Brocade clothing as the country

Chapter 113

Now the teenagers in the martial arts hall are all wearing bamboo armor. The bamboo armor is made of bamboo strips woven into the shape of a half body armor. The inside and outside of the bamboo armor are padded with cotton, the outside is wrapped with leather, and the inside is lined with coarse cloth.

The mask on the face is made of iron sheet, only the eyes and nostrils are exposed for ventilation, and the knees and other places are also tied with protective equipment such as knee pads and leg plates.

The teenagers all have an excellent white wax pole in their hands. The length and weight are the standards of the Ming military system, and everyone is required to keep the white wax pole by themselves. Even Emperor Wanli carries a pole taller than him when he goes in and out of the martial arts hall every day. There are many white wax poles, which look ridiculous.

The current daily training is that the teenagers do the thrusting and lifting first.The standard action is to line up with weapons, and then the second half of the course is to stand in two rows and block each other with poles.

Instructors issued passwords at intervals in the queue to correct non-standard misdeeds.

The leather is black, and the front end of the long pole is covered with cloth, with white ash rolled on it. When they stab each other, they use this to judge whether they hit or not.

According to the teachers, the opponent of Emperor Wanli should be Li Hutou, the youngest and thinnest, but Wang Tong objected, but everyone did not listen to his opinion.

Everyone's thinking, Li Hutou is young and not strong, he and Emperor Wanli are assigned to stab in a group, so that he will not cause any harm to Emperor Wanli.

What I never expected was that during the first group practice, before Emperor Wanli could move, a thrust from Li Hutou caused Emperor Wanli to fall on his back, out of breath for a long time.

The sweaty instructors hastily adjusted the groups for Emperor Wanli. Naturally, they chose the weakest boy among the boys, so Emperor Wanli could barely handle it.

But the real surprise was Li Hutou. He adjusted twelve opponents in a row, and before they had time to make a second move, they were stabbed to the ground by Li Hutou.

The movement is fast, the stabbing location is tricky and accurate, the strength is not great, but it is particularly good at explosives, and Li Hutou has killed people before, so this momentum is different.

In desperation, they had no choice but to take Li Tao, the most outstanding young man, as Li Hutou's opponent. The two sides were evenly matched, and Li Hutou suffered a bit because of his lack of strength.

Wang Tong's opponent is Sun Xin. Wang Tong is the most powerful among the teenagers, and he can endure. The first opponent was stabbing Wang Tong and was stabbed in the chest by Wang Tong. Wang Tong shook, and the opponent was directly poked over He fell to the ground, and in the end it was simply given to Sun Xin, who was the tallest and most powerful boy among the boys.

After the boring physical training, the teenagers were very interested in this kind of spear training similar to fighting. For the first time, it was the break between classes, and the instructors needed to drive them to rest.

The nature of Emperor Wanli is not a little higher than that of yesterday afternoon, where he happily said to Li Hutou:
"If we had gone with poles yesterday, how could we have been defeated by those dogs? I'm afraid people would have been rescued long ago."

"Stop bragging. When I held your hand yesterday, your palm was covered in sweat. You still held the pole, so you're not afraid of slipping out."

Li Hutou, who was sitting on the side shaking his arms, unceremoniously exposed Emperor Wanli's big words. When Wanli first came to this martial arts hall, anyone who wanted to talk to him like that would have to be sullen for a long time, but now he is much more empathetic. There was no redness on Yuan Yuan's face, and he said directly:

"Hutou, you must be wrong, I'm sweating, I'm so tired!!"

The two little ones were laughing and hustling there, and Wang Tong felt much more relaxed. Seeing Emperor Wanli's appearance, the trouble of the Minister of the Ministry of Officials must have been resolved, and when the time comes, he will find a chance to ask Wang Tailai, if Wang Tailai really agrees with Sanyang If teaching has anything to do with it, the son of the Minister of the Ministry of Officials must have a high status, and he is closer to the core circle, so he can know more things.

While thinking about it, Li Tao, Sun Xin and several older children came over. Emperor Wanli saw the leader of these young people coming, and quickly took out a few packs of snacks from his bag and handed them over.

Emperor Wanli knew very well that the core of the youngsters in this martial arts gym was by no means himself, but these precocious youngsters. Li Tao and Sun Xin laughed and sat down beside Wang Tong.

"The Western anecdotes told by Xiaowei Wang every day are really wonderful to listen to. I don't know if I can see them with my own eyes in the future."

Sun Xin spoke first, and Wang Tong gently stroked the wooden pole in his hand to see if there were any small thorns left on it, and replied casually:

"There is still some time to practice, let's talk about it tomorrow after class!!"

But these teenagers came to Wang Tong obviously not to talk about this. Sun Xin patted the protective gear on his body and said with emotion:

"As long as this body armor is not being attacked by a spear and bayonet from the front, I am afraid it can be protected. Even if the strong bow is not shot right, it may be able to block it if it is farther away."

"In our Xuan Manor, even those who fight the Tartars all day, Mr. Qian may not be able to mix such a set of leather armor, let alone this helmet, the Tartars' broken knives might break it."

