After the third day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Shigong and his guards began to perform exercises. Tao Xin, who returned home for the New Year, learned about Wu Shigong and others' exercises, and also came to Qianhusuo Fortress to perform exercises with Wu Shigong and others.
Now everyone in Qianhusuo Fortress actually likes this little boy. And Tao Xin also likes to laugh and laugh with everyone. He will only appear to be honest when he is taught a lesson by Xiaojie.
On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, the soldiers who went home to celebrate the New Year and the new soldiers from the military households all gathered at Qianhusuo Fortress. Because it was the first year to celebrate the New Year, Wu Shigong asked these people to go home to celebrate the New Year before the New Year.
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However, Wu Shigong also made it clear to them: From now on, these soldiers will live a collective life in the military camp. If it is a peaceful period, with the approval of the leading officer, each person will have three days of rest per month and can go out.
Military camps are freely arranged. Each person has half a month of family leave every year. However, during wartime, all rest and holidays will be cancelled.
Wu Shigong asked Zhou Xun and Qian Qi to continue training the new soldiers in the military household, training them in formation and gun shooting. The new soldiers who had been training for a period of time began to conduct some simple confrontation training with the cavalry.
Wu Shigong asked the soldiers to line up in a queue, holding firecrackers. The firecrackers contained only gunpowder and no bullets. A wooden railing was erected in front of them. The cavalry rushed towards the soldiers at high speed, and the soldiers waited until the cavalry arrived.
After the fire cannons were within the firing range, they all fired blank guns at the command of the leading officer. The cavalry rushed to the wooden railing and dispersed to both sides.
However, such a training with almost no confrontation led to a lot of making mistakes. In the first such training, more than half of the soldiers were too frightened to fire their guns. They were all frightened by the way the cavalry rushed towards them.
They were so frightened. Some of them simply forgot the procedure of loading gunpowder, and a few were so frightened that they dropped their muskets on the ground.
This look made Wu Shigong very angry. Now the charge of hundreds of horses, with the obstruction of wooden railings in the middle, frightened them into this look. In the future, when thousands of troops charge on the battlefield, they will
You still have to pee your pants?
However, the performance of the cavalry team was not much better. In the cavalry team, whether they were the guards of Xue Mansion or the guards of the gambling house, in fact, they had never been on the battlefield at all.
When they saw the black muzzle of the fire gun pointed at them and then spitting out streams of flames, some people couldn't help but subconsciously make evasive movements. As a result, their movements were deformed and they were thrown off their horses.
Fortunately, only one person unfortunately broke a bone, and his injury was not serious. After finding a sprain doctor to correct it, he would recover after more than a month of rest.
Seeing the situation of training, Wu Shigong and Xue Yongli unanimously decided to strengthen this kind of confrontational training. Even if there were some casualties during the training, they would not hesitate.
In February, Foreman Jiang took the craftsmen and the laborers from the military households who had not become new soldiers and started the construction of Qianhusuo Fortress. In order to increase the manpower, Wu Shigong specially paid money and asked Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen to go to the county seat.
Two hundred workers were hired to build it.
At this time, Wu Shigong explained his final plan for building Qianhusuo Fortress to Jiang Foreman and Zheng Zhen in detail:
First of all, Wu Shigong required that the outer city wall should be raised to a height of four feet. The inside should be made of Sanhe soil and the outside should be built with stones. On the city wall, a tower should be built every twenty feet, so that the city wall can be effectively
The land is divided.
Secondly, the inner wall will also be built with an inner city wall three and a half feet high. Other requirements are the same as the outer city wall.
Finally, in the innermost corner of Qianhusuo Fortress, there are cliffs outside the two walls, and there are rivers below, and it is very convenient to get water. Wu Shigong made this place the last fortress of Qianhusuo Fortress.
Wu Shigong wanted to build a group of bunkers here similar to those built by the Japanese during the Anti-Japanese War.
In addition, of course, some barracks and other buildings must be built in the Senhusho Fortress.
Wu Shigong's idea is: when the enemy attacks Qianhusuo Fortress, even if the enemy tries every means to break through the outer city wall, he still has to face the inner city wall. If he goes through all kinds of hardships to break through the inner city wall, he still has to face the group of blockhouses.
At this time, the enemy's nerves are probably almost broken.
After listening to Wu Shigong's request, Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen calculated it carefully. Foreman Jiang said to Wu Shigong: "The project requested by your Excellency will require two thousand workers for one year to complete. Moreover, Your Excellency,
The material cost of this project alone will cost about 7,000 taels of silver. If labor is added, it will cost more than 8,000 taels of silver based on the price we pay for hiring small laborers."
Wu Shigong decisively decided: "Let's do it."
So Wu Shigong, Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen discussed how to first use Sanhe soil to build the outer city wall to a height of four feet. Because, on this project, Foreman Jiang and others would have to work for more than a month. By that time
, these military households have to go back to participate in spring sowing.
