Chapter 120: Army-Navy Dispute

When Huang Xiong arrived at the headquarters office, there were three other people besides Li Yunxing. He recognized one of them, a military officer from his battalion, “Chief Wei.” Another, “Chief Ma,” also often appeared on the training ground and seemed to be a big shot.

The person he didn’t recognize was Ran Yao. As soon as training was over, Li Yunxing had called the security group from the headquarters office. This Huang Xiong’s knowledge was clearly not something an ordinary person could have; he was most likely an officer of the Ming army. He had to confirm whether he was a spy.

Finally, there was Dongmen Chuiyu, who had come to watch the fun. He didn’t have much to do now that order in Dongmen Market was on the right track. He often hung around Ma Qianzhu’s place and had even drafted some staff headquarters regulations, earning himself a nominal staff officer position.

“Have a seat,” Ran Yao said casually.

“Thank you, chief.” “Thank you, chief, for the seat!” Huang Xiong came to attention again—he seemed to be particularly fond of this.

Everyone saw that his bearing was indeed different from that of an ordinary new recruit.

“You were an official soldier, weren’t you?” Ran Yao asked directly, without beating around the bush.

“Yes! I was a Bazong in the Jizhou garrison,” he said with a frank expression.

He was a Ming army officer after all. This was somewhat beyond Li Yunxing’s expectations. In this recruitment, many local fugitive military households had come, but a Bazong from the Jizhou garrison and a military household from the Hainan garrison were completely different things. The former was a real soldier, while the latter was just a serf of a military landlord. The difference was too great.

“Since you were an officer of the court, why did you travel thousands of miles to Qiongzhou?”

Huang Xiong hesitated for a moment. “I accidentally killed my superior during an argument.”

He was a murderer too. No wonder he had to flee so far.

“Why did the conflict arise?”

“It was all for some money and grain,” Huang Xiong smiled bitterly. “The court has been in arrears with pay for a long time, so much so that the soldiers are almost starving to death. When some money and grain were allocated from above, we didn’t get any. I went to ask for it, and a conflict arose.”

The reason was straightforward, but Ran Yao knew that if he were a spy, the reason for coming to join them would naturally be fabricated to be watertight. They were in Hainan and had no way to investigate the truth of the matter in Jizhou.

“Why did you join us as a soldier?”

Huang Xiong said, “The chiefs are from overseas and have no connection with the Ming government. Naturally, I had to join here.”

There was no flaw in this statement either. The few of them exchanged glances. Ma Qianzhu suddenly asked:

“What do you think of our militia training?”

“Sirs—Chiefs, I have never heard of your method of training soldiers, so I dare not comment on its superiority or inferiority,” Huang Xiong said respectfully. “However, in just a month, you have trained the foolish country folk to know when to advance and retreat, and to understand formations. This is already extremely brilliant. It is more than enough to deal with local bandits.”

Ma Qianzhu nodded and asked a few more casual questions before letting him go.

“Should we keep him?” Ran Yao asked in a low voice.

To be safe, this person should not only not be used, but it would be best to just “click” him—he had already received the full set of the transmigrators’ military training. If he were really a spy, he would leak a large amount of details to the government after escaping.

Wei Aiwen said, “I suggest we keep him. There will be more and more people like him in the future. Everything has a beginning. If we don’t trust this and we don’t trust that, who can we use?”

“What if he’s a spy?” Li Yunxing was a little hesitant.

“If he were a spy, he wouldn’t have revealed his identity so easily,” Ran Yao said. “I personally think he’s telling the truth.”

“What you’re saying is not materialistic,” Dongmen Chuiyu criticized.

“What’s materialistic? If we really want to be vigilant, we have so many laborers and people now. Can you say that every single one of them is reliable?”

“Little Wei is right. We can’t always shrink into our own little circle,” Ma Qianzhu made up his mind and said to Ran Yao, “Mark his file with ‘controlled use’ and find two soldiers to cross-monitor him.”

“Okay, I’ll arrange it right away.”

“Hey, hey,” Wei Aiwen cried out, “you’ve planted spies in the training battalion, how come I don’t know anything about it?”

“This is directly managed by the Executive Committee. Just look at our reports,” Ran Yao tapped the table, on which was a document about the soldiers’ movements for the week. “Little Wei, your security awareness is not very good. This thing has a security classification, and you just leave it on the table?”

“The soldiers can’t come in here. We’re even in charge of the sentries ourselves. It won’t get lost, and besides, the room has a lock,” Wei Aiwen said nonchalantly. “Chief of Staff Ma, how about we go see our shooting practice?”

“Sure, let’s go see.”

So far, the new army had fired a total of 100 shots, 40 of which were live rounds and 60 were blank shots. This number already exceeded the number of shots fired by new recruits in the British army of the 19th century, which was the most focused on shooting. The transmigrators could be said to be sparing no expense on their founding troops.

When the group walked to the second company, they found the soldiers of the second company gathered together. A dark and sturdy soldier was holding a rifle, aiming at a distant stone. A large crowd surrounded him.

With a “bang,” the stone was sent flying. It seemed they had trained well. Wei Aiwen recognized this soldier; it was the sharpshooter Yang Zeng, discovered by Li Yunxing.

Just as Wei Aiwen was about to go over and praise him, Dongmen Chuiyu walked past him.

He said to the soldier who was shooting, “You, you’re a good shot.”

The soldier chuckled.

