Admiral Enor received a report.

This report was sent from the office of the principal of Aaron's Naval School;

Carried in his pocket by a white-uniformed school worker before dawn, he threw the letter into the school's communication room before breakfast;

The guards in the communication room examined the letter and stuffed it into one of the earliest mail vans that passed by;

The mail truck turned left and right on Aaron's street, and at last reached a mail transfer station, and threw several parcels into it like bags of rice;

The staff of the transfer station prioritized the letters stamped with the postmark of government mail;

A man on horseback reported to the mail relay station at noon and took more than twenty letters mailed to government departments;

This man doubled his way and ran all the way to the inner city of the government. At the inner city gates, he handed the letter to a duty officer;

The officer on duty had just finished his afternoon tea, and he looked at the envelope, the address of which read Admiralty;

The secretary of the Admiralty checked his mail for the last time before leaving work in the afternoon, and found a new letter to the general, and he was a little unhappy when he was about to leave work, and he hesitated for a moment whether to hand it over to the office again tomorrow morning, and after thinking about it, he felt that he could not escape his work. In desperation, he had no choice but to straighten up his spirit and knock on the door of the general's office;

Finally, Mr. Enore's voice rang out: "Come in." ”

Ino was changing into his crisp uniform, a row of buttons on his chest had been unbuttoned, and now he was slowly unbuttoning a few cowbone buttons on his cuffs. At this time his secretary came in and told him that there was a letter to him. The general did not want to waste time on an unfamiliar letter, and he motioned for the secretary to open the letter and dispose of it himself.

The secretary nodded, a professional smile, ready to leave. When he was about to disappear into the wall, Enor couldn't help but ask, "Where did you get the mail?" ”

Without hesitation, the secretary showed his ability to memorize documents: "Aaron Naval Academy Rector's Office, Your Excellency the General".

"Hmm", Enor pursed his lips and blew upwards on his neatly groomed beard. "You better give me the letter, it's been a hard day. You can go and rest. ”

"Yes, Your Excellency. I'll be next door until you get home, and you can summon me at any time," the secretary wasted no time in selling his sense of responsibility.

"Okay, okay. Put the letter here. ”

After the secretary withdrew, the general completely withdrew his military uniform, hung it on a hanger on the side, and wore only a well-fitting silk shirt, and he stretched his shoulders to relieve the fatigue of the day. Then he picked up the letter. It was already dusk, and the lights had not yet been turned on, so he went to the window and looked at the letter through the setting sun.

There are three contents in this letter, the first is that the qualified students have been completely selected; The second is that one of the cadets in this group is a Swadian nobleman; The third is that this Svadian is protected by General Garcia, Enor's number one political enemy.

Kim knew he had to meet the kid one more time after getting the receipt from General Enor.

General Enor made it very clear in his letter: "That old boy Garcia dares to hand over his nephew to us at ease, and we dare to train him to be an excellent soldier." Do everything according to the rules, be open-minded, and don't take special care of or suppress Garcia just because he is a person. Garcia has a very dashing hand, and if we can't advance and retreat in a measured way, we are likely to be called by him as a chicken intestine or afraid of him like a tiger. Remember, do what you have to do."

Kim knew that Enore wasn't telling the truth. It's not a matter of personal belly size at all. Because Enor and Garcia are both generals, this Swadian is a complete hot potato, a potential political disaster. If someone uses this to attack Garcia in the future, it will be difficult for Garcia to get away with the crime, but now it is different, and now this Swadian is equivalent to becoming a protégé of General Enor, so in the confrontation between the various factions of the army, no one will talk about this. Unless someone is stupid enough to challenge the entire military force, otherwise, the Swadiya pawn will not be harmful. Garcia skillfully defused his potential danger, why Enor didn't refuse this Swadia, Kim didn't understand.

When my father stood in front of Kim again, Kim was visibly distant, or much more polite, towards him. My father was immediately aware of the change. My father tried to figure out if there was something wrong with him that caused Kim to be dissatisfied, but he immediately worried that Kim would be bad if he thought he was posturing. In the end, my father had no choice but to remain silent.

Kim opened the subject: "Young man, your application has passed, and the Navy welcomes you." But I have to tell you, whatever your background, please pick it up."

"Yes, Headmaster."

"Well, that's all for today. I don't have anything else to say. You missed the other day's equipment pick-up", Kim handed a letter of explanation to my father, "take this to the Naval Quartermaster's Office, right on the docks, and then there will be your second campus." ”

Father nodded, ready to leave.

"Come back!"

"Headmaster?"

"Didn't anyone teach you how to say goodbye to your chief? Now I'm your headmaster, but I'm your chief. Please follow the system. ”

My father remembered the rituals he had learned during the three-month intensive training.

