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

Chapter 369: A mere 4 troops

But he changed his attitude in the blink of an eye. It was obvious that he did it on purpose. However, he had no evidence now, so it would be useless even if he pointed it out. So he simply kept his mouth shut.

Jiang Li ignored Jack and said to himself, "Since everyone is worried, please ask Mr. Jack to take these agreements back and ask His Majesty the King to have someone make notes on them to ensure that the agreements will not encounter the situations they are worried about."

"What do you think, Mr. Jack?"

Jack Thomas' eyes twitched when he heard this. This was exactly what their agreement meant. If he took it back and made notes, wouldn't that leave room for suspicion?

So he simply said directly and firmly, "Commander Jiang, you don't know that we in the British Empire have never done such things to bully others. You don't have to worry at all!"

"us..."

But before he could finish, Jiang Li raised his hand to interrupt him.

"Mr. Jack may not have understood what we said. Let me explain to you. Now we are just worried about the problems we mentioned before. If you can eliminate our concerns, I think this agreement can be signed immediately!"

"I wonder if Mr. Jack can allay our concerns?"

This made it clear, what else could Jack say? He just got angry and threatened.

"Commander Jiang, you should also know that our British Empire has just won a great victory in India, and now we have two million soldiers at our disposal."

"If Your Majesty the King cannot earn enough military funds through trade, then I'm afraid they will be a little unhappy!"

Seeing that he had made his point clear, Jiang Li did not hide anything, "Of course I understand this principle, but don't forget, not only did you win the battle, I, Jiang Li, also won a great victory two months ago."

"The population under their rule has now reached 180 million, and the number of troops has directly expanded to 4 million. If there is an invasion by foreign enemies, I think they will definitely fight back with all their might!"

"I just don't know who will be the winner when the two sides quarrel over each other!"

When Jack Thomas heard this, he immediately frowned. He didn't know much about Jiang Li's troops, but he knew that China had a large population and a vast territory.

The number of these 180 million civilians and 4 million troops may be exaggerated, but if the actual situation is only half as good as Jiang Li said, they will be a formidable enemy.

He knew very well what the current situation of the British Empire was. Their economic strength had declined significantly since World War I.

Before they could catch their breath, they encountered Edward's incident again, which forced them to lead Britain in a civil war in India for several years.

The current economic situation is even worse. This time, he went on a diplomatic mission to sign an agreement with Jiang Li so that they and Dai Ying could take the opportunity to suck some blood and breathe a sigh of relief.

If he fails to accomplish this task this time and instead becomes estranged from Jiang Li, he is not sure whether they, Daiying, can send out a large army to fight Jiang Li to the death.

But even though the situation was like this, he would not say that. Instead, he lowered his posture and apologized to Jiang Li.

"Commander Jiang is right. I understand the old saying that when the snipe and the clam quarrel, the fisherman benefits. We brought Ying here only to make money, so we naturally don't want to have a conflict with you!"

"If I expressed myself incorrectly before and caused you to misunderstand, please forgive me!"

When Jiang Li heard what he said, he knew that he had really frightened him, so he quickly took advantage of the situation and said, "Oh, it seems that I misunderstood Mr. Jack."

"But now it's all right. Now that we've made things clear, we can do business with peace of mind!"

Seeing that Jiang Li had no intention of breaking up, Jack breathed a sigh of relief and said to Jiang Li, "Since Commander Jiang said so, I won't beat around the bush."

"Our British Empire was founded on the navy and trade, so we have always attached great importance to the spirit of contract. I apologize if the contract I brought this time caused the commander to misunderstand me!"

"But we are really here to do business, so just rest assured!"

Jiang Li laughed when he heard this, "Mr. Jack is right. I am actually very passionate about trade."

"But in my opinion, business is a process of mutual exchange. If we need something, you can sell it to us. Isn't that a win-win situation for both of us?"

Jack nodded with a wry smile, "Commander, you are right. I just don't know what you are lacking right now. You might as well tell me so that I can report to His Majesty when I return."

Seeing that he finally gave up the idea of ​​sucking blood, Jiang Li expressed his needs.

"We have been at war recently, so we are in great need of military equipment, especially airplanes, tanks and the like. We always accept any that come to us!"

"We are also in urgent need of various heavy machinery, such as oil extraction and refining equipment, steelmaking equipment, chemical equipment, and industrial equipment such as internal combustion engines."

"If you bring these here from the British Empire, we can accept them even if the price is a little higher than the market price!"

Jack knew very well that Jiang Li bought these things for the purpose of developing industry, but he was just a diplomat, how could he have such authority?

So he laughed dryly, "We do have all of what Commander Jiang said with the British Empire, but I'm not sure if there are any extra ones that can be exported."

"Why don't you write down what you need and I'll take it back to ask His Majesty and the cabinet ministers to discuss it. Is that okay with you?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Li naturally had no reason to refuse. He was buying anyway, and there was nothing wrong in having Ying as another seller while buying from other European countries.

As for the higher price, that doesn’t matter. He has just earned tens of millions of dollars, and this is the perfect opportunity to spend some money to enhance his own strength.

Afterwards, Jiang Li wrote down everything he needed and gave it to Jack Thomas to take back for discussion with the higher-ups.

After Jiang Li sent him away, he had time to care about the war in the three provinces of Sichuan, Jiangxi and Fujian.

Since the number of troops in the three groups was not too large, and it was the first time for them to lead troops alone, they fought quite conservatively.

As a result, it was almost a month before they took advantage of their weapon advantage and elite soldiers to occupy one-fifth of the enemy's territory.

Jiang Li didn't have any good solution for this. After all, he couldn't conquer the whole world by himself. It was imperative to cultivate some talents who could stand on their own.

Now, there are several warlords in these three provinces who are neither strong nor weak, and they can be used as training grounds.

Therefore, he did not ask them to achieve any kind of results in a short period of time, nor did he increase the number of troops they had, so as to prevent them from being like himself, who could only fight a favorable battle by relying on the advantage of numbers.