At 9 o'clock in the morning of 1 November, the well-known Sichuan Army Military Academy held a grand graduation ceremony, and the 558 graduates who had successfully completed the three-year modern military education took the stage one by one with excitement and pride amid the warm applause of thousands of instructors, cadets, and representatives from all walks of life.

The 1,600 new students in the fourth phase have already entered the school as early as 1 September, and from the fourth phase onwards, the opening ceremony is fixed on 1 September and the graduation ceremony is 30 July, which is consistent with the public universities and ordinary colleges and universities in all provinces across the country, so as to facilitate the smooth progress of the recruitment work.

Starting this year, military academies have abolished the one-year accelerated education system, and outstanding soldiers recommended by various departments of the Sichuan Army must also pass a cultural examination.

The number of students admitted to the army in this period is 600, accounting for more than one-third of the total number of students admitted in this period, and the remaining two-thirds of the students are recruited from all over the country.

This year, the number of students applying for the fourth phase of military academies reached a record number of more than 28,000, and the candidates came from 11 provinces, including Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Guangxi, and Gansu, and more than 28,000 candidates went through the strict screening of physical examinations, interviews, written examinations, and physical tests, and finally only more than 980 people were admitted, with an acceptance rate of only 3.5 percent.

As a result of two large-scale wars, as well as Sichuan's superb technology in the field of light weapons manufacturing and a steady stream of fine equipment sold throughout the country, the Sichuan Army has been recognized as the army with the strongest combat effectiveness and the most advanced equipment in the country, and the Sichuan Army Military Academy has thus become the country's largest military academy with the strongest teaching force, the most complete professional set-up, and the richest funds for running schools. There are more than five senior instructors from Germany and more than 40 senior instructors from Germany in each major.

Among them, the ordnance and telecommunications surveying and mapping majors are the most stringent, and the number of students admitted to each period of the two majors is only 100, and they must also go through strict political examination, and the admitted students can only be upgraded after completing the first year of military education examinations; from the second year, they will enter the stage of in-depth study with practice as the mainstay, and follow the 15 professional engineers hired from Europe and the United States with high salaries to carry out theoretical study and practical work, using all advanced equipment and equipment purchased from the United States and Europe. Outstanding graduates will have the opportunity to study abroad on public mission.

Prior to this, two groups of 47 outstanding officers had been sent to Germany for further study, and starting this year, the personnel sent to study abroad were selected from among the graduates of military academies.

In addition to the above seven majors, the military academy has added a three-year senior staff officer major, the number of students admitted in each period is 50, the source of cadets is limited to the Sichuan Army, and the target of recruitment is non-commissioned officers and above middle and low-level officers of various departments of the Sichuan Army, in addition to following German instructors to study the four basic courses of the staff major of the German Army University, they must also learn and master any one of the foreign languages of German, English, and Chinese, learn the basic knowledge of password compilation and radio transmission and reception technology, and the principal Xiao Yimin personally serves as the head teacher of the staff major. Zheng Zhiming, deputy director of the Political Training Department of the headquarters and a 42-year-old veteran of the Sichuan Army who graduated from the fourth phase of the engineering section of the army non-commissioned officer school, served as deputy director.

The day after the graduation ceremony, 200 orphans of about 10 years old who were brought back to Chengdu from the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and the five provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, and Hebei said goodbye to hundreds of friends with the same fate, and left the arsenal primary school at the foot of Phoenix Mountain in the northern suburbs in batches by the car of the general headquarters, moved to the cavalry camp outside the west gate, and started a new study career with more than 300 sons and nephews of the generals and officials of the Sichuan army.

This just-completed "Chengdu Rongjun Primary School" is a full-boarding primary school, which claims to be specially built for the placement of the sons and nephews of the Sichuan Army officers stationed abroad, and is actually a cradle for the Sichuan Army to train future intelligence talents; Xiao Yimin, commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Army, and Ma Gang, the chief of the intelligence bureau, are also among them, and 60 instructors in culture, foreign languages, physical fitness, boxing, shooting, ordnance, and other subjects specially recruited from the staff office of the Sichuan Army General Headquarters and the retired officers and men of various departments of the Sichuan Army this year have been waiting for a long time. In the next step, more than 10 foreign teachers and music teachers recruited from Shanghai will come to teach.

