"How many people signed up on the first day?" Yan Lisan looked through the detailed map of Jiangsu area in the temporary barracks of the barracks. At this time, the subordinates in charge of the conscription work walked in and asked.

"On the first day, about 100 people signed up, and the number is not too large."

"The people are not familiar with our team, so they continue to increase their publicity efforts. I believe that after a while, there will be more enthusiastic registration." Yan Lisan has not yet established a foothold, and the current situation is very unstable. At this time, the people are not clear about the direction of the Li family army in the future. Moreover, the Li family army did not put forward any obvious political banner, and did not put forward the slogan of equalizing the wealth and poverty like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, most of the people who want to join the army came for military pay.

According to Li Tiancheng's idea, he did not want to have a national war with the Qing army now. After all, his strength is limited. If a big fight starts, the court will rely on the help of foreigners to purchase a large amount of advanced arms and fight against the Li family army. He can still gain a foothold in one or two provinces. If he wants to control the whole country, it is almost unlikely that Li Tiancheng has other plans. He wants to wait for the arrival of the Xinhai Revolution and the country is in chaos, and he can easily expand his power and territory. Now it is just a prelude.

The news soon reached the court in the Forbidden City, and the entire court and the country were in an uproar and shocked. Unexpectedly, Li Tiancheng took the lead and occupied several important areas in southern Jiangsu in succession. Before the court could do anything to him, he led the army first.

In the court, the military ministers submitted memorials to the main war and vigorously criticized Li Tiancheng, saying that he had been rebelling against the Qing Dynasty for a long time and had long been planning to make mistakes. He was the same type of bandits as Hong Xiuquan and others, and had to reorganize the army and prepare for war and return it to his good deeds.

Empress Dowager Longyu and Zaifeng once again urgently summoned several military ministers, conveyed their decrees, ordered the procurement of military supplies to speed up the procurement of military supplies, and ordered officials from all over the country to step up preparations for war and prepare war preparation materials. If necessary, they should be appropriately expanded, but should be carried out under financial permission.

Only then did they realize that the Qing soldiers' equipment was too backward. The new weapons and equipment used to deal with Li Tiancheng were like eggs and stones. Even the elite troops of foreigners were not necessarily Li Tiancheng's opponents. They had to win by quality. After all, the overall national strength of the Qing Dynasty was not comparable to that of Li Tiancheng.

In addition, for the Qing army commander He Zilong, who escaped at the last battle and gave up Wuxi, which led to Yan Lisan's easy occupation of Changzhou, Zaifeng ordered the man to be removed from his official position on the spot and immediately escorted back to Beijing for trial, and severely punished by military law. However, He Zilong had a way in Zhenjiang. Before the Qing soldiers came to arrest him, he had already received a message from someone he knew. He knew that he had caused a big splash this time, and the superiors were very angry, and the consequences were very serious. So he simply did not do anything, and quickly turned around and led his troops to the direction of Changzhou, and began to strictly guard against the Qing soldiers.

Because the court had to concentrate on dealing with Li Tiancheng at this time, it had not yet taken the rebellious He Zilong, nor did it send troops to chase him. It just issued a pursuit order and no actual action.

All parties responded very strongly to the fact that the Li family army suddenly surfaced and occupied southern Jiangsu. In addition to the imperial court, Li Tiancheng had become the focus of discussion among ordinary people in various provinces after dinner. The news quickly spread to Japan and Western powers. Everyone's reactions were also different. The British, American and French had concessions in Shanghai and other places, so they immediately sent people to deal with Li Tiancheng, demanding that he ensure that the rights and interests of the concessions remain unchanged, and that the rights of foreigners to do business and preach cannot be affected.

Li Tiancheng has no intention of breaking up with foreigners now. These foreign concessions cannot move for the time being. Li Tiancheng still needs to endure it for a while. This is not the right time to show up with foreigners.

The Japanese were secretly happy because they were happy to see a split Qing Dynasty. The existence of local forces like Li Tiancheng in the Qing Dynasty would inevitably contain part of the energy of the Qing Dynasty and make Japan an organic and profitable.

He Zilong had already led his troops to escape outside Changzhou City and hurriedly sent people to the city to submit the surrender letter. However, when he thought Yan Lisan would welcome him into the city, Yan Lisan first sent people out of the city to meet them and asked He Zilong to enter the city to negotiate. He Zilong was worried that there would be pursuers coming from behind, so he had to bring a small platoon of soldiers to venture into the city. In the end, he did not get any benefits. Yan Lisan had sent troops out of the city to contact his subordinate Qiu Shaogang and control them by the way.

Then, according to Yan Lisan's order, the Li family army led Qiu Shaogang's troops to the southeast of Changzhou City to camp. Soon, Yan Lisan ordered the removal of He Zilong's military power and placed him under house arrest in a villa in the city. However, in name, it was claimed that He Zilong had received great courtesy, but he no longer held a military position. This was also a political need. If others surrendered, if they were too unkind to them, no one else would dare to surrender easily in the future.

Yan Lisan inquired about He Zilong's second-biao led Qiu Shaogang. This person was originally studying in the Japanese Army School and returned to China. His thoughts were quite progressive, with the bloody nature and patriotic thoughts of soldiers. This was exactly what the Li family army needed. However, this person also had certain fantasies about the Qing government and advocated joining forces to force the Qing government to implement constitutionalism, but did not agree with the bloody revolution.

