A fierce wife enters the house: She helps up a house full of spineless people.

"Stand up straight, all of you!" Zhang Kui roared, and the more than one hundred people below the stage immediately straightened their chests and fell silent.

After a month of training, these greenhorns had finally shed some of the undiscipline of civilians and, standing together, began to resemble soldiers. They were all tanned dark and their eyes had become more piercing.

Zhang Kui nodded in satisfaction and unfolded the roster in his hand.

"Basic training is over for today! Starting tomorrow, you will be assigned to your respective battalions, ready to fight the enemy at any time!" Zhang Kui's voice echoed across the drill ground. "After this month, I know who's a mule and who's a horse! Now, those of you whose names I call, step forward!"

"Wang Tianfang!"

Wang Tian's heart skipped a beat. He strode out of the ranks and shouted, "Here!"

"Li San!"

Li San quickly stepped forward and stood next to Wang Tianfang, his back ramrod straight.

Zhang Kui then read out the names of eight more people. These ten people were the ones who had trained the hardest and achieved the best results in the assessment over the past month.

Ten people stood in a row below the stage.

Zhang Kui looked at them and announced loudly, "From today onwards, all ten of you are promoted to platoon leaders! Each of you will be in charge of ten soldiers! If anyone fails to manage their troops properly, I'll dismiss you and send you back to being recruits to shovel manure!"

A commotion immediately broke out below. Although the platoon leader was the lowest-ranking officer, he was still an officer, and he could get a few dozen more coins in military pay each month, and eat a few more bites of food.

Wang Tianfang wasn't particularly happy. Managing people meant taking responsibility. He could manage himself, but managing ten men with different temperaments was no easy task.

Soon, the soldiers were divided up.

Of the ten people Wang Tianfang was assigned to, several were honest, hardworking farmers, while two others looked like thugs and troublemakers.

One of them, named Ma Ergou, had a pointed face and monkey-like features, with his eyes darting around. He looked at Wang Tianfang with nothing but disdain in his eyes.

"Hey, Squad Leader Wang," Ma Ergou called out sarcastically, "From now on, the brothers will be counting on you to look after us. But I'm a lazy bum, so if I can't get out of bed one day, you'll have to be understanding."

Another troublemaker chimed in, "That's right, we're all brothers, don't take it so seriously and make it so tiring."

Wang Tianfang walked up to Ma Ergou and, without saying a word, kicked Ma Ergou in the stomach.

Ma Ergou cried out in pain, clutching his stomach and squatting on the ground, gasping for breath.

"You...you dare to hit someone!" Another troublemaker panicked and was about to make a move.

Wang Tianfang turned around and glared at him, which made the man tremble and pull his hand back.

"In my team, there is only obedience." Wang Tianfang's voice wasn't loud, but every word struck them like a hammer blow. "Anyone who dares to slack off will be beaten. Beaten until you can't get up anymore. You can try if you don't believe me."

After he finished speaking, he turned to look at the others. The honest men were so frightened that they quickly lowered their heads, not daring to even breathe.

Ma Ergou stood up, clutching his stomach, still trying to argue: "What right do you have to hit me! I'm going to report you!"

"Go and report it." Wang Tianfang pointed to Zhang Kui's tent. "Captain Zhang is right there. Go ask him if I can hit you."

Ma Ergou fell silent. He knew Zhang Kui's temper; if he went to complain about not wanting to be beaten during training, Zhang Kui would definitely whip him to death himself.

Meanwhile, Li San was also reorganizing his troops.

He didn't actually fight, but instead demonstrated a few moves of his family's secret marksmanship, leaving his ten soldiers stunned. Coupled with his generosity, occasionally giving his men some money to buy meat, he quickly subdued the ten men.

Li San watched as Wang Tianfang asserted his authority with his fists not far away, and curled his lip in disdain.

"Barbarians are barbarians, all they know is how to fight," Li San thought to himself. "You have to use both kindness and severity to lead troops. With this kind of fighting style, you'll be stabbed in the back by your own men sooner or later."

In any case, the ten new squad leaders have officially taken office. A new chapter has begun in the military camp.

After becoming a squad leader, Wang Tianfang's life didn't become much easier; in fact, it became even more tiring.

He not only had to train himself, but also had to supervise the training of his ten men. Zhang Kui was extremely strict in evaluating the squad leaders; if even one person in the team failed, the entire squad would be punished.

Wang Tianfang was a stubborn man; once he made up his mind about something, nothing could sway him. He believed that to survive on the battlefield, one had to work hard in peacetime.

Every day before dawn, he was the first to get his men up. They had to run laps around the training ground; while others ran ten laps, his team had to run fifteen. In assassination practice, while others practiced for one hour, he demanded two.

Ma Ergou and his gang of troublemakers initially tried to play tricks, feigning illness or stomach aches. Wang Tianfang, however, wasn't fooled. He simply stood by with a wooden stick. Anyone who dared to stop was struck on the calf with the stick, screaming in pain and forced to get up and continue practicing.

"Wang Tianfang, you're a fucking lunatic!" Ma Ergou cursed as he ran, tears and snot streaming down his face with sweat.

Wang Tianfang followed beside the team, his face neither flushed nor out of breath: "Go ahead and curse. Save your energy for the finish line. Whoever comes in last today, dinner will be shared among the brothers."

Upon hearing that their rations would be cut, no one dared to complain anymore; they gritted their teeth and charged forward.

However, while Wang Tianfang disciplined and punished, he would even take out the dried meat that Jin Zhu had prepared for him and share it with the person who had trained the hardest that day when it was time to eat.

"Give a slap and then a sweet treat." Wang Tianfang didn't understand this principle; he just felt that since people were working for him, he had to protect them.

Gradually, Ma Ergou and the others stopped cursing. They discovered that although following Wang Tianfang was exhausting, they always came in first place during the camp's major assessments and received extra rewards.

His subordinates began to genuinely call him "Squad Leader Wang".

Li San watched all this from the other side, feeling very uncomfortable.

His team achieved good results, but he always felt that his subordinates didn't look at him with the same unwavering devotion as Wang Tianfang's subordinates.

Li San was unconvinced and began to secretly compete with Wang Tianfang. If Wang Tianfang led his men to run fifteen laps, he would lead his men to run sixteen laps. If Wang Tianfang practiced for two hours, he would practice for two and a half hours.

The two soldiers were being tormented to the point of complaining endlessly, but neither dared to back down. The entire training atmosphere of the recruit camp was transformed by these two.

Zhang Kui saw all of this and couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. He loved soldiers like these wolf cubs.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, the recruit training has come to a complete end.

The atmosphere in the military camp became tense, and patrols around the camp were doubled. At night, the rapid sound of horses' hooves could often be heard coming and going.

"Have you heard? The rebels in the south have captured three counties in quick succession, and they're going on a killing spree!"

"Are we... going to be dragged up here as cannon fodder?"

Panic was spreading in private.