At the beginning of the year, most of the cavalry regiment stationed here was divided by Zhong Ying's western expeditionary troops, and now there is only a cavalry battalion of 500 men left, and the officers and soldiers are all Manchu and Mongolian men over 35 years old with more than 10 or 20 years of military experience, and these 500 elite veterans who have been in a hundred battles and can eat, drink, and Lasa on horseback for three consecutive days, almost all of them already have families and rooms, and their families, wives and children have lived in the military residential area opposite the camp, and the officers and soldiers enjoy generous military salaries, and their families can enjoy free medical care, and they live a carefree life. Richer than the enviable workers of the arsenal.

The battalion retains only one special cavalry company directly under the guard regiment of the General Headquarters, and the rest of the officers and men have become full-time equestrian instructors and cavalry tactical instructors in the cavalry section of the Army Military Academy.

Running such a school is far more difficult than imagined.

For this reason, Xiao Yimin threw all the 100,000 oceans extorted from the wealthy merchant Tsukasa Yuan, and the 260,000 pounds that the angry British had to pay for the 19 captives was also put into the exclusive account of the Invalides Primary School by Xiao Yimin - after two days and one night of bargaining, Xiao Yimin finally kept the bottom line and sold it at a satisfactory price:

The seven captured British [***] officers were each ransomed 20,000 pounds, and the twelve technicians were packaged and sold for 10,000 pounds each, and the bones of the three Britons who were killed and buried in the south of the city of Lihua will be delivered in a month.

For this reason, Xiao Yimin's partner and good friend Zhuang Sen did not speak to Xiao Yimin for a week, but when Xiao Yimin took his cute two-year-old son, holding two bottles of beautifully packaged artesian well and using the latest "Magnolia" shampoo produced by the chemical factory, and walked into Johnson's house at 8 o'clock in the evening, Johnson could only sigh helplessly, and when he saw his son climb on Xiao Yimin and call his godfather in Chinese, the knots in the hearts of Johnson and his wife were melted.

"Don't expect me to pour you wine." Zhuang Sen glared at Xiao Yimin in annoyance.

Betty opened the beautiful shampoo bottle and smelled it, and was overjoyed, happily hugged Xiao Nanzheng beside her and kissed her, turned to Xiao Yimin and asked, "Xiao, has this shampoo been mass-produced?" ”

Xiao Yimin put down the whiskey bottle and replied:

"Yes, the United States of those chemical experts and technicians to solve the problem of automatic filling, and has obtained 30 percent of the right to sell, the current three shampoos have been pushed to Shanghai, Guangzhou and Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, from the feedback from all over the news that will soon be in short supply, just like last year Yucheng launched a popular all over China efficient laundry detergent.

"I have said hello to Mr. Deng Xianke from Yucheng, and if your husband or your father is interested, he can ship it back to England or the British colonies for sale."

"Great! Xiao, how can I thank you? ”

Betty was excited, two months ago she tried this shampoo made of Sichuan's natural soaphorn and the precious plant He Shou Wu plus a magical white clay, and immediately fell in love with this convenient and efficient, containing a burst of fragrance of the new product, and then Betty gave two shampoos to the consul's wife, and within a few days the consul's wife came to visit to thank her, praised the magical fragrant shampoo, and asked where to buy it?

The shrewd Betty soon learned from her best friend Yi Zhenying that the emergence of this new product came from Xiao Yimin's planning and promotion, Xiao Yimin did not invest in the artesian well chemical plant, but Deng Xianke, the owner of the chemical factory as a super-rich man in Sichuan, still gave 20% of the shares to Yi Zhenying's trading company.

Betty happily called her father who was in Shanghai, and Johnson looked at Xiao Yimin, shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Xiao, you vampire, you have completely offended the British political axe, and you will suffer in the future." ”

"I'm afraid of a fart! What happened to the British political axe? Talking all day long about how strong he is, how glorious his army is, how heroic and good at fighting, who knows that he has been beaten by the German [***] team in the past six months, and he can't hold it until he retreats to the beach, haha! Now it's threatening me. Xiao Yimin sarcastically unscrupulously.

