The one who came to report the news was Bai Min, one of the four guards. He was the first batch of officers who trained with Ma Ming. Today, he was able to force this calm guard to lose his temper. It was obvious that the camp at the foot of the mountain was completely in chaos.
The three of them didn't dare to be careless and turned around and ran down the mountain. A total of three thousand Yulin's new troops were stationed beside the Mawei Shipyard. They were all tough mountain people selected from Wuyi Mountain. If there was a conflict, the governor's men would definitely not be their opponents.
"Ancestor! Don't do anything, don't fight... This matter has nothing to do with Shen Baozhen!" Ma Ming ran while praying to God and Buddha in his heart for blessings not to do anything.
When I took a shortcut to the main camp, I discovered that the entire camp gate had been surrounded by three to four hundred people. It turned out that not only the governor's officers were besieged, but also Shen Baozhen, who was in plainclothes, was actually among this team of officers. myself.
Who is Shen Baozhen? That was the son-in-law of the famous Lin Zexu, the person in charge of the Westernization Movement recommended by Zuo Zongtang!
Zuo Zongtang was transferred to the northwest to fight the rebellion. He had the largest number of officials in this one-third acre of land in Fujian. Marshal Zuo's Westernization career and His Majesty the Emperor's responsibility for the New Army were all placed on his shoulders. .
But I didn't expect that the soldiers would actually surround Shen Baozhen today!
When Ma Ming and others ran into the crowd, they realized that fortunately Governor Shen Baozhen had revealed his identity in advance, which deterred the soldiers from taking action, otherwise the fight would have started earlier today.
"Stop it all, stop it all! Are you all going to rebel? I've fed you with good food and drink, and now you've learned to rebel? Get out of the way!"
The Yulin New Army was organized completely according to the Western-style army. It abandoned the military system of the Qing Dynasty and chose the system of military divisions, brigade, regiment and battalion.
There are three divisions in total, with a strength of almost 30,000, and the three guards, Ma Ming, Bai Min, and Dun Cheng, are the commanders of the three divisions, and they are already the highest-ranking here.
When the soldiers saw the top officer appearing, they quickly retreated to an alley. Shen Baozhen breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Ma Ming and the others coming.
"Old Ma, you are finally here. If it were any later, I might have your soldiers torn into pieces..."
Of course the governor had to be emotional when he was surrounded, and his complaints aroused the dissatisfaction of the soldiers!
"Sir, please don't complain about killing us soldiers. The military salary of one silver dollar a month was decreed by the Lord Long Live... But now we haven't seen a single silver dollar in three months..."
"When we serve as soldiers, we don't have to eat enough to keep the whole family hungry. We also have a family to support!"
The soldiers saluted Ma Ming and others with a military salute: "Commander, we have violated discipline. According to military regulations, we will be punished with twenty canings and three days of confinement!"
"Brothers have nothing to say. We will go and collect the punishment in a moment! But we have to let us speak! What's the point of not being paid for three months? We have parents to support!"
"My mother is blind, and the whole family relies on my father to pick and roast tea. Now that my health is not good, I can't even make a profit... My little military salary is what my parents eat!"
This sentence suddenly touched the hearts of the soldiers, and many of them even secretly wiped away tears!
Sanbao carefully observed the surroundings and found that in the camp of more than 3,000 people, only more than 400 people jumped out to make trouble, and most of them strictly abided by discipline.
This is because from the day the Yulin New Army was established, the selection of soldiers has been very particular. This is the answer I got after consulting Xiao Letian and the Four Heavenly Kings of the Chinese ethnic group.
In order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the troops, the soldiers are all selected from the mountain people deep in the mountains. These mountain people are strong in body and simple in character. They are extremely patient and do not have the bad habits of leisure and indolence like the people in the city.
If such young soldiers are cultivated well, they will become big trees in the future!
However, the selection of soldiers cannot only be based on physical fitness and character, but also the families of the soldiers. The selection principle of the new army of the Royal Forest is basically to reject only sons and those who are already married and have children.
