Chapter Nineteenth: Murderous Aura Soars

  Chenjiawan is located on the banks of the Wujiang River. Peng Hanbo's unit had completed its escort mission and handed over the supplies at the river mouth before embarking on its return journey. After the great victory, it was learned that the unit had been upgraded to a field army - one of the few reinforced first-class armies in the country, so morale was extremely high. During the handover of supplies, a notice was received: The whole team returned to Chenjiawan, restored the battlefield, and waited for the study tour group.

  Having the opportunity to show off, whether it was Peng Hanbo or an ordinary second-class soldier, they were all excited and applied for a transport ship to return to Chenjiawan by water. The spring river rose, and the road that took two days to walk on the way here was reached in half a day by boat. A reinforced company arrived at the old battlefield without rest and began to work on the earthwork. Peng Hanbo was driven to tears and laughter by his subordinates: originally it was just a temporary defensive position, and it wouldn't take much time, but those subordinates were trying to show off and turned the position into a fortified stronghold! "This is restoring its original appearance! Originally fighting was like this! Who told you to come and mess around?!" In the end, when Peng Hanbo saw that the new position was completely different from the actual combat situation, he couldn't bear it anymore and came out to scold people...

  The observation team arrived two days later than Peng Hanbo's unit, with over a thousand people from the entire First Field Army, including Commander-in-Chief Tan Xiao and Deputy Commander Yang Qing, the combat staff department, and all battalion-level cadres and training model soldiers. In addition, 27 company commanders from the 15th Army who were exchanged for training, a 300-person observation team from He Jian's system, a 30-person observation team from the Bandit Suppression Headquarters, and the main officers above the company level of Wu Qizhen's unit, which was defeated by the Red Army, all came to observe. The leader of the 30-person team sent by the Bandit Suppression Headquarters was surprisingly Lin Wei, the director of the Imperial Guard who had come from Chongqing despite being extremely busy.

  Although the combat achievements obtained by Peng Hanbo's department are not small, in nature, it can be said that it is at most a regimental mobile defense battle. The fact that so many people came to observe can be said to be beyond the expectations of both Tan Xiang and Peng Hanbo.

  Of course, many of the people who came were also skeptical and came to pick holes: such as Wu Qiwu's unit and He Jian's direct unit, these two groups didn't have good intentions. After all, the casualty ratio between the two sides couldn't be described as a battle, it was a massacre, and it was the passive side massacring the active side, who would believe that? In fact, even the regiment sent by the General Headquarters was half-believing and half-doubting, but the regiment commander Lin Wei still believed in the result more, although he also felt unbelievable, but he didn't think that Tan Xiao was a general who would exaggerate the results of battle.

  For Tan Xiao at this time, it is the second major test after crossing: because he has to endure great emotional pain and re-enact the final summary of this battle! Looking at the Wujing River going east, the continuous peaks on both sides, at this time he only had a heart full of emotion: green mountains everywhere bury loyal bones!

  Time cannot wash away or alleviate the sorrow in one's heart, but it can teach people to endure. Tan Xiao no longer showed the abnormal behavior he had at first and was very calm instead. However, a strange aura emanated from him, an openness that seemed to disregard life and death, and an unrelenting determination, which combined to form a completely fearless killing intent!

  Peng Hanbo found it strange the moment he saw Tan Xiao: when did the respected teacher possess such a strong killing intent? Not the kind that was intimidating, but rather the kind that was completely fearless! Before, he had seen this quality in six Red Army soldiers who were surrounded and jumped off a cliff during a battle. But that was the aura of people who had been driven mad by killing and had no way out! Now, Tan Xiao possessed this quality in a calm state - he must have killed many people! This was Peng Hanbo's secret thought.

  The battle was re-enacted, with Tan's troops and the escort units of other observing groups playing the role of the ambushed side. In the end, no one doubted the process and outcome of this battle - these attackers were annihilated in less than half an hour! Of course, some saw the opportunity to retreat, but they were soon hunted down by small flanking teams sent out by Peng Hanbo's troops.

  "What makes you dare to divide a small team to encircle and pursue the enemy army that is several times stronger than us?" Wu Qiwu seemed to have finally found a flaw, so he asked Peng Hanbai.

  "Report to the superior, based on the environmental reconnaissance before camping, we can analyze the number of enemy troops. In battle, through the sound of gunfire, we can determine the enemy's strength. According to the changes in the battlefield situation, we can infer the changes in the balance of power between the two sides. Therefore, when I judge that the enemy army has been strangled and cannot continue, of course, we should send troops to encircle and give the enemy the greatest blow!" Peng Hanbai replied.

