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

Chapter 366: Guerrillas ask for help, bring British envoys back

He could swallow all of China in one gulp, and then spend eight or ten years to digest this land that he had longed for for hundreds of years.

Their Japan would become the strongest empire in East Asia in one fell swoop.

However, what the Japanese upper class is worried about now is not the counterattack from the local Chinese forces, but the Western powers that are colonizing China.

Especially for the British Empire, which is known as the superpower on which the sun never sets, they knew that the British Empire had just ended the war in India. (Yes, Edward had been defeated, and his body and clan were destroyed.)

The military strength at this time had expanded greatly. Previously, in order to deal with the Indian rebels, they had directly expanded the army by millions.

After that, they defeated the rebels and incorporated hundreds of thousands of troops. At this time, their army in India alone reached a terrifying two million.

They are also strong armies with rich combat experience and advanced weapons and equipment.

Therefore, Japan does not dare to move rashly now. Otherwise, once they send most of their troops to China and their homeland is suddenly attacked by Britain, they will be in great trouble given their small country area.

Before the army could arrive to rescue him, his country of Japan was destroyed.

However, what they did not know was that Daiying did have two million troops in India, but that only lasted for less than a month.

Because they had fought with Edward in India for several years, and at this moment India's production had been basically completely destroyed, and it was simply unable to feed so many troops.

So as soon as they incorporated Edward's army, they began to carry out a large-scale disarmament.

At this time, only 300,000 to 400,000 local soldiers and 100,000 British soldiers were left in the entire Tianzhu to maintain basic order and continue to provide them with cotton, sugar, tea and other things for the British upper class to enjoy.

The other soldiers had already returned home on ships and had never thought of attacking Japan, an island country with scarce resources.

Just when Mutō Yoshinobu was still trying to find a way to clean up the mess of the Jiujiu faction and doing everything he could to push Japan's full-scale invasion of China.

Jiang Li encountered new problems again.

It turned out that he had just taken over Hubei and wanted to rest for a while before planning to take over the surrounding provinces.

But at this time, he received two more pieces of bad news.

One was that he learned from Han Yong that Dai Ying had killed Earl Edward and had now completely occupied most of India, and had sent envoys to convey trade requests to him.

The second piece of news is that the three provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi and Sichuan are now vigorously hunting down and encircling the guerrillas because they are so troubled by them.

The guerrillas have suffered heavy casualties and requested Jiang Li to send troops to rescue them, otherwise they would be completely wiped out.

Jiang Li was very hesitant when he heard these two pieces of news. Firstly, it would not be good to be on bad terms with Dai Ying, considering his Celestial Dragon character.

If something goes wrong, they will certainly break down their defenses, and then we may have to use force to intimidate them, leading to a war.

At that time, facing this old industrial colonial power, even if this enemy is strong in navy, relying on his semi-industrialized local armed forces, he will most likely be defeated.

If he spent too much time here with Daiying, it would have a huge impact on future anti-Japanese plans, so he had to meet this diplomat Daiying.

Even if they proposed some harsh trade conditions, Jiang Li would have to grit his teeth and agree to them.

As for the guerrillas, since they were sent out by themselves, it is inevitable to support them. Even if we don't support them, we have to send people to support them, so as to avoid losing the support of the people.

So Jiang Li sighed and called a meeting of officers at all levels. After telling them that the guerrillas were asking for help, Jiang Li directly named a few people and gave them combat tasks.

"I just named the people you have called. Each of you will lead your troops to rescue the guerrillas in the three provinces. They are all our comrades-in-arms. Be sure to rescue as many people as possible."

"Did you hear me!"

Upon hearing this, several people immediately showed ecstasy on their faces. In their opinion, although the mission this time was ostensibly to rescue people, in reality it was Jiang Li who specially arranged the right to lead the troops alone.

To put it bluntly, it is a test of their abilities. Once they complete the task excellently, they will definitely be looked at specially by Jiang Li and given more trust.

So they immediately accepted the task excitedly and promised that they would be able to complete it successfully.

When others saw these people receiving such important tasks, they were extremely envious.

Jiang Li did not go to see them. After giving the task, he took his men and hurried to Nanxi County.

After Jiang Li left, the several officers who were named each took about 50,000 people and went to the provinces arranged by Jiang Li.

Of course Jiang Li couldn't just ask them to take 50,000 men to support the guerrillas in various provinces. It was because Hubei only had so many troops and it was already a place that was at war on all sides. It was already quite a stretch to mobilize 150,000 men.

Other troops need to be drawn from other places. For example, those going to Fujian need to be drawn from Guangdong.

To go to Jiangxi, 50,000 people will be drawn from Hunan.

Sichuan is the farthest away and its military strength is the strongest, so 50,000 people can be drawn from Chongqing and Guizhou respectively to make up a total of 150,000 troops, so that we can be sure to rescue the guerrillas who are being encircled.

Let’s not talk about how they marched their troops. Jiang Li successfully crossed the Yangtze River by boat and soon arrived at Nanxi County.

Speaking of which, Nanxi County has been used as the seat of government by Jiang Li in recent years, and it has developed greatly at this moment.

Now, not only are the roads extending in all directions, but the urban area is also expanding again and again. Currently, the entire Nanxi County has a population of 200,000, and various factories have been built one after another. It can be said to be a fairly large city.

Although it is still far behind old metropolises like Guangzhou, it is already far ahead of other inland small cities.

In fact, all of this is thanks to water transportation. Otherwise, such a small county with insufficient arable land would absolutely not be able to feed so many people.

When Jiang Li returned to Nanxi County, he immediately found the British diplomat, Jack Thomas, who had been waiting for a long time.

When he saw Jiang Li, he was immediately stunned by Jiang Li's demeanor.

It turned out that several years had passed since he last saw Jiang Li, but Jiang Li's appearance had not changed at all. On the contrary, because of his great increase in power and cultivation, he seemed more majestic.

There was an indescribable sense of closeness about him.

So he immediately stood up and said to Jiang Li with a smile: "Long time no see, my respected Commander Jiang, I heard that you have won several great victories in recent years, congratulations!"

Seeing how enthusiastic he was, Jiang Li didn't want to put on a sour face. Even though he guessed that the man had bad intentions, he didn't want to hit someone with a smiling face.