Chapter 1069: The Student Recruits

Then there were the three paternal cousins Qi Hu, Qi Bao, and Qi Biao. Qi Hu and Qi Bao were both slick and clever, while Qi Biao excelled at staff techniques. These fellows horsed around together all day long. When they introduced themselves, someone remarked coldly, "They carry a salty tang," though no one knew what that meant.

The Cai family had four juniors enrolled. They were all very withdrawn and never showed any inclination to argue or clash with others. There were quite a few scattered individuals like this — the sort who tagged along after others, flattering and trying to get close. Though people this age usually did it with little subtlety, their peers still couldn't see through it. Ge Tianfeng only had a vague sense of it, but couldn't put it into words.

Unlike the student recruits who banded together because of shared clan lineage or other reasons, there was another group in this Third Class that Ge Tianfeng found very strange. The strangeness lay in the fact that these people ought to have formed cliques, yet they never did — they even deliberately kept their distance from one another. They all shared the same surnames: over a dozen Zhaos, over a dozen Dongs, and some Shis and Jis as well. They were all very diligent in their studies and training, but usually remained silent and tight-lipped, avoiding gathering together as much as possible. They would rather play and mingle with people from other groups. Contact among those with the same surname, and between these several surnames, was also very rare.

Relying on the experience he had gained among the refugee columns, Ge Tianfeng keenly sensed that all the other student recruits in the martial academy held these people in awe and reverence, yet at the same time kept a kind of bone-deep distance from them. Why this was so, Ge Tianfeng had no idea. He was an outsider, outside every circle, and could only pick up scattered fragments of hearsay.

"... The Wang and Zhou families are all over in trade and land reclamation..." "... The Chen family are outsiders; those locals trying to latch onto them have all been blocked outside..." "... The Liu and Lei families do have a few relatives, but they stopped associating long ago. Now they're treated as outsiders too..." Words like these. But he couldn't really understand them either. Apart from the circles mentioned above, there were just ordinary student recruits — no circle of their own, but working hard to edge closer to one. Only Ge Tianfeng had nowhere to go.

In the Third Class of the Xuzhou Martial Academy, Ge Tianfeng was always taken for a boy of thirteen or fourteen. No one would have guessed he was already sixteen or seventeen — though Ge Tianfeng himself couldn't clearly remember his own age either. Having never eaten a full meal since childhood, he was naturally short in stature, thin and small of frame. And compared to everyone else, who had robust physiques and martial foundations — some even possessed the basics of military formations — Ge Tianfeng had nothing at all.

Ge Tianfeng had always been muddled and ignorant, but he did have one feeling: inside this martial academy, he had the chance to eat his fill every day, to live in a tidy house that kept out the wind and rain, and perhaps even to rise above his station. In the past, this was something he wouldn't have dared even dream of. Yet Ge Tianfeng very much wanted to seize these chances — just as he had when he got to eat flatbread beneath the walls of Jining City and struggled to stay alive.

There were no slackers among the student recruits in the Third Class. Before coming, every one of them had been exhorted at length by parents and elders at home. Once here, the instructors' whips also made a person diligent. Those sons of various families and the leaders of each circle competed with one another, fearing to fall behind and lose face. And among so many hardworking student recruits, Ge Tianfeng's diligence could rank in the upper-middle tier.

He had never studied martial arts, never marched in formation, didn't even know the rules. If he couldn't grasp something in one go, then he would drill it over and over until he mastered it. Every time a lesson or drill ended and everyone else gathered in their groups to rest, Ge Tianfeng kept drilling without pause. He rose the earliest and slept the latest. What others could learn in a quarter-hour, he could learn in half an hour, or an hour. At first, he couldn't keep up with many lessons, but gradually he caught up.

"Lucky for you our martial academy provides meals without limit and keeps physicians and pill-medicines on hand. Otherwise, with the way you push yourself to the death, you'd have long since trained yourself into a wreck," one instructor remarked. Ge Tianfeng still didn't quite understand what he meant. He only knew that his thin, small body was gradually filling out and thickening, that he recovered faster and faster each day, and that his strength was growing.

Ge Tianfeng couldn't comprehend much of what was taught in the martial academy; he simply couldn't grasp it. Fortunately, the material wasn't difficult — rote memorization and bitter practice could always get him through. Take the martial arts instruction, for example. The Third Class had six instructors in total. Two of them possessed quite impressive skills and had once demonstrated blade and staff in public — truly, not a drop of water could get through; it dazzled the eyes. The other four instructors all had some disability; one of them was even disfigured. They had little martial skill to speak of. With a long spear or the like in hand, all they knew were simple thrusts and parries.

These six instructors had quarreled openly several times over what sort of skills ought to be taught to the student recruits. Ge Tianfeng was baffled each time, thinking, shouldn't they learn the dazzling stuff? What was this simple thrusting and poking supposed to be? One side said that since they were learning martial arts, they ought to learn all the moves and forms — battlefield skills could surely be learned later. The other side said learning martial arts was useless; for killing and wounding, battlefield methods were sufficient. The student recruits below didn't dare voice their opinions on this, though in private they all talked about wanting to learn the one with the forms.

In truth, many student recruits said in private that those two instructors didn't understand how things worked. The other four instructors were all household retainers who had retired after being wounded. The combat techniques they used were precisely the battlefield methods of the Zhao Battalion. For those two instructors to think that was no good — weren't they just asking for trouble? They'd surely be pressured into changing their tune. But no bullying or throwing weight around occurred. What came of it was a contest.

