Although Taiping Mansion is not far from Nanjing and Shanghai, as well as the golden waterway of the Yangtze River, it is very convenient to transport goods, and in terms of security, because foreign ships can be hired, plus there are troops to escort them, there is no big problem for the time being, but after all, it takes time to go back and forth, and Li Zhigao is inseparable from himself in the short term, so it is still very inconvenient to transport goods from Taiping Mansion to Nanjing to sell goods.

In order to reduce the trouble and for the sake of transportation safety, when Liu Runsheng sold the goods for a month and a half at the Nanyang Industry Fair in Nanjing, Li Zhigao stopped and told him that in the future, the products he had at hand would only be displayed and no longer sold out, and that buyers could go to Taiping Mansion to buy the goods by themselves if they were willing to buy in the future.

That is to say, Liu Runsheng has proven his loyalty and reliability, and since then, for the sake of safety and convenience, the products he brought can only be used for product display at the Nanyang Industry Conference, but the products are no longer delivered on the spot.

In this way, Li Zhigao has reduced the trouble of transporting freight money by himself, and foreign businessmen come to Taiping Mansion with real money, which not only facilitates his own transfer of money to another world, but also drives the economy of Taiping Mansion, which is a good thing that kills multiple birds with one stone.

Li Zhigao's conditions are so harsh, he also relies on good things, and his reputation has already been played, he doesn't worry about selling at all, it is a complete seller's market, so he can do this when sales are low, and if he changes it, it is impossible to have this effect.

Of course, Li Zhigao made it clear that he only did wholesale, and it also gave other merchants a profit margin, so although the conditions have become harsher, such as having to bear the freight by themselves, it is still a good thing for the buyer.

Although Li Zhigao is not responsible for transporting goods, in order to ensure the safety of the waterway from Taiping Mansion to Nanjing, reduce the risk of buyers being robbed on the way, and send more gold and silver to himself, Li Zhigao also spent some money to Cheng Yonghe, so that his Yangtze River sailors are also active, conduct patrols along the way and maintain order in the Yangtze River waterway, do not expect them to fight bandits and water thieves, but at least they can make an early warning, or let them not rob themselves It is very good.

To tell the truth, the water thieves near the Yangtze River waterway are all made by the Yangtze River sailors, and the other small water thieves are at most the sidelines of some fishermen, and they will grab an ordinary passenger ship, which is not a threat to those wealthy businessmen who come by steamboat to buy goods. As for the foreigners, there is no need to worry, in this section of the Yangtze River waterway, no one dares to trouble the foreigners, after all, the foreigners' warships are there.

Li Zhigao is like this, that is, spending money to buy a non-troublesome one, and by the way, giving Cheng Yonghe, a temporary partner, a new sweetheart, so that everyone's interests are more closely bound, otherwise, even if they don't do this, those poor ghosts of the Yangtze River Water Division will not be able to do much big things, and they can only disgust people.

Not to mention, Li Zhigao's new policy came out, and it really prospered Taiping Mansion, and the local merchants in Taiping Mansion also benefited a lot, after all, people who came to buy goods could not leave immediately, they always had to live for a while, and if they wanted to stay, they had to live in a store, they had to eat and drink, and they had to be entertained, so affected by this, the business of Taiping Mansion also prospered, such as hotels, restaurants, and other businesses, which were very popular, and then other related craftsmen and service industries also prospered, which led to the economy of the entire Taiping Mansion.

However, although the entry of foreign businessmen brought prosperity to the local business, it also made the underworld and evil forces rampant, so in order to create a better business environment for the locality, reduce unnecessary expenditures, and increase his own income, Li Zhigao discovered this problem, and immediately asked the soldiers of the patrol battalion to carry out a series of anti-mafia and evil activities while paying close attention to training.

Today's group of patrol battalion soldiers, the main body is the original old regiment training, these people after a period of military camp life and literacy study, plus an actual battle, they grew up very quickly, and their loyalty to Li Zhigao gradually has a fanatical tendency, there is a little bit of the shadow of the Nazi stormtroopers, or red soldiers.

Moreover, many of these people had been oppressed by the local underworld in Taiping Mansion in the past, and they had an instinctive antipathy and resentment towards the underworld, so after receiving Li Zhigao's order to crack down on the underworld and eliminate evil, they immediately acted vigorously and resolutely.

With the help of local people who are familiar with the inside story, that is, the gangsters of Zhao'an, these new patrol battalion troops, which have not been polluted much, have beaten up the underworld forces in Taiping Mansion, and basically do not let go of mistakes.

