You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you brought out a Tiger tank?

By the time Lin Feng returned to the security regiment's base outside the city, gathered the defeated soldiers, and completed the troop reorganization, it was already July 1st. There were only a few days left before the Japanese launched their attack in Beijing and Tianjin.

Early that morning, Lin Feng had the system soldiers lead the security regiment's militia in training, while he himself led several squads of guards into the county town.

He wanted to see what real life in the Republic of China was like, and also to find out the specific prices, so he could decide whether to use the captured money to directly build up an army, or to exchange it for ammunition, supplies, and other necessities to snowball his wealth before building up an army.

After all, the Lushan speech was on July 17, and the Battle of Shanghai didn't start until August 13. There was still some time before his security regiment was transferred to the battlefield, so he could develop his forces first.

Once inside the city, Lin Feng began to carefully observe his surroundings.

Qingxian is considered a wealthy county. The main street of the county town is relatively tidy, with bluestone pavement and various shops on both sides.

Cloth shops, grain stores, general stores, teahouses, restaurants...

It was bustling with people coming and going, quite lively.

Lin Feng, dressed in military uniform with a Mauser pistol slung across his waist, was followed by a squad of fully armed soldiers, making him very conspicuous on the street.

People would occasionally recognize him and nod in greeting.

"Commander Lin."

"Greetings, Commander Lin."

Lin Feng smiled and nodded in response.

He walked to the entrance of a grain store and stopped.

The shop assistant is weighing rice for a customer using a wooden measuring cup.

A wooden sign hangs on the wall, with the price written in calligraphy:

"Top-quality white rice, 64 cents per dou (a unit of dry measure) of legal tender."

"Second-grade unpolished rice, 45 cents per dou (a unit of dry measure) of legal tender."

Lin Feng quickly calculated in his mind.

After traveling for a few days, he had a pretty good grasp of the system of weights and measures. In the Republic of China era, one dou was about 15 jin, and one yuan in legal tender was equal to 10 jiao, 100 fen, and 1000 li.

Indeed, since the purchasing power of the legal tender was still relatively strong at that time, the 1 fen and 1 li, which are not commonly used in later generations, were the daily expenses of ordinary people.

So, the price of top-quality white rice is about... 4.2 cents per pound?

He thought for a moment, then walked over to a nearby stall selling sesame seed cakes.

"How much are the sesame seed cakes?"

The stall owner was an old man. Seeing that he was wearing a military uniform, he became a little nervous: "Sir, the sesame seed cakes are one cent each, and the ones with sesame seeds are one and a half cents each."

One cent for a sesame seed cake.

Lin Feng understood.

He then went to a cloth shop and asked about the price of cotton cloth; he went to a general store and asked about the prices of salt, oil, and kerosene.

After walking around, he gained a general understanding of the prices of goods in this era.

One silver dollar could buy about twenty catties of high-quality white rice, or a hundred sesame seed cakes, or five catties of pork, or two zhang of ordinary cotton cloth.

The wages for local domestic workers are generally between 15 and 25 dollars.

From this perspective, the purchasing power of one silver dollar is quite strong, roughly equivalent to 200 to 400 yuan in his previous life.

If we calculate it that way...

The 4,200 silver dollars he seized were equivalent to... 800,000 to 1.6 million in later times.

That looks like a lot.

But Lin Feng still felt something was off.

The bandits of Erlong Mountain had been rampant for many years, with hundreds of them kidnapping, extorting, and robbing caravans. Their accumulated wealth must be more than what they have so far.

Could there be a hidden treasure trove that he hasn't found yet?

possible.

Those bandit leaders, especially seasoned veterans like One-Eyed Dragon, must have a backup plan.

Unfortunately, the one-eyed dragon was blown up. Even if there really is a place where treasure is hidden, Erlong Mountain is so big that it would be hard to find.

Lin Feng sighed.

Well, these are good enough.

Add to that the gold and silver jewelry, and the large and small yellow croakers, and the total value should be quite high.

