When he asked them to do those military school exercises, it was not to make their team look neat and become unified, but he hoped that these people could learn how to obey orders and have a bit of team spirit.

After they gatheted together, Jiang Zhen trained with them again, making them stand up straight and do some unified movements.

Among these people, Zhao Jinge was the best one. He listened to Jiang Zhen well, and at night, Jiang Zhen occasionally even asked him to take off his clothes and stand in the army posture. Naturally, he learned very well. Next was Wang Haisheng and the He brothers, as well as the two men from Qiaotou. As for the rest of the people, their learning was sloppy, and some were particularly resistant.

“Fuck it! I quit! Jiang Zhen, you are deliberately tormenting me, right? What on earth do you want me to learn from all this?” Liu Heitou, who was tossed around by Jiang Zhen, got angry again, swearing while looking warily at Jiang Zhen. If nothing unexpected happened, Jiang Zhen would go up and beat him!

Jiang Zhen did beat him. He had been fighting with Liu Heitou a lot. Jiang Zhen had figured out Liu Heitou’s style, but Liu Heitou hadn’t figured out his, so Jiang Zhen could defeat him more and more easily. No, it didn’t take long for him to trounce Liu Heitou again, who was beaten up black and blue, his nose bruised.

“Liu Heitou, are you sure you don’t want to learn anymore and leave?” Jiang Zhen smiled narrowly at Liu Heitou, whose face was again swollen from the pinches.

Liu Heitou immediately fell silent and obediently returned to the group. At the same time, all the people who participated in the training felt refreshed and did not dare to be lazy anymore.

Jiang Zhen was very satisfied with this situation, which had become a normal thing for this group these days. In fact, he was very grateful to Liu Heitou. Every time Liu Heitou came up to provoke him or urged his men to provoke him, he could trounce them and make them more and more obedient . . .

What should you do with the disobedient soldiers in the barracks? Of course, just beat them and make them listen! As for the provocative instructor, it was really nothing in Jiang Zhen’s opinion. He used to be dissatisfied with his instructors and wanted to beat them . . . At that time, he was not as strong as he was now, and each time, the consequences were the same as those for Liu Heitou now. But even if he knew he couldn’t beat up the instructor, he still wanted to provoke him. Liu Heitou probably felt the same.

After beating Liu Heitou, Jiang Zhen continued the training refreshed and didn’t return to Hexi until the evening.

In the blink of an eye, another half a month passed. Jiang Zhen encountered a lot of trouble in the early days of teaching these people, but as time passed, they became more and more obedient. Under Jiang Zhen’s special guidance there were ideas such as “What Jiang Zhen said is reasonable”, “Jiang Zhen is really strong”, and “They are all adult men and will make a career in the future” coming from these thugs. Thus, they trusted Jiang Zhen more and more. In this era most people were living in ignorance.

When reading historical books, some people in modern times got confused, wondering why ancient people did not resist after experiencing all kinds of injustice. They could not understand why a soldier could control dozens of people who were doing corvée, and those people didn’t dare to say a word even when they were beaten, scolded, or whipped.

Jiang Zhen had doubts before, but in this era, he understood the reason. In fact, at present , most people lived in ignorance. It was like when a group of zebras were attacked by lions, and a lion took one of them. After the initial confusion, the zebras relaxed again and continued to eat grass and run around. They felt that this was their lot in life, and naturally, it couldn’t be changed by the death of one of their kind.

It was the same with the people in this era. The vast majority of common people had never read a book, and their lives only revolved around their neighborhood. Their lives consisted of farming, eating, and having children, and then letting their sons continue farming, eating, and having children.

In the beginning, the fact that the Jiang family was able to prosper had a lot to do with Butcher Jiang going away to join the army. Now, these people under Jiang Zhen’s command were all ignorant. Before, they never thought about what they could do or achieve. They just wanted to accompany Liu Heitou in eating and drinking and make enough money to afford a bride and buy some land. But now, Jiang Zhen instilled some other ideas in them.

They were men who could go out and do something big instead of staying in such a small place and doing things like bullying their neighbors. As long as they had perseverance, one day, they might be able to return home riding a big horse and going to a restaurant for dinner, which would impress people. This world was by no means limited to just the small area of Hecheng County. In fact, it was very, very large and boundless.

With the passage of time, those who were very resistant to training at the beginning gradually started working hard. When they no longer had the mentality to resist, the effect of their training also became evident.

In this era, common people lived a hard life, and they were able to bear the hardships. As long as Jiang Zhen gave them meat every day, they were not afraid of suffering or fatigue. Of course, for Liu Heitou it was not rare to eat meat, but he was still afraid of Jiang Zhen. He was afraid of Jiang Zhen, but also unable to defeat Jiang Zhen, and now his own men had become Jiang Zhen’s men . . . Liu Heitou settled down peacefully; he could only speak ill of Jiang Zhen in private.

However, now that everyone was extremely tired from their training, how many people were willing to listen to him toss and turn and say bad things about Jiang Zhen?

That day, after the morning training was over, all of them ran to the mess hall. The two people hired by Jiang Zhen had already prepared the meal. It was pork and pickles soup with steamed eggplant and stir-fried amaranth. In the past, they used to rush to grab their meals, but since then Jiang Zhen had established the rule that no matter what they did, they had to line up and follow the rules. Therefore, everyone took two bowls, one for rice and another one for the other dishes, in an orderly fashion.

Each person had a scoop of pork and pickled vegetable soup. In each scoop, there was a piece of pork the size of two fingers. As for the steamed eggplant and the fried amaranth, there was also one scoop per person. That was what these people ate, and Jiang Zhen and Zhao Jinge too.

Letting someone pour the pickled pork soup over the rice, the other two dishes were put in the bowl. Jiang Zhen took the bowls and together with Zhao Jinge found a table to sit down and eat. This place used to be a gambling house, so naturally, there were many tables. But now these gambling tables had become dining tables.

After sitting down, Jiang Zhen ate quickly. After a while, he had eaten all his food, and then watched Zhao Jinge eat with a smile.

Zhao Jinge liked saving the most delicious food for last. After eating all the rice and the stir fry, he put the meat into his mouth and tasted it slowly.

“One day, my Jinge will be able to eat whatever he wants.” Jiang Zhen touched Zhao Jinge’s head.

Zhao Jinge looked at Jiang Zhen puzzled. In his opinion, his life now was already too good to be true. If he could eat whatever he wanted, wouldn’t he just want to eat more meat? And . . . he thought that if they went on like this, they would become poor.

“Jiang Zhen, is it really alright to spend money like this? Do you still have money?”

Although Jiang Zhen wasn’t paying his men for now, even if they only had lunch at noon, he had already spent a lot of money in the past half a month. In the future, they would still need to give them money to support their families; otherwise, why should they follow Jiang Zhen?

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t be long before I can make money,” Jiang Zhen said with a smile.

The people under his command had become obedient. With such a group of people, would he still need to worry about not making money?

No one knew when the gambling house promised by Zheng Yi would open, but Jiang Zhen had already figured out another way to make money.

Edited by : Faro

Proofreader: Taalia

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