Lin Dong knew clearly that after more than a month of training, although these people admired him, they did not follow him wholeheartedly, and their hearts were still divided.

That's why he did this, the purpose is to make these people completely turn to him and make them devote themselves wholeheartedly to the collective of Anton Army.

After all, an army that cannot be united has no fighting effectiveness.

In this way, he will peel off those wavering soldiers, and the remaining ones will be those with a firm mind, and the cohesion of the army will also be improved.

In fact, he didn't have much confidence in his move at first. After all, he was not a regular army and could break up at any time. These people's willingness to stay showed their trust in him. Lin Dong was also very moved by this.

Soon, only three of the twenty-nine people were still where they were, still looking hesitant.

"Daniu, I didn't expect you to be such a coward. Thanks to the general who treats you so well, you actually want to leave at this time." Just as the three people were wavering, a big man said angrily.

"General, I'm not a coward, my Danniu is not a coward, it's just my mother..." The strong man called Daniu actually burst into tears in front of everyone.

Daniu's surname is Cheng. He is a villager in Chengjia Village. There is no one else in the family except an old lady. Originally, the family still had two acres of land. But just last year, the chief security officer of the clan, Cheng Dafu, took Cheng Daniu out to work and even coaxed and deceived the general.

Two acres of Sushuo farmland from his home were defrauded.

After Daniel came back, he was furious and immediately went to find Cheng Dafu. Unfortunately, Cheng Dafu's family was so large that he was unable to defeat him with just two fists. Not only was he unable to get the land deed back, he was also beaten severely and had to lie down on the bed for a long time.

It took more than a month to get to the ground.

If his mother hadn't spent all her wealth and went to the city to hire a doctor to pull him back from the gate of hell, he would have gone to the Palace of Hell long ago, and how could he still be standing here.

From then on, his family lived in embarrassment, and in order to survive, he became a long-term worker for the landlord's family.

For the past year, Cheng Daniu has worked as a cow or horse for the landlord to barely support himself and his wife. If he continues like this, he will starve.

Lin Dong thought about Cheng Daniu's life experience and said loudly, "Daniu, are you willing to be a soldier?".

"I do, but my mother... it's not easy for her to pull me along. I don't want her to be alone..."

"Daniu, if you really have plans for your mother, you can join the army with me. In this troubled world, can you support your mother by going home and farming? Think about it for yourself..." Daniu's good friend Cheng

Yong shouted.

"Cheng Yong, you are right. If you don't serve as a soldier, my mother will starve to death." A trace of determination flashed in Daniel's eyes, and he said: "General, I, Daniel, am willing to follow the general..."

"Soldier Daniel, I'll give you three days off, go back and settle down with your mother..." Lin Dong is very satisfied with Daniel. As a man, as a soldier, you must be decisive, and he has this spirit of not wanting to give up his loved ones.

It is also highly praised by Lin Dong.

"My grandson, Ergou, is willing to follow the general..."

"I, Tian Laowu, are willing to follow the general..."

Seeing that Da Niu chose to stay, the last two soldiers also made their choice. Both of them were Da Niu's childhood friends. They had been hanging out with Da Niu since they were young, and over time they developed feelings for each other.

The last three people chose to stay, which made Lin Dong very satisfied. He invested a lot of energy in these people, and even bet all his wealth on them. If he loses so many for no reason, he doesn't know how long he will be heartbroken.

Fortunately, the investment was huge and the rewards were very gratifying. Not only did he successfully wipe out the bandits this time, he also left a group of good officers behind.

With this group of people as the foundation, we will develop the army in the future. Now that we have mid-level and low-level officers, we can build the framework of the entire army.

By then, it will be much easier to expand our strength. After gathering the morale of the army, there is still one thing that needs to be dealt with, and that is the soldiers who died in battle.

Lin Dong immediately ordered Su Yi to take out the list of soldiers who died in the battle, and then announced in public: "If there are brothers or sons in the family who died in the battle, one of the brothers is allowed to join the army and receive military pay."

"If there are no other brothers or sons, and there are underage children in the family who need to be supported, Antonjun will distribute supplies every month according to the standard until the children grow up."

"If there are parents at home who have no one to support them, Antonjun will provide monthly subsidies according to the standard..."

As soon as these policies came out, everyone took a breath. The general was indeed benevolent and righteous. Even if he died in battle, he would receive such benefits. If you follow such an officer and don't serve your life wholeheartedly, are you still a human being?

Seeing everyone's eyes shining brightly, Lin Dong secretly rejoiced: "I don't believe that I can't bribe you people."

After making arrangements, Lin Dong began to prepare for the expansion of the army.

"Everyone, although our Anton Army has successfully wiped out the bandits since its establishment, our Anton Army is not strong enough yet. We need to accumulate strength. The best way to accumulate strength is to expand the army!" Lin Dongdang was about to take this early step.

The deliberated decision was made.

"General, do you really want to form a regular army?" After hearing what Lin Dong said, accountant Su Yi asked anxiously.

"Yes, only by forming a full-time army can we improve the combat effectiveness of the army. Once we encounter war, we can better protect our relatives and fellow villagers."

"However, forming a regular army requires documents from the court. As far as I know, the general does not have them..."

"Don't worry about this. The general has his own plans. Of course, before I get the formal documents, we will still recruit troops in the name of rural soldiers."

According to Lin Dong's idea, he now has a lot of money. When the new army is formed, he will go to Nanjing and find the Ministry of War to buy a Qianhu officer. At that time, his country hero will be transformed into a regular soldier.

force.

Seeing that he looked confident, Su Yi fell silent. In fact, it was not that he had no doubts about Lin Dong, but it was not easy to dampen his enthusiasm.

As far as he knew, it was not easy to get an official position. I wonder where General Lin got his confidence!

