Chapter Thirty-One: A Letter of Attorney

  The juvenile guard was trained rigorously, but had not yet experienced the baptism of fire. At first, when they rushed up the mountain, they were a bit clumsy, and some people even forgot to put down their guns and charged straight up. Fortunately, they were novices, and the bandits were even more flustered. The gate of the stronghold, which was originally easy to defend but hard to attack, was suddenly breached. Only a dozen or so members of the juvenile guard were injured, an exceptionally lucky outcome.

  After entering the mountain stronghold, the young men gradually became more stable, and the Mauser rifles in their hands also performed exceptionally well. Soon, dozens of bandits were shot dead, with corpses scattered all over the ground. The front mountain was like this, and the back mountain was even more so. Qiao Yu captured two machine guns, and at this point, he had already gone crazy, with only two boxes of bullets left. The corpses in front of him covered the entire ground, most of which were shot by machine guns, with arms and legs flying everywhere.

  "Save some for later, otherwise the bullets will be gone!"

  "General, it seems we don't need to conserve our strength anymore. Wang Huai has landed a critical hit! These bandits will soon be routed! Let's charge forward!"

  The speaker was Li Jingyuan. Qiao Yu also noticed that dozens of bandits were surrounding a big man who had rushed over, but they didn't blindly fight the machine guns. Instead, they cleverly hid behind rocks and slowly approached the valley entrance. Just as they were getting close, the leader's body swayed and he fell to the ground. The bandits panicked and fled in all directions. Qiao Yu saw that the situation was under control and led the vanguard team to charge out. These vanguard teams had received stricter training than other guards, and their marksmanship was more accurate. As soon as they spotted a bandit's head, it would be blown off. They advanced towards the gathering hall in the middle of the mountain stronghold, killing all the way. After two hours, the two teams finally met at the gathering hall. More than 200 bandits had been killed, and over 100 had escaped during the chaos. The last few dozen bandits retreated to the gathering hall, putting up a desperate resistance.

  At this time, the bronze cannon was also pushed up. Since there were no artillery in the guard, the young men did not know how to operate it. Qiao Yu personally took action, loaded the gunpowder and shells, aimed at the gathering hall, and fired a shot. The gathering hall collapsed with a loud noise. Two more shots were fired in succession, and the gathering hall was completely destroyed. The remaining few bandits rushed out and were all shot dead. From then on, this gang of bandits that had been rampant for a time was thoroughly eliminated.

  Qiao Yu hastily had everyone treat their wounds and search for spoils of war. With the dog-headed military advisor leading the way, they quickly found where the mountain bandits had hidden their treasure. After a thorough search, they found over 300,000 taels of silver, more than 2,000 taels of gold, countless pearls and jade, as well as some ancient paintings. However, most of them were not well-preserved, with some scattered on one side, some moldy, and others torn at the corner, leaving them in a state of disrepair.

  Apart from these gold and silver treasures, over 1,600 dan of rice and flour were found, as well as more than 50 mules, and another 25 boxes of opium. In addition, 15 young girls were discovered in a courtyard, all of whom had been kidnapped from nearby areas to serve them. These bandits are indeed deserving of death.

  All the money added up to over 500,000 taels, which was a huge gain. This time, five members of the Youth Guard died in the crossfire, and more than ten were injured. Qiao Yu was heartbroken, but he also knew that war always comes with casualties. The fact that they had such a small number of losses was already quite good, so all he could do was give out some extra silver as compensation.

  At this time, the sky had already brightened, and Qiao Yu ordered that all the spoils of war be loaded onto mules, and also brought several dozen prisoners. Among the prisoners was one who was the leader Chen Heihu, this guy was also lucky to have been shot in the chest by Wang Huai's gun but did not die immediately, and was caught during the cleanup of the battlefield. It can be said that catching him made this trip basically perfect.

  Qiao Yu personally escorted his sister-in-law and niece down from the Heavenly Punishment Fort, and as soon as they reached the foot of the mountain, a crowd of villagers had already gathered here. The leader was Wang Lao Han. It turned out that the explosion and gunfire sounds last night had startled these people, and everyone was deeply affected by the disaster of the Heavenly Punishment Fort, eager for someone to eliminate this gang of bandits.

  The government had already disappointed them repeatedly, and they were also taking a wait-and-see attitude towards this action. Who would have thought that after a period of time, many of the former bandits seemed to be fleeing like dogs from a ruined family, running wildly in all directions? Even the stupidest person could see that Tianxia Village had been raided. Many brave ones took up hunting guns and killed these mountain bandits.

  The mountain bandits who escaped were also killed by the villagers who were angry to the extreme, and it can be said that there are not many people who escaped. Now these villagers have all surrounded Tianxia Village, they have heard that it was the government army that destroyed Tianxia Village, and now they gather here just to see the style of this team. As soon as they saw them, these villagers were also sincerely convinced.

  Although they had been through a night of fierce battle, the young men showed no signs of fatigue, their formation was still impeccable, dozens of mules were loaded with spoils of war, looking majestic and powerful. Old Wang stood at the front of the troops, from afar he saw his grandson Wang Yongyi running towards him.

  "Grandfather, Lord Qiao has already eliminated all the mountain bandits!" The old man heard this and suddenly tears welled up in his eyes. Wangjia Village was one of the villages that suffered the most at the hands of the Tianxia Mountain bandits, with dozens of people killed by the bandits. Now that their great revenge had been avenged, everyone looked very excited, and Old Man Wang even knelt down with a thud in front of Qiao Yu.

  "Thank you, Lord Qiao! I'm speaking on behalf of all the villagers from the surrounding ten villages!"

  After finishing speaking, Qiao Yu hastily supported the old man: "You are too polite, I am the patrol chief of Chongqing, and it is my duty to eliminate the troubles for my fellow villagers. I also seized some grain, more than 1,000 dan, which is now stored in the mountain stronghold. It hasn't been transported down yet, so let's distribute it all to everyone! You organize the manpower, after distributing the grain, thoroughly burn down this mountain stronghold, lest other bandits occupy it and come back to harm everyone!"

  Old Wang was thrilled to hear that there were over a thousand dan of grain, and he was so excited that he didn't know what to say. These people hadn't seen rice in ages, and the thought of eating a fragrant meal of rice was just too wonderful. He was deeply grateful, and some people even knelt down and kowtowed. Qiao Yu made some simple arrangements and ordered Wang Tianhe to escort his sister home, while he himself led a team of sharpshooters to rush towards Chongqing. The reason for the haste was that Qiao Yu had an extremely important document with him - a letter of appointment issued by the Tongmenghui to Chen Heihu.

  The Tongmenghui appointed this bandit leader as the commander of the third branch of the Dongchuan Revolutionary Army, which was also discovered during the search for treasure. Qiao Yu sensitively discovered the value of this appointment document. From a temporal perspective, it is absolutely certain that the Tongmenghui colluded with the bandit forces in response to the Guangzhou Uprising, and there is no doubt that this is an act of rebellion. It is believed that after seeing this appointment document, officials from Chongqing to Sichuan will definitely trigger a seismic event.

  The Qing government currently has only a vague understanding of the revolutionary party's power. If they knew that there was an army of over 500 people just one day's journey from Chongqing, threatening the eastern Sichuan city at any time, the fear would be unspeakable. This would perfectly confirm the threat of the revolutionary party. In order to deal with the revolutionary party, it can only give more power to Qiao Yu, and this self-inflicted trick will come true.

  Don't forget to collect for the three old and four young, I'll try my best to present a good story to everyone.