The sun never sets

The "guidao" here does not refer to conspiracy and trickery, but to not being bound by means. For military strategists, the purpose of fighting is to pursue victory. Other things are not considered by the generals, and winning is the bottom line.

"This man is Guo Ji." The village chief bowed and said, "The government has offered a reward of 100 taels of silver for his head."

Lin Yongchang smiled and said, "Then the reward will be given to your village. Well, call out those victims."

The village chief was delighted at first, then stunned, and then hurriedly said: "No, no."

Lin Yongchang frowned and said unhappily, "It was you who said earlier that a widow had been slept with, and now it's you who said it's no longer needed. Do you think I have nothing to do?"

The village chief's face was full of confusion and fear. After hesitating for a while, he went to call for help under Lin Yongchang's gaze.

We were originally planning to leave today, but now there was shooting and hacking, and we had to deal with the widow's affairs, so we couldn't leave today. While waiting, Li Dayan came over and said that some people were scared and didn't want to go to Zhangbei. Lin Yongchang waved his hand and said that those who didn't want to leave could leave now, but the foreign guns that had been promised before were gone.

So hundreds of civilians went out in a hurry. Some of them went halfway, saw something happened here, and turned back. It is human nature to watch the fun, especially in this era when there is not much fun.

Several widows who were not good-looking were brought over by the village chief. Lin Yongchang asked a few questions, then called the Mongolian cavalry to the front and asked the widows to identify them. Soon three people were pointed out. Then he turned around and asked the three people, and the three of them readily admitted it.

The story was simple. Didn't they drink and eat meat yesterday? The three drank a little too much, and when they were drunk, they thought about looking for women. On the Mongolian grassland, women without men will be taken away by other men. The three men could speak Chinese, and when they were chatting with others, they learned that there were several widows in the village, so they went to sleep with the widows.

The three of them didn't think it was a big deal and told everything when asked.

Lin Yongchang snorted and said, "I told you before that you are not allowed to sleep with anyone casually. Do you remember?"

"remember."

"Then this matter is simple. You either marry those widows or receive three lashes. It's your choice."

The three looked at each other in bewilderment. Just after a nap, he was going to marry? It wasn't that they didn't want to marry, but none of them had thought about it. After discussing for a while, they quickly gave their answer. They were willing to be whipped but didn't want to marry because they were so poor that they had nothing except a horse and a knife.

Humph, you fools. Lin Yongchang sneered in his heart and asked people to build a platform on the rice field. Dozens of people worked together and soon built a platform that was not very good-looking but still sturdy. Then he erected two wooden stakes, tied the first person to be punished to it, and then took out the whip that had been prepared for a long time from the cart.

The whip was not long and was soaked in tung oil. When Lin Yongchang took it in his hand, he had already thought about what would happen next. He asked again, "Are you sure you want to be whipped?"

"Yes!"

Except for the old men, who among the Mongolians had not been whipped? It was nothing but a few whips.

But they didn't know that whips are different from each other. Lin Yongchang held up the whip, loudly announced the crimes of several people, and then whipped the prisoner on the back. "Snap!" After a crisp sound,

A red mark first appeared on the back, then quickly turned into purple, and then the skin and flesh turned over, and blood immediately gushed out.

The man being whipped screamed in agony, his body twisting constantly, but his arms were tied to the pillars and he couldn't break free. As he screamed in agony, veins popped out on his body, cold sweat dripped from his forehead, and soon solidified into red frost in the cold wind.

How can we establish authority? Yuan Shikai said that he held an official hat in one hand and a knife in the other, and the Americans said that he used carrots and sticks. These are all ready-made examples. Lin Yongchang was quick to follow the advice, and he was happy to give money and beat people. He turned to the person being punished with a whip and asked, "If you change your mind, it's not too late now."

The man being beaten had his hair wet with cold sweat, and he groaned, "I don't want the whip anymore."

"Very good, this is a wise choice."

If the person is beaten with three lashes, he can be beaten to death. Of course, if the person still insists on being beaten, Lin Yongchang will only save the remaining two lashes for later, instead of beating him to death. The main purpose of punishment is to deter others and win people's hearts, not to kill people.

