Ren Xiaosu had thought there would not be a lot of private troops, but he was wrong. Seeing that there were even more private troops than the consortium's combat brigade, Li Qingzheng went to ask around and found out that the private troops from many strongholds had been gathered together.
The private troops of each stronghold now had a common commander named Li Anjun, who was a direct descendant of the Li Consortium and also the overseer of Stronghold 107.
Meanwhile, the commander in charge of Stronghold 108's private troops was Liu Taiyu.
By now, the private troops from the other strongholds had already assembled. Only Liu Taiyu looked at the lonely Ren Xiaosu and the others in front of him with a melancholy look on his face.
None of his soldiers were here.
Liu Taiyu looked at Li Qingzheng. "Did anything happen on your way here?"
Li Qingzheng stood up straight. "Sir, nothing happened. Our Iron Second Battalion's 8th Platoon has assembled on time. Please give us your instructions, sir. I —"
"Alright, alright." Liu Taiyu waved his hand in frustration. "Do you think it's not chaotic enough? Just stand here and don't make a sound!"
After that, Liu Taiyu left. No one knew where he went.
Someone in the platoon whispered, "Did the people behind us start fighting?"
"I think so. I think they're trying to snatch our people away," Li Qingzheng said.
Ren Xiaosu was amused. "That's a good thing. As the saying goes, the law does not punish the masses. If all the outposts start fighting, none of them will be punished."
Actually, the reason why the other outposts dared to do this was because they understood this. Now that the Li Consortium needed people to fight, how could they possibly have the time to hold them accountable?
At this moment, someone looked at Ren Xiaosu. "Platoon Commander, did you expect this to happen? So you were just trying to create chaos so that the law does not punish the masses. "
Ren Xiaosu cleared his throat. "Ahem, it's not too bad. Everything is under control."
Then Chen Wudi said, "My master isn't that smart."
Ren Xiaosu looked at Chen Wudi in silence.
In fact, the management of the private army had always been chaotic, especially after the expansion.
Ren Xiaosu and the others had not been to the other outposts before, but once they did, they knew that many of the outposts did not even have a full complement of soldiers. The platoon leaders had even deliberately lied about the number of soldiers in order to get paid without pay. Now that the platoon leaders had suddenly requested to assemble, they were caught off guard.
If the higher-ups found out that they were eating for free, it wouldn't be as simple as ordinary punishment. Some of them might even be dragged out and shot to death as a warning to others.
Therefore, in this chaos, there were people who deliberately muddied the waters.
When Liu Taiyu personally brought all of the private troops back, the other private troops had already set off. Only Stronghold 108's combat troops were left behind.
According to the requirements, they were supposed to assemble at 7 am, but it was almost evening now …
During this period, no one paid any attention to Ren Xiaosu and the others. The entire platoon was like a herd of sheep. Ren Xiaosu even had the time to take everyone to town to buy egg pancakes for everyone to eat. Li Qingzheng was treating them to it.
In the evening, Liu Taiyu brought the majority of the troops back to assemble. The private troops were all badly battered and bruised. But the most shocking thing was that several of their platoons had disappeared without a trace.
Many of their clothes were torn and their shoes were gone. Only Ren Xiaosu and his platoon still looked somewhat human.
Ren Xiaosu's platoon was the eighth platoon of the Iron Second. Originally, there were seven platoons ahead of them, but the sixth platoon was gone. All of their soldiers had been snatched away, and even their platoon commander had been taken away.
Liu Taiyu did not mention anything about the punishment anymore. Usually, he would try his best to embezzle everyone's pay and never really took care of military affairs. This time, he was suffering the consequences of his actions.
Ren Xiaosu did a rough count. There were still 33 complete platoons left in the private army, which meant there were about 1,000 soldiers in the private army.
Liu Taiyu stood in front of everyone and said, "You guys usually eat and drink from the consortiums. As the saying goes, soldiers are trained for a thousand days to be used in a single day. Now's the time for you to serve the consortiums. My troops will advance to the front lines at Mt. Tantou, Mt. Fengyi, and Mt. Shuanglong. Eventually, we'll build high ground there to prevent the Kyung Clan troops from invading. "
Ren Xiaosu was taken aback. They were getting the private troops to build high ground there? They were really sending them to their deaths.
Although they still had a huge advantage in terms of terrain, the problem was that the range and accuracy of the artillery shells were very high. You could occupy the high ground, but if the enemy had the money, they could just bombard the high ground with artillery shells.
At this time, anyone guarding the high ground would have to die.
Usually, in such a situation, extremely strong fortifications would be needed to be built to serve as a strategic high ground. But how could Ren Xiaosu and the others have the time to build fortifications?
Everyone in the private army was in an uproar. No one wanted to send themselves to their deaths.
But the problem was that even though they were arguing, no one dared to run away.
Liu Taiyu had a reinforced company with his trusted subordinates. There were a total of 180 of them, and the weapons and equipment these people were equipped with were much better than those of Ren Xiaosu and the others.
However, these troops were not used for war. On one hand, they were responsible for protecting Liu Taiyu, and on the other hand, they were responsible for supervising the other platoons of the private army to carry out their orders.
Liu Taiyu said with a smile, "However, there are also great rewards for taking on such a great responsibility. Those who perform well at the end of this war will be directly recruited into the Li Consortium's regular army. Not only that, but they'll also receive very generous rewards. Even if they don't perform well, they can still directly enter the stronghold and become official residents."
Some of the soldiers got excited on the spot. "We can enter the stronghold and get resident status?"
"Are you for real?"
Liu Taiyu said with a smile, "As the commander of the Iron Second, how could I possibly joke around with you? The higher-ups of the consortiums have already issued the order, so you guys can rest assured. "
At this moment, a lot of people were tempted. As the refugees were not very knowledgeable, they were the ones who had always been fooled throughout history. Moreover, it was easier to fool a group of people when they were together.
But Ren Xiaosu knew very well that if Liu Taiyu dared to make such a big deal out of it, it was probably because he did not think the nearly 1,000 soldiers of the private army would make it back alive!
There were also quite a few people in the troops who could remain clear-headed. However, none of them dared to say anything and could only let their comrades discuss excitedly from the sidelines.
Suddenly, Liu Taiyu clapped his hands to signal for everyone to quiet down. "Everyone, get in the vehicles. We're setting off!"
Liu Taiyu's off-road vehicle and the reinforced company's military transport truck did not drive in front. Instead, they were monitoring from the back to see if anyone was trying to escape.
When Ren Xiaosu saw this through the rearview mirror, he said to Li Qingzheng, "Liu Taiyu is a coward, so he definitely won't dare to go to the battlefield himself. That way, we'll have more leeway to perform."
Li Qingzheng was taken aback. "What leeway are you going to perform? Xiaosu, don't you dare mess around."
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