Chapter 4: The Heroes (After)

"Enemy attack..." The Japanese soldiers screamed and jumped off their war horses, picked up their rifles and fought around. In order to achieve the goal of conquering China as soon as possible, the most elite forces among the Japanese generals were deployed south of the Yangtze River. Only some second-rate or even third-rate troops were scattered in the conquered areas. This time, the Sakai team was responsible for long-distance escorting Sakai's squad, and they had no combat experience, including the team leader Kazuo Sakai, and suddenly encountered an ambush and immediately turned black. They couldn't even figure out where the opponent was hiding, so they fired randomly.

On the other hand, the performance of another puppet army seemed to be more calm. After hearing the gunshots, the team leader Yang Sier immediately raised the whip and swung hard on the back of the big cart in the front of the team, then lowered his waist and rushed forward.

"Go, drive, drive..." The other puppet troops followed closely, each responsible for a large cart. With the cooperation of the Mongolian drivers on the car, they ran wildly. On one side of the nearby terrain is a mound on the other side, a stream on the other side, which is very suitable for horse thieves to ambush. As long as they rush forward about two or three thousand meters, they can escape from the hilly area. The road ahead is wide and the sky is wide. Whether it is broken or stopping the convoy and holding the stream for support, you can choose calmly.

However, the "gunner" lurking nearby refused to give them a chance to change the situation. He pulled the trigger and fired continuously at the first carriage. "Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping." Four consecutive shots, and finally two bullets hit the belly of the big horse. The poor beast did not even have time to hum, and his nose was bleeding and fell to the ground. The carriage behind him lost its balance. He squeaked and twisted left and right, and fell to the ground. (Note 1)

"Take a detour, take a detour, don't stop, keep rushing forward." Yang Sier took out the courage of a hero to cut off his arm, plucked the overturned cart and the driver who fell to his head and continued to lead the convoy forward. The horse's hooves had just stepped on the grass on the side of the road when he suddenly heard a "click." A crisp sound was heard, and the horse's legs on the left fell into the ground for more than half a foot, but the whole horse's body had no time to stop. With the help of inertia, they continued to rush forward, twisted the horse's legs that were trapped into the ground to 270 degrees, and then howled, and fell more than half a foot away.

"Cha." "Cha." "Cha." Several other puppet soldiers who left the road also stepped on a trap, their thighs broke and fell to the ground and cried endlessly. The entire convoy was immediately blocked at the foot of the hills. The puppet soldiers and the handlebars were blocked. They jumped over the wall, turned the guns and opened fire blindly at all suspicious targets on the hills. "Table, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping..."

"Here, here, yours, your fools." The Japanese squad leader Ikaku Sakai hid under the horse's belly and shouted at the puppet army and the Japanese, "No, no one is allowed to run. Everyone is allowed to run. They all follow my orders, concentrate their firepower, and whoever runs around will be able to shoot him first."

The puppet soldiers dared not act rashly anymore. The road ahead was blocked by overturned carriages, and the grass was full of trapped horse pits as thick as bowls. If they continued to rush forward like before, even if they were not shot as a deserter by Sakai Ikkai, they would fall off the back of the broken-legged mount and fall half to death. There seemed to be only one horse thief gunner hidden on the hill. Even if they had good marksmanship, they would not be able to kill all so many brothers.

"Here, here, I saw him, there was a light behind that stone." After experiencing the initial panic, the Japanese barely calmed down under the roar of Kazuken Sakai, picked up the 38th large hood, cooperated with each other, and sorted out the positions on the mounds that might have been used by the "horse thief gunners" to hide.

It’s a pity that they believed too much of their experience and focused on suspicious targets within 200 meters of the road. However, Zhang Songling, following Zhao Tianlong’s instructions, hid his body 400 meters away from the road. At such a long distance, his shooting accuracy greatly decreased. Fortunately, in addition to the first shot, Zhao Tianlong’s request for him was to kill all the horses pulling big cars, and not every shot was left empty.

A distance of 400 meters, the unmovable horse was much easier to aim than a human body. Zhang Songling agilely filled the 38 gun with bullets, raised the gun, pulled the trigger, "Ping." Another horse fell down, two auxiliary horses ran around in panic, pulled the carriage out of the team, knocked over a puppet army who could not dodge, and plunged into the stream.

