Chapter 121: The Funeral

After four weeks of basic training, the Army Training Battalion was officially formed. Although it was a battalion, due to its nature as a demonstration unit, it was highly combined-arms, with infantry, Jägers, artillery, and service troops.

The organization chart formulated by the Military Committee largely imitated the European armies of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The battalion served as the basic combat unit. Each infantry battalion consisted of 6 companies. Each infantry platoon was composed of 3 squads, with 9 men per squad, and 30 men per platoon. 3 platoons formed a company, with 100 men per company. The company had a standard-bearer, a drummer, and a fifer, as well as a 5-man cooking squad.

The current Army Training Battalion only had 3 infantry companies, 1 Jäger platoon, and 1 “grenadier platoon.” This so-called “grenadier platoon” here restored its original meaning, not that of elite infantry.

The No. 1 grenade produced by the chemical department had too little killing power. For this reason, a larger No. 4 grenade was developed, with its casing changed to cast iron. The materials were not up to par, and there were no suitable high explosives, so they had to increase the volume and the amount of black powder filling. The result was that the No. 4 grenade was comparable in size to an old-fashioned landmine.

Because it was heavy, this weapon was thrown like a chain ball—of course, it could also be thrown by hand, but only for a dozen meters. The No. 4 grenade was not equipped with a pull-fuse, but used a safer and more reliable fuse for detonation. The grenadier had to prepare a slow-burning match cord—just like the original grenadiers.

This awkward design made the officers of the new army both love and hate it. However, a good plaster is one that can draw out the pus. Men who were strong and could throw far were selected from the soldiers to be grenadiers. Each was equipped with 4 grenades, carried in a special back-box.

However, an accident occurred during the grenade throwing training of the new army. A grenade thrown out exploded in mid-air before it hit the ground. The flying iron fragments killed one soldier on the spot and injured several others. The inspection results showed that the quality of the fuse was not up to standard, and the burning speed was too fast.

Making a fuse was technically simple, just paper and gunpowder, but making it by hand was very skillful. No one had ever worked in a pyrotechnics factory. The fuses made just by reading books had uneven powder loading, sometimes tight and sometimes loose, and burned erratically. This problem had existed before and would cause the blasting time to be inaccurate, so the fuse was often made longer. But a grenade could not have too much of a safety margin, otherwise, if it didn’t explode for a long time after landing, the fuse could be pinched off.

This problem was not big, but not small either. The chemical group organized people to conduct continuous experiments for several days to explore and improve the process. Unexpectedly, it was solved very easily—one day, a peddler came to Dongmen Market, selling something that no one had ever sold before—firecrackers. Dongmen Chuiyu, who immediately realized its value, bought them all. The test results were satisfactory. The next day, the firecracker maker was forced by the transmigrators with bayonets to move his entire family and all his firecracker-making tools and materials to the Bairen Commune.

Winter in Lingao arrived imperceptibly. Although it was known as the Little Ice Age, the daytime temperature in subtropical Lingao was still no lower than 20 degrees Celsius, which felt much cooler than on D-Day. It was now the dry season in Lingao, with almost no rain and sunny days every day.

On this day, a barren land more than ten kilometers outside Bairen City suddenly became lively. The common people and landlords from the surrounding towns and villages, the merchants and idlers from the city… anyone who didn’t have anything important to do today came to this usually deserted place—today was the day of the “Kun people’s” grand funeral.

Lingao was a remote and small city. Throughout the year, besides the excitement of beheadings in the county town, the common people had almost no entertainment. The weddings and funerals of wealthy families were the best entertainment for the common people in the old days, not to mention these strange overseas visitors.

The county magistrate’s assistant, Wu Ya, also changed into plain clothes and mingled with the crowd. Unlike the county magistrate, he was full of curiosity about this group of overseas visitors.