Lin Dong ignored Su Yi and continued: "The scale of this military expansion is determined to be 1,500 people. I hope that all of you can work together to complete this military expansion."

Then he made some arrangements for military expansion.

According to Lin Dong's arrangement, the expansion of the army must be rigorous, and the recruitment standards cannot be changed. It is still the same as it was before, and it cannot be relaxed just because the number of soldiers increases. He even ordered that if there are no suitable soldiers, the number can be reduced, and it is better to have a shortage than to overfill.

In the end, the task of recruiting troops was handed over to Li Da, while he himself concentrated on studying the drawings of fire starters.

According to his memory, there was another type of firearm that appeared in history, and that was the flintlock gun.

Mahan, a Frenchman who was born in a family of gunsmiths, locksmiths and watchmakers in the mid-16th century, was determined to change the shortcomings of revolving muskets. In his eyes, revolving muskets were complex in structure, expensive to build, and when the steel wheel was contaminated,

Can't reliably fire yet

After research, he improved the musket by removing the spring steel wheel and clamping a flint on the jaw of the hammer. There was an anvil next to the fire hole. When shooting, pull the trigger.

Under the action of the spring, the flint was hit hard on the edge of the fire door, causing sparks to ignite the gunpowder and fire it.

The flintlock gun greatly simplifies the shooting process, improves the firing rate and shooting accuracy, is easy to use, and has low cost, making it easy to mass produce.

It's just that in this poor Ming Dynasty, it was indeed difficult to produce flintlock guns.

According to historical records, the emergence of flintlock guns was due to the rapid development of European science and technology at that time. The mining, metallurgy and machinery manufacturing industries began to adopt mechanical devices, using manpower, animal power, wind power, water power and mechanical traction to greatly increase production capacity.

Improvements, and even the emergence of tons of hydraulic hammers and high-quality steel, have provided favorable conditions for firearms manufacturing.

It seems that if we want to improve production conditions, we can no longer rely solely on human forging.

So the idea was born in his mind - to move the camp.

The recruitment process went very smoothly, especially after the people heard that the Anton Army was the army that wiped out the bandits, their enthusiasm for joining the army immediately increased, and the number of people who signed up also increased.

Li Da did not dare to be careless about Lin Dong's orders and carried out everything according to his orders.

Even so, within a few days, they had recruited 1,500 people, and Lin Dong was very satisfied with this.

As the saying goes, some people are happy and some are sad. When Su Yi heard that he had to prepare more than a thousand sets of equipment, his face immediately darkened, and he persuaded Lin Dong earnestly in front of Lin Dong with a look of pain on his face.

"General, there is no war now. Why are you recruiting so many soldiers and horses? The food in our hands will not last long. Moreover, these country soldiers can only be trained regularly and cannot form an army. When the time is up, everyone will return to their homes and fight against the general.

There is no benefit at all. What’s more, these people are all rough and tough. Each of them has to eat three kilograms of white rice a day. Even that group of bandits are not that good at eating..."

Lin Dong smiled at Su Yi's complaints and just waved his hand and said, "Okay, I understand. Just follow my instructions and prepare."

Su Yi sighed helplessly, turned around and went down to prepare.

Although he didn't say it, he was heartbroken. After all this trouble, the supplies he had just received were probably going to be exhausted again.

I don’t know what the general is thinking. With so many people, each person must ensure a set of armor. Doesn’t this armor cost money?

Well, even if we got a lot of weapons and iron blocks from the bandits this time, it would obviously not be enough to make armors, and we would have to lose thousands of taels of silver.

Su Yi had been afraid of poverty for the first half of his life. When he heard that the money he had just received was going to be spent, he felt extremely reluctant to part with it.

However, Lin Dong is very strict in the management of the army. As his subordinates, he must obey orders and prohibitions. Any slightest violation will be punished by military discipline.

Although Su Yi was in pain, he could only complain, saying that he would never dare to disobey military orders. In desperation, he had no choice but to find someone to build equipment.

"How is Shang Ba?" Lin Dong looked at Li Da beside him and asked.

"Back to the general, since you refused to see me these days, Fatty Shang actually settled in the military camp with peace of mind, and said that as long as the Anton Army does not pay back his money, he will stay here...

"

Lin Dong secretly laughed: "This Shangba is really childish. If you are a swindler, I will return the money. How can I live and work?"

Lin Dong didn't say anything about this. Since you don't go back, forget it. You won't starve to death in the military camp anyway. At most, there will be more people to eat.

What Lin Dong didn't expect was that Shang Ba was not idle in the military camp. He couldn't participate in the usual training matters, so he decided to focus on Su Yi.

Su Yi, a talented scholar, has some talent for teaching writing, but he is not very good at complicated accounts. When he is young, he can be very good at it. Once there are too many accounts, he begins to be unable to do what he wants.

Fatty Shang helped him a lot at this time. Some accounts that took him half a day to calculate were in Shang Ba's hands and he could calculate them clearly in less than half an hour.

This made Su Yi secretly dumbfounded. He even recommended Lin Dong several times, hoping to keep Shang Ba.

However, Shang Ba disagreed. He only said that he still had a young family and hoped that Anton Army would return the property stolen by the bandits as soon as possible.

After more than a month of this, the new soldiers were trained according to Lin Dong's requirements, and the previous twenty-nine rural soldiers also became centurions and general bannermen, responsible for training these new soldiers.

Different from before, these recruits started training step by step from the formation, and then practiced physical fitness and tactics.

In the first few days, in addition to the formation training, there was an explanation of military rules, and then there was repeated folding of quilts to learn postures.

These simple training subjects made these recruits lose their temper. They complained and resisted at first, but when the ruthless punishment came, they finally chose to succumb.
To be continued...