The 12,000 people with the best literacy, physical fitness, and skill literacy were selected from 600,000 people, and the first batch of training was in full swing.

Next, the 100,000 newly trained soldiers of the 123rd Guards Army will continue to be screened from the next 600,000 soldiers.

Those who were literate and hyphenated, those who were once the main soldiers of the official army (non-soldiers), and those who had martial arts and riding specialties were all selected.

According to statistics, most of the remaining 600,000 people are children of peasant families, but there are also handicraftsmen or displaced people, but most of them are local people in Huai'an, Huaiyang and other places, and the farthest is only Huguang and Jiangxi.

The main battlefield in the future will undoubtedly unfold in the Huaiyang area, and the 123rd Army of the Guards Army defending the south of the Yangtze River is mainly composed of Huaiyang's children, which can naturally make the army occupy a favorable geographical position and people's momentum, after all, the recruits are all locals, and they are naturally familiar with the geographical environment of this area, and they can also adapt to the climate mixed between the north and the south here and have the determination to defend their homeland.

Li Banghua, Li Mingrui, and Lu Zhenfei are currently mainly responsible for the screening of these 600,000 people.

The basic combat officers and veterans drawn from Shandong and Fengyang became the specific executors.

The 600,000 men were temporarily organized into ten brigades, one brigade and ten squads, each with 6,000 men.

In each squad, those with defective hands and feet, or incomplete vision, or poor hearing, or color blindness had to be eliminated, followed by the infirm, those who could not run for a mile, and those who were not tall.

In this way, it has also been sharply reduced to 400,000 people, and then there is a basic intelligence test, which can distinguish between left and right and not slow to react so that you can follow the number reported by the person in front of you and then report down.

In the end, in order to select the best candidates, the planners also chose more methods, such as testing weightlifting ability, and even continuing to increase the requirements for long-distance running, so as to screen out people with excellent perseverance and physical strength.

Not only that, but also through various tests, try to select some people who are honest and obey the rules, even if the rules are very low-level, and the cost of breaking the rules is very low.

In almost half a month, the 100,000 soldiers who will be included as the main soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were finally determined.

And Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang have basically made these recruits of the Xiucai Battalion and the Zhuangshi Battalion complete the most basic training.

It's just that there is no training in the division of arms and the special skills of each branch.

In a way.

The Xiucai Battalion and the Warrior Battalion are actually officer training, with classes at night and basic individual training during the day.

Zhu Youzhen's arrangement is aimed at cultivating a group of early military officers in the upcoming 100,000-strong training.

This can make up for the lack of instructors, so that 100,000 people can be ordered and prohibited in a short period of time, and have basic individual skills and skills of all arms.

Just like Zhu Youzhen's promise before.

Now, half a month later, the Xiucai Battalion and the Zhuangshi Battalion are going to have a contest to determine who has the number of the first battalion of the first army of the Ming Dynasty.

The so-called martial arts competition is actually just a comparison of whose movements are more standardized, the pace is more consistent, and who can better order and prohibit, rather than really fighting or even shooting.

Zhu Youzhen's first requirement for these recruits is obedience, and he also wants to emphasize that obedience comes first.

The second group of 100,000 recruits, who were selected for the next batch of training, sat around the school yard as required.

Zhu Youzhen, accompanied by Li Banghua and Ma Shiying, also sat on the platform in the center of the north side of the school grounds.

Below him were the two battalions of Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang, each standing in front of Zhu Youzhen in a horizontal line with twenty phalanxes.

Seeing that these people were able to achieve a neat military posture and extraordinary majesty after just half a month, Zhu Youzhen was very relieved and happy.

And the 100,000 recruits who visited the training effect of the first batch of soldiers below were also full of envy, and they imagined that they would stand so upright in front of the emperor in the future.

"Hello soldiers!"

Zhu Youzhen stood up and waved his hand.

"Long live my emperor!"

The 10,000 trainees in the audience replied in unison, and the neat male voices were also majestic and sonorous.

"All the soldiers have worked hard!"

Zhu Youzhen shouted again, after all, he is the supreme of Jiuding, even in this empty school field, he can make a cadre of civil and military ministers and officers and soldiers feel the majesty of the emperor.

"Be loyal to the Ming Dynasty!"

More than 10,000 trained recruits replied again, as if at this moment, the heat of the air began to rise, and the cold wind of early November came to an abrupt end.

Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang shouted hoarsely with their respective battalions, walked upright, and marched on the school field with their own teams.

"It's not bad, tell Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang that before the twilight bell of Tieshan Temple rings, whoever occupies Tieshan Temple first will win!"

Frankly speaking, Zhu Youzhen couldn't see who had the best training effect between the Xiucai Camp and the Zhuangshi Battalion.

Therefore, he can only add a temporary task to judge whether he wins or loses in the way of a virtual war, after all, he has already made a promise, and he cannot keep his word.

Zhu Youzhen knew that Zhou Yuji's military talent was both offensive and defensive, and the offensive side had at least inflicted heavy losses on the Qing army, creating a record of winning more with less; Although the defense did not play in this life, Zhu Youzhen, as a traverser, knew that in the original history, the place that was most blocked to resist Li Zicheng's invasion of the capital was Ningwu Pass, which Zhou Yuji was in charge of.

And Liu Fangliang, who can become the general of the right battalion system of the army from a common man, leads the division of Henan and divides the troops to take the Beijing division, and it can also be seen that this person's military talent should not be bad.

Now let these two people try each other, and Zhu Youzhen will also know who is better at defending and who is better at attacking.

Tieshan Temple, as the name suggests, is just a temple on an iron mountain in Huai'an Province.

Zhu Youzhen is based on his own map of Huai'an Mansion casually remembered a place name near the city of Huai'an Prefecture.

Therefore, the first thing Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang had to do was to find the specific location of this Tieshan Temple.

In the end, the first to arrive at the Iron Mountain Temple was Xiucaiying, who had a high intelligence and could clearly remember the specific location of a temple.

However, the Xiucai who lacked defensive experience did not hold the Tieshan Temple, and Liu Fangliang, who was used to sports warfare, was not as good as Zhou Yuji, so that the Tieshan Temple was taken away by the Zhuangshi Battalion in the hands of the Xiucai Battalion in just one night.

On the second day, the killing sound around the Tieshan Temple shook the sky, and the Xiucai battalion, under the leadership of Liu Fangliang, unremittingly launched round after round of attacks on the strong battalion guarding the Tieshan Temple.

Because real knives, guns and live ammunition were not used, the Xiucai battalion did not stop attacking in various ways.

During this period, the Iron Mountain Temple also changed hands several times

But in the end, because there were more veterans in the strong battalion than in the battalion, and Zhou Yuji himself was better than Liu Fangliang.

Therefore, when the twilight bell of the Tieshan Temple rang, the people of the Xiucai Battalion still did not take the Tieshan Temple from the hands of the strong man battalion, except for the fists and kicks that fell on their bodies.

Zhu Youzhen fulfilled his promise and let Zhou Yuji lead the first battalion of the First Army of the Ming Guards.

However, Zhu Youzhen also issued an order to commend the Xiucai battalion, and Liu Fangliang concurrently led the first battalion of the Second Army of the Ming Guards, and gave additional grace to the generals, and the commander of the guard.

Because all the recruits of these two battalions had to immediately become officers and participate in the next batch of training, Zhou Yuji and Liu Fangliang were also the commanders of these two battalions.

In the future, the commanders of these two battalions will naturally be replaced by others, and they are half a level higher than the other battalions, as the trump card of the Ming Guards.