  "Oh? Can you really do what you just answered? Well, indeed a bold and meticulous general! " Wu Qiwu couldn't find any flaws, so he ended with a compliment. But Peng Hanbo's next answer made him, no, all the officials of various observation teams, extremely surprised. Peng Hanbo's answer was: "In the Wild One Elite Corps, this is simple, all the platoon leaders under my command, and even most of the squad leaders, have that level of combat firepower judgment, as for grasping the timing of the attack in the field, it varies from person to person..."

  This Peng Hanbo, no, this Tan Xiao is how to train troops! The various generals present were shocked.

  Because at the time of reading the battle report, Tan Xiao did not finish reading all the subsequent reports, so he also just knew for the first time now that there was a final pursuit and killing of the remaining guerrilla fighters by Peng Hanbo's counter-attacking troops in the original big battle. Undoubtedly, this is another sudden psychological torture!

  Tan Xiao has toughened up! He is no longer an ordinary soldier who would be heartbroken by Ah Da's death - now, his tormented soul can withstand any unexpected blow; now, his nerves are thicker than his biceps; although his heart is still bleeding, he has become as unshakeable as Mount Tai!

  The subsequent tactical application of every detail, the questioning and guidance for each class, firepower group or even a key position, whether praising or correcting, Tan Xiao's performance was fluent and natural. Not only the officers and soldiers of the Wild First Regiment who were observing, but all the representatives of the observation team, listened with rapt attention - they almost all had the feeling of re-entering military school! Tan Xiao's explanations that opened people's eyes, combined with new hypothetical possibilities raised based on past combat details, as well as responses to those hypotheses... If previously many people here still had doubts about Tan Xiao's military quality, then at this moment their feeling was: I'd rather not meet this jinx on the battlefield, let alone the Wild First Regiment!

  Peng Hanbo also became famous with this small battle and became a representative figure of the Wild One Studio, ranking after Tan Xiao.

  Lin Wei was just a supporting role in the last Lingling trip, but this time he is the highest-ranking imperial envoy, naturally becoming the core of a group of people. And his attitude towards Tan Xiao has also become a benchmark for everyone's measurement: whether Tan Xiao is the most capable general of the National Army or not, he is definitely the most valued general in the current extermination!

  Although he had already cultivated a calm and composed demeanor, Tan Xiao did not expect that the trials to his mental state would come one after another!

  The next day, the locals arranged a massacre to show something to the head of the attendants' room, Lin Wei. A real massacre! They selected one hundred Red Army soldiers and guerrilla fighters who were captured but refused to surrender, and collectively executed them in front of the crowd! Tan Xiao was forced to attend this cruel performance without being able to decline!

  The execution ground was originally a desolate wilderness, rarely visited by people. Today, it is packed with people: in addition to the execution team and the observation group, there are more local villagers who were forced to come and watch. In addition to Han people, the audience is filled with Miao, Dong, Yao, Tujia and other ethnic groups living nearby. The chaotic crowd did not utter a single word, everyone's mood was shrouded in the gloom of fear, the tender shoots that had just broken through the soil on the ground were trembling in the cold mountain wind of early spring!

  Tan Xiao, who thought he could withstand any mental torture, had heard countless stories of the Nationalist Party's brutal killings of revolutionaries in later years, but when he arrived at the scene and faced this real picture, his whole body trembled slightly!

  The execution process, only the sharp and hoarse voice of the judge reading out the sentence, and the sound of the big knife chopping on human bones! There were no passionate slogans in later literary works: all those who were executed, they were cut from one temple to the other with a knife, and their facial skin was torn off to cover their eyes! Some had iron wire on their mouths, while others used branches and vines to pierce through their lips... Silence, only silence at the scene! Those frightened civilians and even soldiers had already been unable to utter a scream in extreme terror!

  Those mangled heads, one by one, rolled onto the ground with a dull thud...

  What a miserable scene! Some ordinary people were frightened to faint, and the people next to them would support him/her, not letting him/her fall down, because no one knew what the consequences of falling down in this situation would be. Maybe they would be considered sympathetic to the Red Gang? Or are they themselves accomplices? I don't know. But humans have united in absolute panic, at least they will support each other! There is no adjective that can describe such a scene, and no pen can truly depict such an atmosphere!

  Pain, oppression, terror... countless elements that drive people mad are attacking Tan Xiao!

  Pain, oppression, terror... countless elements that drive people mad assault every viewer!

