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

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hong immediately saluted in a proper manner, and then reported: "Reporting to the commander, the intelligence personnel sent a message saying that Tang Shengzhi, Zhao Hengti, and Tan Yankai had a gunfight with He Jian, and all four of them died!"

Jiang Li jumped up from his chair as soon as he heard it, and then shouted loudly, "What did you say? All four of them are dead? Is the news accurate?"

Zhao Hong grinned when he saw Jiang Li like this, but he still quickly answered the three questions, "Report to the commander, I said that the four warlords are dead. Our intelligence personnel saw it with their own eyes, it shouldn't be false!"

Jiang Li shouted excitedly upon hearing this: "Hahahaha, God is really helping me!"

"Quick, quick, mobilize the troops immediately. Let's go out right away and take over the entire Hunan province in one fell swoop while they are leaderless!"

"Yes!" Zhao Hong took the order and left.

"Hahahaha, these guys are really talented. They are still fighting among themselves under such circumstances. I don't know what they are thinking!"

What he didn't know was that this was not really a fight among them, but was due to his huge intelligence network.

It turned out that he had a large number of intelligence personnel and the personnel were very complex, and among them were some extreme right-wingers who disregarded life and death and only wanted to eliminate Jiang Li's opponents at all costs.

Fortunately, there are not many such people now, so they have not formed factions yet. The shooting of He Jian this time was just a coincidence, so he just did it.

...

Back to Jiang Li, ever since he learned that four guys died in an internal fight, he immediately mobilized his men and headed straight for their remaining territory.

When the defenders heard from the Anmin Army that their commander was dead, they were in a panic.

However, due to the threats from their own commander-in-chief, and in order to ensure that their family and friends would not be retaliated against, they had to swallow their anger and hide their thoughts deep in their hearts.

Now, he heard the Anmin Army shouting that the Marshal was dead. After careful investigation, he found that not only did he not get any news about the Marshal, but even the superiors who usually shouted at him were nowhere to be found.

Little did they know that their superiors all came from wealthy families. When they learned that their boss had died, they immediately packed up their belongings and ran away with their families. They had no time to take care of a bunch of soldiers.

Therefore, when the soldiers who did not receive orders from their superiors saw the Anmin Army, who were impatient and started to attack, they chose to surrender without even firing a few symbolic shots.

After all, they had heard about the Anmin Army a long time ago. They were not only well-armed but also well-trained.

The key is that every time they occupied a piece of land, they would fight the local tyrants and divide the land, and would not harm ordinary people at all. Instead, the common people could get some land, as well as the money, food and furniture of the rich.

After they gave up resistance, the Anmin Army quickly took control of the city wall, disarmed them, and quickly dispersed in other directions.

It was under such circumstances that the Anmin Army successfully occupied the entire Hunan Province in just seven days. Except for a few small-scale resistances, it can be said that the victory was achieved without bloodshed.

Since the whole battle went incredibly smoothly, when Jiang Li got the news, he asked Zhao Hong repeatedly. Only then did he believe that he had occupied the entire Hunan so easily.

However, after he came to his senses, he still followed the previous policies as usual, recruiting surrendered soldiers, publicly trying wealthy families, confiscating property, distributing land, clearing out bandits, and building roads and digging canals.

It took two months for all this to be completed. During this period, he not only recruited 200,000 people from the surrendered soldiers and militia, but also recruited 200,000 people.

Because these surrendered soldiers had already been accepted by the warlords and had undergone basic training, and then participated in armed transportation and the fight against bandits.

Therefore, he only needs to go through one more month of professional training, and these 200,000 people will become qualified soldiers.

By then, Jiang Li would be a local tyrant who controlled three provinces and had an army of 750,000. If he was allowed to develop for another two years, it would not be difficult for him to deal with the Japanese pirates.

However, just as he was imagining the future, he accidentally saw his financial statements. After reading them carefully, he almost fainted.

As for what happened specifically, it was actually because he had been vigorously developing industry in Guangdong and constantly launching wars in recent years.

On the one hand, he bought a lot of industrial production lines, and on the other hand, he bought a large number of finished industrial equipment.

The most embarrassing thing is that Guangdong is not a resource-rich province, so it can only import large quantities of energy such as coal and gasoline.

At the same time, he also built a large number of water conservancy projects, factories, schools, and various infrastructure, which resulted in his tax revenue and the output of various factories being just enough to cover the expenses of these projects.

However, he still had hundreds of thousands of troops to support, even though he could confiscate a large amount of money and grain from the landlords and gentry after each victory.

Although this money is a lot, the military expenses are also very high. In addition to normal military expenditures, there are also various rewards and pensions, as well as the cost of purchasing machine guns, cannons, airplanes and tanks.

This meant that the confiscated money was just enough to make up for the deficit, but a large amount of money and grain would be needed to develop and govern the two provinces. This made him very depressed.

But development cannot stop. Not only can it not stop, but investment must be increased. Otherwise, if he cannot enter semi-industrialization, he will most likely not be able to stop these beasts when the Japanese pirates invade in a few years.

After much thought, he finally made up his mind, "In order to fight against the Japanese pirates, I have resisted the temptation of becoming an immortal, so I don't mind a little fame!"

After that, he called Zhao Hong and said, "Immediately pass the order and have people find out the whereabouts of the Mojin School Lieutenants of the Nine Sects, the Mojin School, the Faqiu School, the Banshan School, and the Xiling School."

"No matter what sect he belongs to, as long as he has real skills, invite him to come. I will be able to use him when the time comes!"

Zhao Hong was stunned when he heard this. Although he had never met any tomb raiders, he had heard of these people.

To put it nicely, these people are called tomb raiders, but to put it bluntly, they are tomb robbers who are not worthy of being mentioned in public.

So he asked anxiously, "Commander, these people are not good people. If people knew that you had any connection with them, I'm afraid it would give people a reason to talk about you, which would greatly affect your reputation!"

This time, Zhao Hong failed to obey the order immediately, but Jiang Li did not blame him. He knew that Zhao Hong did not intend to disobey the order this time, but was really worried that his reputation would be damaged.

After all, tomb robbers have been despised by people since ancient times. If the news gets out, it will inevitably become another big stain on oneself.

If he fails to make it to the future generations, he will be brought out and listed alongside Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Yang of Sui. This is because the pen is in the hands of the literati.

They don't care how much you have accomplished, they only criticize how much you have done wrong.