After seeing off his stupid teammate, Uncle Zhu Shouren and his three companions and solving a hidden danger, Zhu Ping'an felt a lot more relieved.
It was worth it that I used some tricks to "show" them a few of the stories I had carefully prepared. I thought I would show them a few more stories, but I didn't expect that their psychological endurance was so poor that they couldn't handle it.
Watching his uncle and the others disappear in the distance, Zhu Ping'an returned to the parade ground with a smile to check on the soldiers' riding skills.
The Zhejiang Army has been training horsemanship for two days, but cavalry is not easy to train. The veterans of the Zhejiang Army have been in contact with horses for a long time and are very skilled in riding horses, but that's all. To become a qualified cavalryman, according to Liu Mu, it will take at least two months.
Cavalry is not as simple as riding a horse. It takes at least three months to master the horseback archery skills to a qualified level, not to mention the essential skills of cavalry such as horsemanship, marching, and horse fighting. It takes at least half a year to train a qualified cavalryman.
There was a shortage of horses in Jiangnan, and the new recruits in Yiwu were all from rural areas, with almost no contact with horses before. After two days of intensive training, most of them could only ride on the back of a galloping horse without falling off.
However, this also met Zhu Pingan's expectations.
Zhu Ping'an did not think that he could train a cavalry in such a short time. It would be enough for them to learn how to ride a horse. Riding a horse is much faster than walking, which would greatly improve the mobility and flexibility of the Zhejiang Army.
In order to deal with the impending Japanese pirates, Zhu Ping'an made slight adjustments to the Zhejiang army.
A group of Zhejiang Army veterans who were skilled in horse riding and a group of Yiwu recruits who were unfamiliar with horse riding formed a ranger.
Zhu Ping'an dispatched 15 such rangers to all directions of Suzhou, and they returned to the camp every two hours to rotate and roam around Suzhou, practicing horsemanship and monitoring the Japanese pirates.
In addition, Zhu Ping'an also traveled around Suzhou on horseback and carefully selected fifteen high grounds, all of which were high hills and mounds suitable for mutual observation. He had people build simple beacon towers on them. A total of fifteen beacon towers were built on the fifteen high grounds.
The fifteen beacon towers are distributed in three rings with Suzhou City as the center. There are ten beacon towers in each ring, and each ring is eight miles apart.
In ancient times, beacon towers were generally spaced ten miles apart. Zhu Ping'an was worried that the distance was too far and difficult to observe, so he changed it to eight miles.
As for the burning materials of wolf smoke, wolf dung is hard to find, but there is plenty of horse dung in the camp. The semi-dry and semi-wet horse dung is dried in the sun, combined with grease, dry firewood, wet firewood, reeds and mugwort. The dry grass, dry firewood and grease are used to ignite the fire, followed by semi-dry and semi-wet horse dung and wet firewood. Once ignited, thick black smoke billows up and can be clearly seen eight miles away.
Of course, beacon towers rely on smoke during the day, with thick smoke billowing and easy to see during the day; they rely on fire at night, with flames rising to the sky and easy to see at night. If beacons are lit at night, reeds, wormwood, dry wood and oil are used as fuel.
Each ranger group that goes out on a roam is responsible for a beacon tower, and five people must stay behind at the beacon tower while they are on the roam.
Once the whereabouts of Japanese pirates were discovered, beacon fires would be lit immediately to sound a warning.
All the rangers patrolling outside would ride their horses and beat gongs when they saw the beacon fire to warn the people in the surrounding villages and towns that the Japanese pirates were coming.
Zhu Ping'an also specifically instructed the soldiers that if they encountered rainy or foggy days with low visibility and unable to see the signal fire, they should immediately ride their horses to the next beacon tower to sound the alarm after lighting the beacon fire.
Zhu Ping'an also arranged two squads of soldiers in the Zhejiang Army camp to look out for the direction of the beacon tower. Once a beacon fire was lit, they had to be aware of it as soon as possible so that they could make arrangements to respond.