Later, I'll find an opportunity to go to the provincial capital or Shanghai to get an estimate, exchange it for money, and then exchange it for currency at an exchange point.

As he was thinking, his stomach suddenly growled.

Then I realized that I haven't eaten since this morning.

"Let's go find a place to eat."

He entered a restaurant that looked fairly clean, accompanied by his guards.

There weren't many customers in the shop. As soon as the man in military uniform entered, the shopkeeper rushed over to greet him: "Commander Lin, it's an honor to have you here! What would you like to eat?"

Lin Feng found a table by the window and sat down: "Just bring a few dishes, and hurry up."

"Okay."

The shopkeeper went down to make arrangements.

Lin Feng looked at the street scene outside the window.

Pedestrians come and go, vendors call out their wares, vehicles and horses hum, children laugh...

A scene of peace and tranquility.

But it won't be long before all of this is broken.

He clenched his fist.

We must rapidly build up our troops and arm them as soon as possible.

The money seized at Erlong Mountain is far from enough.

We still need to find a way to get money from Master Wang and the gentry in the county town.

In addition, it would be best to also suppress bandits. To upgrade system permissions and squads, you need merit points, which can only be obtained by killing enemies.

There are no Japanese soldiers fighting around Qingxian County now, only bandits and the like who can practice...

Just then, the dishes arrived.

A plate of stir-fried greens, a plate of Dongpo pork, a dish of honey-glazed ham, and several large bowls of rice.

Lin Feng picked up his chopsticks and took a bite of Dongpo pork.

The taste... was alright, but there was a bit too much soy sauce, so it was salty.

He shoveled a large mouthful of rice into his mouth, silently making plans in his mind.

The next steps need to be accelerated.

-----

The security regiment's headquarters was located outside the west gate of the county town. It was originally a military camp, but it was later abandoned.

After the original owner took office, he did some cursory repairs. He didn't bother to fix the collapsed sections of the wall, and he simply used thatch to block up the leaking roof.

Anyway, the security force doesn't train much. Their main task is to collect city gate taxes and scare the people.

The troops redeemed by the system were stationed at the innermost part of the military camp, separated from the routed soldiers who had been gathered back.

After returning to his post, Lin Feng had someone find a map of Qing County and the surrounding area.

Warfare has always been about seizing the right time and place.

Therefore, if you want to survive in chaotic times, the first thing to do is look at a map and learn geography.

Otherwise, if you attack Gaul from Italy, you might end up sending your troops directly over the Alps if you don't understand the geography.

He wasn't from Zhejiang Province before he traveled there, so he wasn't familiar with the geography of the area.

Although the original owner was from Fenghua, Zhejiang Province, he had been studying away from home for a long time. Later, he spent money to become the head of the security regiment in Qing County, so his understanding of the local area was limited.

The map lay open on the table; it was a topographical map of eastern Zhejiang Province, surveyed in 1934. The paper was yellowed, and the edges were worn.

Lin Feng lit the oil lamp and bent down to examine it closely.

Qingxian County is located east of Hangzhou, the provincial capital. The county seat is less than 20 li (about 10 kilometers) from the coastline.

Sixty li to the west is Shaoxing, the hometown of Zhou Shuren, the literary giant who used many pseudonyms.

To the south are continuous mountain ranges that extend all the way to Fujian Province.

About 140 li to the southeast is the original owner's hometown, Fenghua.

And on the other side of the sea...

Lin Feng's finger moved north along the coastline, across the mouth of the Qiantang River, and stopped at a place in southeast Shanghai marked "Jinshanwei".

Jinshanwei.

His heart sank.

As a military enthusiast from a later generation, he was acutely aware of the significance of this place in the early stages of the War of Resistance against Japan.

During the Battle of Shanghai, the Great Xia army held out for three months, suffering heavy casualties, but the battle line never collapsed.

Until early November, the Japanese took advantage of the Daxia leadership's misjudgment of their mobilization capabilities and suddenly landed at Jinshanwei.

