Chapter 699: The Lord Would Never Return the Man She Borrowed (III)

Qi Kuang understood that this was the common practice at the moment. One’s family background and looks were the most important things.

To become a government official, one would first be judged based on one’s family background, then on looks, then on one’s capabilities, morals, and talents.

The big bosses up there were all obsessed with looks. Qi Kuang was capable, but he wasn’t good-looking. He’d only managed to secure the position of centurion after many years of hard work, and he was still an unknown figure.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Pengji asked Qi Kuang with surprise, “I want to recruit you for your talent, capabilities, and loyalty, of course. What does it have to do with your looks?” Amused, she covered her forehead with her palm and looked at Qi Kuang, a determined gaze in her eyes. “Whether you are good-looking or ugly doesn’t matter to me. After all, isn’t that only for your significant other to care about? If you pledge your sword to me, I will be your lord, and you will be my minister. How can the relationship between a lord and his minister be equated to that between a married couple? As your lord, I only need you to train my marine troops well, the rest is unimportant. Surely it isn’t true that you could train my marine troops better if you had better looks, right?”

Having good looks couldn’t provide enhancements to the rest of the army.

Jiang Pengji wanted to recruit talents, not trophy husbands.

Qi Kuang was at a loss for words, but the grudge in his heart had disappeared.

After thinking for a moment, he gritted his teeth and said, “Thank you for recognizing my talent, my lord. I will definitely do everything in my power to train a team of elite marine troops for you.”

Feng Zhen had already convinced Qi Kuang to pledge his sword to their cause, and Jiang Pengji had made it clear that she didn’t mind his looks, so it was only natural that Qi Kuang would swear loyalty to her.

“Since you are determined to do so, I will naturally provide you with all my support. The timing is not suitable right now, as it is inconvenient to allocate men to you. After we get back to Wanzhou, you can go pick 3,000 elites to train as marine reservists. I won’t interfere with how you train them or what you need. The greatest taboo regarding the training of troops is a layman’s attempt to instruct an expert, so I won’t cause you trouble. You only have to remember one thing — I want to see the elite troops you promise!”

Even though Jiang Pengji didn’t state it explicitly, Qi Kuang could sense how much authority and freedom she had accorded him.

As long as the marine corps was set up, he would be their leader.

Even though Qi Kuang had speculated about the various possibilities, he hadn’t expected Jiang Pengji to promise him so much.

“Thank you for your generosity, my lord.” Qi Kuang bowed deeply. “I definitely won’t let you down!”

And so it was settled.

Jiang Pengji, Feng Zhen, and Qi Kuang were all very satisfied. Only the audience of the livestream felt somewhat let down.

Because of Qi Kuang, the overall appearance rating of Jiang Pengji’s group had been pulled down by several percentage points. After all, wasn’t watching good-looking people go about with their lives the main point of watching a livestream?

However, the sentiments were not maintained for long before their impressions of Qi Kuang improved significantly.

Although Qi Kuang was unattractive, he’d been deeply influenced by his family, which was skilled in marine matters.

His family had been dealing with water for countless generations. The first few generations had been fishermen who lived by the river. When it came to his grandfather and father, they’d become marine soldiers, dealing with the pirates rampaging along the river all year long. Having grown up in such a family, Qi Kuang had a much stronger foundation in the water than other people.

Full of confidence, he pledged his sword to Yang Jian, wanting to achieve his ambitions and make his family proud, like a youngster freshly graduated from university. He was full of passion, but he ran into obstacles in reality. As his looks were lacking and his body was crippled, despite working under Yang Jian for seven years, following the latter into hundreds of marine battles and narrowly escaping death more than ten times, he was still only a centurion.

However, he didn’t feel defeated. He delved into his area of expertise and learned with greater diligence, even though his personality was not as passionate as it had been before.

Now that Jiang Pengji had promised him very high authority, Qi Kuang felt the passion in his blood that had remained cool and silent for a long time warming up and boiling once more.

Qi Kuang told them many things about his experience, the way he trained marine troops, and his insights. He also used the battles he had personally experienced as examples. He provided sufficient justifications and was not merely being an armchair strategist. Jiang Pengji listened very intently.

Qi Kuang’s education level was sufficient enough that he was able to write and read. He hadn’t pursued his studies further, so he couldn’t write well. He could control the pace of his stories very well, and his logic was strong. The blandest examples sounded interesting when he narrated them.

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Jiang Pengji was very satisfied with the future leader of her marine corps, at least at this preliminary stage.

At the same time, Qi Kuang also rated his new lord 5 stars.

At first, he thought that Jiang Pengji lacked the relevant knowledge. He was surprised to find out that not only did she possess the knowledge, but she could also address the core issues directly. All the questions she asked were sharp.

As the conversation went more and more in-depth, the audience of the livestream was won over by Qi Kuang.

Posting Many New Chapters at the Cost of My Liver: People who treat their work seriously are the most handsome. Qi Kuang is not good-looking, but he has quite an attractive aura when he is serious.

Please Give Me Monthly Tickets: I agree with the comment above. Looks are given by one’s parents, and one has no choice in the matter. Ugly people have human rights too.

Please Give Me Recommendation Tickets: Even though I am obsessed with looks too, we shouldn’t casually attack other people for their looks. I can’t comment conclusively on how Qi Kuang is as a person as I have a limited understanding of him, but he can’t be too bad since the streamer has chosen him. I trust in the streamer’s taste. If Qi Kuang achieves great success in the future, it will be a grand drama about an underdog’s way to the top. It sounds very inspiring, so I’m going to be his fan.

The conversation lasted for more than two hours.

Jiang Pengji was invigorated as usual, but Qi Kuang and Feng Zhen were somewhat exhausted.

Judging from the sky outside, it was indeed rather late.

“I’m tired as well. We can discuss any other matters tomorrow; go and get some rest,” Jiang Pengji said.

Feng Zhen was visibly relieved upon hearing her words. He acknowledged Feng Zhen, and the two left together.

Jiang Pengji was full of energy. After Feng Zhen left, she was still thinking about how Qi Kuang would train her marine troops.

Although Qi Kuang’s training method was different from what was currently popular, Jiang Pengji admired it a lot.

However, forming the marine corps would cost another great sum of money.

One wouldn’t know how expensive necessities were until one was in charge of the finances. Jiang Pengji rubbed her forehead, getting a bit of a headache.

Because of the backward technology used to build ships and geographical limitations, the scale of marine corps was limited. They could only handle certain territories.

However, there was no shortage of far-sighted people in the world either.

They did not give up on the idea of marine corps. Instead, they proactively created the conditions required and put their plans into action.

In the south, pirates ran rampant. To counter their development and protect the people on the shores, marine troops were a necessity.

As compared to land troops, the requirements regarding order, discipline, and coordination were higher and stricter for marine troops. In other words, regular training and drills were even more necessary for marine troops as compared to land troops, meaning that the expenses were higher.

Within the next few years, marine troops would probably have no chance of joining the battlefield. In Qi Kuang’s words, she would be keeping idle people around.

As the situation persisted, it would unavoidably attract criticism from other people.

However, none of it posed an actual problem. Who would dare to stop her if Jiang Pengji wanted to train marine troops?

So what if the troops were denounced as idlers by other people?

What right did outsiders have to complain about it if the lord herself didn’t mind the marines spending her money?

With her left hand supporting her cheek, Jiang Pengji spun the brush with her right hand. On her desk was a clean sheet of white paper. She was thinking about how to start.

The audience of the livestream was wondering what she was going to write when they saw her start to draw the drafts of a few wooden ships on the paper.