Under one person: I, Zhang Zhiwei, the arrogant Zhang.

Liu Mang was taken aback by Zhang Zhiwei's words: "What target? Please explain, Little Celestial Master, I don't quite understand."

He actually understood, but he didn't want to do it, or rather, he couldn't do it.

Because he can't fight himself, you know, right now the biggest landlord in the entire Sichuan and Chongqing area is his Liu family.

Of course, his family wasn't always that big. When he was born, the Liu family was only a middle-class landlord, with only a thousand acres of land.

Of these lands, his father received forty mu of paddy fields. To make a living, his father also ran a rice milling and selling business. Overall, his family was not considered landlords, but rather a relatively well-off farming household.

His cousin, on the other hand, owned a lot of land, several hundred acres, and was also the head of the Liu family.

Landlord families like the Liu family all had communal properties such as "clan lands" to support promising children in the clan to study and bring honor to their ancestors.

With the support of his family, he and his uncle Liu Hui were admitted to military academy, joined the military, and gradually rose to their current positions.

Of course, they also gave back to their family, transforming the Liu family, a medium-sized landlord family, into the largest landlord family in Sichuan.

Although he had fought with his uncles a few years ago, blood ties still exist, and he did not take any serious action against his relatives.

He was like that, and many of his subordinates were like him, either from landlord families or newly minted landlords.

They are a community of shared interests, so what they have been doing all these years is protecting the landlord-centric "tenant system" and the existing social structure.

If we directly extract money from landlords and capitalists, wouldn't that be tantamount to shaking the very foundation of our own rule?
Zhang Zhiwei did not answer Liu Mang's question, which he already knew the answer to, but only looked at him with a half-smile.

Lu Ci and Wang Ai didn't say anything, they just sat there silently. In a way, they were landlords and capitalists, and the kind that had been passed down for thousands of years, including Longhu Mountain.

Fan Pengju slammed his hand on the table and said, "Boss, don't pretend to be reckless! Little Celestial Master's idea is to find those landlords and capitalists to make some money!"

"You talk too much, don't I know what to do?" Liu Mang said irritably. "You were just a local bandit back then, so poor you were dirt penniless. Now you're rich, you have land, money, and a wife. I'm asking you to donate most of your wealth to me, are you going to do it or not?!"

Fan Pengju was stunned for a while before saying, "If you're going to fight your own people, then I won't. But if you're going to fight the Japanese pirates, you can take them all, let alone most of them."

"Alright, alright, enough with your rambling, shut up!" Liu Mang said irritably.

Fan Pengju continued, "The Gelaohui (a secret society) has its own rules. I always keep my word, my son, you're kidding me!"

"Yes, yes, I know, I know, don't talk nonsense!" Liu Mang said irritably.

“What the hell am I saying? It’s true! What are you talking about?” Fan Pengju shouted.

Zhang Zhiwei looked at Fan Pengju with admiration in his eyes. He did not doubt the truth of what the other man said, because this man was the later famous general Commander Ha'er, and he had indeed done it.

After the war began, he volunteered to participate in the Battle of Shanghai, where he made great contributions but lost his entire army.

Later, his superior, Liu Mang, also died. Without his backer, although he was appointed as a military commander by the Chairman, he only had the title and no subordinates.

To fight the Japanese pirates, he sold all his family property and then gathered his brothers from the Gelaohui (a secret society). Those with money contributed money, and those without money contributed manpower. Without his superiors giving him a single soldier or bullet, he managed to build a force composed of his brothers and fight the Japanese pirates at his own expense.

This is one of the reasons why people say the Sichuan Army's equipment is terrible—they weren't given enough equipment.

However, despite their poor equipment, their combat record was astonishing; they even killed a division commander on the battlefield.

It was already quite shocking that Li Yunlong killed a regimental commander on the front lines.

Above the regiment is the brigade, and above the brigade is the division. The division is also the largest regular organizational unit of the Japanese army.

Fan Pengju's killing of the division commander marked the first time since the formation of the Japanese army that a division commander had been directly killed on the battlefield, demonstrating his outstanding military achievements.

Upon returning, Chiang Kai-shek, being a heartless man, resorted to the same trick again, setting him up by promoting him to deputy commander-in-chief of an army group.

This position is undeniably high, but the key issue is the title "Deputy," which effectively stripped him of his military power.

It's better not to follow such a blind boss. In a fit of anger, Fan Pengju resigned and returned to his hometown of Chongqing.

“Brother Ha’er is straightforward!” Zhang Zhiwei said.

