While Song Yingxing was busy rebuilding the cement calciner in Guangdong, Yu Xin was reporting to Su Chengyu on the recruitment of new recruits in the camp.

The number of people coming to join the army continues unabated. As the scope of the missionary government's activities continued to expand, there were even more than a dozen people who came from Huguang to join the Dragon Guard a while ago.

At present, the first batch of recruits to join the Dragon Guard Army has left the boot camp, and the second batch of recruits has recruited more than 1,100 people. The Longwei Army now has a total of 3,500 officers and soldiers, and according to the old military system of the Ming Army, it is already a full battalion.

Su Chengyu thought about the future plan for a while, and instructed Yu Xindao: "Continue to recruit people, but don't recruit new recruits, and recruit the reserve camp instead."

"The salary is three to four percent of that of ordinary soldiers, and they practice for two and a half hours a day, and they can go home or live in reserve barracks. They can be quickly converted to the regular army when needed. Let's recruit 1,500 people first. ”

"Yes!" Yu Xinli saluted, and then was a little embarrassed, "My lord, the recruitment of recruits is too fast, and the officers are already very nervous, this reserve battalion ......"

"First select veterans with a high level of training and temporarily send them to the training reserve battalion. Train novices and they can improve themselves. ”

"Yes!"

After Yu Xin left, Su Chengyu rubbed his forehead a little helplessly, officers are a tricky matter.

Recruit soldiers, as long as the instructors are of high level, and they can go to the battlefield after three months of training.

But the officer is completely different, even the lowest level of the team, he has to command at least five people. It is easy for a person to command his own hands and feet, but it is difficult to command others well.

An officer has to train for at least half a year before he can be useful. If you want a high-quality officer, it is impossible to do without two or three years.

How to ensure the supply of the officers of the Dragon Guard? Su Chengyu pondered for a moment, and soon thought of a method for training officers in batches in later generations - building a military academy.

The military academy can not only supply officers for the army in batches, but also ensure that the inheritance of the entire Ming military system will not be broken.

Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there has been no shortage of excellent generals, and there have been many troops that are very capable of fighting. The most typical is the Qi family's army, which has always been invincible and rare opponents since it became an army.

But after Qi Jiguang passed away, the Qi family's army gradually declined, and even the method of military training was lost. It is no longer possible for future generations to build another Qi family army.

If you want the foundation of the Ming Dynasty to not fall, you must ensure that the country's accumulated military experience can survive from generation to generation. Military schools can play such a role.

Without further ado, he immediately drafted a memo, first giving Emperor Longwu a rough report on his recent military training, and then the lack of officers in the new recruits led to the idea of establishing a military academy.

The military academy was named "Daming Royal Officer Academy", and he also suggested that Zhu Yujian personally serve as the chief teacher of the academy, which is the highest person in charge.

Su Chengyu expected that Long Wu would approve his proposal, but he didn't expect that the emperor would simply attach more importance to this matter than him.

In fact, what Zhu Yujian lacks most at the moment is the army, and after seeing the word "Officer Academy", he immediately applauded the case, shouting that his nephew is a genius!

With this Royal Officer Academy, he himself is the chief teacher, so the officers who will be taught in the future will be all protégés of the Son of Heaven! Isn't this the descendant army he had been thinking about for a long time?!

Long Wu was already imagining the scene of one, two, countless graduating officers walking out of the gate of the academy, shouting long live, charging into battle and killing the enemy under his command.

So he not only immediately approved Su Chengyu's recital, but even squeezed out three thousand taels of silver from between his teeth and allocated it to him as the fund for the construction of the military academy.

The content of the will Su Chengyu received is very simple, and it can be summed up that the Royal Officer Academy should be carried out, it should be done immediately, and it should be done well!

Waiting for the eunuch Yang Shouming to leave, Su Chengyu couldn't help but sigh when he looked at the three thousand taels of silver given by Longwu, with Longwu's current economic situation, this is really very supportive of himself.

He first went to Wang Keqian, the magistrate of Longnan, and allocated him two thousand taels. He asked him to gather the people to level the wasteland near the Longwei military camp and build a school building, but he only told him to build a school of a small scale, and if the money ran out, he would come to him and ask for it.

As long as you have money, it is simple to build some houses, and Wang Zhixian took the money to gather people.

On the day of the groundbreaking of the school building, Su Chengyu issued a notice to all soldiers: Those who are rated as first-class soldiers in the next soldier rating can apply for admission to the officer academy for further study. After graduation, he was directly promoted to the rank of officer based on his grades.

Now the soldiers, especially the recruit battalion, are about to fry - in the past, they didn't know how long they had to wait for promotion by accumulating military merits, but now they can be promoted to officers in a school! How can you not fight for such a good thing?

Since the news of the Officers' Academy was announced, everyone has trained several times harder than before, and even the ten-mile cross-country run has not complained of being tired.

For a time, soldiers who did not reach the level of first-class soldiers were embarrassed to greet others.

However, when it was time to apply for admission to the Military Academy, everyone knew that it was not so simple, and all kinds of reviews were very strict.

On the question of "why do you want to be a soldier", more than 20% of the applicants will be brushed off. Learn to write your name in a quarter of an hour, and brush off thirty percent. Other oral expressions, impromptu reactions, etc., are even more eliminated by the number of applicants.

In the end, 96 people passed the audit and became the first batch of cadets of the Royal Military Academy.

Su Chengyu held a simple opening ceremony on the school grounds, announcing that Yu Xin, Zhu Jiadi, Chen Xiongfei, Macedo, Pastorere, Coelho, including Su Chengyu himself, were all the first batch of lecturers. Su Chengyu personally served as the teaching officer.

When he told the students present that the full name of the academy was "Daming Royal Officer Academy", and that the current saint was the chief master of the academy, he immediately attracted a burst of amazement.

Directly run errands for the Son of Heaven and be a protégé of the Son of Heaven, what an honor it is?!

From then on, at the end of each day's training, these 96 men had to study military knowledge in a special military tent for at least one and a half hours a day.

The courses cover a wide range of topics, including strategy and tactics, armaments, logistics, siege and defense, geography, etc., and are taught by several lecturers in turn.

Most of these cadets are Chinese blind, and after completing military classes, they have to work overtime and stay up late to learn to read and write.

As a result, the world-famous Ming Royal Officer Academy opened its magnificent chapter in extremely simple conditions.

After Su Chengyu gave a lesson on the history of European warfare to the cadets of the Military Academy, he saw that Hong Si was already waiting outside the "classroom", followed by Tian Zhuangfei, all carrying large bags of things.

When Hong Si saw him come out, he hurriedly said, "My lord, my subordinates have presided over the recruitment of the personnel of the Mission Office and the guidance of the Dragon Guard Army according to your orders. He gestured to the burden in his hand, "This is the exam paper compiled by his subordinates." ”