1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 719 Recruit Training
After five years of operation, the recruit military training system of the Haihan Militia has become relatively mature. As long as the situation requires it and the supply of troops is sufficient, it can continuously train recruits to join the militia in a cycle of 70-100 days.This kind of ability is not only available in Sanya, but also in the garrisons in various places. It just depends on whether the Military Commission agrees to authorize it.

During this training period, recruits spend most of their time in queue training, which mainly includes taking a rest, standing at attention, turning in place, stepping in unison, stepping forward, running, standing still, queuing vertically and horizontally, gathering and disbanding, counting and so on.Although it would be very mechanical and boring to implement these training contents repeatedly within dozens of days, it is the training method that is most suitable for the situation of the Haihan militia.The most basic tactic of the Haihan militia is the musketeer formation. The ability to maintain a neat combat formation during wartime and accurately execute the commander's orders is the main criterion for the military skills of ordinary soldiers.The purpose of the queue training is to allow these skills to form conditioned reflexes in the recruits through this long-term repetitive training, so that they can complete tactical actions with their physical reactions even in the dangerous and chaotic conditions of wartime.

Of course, queue training also has a role that cannot be ignored, that is, the cultivation of soldiers' discipline and obedience.Even after hundreds of years, the army has long since abandoned the tactics of queuing and shooting to practice skirmishing advance, but basic queuing training is still a compulsory course for all armies, the purpose is to make soldiers develop the habit of ordering and prohibiting.

Another main content of recruit training is physical training, including [-]-meter sprints, leapfrogs, push-ups, single and parallel bars, cross-country marches, and so on.The purpose of these training contents is more clear, that is to lay a good physical foundation for the following tactical training.If the soldiers do not have a strong physique, no matter how clever the tactics formulated by the command, it will be difficult to implement them in place during wartime.

After the first two training contents have been implemented for a period of time, the recruits will start the real tactical training.Individual combat skills such as shooting, fighting, and blasting will officially debut at this time.At this stage, some talented outstanding personnel will start to emerge, and after the recruit training is over, they will be assigned to special forces with more professional skills such as sniper, artillery, and reconnaissance for further education.

After the entire training period is over, there will be a corresponding combat skill assessment.At this stage, the chief officers of each army will also come to the new barracks to select soldiers, and most of the new recruits will be formally enlisted and assigned to each army.

The recruit training method of the Haihan Militia is not fundamentally different from that of other countries during this period. The difference is that the senior management of the Haihan Militia has more than hundreds of years of accumulation, and the training plan formulated is more targeted and implemented. Efficiency and resulting effects are also far stronger than those of contemporary competitors.If we really want to say something unique to Haihan, it is actually the ideological and political work that is carried out in the barracks all the time.

At present, the Haihan Militia is equipped with special political cadres at the company level, and the rigid requirement for the political cadres is that they must have the status of members of the Haihan Youth League.This status symbolizes a high degree of loyalty to the Haihan Executive Committee and the Haihan regime. No matter what field the naturalized cadres in the military, government, industry and commerce want to take the official career route and climb all the way, the status of the Youth League will be promoted to A certain height will definitely be included in the assessment standard.And these political cadres who are also youth league cadres will apply the various skills they have learned in the regiment cadre school to the recruits. Every day, the morning roll call, afternoon lectures, and evening summaries will take a toll on the recruits over the course of a few months. The subtle influence is also quite significant.

It is precisely because of the auxiliary means of political work that the cohesion and loyalty of the Haihan militia are higher than that of the contemporary feudal dynasty army.Since the establishment of the Haihan Militia, there have been very few cases of defection or desertion, and the response to each recruitment has been very enthusiastic.If we compare the guard system of the Ming Dynasty on Hainan Island, the situation of the Haihan Militia is enough to make the officials of the Ming Dynasty's military department feel ashamed.

After answering questions, Roger saw that it was still early, and invited representatives of these sponsors to the training ground to observe the training situation of the troops stationed on the island. Naturally, the curious representatives would not refuse.

