industrial lord

Chapter 517 Why Come Here
According to some traditions of the Weishen Army, meals are also a time for superiors and subordinates to chat and get to know some of the situations of the grassroots soldiers.

Metzger sat down in front of Zoppel with his noodles. Before he could say anything, Krom said nervously, "Captain, please stop talking!"

"Last time before the Trade Route War, you were at dinner and told me that my old squad leader's blind date wasn't going well. But after the war, he went back home and the blind date really wasn't going well."

Metzger said unhappily, "Oh, this is my fault again. He is thirty years old and has twenty girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty dating him. Isn't that enough? He is too picky. What does it have to do with me?"

"I said a woman's shoe would fall from the sky and hit you on the head, do you believe it?"

Chrom subconsciously looked up and felt relieved when he saw the ceiling of the cafeteria.

Qi Keer opened his mouth in surprise. He was old enough to get married in the village, but his family was poor and no woman was willing to marry him. Yet others had more than twenty choices. Was this fair?

Metzger noticed where he was surprised and said, "We are different from the army of the former Legens Alliance. If you train well and make meritorious deeds on the battlefield, you can get a lot of bonuses. Then you won't have to worry about not being able to marry a wife."

Zikel nodded continuously.

Metzger asked him again, "How did you come up with the idea of ​​signing up for the army?"

Qi Keer said embarrassedly: "The people in the village dare not come. Last year, they found a man who had no family but one. This year, I drew lots and I won."

"They're going to regret it," Metzger said with a laugh.

Last year, the military began requiring each village and urban community in the three new states to send one person to serve every year in order to deepen the new territories' understanding of the Principality of Wessen.

However, people's ideas about the military over thousands of years cannot be changed overnight, and practices like what happened in Ziker's village are common.

Anyway, the top leaders of the principality are not in a hurry, so just take it slow.

Metzger then asked Zopel: "Why did you join the army? I heard that the wages in the shipyard are much higher than the military pay."

Zopel's face flushed slightly, and then he said seriously: "My good friend Kaspar became a sailor on the Flying Tulip. I heard that he will go to the Naval Academy this year. I don't want to salute him in the future."

Metzger nodded and said, "If you want to be an officer, you have to work hard now. Not only military training, but also cultural courses."

Zopel immediately thanked the company commander for his teachings.

Crome said, "I suspect he has a crush on a girl in the Air Force and wants to find an opportunity in the military."

Metzger just smiled and then chatted with the rest of their class.

The afternoon is the time for tidying up the room. There are twelve people in a class in one room, with six bunk beds, two-story wardrobes, and so on.

Krom taught the recruits how to fold their quilts, how to put the yellow washbasin and shoes under the bed, and how to line up towels, cups and toothbrushes on the shelf.

After dinner, Krom went to attend the company meeting and brought back a ten-day training and study schedule and posted it on the wall.

The old soldiers took a look at the form and didn't pay much attention to it. It was exactly the same as in the old unit. The four new recruits in the class were very curious and were discussing what was different from the new recruit company.

After posting the form, Krom left for a while and came back soon with a big bag of potato chips and twelve bottles of happy water.

He asked everyone to bring chairs and sit in a square, with three people on each of the four sides, and arranged everyone to sit in the corresponding position.

Everyone sat down, and Krom said, "Our class will be divided into four groups of three, based on your current positions."

There were eight veterans and four new recruits in the class. He did not make it equal. He took two new recruits, Zopel and Zikel, with him. One group was composed entirely of veterans, and the other two groups each had two veterans and one new recruit.

After appointing the team leaders, Krom ate potato chips and said, "Training will begin tomorrow. I heard that although our division is a new unit, it will be the first group to be sent south to fight the infidels next year." The command knew that the news of sending troops next year could not be concealed, so the current propaganda was to regain the ground in the southern forest.

The book burning incident led by Count Valli began the year before last, and the boycott of Wesson goods in many places on the southern coast of the Inland Sea has intensified, causing certain losses to the business community.

So everyone believed this excuse, even the nobles of the Osmaga Empire thought that Queen Anna formed a new army to help Grand Duke Wessen regain his position and get a piece of the pie from the business in the south.

The veterans' eyes suddenly lit up. War meant opportunity. Whether it was to get rich or to climb up the career ladder, each of them was eager to go to the battlefield.

Ziker also became excited. Whether he would have more than a dozen women lining up to choose him as a wife when he returned home depended on how much merit he could earn on the battlefield.

But Zopel's face turned pale all of a sudden. Someone asked him, "Why, are you scared?"

Zopel said: "The shipyard is currently building a steam-powered transport ship without sails, weighing about 600 tons, with two levels of cabins above the deck for living."

"If I'm right, we'll go out to sea on this kind of boat."

"It's just that the center of gravity of this type of boat is relatively high, so when the wind and waves are strong, it will shake quite a bit, and it's easy to get seasick."

He wanted to go to the seaman's school, but was rejected because of severe seasickness and ended up in the shipyard.

Chrome said nonchalantly, "It's okay, just practice more and it will be fine."

He then reported the next training plan, which was basically to run three kilometers every morning after getting up, train in various subjects in the morning, do physical training in the afternoon, study in the evening, take a half-day break on the Friday of every ten days, and rest all day on Sunday.

Finally, Krom showed everyone a table and asked, "What classes do you want to sign up for?"

"The policy has changed this year. It is compulsory to learn southern dialect, at least to the point where you can argue with the locals. So I can only sign up for a class."

Zikel took the form and rolled his eyes.

He had never had the opportunity to go to school before. The two and a half months of literacy training in the recruit company only allowed him to master basic vocabulary. He could not understand half of the words above.

Seeing this, Krom said to him, "Just continue to choose the basic class."

The basic class studies basic Chinese and mathematics. It was previously called the literacy class, but later it was changed to the basic class because people thought the name did not sound good.

Zikel blushed and nodded.

Zopel looked at the form and said, "I'll study vehicle maintenance. I graduated from a woodworking technical school, worked in a shipyard, and helped the Air Force build machines. I've done everything from swimming to flying. The only thing missing is running."

A group of veterans including Krom gave him a thumbs-up.

"That's good," said an old soldier. "I heard in my old unit that we would try to move around by car as much as possible. It would be much more convenient if there were people in the squad who could repair cars."

Another veteran said: "You can take the officer exam in the future, and you can learn Mandarin and mathematics by yourself."

Zopel said a little embarrassedly: "I wanted to be an engineer before. Last year, I signed up for a correspondence course at the Willibird School of Mechanical Engineering. I am studying both of these."

"Wow," Crom suddenly became happy and patted him on the back and said, "I didn't expect there would be college students in our class."

"By the way, can you drive a car?"

Zopel's face suddenly turned red, and he hesitated for a long time before saying, "I can do it, but on the day of the driver's license test, one of the instructors was knocked into a ditch by me, so I failed."

(End of this chapter)