In this way, through this kind of high-pressure means, not to mention sweeping away all the local underworld forces, it is also pressure that they will no longer dare to mess around, and in the short term, the market of the entire Taiping Mansion will be completely renewed, at least, all large and small businesses do not need to pay additional protection fees, which is equivalent to a disguised reduction in expenditure, which is naturally praised.

In addition, although Li Zhigao became the commander of the patrol battalion, he did not go to the title of regimental training supervisor, so the establishment of the regimental training armament was not removed, but Li Zhigao had too many things to do before, so he didn't care about it, and now he has money and soldiers in his hands, and he has actually controlled the Taiping Mansion, so it is natural to carry out a new round of blatant recruitment.

It only took less than half a month for Li Zhigao to raise a militia regiment of his own, which numbered more than 6,000 people, all under the age of 24, most of whom were initially literate and above 1.6 meters tall, and in terms of the quality of the soldiers, they were not inferior to the new army.

The new regiment was equipped with Springfield rifles, and later bought 12 Krupp 75mm field guns and 24 Maxim machine guns through Marven, and the instructors were still the "retired American soldiers" invited by Marven.

These soldiers have sufficient salaries, sufficient materials, and full of energy, and they do nothing else every day, that is, they train and study illiteracy in the Chenjiazhuang barracks day and night, which is exactly the same as when Li Zhigao first engaged in that regimental training, the only difference is that he can no longer listen to Li Zhigao's lectures all day long, after all, Li Zhigao is usually very busy, and it is impossible to go to lectures every night as before.

As for the people in the patrol battalion, these people were originally trained by the old regiment, and they were Li Zhigao's starting troops, and they were the most loyal to him, and after another battle, they could be regarded as having some combat experience, and in general, they were the most combat-effective troops on hand at Li Zhigao.

At the beginning, in order to take the Taiping Mansion as soon as possible, Li Zhigao did not make more changes to the troop establishment, but just turned the old regiment training into a patrol battalion as a whole.

Among this part of the people, except for the special operations company, which is still singled out separately, the others are still divided into two parts, that is, regular soldiers and auxiliary soldiers.

The difference is that the regular soldiers are called the infantry team of the patrol battalion, while the 500 auxiliary soldiers are all turned into police teams, and the horse team is not set up for the time being because it takes a long time and the conditions are not met, and as for the new logistics baggage troops, that is, the husband service, they are responsible for the newly recruited 1,000 people, and these 1,000 people are not given weapons for the time being, and they are not counted in the combat sequence, and they belong to the patrol battalion supernumerary personnel, but outsiders still count these 1,000 people as patrol battalion personnel.

In other words, the 6,000-member new militia group is conducting closed training in the Chenjiazhuang Forbidden Area, isolated from the outside world, and is easily not allowed to go out without special circumstances.

The special operations company has been supplemented with some new recruits, and its establishment and unit commanders have also been slightly adjusted.

The 500 auxiliaries converted into a police force, all equipped with Enfield rifles, supplemented by some people familiar with the local situation, specially patrolled and on duty in Taiping Mansion, which was counted as a local garrison force to demonstrate Li Zhigao's will.

Li Zhigao now has a total of more than 7,000 armed forces, and the number of men in the patrol battalion who have no weapons and only batons is more than 8,000.

Most of these armed forces are in Chenjiazhuang, a military restricted area newly divided by Li Zhigao, to carry out intense and strict closed military training, which does not involve the civilian affairs of Taiping Mansion, and only the police force composed of 500 veteran logistics soldiers plus some new recruits is the ammunition force on the surface of Taiping Mansion.

However, this is sufficient, for example, in the anti-gang and anti-evil campaign, those police forces mainly relied on proved that they were fully capable of fulfilling the duties of the local police with a soft and hard attitude and the fact of bloodshed.

As for the infantry of the patrol battalion, which only had 350 men, although it was also stationed in the old patrol battalion camp in Taiping City, it was still confined to the camp for the whole day, carrying out closed military training and literacy study, and was easily not allowed to leave the camp in preparation for a new round of military expansion in the future. According to Li Zhigao's order, no one is allowed to leave the barracks and go to the city to fight unless there is a major turmoil in the local area that cannot be resolved by the police, and the infantry needs to be suppressed by the infantry team.

Looking at it this way, Li Zhishou's strength is actually divided into two major parts, the men and horses of the patrol battalion are stationed in Taipingfu City, which is counted as a military force on the surface, and the 6,000 recruits and the special operations company are all arranged to conduct closed training in the old camp of Chenjiazhuang outside the city.

