Chapter 77: Zhuhua Gang

After throwing Ling Zhan into the military camp, Su Fan paid him no more mind. Currently, the Jianghuai region was relatively peaceful, and Du Fuwei and his forces had not yet arrived, so Ling Zhan still had time to slowly train those Commandery Soldiers.

As for money and grain, the latter did not need to worry either; sea salt was already being produced, and glass had also shown signs of progress.

Su Fan was no longer short of wealth in his hands.

Every day, vast amounts of grain and medicinal herbs were continuously transported from various places into the Prefecture Office of Wu Jun.

Su Fan's thousand-plus private soldiers were definitely a major drain on his finances.

After all, even though they were practicing Su Fan's most basic methods, they still required a great deal of food to provide sufficient nutrition.

This allowed them to rapidly increase the strength of their Fleshly Body.

Su Fan had put a great deal of thought into these men, and when he had time, he would even go over personally to instruct them on the secrets of martial arts practice.

Of course, some had good talent and truly did not disappoint his expectations; young as they were, they had already reached the peak of the third-rate level in the pugilistic world, and it would not be long before they reached the Bone Forging realm.

According to Su Fan's understanding of pugilistic strength, that was roughly the standard of a second-rate expert.

It had only been about two years; going from a farmer to a fierce general in the army had taken only two years.

If word of this got out, it would absolutely terrify people.

In Physical Martial Arts, progress in the early stages was indeed relatively fast; with sufficient resources, plus the fact that those private soldiers were all training frantically, they had achieved their current strength.

Of course, Su Fan was clear that once they reached the stage after Bone Forging, if they wanted to improve, besides having extraordinary talent, they would need more time to slowly temper themselves.

The Blood Refining realm was not so easy to break through; the first three realms of Martial Dao—Skin Tempering, Tendon Changing, and Bone Forging—were external tempering.

Reaching Blood Refining meant moving from the outside to the inside, requiring control over the Fleshly Body to an extremely profound level.

Ever since he obtained the Inheritance of the Three Kingdoms generals from Ling Zhan, Su Fan's original intention to head to Zhongyuan had vanished in an instant.

He once again holed up in his Prefecture Office, slowly contemplating the Sun Family's martial general Inheritance, and then used the Evolution Space to continuously perfect his own unique Martial Dao methods.

Under his orders in Wu Jun, even if refugees arrived, they were all accepted, and with Li Ya and the others, whose practical abilities were not bad, the areas surrounding Wu Jun were managed quite well.

The entire Wu Jun, with its several counties, was under Su Fan's control; compared to other places, this place seemed like a peaceful and tranquil Sage-land.

The local powerful clans all tucked their tails; previously, when disciples of powerful clans acted recklessly, once Su Fan found out, he would directly have his private soldiers go and challenge them.

Most of those powerful clan disciples also practiced martial arts, but their strength was not high, which was just right; after a round of challenges, those spoiled brats were beaten soundly.

And those people, upon learning that they were private soldiers from the Prefecture Office, dared not seek revenge afterward and could only grit their teeth and swallow their resentment.

In this way, the number of spoiled brats acting recklessly in Wu Jun decreased, and most, after learning the rules of the Prefecture Office, dared not violate them.

Naturally, the public order in all of Wu Jun was quite good.

Thus, the ninth year of Daye passed just like that; in the ninth year of Daye, the world remained turbulent and restless, with uprisings in the north constant, especially with Wagang continuously expanding.

Because Yang Guang conscripted millions of laborers, the people of Beidi were living in misery, and naturally, many fled to become rebel soldiers.

A new year brought a new atmosphere; the entire Wu Jun was in an ocean of joy, and even those refugees who had fled here no longer worried about their future lives.

In every household, there was a spirit tablet, and what they offered sacrifices to was Su Fan, this Prefect of Wu Jun.

It could be said that in Wu Jun today, Su Fan was an existence like a living Buddha to the masses; of course, some local powerful clans were very unhappy, yet they could only keep their unhappiness bottled up inside.

They dared not make the slightest rash move, not to mention Su Fan's status, just the strength of the Prefecture Office alone was enough.