  Who is it?! What kind of person is this?! Is he still human?! Who could have thought of using such a bloody way to treat his own kind!!

  There were even people in the observation group who fainted, not just those female soldiers, but also male soldiers who had been to the battlefield!

  Tan Xiao certainly wouldn't faint, he was in pain! He hated it! He couldn't describe his feelings!

  The last one to be executed had fallen, and Lin Wei, sitting in the middle of the grassy grandstand, struggled to control his trembling voice: "It's over, let's go back!"

  There is a minority ethnic group that does not raise dogs, but raises wolves. They put a litter of wolf cubs in a deep pit and intentionally injure one of them, causing it to bleed. Then, the extremely hungry little wolves will eat each other until only one is left, becoming a wolf evil spirit! After that, they domesticate that wolf evil spirit...

  Tan Xiao remembered a story told by a military dog trainer who came to the training base in the future after drinking. He didn't know if it was true or false.

  Now he feels like a wolf, that wolf is fierce!

  Having grown accustomed to the blood of his own kind, he fed on them and survived, but his heart was filled with hatred and resentment! "Kill! I want to kill!! Kill! Kill!! Kill!!!" In his mind, Tan Xiao suddenly let out a deafening roar that shook his soul: "Aooooo...~~~"

  On the way back to Ling, he had a dream on that night when he camped in the wilderness. In his dream, he slaughtered countless people, Japanese! Some were pulled out of their tongues and hung from their collars like ties, unable to die for a while, only twitching; some were slowly cut by him, with the cut meat stuffed back into the owner's mouth; some had their limbs chopped off and thrown into a large red ant nest... until he cut open a Japanese person's belly, using an iron hook to pull out that Japanese person's intestines and walk slowly. The Japanese person holding his intestines stumbled behind him when he woke up.

  Tan Xiao woke up, gazing at the top of the tent, feeling no chill or fear. On the contrary, he was smiling, his eyes narrowed and his lips slightly curled up in a cruel smile! He was recalling with great interest the scenes from his dream, associating them with horror movies from later generations, as well as various massacres throughout history...

  Tan Xiao has changed, and changed again! Under the stimulation of all kinds of cruel scenes he has seen, he himself does not know that he is no longer the simple, disciplined, and caring squad leader of later generations. The current him is a cold-blooded soldier who views human life as worthless, with deep-seated hatred and cruelty buried in his bones!

  He was thinking about the in-depth construction of future troops: superstition is something that can be used. Hatred is an element that must be instilled... cold-blooded, cruel, and extreme tactics, unscrupulous means... Ah, what later generations called unrestricted warfare! That's right, that's the army I want! That's not the First Field Army, no, it's the First Field Military... Right! The Chinese Field Army! My Field Army! China's Unrestricted Warfare Field Army!!

  As for the prisoners of war, - his troops would still have prisoners! At this moment, he began to feel ridiculous and even contemptuous of the way both the Nationalist and Communist armies treated Japanese prisoners with kindness: hypocritical!

  Tan Xiao didn't know that in this space-time, on the future battlefield against Japan, China would emerge with what kind of army! A terrifying troop that would shock the world!

  "In Europe, during that great war, there was a German army company that survived for ten consecutive days in a continuous battle. They were blocked on the battlefield, without water, food, reinforcements or ammunition, and yet they survived! Ten days! How did they do it? Can you imagine?! No food! No water!!" Tan Xiao shouted, starting to educate his soldiers at an early morning assembly, even before returning to Lingling. The First Regiment of the Wild Division was still conducting uninterrupted training and education during their march! This made all the commanders of the various armies that were marching together exclaim: "How is the Iron Army forged?!"

  "I'm telling you, they survived like this! They cut open the prisoners' veins and drank their blood like vampires! They ate their flesh raw! When the enemy attacked, they would cut strips of meat from the corpses, wrap them around the machine gun barrels, use the barrels as a stove, and when the enemy retreated, they could eat cooked meat! They collected ammunition from the dead bodies on the battlefield to repel the next attack, and left more 'food' in front of the position... In the end, they survived!" Tan Xiao began to indoctrinate his soldiers with an endless production of war ideology.

  Yes, unlimited, use all possible and impossible means of gambling to kill the enemy. No moral constraints, no spiritual taboos, everything is for killing! Kill the other side, let yourself live! Only by killing the enemy can you survive, and your only goal in surviving is to kill the enemy! No compromise, no surrender, no mercy, no humanity! This is the spirit of Unlimited Warfare!

