Chapter 312: Talent Cultivation Plan

Because Baifeng wanted them to thoroughly understand the military camp he envisioned, he had them bring their tents when training began, set them up in a long row on the training ground, and live there for ten consecutive days. At first, these men were afraid that Baifeng might stage a surprise emergency assembly in the middle of the night, but Baifeng just thought that he couldn't get up himself; once he hit the bed, he wouldn't know anything, so how could he go and torment others?

However, there was no problem now; even though it wasn't dark yet, he had to let them experience an emergency assembly so that they could handle tormenting those new recruits more skillfully in the future.

Baifeng estimated the time; they should have just taken off their equipment and be dismantling the tents by now, so Baifeng got up and walked slowly toward the training ground. Sure enough, he saw that more than half of the tents had already been taken down, as they were all helping each other dismantle them.

Baifeng walked over with a smile on his lips, then blew the whistle. Just as everyone felt that something terrible was about to happen, Baifeng roared: "Emergency assembly! Everyone, full gear, five minutes, fall into formation!"

Everyone was stunned for only a second or two, then immediately threw down what was in their hands and quickly searched for their equipment to start putting it on. Those who hadn't taken off their armor were quite relaxed; they didn't rush or panic, but tidied up their own armor and were even able to help those around them put theirs on.

Baifeng counted down three hundred seconds on the side. Because there was no accurate timer, their concept of time was not particularly clear; there was only a Sundial, which allowed one to see the flow of time clearly when there was sun.

Before Baifeng finished counting down, with less than a minute left, everyone was fully equipped and standing together neatly, meticulous, waiting for Baifeng to issue the next order.

During this period, except for the theory classes, everything else was open, and everyone could watch from the outside. Therefore, seeing that such a troop of several dozen people could actually be so excellent and meticulous, everyone was very satisfied and looked forward to building a truly good army like this in the future.

The previous army really couldn't be counted as an army. Those former soldiers, seeing that their King could actually train an army like this, accepted Baifeng's outrageous requirements for the army and recognized their own shortcomings.

Some who were unwilling to endure this hardship had already planned to go farm or work at construction sites, while those who had regrets in their hearts and wanted to prove themselves, or simply wanted to be supported by the state, were already restless, just waiting for recruitment to start again so they could join. Those who had nothing to do with the army before now saw this and also wanted to enter; after all, that armor and the Changdao were truly majestic.

Baifeng stopped the countdown, walked in front of the crowd, smiled very happily, and then said to everyone: "Congratulations everyone, you have now truly graduated!"

Afterward, he began to clap. The people below dared not turn their heads and could only peek at each other with their peripheral vision.

Baifeng gave his final lecture: "You can pack up your things now; there won't be any more emergency assemblies today. Tomorrow, go to your respective departments to work. Then, for the Ministry of War, start posting notices tomorrow to prepare for recruitment. After recruitment, train them according to what I taught you, including practical training and theory, all the same."

Xiong was the first to react, giving Baifeng a military salute. The other soldiers who were watching saw someone take the lead and also quickly gave a military salute. After Baifeng returned the salute, he left. Now that Baifeng's training for them was over, he wouldn't need to worry too much about the subsequent conscription and troop training.

As the days passed, every department of the government got on the right track, and Baifeng's pressure was reduced a lot. His main focus now was to take advantage of the time to quickly compile textbooks.

The students' textbooks only contained writing and Mathematics. Baifeng did not need them to be able to write beautiful essays or have great writing expression skills; he only needed them to be able to recognize and write enough characters.

Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced books were the compulsory courses for students of the three age groups in their school. There was also Mathematics, which was also divided into three levels: Primary Mathematics covered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; Intermediate included combinations and solving equations; and Advanced involved some laws. Baifeng's requirement for ordinary students was to master Primary Mathematics; Intermediate and Advanced were not required. If they could understand and master these two levels, they could enter the Middle School to learn other professional knowledge, which was generally for cultivating and sending talent to the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue.

For the writing course, they learned one book per school year. If they couldn't learn it, they would be held back. If they were held back for three years, they would no longer need to study and would prepare to learn other crafts—farming or working as manual laborers at construction sites—anyway, he wouldn't let them waste scarce educational resources.

The school's teachers were all concurrently held by people from various departments. Everyone had to set aside a few days a week to teach. In the future, Baifeng might specially cultivate a few teachers.

These two subjects were compulsory. After reaching Middle School, other subjects would be added. Because after this year ended, the first batch of middle school students would enroll, and Baifeng hadn't finished writing the textbooks yet, so he was still taking time to compile them. He didn't know what exactly to teach.

Finally, Baifeng decided on the three major subjects: Natural Science, Medicine, and Agriculture. Natural Science contained a very mixed variety of things, all of which were basic knowledge that Baifeng could think of. After finishing this book, Baifeng would use exams to assign scores based on the content proportion. Students who did well in certain areas and also had talent and intelligence would be given time by Baifeng for in-depth teaching in those areas.

Medicine was naturally for selecting talent for the Ministry of Health; there would only be more and more shortages of doctors in the future, so it was better to cultivate them early. And Agriculture was naturally to teach how to farm, how to farm scientifically, and how to breed and select seeds.

Baifeng's department did not lack those illiterate bottom-level laborers; what it lacked was relatively high-level talent. For example, in Agriculture, the most capable person now was Geng, who studied soybeans. Even Baifeng was not as good as him now. It was because of Geng's existence that soybeans had become the crop with the highest yield and widest planting area in Huaxia. Although they didn't taste as good as Wheat or rice, this could feed more people. People in this era didn't care if things tasted good or not; they only cared about whether they could eat their fill.

In Middle School, Baifeng didn't care about the pass rate. As long as there was excellent performance in any aspect, they would be sent to various departments to gain experience in actual work as reserve talent.

The reason why knowledge like that of the Ministry of Works didn't need to be taught was that they followed the apprenticeship system; their people didn't need to know many characters, what was important was how much work they could do.