Qin Official

"The quilted Baiji is here."

When Heifu walked to the tent, he happened to hear two generals whispering, and the person they were talking about was himself...

Seeing Hei Fu entering the account, the two princes and generals wearing plate crowns immediately stopped talking, but their eyes were still communicating, and their glances at Hei Fu were full of teasing.

Heifu ignored the two of them and sat cross-legged beside them.

A few days ago, with his neat housekeeping and outstanding performance during training exercises, Heifu successfully attracted the attention of Captain Li You, and later ordered him to be transferred to the "short soldiers" directly under his command.

The so-called short soldiers are not the forwards who charge into the battle, but the personal guards directly under the officers.

According to the military regulations of the Qin State, as long as you reach the 500th level, you no longer have to take the risk of the target yourself. You can command the 500th generals and commanders under your command to charge into the battle. At this time, the military officers must also have people around them to protect them. , so there were short soldiers.

The short soldiers are generally one-tenth of the total number of soldiers under the command of an officer. For example: a five hundred leader has fifty short soldiers, a captain has one hundred short soldiers, and a captain who is in charge of five thousand to ten thousand people has five hundred to ten thousand soldiers. A short force of a thousand men. As for the generals and generals, the same applies, with more personal guards around them.

Therefore, Heifu's current position is equivalent to the commander of a security company in later generations. His responsibility is no longer to charge into the battle and break the city first, but to protect the safety of Li You, the "division commander."

After getting this position, Heifu was of course very happy. Although the short-term soldiers had fewer chances of beheading and promotion, they also avoided heavy casualties. After the war, where is the safest place on the battlefield? There is no doubt that it is by the side of the general and captain. Unless the battle reaches an extremely anxious level before being sent out as a new force, there are very few opportunities for hand-to-hand combat.

But there are exceptions, and that is Li You who unfortunately died in battle.

Military law stipulates: "If an officer is killed in battle, a short-term soldier will be treated lightly." If a general is killed in battle, all of them will be executed. Ordinary short soldiers can be exempted from crime if they can capture an enemy's head. A short soldier officer of Heifu's level must kill an enemy general who is equal to the captain, otherwise he will die.

That was almost impossible to do, so Heifu was indeed much safer in this war, but his life was also tied to Li You.

"After all, he is Li Si's son and the son-in-law of King Qin. He will not die so easily."

Heifu felt a stone fall in his heart. With this, he was one step closer to his minimum requirement of "avoiding death" in this war.

But Li You had his own plans when he recruited Hei Fu to be a short-term soldier.

On the second day after Heifu reported for duty, Li You praised him in front of everyone for his "courteous manner" in running the army, and then asked his five hundred short-term soldiers to use this method based on Heifu's experience. Promoted among hundreds of short soldiers...

Li You is a person who likes uniformity and believes that details are enough to determine success or failure, but he also knows that it is unrealistic to implement duvet quilts in the entire army, so he first tried it with short-term soldiers from Guanzhong.

Unexpectedly, this caused Heifu to get a lot of complaints. Not everyone could understand why he had to go to such unnecessary lengths in the morning. Even a few short-term soldiers criticized Heifu because of this and secretly gave him A nickname.

"Hundreds of generals in quilts".

They whispered this nickname in Guanzhong dialect. These hundreds of generals were all from Guanzhong without exception. Either they were the children of military officials who had held titles for generations, or they were nobles with a long history that could be traced back hundreds of years. Two of them had taken turns in Xianyang Palace and served as Lang Wei.

The horses tied up outside by several people are all Longxi horses, which are much taller than Heifu's maroon horse bought from Anlu County. The clothes under their armor are also made of silk of excellent quality, far superior to Heifu's linen robe and even his skin color are much whiter than his Guizhou head, who has been exposed to the sun while working in the fields since childhood.

When Heifu, who came from a small county in Nanjun and spoke Jingchu dialect, squeezed into the circle, he was immediately isolated and excluded.

They looked polite, with slight smiles on their lips, but the eyes they looked at Heifu were filled with contempt and disdain.

Heifu didn't get angry because of this. He just sat on the side where he was not gregarious with the others. As a newcomer, he should be cautious about his words and actions.

At this time, hurried footsteps were heard outside the camp again, and a sweaty young man walked in. Instead of joining the chat of the four people next to him, he sat down next to Hei Fu.

"Almost late again."

Among the hundreds of generals who were guarding each other, not everyone rejected Heifu. There was one exception, and that was Zhai Chong next to him.

Although Zhai Chong is young, only in his twenties, his beard has already climbed up his cheeks, and together with his face with alien features, it has become his trademark.

After he sat down, he was still taking care of his clothes and complained: "I have to fold the quilt when I get up. Heifu Baijiang, this is all your fault."

This was a joke without any malice. Hei Fu smiled and was about to reply. At this time, the five hundred masters who ruled them also came in, and everyone immediately stood up.