“Now, shoot again for me,” Dongmen Chuiyu said unhurriedly.

The soldier fired another shot, hitting the target squarely.

Dongmen nodded and stood beside the soldier. Then he drew a Jielinde pistol from his waist, loaded it with a blank, and said, “Again.”

The soldier began to clean the barrel. Just then, Dongmen fired a shot into the air. The soldier’s hand trembled, and some gunpowder spilled out.

The only staff officer of the staff headquarters began to urge, “Hurry.”

The gunpowder finally went in. While he was cleaning, Dongmen fired two more shots.

The soldier began to reload.

“Hurry, faster.”

The gun in Dongmen’s hand fired again, and the soldier’s bullet fell to the ground.

“What are you doing? Load, load quickly!” Dongmen shouted in the soldier’s ear.

The soldier hastily fumbled for another bullet from his cartridge box.

The gun fired again, followed by his urging, “Hurry! Faster!”

The soldier’s hands trembled as he loaded the bullet into the barrel.

Another shot, and everyone could see the soldier’s hand shaking as he put on the percussion cap.

“Fire, fire quickly!” he continued.

The soldier finally completed the loading process.

“Hurry. Aim. Fire!” he commanded amidst the sound of the pistol.

The soldier’s gun fired.

The stone in front did not react; the bullet had missed.

Dongmen Chuiyu put away his pistol and said, “Continue practicing.”

Everyone shook their heads. He was a good shot, but not a soldier.

After leaving the crowd, Wei Aiwen caught up with him and said angrily:

“Dongmen Chuiyu, don’t you think you’re going too far?”

“Where did I go too far?”

“That Yang Zeng, since he joined the Jäger platoon, do you know how much effort he has put into practicing shooting? He is now the most accurate soldier in the entire battalion.”

“That has nothing to do with me. Company Commander Wei, please remember, we need soldiers, not sports shooters.” He glanced at Li Yunxing as he spoke. “War is not fought in a quiet shooting range.”

He walked away before Wei Aiwen could reply.

Wei Aiwen and Li Yunxing began to dislike this guy who wore glasses despite not being short-sighted.

What made Wei Aiwen even more upset was that his magnificent artillery, including the cannons and gunners, had been divided in half and given to the navy! All that was left for them were 9 12-pounder mountain howitzers and a few 6-pounder light cannons. The 8-pounder cannons and the 70mm breech-loading guns had all been given to the navy. This result also made the self-proclaimed Director of Artillery, Zhang Bolin, furious—he had put a lot of effort into the artillery, and Li Haiping had used the despicable material temptation of being able to eat fish openly in the navy to lure away the best gunners, which made him even more furious.

“Chief of Staff Ma, this is not right!” Zhang Bolin said aggressively. “Our army is the main force in the anti-encirclement battle. You’ve given all the big guns to the navy. How are we supposed to fight this war?”

“That’s right, that’s right, and the training battalion clearly has four infantry companies. Why did the navy take one company to be some ‘marine corps’? We accept that the Executive Committee has a soft spot for the navy. The army is rustic and the navy is foreign. But this is too much bullying!”

Ma Qianzhu stood up and said, “All you know is to ask for big guns! Even if I give you the 8-pounder cannons, do you have horses to pull them?”

“There are some at the Nanhai Farm—”

“You’re the Director of Artillery, do you know how many horses an 8-pounder cannon needs?”

Zhang Bolin was speechless. He really didn’t know how many horses his beloved weapon needed to be pulled.

“At least 6! And they have to be medium-sized horses.” Ma Qianzhu slammed the table. “How many horses are there in total at Wu Nan Hai’s farm?”

“Donkeys will do—” Zhang Bolin continued his weak resistance.

“With donkeys, you can only pull the 12-pounder mountain howitzers. A mountain howitzer company, including the cannons and ammunition wagons, would require 30 donkeys for you alone. Wu Nan Hai would go bankrupt trying to supply you! You don’t know the cost of living until you’re in charge!”

Zhang Bolin was completely silenced. Wei Aiwen was still harping on the issue of the marine company.

“The marine company is the future navy sailors. The training battalion was originally just for temporary training. Now that a month is up, the navy wants them to train on board.”

The two of them got a scolding from Ma Qianzhu and left dejectedly.

“The navy is so damn bullying!” Wei Aiwen was still fuming.

“They’re relying on the Fengcheng Hotel to bribe the high officials of the Executive Committee. It’s too corrupt!”

“Let’s go talk to Battalion Commander Xi.”

“Fatty Xi?” Zhang Bolin was now being very disrespectful. “He and Ma Qianzhu are in the same boat.”

“What about the others? Bai Yu, Ying Yu, them—”

“I don’t think we can rely on them either. Those old soldiers have been ‘listening to the party’s words’ all their lives. Here, it’s become ‘listening to the Executive Committee’s words’.”

“If this goes on, our army will be at a disadvantage,” Wei Aiwen was deeply concerned about the future of the army.

“Hmph, I think we need to organize a group to protect the rights and interests of our army—this is also for the sake of all the transmigrators! Letting them mess around like this is not good for the great cause of transmigration. What’s the use of the navy now? Isn’t the anti-encirclement battle relying on us? The Executive Committee is putting the cart before the horse. I heard that many officers in the battalion are dissatisfied with the Executive Committee’s decision—”

“Keep your voice down. Tell me, what’s the specific plan?”