This ritual came from the Nord, and Rhodok reformed the military system and absorbed the Nord system in many ways, such as shouting simple but uplifting phrases, a tradition that the Northlanders found very new. When he was in Svadia, he had seen the army marching through the streets in a row, and he remembered that the most elite troops did not make any sound, except for flute players and drummers playing marching songs briskly. Only a few mercenaries will laugh and curse in a lively manner, these people are brave soldiers on the battlefield, but in peacetime, they are reckless men with poor discipline.

Rhodok's army completely changed the military system of his mother country after independence, but Rhodok maintained the Swadian tradition of emphasizing discipline over all else. During those three months, my father was placed in the ranks to follow his classmates, and at first, there were always people who would go in the wrong rhythm and disrupt the line, and such people would often attract severe reprimands and even beatings from the instructors.

"On the battlefield, the only thing you can rely on is the people around you, and once you get out of your ranks, the consequences can be catastrophic," the instructor said. Not only will you be easily killed, but the gap you have exposed is likely to be the starting point for the collapse of the entire Founder. ”

The Nords are not good at arraying. Father had heard this about it, when he was in the Valley of the White Pigeon. Uncle Nord, who had become docile farmers, told him about the years. Before the battle, the Nords drank spirits, and some warriors would add a potion of courage prepared by wizards to increase their guts. They say that after drinking that kind of wine, people become irritable, and even cut their cheeks to let blood drip, and roar at the sky when they don't get a fight for a long time.

The tactics of the Nords were relatively crude, except for a few armies that could do some roundabout and flanking tactics under the leadership of generals, most of the Nord armies only chose to charge head-on, "like wild boars", this tactical backwardness often caused the Nords to lose overwhelmingly superior battles. During the North Sea War, General Harauth used thousands of tired soldiers to meet the tribal forces of tens of thousands of Nords, although in the end General Haraus was finally defeated, but the Nords did not take advantage of it from beginning to end, and even when the Swadias collapsed, the Nords could not expand the fruits of the battle, and watched the Swadias divide into several groups, taking turns to cover and withdraw from the battlefield but could not do anything.

My grandfather had told my father that the elixir of courage was actually a powder made from plants that had the effect of narcotic hallucinations.

After the North Sea War, the Nords had greatly rectified their military deficiencies with the help of the military attachés of Kugit and Rhodok. Learning is mutual, and while the Nords are learning the Rhodoks' sophisticated line warfare and phalanx warfare, the Rhodoks are also learning the Nords' methods of maintaining high morale, one of which is to make the entire armed queue of people uniformly call out the slogans. The drummers beat the drums in formation, and the flutists played their horns slowly, and the mode has slowly been abandoned. Now Rhodok's officers demanded that his soldiers stand in impeccable columns, shouting slogans in unison and rushing forward.

Father still remembers the first time he shouted the trumpet and charged, and this feeling was further strengthened later when they advanced with their spears. When the forest of spears that pointed straight to the sky like beeches flattened all at once, the feeling of standing in the queue and holding the spear tightly was as if I could hold this spear and keep going all the way to the other side of the mountain, all the way to the end of the world.

"Discipline," the officer said loudly to the cadets, "is the guarantee of our survival, and our greatest advantage from the barbarians." Although the Svadians are our enemies, I want you to see the good in them. The Svadians could not be easily defeated under any circumstances, and it was because of their discipline. The Swadians are not as agile as the Kujits, less powerful than the Nords, less courageous than the Vickyans, and less stamina than the Salanders, but the Swadians are often able to win big battles against these peoples, relying on iron odds. More than ten years ago, we drove out the Svadians, and it is precisely because our army has discipline that is not inferior to the Svadian army, and even higher than theirs. So, you must remember that to save your life, it is your equipment and your teammates that depend on you, but to conquer the world, you must rely on discipline. ”

This demand for discipline required my father to shout slogans again and again, and then salute the general. This form of salutation, which is different from the Swadia style of tightening the arms, holding the chest up and then stomping the feet, came from Salander. When saluting, raise your right hand gently and touch the tail of your brow. It is said that this ritual originated in an ancient people in the southern desert, and the samurai of this people, when they saw their commander, would pull up the face of their helmet to show respect for each other and not defend against them. This etiquette was eventually established and introduced into the army. This simple and proper etiquette was quickly absorbed by the Rhodok army, which sought to innovate and change.

It was the first time my father had done this outside of training. He straightened his waist, closed his heels, and raised his right hand competently, touching his brow: "Goodbye, sir." ”

"Disbanded, Navy Cadet Arcadio."

"Yes, sir."

That afternoon, my father went with Cesar to the quartermaster on the docks. A few months ago, when he first came to Aaron, his father had planned to come here, but now when he finally arrived at this place, it had a sense of illusion. It was as if the months had passed in a blur, and it was strange like a colorful dream, in which was a spear that covered the sky, a march under the scorching sun, and an endless churning sea.