Actually, Lin Yongchang could have clearly explained the consequences of being whipped in advance, but he still chose to whip him. On the one hand, he wanted to test the power of the whip, and on the other hand, he wanted to use bloody facts to tell everyone what the consequences of breaking the rules would be.

Now it seems that the effect is very good. The expressions of other people have become more serious, and several villagers' faces are pale. Well, it may also be that they were frightened by the corpses and heads on the rice field.

"What about you two? Do you want to get a wife or eat a whip?"

The two swallowed hard and said in unison: "Marry a wife, we are willing to marry a wife."

"That's it!" Lin Yongchang handed the whip to Wuyun Qiqige, who was looking excited, and ordered, "Put him down and move him into the house with the wounded."

The two wounded soldiers who were shot were lucky. The bullets passed through their bodies and did not stay inside. If they are lucky, they will be able to recover after a few months of rest.

Chapter 47 Comrades

The three guys who slept with the widow arranged a wedding that day. Lin Yongchang asked them to pay 5 silver dollars each, and he himself gave another silver dollars as a betrothal gift. Two of them had just exchanged their heads for rewards, and now they immediately became paupers. Another one didn't have a penny on him, so he owed Lin Yongchang silver dollars, which he paid back with his military pay for the next few months.

"You're lucky to have run into me." Lin Yongchang whistled, "If you were next door to Yuan Weiting, your head would have been hung on the flagpole."

Yuan Weiting was a man who was old inside but new on the outside, so he could thrive in the era of transition from the old to the new. He was very strict in managing his soldiers, and the military discipline of his new army could even be described as harsh, with beheadings and executions being common. But harshness was not the main reason why Yuan Weiting's soldiers could fight well. The most important reason was that the Xiaozhan New Army adopted a completely different organizational model from the beginning, and never discounted military pay.

The imperial court had two major breakthroughs in the military over the years. First, Zeng Guofan, in response to the shortcomings of the Green Camp soldiers, imitated Qi Jiguang's "Wu Cheng Fa" and developed it in terms of military organization, selection of officers and soldiers, and recruitment of soldiers. He made a bold attempt to make the soldiers the officers of the generals, which brought about a major turning point in the army.

Second, Yuan Shikai used the German military system as a model to formulate a military construction plan in Xiaozhan, which included a modern army's organizational structure, officer appointment and training system, training and education system, recruitment system, and food and salary system. He basically abandoned the old system of the Eight Banners, Green Camp, and Hunan-Jiangsu Army, focused on the modernization and standardization of weapons and equipment, and emphasized the strictness of implementing the new training methods. This made the Xiaozhan new army capable of competing with the same number of armies of the great powers.

In particular, the artillery unit led by Duan Qirui, although equipped with German artillery, was not the most advanced, but those artillery officers and gunners were definitely the best trained in China.

Hundreds of people stayed in this village for a few days and ate almost all the food in the village. It wasn't that they had eaten all the food. The villagers must have some food in their homes, but they didn't sell it. People didn't eat much, most of it was eaten by big animals. But as long as you have money, these are small matters. The food in the village was almost eaten, and people from other villages came to sell food.

Draft horses and pack horses can get by with eating a dozen pounds of grass a day, but war horses cannot. They need to be fed five times a day, and even have to be fed in the middle of the night.

A man cannot become rich without unexpected wealth, and a horse cannot grow fat without night grass. If you want your warhorse to grow fat, you have to get up in the middle of the night to feed it. In order to deepen the intimacy with the horse, the cavalry also has to brush the horse's hair and take it out for a walk every day. Lin Yongchang did all these things by himself and did not let others help.

After sending the three brides and grooms to the bridal chamber, Lin Yongchang went to add fodder to the horses. Wuyun Qiqi followed him. She was Mongolian and was much better than Lin Yongchang in horse breeding, horse selection, and riding. She could even tell which horse was sick at a glance.

Half of the recruited laborers ran away, leaving more than 140 people. They had a good meal yesterday and had a banquet today. Most of them felt relieved and thought it was not bad to follow such a boss. Not only could they eat their fill, but they could also get meat!