Before the carriage overturned, the Mongolian driver on the carriage jumped down and shouted loudly at the Japanese and puppet troops in Chinese, "What are you doing? You are so stupid, rush up, rush up, kill him, on the hillside, just on the hillside, you can find him. If you fight like this for a while, there will be no horse-drawn carriage."

"Set up, assemble, everyone gathered up." Sakai Ichiken wakes up from a dream, hid his body on the side of the war horse, and raised his command knife high, "Everyone, listen to my order..."

"One, one, one, one..." His voice was swallowed up in the violent sound of horse hooves, and a dark yellow smoke and dust galloped across the stream. I don't know how many horse thieves covered with gray cloth were hiding behind the smoke and dust. The spears, short guns, and light machine guns were jingling.

"Please pay attention to the back, pay attention to the back." Yang Sier, the captain of the squad, who had just gotten up from the ground, covered his bloody head and shouted at the top of his lungs. The puppet soldiers immediately turned their heads and shot to stop the rushing horses. No one knew how deep the Jijie River was on the grassland. If the horse thief on the other side rushed directly from the stream with his familiarity with the terrain. The Imperial Army, who had lost the opportunity to get on the horse, could only stretch out his neck and be chopped. This kind of stupid thing would be impossible.

"Here, here." Although Sakai Ichiken was angry with the dogs' disobedience, he knew that the arrogant team on the other side could not rush forward. He quickly turned his sword in his hand and directed the Japanese soldiers to solve the urgent problem first.

Taking advantage of the devils and traitors' ability to be diligent, Zhang Songling, hiding behind the flowers, raised his rifle again, "ping, ping, ping, ping", and fired four bullets in a row, killing the other two horses who pulled the cart to death.

"Taijun, Taijun, here, here is the one." A Mongolian master was so angry that he stomped his feet and shouted to the Japanese not to be deceived. The horse thieves committed crimes. The usual trick was to give priority to killing large animals in the caravan, and then make the entire caravan lose the possibility of quick escape, and then calmly conspire. Although the group of people on the other side of the river was coming in a fierce manner, they were very likely to be a suspicious soldier and should not mobilize all their forces to block them.

No one was willing to obey his opinions. Both the Japanese soldiers and the puppet army believed that they knew better how to deal with horse thieves than the guys who drove big cars. The short guns in their hands, due to the limited range, could not pose a threat to the "gunners" on the hills. They could only watch the other party shoot calmly, shooting the precious horses one by one.

"I'll fight with you for the things that ruined animals." Seeing the "good friends" falling down one by one in front of him, several Mongolian drivers could not bear it. They unloaded the auxiliary horse from the cart, turned over and rode up, turned the horse's head and rushed straight to the hills. Zhang Songling, who was hiding behind the pigeon flowers, stood up, shook off the camouflage, ran away, and crossed the highest point of the hill in three or two steps. After a lonely old tree on the other side, he untied a large ocean horse and jumped up, knocked the horse's belly hard, "Go," in a blink of an eye, ran three or four miles away, and threw several Mongolian drivers behind him, (Note 2)

Without saddles and stirrups, even the Mongols who had been dealing with animals since childhood did not dare to force animals under their crotch too tightly. What's more, the auxiliary horses they had hastily removed from the cart were all gradually getting longer with their endurance and strength. They were not opponents of mixed-race foreign horses at all, so after only a few steps, the drivers decided to give up, hugged a few strings of bullets at the back of the "horse thief" and returned to the team cursingly.

The "group of" horse thieves on the other side of the stream also fled quickly. From beginning to end, they were not close to the convoy. Although the gunshots were like beans, most of the bullets shot across the river were shot into the air and did not cause any substantial losses to the convoy.

The smell of fireworks floated through the stream and drifted into the nostrils of the Japanese and puppet soldiers. "Bagatine, what are you shouting..." The Japanese squad leader Sakai, who vaguely realized that he might have been deceived, screamed in anger. After swearing to send the convoy to Chifeng, he immediately volunteered to his superiors to suppress the bandits, seized the group of horse thieves who had just made trouble, chopped them into pieces and fed them to the shepherd dogs. Yang Sier, the captain of the puppet army, held his blood-falling head and sat by a large overturned cart, muttering in a low voice, "It's not certain whether you have the life to reach Chifeng alive. Why are you doing something so far? I just wanted to establish my authority and didn't think about hurting people's lives. I'll see the real one after another."

