Chapter 2: Illegal Armed Forces

  The scorching sun made it impossible to muster up any enthusiasm, although the soldiers driving the car shouted and whipped the horses, the wheels still rolled forward slowly.

  Wearing a short jacket and looking like everyone else, Yang Qiu had changed into casual attire. The slightly open collar made him look more heroic, but only he knew that he was actually giving the precious lump in his arms a "sunbath".

  An ordinary porter in the new Hubei army, without money, people or territory. Even if you were a soldier in your past life and worked in an automobile factory, even if you brought back Germany's latest 29-axis CNC machine tool from the afterlife, you still can't make anything now.

  Industry is not just a matter of words, even with a large number of machines, it still requires skilled workers and vast resources.

  So, you son of a bitch with a hat on, this is simply teasing me!

  "Yang, who's bothering you? What's that gun?" asked Bingwen, who was sitting in the same carriage as Yang Qiu, turning his head and seeing Yang Qiu fiddling with an unfamiliar short-barreled pistol. His eyes lit up and he immediately leaned over.

  "This was bought by my second uncle from the United States." Yang Qiulian quickly shifted the responsibility to her second uncle, who did business in Shanghai, saying: "He was afraid I would suffer a loss, so he specially bought these two short guns at a high price for me to use for self-defense."

  Wen didn't suspect anything, as many rich young men these days like to carry a gun with them. Although Yang Qiu's parents had passed away, his family was quite well-off in the early years, and he even had a second uncle doing business in Shanghai, so buying a gun wasn't a big deal.

  "Halt!"

  While introducing the handgun to Bingwen, Yang Qiu had not yet understood what was happening when he heard a loud shout from the front, followed by the sound of guns being cocked all around, and Big Beard Ma Kui even rolled under the carriage.

  At 1.78 meters tall, Yang Qiu was undoubtedly a crane standing out from the flock in this era. He quickly saw the situation ahead and found that several big men wearing black jackets suddenly rushed out of the mountain pass on both sides, and these guys even had weapons in their hands.

  Don't be silly!

  After seeing the gun in the other person's hand clearly, Yang Qiu was shocked.

  If he didn't like guns himself, and if he hadn't just visited the Xinhai Revolution Memorial Hall where they also had this kind of old gun, he probably wouldn't have been able to tell what kind of rifle his opponent was holding!

  The Mosin rifle is a rare commodity, the Northern Warlord period army was basically dominated by German and Japanese weapons, with a small number of French and Italian equipment flowing into the country, but Russian rifles... are not common!

  This kind of rifle, which even the main force of Russia is not fully equipped with, has only one channel to flow into the country.

  The winner of the recently concluded Russo-Japanese War, Japan!

  The Russo-Japanese War was the first time Mosin-Nagant rifles were used in actual combat in the Far East, and Japan captured many after their victory, but most of them went missing due to differences in specifications. However, it is surprising that some of them flowed into the country.

  The intuition honed from his past military experiences made him suddenly narrow his eyes, a strong sense of danger emanating from those unremarkable black-clad men with guns. Being able to obtain weapons from the Japanese, these people were absolutely not simple.

  "Who comes?"

  "In Xiaoyangguo, following the order of Dongjia, escort a batch of mountain goods to Chengdu."

  "What's in the mountain goods? Open it and take a look." The man in black held up the Mosin rifle, saying as he glanced around at the horse carriage with an unblinking gaze, giving Yang Qiu a very strange feeling. At this moment, having sentries in Sichuan was not unusual, but these people seemed...not quite right.

  "This doesn't seem right..."

  A man in black clothes with a gun walked out of the crowd, and Xiao Anguo hastily went to negotiate with him. However, before they had exchanged more than a few words, the other side demanded to inspect the horse carriage, which made him somewhat nervous. After all, this batch of guns was now a powder keg, and if it were exposed, that would be truly terrible.

  "What's wrong!" The black-clothed man with a gun pointed at Yang Qiu and others, warning: "Recently, Sichuan has been quite unstable. Our master has received the order from the Elder Brother Society to strictly inspect this section of road. Now we suspect that you are spies sent by the Qing court to steal our railway!"

