After the third day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Shigong took the guards around him and started to exercise. Tao Xin, who went home for the New Year, learned that Wu Shigong and them were exercising, and he also came to the fortress of Qianhusuo and went out to exercise with Wu Shigong and them.

Now all the people in the fortress of the Thousand Households actually like this little boy very much. And Tao Xin also likes to be with everyone. He will only be honest when he is taught by Xiaojie.

On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, the soldiers who went home for the New Year and the recruits from the military households all gathered here at the fortress of the Thousand Households. Because it was the first year of the Chinese New Year, Wu Shigong asked these people to go home for the New Year before the New Year.

However, Wu Shigong also made it clear to them: from now on, these soldiers will live a collective life in the barracks. In peacetime, with the approval of the officer in charge, each person has three days of rest per month, and can go out of the barracks freely. Each person is entitled to half a month of family leave per year. But in times of war, all rest and holidays will be canceled.

Wu Shigong asked Zhou Xun and Qian Qi to still train the recruits in the military households, training them to line up and shoot with firearms. And those recruits who have been training for a while have begun to do some simple confrontation training with the horse team.

Wu Shigong had these soldiers line up and hold firecrackers, which were filled with only gunpowder and no bullets. Erect a wooden railing in front of them. The cavalry rushed towards the soldiers at high speed, and the soldiers waited until the horses were within range of the muskets, and then emptied their guns at the command of the officer in charge. The horses rushed to the wooden railing and spread out to the sides.

However, such a training with almost no confrontation has led to a lot of foreign appearances. In the first such training, more than half of the soldiers were so frightened that they did not fire their guns. They were all frightened by the sight of the horse team rushing towards them. Some of them had forgotten the procedure for reloading gunpowder, and a few were so frightened that they dropped their guns on the ground.

This look can make Wu Shigong angry. Now the charge of hundreds of horses, with the wooden railing in between, scared them like this. In the future, on the battlefield, thousands of troops and horses will charge, and they will not all pee their pants?

However, the performance of the horse team was not much better. In the horse team, whether it is the Xue Mansion guards or the gambling house guards, in fact, they have never been on the battlefield at all.

When they saw the black muzzle of the firebolt aimed at them, and then spewed out a stream of flames, some people couldn't help but subconsciously make a move to avoid it. He was thrown off the horse after his movements were deformed.

Fortunately, only one person unfortunately broke his bone, and his injuries were not serious. After finding a bone-setting doctor to correct it, I will recover after more than a month of recuperation.

Seeing that the training was like this, Wu Shigong and Xue Yongli unanimously decided: to strengthen this kind of confrontational training. Even if there were some casualties in training, they did not hesitate.

In February, Foreman Jiang took the craftsmen and those military households who had not become recruits to work and began the construction of the fortress of Qianhusuo again. In order to increase the number of manpower, Wu Shigong specially gave money and asked Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen to hire 200 small workers in the county town to build together.

At this time, Wu Shigong explained in detail to Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen his final plan for building a fortress of a thousand households:

First of all, Wu Shigong asked the outer city wall to be heightened to four zhang high, and the inside should be all made of Sanhe soil, and the outside should be built with stones. On the city wall, a tower was to be built every twenty zhang, so that the city wall could be effectively divided.

Secondly, the inner wall will also be built with a height of three and a half feet. Other requirements are the same as for the outer walls.

Zuihou, in the innermost corner of the Sennohe fortress, where the two walls are surrounded by cliffs, and there are rivers below, so it is easy to get water. Wu Shigong used this place as the fortress of Zuihou, the fortress of the thousand households.

Wu Shigong wanted to build a group of bunkers here that were similar to the bunkers built by the Japanese devils during the anti-Japanese war.

In addition to this, of course, some barracks and other buildings were built in the fortress of Sennohesu.

Wu Shigong's idea was that when the enemy attacked the fortress of Qianhusuo, even if the enemy did everything possible to break through the outer city wall, he would still have to face the inner city wall. After going through a lot of hardships, he broke through the inner city wall, and he had to face the bunker group. At this time, it is estimated that the enemy's nerves are basically collapsed.

After listening to Wu Shigong's request, Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen carefully calculated. Foreman Jiang said to Wu Shigong: "The project requested by the adults will take 2,000 laborers to work for a year before it can be completed. Moreover, the cost of materials alone for an adult's project is about 7,000 taels of silver. If we add labor, it will cost more than 8,000 taels of silver at the price of the small laborers we hire. ”

Wu Shigong decided: "Just do it." ”

So, Wu Shigong, Foreman Jiang and Zheng Zhen discussed, first using Sanhe soil to build the outer city wall to a height of four zhang. Because, for this project, Foreman Jiang and the others have to work for more than a month. At that time, these military households will have to go back to participate in spring sowing.

