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

Chapter 150: Unexpected Incident, 5 Evil Spirits

"First of all, what you said makes some sense, but it's not comprehensive. I'll add a little more here."

"Our soldiers have not participated in major battles, and would panic if they encountered any unexpected events during the battle."

"I don't have any good solution for this. I can only train more and think more when I encounter a battle in the future."

"Second, our support was not timely. We had agreed on a time to march to Longquan Town earlier, but we were all lying in ambush on the slope for more than an hour, and the follow-up troops did not arrive."

"So, this time I'm going to give a warning to the company commanders who didn't provide reinforcements in time. Your rewards for this battle will be halved. As for later, I'll have people buy enough pocket watches and give them to you so that you can keep track of time at any time."

"Third, I think we are still lacking a professional medical team. Many of the injured soldiers today did not receive professional treatment, and several died as a result."

"So this time when I go back, I will gather people to build a professional medical team and purchase more Western medicine to treat the wounded."

"Fourth, we consumed more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition this time. Although the ammunition we captured can make up for the consumption, it is impossible to do so every time. I will purchase several production lines for bullets to supply daily training and combat consumption."

Everyone nodded in agreement after hearing this. Jiang Li did not waste any time and directly adjourned the meeting. He asked them to appease the soldiers and think carefully about whether they had made other mistakes. If so, they should correct them. If not, they should encourage themselves.

Over the next few days, General Li first recruited a hundred soldiers from several towns and hundreds of prisoners, and then used his three tricks on the five newly conquered towns in turn. After building up some prestige, he retained a company commander and two platoons of soldiers in each town.

The Youlin Town, which was closest to Wuzhu Mountain, was naturally captured smoothly. After occupying Youlin Town, he also got a map from the mayor. From the map, he learned that Wuzhu Mountain was twenty miles northwest of Youlin Town.

Behind Wuzhu Mountain is a large wilderness with dense forest. Although there are not many towering trees, there are many medicinal herbs and animals growing there.

This is why the old ghost chose such a place. In addition to being convenient for hiding, it is also rich in resources. Some casual cultivators can probably gain something after a trip into the mountains. With these medicinal herbs, they can support the transactions of a market town.

And if he were to besiege by righteous monks, he could flee to the dense forest and quickly escape from the pursuers.

If we count carefully, except for Longquan Town with 200 people, the other five newly occupied towns have only 60 people each.

This time he brought a total of 700 people. After recruiting 100 soldiers, he had 800 people. 21 people died, 45 were injured, and 500 people were left to garrison.

They did not continue looking for Marshal Xu because after several days of searching, they still could not find any trace of him.

In Jiang Li's opinion, Marshal Xu was a smart man. Now he had no reinforcements, no logistical support, and every bullet in his hand was consuming one. He also had a lot of gold and silver valuables with him. It was impossible for him to stay here and fight him to the death.

Rather than risking a sneak attack, it is better to use the men and property at hand to reoccupy a piece of territory.

...

So early that morning, he prepared to return to Tengteng County with the remaining nearly 300 soldiers, a large amount of gold, silver, jade and antiques, and hundreds of landless farmers gathered from several towns.

But at this moment, a local squire came to report that a big incident had occurred in the Marshal's mansion. They found several corpses at the gate of the mansion, and they looked like they were killed by evil spirits, so they wanted to ask Jiang Li to find them and destroy them.

Jiang Li became very interested when he heard it. He was most interested in monsters. He immediately ordered people to set up camp on the spot to rest and wait for orders.

Afterwards, he took ten Taoist soldiers and two platoons of soldiers to the security office in the town, because the body had been carried there.

When Jiang Li arrived at the lobby of the Security Office, he saw several bodies covered with white cloth. Jiang Li immediately lifted the cloth.

What caught my eye were a few fresh corpses that had been eaten clean by the pits. Why did they say fresh? Because there was obviously flesh and blood still attached to the bones.

Jiang Li was very confused when he saw these corpses, "Why does this scene seem so familiar?"

But when I think about it carefully, I can't remember where I have seen this scene.

In desperation, he could only ask people to look for clues and witnesses. After more than an hour, a soldier finally came to report that a man and a woman had been found and they seemed to know something.

When Jiang Li saw the man and woman being brought up, he stood up in surprise and asked, "What are your names?"

"To answer the Marshal, my name is Chuliu (Xiaoyu), and we are servants in Marshal Xu's mansion."

As soon as Jiang Li saw the two people, he had some guesses in his mind, because he recognized the woman at a glance. The person who called herself Xiaoyu looked exactly like Kong Ci.

He became more certain after hearing the two say their names, but he did not reveal too much and continued to ask.

When the two heard the question, they immediately trembled and told the story, "Before, the Marshal rushed home and took his soldiers to search everywhere for gold and silver treasures."

"When the ladies saw Marshal Xu coming back, they approached him to ask about it, but he ignored them and packed up his belongings and food and meat and left without saying where he was going."

"Later we learned about your entry into the town, but because the Marshal's military discipline was strict and did not disturb the people, we were not very worried."

"It would have been fine if things had been like this, but that night a few ladies were possessed by an evil spirit. Their stomachs opened up and were filled with sharp teeth. They went around hunting down the servants in the mansion."

"Xiaoyu and I saw how brutal they were, so we ran out of the mansion early and luckily escaped."

After listening to their stories, Jiang Li was certain that this was the plot of a fierce ghost eating human fetuses, and the one he led his men to chase away was the Thunder God Xu Jinjiang.

After figuring out what was going on, he immediately asked his Taoist soldiers to prepare their weapons. He wanted to use the sun to kill these evil babies. Otherwise, if anything happened to them, the entire Longquan Town would be destroyed like Tengteng Town.

When he arrived at the gate of Xu's mansion, Jiang Li sensed a strong evil aura inside. After asking everyone to leave, he entered Xu's mansion with ten Taoist soldiers who wore their military uniforms inside out, carrying a few pigs and sheep.

Looking at the pocket watch, the time shown was exactly eleven o'clock in the morning. Although the sun had not yet risen to its highest point in the sky, it was still very hot.

Although the five evil spirits of the Five Ghosts are parasitic in the human body and are not afraid of sunlight, they are still unwilling to appear under the sun at this time and are hiding somewhere in the house!

Jiang Li naturally anticipated this, so he had people kill the pigs and sheep, chop them into large pieces and throw them into a room as bait to attract them to show up.

Jiang Li looked inside through the window, but after observing for a while, there was no movement.