Chapter 23: Armed Robbery

  "Big brother, Lao San's method is not bad. Look at his fifty knife hands, in just a few days, his spirit has changed completely. His eyes are like those of a wolf in the mountains. In these few days, their appetite has also increased by half. If this continues, all these people will become good fighters."

  Ding Baojun has been following Yang Meng, training him and also keeping an eye on him. This lap around the Wu Villa is really not bad.

  "Alright? Since it's alright, you'll follow Lao San's method, train the other knife hands, buy fertile land on the outskirts, and just like Lao San, win over these knife hands, surround the village, eat and drink to your heart's content, and use leather knives for practice. This is how Lao San plans to take back everything that heaven owes him."

  Yang Shi-qin also understood the benefits of Yang Meng's actions, the more powerful the Yang family's knife hand was, the more stable the Yang family would be. Why Yang Meng loudly trained his troops was all for Father to see.

  "Big brother, the opium horse team's matter has already been settled. I've found some scattered individuals doing this business, but none of them are related to government officials. You see..."

  As for Yang Meng wanting to grab opium, Ding Baojun also found a target for him. Whether this can be done still depends on Yang Shiqin's attitude.

  "These people should also be killed, remember! Don't touch the horse teams related to the government office. You cut off people's financial roads, and others won't let us go either. As for those scattered households who want to make a fortune, let Old Three rob as much as he wants. Selling opium is all a despicable thing, killing more is also accumulating merit."

  Yang Shiqin gritted his teeth and said harsh words, "This opium is not just harming one person, it's causing families to be broken and people to perish. The smaller the family, the greater the harm of opium."

  Yi Liang Zhou Shi Qing, why do you want to be a human trafficker? One reason is that the profit is huge, and another is that those who can't afford to smoke opium start selling their children, daughters, and wives. In Yang Shi Qian's eyes, those who engage in the opium trade should be exterminated.

  "I understand, what about the people from Ma's group?"

  "Are they really a horse gang? They don't do any good business, just help people transport opium. Are they still a horse gang? Lao San is willing to do whatever he wants, the Qing dynasty has many people and doesn't need these beasts!"

  Ding Baojun received the order from Yang Shi-qin and immediately went to Yang Meng's courtyard, where he reported all the discovered opium horses.

  "These horse gangs don't have a relationship with the government, do they? And these opium merchant teams, do they have a relationship with the government? Remove all those who have a relationship. Now we are not opponents of the imperial court and cannot move against them, but these horse gangs and merchants must be noted one by one. When we gain power, we will settle accounts with them together."

  Yang Meng was cautious when he first started doing things, and the imperial court's power was great. He had just started out and wouldn't dare to confront the officials of the imperial court. The profits from opium were enormous, it was impossible for there not to be any officials involved in it.

  "Third Master, rest assured, these are just some scattered merchants, they have no connection with the government. When are you planning to take action?"

  Ding Baojun also admired Yang Meng, and his cleverness and strategy were almost as good as those of the old master.

  "Find a must-pass road, we'll ambush there, one team after another, prepare the digging tools, and bury the dead directly."

  Tracking the horse team, Yang Meng didn't want to spend that much effort, finding a must-pass route to ambush and come one team at a time, killing one team at a time, was the shortcut to getting rich. Exhaustively chasing and hitting, that's what poor people do for business.

  The location of Ding Baojun was quickly found. At the bend of a mountain road, as long as they disguised themselves as horse handlers, they could easily get close to them.

  "Get the kitchen ready with provisions for half a month, we'll set off early tomorrow morning."

  Yang Meng's drug manufacturing workshop is just waiting for the raw materials to be put into production. Whether or not they can make money depends on how well they sell, and the earlier they start producing, the more money they'll make - time is money!

  The next day, Yang Meng's fifty-one knife hands, Ma Qingtiger, Tang Meiyin, and Ding Baojun with over a hundred men set out early on their journey. In the next two days, three merchant caravans will pass through that mountain road, all of which are engaged in the opium trade.

  "Listen up, this time we're playing close combat. Don't use your sabers, use the daggers I've assigned to you. Remember, not a single prisoner is to be taken."

