Chapter 422: Scout Field (II)

The selection process was swift and brutal.

Because the single most critical criterion — "Marksmanship and Horsemanship" — screened out the vast majority of the slackers.

The slackers referred to here are not about character, but about a professional skill: riding horses.

Expertly controlling a warhorse and slashing a wooden stake's top with a blade at full gallop — this most basic tactical maneuver of cavalry immediately exposed all the unqualified men.

Riding a horse is just like driving a car for later generations; someone who has never trained specifically — never mind slashing at a gallop — is lucky just to stay on the horse's back without falling off.

So the impoverished sons of most guard units were brutally eliminated in the very first round. These men, on ordinary days, let alone riding a horse to cut down enemies, couldn't even eat their fill — where would they get a horse for you to ride?

Hence the saying: the poor pursue letters, the rich pursue arms. If you want to ride a horse, you must first own a horse; if you want to be an old hand at the wheel, you must first own a car.

Mei Fuxi's trio naturally breezed through this round with ease and delight. Mei Fuxi in particular, having studied real skills with the old soldiers of the guard unit since childhood, was highly adept in mounted arts. During the selection, he not only performed high-difficulty moves like "Stirrup Concealment" and "Underbelly Switch" in full view of everyone, but also slashed eight wooden stakes in succession at full gallop, winning thunderous applause from the whole crowd.

However, the subsequent "Secondary Registration" was refused by Mei Fuxi.

The so-called Secondary Registration was a registration carrying legal effect.

Given the requirements of this recruitment drive, anyone who could complete the mounted event had essentially already met the organizers' demands. As for the other assessments like archery and combat, those could only be considered icing on the cake, not playing any major role.

In the Transmigrators' plan, the combat mode for this King's Rescue operation was as follows: the army would set out in sequence, with one man assigned two or three horses.

Once the main force had wiped out a certain group of enemies in "enemy-occupied territory," the large Auxiliary Soldier units following behind would promptly arrive under wireless communication guidance and rapidly "sweep the battlefield."

And by that time, the main force would already have moved on to seek out and annihilate the next enemy group.

Under these circumstances, the so-called Auxiliary Soldiers were essentially a "neutered version" of elite cavalry. The Transmigrators had cut away these cavalrymen's combat attribute, but skills like long-distance raiding, mounted marching, field battles, and night camp raids were all mandated by the Transmigrators as must-haves.

So when Mei Fuxi displayed a brilliant hand of cavalry skills on the Scout Field, he was immediately led to the Clerical Staff below the command platform to prepare for Secondary Registration.

This registration was equivalent to formally "signing a contract." Unlike the earlier one, it carried legal significance. After a successful candidate signed the document and pressed his thumbprint, he could go and collect that one hundred taels of family settlement pay.

Yet Mei Fuxi refused.

His showboating objective for the day had been perfectly achieved; it was time to wrap up. As for following this whatever Southern General north to fight the Tartars… was that a joke?

The Great Ming's Nine Border Garrisons, boasting a million-strong army, had discarded their armor and fled before the Tartars, letting the enemy be driven right to the feet of Beijing. At this critical juncture, they were going to scrape together a few hundred men on the fly to fight the Tartars?

Mei Fuxi was neither stupid nor short on money, so he would not go. Most critically, he would not entrust his own life to a complete stranger of a Southerner.

War is no child's play — a truth Mei Fuxi, trained by the old soldiers since childhood, naturally understood. So what if the Southern General had silver? Having silver only proved this Regional Commander was generous, able to buy the poor wretches willing to sell their lives for him.

But what about military strategy? Command? Killing the enemy in battle? Following this kind of man into the field, you might step out the front door and lose your life the very next moment…

In fact, based on the day's selection situation, Mei Fuxi, from a military household lineage, had already largely seen through Cao Zong's innards: this group of Southerners was not skilled at riding, so they needed to buy some cavalry to go into battle and fight the Tartars, and finally take the heads to Beijing to claim merit.

Assessment complete.

Mei Fuxi was not alone in thinking this way; it was also the shared assessment of a portion of the veteran soldiers and merchant caravan guards present at the Scout Field that day — men with combat experience who only watched the excitement and did not take the field: Jinwei had plenty of Northern generals and soldiers familiar with cavalry warfare, so why entrust your life to a Southerner?

Thus, when the Xiao officer in charge of reception learned that this Brother Mei was unwilling to sign the contract and press his print, he could not help but shake his head: "A pity, brother, for such a fine set of skills."

Mei Fuxi could only manage an awkward laugh at this point.

Despite some discordant elements, the selection General Assembly continued bustling and lively throughout the entire morning.

After all, with over a thousand people present, there were still plenty willing to take the field and gamble on a chance, so every so often a burst of cheers would ring out across the Scout Field: either Zhang San's horsemanship was superb, or Li Si had hit the bullseye with consecutive arrows.

In short, in this era where the common people lacked spiritual entertainment, having someone spend silver to provide the venue, horses, and equipment and invite everyone to perform — this was tantamount to a local sports meet, and all participants were in high spirits… just watching the excitement alone made it worthwhile!

What was even more worthwhile was still to come.

At high noon, after the selection had come to a temporary halt, a string of large carts arrived from outside the Scout Field, the cart-driving lads all wearing the attire of some local restaurants familiar to the natives.

Lifted down from the carts were barrel after barrel of meat-stuffed flatbreads covered with cotton quilts.

At this, the Scout Field truly erupted in thunderous cheers: cries of "Cao Zong is magnificent" and "Cao Zong is righteous" rose and fell without end.

