Chapter 160: Drilling Troops

Life in the Military-Political School's cadet squad proved just as regimented as quarantine had been. The boys rose at five in the morning alongside the Training Battalion soldiers for their daily runs—though while the regular soldiers completed a grueling five-kilometer cross-country route, the cadets circled the training grounds ten times instead.

Mornings belonged to study, continuing the literacy and arithmetic lessons from their quarantine days. The difference now was in the instructors. Where the Salt Village "fake baldies" had once taught them, now the "real baldies" took over. The children quickly picked up the term everyone used for their Australian masters: "Chiefs."

The Chiefs' classes proved far more engaging than simple reading and sums. One lesson introduced them to a shiny disc studded with Arabic numerals—the same numbers from their arithmetic exercises—and two needles that never stopped moving. The instructor called this device a "clock," explaining that it was used for telling time. A single glance revealed the exact hour, far more convenient and accurate than incense clocks, water clocks, or sundials.

"This must be a treasure," one boy exclaimed. "Even our village's Master Huang doesn't have one, and he's the county's top gentry!"

"Who is this Master Huang of yours?" The instructing Chief pursed his lips dismissively. "Even Beijing's Imperial Palace has nothing like it."

"Then it must be priceless! A tribute fit for the Emperor—the Chiefs could become high officials with such gifts!"

Xiao Zishan smiled helplessly at this exchange. The commoners' logic reflected the simplest understanding of power: the best things belonged to the Emperor. Centuries of Chinese dynasties had plundered the finest possessions from their subjects for one surname's exclusive enjoyment. Anything labeled "tribute" was guaranteed to be of the highest quality.

"The clock's purpose is precise control over time," Xiao Zishan redirected patiently. "Before, people could only approximate the hour from the sun's position, the night watches, drum towers, or noon cannons. With a clock, you know the exact time at any moment. You know precisely how long any task has taken."

"What's the use of that?" someone asked. "When I herded the landlord's cattle, I was out all day anyway. Left at dawn, returned before dark. That was enough."

"Just learn to read the clock for now. As for its uses—you'll understand naturally as time goes on."

Xiao Zishan knew that explaining the concept of precise timekeeping to youths from four centuries in the past was nearly impossible. Except for astronomical and calendar specialists, traditional agriculture rarely demanded such accuracy. Precise timing was a requirement born of modern science. This phase of training was dedicated to "general education"—rather than attempting to teach complex advanced concepts, the priority was adapting newcomers to the transmigrators' terminology and habits as quickly as possible. Only barrier-free communication could enable effective command.

Afternoons were devoted to drill, just like the regular recruits. Formation training dominated the schedule. With forty days of "quarantine Mandarin" under their belts, the cadets now understood the instructors' commands well enough. Though some still confused their left from their right, being dragged out and beaten for incomprehension had become rare.

Evenings mirrored the recruits' schedule as well: political education and repeated indoctrination, supplemented by extra general knowledge classes. Compared to the regular soldiers, the cadets carried a heavier academic load—recruits only studied literacy and arithmetic in the evenings or during inclement weather. Ma Qianzhu harbored high expectations for these boys but decided against excessive special treatment for now. Better to let them be tempered in the Training Battalion's collective environment while he observed who would emerge as the future backbone of their forces.

Tian Liang struggled. He wasn't particularly bright and had already taken beatings in quarantine for his poor grades. Now things grew even harder. When the final specialty exams came, his scores landed him in the infantry track, while the Ruan brothers' excellent marks earned them spots in the artillery track. Then one day a blue-uniformed Chief arrived, and upon learning the Ruan brothers were fishermen's sons, promptly reassigned them to the "Navy"—roughly equivalent to what they would have called "water forces."

After that, the branches diverged completely. The Ruan brothers now studied artillery firing tables and various shooting methods, spending their mornings pushing cannons around and drilling gun operations until the procedures became second nature. The most amusing part of their training was learning to harness limbers: cannons and their carriages were attached via specialized leather straps to draft horses. Small guns required a single horse; the largest demanded eight. To familiarize themselves with the animals, the artillerymen periodically visited the Farm for stable duty. Their afternoons disappeared into slide rules, compasses, and surveying equipment.