And when these laborers and small workers built the outer city wall, craftsmen such as the Jiang foreman built barracks and other buildings at the same time. As for what work to do in the future, then let's talk about it then. In this way, Wu Shigong was able to spend less money at the beginning of the project.

Before the Chinese New Year, Wu Shigong asked Mr. Zhang Kehua to find a staff member for himself to be his assistant in the officialdom after returning to his hometown. But at this time, the staff had not yet arrived, and Wu Shigong's lack of officialdom assistants was revealed.

First of all, under the command of Dewei, the old man Zhao Ming, sent someone to send an invitation to Wu Shigong, inviting Wu Shigong to participate in the full moon wine of his newborn daughter.

Wu Shigong is very strange, then the old man Zhao Ming has just accepted a concubine, and it has not been five months yet, why did he give birth to a daughter? And that daughter is still full moon. Could it be that this old man Zhao Ming not only likes old cows to gnaw tender grass, but also likes to play unmarried cohabitation?

After listening to the explanation of the person who sent the invitation, Wu Shigong understood that this daughter of the old man Zhao Ming was born to a concubine he had taken in the year before last. Wu Shigong was completely speechless.

Of course, he didn't have the time to eat this full moon wine. So, he wrapped a red envelope of fifty taels of silver. He also gave the inviter a few taels of silver as his errand fee. Let the person who sent the invitation give his red envelope to Old Man Zhao Ming.

Unexpectedly, giving a red envelope to Old Man Zhao Ming was just an appetizer. A few days later, an official, with more than a dozen soldiers, came to Wu Shigong to find him.

After meeting Wu Shigong, the official took out an official document stamped with the official seal of the military preparation road. The content of the official document was: After Wu Shigong received the official document, he immediately handed over the 1,800 stone of grain owed by the thousand households last year to the Yamen of the Military Preparation Road.

There is no such reason, huh? The debts of the first 1,000 households, why should Wu Shigong, the current acting 1,000 households, repay them? So, Wu Shigong argued with the official.

Unexpectedly, the official's tone was very tough. He asked Wu Shigong to hand over the money and grain he owed first. If Wu Shigong has any grievances, he can go to the political envoy's yamen, the governor's yamen, or even go to the capital to complain.

Of course, the official also made many puns in his speech. However, Wu Shigong didn't hear it at all, and even if he did, he wouldn't understand.

Wu Shigong thought about it again and again, but Zuihou still decided to pay back the arrears first. He converted the grain into silver, and in addition to the hardships he had paid for the official, he counted it into seven hundred taels of silver, and gave it to the official.

Wu Shigong's consideration, although there is also the reason why Li Bingbei Daoguan crushed people to death at the first level. The main reason is that Wu Shigong now attaches great importance to his official position as the acting thousand households, because everything he has now is based on his official position. He didn't want to let some inexplicable things make his official position go away. So, let's spend money to eliminate the disaster.

Wu Shigong didn't know that the old man Zhao Ming and Li Bingbeidao sent people to find him for the same purpose. That's because Wu Shigong didn't give New Year's gifts to the two bosses Zhao Ming and Li Bingbeidao at all during the New Year.

This fully proves a famous saying in officialdom novels: Does the boss give gifts to which subordinate? He probably won't remember. However, if a subordinate does not come to give a gift, he will definitely remember it very clearly and be impressed.

The old man Zhao Ming used a passable reason to ask for his New Year's gift from Wu Shigong in disguise. Wu Shigong didn't notice anything wrong with this.

However, Li Bingbei said that he was simply asking for the grain owed by thousands of households, so that Wu Shigong could get acquainted with each other. If Wu Shigong knows each other, he will take out two or three hundred taels of silver as a New Year's gift for Li Bing. The food arrears of the first thousand households, Li Bingbei Dao was ready to pretend to be confused.

But when the official went back to make a report, Li Bingbeidao immediately hated Wu Shigong: this Wu Shigong was willing to take out seven hundred taels of silver to pay off the grain arrears of the imperial court, and refused to take out two or three hundred taels of silver to give Li Bingbeidao privately. Does he still have his own boss in his eyes?

If Wu Shigong knew that he had spent more money and would suffer from the resentment of his boss, I don't know if he would be so angry that he vomited blood?

When he was in the Soldiers and Horses Division in the capital, Master Zhang Kequan helped Wu Shigong to do all these interpersonal things properly. Wu Shigong doesn't need to worry about this at all. Therefore, Wu Shigong didn't know the twists and turns at all.

However, in this way, there is not much cash around Wu Shigong. Wu Shigong didn't want to use the 1,000 taels of gold sent by his father-in-law Xue Lian now. This gold is the reserve fund of Zuihou prepared by Wu Shigong.