When Zhu Ping'an sent the Rangers, he specifically emphasized to them:
"Your mission is to give warnings. I don't ask you to stop the Japanese pirates, let alone kill them. When you encounter them, your first priority is to give warnings. As long as you give warnings in advance, I will give you a great credit."
"After completing the warning, we will harass and stop the Japanese pirates to buy time for the people to evacuate."
"We must take advantage of the mobility and flexibility of firearms and horses to avoid close combat with the Japanese pirates."
Zhu Ping'an gave the Rangers orders to give warnings as the main purpose, and harassment and blocking as the auxiliary. The Japanese pirates were fierce and numerous, and the Rangers sent out were not good at riding and had few numbers, so they were no match for the Japanese pirates.
After Zhu Ping'an gave some careful instructions, he sent out fifteen cavalry teams to all directions of Suzhou.
As the sun was setting in the evening, Zhu Ping'an went to Suzhou City to pay a visit to the Suzhou prefect Shang Weishi.
Although the government office had been closed and all the officials had gone home, Prefect Shang was still working in the government office.
"Your humble servant greets Lord Shang." After Zhu Ping'an entered the yamen, he was led to the study of Prefect Shang, where he bowed and stepped forward to greet Prefect Shang.
"No thanks, no thanks, Zihou, please don't go through all these empty formalities. I haven't yet congratulated Zihou on his great contribution at the Jihai Jiaochang. With this achievement, it is possible for Zihou to remove the word 'Dai' from his title of deputy envoy, and even go further. The decree from above will probably be issued in the next few days. By then, I'm afraid I'll have to pay my respects to you." Prefect Shang laughed and took Zhu Ping'an's arm, inviting him into the study affectionately.
After entering the study, Magistrate Shang asked Zhu Ping'an to sit down and personally poured him a cup of hot tea, which Zhu Ping'an took with both hands.
"Zihou, your camp has enough food, fodder, bags, armor and weapons. If not, don't hesitate, I will send more to your camp."
Magistrate Shang asked enthusiastically, his wealthy and lavish attitude immediately exposed.
"That's enough. I haven't thanked Prefect Shang for his strong support. It has made my Zhejiang Army worry-free. I have nothing to repay you for. I can only sacrifice my life to protect the safety of Suzhou."
Zhu Ping'an sincerely stood up and bowed to Prefect Shang to express his gratitude.
The Zhejiang Army had just arrived, and in the past few days, the support given by Suzhou Prefecture was more than what the court had given since the army was established.
Although Suzhou Prefecture is the richest in the world, the full support of Shang Zhifu is the most important. Otherwise, their wealth is theirs, what does it have to do with you
It was the duty of the Zhejiang Army to garrison in Suzhou, and the Suzhou government had no obligation to provide food and supplies to the Zhejiang Army.
Generally speaking, the places where they were stationed would provide certain support to the garrison, showing some favor in exchange for the garrison's loyalty to duty, protecting the local safety, and not harassing the local people. Of course, the strength of their support was relatively limited, and places like Suzhou Prefecture that provided such strong support were rare.
"Zihou, you're too polite. To be honest, I've been trying to make some achievements since I took office. Civil affairs are fine, and I've made some minor achievements that are not worth mentioning, but the military affairs are shameful. The local military preparation department is in a state of decadence, and I don't know much about military affairs. I've made things worse after intervening several times."
"Zihou, I am very happy about your arrival. You are young and promising, and you are proficient in military affairs. Especially since your Zhejiang Army stationed in Suzhou, it has not harmed the people in the slightest. This is rare. I am not afraid of you poking my spine. I have sent people to investigate your army many times. I admire your military discipline. It is true that they have not harmed the slightest. Not a single soldier has harassed or bullied the people. Since your army stationed in Suzhou, all you have done is training, patrolling, and deploying defenses. Such an army is the army that can truly protect Suzhou."
"We in Suzhou do not support an army like yours. Who do we support?!"
Prefect Shang said with a laugh.