Da Xia believed that after the Japanese had deployed seven divisions in North China and six divisions in Shanghai, they were unable to spare any more troops, so they concentrated their main force on the front and neglected the flanks.

In this way, three Japanese divisions stabbed the weak flank of the 70-strong defenders of Daxia.

A single oversight resulted in a complete rout.

Fall short.

"Jinshanwei..."

Lin Feng pointed to that spot with his finger, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

He wanted to change history.

If heavy troops had been deployed at Jinshanwei in advance, even if it had only delayed the Japanese landing force by a few days, the outcome of the Battle of Shanghai might have been different.

Perhaps this would have saved tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of Xia soldiers from dying.

Without the defeat in Shanghai, perhaps the loss in Nanjing wouldn't have been so swift.

but……

He looked at his current situation.

The system troops, along with the retreating soldiers of the security regiment that were brought together, totaled about three hundred people.

With this small force, if we threw it onto the Jinshanwei beachhead, let alone three divisions, it would be wiped out by just a few rounds of gunfire from the Japanese ships.

As a graduate of the National University of Defense Technology, although my major is science, I still have some basic military knowledge.

During World War II, when firepower was significantly inferior, deploying troops on the beachhead to withstand enemy naval guns and air power was tantamount to suicide.

The correct approach would be to place the main force on the second and third lines, leaving only a small number of guard troops on the beachhead, and utilizing the depth and terrain to wage a flexible defense.

Later, when the Japanese fought against the White Eagles on Pacific islands, they did the same thing, and it was quite effective—although they ultimately lost, they inflicted heavy casualties on the White Eagles.

These lessons learned, bought with blood, should be absorbed.

But now?

The Great Xia army, which had existed for 37 years, clearly did not have this kind of experience.

Or rather, there are too few people with this kind of vision, and no one listens even if you tell them.

In the early stages of the Battle of Shanghai, the elite troops of the National Revolutionary Army endured heavy casualties while being within range of Japanese naval gunfire.

Although the tactics were adjusted later, it was too late.

Thinking of this, he suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly.

Damn, I'm thinking too far ahead.

There is still more than a month before the Battle of Shanghai begins and more than four months before the Jinshanwei landing.

The most urgent task is to sort things out and strengthen our capabilities as soon as possible.

He then turned his attention back to the map and carefully studied the terrain surrounding Qing County.

Just then, footsteps came from outside the door.

"Commander, you wanted to see me?"

Zhao Yushu poked half his head in, a smile on his face.

Lin Feng looked up: "Come in."

Zhao Yushu pushed open the door and came in. Seeing Lin Feng staring at a map, he leaned over for a glance and asked, "Brother, looking at a map? Is a big war about to break out?"

Whether or not we fight a major war is not up to us.

Lin Feng pointed to the chair next to him: "Sit down, I have something to tell you."

Zhao Yushu sat down, his back straight, and his spirits seemed to have returned.

Lin Feng took out a letter he had already written from the drawer and handed it to Zhao Yushu.

Two things.

He held up two fingers: "First, go back to our hometown in Fenghua and give this letter to my father. Tell him to sell off the land and shops as soon as possible, sell everything that can be sold, exchange it for gold, silver and valuables, and then take our entire families and move to the southwest."

Zhao Yushu was taken aback: "The Great Southwest? Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan? That's so far away?"

"right."

Although he vaguely remembered that his hometown had fallen during the Zhejiang East Campaign in 1941, and that he hadn't encountered much Japanese ground troops in the previous four years except for air raids, Zhejiang Province would eventually fall to the Japanese, and life would be very difficult for the people in the occupied areas.

Thinking of this, his expression turned serious: "The Japanese will be attacking soon, and Zhejiang Province can't be defended. Staying in my hometown is too dangerous."

Zhao Yushu opened his mouth, then hesitated and said, "Brother, do you also think the Japanese are coming? But I read in the newspapers that many writers wrote articles saying that a war won't break out, and even if it does, the Western powers will intervene and mediate..."