Li Tao spoke on the sidelines, the two sang together, Wang Tong put down the pole in his hand, and finally realized that the other party was not here to listen to the story, and Emperor Wanli was also interested in this topic, so he couldn't help interjecting:
"Isn't this just a protective gear, can this also be called armor?"

His question was purely an outsider's question. Whenever there was a grand occasion, the forbidden soldiers would wear armor to appear on the stage, especially the big Han generals of the Jin Yiwei who were serving in the palace, and their armor was bright.

The armor they wear is almost used for ceremonies. There are many metal components. The bread is covered with a layer of leather, how can it be called armor.

Hearing his words, even though everyone got along well, some teenagers still laughed and said aloud:

"How do these rich and noble soldiers in your capital know the difficulties below? This is not called A. I want to take it back to show my father and uncle. They can make their mouths water. Soldiers who go to battle desperately, and those who have no money at home will be Wear a jacket, if you have two coins, wear a thicker one, and put another layer of cotton clothes under the battle jacket..."

Emperor Wanli said "Oh", lowered his head and was about to wipe the white wax pole, but seemed to remember something, looked up at Li Tao and the others and said:

"The two border towns of Jizhen and Xuanfu each receive nearly 200 million taels of silver from the imperial court each year. The Jingwei Jingying in the capital spends less than 100 million taels a year, and the capital has more soldiers and horses than the border towns. , why don’t the soldiers below even match their armor!!”

No one thought that Huang Yijun, who was so playful all day long, would know it so clearly, and what he said so clearly, these figures must not be known to teenagers. Seeing Huang Yijun suddenly so serious, everyone thought it was a bit ridiculous. From a distance, he said with a smile:

"The commander-in-chief of each town is not a rich man, but Li Tao's father is stupid, and he was sent to the front..."

"shut your mouth!!"

Li Tao who was beside him suddenly yelled sharply, the young man immediately fell silent and dared not speak out, Li Tao smiled awkwardly, changed the subject and said:

"Come to find Wang Xiaowei and Huang Xiaowei. Actually, it's not about this. When we left home, the uncles at home had a guess, saying that this martial arts hall is a martial arts school. You see, all the teachings are Looks like a general, and look at the long pole we practiced, it is clearly the spear technique in the army, and this armor... everyone sees that you, Captain Huang, and Captain Li don't live in the big courtyard, do you think so? what do you know?"

There are some things that you can't hide from others, even smarter people can figure it out. Wang Tong and Emperor Wanli looked at each other, and replied with a smile:

"We don't know either."

After training in the evening, the teenagers all had bruises and injuries. The imperial doctors of the imperial hospital had to give them medicine and treatment one by one. This kind of fighting was much more exhausting than physical training. Walking to the delicious restaurant, although the white wax pole is heavy, it cannot be dragged.

Emperor Wanli was a little lazy, so he handed over the pole to Wang Tong, who was the weakest in physical fitness and inconvenient, so the teenagers could understand.

The two were at the end as usual. After several conversations with Wang Tong, Emperor Wanli spoke to Wang Tong quite casually. He seemed to be in a low mood today. After walking a few steps, he turned his head to Wang Tong. said:
"Wang Tong, since the widow has participated in the government, the cabinet, household department, and military department have been arguing endlessly over the military pay of the nine borders at the beginning and end of each year. Every border town has to increase their salary every year, but why don't the soldiers even have a single armor?"

Even Jinyiwei is deducting military pay, not to mention those border towns where the emperor is far away. Wang Tong remembers that when he and his father went to Guangdong and Macau on business, everyone in Jinyiwei laughed and talked about it. Wei’s side is okay, there are many people staring at it, so there are some scruples about what to do, but it has become the most paid soldier in the world.” Wang Tong was deeply impressed by this sentence, because it subverted his concept.

All kinds of historical film and television dramas and gossip say that the border military generals are dedicated to serving the country, and the capital military generals are greedy for ink and buckles. Listening to these people, how can it be reversed.

However, Wang Tong couldn't answer this question of Emperor Wanli. No matter how much he knew, there were too many things involved that could break people's bones. Wang Tong hesitated and said:
"Your Majesty, apart from the capital and Guangdong and Macao, I have never been to other places, and I have heard nothing about it. I really don't know the reason."

Emperor Wanli didn't make a sound anymore. When he walked to the door, he saw Zou Yi who was waiting outside, saying that it was the queen mother who asked the emperor to go back to the palace for dinner and not to stay in the restaurant.

*****
As soon as Emperor Wanli left, Ma Sanbiao trotted over there. Wang Tong thought there was something urgent, but when he got to him, he saw a strange expression on his face. Said with a voice:

"My lord, go back quickly, there is a woman kneeling at the gate of your courtyard!"
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Thank you everyone, I am dizzy and have a runny nose, and I am slowly writing Chapter 2. Everyone, if you have a monthly pass, do you support it? You are welcome to subscribe or something.
(End of this chapter)