  Yang Meng's fifty or so men, all wearing the military boots and uniforms he designed, rode their horses with a natural air of ferocity. The other knife hands in the Yang household saw them and couldn't help but feel envious, thinking that if they had known earlier, they would have bought more stocks to follow San Ye around.

  More than a hundred people have horses, only Yang Meng is on foot. This is not a pleasure trip but an expedition to capture bandits. Of course, he cannot ride in the cart. If he doesn't go, he will be worried. What if something goes wrong and it affects the old master's reputation?

  He could only follow behind the horse team and eat dust, fortunately, the original Yang Meng, who had been exploring mountains and forests for many years, was not much different from the Dian horses in terms of foot strength. This horse team was also unlike what he had imagined, without galloping horses, but just slowly on the road, other horse teams they met were the same, almost no one rode horses to rush forward.

  The cavalry marched for a whole day and night, except for eating and resting the horses, nothing else was done, all spent on walking.

  This mountain road is a secret path, without official checkpoints, and it's also the only way to smuggle various goods north of Kunming. At dawn, Yang Meng and his men encountered the first wave of horse troops.

  This is one of the target horse teams. Since Yang Meng and his men were in the open, while this horse team was on a mountain road, according to the rules, Yang Meng and his men had to wait, and being on guard with swords was also necessary, which created conditions for Yang Meng to ambush them.

  The cavalry that came this time was not many, only more than 50 people, more than 20 of them were walking horse gangs, and more than 20 of them were knife-wielding guards, they were also on guard.

  Yang Meng's horse team was numerous and happened to sandwich the mountain path in between. The two teams of horses greeted each other, and they also slowly prepared to pass through.

  As for the appearance of Yang Meng's horse team, they didn't have any doubts. Although this road is secretive, many people know about it and are willing to take this mountain road in order to earn more money.

  "Kill!"

  When the cavalry was surrounded, Yang Meng took the lead and killed three guards beside him. Other knife-wielding men also rushed forward, and in just over ten minutes, more than 50 people were left with only horses and goods.

  "Bury the corpse!"

  No time to bother with anything else, let's just bury the body first. After a flurry of activity, the traces of the ambush were also cleaned up.

  "Ding Shu, have your men take the horse troops back to Wu Village, we'll continue waiting."

  Yang Meng checked the casualties, all of whom were his men. The training over the past few days had been effective, and not one of them had died. Only five or six were injured, with most of the injuries being minor. The most serious injury was a broken leg caused by a horse kick, while the others were just flesh wounds.

  The one who broke his leg was sent away with the cavalry, and Yang Meng and others followed suit, retreating to a distant place to ambush, waiting for the arrival of the second cavalry.

  However, the result was a change. In the evening, nearly 200 cavalrymen rushed to the scene, which was almost twice the number of scouts led by Ding Baoren. Whether this cavalry would attack or not became a big problem.

  "Third Master, what to do? These are two cavalry troops merged into one, they outnumber us, let's give way!"

  Yang Meng was also calculating in his heart, attacking this cavalry team, and there would definitely be casualties on his side. But for the sake of starting work quickly, he couldn't care about so much. Moreover, his own subordinates wanted to become good hands, such a task with fewer people winning more, couldn't be less done, since they were eating this bowl of rice, they had to go all out to fight.

  "Alright! Same as before, close combat. This time, let the brothers bring their long knives. It's a tough battle, if we're not careful, we might lose our lives."

  Yang Meng decided that this time, he would still have his own men, more than 50 people, take action. If it really didn't work out, Ding Baojun would go up next. The knife hands brought by Ding Baojun were mostly hired, unlike Yang Meng's men, who were already considered half of the Yang family.

  It turned out that the cavalry on the opposite side also planned to attack each other, and when the two cavalry teams passed by each other, both sides launched a surprise attack at the same time.

  Yang Meng's men were strong in their knife skills, and they had the upper hand. Although the other side had more people, with over 50 knife-wielding men against Yang Meng's over 100, Yang Meng's side didn't fall behind at all.