Fan Pengju, who was still arguing with Liu Mang, turned around and gave a thumbs up: "You must be straightforward!"

After saying that, he looked at Liu Mang and said, "Boss, what are you hesitating for? I think what the little celestial master said makes some sense. Since we're talking about a big war, let's get them to do some work, what's wrong with that?"

“Every time you say you’re collecting land taxes, you always collect them through them. They’re the middleman, and do you know how much money you lose by going through that middleman?”

“They definitely have a lot of stock, and you can definitely get it if you go ask. After you get the money, don’t rush to build houses or buy land. Let’s properly equip the brothers…”

"Alright, shut up!" Liu Mang cursed, "You uneducated bumpkin, you know that? Do you think I don't know?"

"Do you think all those years of studying have gone to waste? If you don't understand the scriptures, don't spout nonsense here!"

He explained, "Our base is maintained by those local gentry and landlords, and by the landlords, gentry, and village chiefs. If I were to force them to pay me, what would they think?"

"If things fall apart, my orders won't reach the grassroots level, and grassroots management will be paralyzed."

"Moreover, they have a considerable number of people under their command, including armed militias, retainers, and even private armies. Forcibly conscripting them could directly trigger armed conflict."

"The most crucial point is that many officers in my unit come from these families. Are we going to force them to raid their own homes?"

This is also why Liu Mang did not directly collect money from landlords and gentry. He had even beaten his own uncle, so he would naturally not be lenient with these local bullies. Forcibly collecting military expenses would lead to a series of extremely complex and dangerous consequences. After comprehensive consideration, it was much easier to levy taxes on ordinary people.

Fan Pengju fell silent. Just as Liu Mang had said, he had indeed not read many books.

He could be considered exceptionally talented in warfare, a natural-born genius. But he's not good at this kind of thing; if he were, he wouldn't have been tricked twice in a row.

After they finished speaking, Zhang Zhiwei laughed and said, "That's precisely why we need to do it. The bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish."

"Does the Little Celestial Master have an idea?" Liu Mang asked hurriedly. If possible, he would certainly like to seize the wealth of those landlords and gentry to expand his military.

Zhang Zhiwei laughed and said, "If you can't ask them for money directly, you can secretly send out a team of elite soldiers to rob them."

"Isn't Little Celestial Master's plan a bit too simplistic and crude?" Liu Mang was somewhat speechless.

“The simplest way is the best, the simpler the better,” Zhang Zhiwei said. Liu Mang said, “It’s not necessarily good. There are local militias, and some big landowners have private armies. Many bandits don’t dare to rob. Even for me, I need a large army to come to the border. That makes it impossible to hide my identity.”

“That’s because your men aren’t elite enough. You can ask elite troops who aren’t afraid of private armed forces for help,” Zhang Zhiwei said.

"Who has enough elite troops?" Liu Mang asked hastily.

“This time, we invited people from Chen Yulou,” Zhang Zhiwei said.

"This group of rakes is probably not elite enough!" Liu Mang said.

"And what about the Tang Clan members?" Zhang Zhiwei asked.

“The Tang Clan are assassins, not gangsters. They won’t take this kind of job,” Liu Mang said.

“I can try to persuade them to come out of seclusion. If they refuse, I can send someone from here,” Zhang Zhiwei said.

Upon hearing this, Liu Mang and Fan Pengju both stared at Zhang Zhiwei in shock. Legend had it that the Little Celestial Master was righteous and upright, but the more they looked at him, the less he seemed like it. He was more like a gangster than a member of the Gelaohui (a secret society). Compared to him, Chen Yulou was like Qiu'er (a character from a Chinese folktale known for his righteousness and integrity). He was the real boss of the underworld.

Zhang Zhiwei did this for two reasons: first, the big landlords of that era were basically ruthless and greedy, so he felt no guilt about it; second, he genuinely wanted to make money.

Although he dislikes money and never touches it, the Tiantong Chamber of Commerce is a money-burning machine. Although the Chamber has made a lot of money over the years, it has spent even more money on other things.

Moreover, in recent years, the global economy has not been doing well, and the Tiantong Chamber of Commerce has been investing in heavy assets that others are unwilling to do and that are not easy to quickly realize. In addition, it frequently engages in charity work, so it can be said that it spends money like water.

If he could rob these landlords of a fortune, become a Zhang Mazi (a notorious landlord), and get a hefty share, Zhang Zhiwei wouldn't mind.