  "It's a disaster, he's related to the Kuomintang!" Ma Kui whispered beside Yang Qiu.

  "Brother, you're really old!"

  Yang Qiu recalled the phrase "A warm call to Brother Bao, knowing that many heroes in Sichuan are connected", legend has it that the Elder Brothers Society and the Heaven and Earth Society were also linked. In the late Qing dynasty, these groups of three or five people, wearing knives and roaming the countryside, had a great influence in Sichuan.

  Ma Kui saw Yang Qiu frowning, and thought he didn't know about the Ge Lao Hui, so while being cautious, he introduced: "The Ge Lao Hui is also called the Elder Brothers Society, they are very famous in Sichuan. One of the leaders, Qin Zai Geng, has supposedly joined the Nationalist Party in recent years. Looking at this situation, we won't be able to get through."

  "Big Brother Ma, there's something I don't understand. We're government troops, why do we still need to hide and sneak around? If we reveal our identities, what can they do to us?" Yang Qiu asked, pretending to be puzzled.

  "How is it?" Ma Kui sneered: "Nowadays, there are party members all over Sichuan Province. Guangzhou and Shanghai have also come to intervene, plus these local bullies who dare to defy heaven and earth. Without half a day, the news of our armed forces arriving at the Sichuan Governor's Mansion will spread throughout Sichuan."

  "It's spread, so it's spread. What's the big deal?" Bi Xian didn't look like he was born with a baby face for nothing, his temper wasn't small either, and after hearing this, he immediately said angrily.

  "Hu Zi, Bing Wen. You are still young, this place is not like other provinces. The land of Sichuan has been known for its fierce and complex folk customs since ancient times. There are also local Miao and Tujia people who support us, and now there are also Kuomintang agents stirring up trouble inside. Even Zhang and Li officials dare not underestimate it, so they ordered us to secretly escort the goods in light gear. If it were simple, would we brothers have to suffer this kind of hardship?"

  "The Revolutionary Party..." Yang Qiu murmured softly, seeing Xiao Anguo still arguing with the other party, and asked: "Ma Ge, do you believe them?"

  Ma Kui smiled, pulled out a cigarette from his pocket but didn't light it. He sniffed it under his nose and suddenly asked: "Hu Zi, you've been drinking their foreign ink water in Shanghai for seven or eight years, do you really believe in that stuff?"

  Yang Qiu was taken aback, not expecting this rough-looking Henan man with a thick beard to ask him back. To tell the truth, in recent years, people like him who had gone abroad or studied at new schools or Western academies and received new ideas education, every time they opened their mouths, it was all about revolution.

  In modern slang, this is called... fashionable.

  Can fashion save the country?

  If it were the old Yang Qiu, he would not have wavered in this belief. However, after visiting the Xinhai Revolution Memorial Hall and learning about the decades of domestic chaos that followed, modern people are at a loss for what to choose. Especially when faced with those who claim to be revolutionaries but are actually just thugs, gangsters who use the name of revolution to gain power, party members actually cooperate with them and even equip themselves with guns bought from Japan, which in itself reveals many problems.

  Yang Qiudao took a deep breath and lowered his voice: "Ma Ge, have you heard of a saying?"

  "What's up?"

  "Armed to the teeth!" Yang Qiu spat out four words, and Bingwen, who was on high alert beside him, also burst out laughing after hearing them.

  "What's an illegal armed force?" Ma Kui scratched his head, still puzzled by the meaning of this, when Yang Qiu suddenly discovered something flashing in the short tree forest ahead and immediately stood up all over with sweat.

  "Cao ni ma! How did they come up with this thing!"

  "Scatter and hide!"

  In the blink of an eye, Yang Qiuchun suddenly pushed Bi Wen and Ma Kui to the side with both hands. Before they could get up, he jumped onto the horse carriage, kicked his legs violently, and pounced on Xiao Anguo like a hawk.

  "Adults, be careful!"

  。