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

In the past few years, they have clearly seen the explosive growth of Jiang Li's power and his own abilities, both in military and civil affairs, which have demonstrated extremely high levels.

It is very much like the kind of hero that the ancients talked about, a hero who could sweep across the universe and unify the world.

It is a pity that his attitude towards the gentry and landlords was somewhat unsatisfactory, otherwise he would have received the full support of the entire nation wherever he went.

But these were not things they could change. With their army of several hundred or several thousand men, they were no match for the enemy and had no intention of resisting, so they chose to follow their heart early on.

With the 200,000 troops and supplies transported to the appropriate location, Jiang Li gave an order and began to send troops to Hunan.

Along the way, because the small and medium-sized warlords had surrendered long ago, he did not encounter any resistance at all and directly occupied nine counties.

(During this period, the entire Hunan Province had only 75 counties and a population of only about 31 million.)

But Jiang Li certainly wouldn't do that. If things went smoothly like this, he would soon get it.

A joint letter from some other small warlords, led by Tang Shengzhi, He Jian, Zhao Hengti, and Tan Yankai, demanded that Jiang Li immediately retreat to Guangdong and Guangxi.

Otherwise they will unite and fight Jiang Li to the end.

When Jiang Lijian saw the letter, he certainly didn't take it seriously, because he had already obtained information about these four people from Zhao Hong.

The number of troops under their command were: He Jian 120,000, Tang Shengzhi 150,000, Zhao Hengti 90,000, and Tan Yankai 80,000.

In addition, upon learning that Jiang Li was coming, the gentry and landlords in Hunan panicked and temporarily funded the recruitment of 200,000 peasant soldiers for them, so they had a total of 440,000 veterans and 200,000 peasants.

But since Jiang Li had sent out troops, he would not be afraid of them, because he knew that those so-called veterans were just veterans who had fought in several bad wars for several years. Not only did they have poor combat skills, but their weapons and equipment were also very ordinary.

In addition, they were originally hostile to each other, so it was impossible for them to work together, and it was not difficult to deal with them.

As for the 200,000 peasant soldiers, they had never even touched a gun. In a war, they could only serve as laborers and cannon fodder, and their combat effectiveness was basically zero.

Jiang Li's most important trump card is naturally a batch of twenty light tanks sent to him by several major arms dealers recently brought by Jack, as well as thirty armored vehicles purchased from a German businessman.

In addition to this, Jack also sent him ten Boyne 80 civilian airliners, which were transformed into human-powered bombers after being modified by Jiang Li.

It is precisely because of these things that Jiang Li has the confidence to defeat the coalition forces of more than 600,000.

As for how Jiang Li knew how many enemy troops there were, it was naturally because of the intelligence organization he had vigorously developed over the years.

To talk about how strong Jiang Li's intelligence organization is now, let's put it this way. They just finished a meeting yesterday and determined the number of troops they could dispatch. Today, Jiang Li got the specific details of their meeting.

Because Jiang Li's army was well-trained, his army set off earlier than those slow-moving soldiers.

A day later, before He Jian's army had even assembled, Jiang Li's army had already engaged in a battle with the defenders of several counties under his jurisdiction.

However, in just one hour, under the absolute suppression of firepower and numbers, the defenders of several of his counties were defeated.

Afterwards, the Anmin Army pursued the victory and quickly expanded the results of the battle. In just five days, they occupied 70% to 80% of He Jian's territory.

He was left alone with 50,000 to 60,000 remaining soldiers, hiding in the few remaining counties, waiting for his allies to come with troops to support him.

However, to his disappointment, his allies had not arrived until Jiang Li's army arrived.

The main reason for this, of course, is that the quality of their soldiers is not high, and it is very time-consuming and laborious to assemble them. In addition, the long journey makes it difficult to provide support in a short period of time.

Another reason was that they wanted He Jian to fight Jiang Li for a few days first, so as to consume their strength and gain the greatest benefit for themselves.

However, what they never expected was that He Jian's 50,000 to 60,000 defeated soldiers only held out for three hours after exchanging fire with Jiang Li's main force of more than 100,000 before they began to suffer a complete defeat.

On the one hand, Jiang Li ordered people to urgently build an airport in the past few days so that his aircraft could provide support.

On the other hand, the defeated soldiers' morale was already low. After being shocked by the powerful firepower of the Anmin Army and then bombarded by tanks and artillery, they immediately turned into birds and beasts and scattered.

It was a day later when the other three warlords received the news. When they heard that He Jian's army was almost wiped out, they almost popped their eyes out.

They never expected that He Jian's army of over a hundred thousand couldn't even hold out for half a month.

After Jiang Li occupied He Jian's territory, he did not continue to pursue him, but built fortifications and transported military supplies, while capturing prisoners and recruiting soldiers from them.

After several days, Tang Shengzhi, Zhao Hengti, and Tan Yankai finally joined forces and, together with He Jian, who had only more than 10,000 soldiers, arrived at the place where the Anmin Army was stationed.

They first sent a messenger to negotiate with Jiang Li, but were decisively rejected by him. As Jiang Li's reply was passed back, the three warlords gave up the idea of ​​negotiation.

They gave decisive orders, preparing to use their numerical advantage to tear through the Anmin Army's defense line in one fell swoop.

But the situation was not as optimistic as they thought, because the Anmin Army had already built solid defensive fortifications.

With the support of a large amount of artillery fire and a small amount of aircraft, these second-rate coalition forces were unable to break through the defense line of the Anmin Army. Instead, they suffered heavy casualties and their morale was greatly damaged.

As their first wave of offensive slowed down, these guys began to build fortifications, hoping to fight a war of attrition.

But as time went on, their little thoughts became apparent. They all wanted to conserve their strength for their teammates to fight.

However, these four people were not easy to deal with. How could they not see that the plans of their three temporary allies were just difficult to implement due to the threat from Jiang Li.

As luck would have it, at this moment, they encountered logistical problems again.

It turned out that their combined army numbered more than 300,000, while the 200,000 troops recruited by the landlords and gentry could not even guarantee logistics.

So they could only continue to conscript laborers to transport grain. This way, the number of people was enough, but the big problem became whose territory to transport the grain from.

Because the territories of the three parties are at different distances from the front line, the closest one is the strongest Tang Shengzhi, so it would be most appropriate to transport supplies from him.

But how could he bear the huge expenses of an army of more than 300,000 and 400,000 to 500,000 civilians alone?