers hurriedly walked away. ”

Seeing that Xiao Mubai and the three of them didn't seem to hear their shouts, Hou San scolded and walked towards the three of them again, but before he could scold again, Xiao Mubai took out his official seal letter. Seeing the official certificate that suddenly appeared in front of him, Hou Sansan's open mouth didn't have time to close, so he quickly knelt down and confessed: "I don't know if the commander has arrived, please forgive your sins and atone for your sins!." ”

Zhou Xiaohu, who was not far away, saw Hou San kneeling at the gate of the camp, and shouted to the commander, but he didn't care that Xiao Mubai was here, and hurriedly ran towards the camp.

"Get up and talk back." Xiao Mubai said lightly.

Hearing Xiao Mubai's faint voice, Hou San didn't dare to get up, this commander gave himself small shoes to wear, will he have a good life in the future? Immediately, he said repeatedly: "Don't dare, don't dare!" ”

Xiao Mubai frowned, and immediately understood Hou San's thoughts, so he said softly: "You get up and continue to be on duty, I don't blame you." ”

After speaking, he didn't care about Hou San, so he led Chang Er and the two into the camp by himself.

When Xiao Mubai and the three of them came to the playground, they happened to see the commotion in the barracks. After a while, there were people gathering on the playground one after another, and it took a while to assemble, and what was even more strange was that although the people were assembled, there were no queue rules at all, and the soldiers just lined up in a few columns at random, regardless of the height order. Looking at these chaotic crowds, Xiao Mubai couldn't help frowning, this stall was even worse than he imagined!

On the surface, the soldiers are quite strong, but they are lazy and poorly prepared, and they are all broadswords and spears. But in fact, there are many problems.

After thinking about it, Xiao Mubai felt that for him with a lot of money, this was not a big deal. In terms of training, he was confident that he would surpass the Forces nouvelles; weapons, that's really not a problem for me. In short, all I can do is go all I can.

At the moment when Xiao Mubai was thinking to himself, a sturdy man with dark skin and more than thirty years old ran up and arched his hand, and said, "Tell your lord, the lowly patrol battalion manager Yan Weidong should have three hundred and one people, but there are two hundred and ninety-eight people, and three people are on leave." ”

Xiao Mubai nodded, this man has a burly face, walks with a tiger's style, speaks cleanly and neatly, does not drag mud and water at all, but is also a talent.

"Brothers, no matter what, today is the first time I meet with you, let me introduce myself first, my name is Xiao Mubai, the word is sincere, I have returned from the German Empire, from today onwards, I will be your commander, I can work with all the brothers, it is a fate, I won't say more, you will know what kind of person I am in the future. Tomorrow, I'll arrange other things in the team. Now, disband! ”

When the soldiers saw Xiao Mubai for the first time, they only said three short sentences, and they all felt that this new commander was very neat, unlike the previous commander, who just took office and talked nonsense, said a bunch of nonsensical words, deliberately played prestige, and brought a new official to take office three fires. At that moment, I felt that the new commander was still quite amiable, and he had a kind and dignified face.

Therefore, everyone secretly sighed in their hearts: It is really worthy of being a person who has stayed abroad, and it is indeed extraordinary. But only Yan Weidong sighed secretly.

Early the next morning, Xiao Mubai came to the barracks, followed by a big car, and three boxes were moved down from the car. After the soldiers of the patrol team were assembled, Xiao Mubai nodded, and Chen Chuan behind him opened the box, and the white silver was dazzling in the sun.

Xiao Mubai circled around the box twice, coughed twice, and waited for the soldiers' eyes to be withdrawn from the silver to himself, and then said loudly: "Two taels of silver per person, plus two months' salary, is six taels." ”

As soon as the words ended, everyone in the audience immediately turned their eyes to the silver box at the front of the queue. Xiao Mubai still underestimated the power of silver, and with the eyes of these people, he only heard him continue: "Another point, in the future, in this camp, there will only be military salutes, and no kneeling is allowed." Now for the payout. ”

After the matter was settled here, Xiao Mubai walked to Yan Weidong, the pipe belt, and said, "You take two thousand taels from there, find some people to renovate the barracks, you are familiar with this side, go back and deal with it." As for the rest, let's get back to that! ”

After speaking, Xiao Mubai turned around and left regardless of it.

"My lord, you can trust your subordinates so much? Aren't you afraid I'll be greedy for this money? Yan Weidong was a little stunned, he really had never seen such a boss, and when he saw that Xiao Mubai was leaving, he hurriedly shouted.

Xiao Mu replied without replying: "You are not that kind of person, I have never looked at people." ”

Only the stunned Yan Weidong was left behind.