Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 77 A Lucky Encounter in the City of Luck

In April of the 32nd year of the Tianli calendar, the area south of Lingjiang entered the rainy season, and the newly planted rice paddies were nourished by the rain.

In the first year of the full-scale garrison in southern Xinjiang, Wu Fei did not return to the north with the army. Instead, seeking stability, he remained at one of the four fortresses in southern Lingjiang. However, San Gu was the first to return to the interior.

The reason is simple: after the Wu family learned in March that Third Aunt was pregnant, they immediately sent someone to pick her up. Moreover, the person sent by the Wu family was no ordinary person; she was a female disciple of the Qinghua Sect within the clan, namely, Wu Fei's cousin.

…The dividing line for the Legend of Sword and Fairy…

The female swordswoman flew to the Southern Frontier Fortress and found Wu Fei's appearance very strange at first glance.

Then she saw her third aunt and, without saying a word, very coldly grabbed her wrist and used her spiritual power to examine it, as if she had caught a criminal. Her third aunt, who also had magical powers, was not angry. Instead, she actively guided her magical power into her own abdomen to sense the fetus's pulse and the authenticity of its bloodline.

The third aunt smiled as she watched her eldest sister-in-law until the sister-in-law gradually loosened her grip.

The female swordswoman named Wu Xiang, after confirming that her third aunt's bloodline was indeed that of the Wu family, looked puzzled. However, considering that there were other Wu family members in Wu Fei's army, she rushed over to try and seize Wu Fei's life. Of course, Wu Fei would not allow her to do as she wished. After a few exchanges, her murderous aura was activated and her spiritual energy dissipated, and her sword fell into Wu Fei's hands.

Wu Fei, who had disarmed Bai Jian with his bare hands, proudly twirled his sword, and the more the sword resisted, the more excited Wu Fei became in his grip.

After confirming that she was trying to take his pulse, Wu Fei immediately apologized. However, when he felt her spiritual energy traveling down his meridians towards his lower body, below his navel, Wu Fei immediately shook off her hand.

Afterwards, the cousin explained her "confusion" to Wu Fei. Wu Fei still endured the discomfort and let her use her spiritual power to probe and confirm the bloodline inheritance (Xuan Chong: There are paternity testing projects in this world? Then we definitely have to cooperate).

Oh, this spiritual energy was completely burned away by the spiritual fire when it touched a meridian that it shouldn't have touched.

As a result, the cousin's expression changed to "Although she didn't understand, she was deeply shocked." So she pulled her aunt aside and whispered something to her.

Wu Fei overheard something like, "You two, one still full of virginity and the other a virgin who conceived, how exactly did you manage to get pregnant secretly?"

Wu Fei shook his head and walked away, muttering, "Don't ask. The answer is always the 40th century, new technologies, and new ideas."

…on the other side of the camp…

The mysterious Feather Clan Taoist Cang Meng, watching his Third Aunt being taken away by the Immortal Sword, prophesied in a charlatan's tone: "The child who possesses the bloodlines of the Vermilion Bird and the Bifang will eventually inherit the Mandate of Heaven."

At this moment, the gems beneath his feet were arranged in a star-like pattern, with several corresponding to the seven southern constellations. Using the southern constellations as a guide, Cang Meng raised his head, aiming towards the direction of the blue, evil moon in the sky.

Cang Meng solemnly warned the sky: "If you deities of this lineage attempt to replicate what you have done in the Haotian Realm on the planets under the jurisdiction of the Xi Clan, you will have absolutely no chance of success! The chosen ones you want to corrupt are different from the chosen ones of the Haotian Realm. If you really want to fight, you don't have enough bargaining chips."

Cang Meng spoke with great confidence, because compared to the four strange and evil forces outside the heavens, the Outer God he worshipped was much more powerful and ancient.

And now, he has found this darling projected from the Outer God.

Cang Meng looked towards Wu Fei and whispered, "Next, all we need to do is guide the chosen one to meet their loyal partner and obtain the weapon of destiny."

…The perspective shifts from the stationery vendors to the students…

In May of the 32nd year of the Tianli reign, as the crops on the south bank of the Lingjiang River grew very well and the soldiers in various fortresses had fully adapted to the local soil and water, Wu Fei's worries finally subsided.

Wu Fei: In summary, the decline of all colonies was not determined by the signing of unequal treaties, but by the gradual infiltration and replacement of their original internal political, economic, and diplomatic relations by external systems. After the demise of the Li Huo Sect, a vacuum of order was created, which was filled by the Wu Family Army, and currently, everything is stable.

Economically, Yongji Pass was reopened in the first half of 32. However, this time, the Wu family army mobilized very few military resources! Only eight hundred troops were transferred from within the pass. They were primarily intended as a final force to resolve conflicts between the various tribes on the north bank of the Lingjiang River.