"Captain Yang, what did you say?" Sakai Ikkai was extremely disgusted with the captain of the puppet army who dared to openly fight against him again and again. He immediately pressed his hand on the hilt of the knife and questioned in a deep voice.

Yang Sier, the captain of the puppet army, was frightened and then remembered that he was a person in the eyes of the Japanese. He quickly took a few big steps back and bowed to apologize, "Sorry, Taijun, I was so panicked just now and didn't hear your order clearly. I will make corrections next time. Please don't be angry about this little thing."

"Don't be angry, don't be angry. It's important to concentrate on dealing with horse thieves, and it's important to deal with horse thieves." For fear that Yang Sier would suffer losses, the rest of the puppet soldiers gathered around and collectively issued "advice" to Sakai Ichiken. Several of the Japanese soldiers could not understand Chinese. Seeing the puppet soldiers standing opposite their boss with guns, they suddenly became alert in their hearts. They immediately flattened the 38th Guerre and pointed the black muzzle at the heads of the puppet soldiers.

"What do you want to do?" The puppet soldiers were shocked and instinctively lifted the rifle. "Scream" and the sound of the bolt pulling sounded. Sakai Ichikazu was furious and pulled out his command knife and waved it hard in the air. "Baga, Yang Jun and the others are their own people, so they are not allowed to point the gun at them. Yang Jun, what exactly do your people want to do? Do you help the horse thieves rob the empire's goods? You don't want the family in the city anymore."

The two sentences before and after, they all had good results for the two groups of different people. The Japanese soldiers did not dare to make their boss angry, so they quickly put down the 38th Gaier. Yang Sier and the puppet soldiers around him were afraid of being investigated later, so they smiled embarrassedly, put away the guns, and opened the distance between them again.

"What happened just now is too sudden, and my handling is not completely correct. Captain Yang's reaction is normal." Fearing to trigger the fire between his subordinates and the Imperial Army in the wilderness, Kazuken Sakai suppressed his anger and smiled and said that he would not hold Yang Sier responsible for interfering with his command in the battle.

"However..." Before the other party could let go, his speech suddenly turned, "Captain Yang should not say those despairing words. You must know that as an imperial soldier, we cannot lose the confidence to win in any dangerous situation. Besides, we just lost a few large animals, pulled the carriage up, and divided the remaining horses equally, and could still persist in walking to the next village."

"Taicun is right." Yang Sier dared not argue strongly and followed Sakai Ichiken's words and stroked down, "Confidence is the key to winning. My performance just now was too nervous."

"Yeah." Sakai Ichiken smiled and waved his hand, "It's inevitable that you will be panic when you experience this kind of thing for the first time. If you encounter it a few more times in the future, you will naturally become stronger."

"Yes, yes, Taijun said yes." Yang Sier continued to nod and bow, but cursed in her heart, 'Once not enough for me to bear it. You have to experience it a few more times. Get out of your mother's mouth, and you will die by yourself, so I won't follow you to find trouble,'

"Don't just say yes, you must know how to make suggestions, especially when I need your experience." Sakai Ichiken smiled again, leaving the opportunity to make a formal advice to him to Yang Sier.

Yang Sier shook her head flatteredly and whispered: "The subordinates have nothing to say. I just think that the horse thieves may come again. Taijun, you'd better send someone to send a letter to the rear immediately and ask Chief Fujita for guidance."

The so-called guidance is just another kind of tactful remark to request reinforcements. Sakai Ichiken was extremely reluctant, but hesitated and asked Yang Sier quietly, "You mean there are still a large number of horse thieves behind."

"It should be right, horse thieves rarely go out alone. Once they appear, they will be in a large group." Yang Sier did not want to give a positive answer and quickly kicked the ball to the head of the drivers, Zhang Jingjirigele of the Yete Front Banner of Wuqi. "If you don't believe me, ask this Mongolian brother, he is very clear about horse thieves." (Note 3)

Jirigele was the leader who had repeatedly reminded the Japanese to concentrate their firepower to clear the mounds first. Seeing that the Japanese and the puppet soldiers finally remembered their opinions, they thought about it and said in a low voice in Chinese: "That gun pistol is very good. I just found out that he was hiding in a hiding place more than a hundred feet away from the convoy. If he wanted to kill someone..."

