When Ruan Bailang heard Ye Li's words, he quickly knelt on the ground, bowed deeply and said, "I will leave it to you, sir. I am willing to bring all my men to join your army."
Ye Li laughed when he heard this and said, "Well, as long as you are willing to cooperate, it will save me the effort.
Come, take this pill and you will be the same as them. Come and get a pill every month and swallow it until I approve of you, otherwise your flesh and blood will dry up and you will die."
Hearing Ye Li's words, Ruan Bailang was stunned for a moment, and said: "Yes, sir, I am willing to swallow the pill!"
Ye Li was very happy with his subordinates who cooperated so well.
However, from this point it can also be seen that Ruan Bailang is a person who is very afraid of death, just as Zhang Hua said.
Such a person cannot be trusted too much. Once an important task is entrusted to him and he encounters danger, the first thing he will consider is definitely not whether the task can be completed, but whether he can survive.
With such a personality, he was destined to never become a senior official under Ye Li.
However, Ye Li himself did not care too much about Ruan Bailang. Ye Li was only using these bandits now out of necessity. When a large number of soldiers joined in the future, Ye Li would break up all these bandit gangs and then mix them with the Tang soldiers.
In this way, these bandits will gradually integrate with the soldiers and no longer be influenced by the bandit leaders.
At that time, even if these bandit leaders chose to leave, he didn't care. After all, after the legion was formed, if Ye Li needed officers, he could directly ask Li Rushan to recruit some, so he would not be short of such manpower.
After Ruan Bailang surrendered to Ye Li, Ye Li asked Zhang Hua to urge him to start gathering his subordinates.
After gathering all his men together, Ruan Bailang led this group of people towards the manor.
Zhang Hua and Ding Si both stayed behind to follow Ruan Bailang. Ye Li was not too confident in this man. Even though he had fed him the elixir, he still did not dare to let him go on the journey alone.
Soon, when Ruan Bailang and a large number of his men arrived near the manor, it was already early morning of the next day.
Ye Li also arranged them to stay in the newly built camp for a rest.
Since then, the two major bandit gangs in Dongfang County have completely become Ye Li's private army.
However, the current task of this group of private troops is not to fight, but to be temporarily used as coolies by Ye Li to build a camp.
The camp that Ye Li wants to build is very large. After all, it will accommodate 10,000 people, so a lot of facilities are needed.
Not only are a large number of barracks and military tents needed, but also sufficient training facilities.
Ye Li naturally couldn't pay for these things himself, nor could he use the taxes he hadn't yet received to pay for them. After all, he was helping Li Rushan, and all these things had to be paid for by Li Rushan.
After making arrangements for Qian Sanding and Si, Ye Li left the manor and went alone to Gaoshan City, another city in a nearby county.
The reason for coming here is that Jinbaohao’s stores will only be built in the city and will not appear anywhere else.
There is no city built in his Dongfang County, so it is impossible for the Jinbao to come and station there for the time being. If Ye Li wants money, he can only go to the city in the neighboring county to find the Jinbao.
Along the way, Ye Li was also thinking whether he should speed up the progress and start building the city, so that he could gather many merchants and residents in the town into the city, thereby weakening the control of the three mayors over the entire Dongfang County.
After all, people living in the city will be protected by his army and controlled by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, and the influence of the three mayors on them will be minimized.
But if you think about it carefully, building a city is not a project that can be completed in two or three days. Even if you use an army composed entirely of spiritual warriors to build it, it will take at least a month.
Moreover, the number of his private army was too small. Building a military camp was already a difficult task, and there was clearly a shortage of manpower to build a city.
In this regard, he still needs to make great preparations so that he can achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Riding a fast horse, Ye Li quickly arrived at the nearby Gaoshan City and found the Jinbao located in the central area of the city.
After all, it is the third largest chamber of commerce, and Jinbaohao’s status is still very high, and the battle sites are all close to the center of the city.
After finding the owner of the Gaoshan City branch of Jinbaohao, Ye Li revealed his identity and the other party immediately led him into a secret room.
"Du Li greets Lord Ye. I didn't expect that you are even younger than I imagined."
The owner of the Gaoshan City branch is named Du Li, who appears to be a bald man in his fifties.
Hearing the other party's words, Ye Li smiled and said, "Don't be so polite, just call me Ye Li directly, and I will call you Du Li directly." Du Li shook his head and said, "No, sir, you can call me by my name directly, but I can't, please don't embarrass me!"
Ye Li was stunned for a moment. He knew that there were various rules in the Jinbao. Now he thought that the rules that the other party must abide by might not be changed.
"Okay, I won't force you."
Ye Li shook his head and didn't try to persuade him any further.
Du Li smiled gratefully and said, "Sir, are you here today for His Majesty's business? Do you need funds?"
Hearing the other party's words, Ye Li nodded, and then asked in confusion: "How do you know everything? Has His Majesty already told you the plan here!?"
Du Li shook his head and said, “No, we don’t know the specific plan. We only know that you want to build a private army here, and His Majesty is willing to give you some privileges and provide you with comprehensive financial assistance.
However, most of these funds were not taken out of the national treasury, but were paid out of his share in the Jinbaohao.
Of course, this is normal. The funds that Your Majesty can use from the national treasury to aid you are limited. Once too much is used, it will be criticized by the ministers.
Therefore, he can only use his own private funds to help you. "
After hearing Du Li's words, Ye Li finally understood that their Jinbao was not aware of the plan and did not participate in it. They were merely investing in Ye Li on behalf of Li Rushan.
"So, how much financial assistance can I get from you?"
Du Li said: "At present, I have 500,000 high-quality spirit stones. I wonder if it is enough for you to use!?"
If Ye Li hadn't seen so many major events now, just the words "five hundred thousand high-grade spirit stones" would be enough to make Ye Li bite his tongue.
Swallowing his saliva secretly, Ye Li said: "I think it should be enough for the time being. Well, I should say that I won't need so much in a short time."
Du Li nodded and said, "Everything is up to you. As long as the amount you need is within this range, we can immediately raise the spiritual stones for you."