The reason for this arrangement is completely because Li Zhigao knows very well that the part of the people he has at hand, except for the special operations company and the 350 patrol battalion infantry team, which are worthy of a battle, the others are all quasi-new soldiers, although the weapons are good, the ammunition is sufficient, the number of people is large, and the morale is strong, but when it comes to combat ability, it is still insufficient, and if it really starts, it will definitely not be able to defeat his own special operations company and the infantry team of the patrol battalion of 350 people for the time being.

However, these details are only clear to Li Zhigao himself, not to outsiders, and Li Zhigao is also confident, it is difficult to say that these soldiers of his are placed in the whole country, but it is not possible to say that in the entire vicinity of Taiping Mansion, it is not possible to attack outward at present, if it is defensive, even if the new army in Anhui fights, it may not be able to win itself.

In other words, Li Zhigao's 8,000 soldiers, it's hard to say if they really fight, but it's definitely okay to scare people, as long as you don't take the initiative early and reveal the truth, or don't blatantly rebel, under normal circumstances, others will not provoke him.

In addition to recruiting and training troops, Li Zhigao also recruited idle people in the Taiping Mansion to build construction projects everywhere, constantly built new factories, and opened various private schools.

is so rich and rich, has a serious official body, and is very good friends with the prefect and the county and other yamen, plus it seems that there are foreigners to support him, and there is no rebellion, so Li Zhigao is still able to manage him in this Taiping Mansion?

It can be said that unconsciously, although Li Zhigao did not deliberately promote, he has gradually become the real tyrant and new master of the Taiping Mansion, and it is good that the orders of the government do not conflict with Li Zhigao's orders, but once there is a conflict, then only listen to Li Zhigao, not the government, because the local garrison only listens to Li Zhigao.

In this case, the locals of Taiping Mansion are seeing it in their eyes, knowing it in their hearts, and they don't know what they say, but they all know that this Taiping Mansion has changed the sky, and the real master is no longer the prefect, but the acting commander of this patrol battalion, and after a long time, even the people outside the Taiping Mansion gradually noticed that something was wrong, and they also knew that the Taiping Mansion had changed the sky.

For example, Zhu Jiabao, the governor of Anhui, received several secret reports more than a month later, and he completely understood Li Zhigao's strength and behavior. It's just that at this time, Li Zhigao has already fledgled and involved the Americans, and after all, he did not rebel, he was still an official of the Qing Dynasty, and he did not interfere too much with the functions and powers of the prefect and other yamen, and did not hinder the Taiping Mansion from paying taxes to him on time, not to mention that they had a fight with the revolutionary party, and their behavior was not like the style of those poor ghost revolutionary parties, so they simply acquiesced to all this and never cared about anything else.

As for the tube? How? The imperial court is powerless to control the following, in order to collect more money, he is forced to engage in regional autonomy, and he is not even very stable in charge of Anqing, how can he manage the Taiping Mansion with seven or eight thousand troops? If you really want to be tough, not to mention the victory or defeat, in the end it will definitely be a defeat for both sides, and you can only let those revolutionary parties make a profit.

In short, in Zhu Jiabao's view, as long as the Taiping Mansion is still under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, and he still pays taxes to himself and the imperial court on time, and he does not know how to rebel and slap himself in the face, then he will temporarily turn a blind eye and let Li Zhigao, the head snake of the new land, rise, and talk about it later.

As for Wang Yongni and others, although they felt a little unhappy because of the gradual decline of power, and felt that it was the front door to drive the wolf and the back door to enter the tiger, but thinking that after all, people did not take away all their powers, and they usually did not interfere much with their official power in the Taiping Mansion, but they were bored to do business and train soldiers and enclosures, and some days ago, they also gave themselves a lot of dividends from boutique department stores on time, which was much better than the words who had no money and no power in the past, so they gradually didn't care.

Anyway, Wang Yongni and the others have gone through so many things, especially after secretly making a small report to the governor, but there is no response, and even let the governor Zhu Jiabao reprimand him and ask him to cooperate with Li Zhigao, he finally understands that unless Li Zhigao rebels clearly, there is nothing to do with Li Zhigao at all!

If you look at it this way, I'm afraid that this court is really not good, and on this day, it is estimated that it will really change, but as the master said, no matter how it changes in the future, it is better to have someone like Li Zhigao to change than anyone else, at least if it is those revolutionary parties, it will definitely not let him have such a good life.

In short, let him go, it's good to make money, and we'll see later!

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