It began one-on-one. The instructor from the retainer background held a long spear; his opponent used a goose-quill saber and a staff. When they clashed, the long spear kept the distance between them under control at all times. It was hard for the attacks to catch the nimble opponent, but defense posed no problem. One bout ended in a dull draw. In the other bout, the retainer instructor seized the initiative and jabbed his opponent down with one thrust of the staff. Next, the other side also switched to long spears. The contest between the two sides grew even duller — just a standoff like that, a touch here, a jab there, until victory was decided in a flash. The instructor from the retainer side even taunted, "What happened to 'single saber breaking the spear'?"

The onlookers could see it clearly too. When those two instructors with good martial skills used long spears, they were no different from the retainer-background instructors. Then what use was learning those martial skills? After that, the student recruits were made to step into the arena and experience it for themselves. Recruits with martial foundations were led by the martial-arts instructors; those without were led by the retainer instructors. One side chose the weapons they were good at; the other side took only long spears and formed up to meet the enemy. The formation was also very crude.

Yet even so, the length of the spears and the attack and defense afforded by the formation gave the student recruits without martial skills a great upper hand. By this point in the comparison, everyone naturally knew what was better to learn. Those two instructors with good martial skills also conceded and agreed to teach everyone some simple, practical moves — something that could be used if one were ever caught alone.

This contest reminded Ge Tianfeng of his experiences in the rebel army of the Smelling Incense Sect. Over there, it seemed they also had to stand in formation and jab at people with long poles. So it turned out the skills he was learning here in Xuzhou were the same. The instructors' dispute left a deep impression on the student recruits, and everyone studied with great dedication. Not long after, Ge Tianfeng happened by chance to overhear that Ma Tongji telling someone, "The instructors put on that show for our benefit, so we'd learn well." Hearing that, Ge Tianfeng suddenly saw the light.

Physical conditioning — running without end, performing all sorts of simple movements, lifting and carrying various apparatuses. Formation drill — first learning to distinguish front from back, left from right, understanding the verbal commands, then forming up to march and run. Martial training was leveling a weighted long pole and repeating the motions of thrusting and retracting. Every item was mind-numbingly tedious and consumed vast amounts of physical energy. The student recruits gradually lost all inclination for idle chatter and amusement. Each day, after eating, they were urged to wash up, and then they slept straight through till dawn.

Those student recruits who stood out and excelled were very irritated by this sort of drilling. They often spoke enviously of the Second Class and First Class, saying that there one could learn how to lead troops and manage men, how to face battle and engage the enemy, ride horses and shoot arrows, and so on. They could also be led out to the various reclamation areas to observe formations in practice — all very interesting. But Ge Tianfeng felt none of that. He even found his current life very fulfilling, because he could master the drilling of these simple movements, and through unceasing bitter practice, he could even excel at them. Ge Tianfeng had already been praised in public by the instructors several times, which only fueled his drive further.

Apart from this drilling, the student recruits also had various labor duties. For example, cleaning the entire martial academy. The Second Class and First Class were assigned labor duties far, far less often than the Third Class. Cleaning the various areas, as well as the latrines and the livestock pens for oxen and horses — all of it fell to these student recruits. The tasks of moving stores in the armory and wiping down weapons also rested on the student recruits. They even had to go help in the mess hall, assisting with transporting provisions and vegetables and the like.

For commoner children and someone like Ge Tianfeng, such labor didn't seem like anything special. When you were fed and clothed every day, you ought to do this work. Those silent, distant juniors of the various surnames all had irritation and reluctance on their faces, yet they bustled about without a word of complaint. But those who clearly came from wealthy and noble backgrounds, the squad leaders and the like — they had objections. Some even went to the academy's head instructor to lodge a complaint, saying that instead of teaching proper subjects, they were being driven to do menial chores.

The consequence of complaining was being punished in public with a run of twenty laps, followed by cleaning the latrines alone. The person who carried out this punishment was none other than the head instructor. Only then did everyone realize that these tasks had been meant for them all along. The one-eyed head instructor said with a savage and terrifying look, "Don't think about leaving. Once you've entered, you must complete your training before you can get out. If you can't complete it, you can only go be a farmhand or a laborer. It won't matter who your family is."

These words finally made everyone abandon any other thoughts and obediently do their work and chores.

There were, however, a few labor tasks that everyone was willing to do — for instance, wiping down weapons, armor, and firearms. Long spears, pudao sabers, fire lances, bows and arrows, horse tack, and the regulation armor of the Zhao Battalion. Some of these were for the martial academy's own use; others were work orders sent over from the workshops. When everyone did this, the instructors and craftsmen would all be present, telling them the function of each part and how to disassemble and reassemble them. Only then would the wiping begin. Some spots needed oiling; other spots required rust to be scoured away. In the end, they even had to learn to sharpen blades.

Everyone was willing to learn these tasks. They could handle weapons, don armor, and even fiddle with fire lances. Blades, spears, and bows were one thing, but removing rust from armor and cleaning the barrels of fire lances were both very tedious jobs. Yet every student recruit did the work with meticulous care, each thinking of the day in the future when they themselves would use and wear these things. Ge Tianfeng understood too: letting everyone handle these items was precisely to let everyone learn how to use them.

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