He walked with the crowd for almost an hour and arrived at a high slope on the west bank of the Wenlan River. The terrain here was high, and it was extremely difficult to draw water for farming, so it had always been wasteland. It was flat on all sides, with a slightly raised small hill in the middle. On the open ground around the hill, soldiers of the “Kun people” were already on guard. Many people had gathered on the hillside and the surrounding open ground. The locals who were already familiar with the outsiders in Bairen City could recognize many prominent figures among them, all dressed in clean and neat uniforms.

Besides these people, there were also many ordinary people who worked for the “Kun people.” The newly trained benchmark company of the Army Training Battalion wore starched, brand-new uniforms. The Minie rifles in their hands were polished with oil, and the bayonets gleamed with a cold light.

At the entrance at the foot of the hill was a large rectangular black stone wall, with only a small archway left. A small path passed through it to the small hill in the center of the cemetery.

On top of this small hill, which was only about 10 meters high, a semi-circular stone wall of black granite was built, simply decorated with lotus pedestals carved from stone.

At the very top of the stone wall, several large characters in Han clerical script were carved: CUI GANG MARTYRS’ CEMETERY.

Wen Desi got out of the car and walked slowly towards the small hill in the middle of the cemetery—as the representative of the highest authority of the transmigrators, he was to preside over the first funeral of the transmigrator regime—the deceased was an ordinary soldier who had died a few days ago in a grenade training accident.

In his short life, whose exact age he himself did not know, Li Shisan had really done nothing to indicate that he would become a special figure in history after his death. But the name wall of the Cui Gang Cemetery began with him.

There was no funeral music, no gongs, drums, or blowing instruments, no monks or Taoist priests chanting sutras, and no women wailing. A mournful bugle call sounded in the sky. As the bugle call sounded, the noisy crowd suddenly fell silent. The soldiers of the benchmark company, marching at 75 steps per minute, lined up with their guns. As the bugle call ended, led by two drummers, with the military drums beating slowly, two tall, black horses, which the locals had never seen before, pulled a black four-wheeled gun carriage slowly past. A simple, plain wooden coffin was placed on the carriage. The horse’s hooves clattered on the stone-paved road, in time with the slow drumbeat. Everything was unprecedented, mixed with respect, admiration, and emotion. Nothing could express mourning and grief more than this. The atmosphere was so strong it was almost suffocating.

The coffin was slowly lowered into the grave by ropes.

“Present arms, fire!”

Seven soldiers, carefully selected from the Jäger platoon, simultaneously raised their guns and fired into the air, three times in a row. The crisp sound of the gunshots echoed on the hillside. All around was silent. In the silence, the “Taps” bugle call was slowly played, its 24 notes slowly sounding out. Even the transmigrators who had originally come to perform a political propaganda play were moved to tears—the atmosphere was indeed contagious.

After that, the coffin began to be covered with earth.

“At the moment of his death, his soul has already ascended to heaven,” Wen Desi said with a solemn expression. “The Valkyries have come to take them away. We are here to bid farewell to his body. His soul is watching us from heaven…”

“The one who died must be a high-ranking official of the Short Hairs,” someone in the crowd of onlookers was discussing.

“I heard it wasn’t, it was a ‘fuye’ (deputy master).”

“Just a ‘fuye’ gets this? I wonder what the Short Hairs’ emperor would be like? The four-wheeled carriage would probably need 100 horses to pull it.”

“That soldier was recruited locally, a ‘Fulao.’ He had only been a soldier for a little over a month and was killed when a cannon exploded.”

“To die with such pomp and circumstance, it wasn’t a wasted life,” someone actually said with envy.

“That’s right. When the rich Mr. Li in our village died, the funeral procession stretched for half a street, but they were all beggars hired to line the way. It wasn’t as grand as this!”

Hearing this, Wu Ya hurriedly squeezed over and asked, “Is it true that only a soldier died?”

The man who spoke saw that the visitor had a dignified bearing and clothing, and knew he was not an ordinary person. He answered cautiously, “Of course. A relative of mine is now working for the Short Hairs. He told me himself, how could it be false?”

