The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"The quilted centurion is here."

When Heifu walked to the edge of the tent, he happened to hear two centurions whispering to each other, and the person they were talking about was himself...

Seeing Heifu enter the tent, the two centurions wearing plate crowns immediately stopped talking, but their eyes were still communicating, and they glanced at Heifu with a playful look.

Heifu ignored them and sat cross-legged beside them.

A few days ago, relying on his neat and tidy housework and outstanding performance in training exercises, Heifu successfully attracted the attention of Captain Li You, who later ordered him to be transferred to the "short soldiers" directly under his command.

The so-called short soldiers are not the vanguards who charge into battle, but the personal guards directly under the officers.

According to the military regulations of the Qin State, as long as you become a 500-man commander, you don't have to brave the arrows and stones yourself. You can command your 100 generals and garrison commanders to charge into battle. At this time, the military officers must also keep people around to protect them, so there are short soldiers.

Short soldiers are generally one-tenth of the total number of soldiers commanded by officers. For example, a 500-man commander has 50 short soldiers, a commander has 100 short soldiers, and a captain who commands 5,000 to 10,000 people has 500 to 1,000 short soldiers. As for the deputy generals and generals, the same is true, and there are more personal guards around them.

So Hei Fu's current position is equivalent to the captain of the guard company in later generations. His duty is no longer to charge into battle and break the city first, but to protect the safety of Li You, the "division commander".

Hei Fu was of course very happy to get this position. Although the chances of beheading and being promoted to a higher rank are reduced, it also avoids heavy casualties. After the war, where is the safest place on the battlefield? Without a doubt, it is around the generals and captains. Unless the battle is extremely tense, they will be sent out as fresh troops, otherwise there are few opportunities for hand-to-hand combat.

But there are exceptions, that is, Li You unfortunately died in battle.

Military law stipulates: "Fight and die officials, and light short soldiers." If the generals die in battle, all of them will be executed. Ordinary short soldiers can be exempted if they can capture an enemy's head. Short-soldier military officers of Heifu's level must kill a general in the enemy army who is equal to the captain, otherwise they will die.

That is almost impossible to do, so Heifu is indeed much safer in this war, but his life is also tied to Li You.

"After all, he is the son of Li Si and the son-in-law of the King of Qin. It's not so easy to die."

Heifu felt a stone in his heart. In this way, he was one step closer to the minimum requirement of "exemption from death" in this war.

But Li You transferred Heifu to be a short soldier, but he also had his own plans.

The day after Heifu reported for duty, Li You praised him for his "courtesy" in front of everyone, and then asked his five hundred short soldiers to promote this method among hundreds of short soldiers according to Heifu's experience...

Li You was a person who liked uniformity and believed that details could determine success or failure, but he also knew that it was not realistic to promote the folding of quilts in the entire army, so he tried it with the short soldiers from Guanzhong first.

Unexpectedly, this caused Heifu to get a lot of complaints. Not everyone could understand why he had to do this in the morning. Even several short soldiers had some complaints about Heifu and gave him a nickname behind his back.

"Quilt Hundred Generals".

They whispered this nickname in Guanzhong dialect. These hundred generals, without exception, came from Guanzhong. Some were sons of military officials with titles for generations, or descendants of nobles with a long history that could be traced back hundreds of years. Two of them had been on duty in the Xianyang Palace and served as guards.

The horses tied outside were all Longxi horses, much taller than Heifu's reddish-brown horse bought from Anlu County. The clothes under their armor were also of excellent quality silk, far better than Heifu's linen and hemp clothes. Even his skin color was much whiter than that of a poor man who had worked in the fields since childhood.

When Heifu, who came from a small county in Nanjun and spoke a dialect of Jingchu, squeezed into the circle, he was immediately isolated and excluded.

They looked polite, with a slight smile on their lips, but the look they gave Heifu was contemptuous and disdainful.

Heifu did not get angry because of this. He just sat on the side where he was not sociable. As a newcomer, he should be cautious in what he said and did.

At this time, hurried footsteps were heard again outside the tent. A sweaty young man came in. He did not join the chat of the four people next to him, but sat down next to Heifu.

"I'm almost late again."

Among the several hundred generals of the short-armed guards, not everyone rejected Heifu. There was one exception, and that was Zhai Chong next to him.

Although Zhai Chong was not very old, only in his twenties, his beard had already climbed onto his cheeks, and together with his face with alien features, it became his trademark.

After he sat down, he was still tidying up his clothes and complained, "I have to fold the quilt when I get up, Heifu, this is all your credit."

This was a joke without any malice. Heifu smiled and was about to answer. At this time, the five hundred masters who commanded them also came in, and everyone stood up immediately.