However, the training received by the recruits is obviously not very entertaining, and quite a few of them even cannot accurately distinguish between left and right.Roger and sponsor representatives held a meeting for more than an hour, but the recruits were still learning how to line up in order of height.After watching for a while, the representatives were too embarrassed to focus on these idiots.On the contrary, Roger has become accustomed to this, and comforted everyone: "Everyone can remember their clumsy appearance now, and wait until three months later to see what they look like after being completely reborn. At that time, everyone will know that I am so clumsy. Is it worth the money bag?"

Wang Changyue asked: "Chief Luo, can you let us take a look at the training of the militia army, so that we can have a comparison."

Roger pointed to the other side of the playground and said, "The two platoons that are training over there are recruits recruited from Sanya in the first half of this year. They came back with me at the end of last month. You can take a look at their training status."

Under the leadership of Roger, everyone came to watch the training of these two platoons.These two platoons are divided into two places for training, one of which is the simplest training in military posture.The sharp-eyed Wang Changyue quickly discovered a detail. The soldiers were pressing a leaf under the palms on both sides of their thighs, and immediately asked Roger for the reason.

"This is to keep them focused and prevent their hands from moving around." Roger explained: "As soon as the hands move, the leaves will fall, and the instructors will be able to notice them in time. Whoever leaves the leaves will fall off." Gotta be penalized for running laps."

Fan Pingshun asked puzzledly: "Standing like this is also training soldiers?"

"That's right, this is also training soldiers." Roger didn't explain the purpose of doing so in detail, and replied concisely: "If soldiers who can't even stand still, can we expect them not to be scared when they arrive on the battlefield?"

Although Fan Changshun felt that Luo Jie's answer was a bit unreasonable, but thinking about it, it seemed impossible to refute it. The Haihan militia obviously wanted to use this to emphasize discipline and obedience, and this simple and rude method seemed to be effective.Everyone watched the stick of incense for a while, but none of them let go of their palms to let the leaves fall off.

The training content in the other place is obviously more interesting to the visitors than this boring training in military posture. The soldiers here hold a 30-style flintlock rifle in their hands, keeping the shooting posture, and the guns There is also a standard cowhide water bottle of the militia hanging on the tube.Obviously, this posture requires more physical energy than simply standing. Many people have obvious beads of sweat on their hairlines and temples, and some people's arms are slightly trembling.

After waiting for about two or three minutes, the instructor next to him blew his whistle, and the soldiers lowered their gun barrels in relief. Another row of soldiers behind them stood up and did the same thing. And hung on the barrel of the latecomer.

There is no need for Roger to explain this action. Everyone can understand that this is training the soldiers' basic shooting skills.However, some knowledgeable people still had doubts about this. Ricardo, the representative of Portugal, asked, "Excuse me, Chief Luo, this musket is not accurate in shooting targets. Why do soldiers need to conduct such training?"

Roger shook his head and said: "This is not aiming training. It is actually the same as standing in a military posture. We require every soldier to maintain a stable state during combat and only respond to the commander's order. Let them always Holding a gun is to make them get used to hearing the commander's order before proceeding to the next step, and not to shoot rashly in advance, which will affect the combat effect."

The situation Roger mentioned was indeed a common situation in wars during this period, especially the Ming army equipped with a large number of muskets. When dealing with the wild boarskin cavalry outside the pass, they often panicked and did not wait for the target to enter the optimal range. They fired ahead of time, causing the musketeers to be crushed by the cavalry. The advanced weapons did not bring the victory they deserved.The Haihan militia's training method is to get rid of this phenomenon. As long as the commander does not give a signal to shoot, the soldiers must keep aiming their guns and wait for the target to enter the strike range.

