Chapter Eighteen

  I don't know if what our team leader said after that 50-kilometer sprint counts as revolutionary historical education, but I think it has a bit of a pre-war mobilization feel to it!

  Anyway, after returning to the camp for a few days, dozens of military vehicles stopped at the entrance of the camp. Then after everyone's nervous and busy, we began to move towards the highland base on the Karakoram Mountains.

  Let's not talk about the picturesque mountains and rivers, the first thing Karakoram gives us is the high-altitude reaction combined with the harsh weather.

  We can be considered as super strong athletes, usually running 5 kilometers two or three times a day, and there are even brothers who smoke while running, and sometimes when no one is following, they suddenly burst into a loud rock song.

  Of course, this...

  I don't avoid it either, I'm the one who runs while smoking and singing rock.

  Once on the highland base, it's really over.

  It's just a small slope, I went down to the river ditch to fetch a bucket of water and then came back up, but I was so tired that my eyes were dizzy and I was panting like a bellows, and my two legs were cramping.

  After a long and arduous journey to the highland base, it was eat and vomit, some brothers had headaches and were rolling on the ground in circles, didn't even have the strength to curse.

  Moreover, on the plateau, due to air pressure issues, a pot of water usually starts boiling at around sixty degrees, and the oxygen content is absolutely insufficient.

  Twenty years ago, there was a story in the border defense army that if you could eat three buns for each of the three meals a day without vomiting, you would immediately be awarded a third-class merit.

  After all these years, no one has been able to get that oral third-class award.

  Can't eat anymore!

  As soon as I went to the highlands, there was no taste in my mouth. Normally, a can of military beef could fill three people, but now just looking at it makes me want to vomit.

  Forcing down a few more mouthfuls, before even standing up, the stomach starts churning and the head spins. With just a little movement, it's easy to throw up like a heavenly maiden scattering flowers.

  At this time, it can be seen how hard and important the cooks are.

  If you have nothing in your stomach, you will have no strength in your body. Let alone training and combat missions, even walking is a struggle, how can you exercise or fight with others?

  So it can be said that a cook in an army unit is equivalent to half of an instructor.

  That morning, just after getting out of bed, I heard the sound of the pressure cooker in the temporary kitchen making a hissing sound, and then I heard the loud shout of the head chef from Guangdong saying "Food is ready! Good tea this morning!"

  We smelled a fragrance and even those brothers who were vomiting and staggering got up and walked unsteadily towards the outside.

  Then I saw the Guangdong cook with a smug face holding a spoon standing at the door of the cooking class stirring something in the high-pressure pot, next to him were several cooks carrying baskets inside which were not the usual military large steamed buns we were used to seeing, but rather small dumplings?

  That Guangdong chef said with a smile, "You guys haven't had Cantonese dim sum before, have you? Today's breakfast is century egg lean meat congee and also Cantonese har gow. Good for digestion, everyone eat more!"

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  Where did those dried eggs and shrimp come from? We loaded the truck with all these goods, but there's no place to replenish supplies on this plateau.

  Look at what's inside that high-pressure cooker, it's really egg drop soup with lean meat. And the small things in that steamer basket are really shrimp dumplings?

  That Guangdong chef just came up with a classic saying, you guys don't understand, this is called "three years without buying salt, not dying of dullness" our kitchen staff has some private goods, today it's cheap for you!

  I still remember that egg and lean pork congee and those Cantonese-style shrimp dumplings.

  There is also the Guangdong chef and his underlings.

  A whole battalion eats mantou and porridge for breakfast, which takes more than an hour even if they move quickly. The cooks have to get up at four o'clock to start the stove, knead dough and make mantou.

  How much time does it take to wrap such delicate dim sum as these shrimp dumplings?

  I looked at the cooks' bloodshot eyes and I knew they hadn't slept all night just to get the brothers to eat a mouthful.

  How can chefs with high altitude sickness carefully prepare delicious and easy-to-digest food for us while enduring headaches and nausea?

  After struggling for three days, I basically got through the highland reaction.

  After all, our crazy physical training at the foot of the mountain wasn't for nothing. Adapting to high altitude reactions mainly relies on physical fitness, and ours has always been good anyway.

  In addition, the cooks came up with ways to give us some delicious food to adjust our diet, and my fellow brothers quickly adapted to the high-altitude environment, and their stomachs were also trained to be extremely strong. After I retired, whenever I ate steak, it was always three-quarters rare, a plate of bloody meat, which I stuffed into my belly. The waiters in that Western restaurant were so scared that they stretched their necks.

  My stomach was trained on the plateau and can eat whatever I want in that kind of environment. What can't I eat?

  Suffering is especially bitter!

  It's estimated that the higher-ups think we've recovered a bit, so adaptive training and targeted training have begun.

