Chapter 118: Military Training

Life in the cadet team of the Military and Political School was no different from that in the quarantine camp; it was rigid and methodical. They woke up at 5 a.m. with the soldiers of the training battalion to run, but while the training battalion ran 5 kilometers cross-country, they ran ten laps around the training ground.

The morning was for study, continuing what they had learned in the quarantine camp, including literacy and arithmetic. Compared to the “fake kun” from Yanchang Village who taught them in the quarantine camp, the teachers now were all “true kun.” The children had also learned the term others used for these Australian masters: “chiefs.”

The classes taught by the “chiefs” were much more interesting than simple literacy and arithmetic. Someone came to teach them how to read a small, shiny circular plate with many Arabic numerals they had learned in arithmetic class, and two needles that moved with a constant ticking sound. According to the “chief” who taught the class, this was called a “clock,” and it was used to tell time. By looking at it, they could know the exact time, which was much more convenient and accurate than things like incense sticks, water clocks, and sundials.

“This is a real treasure! The Master Huang in my hometown doesn’t have one! He’s the number one gentleman in the county.”

“What’s the Master Huang in your place?” The “chief” teaching the class curled his lip in disdain. “You can’t even find one in the imperial palace in Beijing.”

“Then isn’t it a priceless treasure? If you offered this to the emperor, wouldn’t the chiefs become high officials?”

Xiao Zishan smiled helplessly. The common people’s words often contained their most simple understanding: good things should be enjoyed by the emperor. For thousands of years, the Chinese imperial dynasties had plundered the best things under their rule for the enjoyment of one family. Even anything that was touched by the word “tribute” was a guarantee of quality.

“The use of a clock is to grasp time more accurately,” Xiao Zishan shifted the topic away from treasures. “In the past, everyone could only look at the sun, or listen to the night watchman, the drum tower, or the noon cannon to roughly know what time it was. With a clock, you can know what time it is at any time, and how much time you have spent on something.”

“What’s the use of knowing?” someone asked. “In the past, when I herded cattle for the landlord, I would go out for the whole day, leaving at dawn and returning before dark.”

“For now, you just need to remember how to tell time. As for its specific use, you will naturally know in the future.”

Xiao Zishan knew that this was difficult to explain to children from 400 years ago. Except for professionals who studied astronomy and calendrics, traditional agricultural society rarely needed precise time. The precise grasp of time was a requirement of modern science.

This stage belonged to “universal education.” Compared to more complex and profound scientific knowledge, it was more important to quickly get these newcomers accustomed to the weights and measures, time units, and common phrases used by the transmigrators. Only when there were no communication barriers could they be effectively driven.

The afternoon was for training. Like the new recruits, their main focus was on drill training. Because of the 40 days of Mandarin teaching in the quarantine camp, they could understand the instructor’s commands. Although some still couldn’t distinguish left from right, there were far fewer people who were pulled out and beaten for not understanding commands like the new recruits.

In the evening, like the new recruits, it was political education, repeated brainwashing, and also some extra knowledge.

Compared to the ordinary new recruits, they had more cultural classes—the new recruits only had some simple literacy and arithmetic classes in the evening or on bad weather days. Although Ma Qianzhu had high hopes for these children, he decided not to give them too much specialized education for the time being, but to let them be tempered in the collective of the training battalion, and then see who was suitable to become the future backbone.

Tian Liang studied very hard. He was not very smart to begin with, and he had been beaten many times in the quarantine camp for poor learning. Now his studies were even worse. In the end, he was assigned to the infantry section during the subject examination. The three Ruan brothers had outstanding academic performance and were selected for the artillery section. One day, a “chief” in a blue uniform came. After learning that the three Ruan brothers came from a fishing family, they became “Navy,” probably a place like the “water division.”

After that, they were divided into classes. The Ruan brothers were now engrossed in learning the artillery firing tables and mastering various firing methods. Every morning, they had to push cannons around and practice the gunnery movements over and over again. The most ridiculous thing was learning to harness the gun carriages. The gun carriages and the cannon barrels had to be quickly hitched to the draft horses with special tow straps. A small cannon was enough for one horse, but the largest cannon required eight. To better familiarize themselves with the horses, the people learning artillery had to go to the farm to take care of the horses every few days. In the afternoon, they had to learn to use slide rules, rulers, and measuring instruments.

Tian Liang, on the other hand, practiced carrying a wooden gun, wearing rattan armor, and performing bayonet charges in formation, leading the squad in formation changes, digging trenches, piling up earthworks, and building walls.

