Chapter 114 Training Camp
The mornings in Tamsui are beautiful. The rising sun shines on the seaside town as the sun rises in the east. The tidy city slowly awakens from its slumber, and groups of fishing boats begin to set sail from the docks. Salted fish from Tainan has now become an important local specialty, since Tainan has no shortage of sea salt.
Han Kun walked on his way to the Naval Academy. He always arrived a little earlier than others so that he would not run into anyone or any friends.
"Kun, it's been so long since I've seen you. Are you not coming to training camp anymore? I'm still waiting for you to be my boatswain!"
Han Kun wasn't so lucky today. His good friend Leng Qiu was even more diligent than him. He came directly from the dock and happened to meet Han Kun at the fork in the road. The two had been friends before, learning to read and write together. Last year, when the prince opened a "mathematics training class," they were both selected to learn the new-style mathematics.
This year, however, Han Kun and Leng Qiu entered two different schools. Leng Qiu went to the Lianshui Naval Academy, while Han Kun went to... the Sailor Training Camp.
To comfort Han Kun, who desperately wanted to enter the Naval Academy but inexplicably ended up in the sailor training camp, Leng Qiu generously promised him: "Kun, you'll be my boatswain when the time comes, and the two of us will go to the end of the ocean together to see what it's like and what's there."
Unfortunately, what was meant to be comforting words to his good friend instead reopened the wounds in Han Kun's young and stubborn heart. He began to avoid Han Kun and many of his close friends.
"Qiu, I have to go now. I still have some team members to take care of. We can talk again during our rest period." Han Kun quickly walked towards the sailor training camp, leaving Leng Qiu with only his back to him, and silently wiped his tears on his collar.
Han Kun's father was Qin Lan's personal guard. When Qin Lan came to Dayuan, Han Kun's father also came to Dayuan. Qin Lan personally arranged a marriage for him, and that's how Han Kun and his sister Han Ying came to be.
Two years ago, Qin Lan was conscripted, and Han Kun's father went with him to Xizhou, never to return. Of the five hundred guards who went with Qin Lan to Xizhou, four hundred returned, which was quite bad for Han Kun's father, Yue.
Qin Mo's troops were very loyal, and Han Kun's family was not bullied despite losing their father. They were allocated new land, and Han Kun entered the "training class" opened by Qin Mo. He followed the Crown Prince and Ximan around, and his figure could be seen in many new workshops in Da Yuan. The intelligent Han Kun was very talented in mathematics, and even the Crown Prince Qin Mo praised him.
After Qin Mo became a prince, news spread that he was planning to open a naval academy, and Han Kun immediately signed up. He felt that with his foundation, getting into the naval academy would be no problem at all.
But when a red-hot branding iron was pressed against his cheek, sixteen-year-old Han Kun wet his pants and blurted out everything he knew, including the location of the salt fields, the secrets of the shipyard, and so on.
When the masked devil took off his hood, Han Kun cried. He frantically slapped his neighbor, Uncle Li, and questioned him about why he had bullied him like this.
Uncle Li looked at him with regret: "Han Jia'er, do you know how much of an opportunity you missed? If you had just endured a little longer, you would have transformed from a carp into a dragon!"
Han Kun didn't understand what Uncle Li meant at the time, but when he saw the scars on Leng Qiu's face, he was so ashamed that he couldn't lift his head. When he saw that all the naval academy students had scars on their faces, the immense regret almost made him jump off the cliff by the sea.
Han Kun ultimately did not jump. He still had his younger sister and his stubborn and strong mother; he was already the pillar of their family of three.
He cried for a long time in his mother Yue's arms. After wiping away his tears, he decided, "I will get up wherever I fall." The prince's words of wisdom finally gave him back his courage.
For the first time, Mother Yue brought gifts to beg someone to get Han Kun into the Naval Academy. Unaware that behind her back, Han Kun knelt on the ground, weeping silently, his hands crushing the earth without him noticing.
"Your son, Lin Bo, has absolutely no chance of getting into the Naval Academy. If you go to that sailor training camp, we can arrange a captain position for you." Madam Yue said these words with difficulty. She had lost all dignity and did not want her son to suffer in that training camp where he was destined to be subordinate.
"Mother, your son has already been a coward once, and I don't want to be a coward again." Qin Mo's distorted version of "Sailor" was the anthem of the sailor training camp. This strangely melody became popular among all the young men aspiring to sail. The meaning of "coward" in the song was misinterpreted as a synonym for weakness.
"Good morning, Captain Han!"
The strange greetings startled Han Kun from his reverie. He saw his teammates and felt another headache coming on.
Although only a few people knew about Uncle Li's affairs and it would never be spread, Han Kun still felt that he was being targeted; others' subordinates were all Han Chinese youths bought from the interior of the Great Xia, and the worst of them were Koreans or Japanese, but what kind of monsters did he bring? They were all Russians.
"Vasily, why are you standing here in the sea breeze? Shouldn't you be having breakfast at this time? Was breakfast not good today?"
"Captain, today's breakfast is fried rice with eggs, it's delicious, but... Captain Zheng won't let us in." Vasily, tall and hunched over, spoke to Han Kun with a hint of ingratiation. The temptation of the food had changed the once fierce and ruthless young man.
“Vasily, I’ve said it before: as long as we haven’t made any mistakes, any provocation from the other side can be resolved with our fists. Aren’t your fists hard enough?”
Vasily smiled helplessly at Han Kun, indicating that he needed Han Kun's help, but his hunched body had already straightened up. He stood silently behind Han Kun, preparing for the upcoming battle.
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