Li was not among those who felt relieved.

Big Eyes, he followed Lin Yongchang with a heavy heart, watching the big bald man officiating at a wedding and now feeding the horses. Looking around, there were not many people following him. Li Big Eyes felt that if he acted boldly, he would be very sure to kill this evil big bald man.

But just as this thought came to his mind, Lin Yongchang looked over, and Li Dayan quickly forced a smile on his face. His martial arts skills were very good, but he was unarmed... He touched the pistol on his waist, and thought to himself: It's not that I don't dare to do it, but because I can't be ungrateful. Bald donkey gave me a foreign gun, so I won't kill him.

"Big Eyes, why are you against foreigners?"

"Why? What's the why? Foreigners are doing all kinds of evil and harming the world. Why do we need a why?" Li Dayan answered with confidence. This is what he thought.

"You've done all kinds of evil? You just killed a few people and robbed some land and businesses, that's about it, right?"

"That's it?"

Li Dayan was furious. "Isn't this enough?"

"I'm just analyzing the reasons why we need to drive the foreigners out. Why are you so excited? Only by analyzing the situation clearly can we get more people to stand on our side and fight against the foreigners together, don't you think?"

We? Li Dayan remembered that the abominable guy in front of him was going to transport guns to Tibet to fight against the English, so his anger dissipated a little, but he was still a little indignant. "Over the years, the foreign devils and those second devils have bullied us endlessly. I... I can't stand it anymore!"

"Well, the foreigners bully us, so we have to fight the foreigners. The government also bullies us, so what should we do?"

"Then let's fight the government! No matter who it is, as long as they dare to bully me, I will fight him to the end!"

"Well, well said!" Lin Yongchang poured the beans into the trough, then turned around and started clapping, not caring about the grass scraps flying around. "Where there is oppression, there is resistance. I think so too."

He stepped forward and held Li Dayan's hands, "Since we have the same idea, we will be comrades from now on!"

"That's not it....."

Li Dayan was a little confused. He didn't know how things turned out like this. What did I say? What did I do? Why did I become a comrade with him? And what is a comrade?

Lin Yongchang shook Li Dayan's right hand vigorously, with a warm smile on his face, "I have a plan, a big plan, and I just need someone like you to help. For a period of time from now on, I will be responsible for making money and other things, and you will be responsible for training and leading the troops. When the time comes, we will go together to beat up the foreign devils!"

Ah? No, I never thought about it! Li Dayan felt that the world was hazy. The other person's bald head was so bright. Maybe it would be nice to do something big together? That's not right! Li Dayan suddenly woke up and pulled his hand out with force. Then he took two steps back, looked at the bald man vigilantly and with some fear, and said angrily: "Magic! You are using magic!"

He had practiced martial arts since he was young and had found many masters, some of whom were truly skilled, but most were charlatans. He had also heard of many strange people and stories, some of which were deceiving. Well, he had also heard a lot of such stories from storytelling and scripts.

Lin Yongchang was speechless. He was just a little bit infectious, but still far from the leader. How could it be considered a sorcery?

Chapter 48 Care

There are many skills in the system mall of [Europa Universalis - The Empire Never Sets]. Among the skills that can be purchased with diplomatic points, there are [Diplomacy], [Trade], and [Persuasion]. These skills seem to be similar, but each has different special effects.

[Persuasion LV1] requires 10 diplomatic points. After Lin Yongchang checked this skill, the system certified that he had at least level 1 [Persuasion], so he could use 1 diplomatic point to purchase [Persuasion LV1]. Now he has the following points: Administration 104, Diplomacy 4, Military 114, which is enough to buy a lot of skills. However, in order to complete the three tasks of [Reorganizing the Dynasty], he is still accumulating points. He will not spend any points unless he has to.

Although the [Persuasion] skill is very good, Lin Yongchang did not purchase it. He felt that his eloquence was already good enough and he did not need to acquire skills such as [Persuasion], [Diplomacy], and [Transaction], at least not for the time being.

so.......

"What kind of magic? No, I don't have it. Don't talk nonsense!"

