The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

After the discussion between Liu Sheng and others, they decided not to rush there yet.

Although Tongshan is not too far from Tianmu Mountain, it is still forty or fifty miles away.

If Huabu wants to occupy the iron mine, not to mention occupying all the villages in the two mountainous areas and controlling all the roads, it must also control at least one road to transport iron materials.

In other words, to possess this iron mine, the Hua Department will need more soldiers and horses.

It happened that the bandits had been suppressed in the past few days and two to three hundred people had been captured. Liu Sheng was planning to send these prisoners to North America to work as coolies and undergo labor reform. Then select 300 people from among the brave people, and then organize and train the three-post standing army.

Red Lady's training of Min Yong in Dashui Pingzhai will also take time to complete, and Yang Heqing's village in Xizomaling is still under construction.

However, Wen You moved into Mopan Village and could garrison troops with a little repair without much effort.

Therefore, Liu Sheng prepared to send troops to Tongshan in half a month - after such a long time, the first batch of military and political personnel of the Chinese Department could be selected.

···

River camp.

In a woodland, Sun Qifai was digging soil. Not far away was an earth kiln for burning bricks.

Thinking that the fired bricks were used to build houses for everyone, Sun Qifa worked very hard.

"Sun Qiqi!"

When he heard the captain shouting, Sun Qifai immediately ran over and asked, "What's the matter with the captain calling me?"

"You kid can read, right?"

"I went to private school for two years when I was a child, and I know some words."

The captain smiled, patted Sun Qiqi on the shoulder and said: "The leader wants to recruit a group of young people who can read and work. You guys, go to Huachu camp and report. When we are going to be prosperous in the future, don't forget us. "

Sun Qifa was overjoyed when he heard this and said hurriedly: "I will definitely not forget you guys!"

After saying that, he was about to run towards Huachu Camp.

The captain shouted hurriedly: "Don't worry, just wash your face before going!"

"I know!"

Sun Qifa ran towards the river again.

When Sun Qiqi arrived at the large campus in front of Huachu Camp, he found that more than a hundred people were already waiting here.

Some looked to be only sixteen or seventeen years old, and some looked to be in their twenties. Generally speaking, they were all young people.

There was also a group of pro-military troops watching on the school grounds.

On the wooden platform directly north of the school grounds, leader Liu Sheng sat with a golden sword on a high stool. Although he just looked down calmly, the young people who came over did not dare to speak.

About a quarter of an hour later, the pro-juniors shouted at Sun Qifai to wait for more than a hundred people to line up.

When the queue was ready, Liu Shengsheng said in a high voice: "You all said you were literate when you registered, but no one claimed to be a scholar. It seems that most of them have only studied in private schools for a few years, and are not even qualified to take the children's examination.

However, I am not planning to recruit scholars this time. As long as you have a certain foundation in literacy and are good at learning, you can be hired.

Next, test your literacy foundation first - after the wooden boards and charcoal pens are handed out, you first write your names on them, and then write which brigade and which squad you are from.

Finally, write as many words as you can on the wooden board. The more, the better. "

After Liu Sheng finished speaking, the pro-jun asked everyone to line up to receive wooden boards and charcoal pencils.

These wooden boards are house-building boards produced by Huachuying's wood processing factory. Each board is one foot wide and six feet long. They have undergone preliminary processing in the drying kiln.

The technology of kiln drying wood already existed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but it was not yet mature.

The wood drying kiln in Huachuying was built according to the information given by Liu Sheng to later generations, and the related technology is also a complete set of mature processes, so the wood can barely be used as building materials.

At this time, it is used as a writing board, and it can continue to be used as building materials when used up.

Sun Qifai received the wooden board and charcoal pencil, then carried them back to their original position, put the wooden board on the ground, stuck out his butt and started writing.

Although he attended private school for two years, he could write less than a hundred words, and he still had to scratch his head.

After writing this, I couldn't help scratching my head and scratching my head in anxiety, and sweating profusely.

In such a hot weather, everyone was actually sweating. Even Liu Sheng, who was sitting on the wooden platform, had his clothes soaked with sweat.

An hour later, Liu Sheng asked everyone to stop writing and stand aside.

He took a notebook and pen and personally checked, graded and recorded each board.

Afterwards, he asked these young people to run from Huachu Camp to Hebian Camp and back again to test their physical fitness - this was preparation for the selection of military and political officials.

Finally, he taught the men fifty simplified Chinese characters using a large blackboard made by a carpenter and poor-quality homemade chalk.

For people at this time, simplified Chinese characters are actually not out of the ordinary.

Because simplified Chinese characters were originally derived from traditional Chinese characters, many people in the Ming Dynasty used simplified Chinese characters in their cursive notes, letters, and sketches.

