He also visited the blacksmith in the village. During this lean season, the life of the villagers was already hard, and the two blacksmiths had nothing to do all day long. When they heard that Lin Dong wanted to make weapons, they were very happy to take on the job.

They also said that as long as Lin Dong is willing to take care of the food, they don't have to pay for it.

The only thing that worries them is that it is illegal to forge weapons privately, which is a serious crime of beheading. They both have some concerns in their hearts.

Lin Dong understood the concerns of the two people very well, and immediately took out the document stamped with the seal of the county magistrate.

Both of them were illiterate, so they found a literate villager to read the document to them before they felt at ease.

According to Lin Dong's idea, it is not appropriate to recruit rural soldiers in the same village. After all, the village is full of relatives and friends. Although some are about the same age as himself, they are older than him. This is not conducive to management.

In addition, these people in the village are too familiar with themselves, which is not good for training new recruits. Even if they want to recruit, they have to wait until later.

In Lin Dong's memory, because the Ming Dynasty army was under the control of guards, after a long time, everyone in the army became related to each other. If such an army goes smoothly, it will naturally be extremely brave in battle, but once it encounters

When it comes to tough battles, problems will emerge.

Because the officials and the soldiers are all related, if the soldier runs away at this time, do you want to kill him or not?

If you kill someone, everyone will be related, and if you kill someone, everyone will have a grudge against you.

If you don't kill, the problem will be even bigger. If one person runs, everyone will follow, and the entire army will be in chaos.

This is the fundamental reason why Lin Dong is unwilling to recruit villagers to join Xiangyong.

Of course, there is one exception, that is the guy named Li Da who went to the back mountain with him before.

It can be seen from what happened last time that Li Da is a good talent. First of all, this man is honest and courageous. He is also an Orion and is extremely agile and powerful. When he was fighting against the bandits in the back mountain, he was the first one to jump.

He went out and stabbed the bandit to death. He was a soldier.

There is another reason. This Li Da is an outsider and has no foundation in Linjia Village. Even if he follows him, he will not show off in front of him.

When Lin Dong came to Li's house, Li Da was sweeping the floor in the yard. Hearing that Lin Dong wanted to train rural soldiers, he threw away his broom and followed Lin Dong out of the house.

According to Li Da's words, the family has long been poor and has no money left at all. It is no longer possible to open the pot. Instead of staying at home and starving to death, it is better to follow Lin Dong and fight hard. Even if he dies, he must be a well-fed ghost.

Lin Dong was very satisfied with this. The army needs people who dare to fight and fight. Such people are courageous. As expected, in the following days, this Li Da was brave and brave all the way, and eventually became Lin Dong's important

arm.

Now, Lin Dong has his own team. Although there are only two people, he is not discouraged. Didn't Liu Xuande start out with three people at the beginning?

Although my number is a little smaller now, it's not that big of a difference.

In the next two days, Lin Dong and the two began to recruit new soldiers.

Originally, Lin Dong thought that recruiting new soldiers was very difficult. After all, in this era, military households had little status.

However, when he and Li Da set up the recruitment stall, they realized that they were really wrong, and how wrong they were.

Because, within less than one stick of incense, there was already a long queue in front of the table.

How did Lin Dong know that the people of the Ming Dynasty were living very hard lives now, and since it was the lean season, many people had begun to rely on bran-fed vegetables to survive.

Suddenly I heard that someone was recruiting soldiers, and they were recruiting local warriors. These people's minds immediately became active. Isn't this just a free place to eat for young people like them who have no food to eat?

Generally speaking, Xiangyong does not need to participate in combat, that is, he only goes to train for a month or two.

According to the experience of those who have participated in the training of rural soldiers before, rural soldiers are paid, although it is not much, it is better than nothing, and it is much better than sitting at home and having nothing to do.

Of course, the most important thing is that participating in Xiangyong means that you can have enough to eat every day.

As long as there is food to eat, there is nothing to do but to do, so what if you go to the battlefield? It is better to die in battle than to die of starvation.

Looking at the crowded team, Lin Dong was secretly angry. If he didn't have enough money to support so many people, he would really like to recruit thousands of people.

But he couldn't realize this idea at all. After all, he only had so little money. If he really wanted to recruit so many people, he might not be able to survive for a day.

Therefore, Lin Dong had to follow the original plan, suppress the impulse in his heart, and start recruiting soldiers.

Lin Dong had little experience in recruiting soldiers, but fortunately he had read "Jiangnan Classics" written by Hu Zongxian's aide Zheng Ruozeng. This book detailed Qi Jiguang's criteria for recruiting soldiers.

The book introduces Qi Jiguang's recruitment standards: those who have been in the market cannot be recruited, those who like to show off their skills and embroidery cannot be recruited, those who are over forty years old cannot be recruited, and those who have worked in government agencies cannot be recruited.

