Chapter Eleven: No Choice but to Go All Out

  "Old man just arrived in this godforsaken place less than three days ago, can't believe he's gonna kick the bucket like that?"

  Just as Pang Gang was helplessly waiting for death, the bandit who was about to strike him down with his knife suddenly felt a chill in his back. He looked down and saw a bloody gun muzzle pointing at his chest.

  He slowly turned his head back and chopped, a sturdy man wearing tattered Ming military attire was holding a gun handle in his hand, and the other end of the gun handle had already come out from his chest. After revealing an unbelievable gaze in his eyes, he slowly fell down, it turned out that Da Zhuang, who rushed over, stabbed the bandit to death.

  Dazhuang and Gouru came before Pang Tong and asked anxiously: "Gongzi, are you alright?"

  "I'm fine, thanks for saving my life."

  Pang Gang, who had just escaped with his life, felt both shocked and frightened. His whole body felt weak and numb, and he panted heavily as he struggled to get up. He came to the corpse of the bandit soldier he had killed earlier, put his foot on the body, and pulled out the red-tasseled spear with great force, causing a spurt of fresh blood to fly out. After observing their surroundings for a moment, Pang Gang panted and said, "Quickly, let's hurry to that high ground over there. Otherwise, we won't last much longer." He then continued running in that direction.

  When Pang, Zhang and Wei ran to the small hill and looked down again, what they saw was a group of bandits chasing and killing the Tun army. Hundreds of Tun soldiers were being chased and killed by bandits who emerged from all sides, like driving ducks. Some Tun soldiers, seeing that they could not escape, simply knelt down and surrendered.

  "Look quickly, Qian Hu is surrounded!" Dog Remnant's sharp eyes suddenly pointed to the edge of the forest in horror. Pang Gang raised his head and saw that He Zhengnan, wearing a red armor, was surrounded by dozens of bandits. There were only over ten family guards left beside him, and their numbers were decreasing rapidly.

  "Hurry up and find a place to hide." Seeing that several bandits had already noticed them, Pang Gang quickly pulled the two of them towards the other side of the forest.

  He Zhengnan was surrounded by a group of bandits with dozens of family members, although he commanded the family members to fight hard, but after all, they were outnumbered. The surrounding bandits were getting more and more, while the family members around him were getting less and less. He Zhengnan knew that if this continued, he would be finished soon. Finally, He Zhengnan gritted his teeth, swung his curved knife, and charged at two bandits with his horse, taking advantage of the opportunity to rush towards the forest. Who knew that just as they rushed out for less than thirty steps, a long spear flew from behind and hit the horse, causing both the horse and rider to fall to the ground.

  After seeing this scene, the thieves around all cheered and rushed over, with big knives and long spears welcoming He Zhengnan who had fallen off his horse.

  The sun gradually moved west, the fighting sounds in the forest had gradually subsided, hundreds of bandits were cleaning up the battlefield, while on the other side, more than a hundred bandits were pressing hundreds of captured Tun soldiers towards the direction of Wangjia Village.

  A group of bandits stood beside a pile of corpses in the forest, led by a burly man with a rugged face and a messy bun on his head. This man was about thirty years old, with an aura of evil around him, and he was none other than Wang Damazi, the notorious outlaw who had been terrorizing the Wang family village.

  At this time, Wang Dama Zi was holding a curved knife with a cold glow in his hand, and his face showed joy. He couldn't help but praise, "Good knife, I didn't expect that this dog official would actually hide such a treasure."

  The thieves beside him also chimed in, "Yes, think about that corrupt official He De, how could he have possessed such a treasure? Those scholars always say that treasures are obtained by those with virtue, this time big brother obtaining the treasure is truly heaven's will."

  Wang Damazi heard this and laughed loudly, kicking the corpse on the ground fiercely. He said with some regret: "What a pity! Such a precious sword doesn't have a scabbard. It seems that I can only find someone to remake one."

