Chapter 57: 56 chapters of sweating more, bleeding less! Chapter 57: 56 chapters of sweating more, bleeding less! “Start running!”
“Don’t stop!”
At the riverside below Linguan Castle, a hundred soldiers were running under the drive of Yang Zhenshan and others.
They wore thin short shirts, each sweating profusely and gasping heavily.
“You are soldiers, and you are meant for the battlefield!”
“On the battlefield, every bit of strength gives you a better chance to survive!”
“Sweat more, bleed less!”
“Sweating now is always better than bleeding on the battlefield!”
Yang Zhenshan followed behind the team, running and shouting loudly.
He held a short stick in his hand, ruthlessly swinging it at anyone who fell behind.
There were no exceptions, even Yang Chengze and others faced his stick.
After an hour of morning running, the soldiers returned to the garrison for breakfast. After breakfast, at exactly 7 a.m., a hundred soldiers were neatly standing in the training field.
“Very good, compared to half a month ago, you can now be considered a real team!”
“Your bodies have grown stronger, your strength has increased!”
Yang Zhenshan casually walked among the rows, occasionally patting the shoulders of soldiers nearby.
“You must understand, the real training has just begun, harder days are yet to come!”
He grinned, “Let me take you through a hellish training, are you ready?”
The basic training was over, and next was the devilish training regiment devised by Yang Zhenshan.
Regarding the training content, think special forces.
Ever heard the phrase, even if you’ve never eaten pork, you’ve seen a pig run?
“Ming Wu, Ming Zhi! Distribute the weapons and gear!”
Until now, these soldiers hadn’t even touched a weapon.
“Yes!”
The armory was fully stocked with weapons and cotton armor.
There were many more training modules to come.
Physical training would not be reduced but rather increased, and it would also include battle formations, night training, and practice with various types of weapons.
Training these soldiers was different from training the young and strong from Yang Family Village, as the latter already knew spear techniques, so initially, Yang Zhenshan merely trained them with spears.
However, training these soldiers required a combination of various weapons and battle formations.
Each small flag needed to have sword and shield bearers, spearmen, and archers.
On the battlefield, the small flag was the smallest combat unit, with the flag officer leading ten soldiers.
Yang Zhenshan chose weapons for the soldiers based on their individual skills.
Spear technique training was the easiest, as Yang Zhenshan, Yang Mingzhi, and Yang Mingwu were all proficient with spears.
As for the martial arts for swords and shields, Yang Zhenshan was not very familiar; the predecessor had not left him with corresponding skills, and he had not practiced them before.
But no matter, this was Chongshan Pass, where military martial arts were commonplace.
His study had many books on basic military martial arts and some on battle formations.
These were all prepared by Old Li.
While the soldiers trained, Yang Zhenshan was also learning.
Martial Arts, battle formations, military strategies, and more were all content that Yang Zhenshan needed to master.
…
“Sir, this is the income from making cloth shoes during this period!”
In the study, Old Li handed over a few taels of broken silver to Yang Zhenshan.
“Bring me the accounts, let me take a look,” said Yang Zhenshan as he took the silver.
Old Li handed the account book to him again.
Looking at the numbers in the account book, Yang Zhenshan nodded satisfactorily.
As he expected, the business of sewing cloth shoes was still viable.
In almost fifteen days, the women in the garrison had sewn nearly a thousand pairs of cloth shoes, most of which had been sold.
The profit from each pair of cloth shoes was about fifteen copper coins, not including the cost of labor; Yang Zhenshan only took three coins, and the women sewing the cloth shoes took twelve coins.
With a thousand pairs of cloth shoes, Yang Zhenshan earned about three taels of silver, while the hundred or so women earned twelve taels, averaging over a hundred copper coins each.
Less than ten copper coins per day per person, such earnings could be considered very low, but for those women, it was already quite impressive.
And they were not sewing cloth shoes all the time; they also had to take care of the farm work, the elderly, and children at home. Sewing cloth shoes was something they did in their spare time.
With this kind of income, they had some extra money, so they were not without a single copper coin.
Actually, the biggest earner was Shopkeeper Luo; for every pair of cloth shoes sold, he made eight copper coins. In half a month, he earned seven or eight taels of silver.
The demand for cloth shoes among the soldiers was even greater than Yang Zhenshan and Shopkeeper Luo had anticipated.
Now, Shopkeeper Luo was more enthusiastic about this business; he no longer needed Yang Zhenshan to deliver the goods, as he arranged for people to come and pick them up himself.
The first phase of poverty alleviation was perfectly successful; now it was time to enter the second phase.
“Are the pigsty and chicken coop ready?” Yang Zhenshan asked.
“They’re ready!” Old Li responded.
Yang Zhenshan handed over some silver coins, saying, “Go buy some chicks and piglets, then hire some teenagers to raise them!”
“Once they’ve grown, we won’t have to buy meat anymore!”
During this time, he often supplemented the soldiers’ meals, having Old Li buy some pork every two to three days.
Although it didn’t cost much silver, it was still his own money.
As the garrison commander, he did not make money from the military households, and even spent his own money to subsidize them; probably in the whole Chongshan Town, he was the only one doing so.
“Yes, I understand!” Old Li replied.
Yang Zhenshan then said, “When you have time, go find Zhao Yuan again and let him arrange another shipment of grain for us.”
Although there was still some grain left from the ten carts previously transported, it was almost time to distribute the grain rations to the soldiers, and the remaining grain would definitely not be enough.
“Will Mr. Zhao give it to us?” Old Li was a bit worried.
“He will,” Yang Zhenshan said affirmatively.
Old Li was somewhat reassured by this.
In the afternoon, Old Li brought back ten piglets and over a hundred chicks from the castle, making the pigsty and chicken coop next to the cowshed immediately lively, with noisy chirping and grunting sounds.
Yang Zhenshan looked at these piglets and chicks, nodding with satisfaction.
“Build another goat enclosure, keep a dozen goats!”
He thought of lamb skewers, lamb soup, stir-fried lamb with onions, lamb stew in bread, and couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.
Although he had already solved the problem of food and clothing, he had not yet achieved good, satisfying meals.
“I’ll arrange it right away!” Old Li responded.
Yang Zhenshan nodded, turned, and went to the stables to lead out Red Cloud.
Currently, they had thirteen horses at Linguan Castle, three of which they had brought themselves, and the other ten were arranged by Zhou Lan, all good Northern warhorses.
Zhou Lan had arranged for these ten warhorses probably for training the soldiers’ riding skills.
However, up to now, the soldiers had yet to touch a warhorse.
Riding on Red Cloud, Yang Zhenshan rode unhurriedly out of Linguan Castle.
The fields around Linguan Castle were sprouting green wheat seedlings, vibrant from afar, but upon closer inspection, it was evident that these seedlings were not thriving.
Even though the military households took great care of these fields, they still could not compensate for the barrenness of the land.
Yang Zhenshan had given up on saving these wheat seedlings, or rather, he had no way to save them, since he could not yet produce fertilizer.
As for farmyard manure, well, the castle was not lacking old farmers who had farmed all their lives, and they knew how to use farmyard manure much better than Yang Zhenshan.
With his limited agricultural knowledge, even Yang Mingcheng and Yang Mingzhi knew more, not to mention comparing him with those old farmers.