If he wanted to kill someone, it would be more than Kyoda Araki who was lying on the ground at this moment. Although several puppet soldiers were seriously injured, the latter's injuries were caused by falling off the horse's back and could not be considered at the hands of the bandit gun.

The reason is very simple, but Sakai Ichiken was unwilling to believe it, so he raised his eyes and interrupted angrily, "I didn't want to kill someone, how did Araki Jun die?"

"Maybe the bullet was hit wrong." Yoshigele was far more courageous than Yang Sier. He was not afraid of Sakai Ichiken's roar at all. He continued to tell the truth, "If he wanted to kill someone, he would not only shoot at the altar horse. The reason why he killed the horse with all his might is to tell us that if he refused to buy him money for the road, he would not be able to safely deliver the goods to his destination."

"We can tie the horse we ride to the front of the big cart." Sakai Ichiken deliberately pretended not to understand Yorigela's words and said with a tough bullet.

"Then he deliberately continued to kill until we had no horses to change." Jirigele shook his head and pointed it out without hesitation, "And they will soon have a large group of people around them. If their own strength is not enough, they can also ask for support from other horse thieves nearby, and discuss how to divide the spoils after they succeed."

According to the marksmanship shown by the horse thieves just now, it is possible to kill all the horses. By then, not only will the goods not be able to be delivered to Chifeng, Sakai Kazuken and others will starve to death halfway. After resisting with all their might, they will fall into the hands of the horse thieves. As a result, they may not be much better than starving to death. Sakai Kazuken once heard someone telling me that a horse thief named Huangbeard tied a merchant who refused to pay for the money to buy the road to the Gobi Desert, and let the mosquitoes and wild wolves bit to death.

Thinking of these two terrible results, Sakai Ichiken's tone immediately softened, "Yang Jun, Yorigele Jun, according to your grassland rules, how much money should we pay to get out of this place safely."

"It depends on the appetite of the horse thieves." Jirigler thought for a while and reported in a low voice, "It is usually one-quarter of the value of the goods, but you can bargain with them. The size of our fleet must be at least 300 to 500 yuan or equivalent goods to them to avoid trouble."

"So many, why don't he rob?" Sakai Ichiken immediately jumped up and cursed. Suddenly, he realized that the other party was robbing. He sneered in anger, "Okay, okay, I want to see how he can bring the Imperial Warriors together, gather, dig up the hiding trenches, and prepare for battle."

"No, Taijun, no." Yang Sier's voice changed in an anxious voice, and he dissuaded with a crying voice, "One river here is the other side is the mountain. As long as the horse thief blocks both ends and ends, we..."

"Then push the carriage forward and find a place to stand for help." Sakai Ichiken looked up and looked around, continued to roar, taking out a small amount of ocean to buy a way from the horse thief. If it is about 30 or 50 yuan, he can quietly cover it up and pretend that nothing has happened. But if he takes out a quarter of the value of the cargo in the entire fleet, he will definitely not be able to explain it to the top. Major Fujita had originally disliked him very much, otherwise he would not have let him do such a hard and dangerous escort errand, if...

In any case, Sakai Ichiken could not let himself suffer the humiliation of being executed by military law. He turned his head to the point of not looking at Yang Sier and Yoshigele's expectant gaze, "No, I can't do anything that will damage the honor of the empire. Yang Jun, Yoshigele, please, we must stick to the end and never surrender to the horse thief. I will send someone back to ask for help immediately. Major Fujita, Major Fujita will never give up on us, absolutely not."

Note 1: Among the large carts led by multiple horses, the one that bears the main responsibility, usually located in the center of the car body. If the horse falls while walking, the entire cart is in danger of capsizing.

Note 2: When riding a horse without saddle or stirrup, it requires extremely high abilities to riders.

Note 3: Zhang Jing, a traditional Mongolian official position, is usually the confidant of the banner owner, similar to a staff officer.
Chapter completed!