The real large-scale mobilization of troops consisted of about five thousand local auxiliary soldiers, used to ensure the safety of the caravan and to suppress the bandits that had sprung up!

What? There are bandits? Yes, but they are mostly small groups of less than ten people, and most of them operate in gangs of two or three.

Even in modern times, when public security is relatively good, there are still ruthless bandits who rob vehicles in areas lacking police presence along highways. The Wu family army hasn't installed cameras on every road in southern Xinjiang, so how can they possibly eliminate bandits?

Wu Fei gleaned the following understanding from the report of his slave-hunting faction:

The mechanism for bandits in southern Xinjiang to respawn is very simple. Just like in the animal kingdom, when the number of lion prides exceeds a certain level, some of them will be driven out to form new prides. Similarly, when various tribes do not have enough food, they will drive out a group of young and strong men to go out and find food.

In the past, there were many tiny tribes in the mountains that had existed for less than three or four years. They wandered the mountain paths, just like those unreasonable rogue cultivators in the cultivation world who searched for opportunities everywhere and gathered resources from all over the place.

Wu Fei temporarily accepted the contents of the report and formulated measures based on its intelligence.

Of course, this year the Wu family army dealt with this situation in a very domineering way. Large tribes were changed into chieftains, and each chieftain tribe was issued a special travel permit. Any southern Xinjiang people who were caught wandering around on the main road without a travel permit were all captured and made into slaves and sent to southern Lingjiang as laborers.

Under the agreement of the various chieftains and the Wu family, a new order emerged, with the local servants appointed by the Wu family army serving as the pillars of this new order.

According to overly extreme interpretations from a 21st-century perspective, the travel permit system tightly bound the native inhabitants to the land, preventing population movement. This is unfree, wrong, and should be overthrown.

But Wu Fei now only cares about one thing: how to eliminate the practice of stealing grain from others! How to maintain a stable order of trade and exchange between agricultural production units. Wu Fei: If a solution to replace the travel permit can be found at this stage, I will change it immediately.

…Wu Feichao's wishes to the system failed, and it won't accept wishes from others…

In the first half of 1932, the 800-strong military force that crossed the border arrived at the four fortresses of Lingjiang within a month and completed the handover with the local garrison.

The merchants who crossed the border with the garrison, after offering incense to the elephant-shaped guardian beasts on both sides of the bridge, remarked that the road that once took months of careful travel with a large army could now be completed in just one month with the assistance of a dozen or so escorts from the security escort agency.

In May, the merchants felt that the north bank of the Lingjiang River was too desolate. So, with the Wu family taking the lead, the merchants set up a permanent camp on the north bank, separated from the four fortresses south of the river. This camp was used to better transport slaves and supplies.

This camp, in contrast to the previous militarized encampments, is a free and open commercial camp. If order is maintained, this commercial camp will develop into a commercial city.

Therefore, Wu Fei, who was invited to lay the foundation stone, named it the City of Luck in advance.

…in the details.
Not everyone likes peace.

On June 4th, in Xingcheng, the soldiers escorting provisions from the north bank quickly entered the tavern after arriving. It wasn't that they looked down on high-end establishments like Bai Mei Lou, but rather that the soldiers were broke.

In the tavern, as the liquor brewed from sugarcane waste was poured into his stomach, soldier Sun Aoling cursed, "Damn it, I've mastered some great martial arts skills and wanted to serve a hero, but damn it, I haven't been able to fight!" As he cursed, someone started picking a fight.

Bai Ya: "Boss, this wine, is it, is it diluted with water?!"—Judging from his drunken state, it's not the wine that's intoxicating, it's his own state that's making him drunk.

The boss naturally couldn't tolerate such unreasonable behavior, so he sent the waiter to the street to find the military police.

Seeing the boss's act of tattling, Wang Feihao, drunk, immediately shouted, "Kill this scoundrel!" and threw a wine jar at him.

A fight ensued, but it was quickly quelled. The soldiers were taken to the military court for trial by Wu Fei himself.

After the trial, the military law department decided that Wu Fei should be executed according to the law, but Wu Fei was given a suspended sentence.

After reading all the interrogation reports, Wu Fei muttered to himself, "I think I was wrong!"

According to the propaganda he received in his previous life, the old era was "an era of slavery, and an era where people wanted to be slaves but could not." As a result, Wu Fei had the perception that people in ancient times suffered and tended to live a stable life.

But now the situation tells Wu Fei that this is not entirely true. At least a considerable number of his men joined the army not to seek a peaceful life.

Wu Fei: That's true. Not everyone is like me, who, after failing to secure a position in the military, can simply go home and live a life of leisure, inheriting the family business. The people below are here to start their own businesses.

