Shi Diwen watched the drills on the school grounds calmly. In his opinion, the combat skills of these Japanese trainees were at best better than the Haihan recruits who had been in the army for about three months, let alone Compared with the combat troops of the Haihan Army, even when compared horizontally with the military personnel trained by Haihan for other countries, there is still a relatively obvious gap.
Of course, for slave countries like North Korea and Annan, the training content received by military personnel sent to study in Haihan is inherently different. All the subjects they learned in military academies were designed to seamlessly accept Haihan's command during wartime and become a supplementary force for Haihan's army.
The Executive Committee does not trust the Japanese at all, and currently has no plans to incorporate Japan's armed forces into the servant army, so what is taught to them is naturally reserved.
However, as long as each domain is convinced that their military strength will be greatly improved as a result, they will have the confidence to fight against the powerful shogunate.
After the drill between the garrison and the Japanese cadets ended, the military parade ended here. After the diplomats from each vassal said goodbye to Shi Diwen, they left the school grounds with unfinished content.
According to the scheduled arrangement, Shi Diwen was going to take a look at the recruitment situation in the fall.
Those who have recently signed up to join the army at the Sasebo base have been arranged to live in a specially vacated barracks. They will then undergo several rounds of screening before the final candidates are determined.
The first is the physical examination, which will remove those who are too short and thin, or have hidden diseases or even disabilities. Although the Sasebo base has long publicly announced its recruitment requirements, in fact there are still many people who do not meet the conditions every year hoping to fish in troubled waters.
Then there is the test of physical fitness and strength. Through a few simple projects, a group of personnel who cannot meet the standards for enlistment will be eliminated.
After passing these two levels, the remaining people will enter the identity review stage.
However, it is difficult to implement this kind of review. Since the vassals are worried about population loss, they do not support people in their jurisdictions to sign up to join the Haihan Army, so they will not provide Haihan with assistance such as identity verification.
The so-called review can often only be done through a face-to-face conversation between the recruiting officer and the applicant. The recruiting officer uses experience to judge whether the personal situation stated by the other party is true.
The effect of this screening is not as immediate as the first two steps, but sometimes it can also identify some people with ulterior motives.
After passing these three levels, applicants can be officially recruited as recruits. Of course, this does not mean that you can sit back and relax in the future. If you fail to pass the assessment after the three-month recruit training, you will still be ruthlessly eliminated.
However, those who are eliminated after the recruit training will not necessarily be sent out of the base. Instead, they have a great chance to become ordinary naturalized citizens and accept other arrangements from the Civil Affairs Office after naturalization.
Accompanied by Amakusa Shiro, Shi Diwen came to the camp where Japanese applicants lived.
Today, the medical staff at the base were conducting experiments for these applicants. When Shi Diwen arrived, he immediately got the newly released statistical report.
Judging from the report, the physical condition of the applicants this time has not improved significantly compared with previous years. Many people did not even reach the height of four feet and eight inches - this height is already higher than that of Haihan's recruitment in China and other regions. The soldiers' requirements were a full two inches short.
According to current statistics, only about 50% of applicants have qualified height. From a statistical point of view, this seems to reflect the current height situation of local young and strong men to a certain extent. The local people are so short. In addition to the problem of human genes, Shi Diwen believes that this also has a great relationship with the living conditions during the growth period. For example, Amakusa Shiro was also born in Kyushu. His two sons, Amakusa Masaru and Amakusa Hayabusa, were both born and raised under the rule of Kaihan. They are now a full head taller than his father.
Applicants who can grow to more than five feet in height, are in good health, and have certain athletic ability can only account for less than 20% of the total number.
However, Shi Diwen would not be sympathetic to such a situation. His purpose in requesting these statistics was not to improve the living conditions of the local people.
Amakusa Shiro stood beside Shi Diwen and asked softly: "Sir, if your requirements are strictly followed, I'm afraid we won't be able to recruit even a hundred people for this fall's recruitment."
Shi Diwen said: "The treatment we offer is much higher than that of the local big names in Kyushu. Are you afraid that you won't be able to attract local people to join the army? Look, there are hundreds of people here. The autumn recruitment lasts for one month. What can you do? There must be two to three thousand people signing up, right?”
Amakusa Shiro responded and continued: "Sir, Kyushu locals are actually quite enthusiastic about joining the army, but with this kind of selection method, most people will end up disappointed... Otherwise We should relax the standards a little and admit more people, so as not to dampen the enthusiasm of local people to sign up.”
Shi Diwen took a deep breath and said: "Do you know why we set thresholds for candidates' physical conditions?"
Shiro Amakusa quickly responded: "Of course it is to select strong soldiers to maintain the combat effectiveness of our army."
Shi Diwen said noncommittally: "What else?"
"What else?" Amakusa Shiro thought for a while, shook his head slightly and said, "I am stupid, please give me some advice."
Shi Diwen said coldly: "I will only say this once, please remember it well. The quality of domestic soldiers is much better than here. If we really want to recruit soldiers, domestic priority must be given. Our purpose of recruiting soldiers here is to select local bodies." The young people with the best conditions will become the citizens of our country. The people we want to choose should be more talented than more talented people. Do you understand?”
Amakusa Shiro didn't understand the mystery of these words at first, and he thought to himself, doesn't this mean the same thing as what I said? But soon he understood what Shi Diwen wanted to express, and his expression changed slightly.
The purpose of Shi Diwen setting the entry threshold was not to recruit outstanding soldiers for the Haihan Army here, but to use this method to select and take away the local young men with the best physical condition.
As for picking out the remaining crooked melons and cracked dates, the discarded defective products can naturally only go back to their original lives.
If things go on like this, those with the best conditions will be taken away by Haihan in the name of conscription, and the rest will be weeds that cannot be used for anything.
No matter how hard the southwestern vassals train their troops, they will never be able to train these people with poor physical conditions into elite soldiers like the Haihan Army. Instead, they will become increasingly dependent on the support and shelter provided by Haihan.