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

As for Jiang Li's target this time, it was actually an army of about 3,000 people stationed outside Dongshan County by Chen Xueming in order to guard against him.

According to his estimation, as long as this group of people were eliminated quickly, it would be difficult for Chen Xueming to mobilize another group of people in a short period of time.

He could buy himself a long period of time, and with this time he could train the army to produce guns. Then, when Han Yong brought back the two simple bullet production lines, he would have the confidence to fight a long war of attrition with him.

And thanks to the intelligence provided by Ma Baoguo and the investigation conducted by Jiang Youchi, he already had a considerable understanding of this group of people.

So after two days and one night of marching, Jiang Li and his men finally arrived at the pre-planned location in the evening, and they ate some canned pumpkin candy and rested for a night.

The Anmin Army took advantage of the low visibility in the early morning and launched a sneak attack.

At this time, Chen Xueming was still waiting to receive Jiang Li's army. He never thought that he would dare to attack him, so he did not ask this group of people to take too much precautions.

As a result, these three thousand people are basically still sleeping and are not on guard at all.

They were awakened by the gunshots when Jiang Li's army opened fire and killed the guards. Although Chen Xueming and Ma Baoguo had fought for several years, they were just weaklings fighting each other.

Their respective armies did not receive much professional training, only some battlefield experience learned on the front lines.

Now they were attacked by surprise and had no idea who the enemy was, so they immediately panicked. Some of them picked up their weapons and rushed to defend the wooden wall of the camp.

Another group of people fled in panic, seriously affecting the defending soldiers. By the time they picked up their weapons and left the camp, the Anmin Army had already occupied the wooden wall of the camp.

They were occupying the advantageous terrain and continuously killing and injuring Chen Xueming's troops.

As for the highest commander of the enemy army, when he saw that things were not going well, he immediately fled from the rear with his personal soldiers.

The army without a commander was like a pile of loose sand. It was difficult to organize the desired resistance. They were quickly defeated and laid down their weapons in surrender.

As soon as the escaped commander left the barracks, he encountered the cavalry battalion wandering outside. After a not-so-fierce battle, those who should be killed were killed and those who should be captured were captured.

By the time Jiang Li heard the gunfire stop and received the battle report from the front line, more than an hour had passed. Most of this time was spent cleaning up the battlefield.

Looking at the records in the battle report, in this battle, eight of our side were seriously injured or killed, forty-one were slightly injured, three hundred and forty-two enemies were killed, and two thousand sixty-seven were captured.

Nearly 3,000 rifles of various brands were seized, as well as several brands of light machine guns, seven or eight mortars, more than 100,000 rounds of various types of bullets, and more than 2,000 grenades of various types.

It was obvious that these were all imported from other countries, but what surprised Jiang Li the most was this.

That is, they also seized three heavy machine guns, one of which was his old friend, the Maxim heavy machine gun.

However, he did not recognize the other two guns, so he called a prisoner to ask and learned that this gun was produced by the Hanyang Arsenal, and was a Hanyang-made 30-section water-cooled heavy machine gun.

This is the Hanyang Arsenal, a model of a domestically produced heavy machine gun that imitates the American Browning M1917 heavy machine gun.

Its performance is not too bad. The key is that the bullet it uses is the same as the Hanyang rifle, which is also a 7.92mm bullet.

This made Jiang Li very curious about Chen Xueming's arms procurement channels. This guy has connections with many parties inside and outside!

However, he did not care about these things at the moment. He immediately ordered his men to confiscate their weapons and ammunition, and then tied them up and locked them up in the barracks.

Then he left several hundred people to guard the area, and then called in the company commanders of each battalion to assign tasks. "At this time, most of the military forces deployed by Chen Xueming nearby had been wiped out."

"Now everyone, split up and attack the eleven surrounding towns immediately. After you capture them, take away all the guns and ammunition in the towns."

"By the way, interrogate all the wealthy people in the town, kill those who should be killed, arrest all those who should be arrested, take away all the money and livestock, and distribute most of the food to the people. When everything is completed, quickly return here to gather. Do you understand?"

"I heard it!" Everyone immediately followed the order.

Chen Xueming had no idea what was happening at this time. He was still dreaming of recruiting Jiang Li, and then taking down Ma Baoguo in one fell swoop to become one of the most powerful warlords in Guangdong.

It was a day later when Chen Xueming received the news. He learned it from people who had escaped from several towns and reported the news.

This Jiang guy was not only extremely daring, he also sent people to launch a surprise attack on his 3,000 troops stationed there, and then he continued to advance rapidly and captured eleven of his towns.

The most hateful thing is that Jiang Li also arrested all the local wealthy people who supported him, and the food seized from their homes was directly distributed to the people.

Although the man surnamed Jiang had already withdrawn his troops at this time, this series of actions still greatly weakened his control over these eleven towns.

When he thought of this, he was so angry that his head was smoking, and he immediately gathered his troops to counterattack Jiang Li.

But at this moment, he saw a disheveled figure, "Marshal, please don't fall for that Jiang bastard's scheme. He is deliberately provoking you, and wants to join forces with Ma Baoguo to attack you from both sides!"

The person who spoke was Zhou Tong. It turned out that Jiang Li had someone pretend to rebel when he left, deliberately saying that he did not approve of Jiang Li's desperate move and secretly let Zhou Tong go.

This allowed Zhou Tong to successfully pass on the news of his alliance with Ma Baoguo to Chen Xueming, making him cautious and afraid to act rashly.

When Chen Xueming saw that the person who spoke was Zhou Tong, he carefully inquired about the situation and then cursed, "Damn Ma Baoguo, I only killed your father, but you have been against your Grandpa Chen, you really deserve to die!"

But after a period of hysterical and impotent rage, he finally gave up the idea of ​​sending troops.

Because he learned from Zhou Tong that this Jiang had five to six thousand men under his command, and they had fought many tough battles in the past two years and their combat effectiveness was quite considerable.

If he sent too few people, he might not be able to capture this guy. If he sent too many people, Ma Baoguo would take advantage of the opportunity, so he could only swallow his anger now.

But he could not do nothing, so he immediately dispatched two thousand troops to reoccupy the eleven towns and collect the food from the people.

He knew how rich the landlords and gentry were. As long as he could confiscate the grain, it would be a small compensation for his losses this time.

As for whether the two thousand people could recapture these territories, he was not worried, based on the reports from the soldiers who escaped back.

The man surnamed Jiang might have been afraid of a counterattack by his own army, so he retreated after looting for a while.

That’s right, in his eyes, Jiang Li’s approach was just a grab.