Chapter 381: Only I Have My Own Law Chapter 381 Resource Era (4)

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

Level 3 Soldier Mu Tianhua drew a Xiaojianan cigarette from the white box, carefully lit it with a match, and took a deep drag.

Smoking is the lifestyle of the "Jiangning people"; Jiangning people on the West Continent, whether they smoked before or not, have all become smokers big and small. Through constant exposure, the natives of the West River Water Fortress also began learning to smoke.

Xiaojianan cigarettes were specially supplied to native soldiers. The Martial Arts Hall Port Procurement Department ordered them from the Jiangnan Cigarette Factory at a cost price of 3 mao per pack, no filter tip, hard box, belonging to B-grade military supplies.

The Procurement Department ordered 1,000 cases every two months, equivalent to 50,000 cartons, 500,000 packs, sold in places like the West River Water Fortress, and of course the price was also 3 mao.

These three mao are both three mao RMB and three iron coins.

Since Jin Douna became the Financial Officer of the West River Water Fortress, besides strengthening the verification system for financial expenditures, her main work was reforming the wage system, more precisely reforming the currency system.

One copper coin equals one copper cash coin, equals one yuan RMB; this exchange rate is a fixed exchange rate, handled by the Credit Union specially established by the West River Water Fortress for exchange. Including Yu Weichao, the "Jiangning people," and all natives subordinate to the West River Water Fortress, will receive wages based on the RMB standard.

Soldier wages are distributed according to Chinese soldier allowance figures. Level 3 Soldier is the highest rank among soldiers, monthly allowance 45 yuan RMB, that is 45 copper coins, paid weekly, about 11 coins each time, ten times the daily income of Ma La commoners.

Although this figure is high, considering the huge wealth gap on the West Continent, a weekly income of 11 copper coins merely brings native soldiers into the middle class.

If one becomes a native sergeant, that's impressive. In the reformed soldier system, Level 4 Soldier equals Level 1 Sergeant, allowance paid at 300 yuan RMB per month, instantly increased sevenfold. This is actually an officer's salary model. Their work is basically officer-ized; in future development directions, half of squad-below officers will be held by native officers. Thanks to China's conscription system, there are quite a few retired soldiers born in Jiangbei; sending them out as low-rank officers or sergeants is no problem, while technical positions continue to be filled by "Jiangning people," supplemented by some South Americans.

In front of Mu Tianhua, operating the computer inside the Humvee was South American uncle Tino Lonya, a name very hard to remember. His job was to classify and photograph the ore collected by soldiers, then attach labels, and mark locations on an irregular temporary electronic map. Having native soldiers do this work would worry them to death; considering the locality doesn't even have nine years of compulsory education, actually, natives who can quickly count to 21 are smart and talented young people.

Young people from many poor South American countries aren't much better off, but after all quite a few have received higher education. For example, Uncle Tino Lonya finished middle school in Brazil, hoping to go to the United States to find a good job, then make a large sum of money to return home and marry a beauty...

Now it seems impossible. Whether South Americans' salaries are good has not yet been discussed—in the past few months, the gentlemen from South America experienced various troubles that Jiangning people hadn't experienced in over a year. They first planned several escape actions; after receiving stick education, they turned to group resistance; after being stick-educated again, then strikes and hunger protests; still stick education.

Nowadays, about half of the South Americans have begun working obediently, while the rest continue in a state of semi-starvation; in She Lei's view, let them starve to death. There were differing opinions within the Diamond Office Hall; unable to unify, they could only let things take their course, meaning those who starve to death during this period are considered to have died in vain.

Only when Chen Yi comes to the West Continent next time will Yu Weichao and others request instructions on this matter.

"It's lunchtime, everyone come eat lunch!" a native soldier shouted in half-baked "Jiangning speech"; those who can enter the Native Squad must be smart and hardworking natives, otherwise why earn ten times an ordinary person's salary? Learning Chinese is one of the standards; those who don't know won't even know how to eat.

Li Changning, responsible for education popularization, was initially very strange: why did native soldiers learn language so quickly? Later she learned that temples everywhere select smart natives to go to temples to study every year; this belongs to the West Continent's compulsory education, just with very weak popularization. But after thousands or tens of thousands of years of continuation, the talent for quickly learning language has almost penetrated to the bone marrow, as if genes had selected it; therefore their language ability is far stronger than Earth people's by leaps and bounds.

Now there are still many students who completely don't understand the West Continent common language.

Level 3 Soldier Mu Tianhua bit the cigarette mouthpiece, took one last deep drag, sucked the cigarette as dry as possible, then bent over to hoist the M2 Heavy Machine Gun and returned to the squad. This is something only West Continent soldiers can do; the Browning M2 empty gun alone weighs 38 kilograms; if not for safety and shooting convenience, the remaining 20-kilogram tripod and ammo box of considerable weight would also be hung on the same soldier. The 12.7mm heavy machine gun's stationary effect is obvious, and at sufficient distance, the effect is far better than automatic rifles. Now as long as field soldiers with Heavy Machine Gun Certificates almost all choose the M2 Browning; once a batch of lighter Type 95 and M60 General Purpose Machine Guns were sent, almost no one used them, because the distance was too close; for thick-armor fast targets like Heavy Cavalry and Saber-toothed Beasts, the effect was greatly reduced.