With over a thousand private soldiers, plus three thousand Commandery Soldiers, who would dare to act rashly? The local gentry and powerful clans did indeed have private soldiers, and some even had over a thousand.

But so what? Compared to those men of the Prefecture Office, how could they compare to a regular army?

Since Ling Zhan took charge, in just three months, he had straightened out the Commandery Soldiers; with the money and grain provided by Su Fan, the three thousand Commandery Soldiers were no longer an existence that just ate empty rations.

They lacked no armor, lacked no weapons, and had a constant supply of grain; after three months of rectification, they might not have had incredibly powerful combat strength, but compared to those rebel armies, their strength was definitely superior.

After all, the greatest advantage of government troops lay in their equipment; Su Fan held the righteousness of the Imperial Court in his hands and did not need to worry about the issue of weapons and equipment.

Unlike the local powerful clans, who had to hide their armor quite secretly.

Su Fan could bring his out openly and aboveboard.

More than four thousand Combat Soldiers clad in armor and holding fine weapons were absolutely invincible in this area of Wu Jun.

Therefore, these powerful clans in Wu Jun were all very well-behaved; it was already quite good that Su Fan did not look for trouble with them.

Whoever dared to stir up trouble, Su Fan would have Ling Zhan lead troops to wipe them out.

However, after the first month of the New Year, someone made Su Fan unhappy.

A group of pugilistic people came to Wu Jun, from the Zhuhua Gang and the Iron Cavalry Association, two of the Eight Gangs and Ten Associations from Datang Shuanglong Zhuan.

It was as if the two forces had agreed upon it, arriving in Wu Jun together.

The original Wu Jun had a sparse population and was not prosperous, so naturally, not many major forces paid attention to it; the Zhuhua Gang mostly developed in Jiangdu.

There were not many local gangs in Wu Jun, just some miscellaneous ones, and Su Fan's arrival had been a good governance of those hoodlums and miscellaneous groups.

At least in Wu County, the existence of hoodlums was not allowed; those with hands and feet who dared to act as ruffians or thugs were all dragged off by him to do hard labor.

Of course, Su Fan did not strike at places like brothels or gambling dens, because he knew this was unavoidable, and these two things could bring in partial profits; as long as they did not violate his laws within his jurisdiction, he would turn a blind eye.

However, after two or three years of governance, Wu Jun had changed drastically and began to flourish, which naturally attracted the attention of the Zhuhua Gang.

Some time ago, they sent a portion of their men over and began to recruit personnel on a large scale.

This caused some chaos in some of the counties of Wu Jun, and the reports finally reached the top.

As for the Iron Cavalry Association, Su Fan remembered that they did indeed occupy Wu Jun later on, but he had not expected them to arrive so quickly.

The Zhuhua Gang and the Iron Cavalry Association were two major forces of the Eight Gangs and Ten Associations, and first-rate forces in the pugilistic world.

The level of the Shuanglong was considered to be that of the Zhuhua Gang.

The leader of the Iron Cavalry Association, the Green Flood Dragon Ren Shaoming, was the only son of the Caoyuan expert Qu Ao, and his own strength was extraordinary; that Qu Ao was an expert comparable to a Master.

Yet Su Fan did not care; his own background was no worse than that of Ren Shaoming, and he was even more confident in his own strength.

With the martial general Inheritance presented by Ling Zhan, Su Fan's strength had risen to a higher level again within these few months.

The Qi and blood in his body had already transformed into Internal Qi, and the strength of his Fleshly Body had improved once more; his strength was no longer below those super first-rate experts in the pugilistic world.

Even against a Master, he dared to put up a fight.

After all, his Fleshly Body is powerful, not to mention his martial arts, which are incredibly rich in experience, and his Divine Soul is so strong that it is likely no worse than a Grandmaster's.

Upon reaching the Master realm, combat often places even greater importance on the grasp of Qi flow, a point where Su Fan can almost achieve the unity of heaven and man.

After all, his spirit is very strong, and his control over his Fleshly Body has reached the extreme; you can almost never touch his Qi flow.

Therefore, he is not afraid of Master-level experts taking action against him in this regard.