Chapter 23

  Li Tie led everyone into the mountain forest and looked back to see that there were no devils chasing after them. Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

  This time out, although nothing was achieved, Li Tie was still relatively satisfied with his own actions, at least knowing the strengths and weaknesses of these two new weapons.

  "Drilling Heaven Monkey" missile is not powerful enough, it's necessary to add some ingredients later on, making it a chemical or biological weapon would be more suitable. The firework bomb has acceptable power but requires large quantities and can replace rocket artillery before its development is successful. However, both weapons have one common shortcoming - their range is too short. Under current conditions, without investing a lot of money, this is the only situation we have, there's no way to modify it. In the end, there's only one reason - poverty! The arsenal's current liquid assets are only a few dozen silver coins, and there are no savings, what can be used to purchase necessary equipment?

  Everyone was in a mountain valley, and since no devils were found chasing them, everyone took a rest. Just over twenty minutes had passed when a wild chicken rushed over from the other side of the mountain slope, which was the opposite direction of Li Tie's route. Seeing Li Tie and his group, it suddenly slammed on the brakes and darted off in another direction.

  It's now the hottest time in summer and it's noon. The pheasants wouldn't be scared to death like this if they weren't being chased.

  And this side of the mountain slope happened to be the direction where Li Tie did not send a scout.

  Li Tie quickly led everyone in another direction.

  They had just climbed to the top of this hill, and on a pine tree at the top of the hill, through the dense branches, Li Tie saw several devils in yellow military uniforms standing where they had rested earlier, one of whom seemed to be examining the traces they had left behind.

  Because the troops were all equipped with camouflage uniforms, they were not easily discovered in the mountains and forests. Li Tie also imitated modern special forces by applying some grass juice to his face, which was green and yellow, not only had a camouflage effect but also avoided mosquito bites.

  This group of devils probably discovered the traces of Li Tie's retreat and chased them up along the traces.

  Taking advantage of still being on the mountain top, Li Tie and everyone carefully observed the situation around them, including some lower slopes and valleys.

  After a few minutes of observation, Li Tie found that his situation was not good, because he had already discovered at least three small teams of devils, who were surrounding him from different directions.

  What's even more ominous is that the devils seem to be carrying a radio - this situation is extremely rare, now radios are very precious, it seems that the devils have gone all out and won't give up until they catch them.

  Li Tieke didn't dare to underestimate this group of devils, these were truly old devils who had received regular military training, and their military quality was absolutely not comparable to that of the Sakura King Special Forces. These were all real veterans who had been on the battlefield.

  It was possible that a group of devils had discovered the trail left by Li Tie and his men, so they called in several other groups of devils to surround them from all directions.

  In the mountainous areas during summer, due to abundant rainfall, grass and trees grow luxuriantly everywhere. In ordinary places, the grass is as tall as an adult's waist or even higher in some areas, with some reeds growing as deep as a person is tall. In these dense thickets of grass, one can easily hide anywhere. However, this also makes it particularly inconvenient to observe the enemy, and wherever people pass through, they will leave behind relatively clear traces.

  Li Tie cannot let everyone act separately, because in this way they can't see each other and can't shout loudly, so it's easy to disperse. Similarly, the enemy also dare not act separately, fearing that if they fall alone, they will be surrounded and captured or killed by the Eighth Route Army. Therefore, everyone acts together.

  Seeing the enemy surround themselves, Li Tie led everyone in a direction and carefully moved forward.

  The small mountains in the mountainous area are connected one after another, and it only takes ten or twenty minutes to get from one mountain top to another through the valley. However, when moving slowly, it may take half a day to arrive. The straight-line distance from the mountaintop to the valley is only a few hundred meters, with the farthest being just over a thousand meters. Similarly, the straight-line distance between this mountain and that one is not far either. In any case, it's easy for an ordinary 3.8-style rifle to hit enemies on another mountain from this one, let alone machine guns.

  Before long, the devils climbed to the top of the mountain and saw that the grass in the valley was swaying, and the direction of the sway was always forward. It is estimated that someone is taking action. After contacting through the radio, it's not their own people, machine guns and grenade launchers fired at that place together.

  Bullets flew everywhere, bombs exploded randomly, clumps of earth were thrown into the sky, and thick smoke rose.

  The people in this mountain valley were Li Tie and his party.

  They had just come down from the mountain top and wanted to cross the valley to another mountain top, but unexpectedly the enemy's action was quite fast, and they soon discovered their own trail.

  Bursts of machine gun bullets broke the grass blades around the team members, hitting the rocks on the side, shooting out sparks, and the hand grenades thrown by the grenade launcher blasted a bunch of grass into the sky.

  Li Tie and his comrades crouched behind a boulder, not daring to move, lest they be hit by the devils' bullets.

  The intense gunfire lasted for nearly twenty minutes, and the devils' figures had already appeared on the three surrounding hillsides - the devils had surrounded them. Three machine guns were aimed at the valley where Li Tie was hiding.

  The devils crouched on the mountain top, gazing tensely at the valley. Although the other side did not counterattack, their weapons were very strange, and if they accidentally came up with a blow, they would be in trouble.