Yan Lisan then appointed Zhao Quanji, the commander of the second battalion under his command, to take over He Zilong's troops and form a brigade. Two infantry regiments have five battalions, two battalions of the first regiment and three battalions of the second regiment, and three battalions of Qiu Shaogang as the commander of the second regiment, and several other non-commissioned officers under his command were placed within the army to gain control of the new brigade. The other task of these new officers is to train the brigade in new military tacticals and improve their combat effectiveness. The lack of weapons and ammunition will be provided by the arsenal.

Yan Lisan immediately sent the newly formed brigade to attack Jiangyin. At this time, the troops in southern Jiangsu had a patrol battalion to defend the city, and there was only about one battalion left in the urban area of ​​Shanghai.

Yan Lisan sent a firepower from an artillery company to help Zhao Quanji conquer the city, so as to capture Jiangyin as soon as possible, and then defended the south coastline of the Yangtze River from Jiangyin to Shanghai, about 120 kilometers, to prevent the Qing soldiers from Jiangbei from crossing the river to the south.

The Jiangyin defenders had only 500 defense troops. Under the fierce bombing of cannons, they only fired a burst of air guns and quickly abandoned the city and fled. Then Zhao Quanji was stationed in Jiangyin City and divided his troops to guard the Yangtze River.

The reason why Li Tiancheng asked Yan Lisan, the chief of staff, to take the position of brigade commander, to lead troops to fight was because Li Tiancheng was absolutely sure of this battle and was still worried about sending others. Next, Yan Lisan would return to the position of chief of staff, and more than 10,000 newly built divisions under his command would be handed over to his subordinates to lead.

Among Yan Lisan's three subordinates, there was a young man named Li Yunlong, from Jiangyin, Jiangsu. He was a graduate of Zhenhua military major. He also had excellent academic performance. He only took two years to obtain a battalion degree and had been in the army for three years. In a short period of time, he was promoted from company commander to battalion commander. After this battle, he was quickly promoted by Yan Lisan to brigade commander. He was Yan Lisan's capable general and a military general who was focused on supporting him. After Yan Lisan recommended him to Li Tiancheng, Li Tiancheng also knew a little about him earlier. Considering that he was still relatively short of talents at this time, he agreed to promote him to a higher level and appointed him as the acting commander of the Second Division formed by Songjiang troops and He Zilong troops. After observing his later performance, he would be promoted to him twice in a row. I am afraid that other soldiers would be dissatisfied, so it is more appropriate to have an acting commander.

The reason why Li Tiancheng did not launch a battle to attack Shanghai with Yan Lisan was because the situation in Shanghai was very complicated. The concessions of various countries had a large number of garrison soldiers in Shanghai, and the revolutionaries had strong power. If they attacked rashly, it would probably cause their strong resistance. Now they have captured the southern Jiangsu region first and showed their muscles to all forces. In this way, those who may have begun to be prepared to resist the Li family army may also make a new plan in their hearts, intimidated by the powerful momentum of the Li family army, psychologically putting pressure on them, making them afraid to easily unite to fight the powerful Li family army.

In fact, Li Tiancheng's goal has been achieved. In addition to foreigners, the revolutionaries in Shanghai held an emergency meeting to discuss the current situation. They unanimously agreed that Li Tiancheng's next goal is Shanghai, and they are urgently negotiating response strategies.

The revolutionaries have been in Shanghai for many years, have close ties with local gangs and chambers of commerce and other organizations, and have a mass base for launching riots. They will never want to see Shanghai easily controlled by Li Tiancheng, and are wary of this tyrant who suddenly rebelled, believing that he is usurping the fruits of the revolutionary revolutionaries.

However, after they learned that Yan Lisan's troops easily captured southern Jiangsu, they couldn't help but feel fear of Li Tiancheng's strength and could not make up their minds to stand opposite to Li Tiancheng. From this point of view, Li Tiancheng's battle to attack southern Jiangsu not only shocked the Qing government, but also shocked foreigners and revolutionaries, local local tyrants and evil gentry and other local forces, making them afraid to take action easily.

Li Tiancheng took advantage of Yan Lisan's opportunity to expand the results of the war and was calmly discussing talent training and industrial zone development with Tan Jianye, and was not in a hurry to attack Shanghai. His spies in Shanghai had searched for information about revolutionaries and other forces everywhere. Many important information had been sent back. After the main force of the Qing army in southern Jiangsu was annihilated, the door of Shanghai was opened. The Li family army still had to consider some reactions and possible consequences brought about by this occupation of Shanghai, and think of some measures to deal with it in advance. After all preparations were made in full force, we would march into Shanghai.

"We now need a lot of funds to develop industry, and we also need to reserve a lot of military expenditure. If we rely on our large subsidies to carry out basic education, it will be difficult to fully cover it. Only a few people can still get the opportunity to go to school." They are already preparing for the big things after occupying Shanghai, and by the way they talked about the basic education of primary and secondary schools. Li Tiancheng also had a headache when he thought of this problem. In the future, China's annual fiscal revenue of 10 trillion yuan could not completely solve the problem of poverty, and there are still regrets in the education problem. With his current strength, how could he run so many schools and provide funds to meet the education problems of so many young people?

Li Tiancheng also thought that there was still a need to increase military expenditure at this time. The construction of the two submarines had been completed. They had tried sailing more than a dozen times in total, but they had been lurking at the bottom of the water before and basically did not surface. The shipyard was previously in a long-term closed state and outsiders were prohibited from entering.
Chapter completed!