Lin Yongchang spat on the ground and said, "What right do you have to defame someone's innocence?"

Li Dayan also realized at this time that the other party might not be using magic, because he had only heard of magic but never seen it. Perhaps he had experienced too many things during the day, and now his mind was full of thoughts, so he blurted out that the other party knew magic.

He snorted and changed the subject, "You shot without thinking during the day. What if you killed the wrong person?"

Lin Yongchang laughed, "How do you know I didn't think about it? As for what you said about killing the wrong person, yes, that's possible. But if it's a wrong person, what else can we do? In this day and age, people die everywhere. When was there a year when the government didn't beat people to death when collecting taxes? Now that the weather is cold, people are freezing to death in every village. Do you care?"

He spread his hands, "No, you don't care. The only person you care about is yourself."

Li Dayan was a little confused again. How could he be mentioned again? But this time, he reacted quickly, "You again!"

"I'm just joking with you, don't take it seriously." Lin Yongchang said thoughtfully, "What do you think the man who got whipped on the back is doing now? He was injured so badly that he shouldn't be able to do strenuous exercise. Did the woman take the initiative? That won't work, right? He can't lie down either, or did he bite?"

"........."

Li Dayan was stunned for a moment, then angrily said, "Just say what you want to say, don't keep beating around the bush!"

After feeding the horse, Wuyun Qiqige came over and asked curiously, "What is biting?"

Lin Yongchang smiled and touched her head, saying, "It's a very interesting thing. I will teach you in a few years."

"Oh."

He turned around and looked at Li Dayan who was angry, sighed, and his expression became serious. Then he said seriously: "I have a dream. One day in the future, foreigners will no longer be treated as first-class people on Chinese soil; one day in the future, all Chinese people will be able to eat and wear warm clothes, and will not be troubled by problems such as hunger, cold and disease; one day in the future, Chinese people can do what they like, can walk in every corner of the world, can hold their chests high and declare loudly: I am a Chinese!"

Lin Yongchang said slowly: "But this dream is difficult to achieve. It requires many hardships and difficulties, and many people will die. My power is limited. If I want to realize such a dream, I must find many like-minded leaders and work together. Li Dayan, are you willing to help me? Are you willing to work with me to turn that dream into reality?"

The anger on Li Dayan's face disappeared, and he opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but then he seemed to be stunned. After a long while, he muttered, "You say this and that, I don't know if you are lying to me."

"I'm not lying to you," Lin Yongchang shook his head and asked again: "Li Dayan, are you willing to help me?"

"If you didn't lie to me..." Li Dayan paused, then said loudly: "Then I will help you!"

Lin Yongchang let out a long sigh, a sincere smile on his face, "That's great. But if you can't keep up with me in the future, I won't stop and wait for you."

Li Dayan originally wanted to say, "What will happen if I find out that you cheated on me?", but now he immediately said, "Don't worry, I'm not greedy or lustful, I won't be left behind by you!"

"Haha, it's not that you can succeed just by not being greedy or lustful. If you want to keep up with me, you need to learn a lot of things. Learning is a process of changing yourself. It requires you to operate a knife on your mind. It will bleed and it will be painful. Many people cannot endure this painful process."

At this point, Lin Yongchang glanced at Wuyun Qiqige, and the girl laughed, not caring at all about what he said.

"I'm not afraid of hardship!" Li Dayan puffed out his chest and said proudly, "Just wait and see!"

"Okay!" Lin Yongchang patted Li Dayan's shoulder vigorously, "I'll show you what I learned later!"

"what?"

"It's just the beginning. We have to keep learning and making progress so that we can make a splash in the new China and realize our dreams." Lin Yongchang looked at Wuyun Qiqige again, "As the saying goes, knowing yourself and knowing the enemy, you can fight a hundred battles without danger. If you want to defeat the foreign devils, you must first understand them."

Those study materials were given to Wuyun Qiqige before, but the girl only liked riding horses and hunting, or washing the fur of horses. She would feel sleepy when reading, so she just let it go. Now I'm pulling it out for Li Dayan to study, and it will be compiled into teaching materials in the future for more people to learn.