The wharf is bustling with hawkers selling food and lucky charms, little girls selling flowers, old women begging, and entertainers. The salty and wet wind blows from the sea, which makes people's faces moist and their eyes sour. My father and Cesar went through intensive training, and they walked in a neat and uniform manner. provoked the girl on the dock to look tactful and her cheeks crimson. The father looked at the girls and remembered a figure under the sunflowers of Veruga, it was already autumn, and the sunflowers were blooming all over the flower bed again.

At the quartermaster's office, my father and Cesar received the standard standard equipment for naval cadets: a set of marching bedding, two pairs of leather boots, a pair of coarse cloth trousers, a straitjacket, a tweed coat, and a soft-brimmed fur hat with feathers.

Using the skills they had learned during the training camp, my father and Cesar quickly bundled these things and carried them on their backs. Then they saluted the quartermaster.

The quartermaster was proofreading a registration form, waved hastily at the two late cadets, and impatiently sent them away.

This man was very annoyed, and today he received a large number of black goods investigated and dealt with by the coastal defense team. He was going to transport these things to the warehouse on the dock tomorrow morning, and the opportunity to pluck the goose was tonight, but the accountant of the quartermaster department was temporarily transferred, because the four hundred and twenty packages of goods ordered by the navy today needed to be registered in the warehouse, and the military department was short of manpower, so the people here were withdrawn. The man made up his mind to leave something behind, but he was worried that something would go wrong with the accounts, so he could only watch as a large number of goods were put in his warehouse, but he did not dare to do anything about it.

As his father was about to leave, Cesar saw the man's displeasure: "What's the matter, sir. Is there anything we can help with? ”

The quartermaster raised his eyebrows: "No, it's nothing, uh" is actually some accounting problems. ”

Cesar was well aware of the goods in and out of the library since he was a child, and he knew that his father had always been very strict about this kind of thing, which not only caused his father's good reputation, but also caused his father to be criticized by some people, because his father cut off many people's financial means for this. However, Cesar did not think so, he knew that when the water is clear, there are no fish, and if he is too principled, he will achieve nothing. From the attitude of this quartermaster and the inside story of the dock black market that others had told him before, he had a rough idea of what this financial problem was.

To be sure, he asked, "Isn't there a special accountant to help you?" ”

"Hmph," the quartermaster said dissatisfiedly: "It's not that your Navy Department has recently ordered a large number of things, and we have to count everything, otherwise we won't delay our affairs." ”

The father was puzzled by this, and only saw Cesar grinning: "Haha, sir, we are both naval cadets, and we are sorry for what happened to you." It's just that there is nothing to do in the evening, and we can help you make a register. Are you okay with that, Arcadio Second? ”

"It's all right," my father wondered why Cesar was helping a somewhat vexatious quartermaster, "but aren't we meddling in someone else's business?" In Swa''I mean, in the north, it's a virtue not to meddle in other people's affairs. ”

The quartermaster did not say anything, but Cesar said: "We will depend on the caregiver for many things in the future, so we will be considered our own people." If it's okay, just keep our luggage busy for ourselves, this gentleman will keep our luggage for us. ”

The father said no more, and left everything to Cesar.

The quartermaster motioned for Cesar to come closer: "How are you going to register?" ”

"How are you going to let me register?"

The quartermaster immediately understood that it was indeed his own person who understood things in front of him, and laughed, and Cesar also smiled. The father shrugged his shoulders, took off his duffel bag, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to check the accounts.

At eleven o'clock, the quartermaster burned the bill of the Coast Guard and took a new bill from Cesar and Arcadio.

The conversion of the two bills had caused 30 finest silk shirts, 9 packs of Vikia leather, 20 dozen tiha linen casual clothes, and dozens of packs of hardware to disappear from the accounts, and the quartermaster heard the clanging dinar in his mind. He didn't expect that these two boys were so sensible, and he couldn't wait to kiss the two of them. He gave each of them two silk shirts, and two pairs of buckskin high-top marching boots from the warehouse, and he scrambled up and down the containers looking for gifts.

Finally, Cesar said, "Don't give it, sir, it's enough." We can't tie up the rope. ”

The quartermaster rubbed his hands together and stopped happily, and cautiously expressed his gratitude.

The father asked puzzledly, "Sir, we are just doing our part, why do we treat us so well." If the return is so good, I can come every day. ”

The quartermaster thought my father was pretending to be confused. He didn't know that the purpose of the account just now was to Cesara, and the real situation was known only to Cesara, and the quartermaster immediately tacitly said: "You can't say that, if you give something, you will be rewarded, and if you want to come every day, I will be so happy." ”

The quartermaster, Cesar, and my father smiled and praised each other, and then they said their last goodbyes.

Father and Cesar rubbed their eyes, which were red from the registration process, and walked outside with a bag full of things. Their bags were almost twice the size of the other soldiers.

At the door, the quartermaster stopped them: "What are your names?" ”

"Mark. Cesar and Ho. Arcadio II".