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

Speaking of which, since the last sneak attack, Chen Xueming has given up fighting in the field.

Firstly, there were no strong fortifications, and the number of soldiers he sent here was small, making it difficult to confront Jiang Li's troops head-on.

Secondly, his manpower has been severely consumed during this period of time, and half of the soldiers now sent to defend Jiang Li are new recruits.

They neither have much heavy firepower nor much combat experience. If they don't even have defensive fortifications like town walls, he can guarantee that these soldiers will most likely collapse at the first touch.

But he still underestimated Jiang Li. When he learned that Ma Baoguo had already started fighting with Chen Xueming's large army, he decisively began to attack Chen Xueming's troops.

Because they had conducted numerous investigations, the more than 2,000 soldiers stationed in Yunmeng County were quickly defeated. However, Jiang Li did not stop after he succeeded.

Instead, they quickly broke up into smaller units, occupied the entire Puning County, and dealt a heavy blow to Chen Xueming.

When Chen Xueming learned the news, he wanted to withdraw troops to resist, but because of the threat from Ma Baoguo, he did not dare to withdraw his troops easily.

As a result, they had no choice but to evacuate all the garrisons in Puning County bordering Qingshui River and Zhao'an County bordering Dongshan County, and concentrate their forces to defend other territories.

He even sent people to negotiate with Jiang Li, saying that he was willing to cede the two counties of Puning and Zhao'an to Jiang Li in exchange for Jiang Li's withdrawal of troops.

However, after learning the news, Jiang Li did not pay any attention to it. Instead, he quickly ordered his men to occupy the two counties and then sent a small force to harass Chen Xueming.

But there was really no plan to attack forward.

He also sent people to Ma Baoguo again to report his achievements, hoping to get some support from guns and ammunition.

And how could Ma Baoguo agree to such a request? He just gave verbal praise and then sent the person who asked for credit away.

Ma Baoguo said to the adjutant, "This Jiang guy is so shameless that he actually asked me for ammunition again. Do you really think I'm a fool?"

"If I didn't need him now, I would have turned against you long ago!"

"Humph!"

The adjutant chuckled and agreed, "What you said is right, Marshal. That Jiang guy thought you didn't know. He was planning to take advantage of the situation, but he stopped with such a poor excuse!"

"But this Jiang guy did have some effect. In this battle, he killed and captured at least three to four thousand of Chen Xueming's men."

"And it forced Chen Xueming to leave thousands of troops behind to guard the area, which invisibly helped us a lot."

"We don't need to pay attention to him now. As long as we can calm Jiang down with words, we can surely take down Chen Xueming. Then..."

"When the time comes, I will deal with that guy named Jiang as well. Does he still dare to treat me as a fool?" Ma Baoguo interrupted his adjutant and said this through gritted teeth.

Upon hearing this, the adjutant naturally shouted, "The Marshal is wise. When the Marshal occupies these two places, he will be among the princes in one fell swoop, and he will have a chance to compete for the whole world!"

Ma Baoguo smiled sarcastically when he heard this, but no one knew what he was thinking.

Back to Chen Xueming, he did as Ma Baoguo expected and gathered his troops, leaving a few thousand people to defend Jiang Li, but he didn't expect this.

Chen Xueming knew about his grudge with Ma Baoguo. If he was defeated by him, there would be no chance of survival, so he gritted his teeth, took out all his family assets, and forcibly recruited many new soldiers to go to the battlefield.

He fought on equal terms with Ma Baoguo, and the battle dragged on for half a month.

Although there were often small-scale gun battles on Jiang Li's side, there were really no large-scale actions.

So Chen Xueming gritted his teeth and withdrew most of his last manpower, and only temporarily recruited some old farmers to form an army, just to scare Jiang Li.

As a result, Ma Baoguo was about to win, but they were once again stuck in a stalemate due to the sudden appearance of enemy reinforcements.

After several days of fighting, Ma Baoguo finally won the victory with great difficulty. Even Chen Xueming was killed in the melee.

After quickly incorporating the surrendered soldiers, he once again had an army of 35,000. Although he believed that he had lost a large number of manpower, weapons and ammunition in this battle, it should not be difficult to deal with Jiang Li's several thousand troops.

After all, he had fought with Chen Xueming for several years and had some understanding of the combat effectiveness of his soldiers.

Jiang Li defeated Cheng Xueming's army of several thousand men, and there must have been a lot of casualties and losses. Even if the weapons and ammunition were not completely lost as he said, they would not be sufficient at all.

So he decided to make a concerted effort and directly attack Jiang Li to capture him as well, so as to avoid having to wait for Jiang Li to swallow up Cheng Xueming's territory and expand it.

When Jiang Li learned that Chen Xueming was defeated and killed, he immediately attacked the troops Chen Xueming had left in Longxi County to defend against him.

Most of these people were old farmers. When they learned that Chen Xueming had been defeated and killed, they stopped resisting and decisively laid down their weapons and surrendered.

Jiang Li easily occupied Longxi County, and then he sent out a cavalry battalion to investigate Ma Baoguo's movements.

In his opinion, Ma Baoguo now has two options. One is to recruit Chen Xueming's troops and use them against him at the same time.

The second natural thing is to continue to maintain a superficial alliance with himself, and then use troops against him after all of Chen Xueming's territory has been digested.

If it's the former, all I have to do is to set up my formation and fight him. If it's the latter, he will have to bear the infamy of breaking the alliance.

Taking advantage of the fact that he has established a foothold in maintaining stability and people's hearts are in a state of unrest, they will take the initiative to attack him and fight a decisive battle. In short, this battle is inevitable. After all, they have too few people and their territory is too small to afford to fight with Ma Baoguo.

The only way we can have a chance to take him down in one fell swoop is to take advantage of the fact that the war is over and his strength is greatly weakened.

Jiang Li was relieved by the news the cavalry battalion had found out. He smiled and said to Ah San beside him, "Ma Baoguo is indeed a great master. He cares so much about me and doesn't want me to bear any bad reputation!"

Ah San was completely confused when he heard this. When did Ma Baoguo become a great master? Why did his young master keep saying this? Did I miss something when Jiang Youchi was reporting?

However, he did not ask more questions, but kept nodding in agreement, because he knew that if he asked, it would expose the fact that he was not serious at work and missed key information.

Jiang Li was also confused by his attitude. Combined with this guy's erratic personality, Jiang Li came up with a bold guess.

"Could this guy also be a time traveler?"

Then, he conducted a series of code tests on Ah San, and the final results showed that this guy was simply pretending to know.

He was not a time traveler at all, because when he was reading the most dazzling ethnic style lyrics written by Jiang Li, he didn't even sing them out loud.

Without further ado, after a series of victories, Ma Baoguo quickly organized his troops to attack Jiang Li.

Although his adjutant tried to dissuade him, he did not show any firmness as he did not know Jiang Li's background.

So much so that Ma Baoguo simply ignored his persuasion, determined to accomplish his goal in one fell swoop, and directly became a local warlord.