Chapter 829

The lamp light in the study flickered after Chen Yan finished those two words, as if slapped by an invisible current of air.

Zhang Wenqian's fingers were folded in front of him, his knuckles slightly white.

Gu Yuci's breathing became shallower by two degrees.

Lu Ming scratched the back of his head again, his honest, big face filled with a giant question mark.

Chen Yan was not in a hurry to continue; he picked up the teacup from the desk, took a sip, and put it back on the table, making a very light sound.

"You have all been soldiers and led soldiers; I have a question for you."

His gaze landed on Gu Yuci's face.

"When the cavalry under your command finish their meal and gather together, what do they talk about?"

Gu Yuci thought for a beat.

"They talk about the wives at home, the harvest this year, and when the military pay will be issued."

Chen Yan's finger tapped on the table.

"Has anyone ever talked about why they joined the army and why they have to go to the battlefield?"

Gu Yuci's mouth opened, closed, opened again, and closed again.

He shook his head.

Chen Yan turned his gaze to Lu Ming.

"What about your heavy armored infantry?"

Lu Ming's voice was as coarse as if ground by sandpaper.

"My soldiers talk more simply; they talk about which meal is delicious, who is good at fighting, and whether they can grab good things next time they attack a city."

Chen Yan's finger tapped on the table again.

"So why do they fight?"

Lu Ming's answer came out instantly.

"For military pay and spoils of war."

Chen Yan's mouth twitched.

"For military pay and spoils of war."

He repeated these words, his tone carrying a flavor that was hard to tell if it was sarcasm or helplessness.

"The Qi people also have military pay and spoils of war; if one day the Qi people offer double the price, will your soldiers follow the Qi people?"

Lu Ming's face flushed red.

"No! My soldiers are not that kind of people!"

Chen Yan looked at him.

"He Lanhu's soldiers were not that kind of people either, but they mutinied."

Lu Ming's mouth opened, and that flushed face slowly turned into a silence that was extremely complex.

Chen Yan stood up from his chair and walked to the military sand table in the center of the study.

"This 'Political Commissar' thing, to put it plainly, is to give the army a heart."

His finger pointed one by one at the locations representing the various military camps in Xia Prefecture on the sand table.

"Every battalion will have a Political Commissar, from the team level all the way up to the general level; every level will have one."

Zhang Wenqian's brows tightened by another two degrees.

"Zhuguo, what exactly is the function of this Political Commissar? Forgive this subordinate for speaking bluntly, but if it's just to preach loyalty and righteousness, each army already has instructors and supervisors..."

Chen Yan interrupted him.

"What do instructors preach? The Three Principles and Five Constants, loyalty and filial piety; who are they loyal to? To the Emperor, to the Court."

He turned around, the things in his eyes brighter than the lamp light on the sand table by two degrees.

"My Political Commissar don't preach these empty things."

He held up three fingers.

"First, the Political Commissar must tell every soldier what the gun in their hand is protecting."

He bent down the first finger.

"It's not the Emperor's dragon throne, it's not the general's official hat; it's the fifty acres of land you were allocated, it's the mothers and wives at home, it's your children being able to eat their fill, dress warmly, and go to school in the future."

He bent down the second finger.

"Second, the Political Commissar must manage the daily life of the soldiers; whoever has a disaster at home, whoever's military pay is withheld, whoever is bullied by their superiors, can all find the Political Commissar, and the Political Commissar will stand up for them."

He bent down the third finger.

"Third, the Political Commissar must let every soldier know that they are not the private soldiers of a general, not the slaves of anyone; they are the sons of Xia Prefecture, and they are one family with the commoners of Xia Prefecture."

Zhang Wenqian's breathing became more and more rapid as those three fingers were bent down one after another.

He understood.

He didn't just understand the function of the Political Commissar; he understood the layer behind this system that made his scalp tingle.

"Zhuguo."

His voice was pressed to the limit.