  At this moment, in the valley, a thin branch stretched out from the grass, with a white cloth on it, swaying back and forth.

  Surrendered? Can't be, we've only just started fighting. Looking at their attack on the checkpoint, we should at least give them a good beating, then die undefeated and make a heroic sacrifice in the end. Even if we capture some of them alive, they'll be half dead from serious injuries. We'll take them back and subject them to a round of torture with chili water, iron branding, and whipping. It's not over yet, and after all that, they might even get scolded. How can these Eighth Route Army soldiers surrender after just a few blows? It's really strange, it doesn't make sense.

  The devils were puzzled, and when they came, their superiors had instructed them: try to capture as many alive as possible, and figure out the new-style weapons they used. So they had no choice but to send someone down to take a look, and if possible, accept their surrender.

  The machine gunners on the three-sided slope stayed behind, the grenade throwers stayed behind, and the rest went down to take a look.

  The devils cautiously descended the mountain and walked towards the place where they had just fired cannons.

  In the valley, it was quiet and still, even the frogs were scared into silence by the devils' machine guns and hand grenades.

  Arrived at the place I saw earlier, except for seeing the wild grass and rocks blown up by hand grenades, there was not a single person. In the empty mountain valley, a small tree branch stuck in a pile of small stones on top of a rock had a piece of white cloth hanging from it - seemingly someone's underwear. Next to the rock, written with green grass were several large characters: I'm not trying to surrender, I just hung my underwear out to dry.

  The devils have been in China for a long time, and there are always several devils who recognize a few Chinese characters. Although they can't fully understand these words, even if they think with their toes, these words won't be anything good.

  This suddenly made several devils furious, with smoke coming out of all seven orifices. One devil went over and swept up the branches with a broom.

  "Boom!"

  A loud explosion sounded, and the devils who were cutting branches fell to the ground and went to see Tianzhong Aunt. The several devils closest to them did not escape either, and they were all hit by stones, with wounds all over their bodies, and some even had life-threatening injuries. Nearly half of the devils who came down to surrender were injured or killed.

  The devils were furious and conducted a dragnet search of the surrounding area, but the result left them baffled: Li Tie and his men seemed to have vanished into thin air - there was no sign of them, nor any trace of their escape.

  Where did Li Tie go? Dozens of pairs of eyes are staring at him.

  They're actually nearby, just hiding a bit better.

  Due to the abundant rainfall in summer, a large amount of rainwater gathered in the mountain gully, and the water flow washed away the mud on both sides of the gully. However, since the surface of the mud was covered with wild grass, the roots of these wild grasses grew densely, one root connecting to another, eventually forming a thick network of grass roots. After the water flow washed away the mud, only a thick layer of grass and grass roots remained. Over the course of a year, a cavity tens of meters deep formed under the grass roots. Two years later, this cavity became a cluster of cavities, and after many years, all the areas under the grass roots were completely hollowed out by water. If you lift up a patch of grass, one or two people can crawl inside, but from the outside, nothing is visible. Unless you know about this landform, even standing right above it won't reveal its existence.

  When the devils' gunfire stopped, Li Tie had already modified two hand grenades. He took out a spare pair of underwear from his body, found a tree branch to pick them up, tied the strings of the two hand grenades to the tree branch, covered it with stones, and fixed the tree branch firmly in place. Before leaving, he grabbed a handful of grass and wrote a few words on it, then hid at the bottom of the grass roots, waiting for the devils to take the bait.

  As expected, the devils have arrived. Completely as I imagined, without any deviation, two hand grenades played their role.

  Actually, while the devils were searching, there were several times when the devils' boots had already trampled on the team members' bodies, but due to the thick wild grass and roots, except for the team members below who felt a lot of weight on their bodies, the devils above would not have thought that the Eighth Route Army they were looking for with all their might was right under their feet.

  The devils searched for half a day without finding the Eighth Route Army, so they had to bring back the wounded devils to the top of the mountain and report the situation to their commander.

  The devil commander also felt unbelievable, how could this be? So many people stared tightly, did the Eighth Route Army disappear out of thin air?

  He personally led the people down from the mountain and headed towards where the incident occurred.

  The devil commander came down when Li Tie and others had just transferred. In fact, after the devils retreated back to the top of the mountain, Li Tie and others had already taken action. For fear of startling the devils, Li Tie led everyone to act very carefully, with each person wearing a camouflage uniform made of wild grass, along the mountain ditch, cautiously withdrawing from the valley.

  The devil commander first examined the words left by Li Tie and the remaining branches - the white underwear had disappeared. Not finding anything of value, he then led his men to search around. At the edge of a small valley, a patch of wild grass seemed to have been rubbed against something, almost worn out. He went over to touch the worn-out wild grass with his gloved hand and pried it open, revealing a hole about the size of a blue ball. Lifting up more of the wild grass, a large area of smooth rock was exposed, with clear signs that someone had hidden there - including some grass clippings and several muddy footprints.

  "Eight trigrams, eight cunning and crafty roads."

  The devil commander stood up and carefully observed the surrounding environment, pointing in the direction of Li Tie's retreat: "Pursue!"

  The devils quickly followed down the valley.