knife

Chapter 54 Comparison is also a form of motivation

Besides taxes and corvée labor, military service was another important matter on the plains.

Because they are all young and strong, there is no shortage of soldiers.

Each village consists of one hundred households, and each household must provide one able-bodied man to train during the off-season. A village is a small team, ten small teams are combined into a large team, and ten large teams are combined into an army.

Li Dachui's direct subordinates usually live scattered in these villages, and they are all village leaders. Their daily work is to practice military formations and teach martial arts. When battle is needed, these people will gather together and go out with Li Dachui.

Li Dachui doesn't need these able-bodied men from Helan Plain to fight yet.

They are doing this more as a backup plan for the future.

With no war for several years, these young men also treated these drills as a form of fun. What made Li Dachui even happier was that when the bandits were teaching these young men some basic martial arts skills, a group of talented individuals actually emerged from among them.

Although they have missed the best time to cultivate martial arts, as members of the army, even if they can only barely reach the Solidification stage, they can become the backbone of the army.

As for donning armor and weapons, and charging into battle to open breaches when needed, that was naturally the job of Li Dachui's loyal followers.

In fact, Li Dachui values ​​those little kids who are still crawling and running around on the ground more; they are the real future!

Conquering the world is a long-term endeavor, taking decades or even decades; he's not in a hurry at all.

The demonstration effect is always the most effective. Li Dachui and his friends don't need to do much promotion; as long as a role model appears, their actions will inspire others to follow suit. Even those who aren't particularly ambitious themselves will be pressured by their wives and children to strive for improvement.

Other people's wives can wear brand new clothes and new jewelry, which you can't afford.

Other children have the best toys and eat the best food, while your son only gets simple meals.
Are you feeling comfortable?

They were all the same people before.

If others can do it, why can't I?

Comparison fuels human desires; desires lead to pursuits; pursuits drive effort; and effort brings rewards.

That's exactly what Li Dachui did on the Helan Plain.

During the training process, the most outstanding trainees were taken down to Helan Plain in batches by Li Dachui. Each of them was paired with a veteran as their mentor, who taught them by example.

Li Dachui couldn't bear to let these people die before they even got started; he was training future officers.

After undergoing this training several times, these people basically become qualified soldiers.

Back in the village, he could at least become a squad leader, leading ten men in battle.

And every time these people went out, they would return with many extra benefits for their families.

This is something you can't get by farming on the Helan Plain.

In just one year, those tens of thousands of former militia members were divided into different strata.

This has inspired not only envy and jealousy among those who are lagging behind, but also a strong desire to catch up.

On the Helan Plain, joining the army is not the only path to success.

Those who farm well and have a higher harvest than others can be rewarded. Those with a special skill are even more sought after. Whether you are a blacksmith, stonemason, bamboo weaver, or leatherworker, as long as you are a craftsman, you can find a place to use your expertise on the Helan Plain.

In Li Dachui's view, Helan Plain has entered a healthy competitive environment where everyone influences and competes with each other, resulting in an increasingly prosperous and powerful Helan Plain.

It will take another ten years for the next generation of Helan Plain to fully grow up, and at that time, there will be at least 200,000 people here.

In winter, ordinary people outside the Great Wall generally hibernate, staying home as much as possible and minimizing their activities to eat less and conserve food.

But that wouldn't work on the Helan Plain.

This off-season for farming is perfect for training troops.

After the first group of people grew up to become members of the army and brought wealth to their families, almost all families were willing to invest in it.

Moreover, they don't have a problem with not having enough to eat; they just need to use up their savings a bit more. But once their man is chosen, he will bring back ten or even a hundred times the surplus to the family.

Men from beyond the Great Wall are no less wild, nor lacking in adventurous spirit.

If they only need a tiger to lead them, they can at least see themselves as wolves.

Everyone knows that Li Dachui has three personal guard battalions under his command: Heaven, Earth, and Man.

The Tianzi Battalion is more widely known because they are usually the ones who charge into battle alongside Li Dachui, and they are also the most powerful unit.

Of the three hundred men, more than sixty had cultivated to the first level of Qi Control. This was an extremely terrifying thing, because in a typical army of ten thousand men, there would be at most a hundred or so such individuals.

Three years ago, when they first appeared, they immediately attracted the world's attention, and Wutu suffered a great loss at their hands.

