The Sixth Chapter: The Flying Dragon in the Sky
Shoot, change magazines, shoot again, throw hand grenades, and shoot again. Liu Mingjiu stood on the tree, repeating this action, and Hu Zigang, who had rushed to the middle of the mountain, was hit by him, with 14 heads exploded, 7 chests penetrated, and 6 or 7 horses blown down by hand grenades. And other comrades-in-arms, especially the two machine gun squads spitting out flames, took full advantage of their firepower superiority due to their position on the commanding heights of the mountain ridge.
"Brothers, kill! One big ocean for ten blocks of the big ocean, everyone kills!" Li Nianxin under the tree kept shouting before the formal departure, and Zuo Zhenyuan said in front of all the participating troops that the bounty was to encourage the officers and soldiers to kill the enemy. Liu Mingjiu stood on the tree but didn't care about his words at all, because he was looking for the two people with the highest bounty mentioned by Zuo Zhenyuan - "Big Master" Sun Erpao and "Big Western Gourd". Because "Sun Erpao" is a major offender with a reward of 500 big oceans from the Rehe Military Governor's Office, and "Big Western Gourd" also has a high reward of 300 blocks. Killing fifty bandits only counts as one bandit leader.
The bandits were caught off guard as soon as they arrived at Xi Fourth Liangzi, but when "Sun Erpao" and "Daxi Hulu" rushed to protect their families and valuables, the situation changed immediately. First, more than 70 bandits remained, following Sun Erpao's command, began to divide into three teams and charge up the mountain from three directions. Then, Daxi Hulu commanded several bandits with good marksmanship to open fire at the soldiers in the trees, greatly suppressing the firepower of the Fourth Company.
"Damn it, not a single shot was wasted." After Liu Mingjiu, who had been shot at by a group of bandits led by a man with a head like a western gourd, cursed in a low voice, he suddenly jumped down from the big tree and did a beautiful somersault in mid-air, stunning the group of bandits who had already knocked seven people off the tree. As soon as Liu Mingjiu landed, he drew out the Mongolian hunting knife he had snatched from Zhao Zhengyi from his waist and, with a swift step, jumped up again and slashed at the thick neck of the bandit who was charging towards him on horseback. Fresh blood spurted out like an arrow as the bandit threw back his head, staining a large patch of white snow around the slowly falling bandit red.
The other bandits were suddenly flown down from the tree, and quickly cut off one of their brothers' military uniforms, which made them stunned for a moment. In this brief moment, Liu Mingjiu raised his hand again and fired three shots in a row with his left hand. The man wearing a woolen coat at the front was shot in the head by him, and the two people behind him were also shot through their heads with two holes each. At the same time, the second squad of soldiers in the trench saw that the squad leader had jumped from the tree to the enemy's position, and Luo Xiliang led the charge after a shout, and the whole squad launched a counterattack. The second squad moved, but Zhao Zhengyi couldn't let one squad deal with at least 50 or 60 bandits below, not to mention that Xin Ai Jiang was still in the enemy group. Therefore, it quickly turned into a full-scale counterattack by the entire company along the mountain slope. As soon as the fourth company's soldiers launched a charge, the bandits on the half-mountain waist immediately showed their difference with the army. However, Xiliangzi is a steep and dangerous slope, and both sides of the half-mountain waist are straight cliffs that are 300-400 meters high. The bandits couldn't run to other places, so they could only harden their heads, resist the fourth company's charge one by one, and retreat to the foot of the mountain.
"The leader is dead, run quickly!" Just as the four were about to launch a counterattack, Liu Mingjiu shot and killed three people, then circled around a large tree and raised his hand again, shooting one of the enemies who was loudly shouting orders, wearing a satin-faced horse coat, with a bullet piercing his brain. The bandits immediately began to flee in all directions upon hearing this shout.
Liu Mingjiu, who had indeed killed the bandit chief, didn't wait for the troops to approach him. He quickly climbed up another big tree and shot one of the bandits who had ordered his men to shoot Liu and his comrades down from the trees earlier, hitting him right between the eyebrows. The bandit group erupted in a mixture of panicked, frightened, and disorderly shouts: "The Master and Second Master have also been killed! Everyone run quickly!"
Where can they run to? At this time, the three security teams that followed the bandits under orders, as well as the six company soldiers who had been approved by Zuo Zhenyuan after finding no one to fight, had caught up. Suddenly, the entire Xisiliangzi turned into a slaughterhouse-like purgatory, but only one side was slaughtering the other, because the bandits could no longer form an effective command. Some bandits wanted to escape, but on one side was a deep abyss, and on the other three sides were troops, with no way to escape. The bandits who had nowhere to escape either resisted desperately, making a dying struggle, or directly knelt down and surrendered to the soldiers who rushed up to them.
"Alright, I admit defeat. You've won this time, let's have a drink when we get down the mountain." Luo Xi Liang rushed to Liu Mingjiu's side and said with a smile, then turned around and rushed towards a bandit who was struggling to swing his two knives on the other side.