Because these soldiers are all tied up, there is too much scruples to have a family behind them! But how can there be so many qualified soldiers for you to choose at will? The little emperor does not have personal power and cannot select soldiers from across the country.
You can only choose from the mountainous areas around Fuzhou based on the existing conditions, and sometimes the conditions have to be relaxed!
Ma Ming and the others could only guarantee that the 30,000 new soldiers in the imperial forest were all bachelors without wives and children, but there did appear to be a group of only children or children from the mountains whose families were in extremely difficult circumstances, who entered the military camp to serve as soldiers.
If there is an only child in the family, or if no one in the family can earn money, then military salary becomes the life of their family!
These more than 400 people have to support a whole family by themselves. Others can tolerate a little delay in receiving military pay. After all, the military camp is in charge of food, but these people can't tolerate it because there is still a family behind them that has to wait for the meal!
Listening to the soldiers' complaints, Shen Baozhen's expression became serious. He was no longer angry, but he had an intuitive understanding of the poverty deep in Wuyi Mountain.
It's so poor. It's so poor here. In the deep mountains, only sixty or seventy miles away from Fuzhou City, there are actually families who can't afford a meal of rice for a year.
This is a mountainous area with not much farmland at all. Many families are 'proletarians' who have no land and can only rely on day labor as tenants. It's fine when you're young, but once you get old or injured, one of you will starve to death!
The more the soldiers talked, the more excited they became. In the end, some soldiers even wiped away tears and said, "What a good idea we made when we were recruiting troops. The Royal Forest Army will be under the direct control of the emperor... I wonder, will the emperor's soldiers still be able to fight?" Come out with payment?"
This sentence is so heartbreaking. It simply means that you are all corrupt officials and you have stolen all your money!
The faces of the officers present all turned dark, and many of them were about to explode on the spot, but San Bao stretched out his hand and tugged Ma Ming's sleeve, "Sir, don't be angry, there are foreigners here watching the fun!"
At the Mawei Shipyard, dozens of foreign engineers didn't know what was going on in the barracks, and they were all craning their necks to look around.
Shen Baozhen was so excited when he saw this group of people, and the foreigners were still watching the excitement in the shipyard, he quickly stood up and comforted, "Brothers...Brothers, I know it's not easy for you, I know your life is hard!"
"But please also understand the difficulties faced by the court. Raising an army is not just about spending military pay... Thirty thousand officers and soldiers have a monthly salary of more than 50,000 silver dollars, and this does not include food, drink, and diarrhea..."
"Everyone's military uniforms, daily meals of meat and vegetables, and ammunition for training... Which of these things, including changing equipment, shouldn't cost money?"
"Let me tell you the truth, not counting the earliest allocations from the imperial court, our Fuzhou City alone has raised one million silver dollars in the past few years!"
"One million! For a poor place like ours in Fujian, it's already a big number..."
"I promise my brothers that as soon as the tariffs are deported next month, I will give you a sum first, and I can make up for half of the deficit!"
Ma Ming suppressed his anger and stood up to persuade the soldiers, "Soldiers, what did you swear when you were training? You can cut off your head, bleed, or even risk your life for His Majesty. Why are you making trouble now over such a trivial matter?"
"Who said we won't give you military pay? Long live the Lord is on his way back from Europe, and it will take time to turn over money? You can't wait for just a few months?"
"I know you are thinking about your parents and brothers at home...but there is no need to force the pregnancy like this! I would like to make a suggestion, let's save our food rations during this period and eat less meat and vegetables..."
"Save up a batch of food, I'll give you a day off, and you can deliver it to your parents, okay?"
"Just think that Long Live Master owes you your military rank and pay the interest first, okay..."
I didn't get the money, but I got some food, meat and vegetables for my family, which was a harvest, and the hostility in the entire military camp was relieved little by little.
But at this moment, a small clipper ship suddenly shot out of the Minjiang River estuary opposite the camp gate and headed straight for the shipyard dock.
"Urgent report... urgent report... urgent report from the South China Sea!"
