Chapter Twenty-Six: The Paper Mill

  Li Shi Jing was bored at home and went to the garden to admire the flowers. Suddenly, her maid handed her a letter with red wax seal, which she opened in her room.

  What surprised Li Shijin was that this letter was actually brought by Xia Jun.

  She saw in the letter that Xia Jun's situation was so desolate, spending this winter without any relatives by his side, and she couldn't help but wipe away a few tears. She took out paper and pen, and wrote back to Xia Jun with flying strokes.

  In her reply, Li Shijin mentioned her situation and said that she didn't know why her father wouldn't let her out of the house. She explained that she had originally wanted to go find Xia Jun...

  At the same time, Li Shijin also inquired about the situation of the security team in the letter.

  Li Shi Jing didn't leave the house, but she wasn't out of touch with news either. She knew that the Qing army stationed in the county town had suffered a great defeat and returned, but she wasn't clear about how far the Bao An Tuan had developed, so she curiously asked around.

  Soon Li Shiying's letter was delivered to Zhang Sigou through her maid, and that maid transmitted a message and got 10 silver dollars, making the little maid laugh with her mouth closed.

  This letter was immediately returned to Xixiang by Zhang Sigou at a speed of '800 miles in urgency'.

  Xia Jun was overjoyed when he received the letter, and Li Shiying agreed to reply. A secret channel for correspondence was established through letters. After Xia Jun opened the letter and read it, he saw that Li Shiying asked about the development of the security team, so Xia Jun called You Zhengbin and started taking pictures in the team.

  Xia Jun posed in many postures for You Zhengbin to take pictures of, just like taking artistic photos.

  Xia Jun put the washed photos in the return letter and introduced the development status of the security team, which is not a big secret.

  Xia Jun also told Li Shi Jing about fixing the toilet.

  Li Shiying was surprised when she saw the photos, which were beyond her expectations. She did not expect that the security team had uniforms and weapons, as well as heavy machine guns and a three-wheeled motorcycle. When she read about Xia Jun mentioning the toilet renovation, his stingy appearance in the text made her laugh so hard that her stomach hurt.

  The two exchanged letters very frequently, sometimes even sending two letters a day. This almost drove Li Shiying's maid crazy, and Xia Jun paid her a high fee to keep it under wraps. As a result, his contact with Li Shiying was always very secretive, and no one else in the Li household knew about it.

  The relationship between the two people progressed rapidly, and their terms of endearment became extremely intimate. Li Shijin only called Xia Jun by one word - "Jun", while Xia Jun called Li Shijin by two words - "Xiao Jing". The level of mushiness had reached a certain realm, but that layer of intention was never explicitly expressed.

  The two people in the letter mostly poured out their feelings. Li Shijin was not very happy at home, and she complained many times in her letters that her father had gone crazy and started raising her like those traditional rich girls in a boudoir. For Li Shijin who had studied abroad, this life was extremely difficult to bear.

  Xia Jun's side is all good news and no bad news, the situation is very optimistic. Therefore, every time Li Shijin reads Xia Jun's letter, she will show a smile, obviously very happy, never worried.

  Xia Jun's side is indeed doing well, since dispatching the six squads to suppress bandits, points have been pouring in. Xia Jun requires each squad to prioritize efficiency over quality when suppressing bandits.

  Efficiency is to kill or capture the largest number of bandits in the shortest time, and quality is to deal with a group of bandits, whether to catch them all at once, or to capture their leader and extort money from them.

  Although these bandits are cunning, there are more of those bandit leaders. The whereabouts of ordinary bandits can be easily found by inquiring around everywhere.

  These ordinary bandits are numerous and have a large target, unintentionally calculating that they can be easily eradicated.

  But with only 35 combat personnel in a row, the quality of suppressing bandits naturally couldn't keep up, and it's basically impossible to surround and annihilate.

  Anyway, the scores for eliminating bandits will never be as many as those for winning people's hearts, but now I urgently need scores to establish a high-yielding crop seed cultivation base.

  So let each row sweep over like a comb, anyway China is so big, bandits are everywhere, the bandits in this place have been wiped out, just move to another location.

  For this reason, each company was almost every day either in action or preparing for action, either making strong raids on bandits, ambushing them, or occupying villages which the bandits were about to attack.

  Xia Jun in Xixiang was accumulating points day by day, and the spoils of war from each extermination campaign were also varying, but adding up to a considerable amount.

  In just one week, Xia Jun's points soared by over 700,000, and these second-line troops, after nearly four months of training, practiced combat skills every day, and their combat quality improved significantly.

  Those bandits were in trouble, each squad was equipped with excellent equipment, specializing in attacking the largest bandit group in the area. The squad responsible for Pinghe and surrounding areas killed more than 200 bandits within a week.

  The spoils were enormous, with over a million yuan in silver coins plundered from the bandits within a week.

  Due to the expansion of the bandit-suppressing campaign, Xia Jun's financial resources surged.

  There were also casualties in the second bandit suppression. Xia Jun began to continue recruiting security teams, this time expanding the recruitment range to various towns and townships of Jian'an.

  Due to the bandit suppression of each column, Jian'an County's towns and townships have a certain understanding of the security team.

  For this, Xia Jun had a larger recruitment site. The second recruitment was scheduled to recruit 500 more people and reorganize three infantry companies and one logistics company.

  This recruitment is still for a second-line unit, and they are also equipped with Springfield rifles.

  The 21 non-external soldiers were used to replenish the casualties of the two external battalions, and these 500 new recruits would also participate in the bandit suppression during training, but under Xia Jun's direct command.

  With so many troops, we can launch a thorough crackdown on bandits in various places. Once the training is almost done, we will divide them into platoon-level units to be dispatched for bandit-suppression operations.

  Xia Jun developed to this point found that the constraints on the development of the security team are not only economic problems, but also talent and internal issues.

  The economic problem is simple. Although the Security Regiment has enough money, it does not have a stable source of income. The agricultural tax is clearly not enough, and the agricultural tax in Xixiang was set very low after autonomy. Moreover, exchanging high-yield crop seeds is not cost-effective. If the Security Regiment goes bankrupt financially, the consequences will be severe. However, in terms of finance, there is still no major problem in the short term, as the Security Regiment still has enough money on hand.

  In a situation where financial resources are sufficient to support expansion, talent and internal ideological education have not yet become the constraining factors for expansion.

  An army without a commissar is like a boat without a rudder, anything can happen.

  The expanded security team of 1,100 people had reached its limit at this point. Fortunately, the 500 new recruits were still under the jurisdiction of the headquarters, and military discipline could be guaranteed, while command was also directly commanded by Xia Jun. In order to train officers, Xia Jun set up an informal "Jianzhou Army Academy" to give military knowledge to the team's officers every day.

  Because of the rapid growth in points gained from eliminating bandits, which exceeded Xia Jun's expectations, Xia Jun began to consider opening a factory.

  Under current conditions, a paper mill is the first factory that needs to be established.

  Don't goods need packaging? This requires all kinds of wrapping paper, and as paper is a popular commodity with a wide market, Fujian is not short of raw materials for making paper.