  Yang Meng's two daggers killed fifteen or sixteen men in this battle, and Tang Mei followed closely behind him also had some small gains. The knife-wielding men were dealt with, leaving the remaining horsemen to be easily handled by Yang Meng, who handed them over to Ding Baojun's men.

  Almost everyone's hands are now stained with blood, and it's impossible to turn back the clock. A life for a life, no one will be unaware of this, and it's best to let this matter rot in our bellies.

  Bury the dead, sweep the battlefield, Yang Meng's men had twelve killed and four seriously injured, others were almost all wounded, fifty to one hundred, sixteen casualties, it was also a great victory.

  The dead body was disguised and placed on the horse, and a group of people took advantage of the night to hurry towards Wu's village. Fortunately, Yang's family was familiar with this mountain road; otherwise, it would be dangerous to rush along the mountain road at night. After resting for a whole day, the crowd didn't return to Wu's village until dawn the next day.

  Two more of the seriously injured died on the way, and the other two were also counted as useless. The deceased received 200 yuan in condolence money, the disabled received 150 yuan, and those who participated in the looting each received 50 yuan. Just the aftermath cost nearly 20,000 yuan, I don't know what the gains are like.

  Ding Baojun went to estimate the goods, while Yang Meng was examining the corpses one by one. Most of the injuries were on the chest and abdomen, only one had a knife wound on the neck, and all the others were stabbed to death.

  It seems that I should give my own knife hand, equipped with a breastplate. If I had this thing, at least I could kill more than ten people. The opponent's knives are mostly not very sharp, as long as they can withstand the incoming stab, their own hands will not suffer so much loss.

  Consoling, burying and clearing goods took a whole day. The harvest this time was not bad, with a total of 50 loads of top-grade cloud soil, totaling 5,000 catties. At market price, one load of top-grade cloud soil is worth about 500 taels, for a total of 25,000 taels.

  Medium-grade cloud soil, 70 loads, totaling 7,000 catties, valued at 21,000 taels. Top-grade Indian tobacco oil, 5 loads, valued at 15,000 taels.

  There are also 30,000 taels of silver, more than 8,000 eagle coins, scattered gold and silver worth thousands of taels, 270 Yunnan horses, 200 sabers and waist knives, three new-style foreign guns, and a certain amount of bullets and gunpowder.

  The best harvest was three new foreign rifles, which were not the Qing dynasty's bird guns or lifting guns, but foreign devils' foreign rifles. Fortunately, these were goods, otherwise Yang Meng's side would have suffered more casualties.

  Yang Meng didn't have time to deal with these things, now he still had to comfort his own knife hands, don't let them lose morale because of the death, this would affect the next action.

  The result was unexpected, his subordinates were surprisingly excited, and even the death of one of their brothers did not show much sadness. This result made Yang Meng both happy and felt a little strange.

  "Camel, come here for a moment."

  As the leader of the knife-wielding gang, Wei Tuozi earned two hundred silver dollars and with a flushed face came before Yang Meng.

  "Third Master, what are your orders? After this time, Wei Lu's life will be yours."

  "Wei Luozu, you've killed so many people this time and yet you're not afraid. And that Yi family's Han son, didn't his brother die? Why isn't there a hint of sadness?"

  These people under my command are mostly Yi and Han, and the others are also mostly Zhuang. They're not from the same village, but they all know each other. When a comrade dies, it shouldn't be like this.

  "Third Master, you don't know our hardships. Most of these people have no choice but to become assassins because they can't make a living otherwise. If one person dies, the whole family can live a good life. This is much better than the whole family starving to death. Why should we be sad? If we don't die, it will be our younger brothers and sisters, or our parents who will starve to death. We die so that they can live a good life, not in vain! Actually, we should thank you most, Third Master. If it weren't for you leading us, our families wouldn't have had the chance to live a good life."

  After hearing this, Yang Meng couldn't help but feel unhappy. What kind of dynasty was the Qing government that could make these mountain people laugh in the face of death? How miserable must they have been before to be so reckless with their own lives for just a hundred or so cold silver coins.

  "Alas... what kind of world is this?!"