Li Yongji didn't believe that there were only these people in the huge city, and he didn't believe that there were no other high-quality talents, such as young and beautiful young women at the age of eighteen or nineteen, or young men in their twenties who were handsome and could read and write.

Now that I think about it, although most of the Gao Su people are a little dignified, and they will not come to sell themselves, but there will always be some Gao Su people who are forced to sell their bodies because of the chaos, but this time I almost can't see it, so in addition to showing that there are relatively few people in this part, the main reason should be that most of them are controlled by the Longyou Gang and the like, and they can't buy an outsider lightly.

Therefore, Li Yongji figured it out, if you want to run a regimental training at this time, purely from the perspective of talent and cost, it is the best strategy to spend money to buy slaves and engage in a family group, or it is the most reliable to directly spend money to recruit free people to become soldiers.

In fact, in the Qing Dynasty at this time, the word "subordinate" was already a general reference, generally including two kinds of people, one was a hired worker with personal freedom, such as a long-term worker, and the other was a slave without personal freedom.

The essential difference between slaves and long-term workers is whether they have personal freedom or not, and whether they can leave you casually, but this is only a legal presentation, and it can only be used in a lawsuit, but in practical application, there are very few lawsuits for this kind of thing, and even if there is a lawsuit, it is a rich and powerful person who wins. In addition, in the actual employment relationship, as long as the employer is powerful, powerful and armed, then whether you are a slave or a long-term worker, you can be called as a slave, even if you are a free long-term worker, you cannot be taken out of the control of the employer.

It can be said that it is in fact the social system and the authority of the government that maintain the employment relationship and the master-servant relationship. The social system includes ethics and traditions, that is, the universal values of society, while the authority of the government is the official law.

Comparatively speaking, in feudal society, the constraints of universal values are stronger, and the authority of the government is a guarantee for maintaining these universal values.

In this case, the authority of the government can be strongly guaranteed in prosperous times, but if it is in troubled times, the authority of the government will be weakened, and the maintenance of the master-slave relationship mainly depends on universal values and the strength of the employer itself.

Therefore, the deed of sale is not reliable at present, once the person who is a slave does not agree with his master or his own slave identity, and has the spirit of resistance, the deed of sale is just a piece of broken paper, even if you can't resist, you can still escape, this society's means of transportation and communication, escape is still very promising.

As long as you promise to provide food and shelter and give enough monthly money, there will definitely be a large number of people who are willing to work hard, and when the time comes, for these benefits, they will also implement the military law according to the rules.

In fact, the mercenaries of the imperial court at this time, such as the Green Battalion Soldiers, Xiangyong, etc., were all recruits, that is, the charter of recruiting free people, but those slave soldiers, such as the Eight Banners, had long been unusable. That's right, the so-called children of the Eight Banners are actually just a group of minions.

Therefore, slaves and maids are not absolutely reliable, after all, compared with the slave and maid system, the system of superiors and subordinates in the army, and even the identity hierarchy of the government, is more rigorous and reliable, after all, it is maintained by power, wealth and force, which is the most secure.

As long as Li Yongji recruits people to hold group exercises, and then gives these people good food, drink, and weapons, then in fact, there is no need for them to be his own slaves, these people will spontaneously obey you, and produce herd behavior, listen to you with peace of mind, even if you have one or two thorns, as long as you can satisfy and recognize the majority of people, then you can kill these very few people.

On the contrary, if it is a slave or a maid as a soldier, they will be lazy or lazy, and according to the law of the Qing Dynasty, you can't kill or persecute slaves casually, and once you are sued by outsiders, you will also go to prison.

Therefore, Li Yongji's previous idea that slaves and maids are better managed is not tenable at all, it is just his own wishful thinking. As for the approval of others, such as the shopkeeper of Qi, they either do not understand the military system, or judge by the experience of the Qing army in the past, or they deliberately don't know and want to watch the joke on the side.

To put it bluntly, Li Yongji is used to staying in modern society, always used to talking about the law and abiding by the law, but he didn't expect that in the Qing Dynasty, the law was not sound at all, and it was the powerful people who had the final say, whether they were slaves or maids, whether they had a deed of sale, was not the main condition for restraining people, but their own power was. Look at the DPRK of later generations, it is said that it is the socialism of the people, but is there any difference with the feudal dynasty?