  Adapting to high-altitude training is easy to understand, anyway on the plateau if you don't get used to the thin air as soon as possible, it's hard to get along with yourself, every day you can't eat or sleep, and even more so you can't move freely.

  This is targeted training, even we new recruits can taste a bit of the flavor of gunpowder and smoke.

  In recent years, some country has been thinking of harming Chinese people for no reason. Today, they smuggle a few guns and some drugs from the border, tomorrow they'll send over some thugs who are not much better than Zhu Bajie to incite those who are even more stupid than them to cause trouble, then they'll write some kind of China human rights report to slander China based on these incidents.

  In short, it's those despicable things that I don't need to say much about, everyone knows what kind of scoundrels they are.

  I've long heard old soldier brothers, especially local veterans from Xinjiang, say that there are several camel paths inside the Karakoram Mountains. In the early years, people would brave the wind and snow to lead camel teams out of these places in Xinjiang with goods, and then bring back some goods from the other side of the border.

  Anyway, the profit from this back-and-forth trip is not small, especially that fragrant divine oil is estimated to be valuable and in high demand, so the roads trodden by these few camels have never been interrupted.

  Especially in recent years, the border defense armed police have had contact with those rascals who took advantage of the strong wind and snow to smuggle military weapons and drugs on the camel road, catching many and killing many.

  It's just a casual touch, but somehow it feels off?

  Some people are obviously trained in strict military training.

  There were several times when those grandchildren saw that the border defense armed police had fewer people and not too strong firepower, but more than a dozen grandchildren, each with an AK rifle equipped with a drum magazine, alternately covering and rushing out of the blockade line of the border defense armed police brothers, ran away!

  I'm not saying anything bad about the border defense and armed police brothers, anyway, I think that the border defense and armed police brothers can easily catch those who are armed and trafficking drugs and guns, as for those who take advantage of the situation to smuggle goods, they are even more like a piece of cake for the border defense and armed police brothers, they can eat them however they want!

  But if they were to deal with those who have been strictly trained to infiltrate the border, the brothers of the border defense armed police would be in trouble.

  After all, different responsibilities require different training! Old cats are good at catching mice, but they lack the skill to catch wild wolves.

  Then it was our turn, and before going up, we had to put on a set of camouflage uniforms, the kind worn by border defense and armed police brothers.

  It's all about considering the overall situation and so on.

  The adaptation training hadn't ended yet, when the instructor came out of the tent. And his eyes were full of that green oily light, just like a hungry ghost seeing a plate of braised pork belly being sent over to him, it was now up to himself whether he wanted to eat or not.

  What a worn-out person!

  All of them are like this! In Hunan dialect, it's called "leech can't stand the sound of water!"

  Assemble at the briefing point, equip and then rush out.

  According to the report, it was those few thugs who broke through the border defense line last time. I guess they thought they were invincible after escaping a few times? They actually openly took a camel path and led more than 10 camels with about 30 people, and brazenly rushed into China's territory in broad daylight.

  He even didn't hide and was still swaggering, and in a small village halfway through, he replenished some fragrant cigarettes, beer, mutton, as if he didn't think he was smuggling at all, but rather thought he was promoting friendly border trade by crossing the border for tourism.

  What else is there to say?

  They've all been caught off guard and still don't take us, a group of Chinese men wearing vests, seriously. In that case, there's only one thing left to do - fight!

  The old soldiers who were scattered all followed them for three days, reporting the route, speed and expected camping location of those guys through radio every day. It is estimated that those guys will camp under a dry river beach before dark tomorrow night.

  That was originally the favorite camping spot of the camel team. There is water, some grass and a few withered shrubs, even the dry bones of camels that died from illness left behind by the original camel team.

  Build a bonfire and have hot tea and food for people, camels can eat fresh fodder, most importantly the terrain is very suitable for ambushes.

  In front and behind are two spacious entrances, the riverbed on both sides is still that kind of bare slope with little cover, can't hide people at all. Most importantly, next to the riverbed there are two very conspicuous piles of rocks, as long as sentries are stationed on top, several miles around will be within their surveillance range.

  To put it simply.

  The large troops attacked, and those bastards would immediately disperse as soon as they saw them, slipping away along the gentle slopes on both sides of the river valley. Anyway, this camel road had been walked through by these bastards so many times that it was easy for them to slip away along some small ditches and mounds.

  Small teams charge forward, this group of grandsons often rely on their fierce firepower, with a dozen or so camels opening the way, they hide behind the camels and force their way through.

  Anyway, they are not smuggling anything big, just a few dozen guns or tens of kilograms of drugs. They can hide them somewhere and as long as they break through the blockade today, they can come back to dig them up in a few days.

  So the instructor looked at the terrain of that place and said - this damn terrain is really as tricky as it can be, it's really just a dedicated anti-raid position for those bastard things!

  The only way to annihilate or capture those descendants is to lie in ambush ahead of time!