Large-scale use of the M2 Browning, besides making arms dealer Mordor happy, greatly increased the logistical pressure on the West River Water Fortress. However, even with the logistical demands of two regiments being high, material distribution within a radius of just dozens of kilometers could still be completed by the newcomers. This also promoted highway network construction from another aspect. Nowadays, besides Ma La itself, its surrounding areas have been filled with simple highways, like Chinese townships in the 1980s.

"Mu-ge first."

As soon as Mu Tianhua arrived before the cook, the soldiers all made way.

The West Continent's strict hierarchy system naturally was inherited by the native soldiers; high-ranking soldiers have absolute priority, including eating, changing weapons, purchasing and exchanging scarce materials, etc.

No one raised objections to this; He Qun and others from the regular army wanted to implement equality for all within the military, but no one responded, so it was dropped.

Mu Tianhua was completely unaware and felt nothing about this; now his eyes were full of white rice, and he shouted happily: "Rice grains, rice grains. Are there rice grains today too?"

"Didn't we say, as long as entering the war zone or combat state, there's good food every day." Answering was retired volunteer soldier Li Yizhuang, a smiling old soldier. Like most Chinese soldiers who had never been on a battlefield, Li Yizhuang served as a volunteer soldier for 12 years; after returning home he was still dirt poor, unable to support a wife and children, so he could only come "overseas" to be a mercenary; because he had been an old squad leader in the military for many years, he thus became a ready-made low-rank officer candidate, directly leading a native squad of 30 people.

"Eating rice grains every day, I really want to stay in the war zone for a lifetime." Another Level 3 Soldier, Mu Shan, laughed hehe. Their entire squad were people from Mu Village; compared to scattered squads and platoons, their combat power was stronger. And coming out to find ore also required their survival skills.

"If you ate rice grains every day, you'd get tired of them too." Li Yizhuang laughed and added a spoonful for him.

Mu Shan grinned and said: "Impossible; look at the noble lords in the city, they specially build estates just to eat rice grains."

"Eat too much meat and you want rice grains; eat too many rice grains and you want meat."

"The woods are full of meat; what's so rare about it. Rice grains are good; too bad they can't be taken home." Mu Shan stood right beside the rice bowl, shoved half a jin of rice into his mouth with a huala, reached out a hand: "Platoon Leader, another portion."

Li Yizhuang laughed hehe and filled it up for him again, laughing: "Aren't rice tickets sold at the Credit Union? Just go exchange them."

"Too expensive, not worth it." Mu Shan ate no meat or vegetables, just desperately shoveled rice, as if trying to earn it back.

Li Yizhuang shook his head helplessly, made himself a box of curry rice with a full box of Blue Ox Meat, and ate it with gusto. Having been in the military for a long time, eating pickled vegetables, radishes, and rice every meal, he was long tired of it; things like curry and barbecue were instead more attractive.

After coming to the West Continent, what Li Yizhuang felt was happiest was being able to eat foods from countries around the world he had never dared to imagine before; the West River Water Fortress had ample supplies—it actually amounted to a small town on the Jiangning side—to satisfy Earth people's spiritual life, first satisfying their appetites.

If it weren't that travel between the West Continent and Jiangning was too restricted, Li Yizhuang would want to bring his wife over.

Living in a corner of the county town, working at sunrise and sleeping at sunset every day, it really wasn't as enjoyable as in the West Continent.

Several Level 2 Soldiers silently filled their rice and hid at the table corner to speak quietly. Level 2 Soldiers were mostly Heavy Machine Gun Assistants or responsible for carrying ammo boxes and other combat materials; they had no qualification to laugh and talk loudly in front of Level 3 Soldiers. However, they had their own small circle; besides in public, privately talking with Level 3 and Level 4 Soldiers didn't require saluting or such—that was a privilege only officers had.

The hulu-lulu sound of shoveling rice, like a hungry ghost's hymn of praise, rose at the spacious lakeside.

In the woods by the lakeside, three Iron Workshop villagers hid in the bushes, staring at each other with wide eyes.

"Which wave of Jiangning people is this?" The leading villager's clothes were neat, not a bit out of place; he was exactly a resident of Ma La.

It's not easy to drill out from the Ring City Highway; another young man had a small braid, carried a backpack-like container filled with heavy objects, bending his waist. He leaned against a tree and said: "Third Team people; they're determined to find ore."

"Seems so. It's said their soldiers don't exceed a thousand."

"Their bullets, it's said are all pure copper; why bother robbing our livelihood."

"That's right; let's hide for two more days; after they all disperse, we can go back."

The three talked to themselves, but didn't notice that the direction Li Yizhuang's team was preparing to advance was exactly the lakeside woods where they were hiding.

... (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian. com) to cast recommendation tickets and monthly tickets; your support is my greatest motivation.)