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

"Are you sure this is the only way for Zhang Tiande to provide support?" Jiang Li asked the two bewildered intelligence officers in confusion.

"Reporting to the county magistrate, the situation we have inquired about is indeed like this. If Zhang Tiande wants to support the towns behind us, he will definitely pass by here!"

"unless..."

"Unless what, is there anything you have missed?" Jiang Li asked nervously. If Zhang Tiande had another way to go and quietly came up behind him, it would be a lot of fun.

The intelligence officer said with embarrassment, "Don't be nervous, County Magistrate. We have already reported it before. Zhang Tiande has no other choice but this road."

"But if they are clever and go over the mountain through the woods on the right, that's possible, but I don't think they will do that."

Jiang Li fell into deep thought after hearing his words.

"Well, you take a platoon of soldiers to ambush somewhere. I estimate that even if some of them really come over the mountain, there won't be many of them. You just need to stop them for a while, and I will send troops to support you."

Upon hearing this, the intelligence officer immediately saluted and left, while Jiang Li continued to wait here with his men.

After waiting for several hours, there was no news from the enemy. Instead, four companies from both sides rushed over from the town and were ready to ambush, but there was no sign of Zhang Tiande.

From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn, Jiang Li, together with the Taoist soldiers and the medical team, prepared three meals for these more than a thousand people.

It was not until noon the next day that he saw Zhang Tiande and his men arrive at Shiliping, but when he saw that Jiang Li had been waiting for a long time and was obviously well prepared, he immediately felt like retreating.

Jiang Li finally heard the scout's report, saying that a large group of enemies were spotted three miles away, but they did not dare to come over to engage in battle.

Hearing this, he frowned, then came up with a plan and ordered the soldiers around him to shout together, "Zhang Quede, if you don't dare to fight, get off your horse and surrender quickly. We will definitely treat your eighth concubine well."

More than a hundred people shouted in unison. Although the sound traveled far away, Zhang Tiande was still three miles away from Jiang Li at this time, so he naturally could not hear it.

He couldn't hear it, but the scouts he sent out heard it, and after hearing their report, he was so angry that his face turned blue.

He gritted his teeth and gave the order to attack.

When they advanced several hundred meters, at Zhang Tiande's command, his ragtag troops began to fire at Jiang Li in a disorderly manner.

But they had lacked training and the distance was far, so they had no accuracy at all. Seeing this, Jiang Li did not order to open fire.

He was afraid that the distance was too far and the kill rate would be limited, so he could not defeat the enemy in one wave. At that time, the positional battle would turn into a pursuit battle, causing unnecessary losses to his own soldiers.

And because Jiang Li's side had trenches and various fortifications, they did not suffer any casualties.

It was not until the enemy advanced to 200 meters that Jiang Li gave the order, "Open fire."

The six field guns that had been laid flat around them immediately opened fire. Six 75mm shells shot straight into the enemy crowd and exploded, causing heavy casualties among the surrounding people.

When the soldiers in the trenches heard the sound of artillery fire, they pulled the trigger one after another. In an instant, light and heavy machine guns opened fire at the same time, and the grenade launchers were quickly loaded and quickly completed a round of rapid firing.

At one time, countless bullets and artillery shells poured out, and at the first sight, Zhang Tiande's ragtag army was stunned.

Even though he was at the end of the team, he was targeted by two Maxim guns and was shot to pieces on the spot.

When the miscellaneous soldiers reacted, they immediately shouted something like "The Marshal is dead, we are defeated" and fled in all directions.

The soldiers lying in ambush in the woods on both sides, hearing the sound of gunfire and seeing them running towards this side, naturally would not let them have their way, and they opened fire, hitting them on the head again, and forcing them to turn around and run away again.

Seeing that the enemy had completely collapsed, Jiang Li immediately ordered a pursuit, while he took the Taoist soldiers and two platoons of soldiers to continue guarding the artillery company.

After all, this thing is his precious treasure, and there must not be any mistakes.

Back to the pursuit situation here, Zhang Tiande had little training and his physical strength was very poor.

In addition, they were already quite tired after marching all the way here, and now they were running like this, they were all panting like cows.

The soldiers on Jiang Li's side had been lying in ambush here early on and were able to eat every meal on time. Except for their simple sleeping conditions, their other conditions were much better than those of the other side.

One soldier even joked that "It's much easier here than in our normal training. If we keep fighting in the future, we won't have to train anymore."

The soldier who said this thought that he would certainly be scolded by his squad leader, but there were many soldiers who thought so.

So they were in full force, chasing after the exhausted remnants.

Before they had even run two miles, Zhang Tiande's cowardly soldiers surrendered one after another, with no intention of resisting at all.

It was not until hundreds of prisoners were escorted back that Jiang Li looked at his pocket watch in disbelief.

This was a bit shocking. It took more than ten days to prepare for this battle, one day to travel, one day to dig trenches, and one day to ambush.

However, the actual exchange of fire lasted less than ten minutes, and then it took two hours to capture prisoners. Jiang Li had to describe this battle as a tiger's head but a snake's tail, because it was too easy to win.

After final statistics, our side suffered a total of 28 casualties, 12 of whom were injured by stray bullets from the initial enemy shooting.

Only two people died. One was hit in the head by a bullet that came from nowhere and died on the spot. The other was hit by a bullet in the lung. Even though he was immediately treated by the medical team, he could not be saved.

As for the other fourteen, they fell or sprained their ankles during the pursuit, while the enemy lost 106 people, 214 people were wounded, and 827 people were captured.

More than a thousand guns of this kind were seized, tens of thousands of bullets, and other sundry items, such as military uniforms, belts, foreign currency, opium, horses, etc., which I will not list in detail.

Jiang Li laughed out loud when he saw the battle report. No wonder he was happy. At the cost of two deaths, they achieved such a great victory. It could be considered a complete victory.

After having his men clean up the battlefield quickly, Jiang Li began to march quickly with his men. After that, he divided his troops into groups and it only took him three days to capture all eleven towns in Guyang County.

By the way, he also used his three tricks, judging lawlessness, distributing land, and re-setting taxes, seeing that some people really could not make ends meet.

He also took out a portion of the grain he had confiscated from the homes of landlords and gentry and distributed it through the method of work-for-relief.