Anyone who has fair skin, is smart in action, and has no scruples when seeing people from the government is not eligible.

Because these people are often old fools and are completely unreliable at critical moments. Not only will they run away on their own, they will definitely drag others along with them.

If they are caught by their superiors, they are eloquent enough to defend themselves. Such people are like rat shit in the military.

What he wants are those honest country men with strong skin and strong skin. Only such people are easy to command and can win battles.

Qi Jiguang's recruitment requirements can be summarized as follows: Muscular men with well-developed limbs and simple minds, honest and law-abiding people, obedient to the government, dare to fight tough battles, dare to charge without fear of death, and have the character of a fool.

Qi Jiguang's methods of running the army were often borrowed and inherited by later generations. The most famous one is Zeng Guofan, the founder of the Hunan Army in the Qing Dynasty.

Lin Dongshen was convinced of Qi Jiguang's conscription standards, and he immediately learned from them without being polite.

Although he has some confidence in his own training, time is urgent now and he is not willing to waste time on those soldiers.

Although the conditions are harsh, in this troubled world where a few buckets of rice can buy a young lady, there are not many other important people everywhere.

Some people even quarreled over serving as soldiers under Lin Dong. If Lin Dong hadn't ordered everyone to line up according to regulations, and those who violated the rules would never be hired, I'm afraid there would have been a bloody incident.

Although Lin Dong's conditions for recruiting soldiers were very harsh, in the face of a shortage of monks, the fifty-man team was quickly recruited.

When he brought this group of people back to the village, a question arose, that is, where to live?

This problem gives Lin Dong a headache. It seems that starting something from scratch is indeed a headache.

Fortunately, he holds the county magistrate's document in his hand, so it shouldn't be a problem to find a piece of land on the mountain as a military base.

Soon, he took his assistant Li Daman to search for him all over the mountain.

Regarding the military base, Lin Dong only has two requirements:

The first is to have convenient transportation, so as to facilitate the transportation of materials. Although he does not have much property now, the army will develop.

In the future, the army will expand its recruitment, and if transportation is inconvenient, it will have a great impact on training.

The second is that the place must be spacious. In his plan, the army must have at least two thousand people. If the number is too small, it will not be able to form a combat effectiveness. If there are too many people, he cannot support it for a while.

After some searching, the two finally found such a place.

What makes Lin Dong happy is that not only is the transportation here convenient, but the place is spacious, and behind the flat land is a large mountain with many trees, which is perfect for building a military camp.

So Lin Dong directly brought the team over, organized these people into five teams, and began to build the military camp.

Lin Dong was a little worried at first, but after they saw the performance of these rural soldiers, their worries disappeared.

He found that this group of rural soldiers had really rich labor skills. Not only could some of them be carpenters, but some of them knew civil engineering skills and were proficient in digging holes and building houses. They even had a few cooks.

Looking at this group of poor people from the countryside, Lin Dong felt various emotions in his heart. Such an outstanding group of people were about to starve to death in this damn troubled world.

"Don't worry, follow me Lin Dong, I will never let you continue to starve." Lin Dong secretly swore in his heart.

The rural soldiers seemed to hear the voice in Lin Dong's heart and worked harder and harder.

In a few days, a brand new military camp was built. This was a military camp built completely in accordance with Lin Dong's modern standards.

There are many facilities in the military camp that have never appeared in this era. According to Lin Dong, as a qualified soldier, you must strengthen training. Only by sweating more on the training ground can you bleed less on the battlefield.

These facilities are used to enhance training.

At this time, the advantages of these honest recruits are revealed. If they are more cunning, they will definitely ask around, making people panic.

These fools don't care about this. They don't understand the use of these things, and they don't even bother to inquire about them. As long as it is the request of the superior, they will do it. As for what it is used for, they don't care at all. They just take care of the food anyway.

After settling the affairs of the military camp, Lin Dong began to build weapons. He took Li Da to Linjia Village again.

After he explained his purpose, the villagers in Linjia Village were very happy and took out all the unused hoes and sickles from their homes, and they didn't want Lin Dong's money.

Some villagers who hated the bandits so much that they even gave their extra farm tools to Lin Dong. There were even enthusiastic people who were willing to help Lin Dong go to the next village to collect the unwanted iron tools. Of course, they were not completely free, and they still had to eat.

No matter what.

Lin Dong wanted to give them some wages to thank them, but they refused to accept it, saying that as long as Lin Dong eliminated the bandits, that would be the best way to express his gratitude to them.

Lin Dong was also very moved by this and immediately stated that he would definitely wipe out the bandits this time.

What moved Lin Dong even more was what happened later. When the villagers knew that they went to kill bandits without armor, they all took out the leather they had collected at home. The women were even willing to help Lin Dong make these animal skins into leather armor.

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Chapter completed!