Every few days, the instructors would take everyone out for marches, constantly training on various subjects against imaginary targets along the way. Sometimes it was a short charge, not only requiring them to run fast, but also to bayonet the enemy when they rushed into their positions.

The worst was the armed cross-country run. Everyone had to carry dozens of kilograms of things and run for 15 kilometers on mountain paths or field ridges. After arriving within the specified time, there was no rest. They immediately began to build fortifications, and then were divided into two groups for confrontation. The subjects of the confrontation included shooting—with wooden guns. These guns were no longer just wooden sticks with counterweight stones, but training guns filled with iron. Except that they could not be fired, they had barrels, touchholes, and bayonet lugs. During simulated shooting, the soldiers had to follow the firing steps of a muzzle-loading rifle completely: bite open the cartridge of the training round, load the ammunition, and put on the percussion cap. Not a single action could be missed, and the instructor would criticize non-standard movements. After shooting, there would be bayonet fighting and hand-to-hand combat between the two sides. This kind of battle would not end until one side drove the other out of its position. The losing side was responsible for setting up the camp for the night and cooking. Sometimes, this kind of confrontational training would turn into a real fight, and there would often be many casualties with bruised noses and swollen faces, and even broken heads and fractured bones.

At this time, the intern female nurses led by the health group would come into play. These wounded soldiers became their best practice specimens. Those girls who were said to have entered the “technical school” had actually mostly become students of the health group’s nurse training class. Shi Niaoren even planned to train a number of qualified doctors from among them. He had already selected a few particularly intelligent girls and began to secretly teach them a strange language: Latin.

These trainee nurses had no equipment or medicine. The standard red cross medical boxes they carried on their backs, although modeled after the latest version from 400 years later, were basically empty inside. Besides alcohol, absorbent cotton, splints, suture needles and thread, and some simple Chinese herbal preparations, there was nothing useful—all modern medicines were controlled by the doctors of the health group themselves. Fortunately, the people who could live to their teens in this era were all strong under Darwin’s law, and their physical fitness was quite good. With a little treatment, they would be fine after a few days of rest.

Tian Liang saw Guo Fu during an exercise. She was now wearing the same clothes as them, but her hair had grown out, and she was wearing a round, brimless soft cap. There was also a strange embroidered armband on her sleeve: a blue snake wrapped around a wooden stick—every “nurse” had one on her sleeve.

Tian Liang fought particularly hard in this exercise, hoping to get some minor injuries so he could meet Guo Fu and talk to her. But his extraordinary bravery that time sent his opponent to the medical team, while he himself was unharmed. He could only watch Guo Fu from a distance with frustration.

When they had slowly adapted to this kind of training, the instructors came up with a new trick: night assembly. They would be suddenly assembled in the middle of the night while sound asleep. Those who were not fully equipped at the training ground within ten minutes were all punished by running 10 laps around the field. If it was just that, it would have been fine. The most terrifying thing was that sometimes there would be night marches. A white cloth strip would be tied to everyone’s back, and then they would march one after another at night.

Ancient armies rarely fought at night. One reason was that ancient communication and liaison methods were backward, and it was difficult to control the direction of the troops during a night march, let alone conduct a battle. Another reason was that the ancients rarely had complete maps like today for reference. Without a suitable guide, they would get lost even during the day, let alone at night.

It was precisely because ancient armies avoided night battles that the transmigrators had to conduct such training. For the new army, which was outnumbered but had an advantage in training, night battles were the most effective tactic to offset the enemy’s numerical advantage.

Night training was not just about marching. They also had to learn to maneuver tactically in squads in the dark, relying entirely on whistles, flutes, and horns for coordination. When necessary, they also used signal arrows. The Red Army and the Eighth Route Army did not have walkie-talkies back then, but they were still like fish in water in night battles.

Then there was the wilderness survival class. The training outline prepared by Bei Wei originally covered everything from the tropical and subtropical regions of Hainan to the snowy north, but considering that everyone would not be developing in the northeast within two or three years, the focus of the teaching was still on the local area and South China. Slides played a great role in the teaching, especially when teaching how to identify various plants and animals. They would first use pictures as examples, and then go to the field to observe them in person. Then they were taught how to use a compass, how to identify directions in the wild, predict the weather, build temporary shelters, and provide first aid… Finally, the soldiers were sent into the mountains in squads to live for ten days, during which they had to complete a series of tasks. Each person could bring a dagger, a pound of raw rice, and some salt. To prevent these new recruits from harming the common people during wilderness training, Bei Wei led his special forces team to monitor them, and also to train his own team at the same time.