"Company commander, company commander." Liu Mingjiu used a large knife seized from a bandit to chop off the head of another bandit who was charging towards him with a red-tasseled spear. Just as he was about to turn around and charge again, he heard a cry from not far away, and when he turned back, he saw that Zhao Zhengyi had been stabbed in the chest by a long-handled spear, the tip of which had already come out through his front.
Liu Mingjiu was about to rush over, but heard a loud shout from behind: "Lian vice, be careful." Turning around, he saw that a big knife had already been chopped into Li Nianxin's neck. However, Li Nianxin did not immediately fall down, but instead swung the tiger-headed knife in his hand with great force, splitting the head of the bandit in two, before slowly falling to the ground. The guard rushed to his side, and as Li Nianxin closed his eyes, he smiled at Liu Mingjiu standing not far away with a kind and caring gaze, before slowly closing them.
Liu Mingjiu was thoroughly enraged, having just jumped down from the tree to kill the enemy, not only because he was forced by the bandits' gunfire, but also because he saw his squad leader and five soldiers being hit by the bandits and falling from the tree. He had flown down in anger and killed the enemy with his own hands. But in an instant, after coming to this era, two people who were as close to him as father and son, and whom he spent every day with, were again killed by the bandits right in front of him. Liu Mingjiu found it hard to hide his anger and madness in his heart without showing it.
Angry Liu Mingjiu walked to the body of Li Nianxin, took the tiger-headed knife from his hand, and silently approached several bandits who were still struggling. A bandit who had forced a soldier back saw Liu Mingjiu walking towards him, raised his knife, but before he could bring it down, he only felt a chill on his neck, saw the rolling world with his eyes, and then lost consciousness.
Liu Mingjiu silently cut down four stubborn bandits, and the other bandits, seeing Liu's blood-soaked body but expressionless face, were frightened by his approach, like a legendary devil. They immediately dropped their weapons and knelt on the ground. However, Liu didn't stop swinging his large knife even after they dropped their arms. He walked up to them, eyes unblinking, and with one swing of his hand, another bandit fell, beheading them cleanly and efficiently. The snow-covered ground was left with patches of crimson bloodstains and severed heads and limbs. Liu Mingjiu had killed six surrendered bandits in a row before he was finally restrained by men sent by Deputy Commander Zuo Zhenyuan, who had to physically hold down the now-red-eyed killer.
Those bandits, seeing such a living Yama, no longer had the will to resist, and no one wanted to provoke this fierce god again and bring about their own death. They all stopped resisting and surrendered to the nearby army and security troops. The various participating units quickly rounded up these surrendering bandits, and Zuo Zhenyuan also walked over to Liu Mingjiu's side, looked at him for a moment, and said lightly: "Go take a look at Old Zhao and Old Li." Then he didn't say anything else, directing the troops to start clearing the battlefield.
Liu Mingjiu was pressed by four soldiers for a while and also came to his senses. After hearing Zuo Zhenyuan's words, he stood up and walked towards the bodies of Zhao Zhengyi, Li Nianxin and a squad leader, knelt beside them, looking at these superiors and comrades who were still alive just tens of minutes ago, with heart-wrenching pain in his heart, tears also flowed down uncontrollably. This kind of pain of losing comrades, brothers and loved ones had not appeared in Liu Mingjiu's world for a long time.
When going down the mountain, Liu Mingjiu always followed beside the stretcher carrying the three corpses, occasionally lending a hand, and occasionally gently putting back the hands that had slipped out of the stretcher after the bodies went limp. This moved all the comrades who saw it to tears.
After returning to the county town, Zuo Zhenyuan reported the entire combat process and post-war statistics to Sun Congzhou: 650 people were mobilized, including five infantry companies and one cavalry company. Seventy-five people died in battle, seventeen were seriously injured, and thirty-three were lightly injured. Among them, one senior captain, three junior captains, one lieutenant, and two probationary lieutenants died in battle. The enemy had a total of 129 bandits, eighty-eight were killed, thirteen were seriously injured, eighteen were lightly injured, and forty-one were captured, along with 354 family members of the bandits. Fourteen light machine guns, 4,900 bullets; 114 rifles, 7,700 bullets; 201 pistols, 77,500 bullets; four mortars, eighteen shells; eighty-six war horses, as well as a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and food were seized. This battle completely eliminated the Jingzi Mountain bandit gang.
After the battle, statistics showed that Liu Mingjiu, the second company commander of the 4th Battalion, alone killed 38 bandits, including two major bandit leaders who were wanted by the Military Governor's Office. He captured 10 enemies, including the third and fourth leaders of the bandit gang.
Sun Congzhou sat in the chair behind his desk, staring at the report of a great victory, but he couldn't smile. This was a result written with the blood of officers and soldiers, and it had cost him five old subordinates who had gone through life and death with him: Zhao Zhengyi, Li Nianxin, Ma Weishen (deputy commander of the 6th company), Guan Haifeng (the staff officer who went with Zuo Zhenyuan), and Geng Liang (squad leader of the 4th company). Although he had grown accustomed to people dying in battle around him, Sun Congzhou, now past middle age, felt a little more psychologically aged each time an old subordinate died.