  Of course, these contents, Tan Xiao would not mention in front of friendly forces. In his own troops, it was only in the form of battle example analysis, some of the most brutal battlefield survival skills and cases he got from various materials in later generations, with a certain military saying, constantly, in an cumulative way, making his soldiers slowly become pure killing machines!

  If there was no time-travel, in the original timeline, Tan Xiao would be a real-life good soldier like the squad leader in "Soldiers Sortie". His nature is sentimental and slightly shy, he is kind, pure, sympathetic, and has some unrealistic illusions. He is a good person.

  But he crossed over and became a teacher, just before the Japanese were about to invade China completely. So, he had no choice but to continue his military career in another time and space. He flapped the butterfly's wings, changing many local histories, and was also hurt by his own wings. Now, having received a series of extremely intense spiritual stimuli, in some sense, he is already a mentally unstable person or an abnormal person.

  According to a certain TV series, the temperament of an army will be determined by the spirit of its creator. In that case, the Wild One Division is destined to become a ruthless and bloodthirsty, extremely abnormal army!

  Back in Lingling, the next morning Master Tan Xiao issued an order: requiring He Shao Tang to immediately obtain through his special channels all information on Japanese people within 200 miles of Hunan's No.1 Division defense zone, regardless of whether they were spies or suspicious individuals, and file it with the military intelligence department of the No.1 Division.

  It's understandable for spies or suspicious characters, but isn't it a bit too much for all Japanese people? Although He Shaotang knew in his heart that this sworn brother seemed to have a deep-seated hatred for the Japanese and was becoming increasingly strict with the unit's secrecy work, he wondered if it was necessary to gather information on all civilians and monitor them. However, despite having some doubts, he still went ahead and conscientiously carried out the special task assigned by his superior. For him, it was just a matter of making a few phone calls or sending two telegrams, and then sitting quietly, work that could be completed within a day.

  Tan Xiao went to the barracks of a well-known company in the troops, "Mountain Ghost Company", after watching the training effect of the troops a few days after he left.

  "Shan Gui Lian" is a special unit in the whole army, most of them are from the two Guang provinces, Miao and Yao ethnic minorities, and about 20% of Han mountain people. Many people in it have some fame in the Wild One Army: for example, Mo San, who can hide in the bamboo forest on both sides of the road, and when a car passes by, he will slide down to the middle of the road with the help of the elasticity of the bamboo; Miao Da Bianzi, a monster who likes to eat snakes everywhere and is immune to snake venom; "Sao Qing Gui" Yao Zhi, whose footsteps can make even crickets stop chirping...

  This group of people were laughed at by Tang because they had been in the army for a short time and their specialties were concentrated together for training, originally intended to be trained into special forces. However, Tang soon discovered their weaknesses: low cultural level, basically illiterate, and slow progress in literacy classes; Moreover, many Han people could not speak Mandarin, only able to communicate roughly with gestures. Therefore, Tang had to cancel the original plan and train them into a mountain action team with super strong survival and combat capabilities. At the same time, he also summarized their characteristics for future elite training camps to observe and imitate.

  Tan Xiao arrived at their company, saw them conducting the most important training: speaking Mandarin and writing Chinese characters! Rarely, Tan Xiao interrupted their training and began to assign tasks, a secret mission formally ordered by the headquarters of the First Field Army!

  This group of people, apart from having extraordinary survival abilities in the mountains, have another commonality: they have all killed people, more accurately, they have slaughtered people and do not feel any guilt or shame, instead taking pride in it. Mo San was originally a bandit who relied on his cunning to rob and kill merchants on the mountain roads of Guilin. Later, he was captured after being injured, coincidentally at a time when the Quanzhou Security Regiment was recruiting daredevils and Red Army soldiers to fight to the death. He directly enlisted from prison and became a deserter during battle, escaping from Guangxi. Originally, he had planned to hide in the 23rd Temporary Division to avoid trouble, but after staying for a while, he developed feelings for this unit and didn't leave. Now, he is a platoon leader in the "Mountain Ghost Battalion". Miao Da Bianzi was a person who dared to kill people for food during times of famine, and Yao Zhi was originally one of several "braves" in his village responsible for hunting heads during sacrificial rituals... In the "Mountain Ghost Battalion", there are many such half-human, half-beast individuals.

  Tan Xiao's task for them was to secretly hunt down Japanese targets and have them demonstrate small-scale live slaughter training in batches for the troops!

  For an ordinary person to become a ruthless and decisive leader, the journey of mental growth is far more important than equipment enhancement!