"Today, the two generals, Zhai Chong and Hei Fu, will be on duty in front of the captain's tent."

When Lord Five Hundred read the word "Hei Fu", the four people on the side looked at each other again and showed meaningful smiles...

Heifu knew what they were laughing at.

They laughed at him as "a person with no surname and no family name."

…

"Zhai Baijiang hangs out with me all day, aren't you afraid of being isolated by the other Baijiangs?"

After Hei Fu and Zhai Chong took the order and left the tent, Hei Fu said calmly.

"isolated?"

Zhai Chong touched his beard and said with a smile: "Heifu doesn't know something. I'm from Shangjun, which is different from the rich counties in Guanzhong on the edge of the Wei River. It's also a poor and remote place. And my ancestors are from Zhai, so I suffer a lot every day." Those few people squeezed me out, and General Heifu was selected into the short-range army by the captain. I finally have a companion."

After that, he said softly to Heifu: "In the army, everyone relies on their ability to speak. Those aristocratic young men look down on Heifu Baijiang because of his origin. But in my opinion, Baijiang was born in Guizhou, but Relying on your own abilities, you have made meritorious deeds and achieved the title of doctor. You are the one who is most qualified to look down on those who have taken advantage of the merits of your fathers!"

"Thank you, General Zhai Bai, for your words."

However, Zhai Chong hesitated to speak. Heifu saw this, stopped and said to him.

"General Zhai, don't worry. If you have anything to say, just say it."

"Now that Mr. Hei has become a lord, it's time to choose a surname for himself. I heard from the elders in the clan that our superior county is Bai Zhai. Except for King Zhai, most people don't have surnames. They all call him by his first name. , distinguished by their tribal names. It was not until later that they were incorporated into the Qin State. When they arrived in Xianyang, they were ridiculed as Rong Di people because they had no surname, so all Bai Zhai people took Zhai as their surname..."

It is not easy to climb up from the bottom. Perhaps those four people think that in the past twenty or thirty years of their lives, the people without surnames they have seen are just servants and servants in their families.

After Hei Fu sighed secretly, he bowed and said, "Zhai Baijiang said what he said from the bottom of his heart. Hei Fu must remember it and let me go back and think about it."

…

Heifu didn't rush back to think hard, in order to add a surname to himself and choose a new name so as not to be laughed at.

Give yourself a surname, pretend to be an ancient nobleman, and be respected by others? Can you blend into a small circle? joke!

Rather than wasting time for a false reputation, it is better to think about how to make Li You trust him more. This is the real thing.

After arranging all his subordinates to set up defenses in small groups at the camp, Heifu stood outside the tent, thoughtfully listening to the voices of Commander Li Youhe and the five hundred masters discussing the military situation.

Compared with ordinary officers, the advantages of short-hand guards are huge. Not only are they safer on the battlefield, but they also have easier access to some military information. For example, what Li You discussed with the military officials is exactly the problem that has been plaguing this army for several months. : Morale.

The morale of the soldiers in Nanjun was still low. Although under the intimidation of Qin Lu Rushan, no one was stupid enough to desert. But most people had no fighting spirit. After running around and fighting for a year, the Nanjun garrison only wanted to go home, so every one of them seemed weak, and the military camp was filled with a negative atmosphere.

After a discussion in which everyone expressed their opinions, there was still no result. Although the leaders all proposed solutions, the soldiers were tired and the teacher was tired. This was no longer a problem that could be solved by the technique of punishment and reward.

Heifu stood straight outside the tent door. He waited until all the military officials present had left, then walked inside in small steps and bowed before the case.

"The subordinates have met the captain."

"It's Mr. Hei. It's your turn today..."

Li You seemed a little troubled. He held his eyebrows with his left hand. When he saw it was Hei Fu, he asked him to get up.

But Hei Fu couldn't bear it. He lowered his head and said, "The captain was just discussing with the soldiers how to boost morale. The commanders were talking loudly. The subordinate happened to be outside and overheard it accidentally. I am guilty."

"It's not a secret either."

Li You sneered and said: "The soldiers of Nanjun want to return. Everyone in our army knows it. I'm afraid even the Chu camp knows it."

Going to war in such a state, Li You, who was commanding thousands of troops for the first time, was inevitably a little uneasy.

At this time, Li You had an idea, pointed at Heifu and said, "You are also from Nanjun, and you have been promoted from the garrison commander. You are well aware of the sufferings of the soldiers. Do you have any solution?"

As an airborne captain, the generals don't know the soldiers, and the soldiers don't know the generals. Li Youke was worried. He transferred Hei Fu to his side as a close-quarters personal guard. In addition to appreciating Hei Fu's extraordinary insight in his answers that day, he also wanted a grassroots military officer who understood the military's mentality to provide him with advice.

This was what Hei Fu was waiting for, and he immediately said: "I have a way, I can't say it can revive morale, but at least it can calm the soldiers' minds!"