"If the Political Commissar system is spread throughout the entire army, then the loyalty of the soldiers will no longer depend on who the general above their heads is."

His fingers clenched by two degrees in front of him.

"But will be directly bound to you, bound to your philosophy."

Chen Yan looked at him.

"Old Zhang, do you think there is any problem with this?"

Zhang Wenqian's lips moved, and finally he shook his head.

"No problem; this is ten thousand times more effective than any military tally."

Gu Yuci spoke at this time, his voice carrying the straightforwardness unique to a military general.

"Zhuguo, this subordinate has a worry."

Chen Yan's gaze turned to him.

Gu Yuci's hand pressed on the hilt of his sword, his brows slightly twisted.

"If the Political Commissar manages both ideology and daily life, their power in the battalion will be very great; if there is a disagreement with the military commander, one wants to fight and the other doesn't, who does the troops listen to?"

Chen Yan's finger drew an arc on the edge of the sand table.

"Good question."

He walked from the sand table back behind the desk, sat down in the chair, and pulled out a silk scroll he had drafted in advance from the desk.

"The military commander manages fighting, and the Political Commissar manages ideology and daily life; the two are equal in rank and do not belong to each other."

He unfolded the silk scroll and traced his finger through the clauses on it one by one.

"In combat decisions, the military commander has the final say; at critical moments, the general has the final word."

His finger moved down two lines.

"But the Political Commissar has the power of veto; if the Political Commissar believes that this decision will lead to meaningless soldier casualties or violate the bottom line, the Political Commissar can veto it and report it."

Gu Yuci's brows relaxed by one degree.

"This division of labor is acceptable to this subordinate; let those who know how to fight decide fighting matters, but having someone guard the lives of the soldiers makes this subordinate feel at ease."

Lu Ming had been listening for a long time and finally gathered the questions in his brain into a complete sentence.

"Zhuguo, what is that One Heart Society for?"

Chen Yan's mouth lifted by two degrees.

"The One Heart Society is the core backbone of the entire army; only the bravest, most loyal, and most firm-minded soldiers are qualified to join."

His finger drew a line next to a line of text on the silk scroll.

"The One Heart Society members in each battalion do not exceed one-tenth of the total number of the battalion; they are the models for the entire army, charging forward first and retreating last; they manage leading the work in peacetime and leading the charge to death in wartime."

Lu Ming's eyes lit up.

"Isn't this my Beiwei Death Guard?"

Chen Yan shook his head.

"It's different; the Beiwei Death Guard is selected through blood and loyalty, while the One Heart Society is selected through ideology and belief; the former relies on loyalty and bravery, while the latter relies on truly understanding why they are holding a gun."

He closed the silk scroll and covered it with his palm.

"The members of the One Heart Society are the reserve force for the Political Commissar; every Political Commissar is selected from the One Heart Society."

Lu Ming scratched the back of his head, his mouth splitting into a crack.

"Zhuguo, can this subordinate join the One Heart Society?"

Chen Yan glanced at him.

"You are the Marshal Governor; if you join, who will lead the troops?"

Lu Ming's mouth closed and then split open again.

"Then can this subordinate be an honorary member, even if it's just hanging a name?"

Zhang Wenqian couldn't help but cough lightly beside him.

Chen Yan did not take up Lu Ming's words; he turned his head to look in the direction of the door.

"Gao Jiong."

The sound of armor plates colliding rang out from outside the door; Gao Jiong's figure flashed in from the edge of the door frame, and after crossing the threshold, he touched one knee to the ground.

"Zhuguo."

Chen Yan pushed the silk scroll on the table to the edge of the desk.

"The selection of the first batch of Political Commissar is handed over to your Mingjing Si; there are only three conditions."

He held up three fingers.

"First, born in poverty, preferably promoted from among the refugees."

"Second, literate, at least able to read and write."

"Third, have an identification with me that comes from the marrow of their bones."