Of course, Roger would not tell Ricardo that with the improvement of steel production capacity and metal processing capacity, the Haihan Military Industry Department is currently trial-producing new rifles with rifling in small batches.It is only a matter of time before smoothbore rifles with extremely poor shooting accuracy withdraw from the standard equipment of the Haihan Militia, and after the new rifles are equipped in the future, the significance of the tactical action of aiming and shooting is no longer just the current "just point the muzzle at the Arrange the soldiers to practice the new aiming skills in advance during the training, which can also effectively shorten the adaptation period after the troops change to the new rifles in the future.

However, even with the muskets currently listed, musketeers obtained by using Haihan's training method will obviously perform more stably on the battlefield than troops lacking relevant training.Ricardo secretly kept this detail in his heart, and planned to write it into the report and distribute it to Macau and Goa after returning home, so that his colleagues could also pay attention to this kind of detail when training Musketeers in the future.

After seeing the training conducted by the Haihan soldiers of these two platoons, several representatives who were originally uneasy about this training plan were finally relieved.The Haihan militia's control over details in training is obviously beyond the reach of other armies they know, and it is self-evident what level of soldiers can be trained with this level of care.Even if there is no opportunity to enter the Haihan Military Academy in the future, if the Haihan people can be trained to the level they have seen before, then it will definitely be enough for their own students to go back and organize a private army in the countryside.Of course, it would be even better if you can complete the three-stage military training mentioned by Roger. After all, mastering individual combat skills and mastering officer skills are still at different levels.

Grass-roots officers from the Haihan Militia who have been retired for various reasons, work as supervisors and instructors in institutions such as the Golden Shield Escort, and their salaries are several times higher than those of their colleagues from ordinary soldiers. The combat skills only mastered by military officers have improved.Except for partners like the Li family in Guangzhou and the Xu family in Fujian who have a deep relationship with Haihan, no one else can hire such a veteran with the qualifications of a Haihan militia officer even if they spend money.

After a two-day on-the-spot investigation, sponsor representatives expressed their satisfaction with the training conditions provided by Roger.Each family also quickly sent messengers to bring the letter back to report to the superiors the latest developments on this island in the South China Sea.

Roger believes that the substitute training program he adopted on Abunna Island, coupled with the island's plantation development plan and the continuous purchase of overseas slaves, will definitely be able to change the situation of being a remote island in the past in a relatively short period of time. situation.Even if it cannot be positioned as a regional business center like Hong Kong Island, at least it must become a prosperous place in the South China Sea.

Just like in the early days of the development of Black Soil Port, after Haihan took control of Abunna Island, the executive committee also gave great preference to the development policy here.Considering that the geographical location, natural resources and surrounding environment of Abuna Island are not as easy to develop as other overseas territories, the Executive Committee decided early on that the management organization of Abuna Island would not have to pay taxes to the base camp for the first five years. The fiscal revenue can be used for local development and construction.The various financial investments made by the executive committee in the early stage will also be credited to Haihan Bank in the name of low-interest or even interest-free loans, and the local fiscal revenue will be used to slowly repay the loan after five years.

Although there are not many revenue items on the island at present, and the income is not even as good as that of Yinggehai Salt Field, which has a single product but stable sales, Roger believes that as time goes by, the island's cash crops will attract more people. Merchant ships come here for trade, and those slave ships that originally only transported slaves will also leave with various local products on their return journey, instead of slapping their buttocks and leaving after collecting the money like now, except for the slaves. The books of the island of Abunna left a trade deficit.

In the future, there will be more merchant ships coming and going, and the residents on the island will have other livelihoods besides plantation and fishing, so the difficulty of introducing immigrants will gradually decrease.In addition, this place will also become the bridgehead for Haihan's southward expansion in the future, and the continuous presence of troops will also inject more vitality into the island's economic system.Although there is no possibility of building industry here, Roger believes that as long as the business idea is correct, taking the route of agricultural trade can also revitalize this place.He has even written to invite the Ministry of Agriculture to send senior technical personnel to stay here permanently to provide nearby technical support for the development of plantations on the island.

(End of this chapter)