When Li Yongji, under the witness of Yang Fang, signed a thick contract in Chinese and English in triplicate with Wall, and gave Wall 100 taels of silver as compensation for his resignation, Wall happily took the silver, the signing contract and a so-called foreign gun team recruitment leaflet, and went to Shanghai to recruit his men.

Wall really did things quickly, or rather, Li Yongji gave a very good treatment, especially the recruitment leaflet with food standards was huge, so in just half a month, Wall brought two hundred and thirty-two whites.

The two hundred and thirty-two whites, with an average age of about 28, were mostly Americans and French, and there were very few people from other countries, only thirty in all, but they were of good quality.

Seventy percent of the men were sailors, and the rest were so-called adventurers, doctors, and French or British soldiers stationed in Shanghai.

The others were just fine, but when Li Yongji heard that there were French and British soldiers stationed in Shanghai among these people, he was also surprised, could the regular army also leave their posts without permission?

When I asked, I found out that there were only a small part of the regular army of the British and French troops stationed in Shanghai, and most of them were mercenaries, which means that the soldiers had a great degree of freedom.

For these mercenaries, if they feel that their money is tight and their service is full, then they can resign first, there are basically no restrictions on it, and when they want to go back later, they can go back again, as long as they continue to sign a new agreement after returning and abide by discipline.

Most of the soldiers who came to Li Yongji's place have long exceeded their service period, but it is very troublesome to re-sign the employment agreement, after all, China is very far away from Britain and France, and the employment agreement has to be signed with the British and French governments, so they generally do not continue to sign contracts and continue to work beyond the time limit, and of course the salary is also paid.

However, although the salary of the British and French troops in Shanghai is good, it is not as good as Li Yongji's treatment, after all, Li Yongji has food and accommodation here, the recipe is so attractive, the living expenses are almost none, and the salary is equal to pure earning, so there is no reason not to make a fortune.

Of course, the most surprising thing for Li Yongji was a guy named Karlsson von Andersen.

This man is a Swede, a height of 1.9 meters, with short light blonde hair, and an unusually burly build, but he is a one-eyed dragon and a lame.

He claimed that since he was 16 years old, he began to fight people everywhere, and he is now 49 years old, has participated in more than 80 battles, large and small, and has more than 100 scars on his body.

He had worked as an infantryman, artilleryman, cavalry, and even a pirate, so to speak, and during the Crimean War, he was the commander of a cavalry battalion of the French army.

However, it was during the Crimean War that his good fortune came to an end, a war broke a leg, blinded one eye, and could not continue to serve in the army, so he returned to his hometown. Then he couldn't stand the comfort after staying for a while, he didn't know which tendon was wrong, and suddenly wanted to go to the East to see, so he became a traveler, ready to make a trip to the East, the first stop was China, and he was also a stranger, or an adventurer.

In short, this Karlsson is a guy with great combat experience, he is a treasure wherever he puts it, plus he is a small nobleman, with the title of viscount, it seems that he is not short of money, if it weren't for the fact that Li Yongji is now going to gather white people to form a mercenary army, which makes him interested, he will leave for Japan in a while.

Moreover, he does not fight for power, he just wants to come over and work as a staff officer for a period of time and participate in the construction of mercenaries, but he is not an official and does not command the troops.

In other words, he is only interested in Li Yongji, a foreign gun team that is said to be fully equipped with Sharps rifles, so he does not conflict with Wall and others.

For such a baby, Li Yongji is naturally very welcome. Talking about money hurts feelings, so Li Yongji gave the other party a set of stainless steel tableware and a kilogram of fine pearls, and also provided him with a separate set of residences, so that his family could come and live, and the diet was also compared to Li Yongji, which immediately made the other party happy and couldn't find the north.

The station of the foreign gun team chose the old house of the original Wang family, and after the Wang family was destroyed, there was already a garrison of the elite army there, which was just for them.

With these more than 200 whites, the shelf of the foreign gun team can be regarded as a preliminary erection, but this is still far from the scale of 1,000 people. It is a pity that there are not many foreigners in Shanghai at present, and there are only 10,000 soldiers and residents in the concession, even women and children, and it is really not a simple matter to recruit 1,000 people to serve as soldiers.

According to the agreement, the captain of the foreign guns team is temporarily served by Wall, and the vice captain is his good friend Bai Qiwen, who is also a restless guy.

According to the plan, the training of the foreign guns team was fully responsible for Huaer, and Li Yongji was responsible for providing logistics and supplies, and the other was that the foreign guns team only obeyed the orders of Wall and Li Yongji, and did not listen to others, including the government.

In other words, the foreign gun team is a separate army, not part of the sequence of the Jingwu Army, or in other words, the foreign gun team is a private soldier belonging to Li Yongji, which is equivalent to the Jiading Nursing Home, not even group training, and it is not the same thing as the Jingwu Army.

At the beginning, when these foreigners came, because most of the members were sailors, they were messy, and they didn't look like soldiers at all, but I didn't expect Wall to have some means, so he deliberately ignored it first, and then secretly found thirty mercenaries who had fought to get together and form a gang.

For the mercenaries, Wall promised them all officers, and the salary and benefits were the same as those of the officers, and when everyone was satisfied, he took the thugs with him, no, it was the members of the officer corps who made a plan to clean up the most undisciplined sailors first.

As a result, three days later, a conflict broke out in the barracks because of a small matter, because this time it was a premeditated conflict created by Wall, so they were very well prepared, first a small provocation, and then a group fight, and came up to greet them with sticks.

The result is self-evident, and the result of the conflict is that there are more than seventy more sick people with bruised noses and swollen faces, almost without exception, all of them are the group of sailors, and there are twelve of them who have been overturned by Huaer himself.

It was after this conflict that Wall's prestige was established, and no one dared to disobey him after that, and his orders were forcefully executed, which shows that white people also recognize fists.

Wall is very strict with discipline, and the action specifications of the parade drill are all required to be completed, and there can be no mistakes, and if you are not satisfied, you will be scolded and punched.

Fortunately, these sailors used to be grassroots, and they were usually used to this kind of rough treatment, and here they were injured and treated with medicine, not only the effect of the medicine was wonderful, but the food of the sick number was also good, which made everyone not feel unbearable.

As for the other people who have served in the army, because they have long been experienced, they are no strangers to this kind of basic formation, and there are very few mistakes, and they are basically not punished.

Wall's high-pressure methods, plus high salaries, and the food here are so good, so this group of white people stayed in peace, and only three people really couldn't stand it and left on their own.

As for Karlsson, who seems to be very good, he is just eating and drinking from beginning to end, and he is not doing the work of a military doctor, treating the injuries of those sick people, and the methods are also simple and rude, and it is very scary.

Usually when he has nothing to do, he just walks around on crutches, and there is nothing to say at all, or he runs to Li Yongji to beg for beer and ham sausages, and likes to brag while eating and drinking, and keeps talking about his former glorious history, often saying that the translator can't keep up.

This Karlsson doesn't look like a war veteran at all, if it weren't for other people who have been soldiers, including Wall, who said that he is really powerful, really participated in the Crimean War, and really served as the commander of a cavalry battalion, so that Li Yongji would have doubted whether the other party was an old liar.

In short, after stumbling, the foreign gun team was finally established, but this incident attracted Zhang Xinda's doubts.