Now there were less than 200 civilians left, and Wang Qi had 100. After the banquet, Wang went to patrol the camp. Li Dayan had only 40 men under him, and he didn't care about his men. He followed Lin Yongchang to the stable and got a copy of Elementary Mathematics.

Looking at those things that looked like ghostly paintings under the light, Li Dayan couldn't help but stare blankly, "Is this something from foreigners?"

"Well, this is elementary mathematics, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as well as the solution of some equations. After you finish learning these, we will learn the rectangular coordinate system, parabolas and various curves, and then the Cartesian coordinate system..." Lin Yongchang looked at Li Dayan, whose eyes were wide open, smiled and said, "That's all for the future. Let's finish learning this "Elementary Mathematics" first. In the evening, you can learn about the world situation first, starting with "The Rise of Great Powers - Britain"."

Chapter 49 Inadvertently

Napoleon said: The three most important things in war are money, money, and money!

The founding leader of the Republic said: If you save the people you lose the land; if you save the land you lose the people.

What the two said makes sense, because they faced different situations. To study a problem, we must consider it in the context of the times. Lin Yongchang said to Li Dayan, Wang Qi and others, "China's problems are not just China's problems. With the invention of steam engines and internal combustion engines, the speed of travel has increased, and relatively speaking, the world has become smaller. This is no longer the era when China is the whole world behind closed doors. If we make an analogy, the current world situation is like the late Spring and Autumn Period.

The period is transitioning to the Warring States period. "

The people selected all have a certain level of education and some knowledge. Lin Yongchang hung a world map on the wall, and then used a wooden stick to explain the situation in the world to everyone. As the saying goes, reading ten thousand books is like traveling ten thousand miles. Reading and traveling are just means, not the purpose. The purpose is to broaden your horizons and not be confined to the original small circle. You should see the vast world instead of being a frog in a well.

Pointing at the world on a map or globe is something many boys have done. Li Dayan and Wang Qi are already in their 40s, but they were still shocked after seeing the world map. However, Wang Qi concealed it well, only showing a slight surprise. Li Dayan and others whispered to each other, "China is so small? The British occupy so much land?"

Li Dayan was very worried. "Are the English trying to learn from the Qin Dynasty and annex the world?"

Lin Yongchang smiled, explained a few words, and then began to introduce the history of the British, which was the content of his previous book "The Rise of Great Powers - Britain". After the English defeated the Spanish Invincible Armada, they became the overlord of the ocean and then colonized and expanded around the world.

"150 years ago, the English gradually annexed India, right here, the vast territory on the other side of the Himalayas. When Tang Xuanzang went to the West to seek Buddhist scriptures, he went here. After occupying India, the English continued to expand eastwards, successively occupying many places in Southeast Asia. During the First Opium War more than 50 years ago, the British army relied on their powerful ships and guns to blast open China's borders and cede Hong Kong."

"Ten years later, the Second Opium War broke out, and the English set up several concessions in China. Then the French, Germans, Russians, and even the Japanese began to take advantage of China. Hong Kong, Vietnam, North Korea, Shanghai, Tianjin, Taiwan, where will be next?"

Seeing that China's land is getting smaller and smaller, Wang Qi remains calm, but Li Dayan and others feel very upset.

"Master Lin, you must have a way, right?"

Lin Yongchang showed a kind expression, "Don't call me Sir, we are comrades with the same ideals. You can call me Comrade Lin. If you must use a respectful word, then..." He thought for a moment and said, "Just call me Mentor."

Napoleon said that the most critical issue was money, because he had the support of France after the Great Revolution and was located on the European continent, so money could buy everything. In Lin Yongchang's current situation, the issue of money was very important, and the issue of people was also very serious. For him, making money was not difficult, but how to find like-minded comrades was difficult.

What is his ambition? To replicate the era he once lived in in this world?

To be honest, Lin Yongchang hadn't thought it through. The era he lived in was not all good. There were also many dark sides and problems that needed to be solved. But no matter what, it was a hundred times stronger than the current Jin Dynasty. He decided to give it a try. If there was a better way, he would take the better way. If not, he could only copy homework.