The Earth Battalion rarely went into battle, only appearing three years ago in the battle against Wutu. Their mission at that time was more about helping and arranging for able-bodied men to escape from the control of the Northern Yuan army. Even so, in that battle that lasted for more than a month, they still caused the Northern Yuan army a lot of trouble, and Xia Zhi, the commander of the Earth Battalion, and Fang Xiaomao, the commander of the Heaven Battalion, became prominent figures outside the Great Wall.

The most mysterious place is the "human-shaped" camp.

Whether they actually participated in the battle three years ago is unknown to the world.

As the battle drew to a close, many bandit groups from beyond the Great Wall saw an opportunity to plunder, so they swarmed forward and attacked Wutu's forces together, since Wutu had already looted so much wealth!

People die for wealth, just as birds die for food. Many bandits also disappeared completely in this battle. Some of them overestimated their abilities and challenged the still organized armies of the Northern Yuan, only to be brutally beaten.

These arrogant bandits, thinking that if others could do it, so could they, charged into the Northern Yuan regular army with boundless courage. And then, they were gone. This clearly demonstrates that sometimes what others can do, you may not be able to.

Others that disappeared were swallowed up by bandits from beyond the Great Wall.

This has always been the rule of survival outside the Great Wall.

The Human Battalion definitely appeared in this battle, but no one knows exactly what they did.

Now Xiao Changche guesses that Wild Wolf must be the commander of the Human-shaped Battalion.

There are no city walls on the Helan Plain, only a gate tower built of stone and huge timbers. Above the gate, the three large characters "Helan Plain" are written in a flamboyant style, which is the work of Master Yu.

However, Master Yu Entai was unaware of the existence of Helan Yuan. It was only because Li Dachui tricked him into writing these three characters that he then had them copied here.

Passing through this gate tower means you've truly entered the Helan Plain.

The return of Li Dachui is naturally a major event on the Helan Plain.

Those in charge gathered here to welcome the leader's return.

Standing at the very front was an elderly man of about fifty years old, wearing a scholar's cap and sporting three long wisps of beard under his chin. The old man, wrapped in a cloak, did not seem to be very resistant to the cold; his face was flushed, and he was constantly wiping the snot bubbles that were coming out of his nose with a handkerchief.

This old man is Mao Daxian, the governor of Helan Plain.

Of course, this title of governor was self-proclaimed by Li Dachui and his group.

The reason for creating this title was naturally to facilitate management. There are tens of thousands of people on the Helan Plain, and their numbers are increasing year by year. To manage them in an orderly manner, an effective management organization is naturally needed.

We cannot use military law to govern civilians.

The reason why people like Mao Daxian were able to appear here was because they were all tricked and deceived by Li Dachui.

Tai'an City is a good place, attracting many outstanding people from outside the Great Wall to gather there.

After all, there are still quite a few people in this world who feel that their talents are not being recognized.

Tai'an City is willing to provide these people with opportunities to shine, so all sorts of strange and wonderful talents who are not successful elsewhere go to Tai'an City to find their own opportunities.

Tai'an City is where Li Dachui gathers and selects talent.

Of course, talents like those who manage Helan Yuan are much harder to find than those skilled in martial arts or medicine.

It's not that there are few scholars; there are many scholars in Tai'an City. However, there are very few scholars who can agree with Li Dachui's ideas and accept his many novel viewpoints.

Many scholars are already firmly bound by rules and regulations during their studies, and very few can break free from this cage. Those who dare to break free are seen as heretics in the eyes of the world, while those who are willing to accept Li Dachui's new ideas are considered truly astonishing.

Although few, they are not non-existent.

Mao Daxian was one of them.

Thus, he became the top leader of Helan Plain.

When Li Dachui is not around, he takes charge.

Others, such as Xia Zhi, the commander of the Di-character camp stationed here, are only responsible for military affairs and are not allowed to interfere in civil affairs.

Li Dachui gave him immense power, and Mao Daxian indeed lived up to Li Dachui's trust, truly implementing every idea and order of Li Dachui. He even filled in the gaps, innovated, and combined them with local realities, making sure the people below happily accepted and carried them out.

Even Li Dachui admired his skill.

Li Dachui was well aware that some of his ideas were truly out of step with the times, but after Mao Daxian had worked on and modified them, the core of his ideas remained unchanged, yet he could explain them clearly using modern logic.

For this reason alone, Li Dachui felt that he was paying Mao Daxian too little.

Of course, the old man wasn't after that little bit of salary.

The old man has big ambitions!
He felt that once he achieved his ambitions, he would definitely knock down those who looked down on him back then, and stomp on them to vent his anger.

Of course, he is still the self-proclaimed, unknown to outsiders, former governor of Helan.

(End of this chapter)