While these laborers and small workers were building the outer city wall, craftsmen such as Foreman Jiang were building barracks and other buildings at the same time. As for what kind of work they will do in the future, let’s wait until the time comes. In this way, Wu Shigong can work less at the beginning of the project.
Spend some money.
Before the Chinese New Year, Wu Shigong asked Mr. Zhang Kehua to find a staff member for him to serve as his official assistant after returning to his hometown. However, at this time, the staff member had not arrived yet, and Wu Shigong's shortcomings of lack of official assistants were revealed.
First of all, the old man Zhao Ming, the commander of Guidewei, sent someone to send an invitation to Wu Shigong, inviting Wu Shigong to attend his newborn daughter's full moon party.
Wu Shigong was very surprised. Old man Zhao Ming had just taken a concubine, and it was not even five months old. How could he give birth to a daughter? And the daughter was already one month old. Could it be that old man Zhao Ming not only liked
An old cow gnaws young grass, but also likes to play with unmarried cohabitation?
After listening to the explanation from the person who sent the invitation, Wu Shigong realized that the daughter of old man Zhao Ming was born from a concubine he had taken the year before last. Wu Shigong was completely speechless.
Of course, he didn't have time to eat the full moon wine. So, he wrapped a red envelope of fifty taels of silver. He also gave the person who sent the invitation a few taels of silver as his running expenses. He asked the person who sent the invitation to give his
Give the red envelope to old man Zhao Ming.
Unexpectedly, sending red envelopes to old man Zhao Ming was just an appetizer. A few days later, an official and a dozen soldiers came to Wu Shigong to look for him.
After meeting Wu Shigong, the official took out an official document stamped with the official seal of the Military Preparation Road. The content of the official document was: after Wu Shigong received the official document, he immediately transferred the 1,800 shi of grain owed by the thousands of households last year.
, turn it over to the Bingbei Road Yamen.
Isn't this reasonable? Why should Wu Shigong, the current deputy Qianhu, pay back the debts of the former Qianhu? So Wu Shigong started to argue with the official.
Unexpectedly, the official's tone was very tough. He asked Wu Shigong to hand over the money and grain he owed first. If Wu Shigong had any grievances, he could go to the Chief Envoy's Yamen, the Governor's Yamen, or even go to the capital to file a complaint.
Of course, the official also made many hidden puns while speaking. However, Wu Shigong didn't hear it at all, and even if he did, he wouldn't understand it.
Wu Shigong thought about it again and again, and finally decided to pay back the food debt first. He converted the food into silver, plus the official's hard work fee, the total was calculated into seven hundred taels of silver, and gave it to the official.
Although Wu Shigong's consideration is also due to Li Bingbei's senior official position, the most important reason is that Wu Shigong now attaches great importance to his official position of acting as agent for thousands of households, because everything he does now is based on his position.
On the basis of his official position. He didn't want some inexplicable things to destroy his official position. So, he had better spend money to eliminate disasters.
Wu Shigong didn't know that Old Man Zhao Ming and Li Bingbeidao had the same purpose of sending people to find him. That was because Wu Shigong didn't send New Year greetings to his two bosses, Old Man Zhao Ming and Li Bingbeidao, at all during the Chinese New Year.
present.
This fully proves a famous saying in officialdom novels: The boss may not remember which of his subordinates came to give gifts. However, he will definitely remember clearly and leave a deep impression on which subordinates did not come to give gifts.
Old man Zhao Ming actually used a decent excuse to ask for his New Year's gift from Wu Shigong in disguise. Wu Shigong didn't notice anything wrong with this.
However, Li Bingbei Dao simply used the excuse of begging for food owed by thousands of households to let Wu Shigong know the difference. If Wu Shigong knew the situation, he would give two or three hundred taels of silver as a annual gift to Li Bingbei.
As the households were in short supply of food, Li Bingbei was ready to continue pretending to be confused.
But when the official went back to report the matter, Li Bingbeidao immediately hated Wu Shigong: Wu Shigong would rather give out 700 taels of silver to repay the court's food debt than give out two or three hundred taels of silver as a gift.
Li Bingbei said privately. Does he still see himself as his boss?
If Wu Shigong knew that he had spent too much money and suffered resentment from his boss, would he be so angry that he vomited blood?
When he was in the Bingma Division in the capital, Master Zhang Kequan helped Wu Shigong handle all these interpersonal matters properly. Wu Shigong didn't need to worry about it at all. Therefore, Wu Shigong didn't know the twists and turns at all.
However, as a result, Wu Shigong did not have much cash around him. Wu Shigong did not want to use the thousand taels of gold sent by his father-in-law Xue Lian yet. These golds were the final reserves prepared by Wu Shigong.