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

Seeing this, Jiang Li called for everyone to gather together, and then quickly reloaded the bullets. After finishing, he asked Jiang Youxiao and Jiang Youti to step forward to finish off the enemy.

When Uncle Jiu heard that he was asked to finish him off, he just frowned but said nothing. After doing all this, he immediately drove towards the group of bandits.

The group of bandits, who had just finished snatching the dollars that fell on the ground, hadn't figured out the situation yet when they heard a burst of intensive gunfire and immediately lost their composure.

When they saw Jiang Li and others, some of them rushed up with knives to hack people, some stood still, and some ran away when they saw that the situation was not good.

Seeing that the crowd was so dense that it was difficult to use his gun, Uncle Jiu shouted loudly, "Don't shoot, let me do it."

Then he took Jiang Li's "golden cudgel" and rushed forward, knocking down several people who came up in just a few moves.

Jiang Li also called on everyone to raise their guns and shoot at the bandits running into the woods, because there was no one there and there was no need to worry about accidental injuries.

After the three rifles had fired 15 rounds of bullets, Jiang Li said to the frightened bandits, "Listen, bandits in front, you have nowhere to go. Put down your weapons and surrender now, and I will spare your life. If you dare to say no, the gun in my hand will not have eyes."

So in just two minutes, the remaining ten or so bandits were either killed, escaped, or injured, and the remaining few had no choice but to surrender.

After letting the refugees tie up several bandits, Jiang Li asked Aqiang and Ade to start collecting the spoils respectively.

The refugees also pushed an old man forward to answer. He said with trembling legs, "Thank you for saving my life. I am here to pay my respects to you."

Upon hearing this, Uncle Jiu hurried forward to help them. After some questioning, he found out that these people were all from the same village. Because the village had suffered a disaster, they brought their families and wandered around looking for a way to survive. Unexpectedly, they did not find a way to survive, but instead encountered this group of bandits first.

After learning the details, Jiang Li said to him, "I am the mayor of Teng Teng Town in Guangdong. If you have nowhere to go, you can come with me to Teng Teng Town. I will give you houses and land and make sure you have a way to survive."

The old man was overjoyed when he heard this, but as if he thought of something, the smile on his face suddenly faded, leaving only a sad look.

Jiang Li saw his expression change and immediately asked, "If you have any concerns, please tell me directly. I will definitely help if I can."

The old man then said, "To be honest, we are all refugees. We have no food or money. I'm afraid we will all starve to death before we even reach Guangdong!"

Uncle Jiu was about to speak when he heard this, but Jiang Li interrupted him with a look and said, "It's not difficult. I brought some money with me this time. If you agree to go with me, I can lend you money for your travel expenses. You can pay me back when you have more money in the future."

The old man was overjoyed when he heard this and said, "What you said is true. I will tell the villagers the good news right away."

Having said that, he quickly returned to the crowd.

Uncle Jiu frowned and said sternly, "What are you doing? We agreed in Teng Teng Town that the money would be used to help the poor people. Why do you want them to pay it back?"

Jiang Li smiled and shook his head, "Master, you are blaming me wrongly. If it were you, and someone told you that he was willing to give you a sum of money for free, how would you feel?"

"Do you think he has other intentions? The reason why I said I would lend it to them is to dispel their concerns. It doesn't matter whether they pay it back or not. If they really pay it back, we can use it to help other people in need."

Uncle Jiu blushed when he heard this and said, "You did the right thing. I was the one who didn't think it through."

Jiang Li didn't care about it, but asked Uncle Jiu, "Master, what do you think we should do with these bandits who are still alive? Should we kill them?"

Uncle Jiu immediately objected firmly, "No, it's understandable that you ordered someone to finish them off before the battle was over, but now they have no power to resist. If you kill them again, you will violate the Maoshan precept of not killing indiscriminately."

Jiang Li thought for a while and said, "Why don't we take them to the next town and hand them over to the mayor to make them do hard labor to atone for their sins?"

Uncle Jiu's eyes lit up when he heard this and said, "That's a good idea. Let's do it this way."

After agreeing on the plan, Uncle Jiu and several of his disciples started to clean up the battlefield. They also carried out the bodies in the woods, but unfortunately the distance was a bit far and not all of them were killed, so a few escaped.

Jiang Li brought Jiang Youxiao to the front of the crowd and helped the old man calm down. After some persuasion, all eighty people in the group agreed to settle in Tengteng Town.

Jiang Li also promised to provide them with food on the road and to repay the money when they had enough money in the future.

After packing up the spoils and asking the villagers to help collect firewood to burn all the bodies, the group continued on their way.

Because of the burden of women and children, the group of nearly a hundred people did not arrive at a town until dark. After buying food for everyone to have a full meal, they bought some cloth, set up some simple tents and let everyone rest.

As for the seven or eight bandits, they were handed over to the mayor. Jiang Li naturally did not dare to bring such people to Tengteng Town, even if he was short of people.

After a night's rest, they bought a few donkey carts the next day to transport food, women and children, and then set off on their journey.

There have been quite a few natural and man-made disasters these days. When I came here before, there were not many refugees on the road, and we just gave them some dry food and sent them away. But when I went back, I would occasionally meet people fleeing famine on the roadside.

After questioning, we learned that some of these people fled because their land was occupied by local tyrants, while the other part was affected by the scramble for territory among warlords of all sizes. On the contrary, few people fled because of natural disasters. If it was a natural disaster, there would not be only these few people.

In just a few days, the number of refugees behind Jiang Li had increased to 150. Jiang Li had no choice but to select 20 relatively strong young men from among them to maintain order.

Fortunately, although there were some surprises along the way, there was no danger. We finally arrived at Renjia Town safely. We said hello to Ren Fa and borrowed some rooms to accommodate people, so that these refugees who had been traveling all the way could have a full meal and a good night's rest.

The next morning, Jiang Li said goodbye to Ren Fa and rushed to Jiang's house accompanied by Uncle Jiu.

It’s not that Jiang Li doesn’t want to go directly to Tengteng Town, but because the road is too far, there are too many people and people walk slowly, so he definitely can’t reach Tengteng Town in one day.

After arriving at the Jiang family, everyone rested for another night. Jiang Li and Uncle Jiu finally brought the 150 refugees safely to Tengteng Town in the afternoon.

After instructing people to settle these people, Jiang Li asked Jiang Daniu, "Brother, has anything happened in the town recently? Is everything going well?"

Jiang Daniu smiled and said, "It's not a big deal. Everything is going according to what we discussed before. We have selected talents from all walks of life and let them do their own things."

"We subsequently accepted more people. Now there are nearly 500 people in the town. They have all been allocated houses, and their contributions have been recorded in centimeters."

"Some people occasionally come looking for their relatives these days. After I carefully check their identities, I give them all the property of their relatives."

"Some even decided not to leave, and settled down here with their money and land."

Jiang Li and Uncle Jiu nodded repeatedly upon hearing this. Jiang Li teased, "It seems that you are becoming more and more like an official, and your words and actions are becoming more and more organized."