The current Emperor was still young, and the court was controlled by the Empress Dowager and her relatives. Amateurs guided the experts. Whenever they lost a battle, they changed generals and often owed the soldiers money.

There were also rats who stole from the country, embezzling what little was left of the soldiers' money and selling armaments. They let the soldiers go into battle with their rusty armor on an empty stomach. Thus, it was understandable that the Daqing army was defeated by Xirong's attack.

It could be said that all the well-informed people knew about this situation. Because the Empress Dowager and her relatives were in charge, wouldn't the other officials follow suit?

In any case, as long as the embezzled money was distributed to the higher-ups, there wouldn't be any problems.

These officials acted so openly, who could they hide it from?

However, even if there were officials who couldn't stand the sight of these corrupt officials, what could the eight year old Emperor do?

The memorial still fell into the hands of the Empress Dowager. As a woman, the Empress Dowager didn't understand the court and only relied on her family. Her family took the initiative to embezzle money. When she saw that the one being impeached was one of her own, she immediately turned around and threw the official who submitted the memorial into prison.

Since then, no one dared to impeach the Duke Chengen Family.

In the entire country, except for a few reliable assistant ministers left behind by the previous Emperor to the current Emperor, the rest of the officials were rotten to the core.

Xirong took the opportunity to invade the Daqing border in the south. Because these unreliable officials didn't care at all, the assistant ministers and the Empress Dowager's relatives fought non-stop within the party. There were also corrupt officials who were busy plundering the wealth of the people from their own families. The soldiers' money was delayed, and the Daqing border army was defeated again and again. The Xirong Army took several passes in succession.

There were originally several passes in front of the Que Yu Guan, but now they had all been taken by Xirong. The only one left was the Que Yu Guan, which guarded the Daqing border.

If the Que Yu Guan was taken, the Xirong Army would be able to march straight into the heart of Daqing and fight their way to the capital.

It was only at this moment that the officials of the imperial court came back to their senses and frantically tried to think of a way to defend the Que Yu Guan.

Otherwise, if the barbarians from outside the Great Wall attacked, all the properties they had plundered would be taken away by the barbarians, and they might not be able to keep their lives.

However, these officials were still reluctant to fork out a large sum of money to change the military equipment. So, they simply issued a conscription order and forced countless able-bodied men to be cannon fodder, planning to use human lives to kill the barbarians.

In any case, in the eyes of these officials, the lives of untouchables were worthless.

As one of the recruits, Wei Xiuyuan made a rough estimate of the number of recruits coming to Que Yu Guan from other places. There were probably several hundred thousand of them. In addition to the several hundred thousand garrison troops in Que Yu Guan, the current army in Que Yu Guan could be considered a million-strong army.

However, how much fighting power could the militia exert?

Wei Xiuyuan was already thinking about how to get promoted in the army.

He couldn't always be the lowest level of cannon fodder. Finding a way to gain power in the army was the right way.

The new recruits did not have much fighting power at the beginning, so they would not be sent to the battlefield right away. Now that the Xirong Army had not invaded Que Yu Guan, the Que Yu Guan garrison general, General Fang, ordered the new recruits to be trained first.

However, Wei Xiuyuan really couldn't understand this method of training the recruits. Every day, the recruits were pointlessly wasting their physical strength, and they weren't allowed to eat their fill. How could they gain strength?

In his opinion, this kind of training was at most to help the recruits hold their weapons more steadily and to make them more orderly in the queue. There was no other use.

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Wei Xiuyuan performed very well in the training. Although he felt that the training method was not skillful, it did not prevent him from performing better than the others.

Regardless of whether it was strength, speed, endurance, or technique, he quickly attracted the attention of the superior officer when compared to the other recruits who knew nothing else.

Then, he was successfully promoted to a squad leader, and was in charge of ten new recruits.

Wu Mancang, whom he had subdued long ago, was not among the ten new recruits.

Originally, Wu Mancang wanted to apply to join his squad, but Wei Xiuyuan felt that it was too wasteful. Wu Mancang could totally be a squad leader himself. This way, he could indirectly control another squad through Wu Mancang.

After a month of training, the higher-ups gave out a mission. They wanted the five squads, including Wei Xiuyuan's squad, to do a patrol mission.

The difficulty of this mission was not high, but it depended on luck. If they were lucky, they would go out of Que Yu Guan and come back. If they were unlucky, they would bump into Xirong's scout squad, and they would probably lose a lot of members.

However, the squad led by Wei Xiuyuan was full of confidence. This was because during this one month of training, Wei Xiuyuan secretly taught them a set of training methods that increased their speed and strength. He also taught them a lot of fighting techniques.

Although Wei Xiuyuan did not teach them the interstellar elementary school broadcast gymnastics like he did with Wu Mancang, nor did he give them any genetic medicine, his teachings and training were enough to increase their strength by several times. Other than the fact that they had not experienced the flames of war and their mental strength could not compare to the veterans, they were not worse than the veterans in other aspects.

For this patrol mission, Wei Xiuyuan was different from the other four squads. Instead, he hoped to meet Xirong's scout, so that his new recruits could see some blood.

In order to become a qualified soldier, it was unavoidable to experience the bloodshed and killing on the battlefield.

Wei Xiuyuan, who had fought his way up to the position of marshal in the Interstellar Federation, understood this principle very well.

He remembered that when he first joined the army from the Interstellar Military Academy, the first battle he participated in was a war between the Human Federation and a branch of the Zerg.

Compared to Xirong, who was also a human, the Zerg, who were all kinds of hideous and terrifying killing machines, were the real terror.

Wei Xiuyuan led ten of his men and started patrolling according to the planned route. The eleven of them rode on horses and let the horses move slowly.

He said to the people behind him, "Actually, before we meet the enemy, we can first observe the surroundings to see if there are any traces of people walking around. From there, we can determine if there are any enemies nearby."

"Captain, I know this!"

A dark-looking man shouted. "I used to be a hunter. I used to be like this when I was looking for prey in the forest!"

Wei Xiuyuan smiled and nodded. "Pretty much. However, the enemy is different from the prey. The enemy is intelligent.

This is especially true for these experienced scouts. They will erase the traces they left behind, or deliberately fabricate traces to mislead us. At this time, we need to carefully observe the traces … "

He did not hide this experience and taught it to his subordinates. He hoped that these people could live a little longer, and not casually become one of the countless cannon fodder.