Therefore, Sun Qifa and others not only did not find it difficult to learn, but also found it easier to learn than traditional Chinese characters - after all, the strokes are simple and easy to remember.

After teaching, Liu Shengcai said to these people: "The third test is to see how many of the fifty simplified Chinese characters I just taught you can write down tomorrow morning, which is also a test of your learning ability."

Because everyone was just listening and didn't have paper or pen to take notes, some of those who didn't listen carefully to Liu Sheng's words showed distressed expressions.

Others listened carefully, but forgot a lot, which made them even more distressed.

Sun Qifa didn't write everything down, but he didn't complain. Instead, he tried to remember and wrote down the strokes on his palm...

After breakfast the next day, Liu Shengruyan asked these people to write fifty simple characters silently, and then scored them again.

Then, he spent another day teaching these people Arabic numerals, as well as simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - because the time was very short, it was completely cramming education.

After breakfast on the third day, he tested the arithmetic learning talents of these people using the content taught yesterday.

Finally, the scores of the four tests were combined, and the 60 students with the best overall scores were selected as his first batch of students.

Starting from July 5th, Liu Sheng devoted two hours every day to teach these sixty people simplified Chinese characters, arithmetic, and told some short stories and examples to instill his military and political thoughts into the students.

At the same time, observe these sixty people to see which of them are suitable to be military and political officers, which of them are suitable to be school teachers, and which of them are suitable to be night school teachers.

As for the rest of the time, Liu Sheng naturally has other things to do.

For example, 300 people are selected from among the civilian warriors and trained according to the requirements of the standing army.

He also inspected the brick kilns, ceramic kilns, wood processing plants, tanneries, saltpeter fields, armor repair shops and other manufacturing plants built in the two camps, as well as the small shipyards built on the edge of the Xinluo River.

He also had to pay attention to logging and land reclamation matters. From time to time, he would check with Liu Dachuan and Guo Sanhai about the progress of the reclamation and the specific conditions of various aspects.

In addition, he had to take time to visit Liujiazhai, Dashuipingzhai, Xizoumaling and Mopanzhai in Daming every few days.

Although he has less than 10,000 people under his command, Liu Sheng feels like he is so busy that his feet are not even touching the ground because many aspects of work are just starting to make people worried.

When people are busy, they feel that time passes faster.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and it was July 1640th in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen ().

On this day, Liu Sheng replaced the first-post standing army stationed at the riverside camp with the newly-trained first-post standing army, and then took the three-post standing army to Liujiazhai.

After ordering a sentry of new soldiers to garrison Liujiazhai, he took forty pro-troops, the remaining two sentry standing troops, and Ma Gui, who was ordered to come from Dashui Pingzhai, together with Yang Heqing and Wen who each brought thirty standing troops. You meet at the foot of Zushiding Mountain.

After that, more than 300 people marched northwest along the mountain road that had been explored by the pro-army army half a month ago.

The soldiers only carried dry food for five days, which was divided into flour cakes and fried rice with oil and salt, and dried meat.

In addition, there are sunburn medicine, snake-repellent realgar powder, mosquito-repellent smoke balls made from mugwort and other herbs, and camellia that has a cooling and heat-reducing effect.

The standing army all carried leather armor on their backs and only wore waistcoats and shorts; the pro-army army only had a Shi Dao player who wore armor made of later generations of iron sheets, but it was carried on the back of a donkey.

Therefore, the whole army can be regarded as light and simple.

In addition, the trees in Tianmu Mountain are relatively sparse, and the severe drought has made the shrubs and weeds in the mountain not as lush as normal. There are also trails established by mountain people walking all year round, so Liu Sheng and others marched at a not slow pace.

On average, you can walk about seven or eight miles in one hour, which is about the same as a normal person walking lightly.

After walking northwest from Zushiding for an hour on the mountain road, a long and narrow valley in the mountain appeared in front of us.

Liu Sheng asked the soldiers to stop and rest. He pointed to an abandoned natural village at the foot of the mountain and said to Yang Heqing and Wen You: "From here, this long and narrow valley is nearly twenty miles long, and there were originally more than a dozen small villages.

But due to severe drought and bandit attacks, there are now only five larger villages left.

Therefore, we only need to show our military might first, and then lie about being Ma Jinliang's guard army, to make these five villages fear us.

In this way, when our team transporting iron materials passes through this road in the future, not only will their safety be guaranteed to a certain extent, but they can even rest outside these five villages and let them provide drinking water and even meals. "

Thanks to [The Farmer’s Son is Farming Again] for the 100 starting coin reward!

Thanks to [Broken Bone Honor] for the 100 starting coin reward!

Thanks to [Book Friends 2023***5202] for the 100 starting coin reward!