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

Chapter 355: 164 million troops at hand

But his life and death are now tied to Jiang Li. If anything goes wrong, he will probably die without a burial place.

So he still tactfully advised, Commander, if you are sure of such a big move, why don't we take Guizhou first, and it won't be too late to make plans slowly after Yunnan.

After hearing what he said, Jiang Li felt more confident about this matter, because he was worried about his own failure, which largely reflected his attitude.

However, he had actually been thinking about this plan for many days and was quite confident of success.

So he patiently explained to him, "Don't worry too much, I have been thinking about this plan for a long time."

"I also know that now is not the time to continue using troops. I will have to wait until I have complete control of Chongqing before I am fully prepared to attack Guizhou. This will take at least a month."

"Now you just need to go undercover in Yunnan, win their trust, and recruit some new soldiers. When I capture Guizhou, it won't be too late for you to take action!"

After hearing this, Yang Shen felt relieved. If he had one more month to prepare, he would not have been able to successfully take over both Yunnan and Guizhou provinces.

It was still possible to take over Guizhou and repel the Yunnan warlords, but at this moment, Yang Shen suddenly thought of something.

"Commander, have you ever thought about Sichuan? After you took Chongqing, it will be adjacent to Sichuan. If they suddenly start a rebellion at this time, I'm afraid you will be attacked from both sides!"

"Moreover, I'm afraid that other provinces adjacent to you will also send troops at the same time, and your rear will be unstable!"

Jiang Li laughed when he heard this and said, "Don't worry, I have my own way to prevent them from getting involved in this mess."

After hearing Jiang Li's words, Yang Shen immediately felt relieved. As long as these warlords did not interfere, there would be no trouble.

After discussing for a while and confirming some details, Jiang Li was ready to let him leave.

However, Yang Shen was rubbing his hands, looking as if he wanted to say something but hesitated. Seeing this, Jiang Li asked him to speak directly without hiding anything.

Yang Shen smiled awkwardly upon hearing this, "Commander, you also said before that it will probably take quite a while to get to Yunnan, and I'm afraid it will be difficult to deliver your antidote by then."

"Why don't you give me a few antidotes first, so that I can hold on for three to five months, so as not to delay your important matter!"

When Jiang Li heard what was going on, he just chuckled a few times, then took out a small black porcelain bottle from his storage ring and poured out two pills.

"Take these two antidotes. Take one pill a month and you'll be fine for three months!" Yang Shen saw this and hurriedly took the two pills carefully. Then, accompanied by two Taoist soldiers, he left in a hurry.

Seeing him leave, Jiang Li immediately arranged their escape, making sure that they could escape with guns more realistically. Otherwise, if it was done too crudely, it would directly affect the success rate of the plan.

Thanks to Jiang Li's arrangement, Yang Shen successfully escaped with his more than 20,000 elite troops three days later.

Jiang Li naturally sent people to pursue as planned, and chased them all the way to Guizhou, where they fought a battle with the people of Wang Jialie, the biggest warlord in Guizhou, before they had no choice but to retreat.

How Yang Shen pretended to be friendly with Wang Jialie will not be discussed for the time being. After Jiang Li successfully sent Yang Shen away, he started the second step of his plan.

While gathering and reorganizing the remaining surrendered soldiers, they also recruited soldiers from the civilians to expand the army. At the same time, they urgently dispatched engineering teams to quickly build two airports in Chongqing in preparation for the next battle.

After these arrangements were made, his blitzkrieg came to an end, and it was less than ten days before he officially sent out his troops.

The surrounding warlords have just received the news that Jiang Li has sent troops to Chongqing, and are sending people to contact each other, hoping that everyone can temporarily put aside their personal grudges and focus on dealing with Jiang Li.

However, just when they reached a consensus and were about to discuss specific plans, they suddenly heard that Chongqing had fallen, which scared them.

You have to know that Chongqing is a mountain city. Not to mention that the terrain is easy to defend and difficult to attack, just marching is a big problem.

But Jiang Li was able to easily capture this ancient city that had never fallen in thousands of years within just a few days. Didn't this scare them!

So they accelerated their actions again and quickly began to mobilize troops, preparing to send troops to the three provinces of Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi.

However, before they could assemble their troops, they encountered the same situation as Yang Shen, that is, a large number of guerrillas appeared out of nowhere and constantly harassed them, making them extremely annoyed.

These guerrillas were of course arranged by Jiang Li. He knew that it would be very difficult to face the siege of warlords from six provinces, including Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Fujian, at the same time.

So he ordered the guerrillas lurking in various provinces to attack their small forces, attract their attention, and prepare for his own military expansion.

That’s right, Jiang Li not only ordered the guerrillas in various provinces to launch attacks, but also ordered the three provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan to begin massive military expansion.

The main target of its military expansion is the one million militiamen trained in the past two years.

However, since the incident happened suddenly, it took time to recruit militia, which led to the guerrillas causing sabotage everywhere to attract the enemy's attention.

These warlords had actually been aware of the guerrillas for a long time, but because these people acted in a low-key manner and did not harass the people, they always thought that these people were just ordinary bandits.

It was not until they easily captured a large number of villages and towns that they learned through intelligence that these people were well-trained and well-armed.

After inquiring about their style of doing things, the warlords immediately knew that these people must have been sent by Jiang Li.

So they began to clear out the guerrillas in the country, but things were not that simple. They were once again fooled like Yang Shen.

Not only did they waste a lot of ammunition and time, but they also caused many casualties.

But they were helpless. If they left these people alone, they would start a war with Jiang Li's main force and their own food supplies would be cut off right after.

Therefore, they dared not just leave it alone and could only pursue and surround them with all their might.

However, no matter how they encircled and suppressed them, they were never able to wipe out their large forces, as they always managed to escape in time at the critical moment.

This is naturally attributed to the local people's tip-off.

Finally, these warlords discussed and decided to split the army into two. One side would send people to continue pursuing the guerrillas, while the other side would form a coalition force to attack Jiang Li from six directions at the same time.

However, Jiang Li took advantage of the time gained by the guerrillas to successfully occupy Chongqing, disband the surrendered soldiers, and recruited some civilians, gaining a total of 80,000 new troops in Chongqing.

In Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan, he recruited 800,000 militiamen, expanding the number of troops under his command from 780,000 to 1.64 million.