Gao Jiong took the silk scroll in his hand, and the sinister arc at the corners of his mouth slowly changed shape, turning into something deeper than sinister.

"This subordinate understands; the people selected must be clean, and not a single weed is allowed to be brought in."

Chen Yan stood up and walked to the window.

"Establish a Lecture Hall in Tongwan City; I will personally serve as the Sacrificial Wine; the first batch of Political Commissar will all undergo closed training, and they can only be assigned to various battalions after the training is completed."

His gaze crossed the window lattice and landed on the soldiers who were drilling on the training ground.

"I want to let this army know that the guns in their hands are not carried for the sake of eating, but for the sake of ensuring that they and everyone behind them never have to kneel to eat again."

Gao Jiong hammered his fist on his chest armor, stood up, and walked quickly out of the study.

His footsteps had just disappeared at the end of the corridor when Zhang Wenqian's voice rang out from in front of the desk, carrying a kind of emotion that had been suppressed for a long time before being squeezed out.

"Zhuguo, this subordinate has followed you for four years and thought that the siphon pipe was already your most shocking masterpiece."

He dropped his gaze to the position where the silk scroll that Gao Jiong had just taken away had originally been placed.

"Today I learned that the siphon pipe changed the land, but this Political Commissar system changes the human heart."

Chen Yan did not look back; his finger tapped the window frame for the last time.

"Changing the human heart is ten thousand times harder than changing the land."

His voice drifted back from the edge of the window frame, carrying a fatigue that even Red Leaf had rarely heard.

"But if we don't change it, this army will never grow bones."

Three days later, the news that the Lecture Hall was about to open spread throughout the entire Xia Prefecture.

The reaction in the army was divided into two extremes.

The young soldiers at the bottom and the new recruits from refugee backgrounds were so excited they couldn't sleep, feeling that the Zhuguo was finally going to give them a chance to get ahead.

But those old-school deputy generals and remnants of the old warlords who had entrenched themselves in the army for many years were like cats whose tails had been stepped on.

Late at night, in a desolate temple thirty miles outside Tongwan City, four oil lamps illuminated four gloomy faces, flickering on and off.

All four were wearing casual military clothes, and the swords at their waists were tightly wrapped with cloth strips to prevent them from clashing and making noise.

The pockmarked deputy general sitting at the very head slammed the wine bowl in his hand onto the stone table, and the wine splashed out.

"Once the Political Commissar system is spread, we will all be finished; with a Political Commissar in the battalion staring at us all day, who would still dare to eat phantom pay? Who would still dare to drink the soldiers' blood?"

A deputy general with a handlebar mustache opposite him bit his back teeth.

"It's not just about eating phantom pay; think about it, the Political Commissar reports directly to the Zhuguo, so will we generals who lead troops still be able to have a say in the battalion in the future?"

The third person was a short, fat commandant, his voice pressed to a level that only the four of them could hear.

"The opening ceremony of the Lecture Hall is in three days, and the Zhuguo will be there in person, with the entire army observing."

His gaze swept across the faces of the other three.

"If we want to act, we should take advantage of that time."

The pockmarked deputy general's eyeballs turned twice in the lamp light.

"What do you mean?"

The short, fat commandant took a crumpled slip of paper from his bosom and unfolded it on the stone table.

"On the day of the opening ceremony, our people will mix into the observing crowd, and when the Zhuguo goes up to speak, we will take the lead in making noise, shouting that the Political Commissar system is an insult and a purge of the old soldiers in the army."

His finger drew a heavy line next to a line of text on the slip of paper.

"As long as we make a scene, those in the army who are dissatisfied with the Political Commissar system will follow suit; by then, the Zhuguo will be in a difficult position, and even if he doesn't withdraw the Political Commissar, he will have to lose a lot of face at the opening ceremony."

The handlebar-mustache deputy general sneered.

"Enough, let Chen Yan know that the old bones in the army are not so easy to chew!"