American Comics: BOSS Invasion

Standing on a small hilltop, a bandit with a red turban pointed towards a distant manor and said.

“Young Master, look, that's the territory of Zhang the Rich! He's the last powerful landlord in this area!”

Qi Shan nodded slightly, his gaze calm.

The manor was indeed something to behold. Leaving aside its size, the towering memorial archway and the courtyard walls, easily more than three men high, were enough to show the landlord's wealth and power.

This wasn't just a landlord's residence; it was practically a small town.

According to the information gathered, the Zhang family's ancestors had become wealthy overnight by collaborating with the Jin soldiers during their invasion of the Song Dynasty.

Although many years had passed and they had declined somewhat, they were still a local power, a dominant force in the area.

The head of the family not only controlled the area around Zhangjia Village but also indirectly controlled many nearby villages through various underhanded means.

The Dawang Village, where Qi Shan was temporarily stationed, should logically belong to the Zhang landlord's territory. However, due to its remoteness, their henchmen were rarely seen swaggering around.

Nevertheless, Zhangjia Village was within the Red Turban's area of ​​operation.

In recent days, Qi Shan had not been idle. He had specifically captured several top blacksmiths, given them a pre-loaded bronze cannon blueprint, and had them work together to create this cannon.

Early cannons were relatively easy to build, especially since the Song Dynasty already had a large-scale gunpowder technology base. Manufacturing cannonballs and bronze cannons wasn't too difficult.

However, creating something from scratch was still a difficult task.

Currently, machines like lathes could not be created. They could only make some hand tools and use them to create a bronze cannon, which was by no means an easy task.

It took about a month, during which many mistakes were made and materials were wasted. Fortunately, these things were not too precious to Qi Shan. If anything was missing, he could simply take a walk and always find something to meet their needs.

In this way, little by little, almost entirely by hand, they created this cannon.

However, through this practice, it was believed that the craftsmen would gain a deeper understanding and be able to reverse engineer many suitable tools, which could be easily modified into human-powered lathes after Alice integrated and evolved them.

This would make future manufacturing processes easier and easier.

In fact, the simplest method was for Qi Shan to personally get involved. According to the human-powered generator blueprints provided by Alice, he could first build a power plant. With electricity, many problems could be solved.

However, in Qi Shan's view, cultivating suitable tradesmen was more important. It was better to spend some time building them up from scratch.

Alice's database contained all the technology from the Marvel world up to the 21st century. With enough patience, Qi Shan could create a modern city from scratch.

Several Red Turbans pushed the bronze cannon forward. In the forest behind, dense red dots were faintly visible.

Qi Shan said calmly: “Go, this is the last one. After taking it down, occupy Laiwu!”

The Red Turban next to Qi Shan shouted loudly: “Young Master orders! Smash the stronghold!”

The Red Turbans responded with a roar, rushing down the mountain like a tide, their battle cries shaking the sky.

Due to the recent frequent movements of the Red Turbans, many landlords and wealthy merchants had been looted, and many murders had been committed, causing many wealthy families to become vigilant.

Moreover, the landlord in front of them was already a cautious person. Otherwise, he wouldn't have built a memorial archway in his home. Seeing a large group of bandits suddenly rushing out, an alarm immediately sounded in the courtyard, and then a large number of guards rushed to the top of the wall to fight a siege battle with the bandits.

It must be said that the landlords and wealthy merchants who survived in the Jin territory were quite adept at protecting their lives and property. At the very least, they had prepared very sufficient defensive materials.

Arrows and the like were shot out as if they were free, not seeking to cause much damage, but only to block the enemy's momentum.

A large amount of hot oil was sent to the top of the wall, and poured down basin after basin, instantly scalding people until their skin peeled off.

Under normal circumstances, ordinary bandits would probably not make any progress even after attacking for a day. Unfortunately, this time the Red Turbans had a trump card.

As soon as the cannon fired, a large hole was blasted in the city wall, and the memorial archway inside collapsed in response. The huge thunderous sound stunned the guards inside, and the Red Turbans took the opportunity to rush in, wiping out all the resistance forces inside.

The whole process didn't take more than two hours. The landlord and wealthy merchants had no power to resist, and their lives were directly lost. The remaining servants, guards, and maids were all taken back to the mountains by the Red Turbans. Those who could be reformed joined them, and those who couldn't were all dismissed.

After solving the last landlord, the Red Turban's main force directly entered Laiwu.

They almost blatantly raised the flag of rebellion. If anyone dared to resist or make small moves, those with minor offenses would be directly imprisoned, and those with serious offenses would be beheaded without mercy.

Under the Red Turban's intimidation, Zhangjia Village and nearby villages were forced to hand over nearly 300 strong laborers. Then, in order to show fairness, justice, and their political stance, Qi Shan had the Red Turbans distribute a large amount of land seized from the landlord to these 300 people.

Then, through them, the land was subleased to relatives for work, and these relatives were appointed to form village committees and build grassroots management departments in the villages.

As for the so-called village elders and clan elders, no one would care as long as they didn't come out to interfere.

If anyone dared to act old and sell old, or thought that rules were more important than heaven, Qi Shan would not hesitate to use that knife.

Qi Shan was still relatively wise and never wanted to brainwash people with grand principles. Wasn't the experience of the Republic of China era profound enough? Facts proved that mouths could never compare to guns and sticks.

No matter how the Red Turbans developed in the future, as long as their interests could be guaranteed, as long as the Red Turbans were not defeated by the government, then the families who had been allocated land would definitely not be loyal to the Great Jin again.

And this was exactly what Qi Shan wanted!