During the years Wu Fei led the army, one thing became famous: his rewards and punishments were extremely fair. Anyone who truly risked their life was promoted. Furthermore, with the emergence of the non-commissioned officer system, a "military aristocratic class" was inadvertently created.

Xuan Chong hoped to create a military aristocratic group similar to the Junkers.

Indeed, Wu Fei has been implementing reforms in the military over the past six months. To ensure smooth communication among non-commissioned officers (NCOs), he has been providing them with regular military training courses and hosting small banquets to foster camaraderie. This has undoubtedly created a social class that lower-ranking soldiers envy.

This level of personnel can speak, and Wu Fei will listen and take notes. As the saying goes, a scholar will die for one who understands him; isn't this the realm of a scholar? Therefore, many soldiers in the army now have a strong desire to improve themselves.

The problem is that Wu Xiaoque is very fair in rewarding military merits, but on the other hand, she is also very stingy.

Wu Fei is extremely strict about merit! He's very generous with rewards for hard work, but extremely stingy with rewards for bloodshed, requiring people to risk their lives. Now, Wu Xiaoque is not as capable as Liu Bei or Erzhu Rong; he can't immediately recognize talent from a crowd, hold long talks by candlelight, and then entrust them with important responsibilities.

The selection and appointment of personnel is still relatively inexperienced, so those soldiers who tried to gain Wu Fei's favor and then directly devote their lives to him are now feeling very frustrated.

In the profession of "lord," Wu Fei is so unfamiliar with it that he can't even judge people by their appearance, making him a clear case of social anxiety.

Wu Fei strictly avoids meeting with anyone who hasn't made any contributions. He maintains a strict hierarchical system within the military, prohibiting subordinates from reporting directly to higher-ups except for regular meetings.

Of course, that would be fine. These patriots could simply make a name for themselves and then open up to Wu Fei properly.

But now, the battle in southern Xinjiang has suddenly ended, and the record of achievements has been temporarily put on hold.

Wu Fei stipulated that merits of the first-class merit level could only be obtained in high-risk areas.

Currently, the risk level in the entire area north of Lingjiang has been lowered to blue. The blue level only increases the salary by several times, and only by reaching the yellow level can you obtain merit points.

In the yellow area south of Lingjiang, Wu Fei doesn't like to use his main core forces; instead, he reduces costs by using auxiliary troops directly.

The meticulous Wu Fei refused to assign his auxiliary troops to the central government's official ranks, instead assigning them directly to local ranks in southern Xinjiang. This eliminated their last chance to be formally enlisted through meritorious service, causing discontent among some of the soldiers from within the Great Wall who followed Wu Fei.

This group of people had finally managed to get through customs this time, only to find that they were just making one trip and getting paid multiple times. They were unhappy about it, and after getting drunk and frustrated, they started fighting.

…Always strive for every point on the exam paper…

Here's a side note: Wu Fei is not complacent and has not been blinded by the current stability of the foundation. After encountering problems in the military, he personally investigated and interrogated the relevant parties, and the results confirmed the above situation.

If he were to be subjected to military law directly, he would truly be unaware that there was such a group of ambitious men within his own army. If this ambition is thwarted, there will be no chance to realize it later.

After learning about the situation, Wu Fei paced around his office several times.

"Want to risk your life? That's easy!" As a military strategist, Wu Fei never resists those who are willing to risk their lives.

Therefore, the Wu family army made the following judgment.

Each person who fights must pay twenty silver leaves, or they will be subjected to tattooing and other forms of torture such as having their toes cut off.

Inside the confinement room, after the military court pronounced its verdict, the expressions of these people who had ruined their lives by drinking varied. Some were dejected, while others were like pigs that didn't care about boiling water, looking just like high school students who had been dragged to the wall and stood in a row, unwilling to accept their fate after a fight.

In the past, Wu Fei, who had once dominated the campus, felt nothing about this, but now that he was leading troops, he found the spirit of these young men quite endearing!
After the verdict was announced, none of the young men appealed because they were all sulking. This made Wu Fei even more tolerant of these young men who silently suffered injustice.

Wu Fei looked at these guys and clicked his tongue in admiration: "Not bad, not bad, they all have emotions, which makes things easier."

Because the more emotional and impulsive a young man is, the more easily he is moved. In my past life, many such young men were easily manipulated by certain cunning women.

On the last night before the scheduled execution, in the prison cell.

Wang Feihao: "Hey, you're getting your face tattooed tomorrow, where are you planning to go?"

Sun Aoling: "I can go anywhere, I'm just a worthless life anyway! I'm not going home, I'll roam the world as I please!"

Later in the cell, Bai Ya said, "I thought amputation was cutting off the feet, but it turns out it's cutting off the toes. What a joke!"

One by one, they started cursing while laughing.

Just then, the cell door opened, and Wu Fei walked in. Looking at the young men, he didn't say a word as they faced off. He then said to the jailer, "Release them all. I want to talk to them."

