All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

Therefore, this trip to Shanghai was postponed for a month. During this month, Zhang Xiaopeng began to build five military outposts.

These five military outposts are defended in an overlapping manner. As long as the guards do not make any mistakes, any path leading up Wuzhi Mountain can be within firing range by crossfire from machine guns.

After settling these matters, Zhang Xiaopeng was still somewhat uneasy, so he arranged for five people to conduct secret reconnaissance missions in and around Zishui County. As long as there was a large-scale mobilization of military personnel in Zishui County, someone would definitely report it.

With money, guns, and manpower, coupled with effective leadership, the monkeys of Wuzhishan are growing at an unimaginable speed. Many of them have grown much taller in just six months. Those who were once skinny are now mostly sturdy, and many of the young ones look like adults.

This illusion of "a scholar should be looked at with new eyes after three days of separation" gave Bai Jiaxuan a strange sense of accomplishment!

Recently, there have indeed been some minor changes in Zishui County. After the autumn harvest in the countryside was completed, the local gentry naturally became restless. For several months, there had been no activity from the bandits of Wuzhishan, so the county government began to organize several grain collection teams to go to the countryside again.

After several attempts, the county discovered that as long as the grain collection team did not appear on Bailu Plain, the bandits of Wuzhi Mountain would not interfere.

With this inexplicable tacit understanding, the Bailuyuan area seemed to have been forgotten by Zishui County. The bones of the more than forty corpses were still warm, but no one mentioned them anymore.

This unexpected situation helps maintain a balance between the two sides, which is something Bai Jiaxuan is happy to see. Naturally, he hopes that this balance can continue.

However, he knew very well that this balance would be broken sooner or later, and he only hoped that he could give Wuzhishan more time to grow before this balance was broken.

Bai Jiaxuan thought highly of Zhang Xiaopeng; perhaps this little guy could really bring him a big surprise!

After everything was settled, in mid-November, as the weather was gradually getting colder, Bai Jiaxuan finally set off with Lu San, Zhang Xiaopeng, and their group.

This time, Zheng Mang didn't go with them. He was in charge of looking after the house. Although Zheng Mang's talent was average, he was very steady and not stubborn. He was more than capable of looking after the house!

Bai Jiaxuan led Lu San and four slightly older boys, a group of six, each carrying a bundle, driving two horse-drawn carriages, forming a small merchant caravan, and began to head towards Shanghai amidst the dust and wind.

Along the way, they would change several modes of transportation, but Bai Jiaxuan wasn't in a hurry; he was simply using it as a training exercise for the team.

Zhang Xiaopeng and his group of more than twenty people split up and dispersed along the way.

Zhang Xiaopeng's task for them was to scout ahead and take care of everything, such as buying train and boat tickets. Of course, another task was to secretly protect them.

The personnel brought this time were all carefully selected by Zhang Xiaopeng; they are all shrewd and capable talents who will be trained as intelligence and combat personnel in the future.

In fact, Zhang Xiaopeng always felt that the team of 100 people in Wuzhishan was too small. There were many plans that could not be completed with this number of people. He suggested to Bai Jiaxuan several times that they expand the team by another 100 people.

However, Bai Jiaxuan refused several requests to expand the staff. Later, Bai Jiaxuan got annoyed by the questions and gave Zhang Xiaopeng an ambiguous answer.

His answer was simple: Wuzhishan could only accommodate one hundred people. If Wuzhishan was short one person, then they would add one more. In short, the regular team in Wuzhishan could only be maintained at one hundred people.

This answer gave Zhang Xiaopeng inspiration, and he also had an idea in his mind. Since only one hundred people could stay on Wuzhi Mountain, after these people were trained, they could leave the mountain and go to other cities to develop branches, while Wuzhi Mountain could recruit some more people to make up the one hundred.

After he hinted at this method to Bai Jiaxuan a few times, and seeing that Bai Jiaxuan did not object, he began to plan it quietly. The team of more than 30 people he brought this time might be deployed in the future.

The route of selling herbs must be safe. If there are only one hundred people, it will be impossible to guarantee safety once the herb business grows.

Since the herbal medicine business is so profitable, we can train more people and deploy them in various regions to become secret operations in Wuzhishan.

In fact, Bai Jiaxuan didn't care about these people at all. The purpose of establishing Wuzhishan was not as complicated as Zhang Xiaopeng imagined, but thinking about it more wouldn't be a bad thing.

Whether the number of people is increased by one hundred or decreased by one hundred, it doesn't mean much to Bai Jiaxuan, but he didn't object to Zhang Xiaopeng's little trick.

