Chapter 211: Selecting Soldiers

The soldiers all looked at Wei Jichen and his party with burning eyes. They had long known that the Dingliao Army would come here to select soldiers.

The Qing Dynasty had not yet reached the stage of conscription, so most of these soldiers voluntarily joined the army for family life reasons or to change their own destiny.

The Dingliao Army was a newly established Western-style army that the court was prepared to invest a lot of financial and material resources in. Whether in terms of food and wages or in future promotions, it was incomparable to the original army, not to mention that the original army might be disbanded, so all the soldiers hoped that Wei Jichen would choose them.

In front of the playground, there was a seven-foot high platform with a table on it. Wei Jichen led everyone to walk up to the platform slowly.

Luo Rongguang was secretly curious and wanted to see how Wei Jichen selected soldiers, so he stood behind and observed Wei Jichen's every move without making a sound.

After Wei Jichen stood on the high platform, he first inspected the soldiers below. Thousands of people's eyes were focused on him. Without a certain amount of concentration, he really couldn't control the situation.

His sharp eyes slowly passed through every soldier in the front row. Everyone who looked at Wei Jichen lowered his head secretly.

The playground, which was originally filled with whispers, became silent and solemn.

Wei Jichen ordered with satisfaction: "Let's start!"

Ruan Zhongshu and Yan Dunyuan waited for the order and took a group of civilian officials to go down quickly. Not long after, more than 200 soldiers were seen carrying boxes of things into the field.

Luo Rongguang had seen these boxes before, and now he was even more guessing what was in the boxes. Could it be gold, silver, food, or firearms?

In addition, Luo Rongguang really couldn't think of anything else.

"The general has ordered that anyone who smokes opium should step forward." Li Chun saw that the boxes had been placed properly, and immediately stepped out and shouted loudly.

"The general has ordered that those who smoke opium, step forward." The soldiers led by Wei Jichen shouted in unison, and the sound spread throughout the playground. All the soldiers heard it clearly.

More than 10,000 soldiers were all in doubt. Some smart people thought that Wei Jichen would not recruit people who smoked opium, so they stood still quietly, but more soldiers who smoked opium obeyed the order and took a step forward.

In a moment, more than 2,000 soldiers came out. This ratio was very high. Wei Jichen was secretly shocked. Although he knew that opium was rampant in China, he finally had a direct understanding today.

Li Chun looked at Wei Jichen, and Wei Jichen nodded gently. He shouted again: "Open the box and distribute it."

The soldiers standing next to the box immediately opened half of the box, and saw that some boxes contained black pipes, and some contained black longevity cream.

Luo Rongguang, who was standing behind Wei Jichen, saw it clearly and was really shocked. He couldn't help but stare at Wei Jichen's back with a strange expression, wondering what amazing things were in the half box.

Ruan Zhongshu and Yan Dunyuan commanded the soldiers to distribute opium. All the soldiers who had just stood out were not left out. Some of the soldiers who received it were overjoyed, while others were a little hesitant.

Ruan Zhongshu saw the surprise of the crowd and couldn't help but laugh in his heart. Then he thought of the time when he and others discussed with Wei Jichen how to select soldiers. When he heard Wei Jichen's order to do this, his expression on his face was probably not much better.

After the distribution of opium, Li Chun ordered them to smoke on the spot.

Suddenly, the whole playground was filled with smoke. Looking from a distance, people who didn't know what was going on might think that there was a fire here or something.

In the queue, those who were originally smoking opium and did not leave the queue could not help but swallow their saliva quietly when they saw the soldiers who left the queue next to them puffing out smoke. After a while, some people could not resist the temptation and immediately left the queue to show that they also smoked opium.

Yan Dunyuan did as he said, and secretly asked people to write down the names of the soldiers who left the queue one by one. These people had no perseverance and were dishonest, and they would be the first to be eliminated.

If you pretend not to smoke opium, just hold on to the end and hold back with your own perseverance. Wei Jichen may still give these people a break. After all, the whole social environment is like this, and it is not a personal fault.

As long as they join the Ding Liao Army, Wei Jichen will have a way to prevent them from contacting opium and quitting it.

Half an hour later, more than a thousand soldiers left the queue, and only about 7,000 people were left standing in the entire playground.

Wei Jichen sighed, turned his body slightly, and told Li Chun and Chen Guangyuan: "The second batch of people who left the line will be eliminated directly."

"Yes, sir." The two hurried down to give orders, and soon, more than a thousand people were driven out of the playground.

The selection of soldiers entered the second procedure. At the order of Ruan Zhongshu and Yan Dunyuan, the soldiers opened the remaining half of the box.

Luo Rongguang opened his eyes wide and saw that it was paper, ink and writing. Luo Rongguang suddenly realized that Wei Jichen was selecting soldiers according to the general conditions he had told him before.

Those who were still smoking opium were immediately taken back from their pipes, and each of them was asked to come forward and write down their names, hometowns and general resumes.

Now, they were all staring at each other. They had never heard that they had to be familiar with poetry and books when they joined the army.

However, since there was such a requirement from above, everyone had to pick up the pen, racking their brains to think of the signs they saw on the street every day, and then write them down according to the gourd.

It didn't take long before the papers covered with all kinds of strange fonts were collected.

Yan Dunyuan couldn't help laughing when he saw it. Yan Dunyuan was the 81st generation grandson of Yan Zi, one of the 72 disciples of Confucius. He was smart since childhood and mastered the Nine Classics at the age of ten. Weng Tonghe saw that his articles were refined and decent, and he specially summoned him to praise him.

Seeing these messy things at this time, I felt black in front of my eyes.

"What, Tongbao Money House, we want you to write your own name, why do you write these big characters crookedly?" Yan Dunyuan almost clenched his hands to suppress the depression in his heart.

"Is this called Tongbao Money House? I thought it was Tongyu Money House." The sergeant replied shyly.

"Go away! Go away!" Yan Dunyuan shook his head and pointed to the first group of people who were eliminated standing on the edge of the playground.

Ruan Zhongshu did not react as much as he did. He smiled and said, "The army is full of illiterate rough men. Your Excellency wants to select people who can read and write from here. It is really wishful thinking. It should be worth celebrating if you can select more than a dozen people from a thousand people."

Yan Dunyuan could only shake his head helplessly.

The two of them selected more than a dozen papers from a pile of papers in a short time. Some of them only had their names and hometowns written on them. As for their resumes, there were only a few words, and there were still a lot of typos and misspellings in them.

Only these dozen people were left out of more than 2,000 people to see the results. Wei Jichen was helpless. How could he not know that there were not many people who could read in the army, so he deliberately relaxed the conditions. He didn't care about opium smoking before, as long as they quit after the period.

For example, Wang Shizhen's engineering team must have a large number of literate soldiers. Otherwise, the surveying and mapping team, who don't even know how to read and write, are not sure how to survey and map, not to mention the telegraph team and the repair team in the engineering team. It is better to have culture than no culture. Moreover, the communication, armored tank, chemical and other troops later on were separated from the engineering corps, so the gap is very large.