The jailer said, "General, this—" Clearly, these twenty-seven hotheads were quite dangerous.

Wu Fei casually told the jailer to leave, "Nothing much, just chatting."

In the cell, Wu Fei looked at the silent men, slowly took out a box, and then a list: "This is your fine. Of course, each of you will also receive ten silver leaves. Pay your fines tomorrow and go home to see your mothers."

The cell was very quiet, with only the gleaming silver leaves visible in the box.

After a while, Wang Feihao asked, "General, will you let us go back?"

Wu Fei lectured you like an older brother: "You guys are so immature. It's one thing to beat up the owner and customers of the liquor stall, but to assault a military policeman in the street? That's why military regulations are strict and you have to be punished! But you're too young. Your bodies are a gift from your parents, and you've already damaged them at such a young age..."

Wu Fei shook his head, a very knowing shake, and then put down the silver leaf and slowly walked out of the cell.

Just as Wu Fei turned around and silently counted "one, two..." someone said in a deep voice, "Sir, we're here to serve you, not to collect money." (Wu Fei was overjoyed; he had been waiting for this. If a woman had said this to him, saying it was "love" and not for money, Wu Fei wouldn't have believed a word of it.)

Wu Fei turned his head: "Serve? Don't I have any opportunities to serve here?"

Wang Feihao was annoyed by the reprimand. He looked at his brothers around him, who were holding their breath, and began to argue with his head held high: "You are using foreign soldiers instead of your own. This is a disaster."

Wu Fei looked at him and said, "The foreign tribes who are now serving me have had their territories plundered by my troops from within the Great Wall. Today, when you arrive in the Southern Frontier, those clawed and horned people are extremely respectful to you because I fought my way out of there. You can't even maintain order, yet you say I'm going to bring great disaster upon you."

The malevolent aura was released, and all the soldiers wanted to continue their defense but dared not speak.

Wu Fei: "I know you're all a bit unhappy, feeling like your talents aren't being recognized. I'm giving you a chance right now!"

Wu Fei tossed out a military treatise, "There's an exam at Yongji Pass in three months. How about we take a gamble?"

Wu Fei looked at the soldiers and said, “Passing the exam is a win, failing it is a loss. If you lose the bet, you will be branded with corporal punishment and stay obediently in the southern border for twenty years to guard the frontier. If you pass the exam, I will admit that you are capable.”

The soldiers exchanged glances and all expressed their willingness to take the gamble.

Wu Fei kept a straight face, maintaining the arrogant demeanor of a superior, nodded and left.

Wang Feihao, the leader: "Sir, here's your money."

Wu Fei: "Asking the teacher during the exam: Eating your fill every day costs money, so save it for later."

When Wu Fei left the cell, his previous dejection vanished, and the soldiers began to whisper among themselves. Wang Feihao, whose face was about to be tattooed, said to his fellow sufferers beside him, "The general is the founder of this enterprise."

…cash and silver were scattered in the prison cells like dirt…

In fact, the soldiers in the prison cells could easily figure out Wu Fei's "feigned indifference" trick afterward.
They had investigated various methods in the camp and had long studied all the ways to advance as sergeants, which was to gain kills on the front lines and then be recognized.

Now Wu Fei runs into the prison cell claiming he has connections to pass the exam! Isn't that just lying?

However, this is not important. Between the ruler and his ministers, if it is truly a case of "one side wanting to adopt and the other side wanting to serve," then it is acceptable for the ruler to play a little trick to save face.

The relationship between a ruler and his minister is like that of a romantic lover. If they are truly in sync, then a touch of arrogance can be charming. However, if there is no foundation of mutual understanding and affection, no matter how many tricks of "treating others with respect" are played, they will eventually drift apart.

…The most important task in starting a business is to never forget to explore…

After leaving the cell, Wu Fei gritted his teeth and continued his self-reflection: "Blood for blood. Those who want blood must be provided with work that pays blood."

These rioting soldiers served as a reminder to Wu Fei that with the world on the verge of turmoil, he must not forget his original aspirations and always insist on discovering talent from the grassroots level of the army. If he could not embrace all talents, not only would all talents fail to flow to other forces, but even those under his command would be lost.

The formation of a non-commissioned officer system cannot rely solely on the self-motivation of veteran officers; external evolution must also be introduced. These enthusiastic young people reminded Wu Fei of the historical group of "young students in their prime." If used well, they can propel the times forward; if foolishly suppressed, one will eventually regret it.

Wu Fei glanced at the cell again expectantly: "As long as you have the ability, I can help you earn merit. Hmm, earning merit is easy, isn't it?"
Wu Fei looked north: Things here will be resolved soon, soon, soon, Uncle, don't rush me.

(End of this chapter)