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

Now, not only do we have a large labor force, but we can also control the unstable factors in the three counties. As long as two or three months pass and the number of troops is increased, we can let them go home and it will not cause any unrest.

After eliminating all the hidden dangers, Jiang Li left sixty people to garrison in each town as usual, and one battalion in each of the three counties. Then he took the confiscated gold, silver, money, pigs, sheep and other livestock and headed to Tengteng County.

Originally, Jiang Li planned to take them all back to build roads, but he could imagine that with so many surrendered soldiers and so many bandits, there might be trouble.

So he did not take all of them away. He left some of them to garrison and serve their sentences locally, and only selected 1,500 surrendered soldiers and took 1,000 bandits away.

The rest stayed in the local area and helped build various projects to atone their sins.

He planned to bring these surrendered soldiers to Tengteng County for training first, to improve their combat effectiveness and sense of belonging, and then place them in garrisons in various places. Otherwise, he was really worried that these people would develop some inappropriate thoughts.

The journey was very smooth without any accidents. The captured livestock were stored in the warehouse and the young and strong livestock were taken to the farm. As for the remaining old and weak livestock, except for a small number used to reward the soldiers, most of them were transported to the cannery.

After arranging the training of the surrendered soldiers, he discussed the issue of rewards with officers at all levels.

The first thing is naturally money and food, and then the promotion of those who deserve promotion and the promotion of those who deserve promotion.

It took three days to finish all this. After distributing rewards and holding a celebration banquet, he also recalled all the soldiers drawn from various counties. Finally, he had some free time.

But he did not have the leisure to go home to visit his wife, because it was time for these one thousand bandits to do some work. After all, they had been well fed and well drunk for three days, and if they did not move, they would probably gain weight.

This is not an adjective, but a real gain of weight, because although the food Jiang Li provided them was not very good, it was still better than when they were bandits in the mountains before.

After all, everyone knows that the life of bandits is not easy. Except for the big and small leaders, the other soldiers really can't get anything decent to eat.

...

After Jiang Li finished dealing with some miscellaneous matters, he ordered Jiang Youchi to take people to explore the mineral resources in the three counties of Nanxi, Hui'an and Ninghua, as well as the situation of Chen Xueming.

He had a hunch that Chen Xueming would definitely take action after learning that such a force had risen behind him.

Even if he doesn't attack directly because he is fighting with others, he will definitely use his strength to overwhelm him and test his bottom line.

If I don't know anything about Chen Xueming by then, I'm afraid I'll suffer a loss.

Jiang Youchi left as ordered, and Jiang Li took his men and escorted these bandits to Qinghe County to build roads.

This time he was not planning to build any dirt or stone roads, but rather a cement road.

Because the dam, factory, farm and mountain temple have all been repaired, the cement produced in the past few days has been stored.

He gritted his teeth and decided to take immediate action, first repairing the road from Qinghe County Wharf to the factory dam to facilitate the transportation of fuel.

As for the other main roads, forget it. The production capacity of such a small cement plant cannot meet the cement consumption of more than a hundred miles of roads.

Since there was not enough steel, he directly used bamboo strips as reinforcement. Anyway, there were no large vehicles, so bamboo reinforced concrete was completely sufficient.

After planning the direction of the road, Jiang Li began to build the first highway.

Because they were guarded by soldiers and had good food, and Jiang Li had promised that they would be released without charge as long as they worked honestly for a year, these bandits did not do anything weird.

After becoming familiar with the use of cement, these bandits who only knew how to rob have become somewhat capable at their jobs.

At this time, a messenger came to report that Han Yong and William had come again. Jiang Li looked at the bandits who were working in an orderly manner, and seeing that they did not make any unusual movements, he felt relieved and left.

When they brought people to the dock, they did not see any ironclad ships this time. In addition to Han Yong’s three ships, there was also a Western sailing ship of a different shape and style.

It seems that it was William who got it.

Sure enough, when William saw Jiang Li and his men coming, he immediately walked down from the boat with a smile, "Long time no see, Mr. Jiang!"

"I have already delivered the hydroelectric generator set you ordered, but these things are very heavy. I wonder if the people you brought with you can carry them off the ship smoothly!"

Jiang Li naturally knew when he heard this that he was asking why he didn't bring the cavalry battalion, but he didn't want to hide or explain anything.

He told the truth directly, "I was busy repairing the road recently. I rushed here as soon as I heard about your arrival. I didn't even have time to notify the guard of honor!"

William just asked casually, and seeing that Jiang Li didn't deliberately belittle him, he didn't say much. Then he started to introduce to Jiang Li the things he brought.

Jiang Li held the list and listened to his explanation, nodding continuously. Whether it was a generator set or a diesel generator, they were what he needed now.

Electric motors of various powers, wires, cables, machine tools, rubber tubes, conveyor belts, various lamps, and some textile machines - in short, a huge mess, but all of which he urgently needed.

What surprised Jiang Li the most was that William got him ten portable telegraph machines. He had been troubled by communication problems before.

In the city, we can use a combination of generators and telephone lines, but on the battlefield, there is no other way and we can only rely on cavalry and motorcycles to send messages.

But there will still be a period of information delay, but now with the telegraph, we no longer have to worry about this problem.

But when he excitedly asked people to move the things off the boat, he remembered that no one under his command knew how to use this thing, so he looked at William awkwardly.

He seemed to have anticipated this and asked his followers to go to the cabin and call out a few foreigners.

"Look, Mr. Jiang, I know you probably don't know how to use the telegraph, so I found a few people who know how to use it to teach you, and also hired a translator. But these are all what you want, so you have to pay them!"

Jiang Li didn't care about such a small matter at all and immediately waved his hand to indicate that it was reasonable.

William did not accept his verbal thanks, but asked Jiang Li to treat him to the same Chinese food as last time. Jiang Li naturally would not refuse, and nodded in agreement.

But he did not leave directly with William, but came to Han Yong who had been waiting for a long time and greeted him, "Manager Han, you have worked hard all the way. I am sorry to have kept you waiting for so long!"

"No, no, I'm already grateful to County Magistrate Jiang for coming here in person, so how can I dare to say it's hard work!"