In other words, the more than 600 taels of silver that Li Yongji spent before, if he recruited ordinary people, not to buy slaves and maids, then the number of people would be more, the price would be more cost-effective, and the process would be simpler, and there would be no need to go through the middle commission of the government and organizations such as the Longyou Gang, and it would be better to use than slaves and maids in terms of use.

The advantages of recruiting free people are obvious, not only do they spend less money to recruit more people, but also because they do not have the status of master and slave on the surface, there is less discrimination, and they can recruit more useful talents, such as recruiting more educated and well-read people. If it was just a way to spend money to recruit, instead of buying slaves and maids, then these high-ranking adults would have much less resistance, and they would not have come so little as they do today.

In Li Yongji's impression, although the Qing Dynasty was generally illiterate, it was a percentage, calculated based on the overall proportion of the country's 500 million people. In fact, the absolute number of people who read in the Qing Dynasty was quite large, and it was relatively concentrated, such as Jiangsu, Shanghai and Hangzhou and other economically developed areas, there were very many people who read and read and wrote. From this point of view, as long as you put some effort into it and improve your salary, you don't dare to say that you can recruit people, but you should still be able to recruit some young people who are coarse and literate to become soldiers.

Of course, recruitment can only recruit adults, and for those children, they still have to rely on the way of buying people, after all, most of the children are not autonomous, and most of them are sold by their parents and families for money like today. You can only get ownership of these children through guò formal ways by buying slaves and maids. Otherwise, if you are recruiting children, even if the children themselves agree to go with you, it is useless, and if the parents do not agree, then this kind of behavior is actually abduction and is a crime.

From the current point of view, it is inevitable and cost-effective to use adult free men as the main force to train the township in the future, but from the consideration of future plasticity, he feels that he still has to buy a group of thirteen or fourteen-year-old children to carry out Li Yongji-style brainwashing education in advance.

Li Yongji is only a thirteen-year-old child now, and the fact that he is a minor is a hard injury in itself, and it is difficult to immediately gain the approval of other adults, and it is even difficult to buy an official body.

He asked before, although it was the norm for the Qing Dynasty to donate officials, and there were special institutions and processes, it was not just about giving money, and people had to approve it. If you are too ugly, too little educated, or too young, you will not be given an official position. At his age, it is impossible to donate money to become an official, it is an insult to the dignity of the court, and at most he can buy a prisoner like his cheap father.

In other words, he can't rely on social relationships such as official positions, relatives, and clans to maintain the army like the Hunan army, and he doesn't have that condition. Therefore, at present, he can only form a mercenary army organized purely by salary and weapons, just like the foreign gun team, and this combat power is enough to deal with it at the moment.

However, things can not only look at the present, but also look at the future, if you want to win the future, you must have enough talents, these people must also have enough loyalty to themselves, think about it, or cultivate themselves the most reliable, if you look at it this way, the teenagers who have strong learning ability and are the most easy to brainwash are the best choice.

It was only when he thought of this that Li Yongji decided to continue to buy a group of thirteen or fourteen-year-old children in the future, and he would take these people with him, separate them from others, and gather them together to receive his own brainwashing education.

Thinking of this, Li Yongji suddenly had a vague idea in his mind, that is, he felt that at this stage, his regimental training should be an army that was mainly maintained by money, and the main force of this army should be divided into two parts for the time being.

Some of the soldiers are mainly free people recruited from outside, and these people should be over 18 years old and under 25 years old, and these people will form a youth group, which is the main force of the regiment training at present, and the purpose is to cope with the present.

The other part of the soldiers, the age should be over 13 years old, under 16 years old, this part of the people are all children bought with their own money, this part of the people will form a separate group of young guards, on the surface is their own personal guards, in fact is their own students, they can take them to teach by word and deed, learn in practice, so that they will not delay themselves in leading the army to fight in the future, and will not delay the education of these future talents. That's right, this group of people is their own talent seeds, in order to win the future for themselves.

As long as the treatment is good, the logistics are good, the weapons are advanced, and a certain amount of education is followed, I believe that the combat effectiveness of this army will definitely not be bad!

Of course, whether this plan can be implemented or not, and how to do it, we have to discuss with Zhang Xinda, after all, he is the historical research party, and he is also his main logistics supplier, and whether his plan can be successful, in the final analysis, it depends on him to help.