  It turned out that the treasure in Wang Dama's hand was the Damascus curved knife that He Zhengnan had swindled from Pang Gang. Since he had just gotten it, He Zhengnan hadn't had time to make a scabbard for it, and now this knife had fallen into Wang Dama's hands before it had even warmed up.

  Wang Damao, who had obtained the treasured sword, walked away with a triumphant laugh. Before leaving, he ordered his men to strip off the armor from He Zhengnan and the other family members. In the end, He Zhengnan's corpse was left with only a set of undergarments, his eyes frozen in a death stare at the sky, his pupils dilated.

  All this was hidden not far away from the crowd, and now Pang Gang and others were hiding in a cave covered with weeds. However, he is no longer just three people, and there are two more people hiding, who are Li Yuan, a young man, and his father, Li Xian. It turned out that Li Yuan and his father took advantage of the chaos to run out and first hid in this mountain cave, and later called them in after seeing Pang Gang and others pass by.

  The view from inside the cave to the outside is very good, and most of the places in the forest can be seen. The fact that He Zhengnan was killed and stripped naked was naturally also seen by them.

  The crowd in the cave saw their own brothers being killed and caught by the bandits like ducks, each of them feeling as if they had been cut with a knife. Li Yuan, this young man, wanted to rush out and fight the bandits several times, but was pulled back by his father Li Xian and Gou Sheng.

  "You scoundrel, now you can go out and fight to the death with those thieving soldiers? You're going to get yourself killed, you numbskull, when will you ever give me a moment's peace?"

  "Father, now the Thousand Households are all dead in battle. If we return to the Wei camp, it will be hard to escape death. We might as well go out and fight them to the death!" Li Yuan was still being held back by his father, but he was extremely agitated and continued to struggle free.

  "Alas!" After hearing his son's words, Li Xian also helplessly lowered his head.

  Dazhuang also frowned and said: "Li Xiaoge is right, now He Qianzong, Zhao Qianzong, Li Baizong and many other brothers have been captured or killed. If we go back like this, we will definitely not escape death. What should we do?"

  Everyone in the cave fell silent, and Pang Gang stared blankly at the entrance of the cave, with the occasional sound of isolated soldiers being killed by bandits and the bandits' manic laughter echoing in his ears.

  The shock that this battle brought to Pang Gang was unparalleled, it was the first time he had participated in a battle in his life, and it was also the most bloody cold weapon era battle. The flying blood, the roar of the soldiers, and the feeling of the long gun piercing into the enemy's body all clearly told him the fact that he had been avoiding for several days, he really did come back from over 300 years later to this tragic era.

  Nine years later, Li Zicheng took advantage of the Ming dynasty's weakness and attacked the capital, the last legitimate emperor Chongzhen was forced to hang himself on Coal Mountain. Nine years after that, the Qing dynasty defeated Li Zicheng and began to dominate the Central Plains, and also carried out the brutal massacres of Yangzhou for ten days and Jiading for three times, which were inhumane. Later, they also took the opportunity to issue a decree "leave head not leave hair leave hair not leave head", so that hundreds of years later, Chinese people were ridiculed by Westerners as "pigtail".

  "What should I do? What to do?" Since learning that he could no longer return, Pang Gang had been questioning himself, whether to muddle along and wait for the Qing dynasty to enter the pass, shrinking his head like a turtle to survive, or to escape overseas to avoid all this. But after today's battle, it seemed as if there was a voice telling him, "No! There is another way", that is, to wipe out the Manchu Tartars, to eliminate those damned bandits, and let our Chinese civilization not disappear again under the iron hooves of barbarians.

  Thinking of this, Pang Gang's hand touched the book that had been tightly tied to his chest, and two flames seemed to burn in his eyes. A sentence burst out from between his teeth: "What to do? Damn it! You guys wait here for a while, I'll go out for a bit and come back right away!"

  After finishing speaking, Pang Gang quickly turned out of the cave entrance and ran towards a dense thicket of grass outside with his waist bent.