Liu Mang laughed loudly: "If the Little Celestial Master is willing to take action, what are those big landowners' private armies but a hair's breadth?"

“It’s about the same as a hair!” Zhang Zhiwei said. “What you need to do is to secretly investigate the details of all the major landlords and families in the area, including their assets. I will send people to plunder them clean.”

"Then you spread rumors in newspapers, on the radio, and on the streets, exaggerating the power of these bandits and amplifying the panic."

"When the local lords' panic reaches its peak, they will come to you in droves to suppress the bandits. You know what happens next."

Liu Mang was also a smart man, and he understood instantly:
"Then I took the opportunity to get them to contribute money and effort to help me raise military equipment to suppress bandits, but I took the money and did nothing."

“That’s right.” Zhang Zhiwei clapped his hands.

Liu Mang laughed and said, "This is nothing new. In fact, I often use this method. I use the pretext of suppressing bandits to get all the major landlords to contribute money."

"However, none of them were doing it, so I went and found a few influential big landlords to take the lead and get them to contribute more, so that the remaining small landlords could also contribute money."

"Once we've collected enough money, we'll return all the money to the big landlords and divide the money among the small landlords."

"I've done this kind of thing many times before, they probably won't fall for it."

Zhang Zhiwei said, "If we want to keep playing this trick, we have to go for real and make them really feel the pain. Don't worry, I will take everything, but I won't kill them."

"Moreover, the purpose this time is different. Before, you were trying to swindle money from small landlords, but this time you're trying to make big money from big landlords. It's not a slow and steady business; it's a one-off deal."

Liu Mang suddenly realized and nodded, saying, "I understand. It's a real robbery, and the money will be handled the same way as before. We'll secretly contact a few big landlords to act as shills, get them to donate large sums of money to set an example, and then I'll just tell Little Celestial Master to go and wipe them out. That way, we won't have to pay back the money."

“The winner takes all, that’s the process,” Zhang Zhiwei said.

"What the hell!" Liu Mang exclaimed. "The two of us, one robbing and the other cheating, are leaving them no way to survive."

Zhang Zhiwei said, "They exploit the farmers below, leaving them with almost no way to survive!"

"That's true. If we kill them, I won't have any guilt!" Liu Mang chuckled. "So, how will we split the money?"

He didn't think that simply sending a rake into the city would make the young Taoist priest work for him for free. He was sure that the young Taoist priest would get paid, and besides, he wouldn't feel at ease taking money from such a job if Zhang Zhiwei didn't get a share.

“I won’t take advantage of you, we’ll split it 50/50!” Zhang Zhiwei said.

“Alright, let’s do it this way, split it in half!” Liu Mang rubbed his hands together and laughed, “Now I understand why Little Celestial Master was able to build the Tiantong Chamber of Commerce into such a big company.”

Zhang Zhiwei laughed and said, "In the early stages of making money, it's inevitable to use some low-level methods."

"I understand, I understand!" Liu Mang chuckled. "Oh dear, it's such a pity that I only got to meet the Little Celestial Master today!!"

"You're too kind, Commander!" Zhang Zhiwei laughed. "I've met many warlord commanders, but Commander Liu has left a deep impression on me!"

"Little Celestial Master, where should we begin?" Liu Mang asked.

“Whoever is the richest and owns the most land, that’s who we’ll take down first!” Zhang Zhiwei said.

"Hmm...that makes sense, but..." Liu Mang hesitated, stroking his chin.

Fan Pengju thoughtfully explained to Zhang Zhiwei, "The richest family is the eldest brother's, the Liu family!"

"Wouldn't Commander Liu be unable to bring himself to do it?" Zhang Zhiwei said.

“Little Celestial Master, you’ve misunderstood,” Liu Mang said. “The Liu family members are my dearest relatives and brothers.”

At this point, Lü Ci felt that the negotiations might not go any further. If they didn't target the biggest landlords but instead went after the smaller ones, Senior Brother Zhang would definitely not be willing.

Unexpectedly, the next second, Liu Mang's expression changed, and he said decisively:
"You have to pay more!"

Lü Ci: "…………"

Wang Ai: "…………"

Fan Pengju: "…………"

Zhang Zhiwei's lips twitched slightly: "How much? You tell me!"

“Even if we have to pay more, we can’t let the Little Celestial Master’s people make a wasted trip. How about this, my Liu family will split it 30/70, I’ll get 70%, you get 30%, how about that?” Liu Mang said.

Having said all that, Zhang Zhiwei naturally wouldn't refuse: "Deal!" (End of Chapter)