While flatbreads were being distributed over here, barrel after barrel of scalding tea was carried out from the Boiler Room over there. Instantly, the atmosphere across the entire Scout Field turned splendid; the thousand-plus martial men of Jinwei who had been blowing in the cold wind all morning began one and all to gnaw on flatbreads, drink hot tea, their faces wreathed in smiles.

The brothers below the platform were enjoying themselves in harmony, but the brothers atop the platform were not necessarily pleased.

At this moment, Zhang Dongdong and the other bigwigs, having likewise blown in the cold wind all morning, also began gnawing on flatbreads atop the command platform — the act of sharing hardships with the troops still had to be performed.

Still, conditions on the command platform were much better after all; not only was the fare richer, but there were charcoal braziers providing heating the entire time.

"Sir, those formally signed up so far number only one hundred and fifty." Just as the group was eating, the tally from below the platform came out.

Upon hearing this number, Comrade Zhang Dongdong, still chewing on pig head meat, froze: "Only this many men?"

This number was indeed a bit low.

Today was the first day of selection, the day with the most people coming, roughly twelve hundred. According to prior estimates, out of these thousand-plus martial men, they should at least have been able to scrape together one quarter — that is, three hundred qualified cavalrymen; that ratio would have been reasonable.

Building on that number, striving to recruit another hundred over the next two days would have met the minimum requirement.

Yet after an entire morning had passed, with the majority of people already tested, there were only one hundred and fifty?

Hearing the number reported up by the Clerical Staff below, Yao Jianshe, responsible for local intelligence work in Jinwei, stood up, walked down from the platform to exchange a few words with several inconspicuous individuals, then returned and said: "Many people did not take the field. They have misgivings and are unwilling to follow the Southern Soldiers north to throw their lives away."

"That makes more sense — I didn't think it could be that only this few men could ride horses, right?"

Having found the crux of the problem, they could now prescribe the right remedy: "Looks like they still lack confidence in us. Mm, it's time to flash the sword a bit, give the natives an eye-opener."

So the next moment, a beaming Xiao officer stood before the microphone on the command platform.

This Xiao officer, surnamed Wu, was a Tianjin native, and his local accent was witty and humorous — in later generations he would have been fully qualified to be a local TV host.

After Officer Wu took the platform, he first told a joke to liven up the atmosphere, then he expressed: The Regional Commander, after watching the splendid performances of the Jinwei heroes this morning, was deeply impressed, greatly moved, and had been shouting "666" the whole time.

Now that it was lunchtime, there ought to be some entertainment to spice things up. So the Regional Commander had just said, since the morning belonged to the performances of the Jinwei heroes, then during lunch, it should be his Southern Soldiers under his command who come to display their arts for everyone.

The voice coming out of the high-fidelity loudspeaker drew great praise from all the flatbread-eating masses — indeed, it was about time to let this bunch of Southern Soldiers show a couple of real skills, instead of strutting around all day with a sword and musket as if they were all that.

The entertainment program soon began.

First item: chest target shooting.

Ten breastplates were first sent up to the spectator seats, so that the Ming People could verify the sturdiness of the targets.

These breastplates were all of the Zhajia Armor Armor Armor style commonly used by the Ming Army.

Mei Fuxi, sitting among the crowd of military households, took a set of armor and pressed hard on it, discovering that the Zhajia Armor Armor Armor in his hands was quite solid. Whether the iron armor plates or the leather straps on the back, the workmanship was very fine, the plates fitting tightly together — clearly top-grade goods from the armory.

Mei Fuxi also spotted the mark of the Tianjin Left Guard on the inner lining. No need to guess; this armor was precisely what the General-in-Chiefs had taken out from the "armory" reserved for fine goods to sell to the Southern General.

After the targets were verified, the ten sets of armor were laid out horizontally in a row on the long tables in front of the flatbread-eating crowd.

Immediately after, ten Green Jacket Army soldiers stood far away beneath the wall at the other end of the Scout Field.

The reason it was called a Scout Field was precisely because of its large area, which allowed it to be used for reviewing troops. Thus, the Old Parade Ground had a diameter of 350 meters, just right for practicing marksmanship.

The Ming People, however, did not see it that way.

The Ming People, who had always regarded the Type 38 Rifle as a mere Bird Blunderbuss, had absolutely no concept of this gun's range, rate of fire, and power.

This led to the cake-eating crowd still stuffing their faces with cake at this moment, waiting for that row of Green Jacket Army soldiers in the distance to step forward — the Three-Eye Blunderbuss and Bird Blunderbuss had a range of no more than fifty paces; the southern-style Bird Blunderbuss looked a bit more refined, but a hundred paces was its absolute limit.

Yet in the next moment, amid a resounding cry of "Aim!", those ten soldiers swiftly raised their guns and began aiming at the breastplates over 300 meters away.

Immediately after a shout of "Fire at will!", white smoke spurted from the muzzles of the ten rifles, and almost at the exact same instant, the breastplates before the cake-eating crowd were struck one after another.

Under the astonished gazes of over a thousand people, some of these breastplates were knocked over, some were even sent jumping into the air, and most were pierced through with two holes, green smoke rising from the bullet holes.

Yet this was only the beginning.

In just the next half minute, those ten elite marksmen fired five more volleys at lightning speed, sending all the breastplates staggering and reeling, their plates cracking and shattering, with several even torn into pieces.

At this moment, every single person in the cake-eating crowd stood up; at least a hundred of them gaped in shock, the pig head meat dropping from their mouths.