With a hundred men in Wuzhishan, it would be enough to protect Bailuyuan. A small bandit gang of a hundred men is really too common in this kind of world, and it wouldn't attract the attention of those big warlords!

If a military base were to be established and hundreds or thousands more people were recruited, it would only become a target of public criticism. This is the real reason why Bai Jiaxuan did not want to expand the scale.

As long as I can protect Bailuyuan through this chaotic world, once I leave this world, I don't care if there are floods or anything else; it won't concern me anymore!

Chapter 46

Bai Jiaxuan and his group traveled slowly for more than twenty days before finally arriving in Shanghai.

The reason the journey was so slow was simply because Zhang Xiaopeng had caused a lot of trouble.

The Republic of China had been established for more than two years, but the journey was far from peaceful. Along the way, many famous people died, and children who were destitute were everywhere.

For ordinary people in the Republic of China, the transition from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China was merely a change of masters. This was not the worst of times. A few years later, warlord conflicts would begin, and that would be the time when people truly suffered.

Along the way, Zhang Xiaopeng and his group encountered several heinous acts that angered both heaven and man. For example, when passing through a certain county, Zhang Xiaopeng discovered that almost all the beggars there were disabled children, missing hands, feet, tongues, and ears.

Even worse, some only have half a body and drag their half-dismembered limbs while begging on the street.

Zhang Xiaopeng and his group were originally beggars. When they saw the disabled children, they sensed something was wrong. After a final inspection, they found that the children's disabilities were indeed acquired, created artificially by someone.

Doing such a thing deserves to be struck by lightning; they're worse than pigs and dogs!

Faced with this situation, Zhang Xiaopeng and his team could no longer tolerate it and finally decided to take action!

After spending three days thoroughly investigating the forces behind the local beggar gang, they used swift and decisive methods to kill more than forty people, creating a bloodbath in that small county and uprooting the beggar gang completely!

Bai Jiaxuan watched all of this with a cold eye, neither stopping nor encouraging it. Having experienced so many worlds, he had witnessed far too many human tragedies like this.

It's not a bad thing for a teenager to vent their anger!

Bai Jiaxuan naturally wouldn't allow Zhang Xiaopeng to bring those disabled children to Wuzhishan, but he also wouldn't stop Zhang Xiaopeng from making other arrangements for them!

This trip to Shanghai was a spiritual baptism for Zhang Xiaopeng and his team!

They had all experienced various misfortunes and ended up on the streets before being taken back to Wuzhishan by Zheng Mang.

But their misfortune, at most, was that while begging, they endured hunger for a period of time and were beaten repeatedly.

At that time, they had no idea where their misfortune came from!

After spending several months in Wuzhishan, they not only improved their physical fitness and knowledge, but also learned the art of killing.

Once they learn knowledge, they will develop their own thoughts, but at that time they were still confused and ignorant, but this trip to Shanghai...

What they saw and heard, combined with the knowledge they learned on Wuzhi Mountain, gradually made them understand that the reason they had all kinds of misfortunes was because there were too many unfair things in this world, and all the unfairness had created the world as it is today.

Bai Jiaxuan didn't need to preach too much to them. A man's transformation, what he sees and hears, all require the accumulation of time!

Upon arriving in Shanghai, for safety reasons, Bai Jiaxuan first sent Zhang Xiaopeng into the city to gather some intelligence.

Last year's incident in Shanghai was definitely not something that could have gone unnoticed. In the shadows, countless people have already set their sights on the name Chen Zhen.

Bai Jiaxuan naturally didn't rush to Jingwu School to make a deal with Huo Ting'en; this wasn't urgent.

First, I rented a small courtyard in a residential area to stay in.

Zhang Xiaopeng also deployed a large number of personnel to begin intelligence gathering missions.

When Bai Jiaxuan saw the collected intelligence, he couldn't help but laugh and cry at the same time!

Last year, Bai Jiaxuan, under the name Chen Zhen, did two major things in Shanghai.

The first thing, naturally, was to help Boss Huang rescue people from the Japanese intelligence agency building. This resulted in over a hundred casualties among the Japanese army branch, dealing a devastating blow to the Japanese army branch.

The second thing was naturally a martial arts contest with the Japanese. Not only did he kick the robot Fujita Tsuyoshi to death, but he also forced the legendary Japanese martial arts master, Unkawa Masashi, to kneel down and beg for mercy.

Of these two events, the one with the greater impact was undoubtedly the near annihilation of the Japanese army division.

After all, this is not 1937. The Japanese in this era have not yet fully clashed with China. The loss of hundreds of regular troops in China has even shaken the bigwigs in Japan!

Not only Japan, but intelligence personnel from almost all the world's major powers are investigating what exactly happened that night and which force attacked the Japanese!