Tian Liang, meanwhile, practiced shouldering wooden guns, donned rattan armor for bayonet drills, rehearsed squad formation changes, dug trenches, built earthworks, and constructed defensive walls. Every few days, instructors led them on field marches, constantly training against hypothetical targets. Sometimes they practiced short-distance charges—sprinting forward to stab enemies upon reaching enemy positions.

The forced marches proved the most grueling of all. Everyone shouldered dozens of kilograms of equipment and trotted fifteen kilometers across mountain paths or narrow paddy dikes, racing to arrive within strict time limits. Upon reaching their destination, they immediately fortified their position, then split into opposing teams for combat drills. These exercises included simulated shooting using training rifles that were no longer mere weighted sticks—they were iron-weighted replicas, complete in every detail except the firing mechanism. Barrels, touch holes, bayonet mounts: everything was there. Simulated shooting required the full muzzle-loading procedure without exception: bite the cartridge, load, cap. Instructors criticized any non-standard movement. After shooting came bayonet and hand-to-hand combat drills. The fighting continued until one side expelled the other, and the losers earned the privilege of handling bivouac construction and cooking. Sometimes the training transformed into real fighting—bloody noses, cracked skulls, and broken bones were common occurrences.

At such moments, the trainee nurses proved their value, as casualties became their practice specimens. Those "Technical School" girls had all become nursing students in the Medical Group, and Shi Niaoren planned to train some as qualified doctors, secretly teaching several clever girls a strange language: Latin. The trainee nurses had little equipment or medication to work with. Their regulation Red Cross medical kits—despite being the latest models from four hundred years in the future—were essentially empty. Besides alcohol, cotton, splints, suture needles, and simple Chinese medicines, there was nothing useful. All modern drugs remained under the personal control of the Medical Group doctors. Fortunately, those who survived to their teenage years in this era were products of natural selection, possessing constitutions sturdy enough that simple treatment and rest allowed them to recover.

During one exercise, Tian Liang spotted Guo Fu among the nurses. She wore the same clothing as the others, but her hair was growing out now, and she wore a brimless soft cap. An armband on her sleeve bore strange embroidery: a blue snake coiled around a stick—the Rod of Asclepius, the insignia worn by every nurse. That day, Tian Liang fought with particular ferocity, hoping for a minor wound that might earn him a few moments with Guo Fu, perhaps a chance to chat. But his exceptional valor only sent his opponents to the infirmary while he remained frustratingly unharmed. He could only watch her from a distance, longing and helpless.

Once the cadets adapted to the regular training schedule, the instructors introduced their night assembly tricks. Deep sleep would shatter with the sound of emergency assembly, and failure to appear with full equipment within ten minutes meant a ten-lap penalty around the grounds. That was manageable enough. The worst by far were the night marches. Everyone wore a white cloth strip on their back, single-file navigation through darkness with only that pale flutter ahead to guide them.

Ancient armies had rarely fought at night, and for good reason. First, ancient communications couldn't control nighttime marching directions, let alone actual combat. Second, without proper maps, even daytime navigation proved problematic without local guides—at night, it became impossible. But it was precisely because ancient armies avoided night combat that the transmigrators trained for it so rigorously. For the numerically inferior but training-superior New Army, night fighting could effectively negate an enemy's advantage in numbers.

Night training extended far beyond simple marching. It involved squad-level tactical movement in total darkness, coordinating entirely through whistles, fifes, and bugles. In necessary cases, they used signal rockets. The Red Army and Eighth Route Army had possessed no walkie-talkies, yet they had still dominated night battles through such methods.

Finally came wilderness survival training. Bei Wei's curriculum had originally covered everything from tropical and subtropical environments to the snowy expanses of the north. But considering there would be no development in the Northeast for several years, the focus narrowed to local areas and South China. Slide projectors proved invaluable for instruction—especially for plant and animal identification. First came pictures, then field observation. Next the soldiers learned compass use, wilderness direction-finding, weather prediction, shelter construction, and first aid. The culmination of this training sent soldiers in squad units into the mountains for ten days to complete various tasks. Each person could bring one dagger, one jin of raw rice, and some salt—nothing more. To prevent trainees from harassing civilians during wilderness training, Bei Wei's special team monitored them covertly, simultaneously using the exercise to train themselves.

(End of Chapter)