My Apprenticeship to Uncle Jiu: I Was a Warlord in the Republic of China

As for the 800 acres of land, they are still rented to the original tenants, the only difference is that the rent is only 20%.

After dealing with these, Jiang Li led the team back to Tengteng Town with the gold, silver and other valuables. He also brought back fifty sheep, pigs, cows and donkeys, which were left for Jiang Youyi and his men to use for pulling carts and plowing the fields.

Looking at the map, Jiang Li calculated the troops at his disposal. It would be difficult to continue controlling the surrounding towns, so Jiang Li had to rest for a while to continue recruiting soldiers and purchasing guns.

...

Three months passed in a flash. Jiang Li used the Essence Pill to consolidate his cultivation as a novice apprentice. He also used his increased cultivation to master the Beidou Deification Technique.

During this period, the military strength was continuously expanded. Jiang Li recruited another eighty new soldiers, and Jiang Youyi also exceeded the task and had one hundred and eighty people under his command.

The person Lao Wu sent to buy guns also contacted a new channel. Unfortunately, he could only buy the Hanyang-made guns with weaker performance. But the advantage was that this thing was low in price and large in quantity, so it could achieve rapid military expansion.

So Jiang Li ordered people to purchase 300 brand new Hanyang rifles, 50,000 rounds of ammunition, and 1,000 wooden-handled grenades.

Jiang Li was a little confused when he saw so many rifles but no machine guns.

After calling Old Wu to ask, we found out that it was because Jiang Li did not make any specific instructions, so the person who wanted to buy the gun did not dare to act on his own and did not buy the machine gun that consumed bullets very quickly.

This made Jiang Li very angry, and he asked Old Wu to severely criticize the purchasing person and told him not to be so stubborn in the future.

With these assets, Jiang Li integrated his troops, cleared out the surrounding forces, wiped out and incorporated seven large and small bandit gangs, and took advantage of his absolute advantage in numbers to scare the small warlord in Sunjia Town into surrendering.

Jiang Li naturally took over Sunjia Town. At this time, Jiang Li had occupied Tengteng Town, Qianjia Town, Sunjia Town and more than 20 villages.

After many days of public trials, several extremely evil landlords had been brought to justice, and Jiang Li also began to select soldiers.

The bandits who had surrendered previously and the soldiers from Sunjia Town were screened, and finally one hundred barely qualified people were selected from more than three hundred people, and another one hundred villagers were recruited to integrate them.

Jiang Li now has a total of 163 people from Qianjia Town, 200 people from Sunjia Town, 118 people from Tengteng Town, 30 people from the Jiang family's village protection team, and 16 Taoist soldiers, a total of 531 people.

In addition, Jiang Li also formulated strict military regulations based on the military laws of previous centuries. Although they are much more relaxed, they are more complete and strict than the current military discipline.

During this operation, three battles were fought, and the homes of several evil gentry and local tyrants were raided. More than a dozen people were killed or seriously injured, and about a hundred old rifles were seized. More than 13,000 yuan, 18 kilograms of gold, more than 300,000 kilograms of various grains, and countless jewelry, jade, antiques, swords and knives were harvested.

More than a hundred sheep and dogs were transported to Caoping Mountain, but as for cattle and donkeys, not many were brought back because they had to be used for agricultural purposes.

Now Jiang Li calculated the personnel deployment, with Jiang Youxiao and Jiang Youti as guards on both sides.

Jiang Youzhong led 130 people to station in Tengteng Town.

Jiang Youxin led 130 people to station in Sunjia Town.

Jiang Youli brought thirty people to guard the Jiang family.

Jiang Youyi led 130 people to station in Qianjia Town.

Jiang Youlian led fifty new recruits to supervise the prisoners in building bridges, repairing roads, dredging canals and digging wells.

Jiang Youchi led more than 40 people to run around, collecting intelligence and drawing maps.

After instructing them to train separately, Jiang Li returned to the Jiang family. After spending a few days with Ren Tingting, Jiang Li came to Qingyun Temple again.

It was still early, and Uncle Jiu was doing morning lessons with a few apprentices. Jiang Li saw a few unfamiliar faces behind Uncle Jiu and couldn't help but asked with a smile, "Master, are these new apprentices?"

When Uncle Jiu saw Jiang Li coming, he didn't stand up, but just asked him to follow behind and do morning lessons together.

Half an hour later, the morning class was over. Uncle Jiu called Jiang Li to the side hall. He was about to speak when he paused. He took Jiang Li's hand and examined it for a while before asking in surprise, "Have you reached the level of a human teacher?"

Jiang Li smiled and replied, "With the help of Essence Pill, I can barely reach it."

Uncle Jiu sighed and said, "You have done so many things during this period. I called you in today to talk about this matter, but now that you have reached the level of a human master, it is time for you to become a master. There are some things I cannot say anymore."

Jiang Li said sternly, "Master, what are you talking about? I will always be your disciple. You can tell me anything you want to say."

Uncle Jiu looked at Jiang Li and gritted his teeth and said, "In that case, let me say a few more words. Since you have entered the Taoist sect, you should take it as your responsibility to slay demons and benefit the people. You really shouldn't get involved in war. Now your bright future is ruined. Your teacher is really heartbroken!"

Jiang Li looked at Uncle Jiu's distressed expression and instead of comforting him, he said, "Master, what do you think a demon is?"

Uncle Jiu replied solemnly, "Demons represent evil and darkness, and often bring chaos and disaster to the world, or cause people's fear and cause destruction to humans and other creatures.

Hearing this, Jiang Li asked, "Qian Yongfu, the head of Qianjia Town, secretly funded the bandits to rob merchants and cleared out their competitors. I don't know how many murders he committed. Can he be considered a demon?"

"He had a thirteen-year-old son. Because a farmer was bitten by his dog and kicked the dog twice, he ordered his servants to beat him to death in the street. Can this man be considered a demon?"

"And his other sons, one by one, raped women, annexed land, and took lives. I don't know how many families were destroyed. Can such people be considered demons?"

"There are more than a million people like this in the world today. They collude with officials and businessmen to bend the law for personal gain, making government policies ineffective and people's hearts unstable."

"They use their power to annex land, leaving poor people with no place to stand."

Uncle Jiu frowned upon hearing this and said, "Since ancient times, there have indeed been many bad people, but they are still human after all. If you kill them, you will definitely incur karma, and your path will be difficult in the future!"

Jiang Li asked with a smile, "Killing demons is also killing. Why can we gain merits, while killing extremely evil people will only bring about karma?"

Uncle Jiu said, "People's hearts are hard to predict. How do you know if the person you killed deserves death? If he doesn't deserve death, or if he was wronged, what will you do?"

Jiang Li smiled and said, "Master, do you know how I convict people?"

Uncle Jiu nodded and said, "I have heard of this. It seems that they are tried and executed in public."

Jiang Li smiled and said, "Yes, in the name of the mayor of Teng Teng Town of the Great Qing Dynasty, I asked the people to identify and confront the criminal face to face. After he confessed, I strictly enforced the law in accordance with the Great Qing Law."

Uncle Jiu's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he asked in surprise, "Did you personally carry out the execution?"

Jiang Li shook his head and said, "I am a disciple of the Taoist sect. Excessive killing is not good after all. We let professionals carry out the executions."

Uncle Jiu suddenly stood up and said happily, "In this way, not only will you not be contaminated by karma, but you will gain a lot of merit."

But then he frowned and said, "But there will inevitably be omissions. If your subordinates have selfish motives, I'm afraid it will be bad."

Jiang Li smiled and said, "That's true, but there's nothing we can do about it. We can only pay more attention."