"Today, the two hundred generals Zhai Chong and Heifu will take turns to be on duty in front of the captain's tent."

When the five hundred masters read the word "Heifu", the four people on the side looked at each other again and smiled meaningfully...

Heifu knew what they were laughing at.

Laughing at him as "a person without a surname or clan name."

…

"General Zhai Bai hangs out with me all day, isn't he afraid of being isolated by the other generals?"

After Hei Fu and Zhai Chong received the order and left the tent, Hei Fu said as if nothing had happened.

"Isolated?"

Zhai Chong stroked his beard and said with a smile: "Heifu, you don't know that I come from Shangjun. Unlike those rich counties in Guanzhong by the Wei River, I am also a poor and remote place. Moreover, my ancestors were Zhai people, and I was often excluded by those people. Heifu Baijiang was selected by the captain to join the short-armed army, so I have a companion after all."

After that, he whispered to Heifu: "The army is a place where everyone speaks with their own abilities. Those rich young men look down on Heifu Baijiang because of their own background. But in my opinion, Baijiang was born in the countryside, but he relied on his own ability to make merit and get the title, and worked hard to get the title of doctor. You are the one who is most qualified to look down on those who have inherited their father's merits!"

"Thank you, Zhai Baijiang."

However, Zhai Chong hesitated to speak again. Heifu saw it, stopped and bowed to him.

"Don't worry, General Zhai, just say what you want to say."

"Now that Heifu is a doctor, it's time to choose a surname for himself. I heard from the elders in the clan that, except for King Zhai, the Bai Zhai of Shangjun, most people don't have surnames. They are called by their first names and distinguished by the name of the tribe. Until they were incorporated into the Qin State and arrived in Xianyang, they were ridiculed as Rongdi people because they had no surnames. So all the Bai Zhai people took Zhai as their surname..."

It's not easy to climb up from the bottom. Perhaps in the eyes of those four people, the people without surnames they have seen in their lives for the past 20 to 30 years are just slaves and servants in their families.

After a sigh, Heifu bowed and said, "General Zhai's heartfelt words, Heifu will remember them. Let me go back and think about it."

...

Heifu didn't rush back to think hard, in order to add a surname to himself and take a new name, so as not to be laughed at.

After giving yourself a surname and pretending to be an ancient noble, you will be respected by others? You can blend into the small circle? What a joke!

Instead of wasting time for false reputation, it is better to think about how to make Li You trust you more, which is the real thing.

After arranging his men to deploy in groups of ten at the camp, Hei Fu stood outside the tent, listening to the voices of Li You, the leader, and the five hundred masters discussing military affairs, thinking.

Compared with ordinary officers, the advantages of short-soldier personal guards are huge. Not only are they safer on the battlefield, but they are also easy to get in touch with some military affairs. For example, what Li You and the military officers discussed inside is exactly the problem that has troubled this army for months: morale.

The morale of the soldiers in Nanjun is still low, although no one is confused enough to desert under the intimidation of Qin's mountain of laws. But most people have no fighting spirit. After a year of fighting outside, the garrison soldiers in Nanjun only have the desire to go home, so they all seem weak, and the military camp is full of negative atmosphere.

After a discussion of expressing their own opinions, there was still no result. Although the leaders all proposed solutions, the soldiers were tired and the army was old. This was no longer a problem that could be solved by punishment and reward.

Hei Fu stood straight outside the tent door. After all the military officers who attended the meeting left, he walked in and bowed in front of the desk.

"I greet the captain."

"It's Hei Fu. It's your turn today..."

Li You seemed a little annoyed. He pinched his eyebrows with his left hand. Seeing that it was Hei Fu, he asked him to stand up.

Hei Fu did not stand up. He bowed his head and said, "The captain just discussed with the officers how to boost morale. The officers were discussing loudly. I happened to be outside and overheard it. I am guilty."

"This is not a secret."

Li You sneered, "The soldiers of Nanjun want to go home. Everyone in our army knows it. I am afraid that even the Chu camp knows it."

Going to war in such a state, Li You, who led thousands of troops for the first time, was inevitably a little nervous.

At this time, Li You had an idea and pointed at Hei Fu and said, "You are also from Nanjun, and you have been promoted from a garrison commander. You know the sufferings of the soldiers. Is there any solution?"

As an airborne captain, Li You was worried that the generals did not know the soldiers and the soldiers did not know the generals. He transferred Hei Fu to his side as a short-army guard. In addition to appreciating Hei Fu's extraordinary insights shown in the conversation that day, he also wanted a grassroots military officer who understood the military's heart to provide him with advice.

Hei Fu was waiting for this sentence, and immediately said: "I do have a way. I dare not say that it can boost morale, but at least it can reassure the soldiers!"