“I don’t understand what they’re thinking. It’s just one soldier.”

“To win the hearts of the people,” a scholar-like person not far away, although his face was pale and his clothes were tattered, still put on a disdainful expression. “Is this even a funeral? There’s not a single bit of ritual. Barbarians are barbarians!”

“Stop talking nonsense. Which Zhou ritual says that you should use Wang Bi and Fang Xiang to lead the way in a funeral procession?” Someone seemed to be unable to stand him and retorted sarcastically.

Wu Ya did not continue to listen. A feeling of不知道是害怕还仰慕充斥着心中. The Kun bandits were trying to win the hearts of the people, but their methods seemed more effective and could directly touch the vital points of people’s hearts. Wu Ya prided himself on being an old hand in officialdom. When he cried for Emperor Wanli, he could howl with all his might, while still calculating how much extra money and grain he could get. But the scene just now had moved him inexplicably, making him want to cry. Thinking back on it now, it was absurd: what did he have to cry and be moved about? The Kun bandits’ art of winning hearts was simply demonic! Since the autumn harvest, the common people seemed to have been bewitched, rushing to Bairen Beach. More and more people were defecting to the bandits. Wu Ya was an experienced local official and knew that although the common people had no good feelings for the government, they would not defect to the bandits unless there was a famine. The harvest in Lingao this year was quite good, yet so many people still went! What would happen in the future? This great Ming dynasty!

On the way back to the camp, the members of the Executive Committee noticed that the new army’s steps were bigger, their formation was neater, and they were all full of spirit. The soldiers spontaneously began to sing the military song they had just learned:

The beautiful fairy maiden calls to you from afar Brave man, go and fight the enemy bravely The scorching wind blows in your face Stirring my soul A cold smile appears on your face You gaze at the earth with indifference You face death with composure All of this is in my eyes I know you are fearless I know you are incomparably resolute One day, you will discover Your power is immense One day, you will discover You can create miracles The beautiful fairy maiden calls to you from afar For tomorrow, man, go and kill the enemy Like the god of death soaring in the blue sky Embrace the battle, and let your blood boil For tomorrow, please do not hesitate anymore Brave man, go and fight the enemy bravely

This song, set to the tune of EVA, sung by several hundred men with southern and northern accents, had a truly extraordinary “comedic effect.” The officers all wore strange smiles, and some were so contorted with suppressed laughter that their faces were twisted.

Wei Aiwen was very pleased and said to Ma Qianzhu, “Chief of Staff Ma, this funeral was a great success, wasn’t it? Look how high everyone’s morale is!”

“You just copied that Arlington Cemetery stuff and added some various foreign MSG. I thought I would see Scottish bagpipes,” Ma Qianzhu was quite satisfied with the effect of the funeral. Funerals, in name, are for the dead, but mainly for the living. A grand burial for one Li Shisan not only won the hearts of the ordinary native followers but also united all the transmigrators—after all, they were not gods. As they delved deeper into this time and space, someone would die at any time. Although everyone knew that everything is empty after death, knowing that they would be buried with great ceremony after death, lying under a marble tombstone on a grassy lawn, instead of being thrown into a desolate and overgrown mass grave, they would be a little braver when facing death.

“I did buy a set of bagpipes, but no one knows how to play them!” Wei Aiwen had a “tragic” look on his face. “I thought Little Xiong could play, but it turns out he only knows how to play ‘The Grenadiers March’ on the flute and nothing else. Otherwise, the effect would have been even better!”

“Stop taking all the credit for yourself. If it weren’t for Xiao Zishan proposing the construction of the Cui Gang Cemetery to the Executive Committee more than a month ago, would we have this effect now?”

“He also made a certain contribution, I don’t deny it—”

“It’s good that you can recognize the contributions of others,” Ma Qianzhu vaguely felt that there was something wrong with Wei Aiwen recently. But one thing was certain: he was beginning to become arrogant.