The annihilation of the Japanese army division had a significant impact on the upper echelons of society, but for the common people, Chen Zhen's performance at Jingwu School last year was the real sensation in Shanghai.

In that battle, Chen Zhen demonstrated the might and spirit of the Chinese people!

In just one year, hundreds of new martial arts schools have sprung up in Shanghai, and of course, the most famous one is Jingwu Men!

The Jingwu School is now a prestigious brand for the Republic of China government. Besides Chen Zhen, who emerged last year, the most crucial factor is the magical medicine powder that Chen Zhen brought.

Jingwu School has now become the target of everyone's attacks, almost on the verge of collapse. Not to mention the various martial arts schools coming to challenge them, there is also hatred from the Japanese. Fortunately, Chen Zhen showed Jingwu School's prestige last year. Because Chen Zhen was not around, even if Huo Ting'en lost, it wouldn't be considered a true test of skill.

It is precisely because Chen Zhen suddenly disappeared that the Jingwu School has existed until now, and almost everyone is waiting for Chen Zhen to reappear.

The situation in Shanghai has changed dramatically. The Japanese suffered heavy losses in Shanghai last year, and other powers took advantage of the situation to invade.

In order to suppress the martial arts trend brought about by Chen Zhen, the Western powers, led by John Bull, established several Western boxing gyms in Shanghai. In the name of the nation, they summoned Western martial arts masters from all over the world to settle in Shanghai!

They not only recruited students, but also organized various boxing matches, and even had those students forcibly collect protection fees from local businesses.

In an effort to regain its lost ground, the Japanese Army Headquarters not only rebuilt its Shanghai branch but also increased the number of troops it had previously fielded.

Furthermore, under the guise of protecting Japanese expatriates, the Japanese began to arrange for a large number of samurai thugs, led by the Black Dragon Society, to settle in Shanghai.

The Chinese people's self-confidence was just ignited last year, but now it is once again being oppressed by various powers.

Friction between Chinese martial arts schools and Western boxing schools is increasing, and Japanese samurai thugs are secretly fanning the flames, joining the brawls from time to time. Local gangs in Shanghai are also increasing, and arms dealers, intelligence brokers, and the military are all eyeing the situation covetously.

Shanghai today is a chaotic mess, because Bai Jiaxuan's intrusion has caused a butterfly effect that has already changed the world!

Bai Jiaxuan quietly read through one intelligence report after another. When he came across a newspaper commentary on Chen Zhen, a slight smile appeared on his lips!

After spending two days reviewing all the intelligence, Bai Jiaxuan couldn't help but sigh!

"It seems that this chaotic era has truly arrived!"

I was just a fuse that ignited all of this!

However, since we've made the rare trip to Shanghai, we can't just leave without leaving something behind!

Chen Zhen has already made a name for himself, so it's time to try something new!

That evening, Bai Jiaxuan put down the newspaper, changed into new clothes, waved his hand to dismiss everyone, put on a simple Chinese robe and a gentleman's hat, and slowly walked out of the room.

After walking two streets, he waved to a rickshaw not far away, and the rickshaw driver quickly ran over and called out!

"Sir! Where are you going?"

Bai Jiaxuan got into the rickshaw and spoke with a smile.

"Let's go to the New World Dance Hall!"

The rickshaw driver nodded, respectfully slung the towel over his shoulder, deftly pulled the rickshaw, and ran off into the distance!

Upon arriving at the "New World Dance Hall," Bai Jiaxuan tossed down a silver dollar and said, "Keep the change!"

The driver quickly bowed gratefully. After the driver left, Bai Jiaxuan looked up at the brightly lit signs and couldn't help but smile before stepping into the dance hall!

This New World Dance Hall is a new one opened by Mr. Huang this year. It's much bigger and more luxurious than the one from last year.

The building has five floors in total. The first floor is a dance hall, the second floor has semi-open private rooms, the third floor has private meeting rooms, and the fourth and fifth floors are card rooms and a place that provides a one-stop service for VIP customers to eat, drink and have fun.

Even the greeters at the entrance are all dressed in cheongsams with slits, which looks very classy!

It seems Mr. Huang made quite a bit of money from that one deal last year!

Otherwise, it would be impossible to have so much money to invest in opening such a dance hall!

Bai Jiaxuan knew about this nightclub because he saw that Boss Huang had generously placed advertisements in major newspapers for half a year!

Ye Huai'an walked into the dance hall with a smile. It was obviously a high-end place. The lighting was neither too bright nor too dim. The singers on the stage were dancing and singing. The lighting and the women's smiles naturally created an ambiguous feeling.