Johnson was very annoyed: "Listen, Xiao, you love your motherland, and I love my motherland too, you can't slander our army in such a tone!" I know that if you hadn't been the first to propose the joint development of infantry mortars and high-powered grenades with the Germans, the Germans would not have killed so many of our valiant soldiers in trench warfare, and if you hadn't proposed to put machine guns on reconnaissance planes, the Germans would not have suddenly had air superiority, and you are also a mercenary and insatiable executioner! ”

Xiao Yimin laughed: "Johnson, I'm not afraid to tell you, a month ago, I suggested that the Germans develop a direct-fire artillery shell that can penetrate 30mm steel plates as soon as possible, and predicted that the tracked armored vehicle being developed by the British [***] team will soon be put into the war, the thickness of the steel plate of the armored car that has never been seen before should be between 15 and 30mm, due to the limitations of engine technology, the estimated speed is relatively slow, and the soldier may be able to catch up with that thing if he runs faster, If you are not afraid of death, you can blow up the steel track with four or five bundled grenades into the gap between the transmission wheels...... "Oh, by the way, that kind of weapon seems to be called a tank by you British, so the German friends decided to give us the manufacturing technology and related drawings of the air-cooled thickened barrel of the MG15 heavy machine gun that have been successfully improved before the end of the year, to show our gratitude to myself and the people of Sichuan." ”

Zhuang Sen was dumbfounded, he had only heard the word "tank" for a long time, and he had heard it from Zhu Erdian's special representative, but he didn't expect Xiao Yimin to know more than him.

"Don't look at me so stunned, I'm guessing too, if you British political axe and army are more friendly to me, stop trying to occupy our territory, and everyone sit down calmly to talk and do business, maybe I will seek cooperation in some aspects from the British political axe, instead of going to confrontation.

"Johnson, look at the Yankees, it only took more than two months to transport two advanced smelting furnaces to the Qijiang Iron and Steel Plant, and for this reason, I also showed my sincerity and revised the 120,000-ton steel purchase contract signed before, so as to avoid causing greater losses to American friends due to the rise in steel prices." Xiao Yimin leisurely tasted the wine after speaking.

Zhuang Sen was completely speechless, and after thinking about it for a long time, he had to agree with Xiao Yimin's opinion:

"When I go to Shanghai next week, I will convey your opinion directly to Sir Zhu Erdian, and stop the hostility between us!"

Xiao Yimin rolled his eyes: "You'd better go and tell Sir Zhu Erdian about this, I'm such a good talker, they have forced me to get to this point, and I want to make a fortune in peace and happiness!" If you are willing, you might as well say to Sir Zhu Erdian, several of our enterprises in Sichuan want to buy 20 inland waterway transport ships with a tonnage of about 500 tons, and if the British shipbuilding enterprises or your father-in-law are willing to go ahead, next year my army will order no less than 10 military transport ships of more than 300 tons. ”

Johnson immediately became excited: "Shaw, why not the most advanced diesel-powered carriers?" Our British shipbuilders were already pitching to the world three years ago. ”

Xiao Yimin shook his head helplessly: "We are too poor to burn oil, and burning coal can save a lot of money." But if you give me a diesel-powered yacht, I'll be happy. ”

Johnson smiled: "Okay, I'll give you a diesel-powered fast yacht, provided that the order is handed over to me to do, how about it?" ”

"Deal! Tomorrow the order and technical requirements will be given to you. ”

Xiao Yimin high-fived and laughed, and threw out a suggestion again: "I recently referred to the technical data of the 160 horsepower engine newly developed by Germany, and designed two military off-road vehicles, which can be converted into reconnaissance and assault vehicles, but you know, I don't know anything about automobile manufacturing technology, I can only make simple power calculations, and then design several car shapes, if you are interested, I will give it to you tomorrow?" ”

Johnson asked vigilantly: "You didn't hand it over to the Germans?" ”

Xiao Yimin shook his head: "I want to hand it over to the Americans, but after thinking about it, it's better to let you see it first, who made you my brother?" ”

Johnson scolded with contempt: "You can get out!" Leave your son behind, Dennis likes to be with your son, let the two little ones sleep together tonight, otherwise it will take more than a month for them to see each other again, maybe this time I will take the family back to the UK, I haven't been home for several years. ”

Xiao Yimin was very surprised: "Zhuang Sen, I suggest that you don't take your son back to China by boat, it's not safe on the sea." ”

"Are you worried about the submarines of the Germans? It's okay, we can take an American cruise back to the UK. Johnson replied.

Xiao Yimin hesitated for a moment, and finally said: "I estimate that the United States will soon enter the war, and it will not be until next autumn at the latest. ”

Johnson was taken aback: "You mean ......"

"I mean be careful."

Xiao Yimin drank the wine glass empty, stood up and walked to the two children who were having fun, squatted down and kissed Dennis and his son, and went home in style after a few words.

(To be continued)