Chapter Twenty-Four: The Foreign Legion

  Li Ruofeng didn't care about Ma Zhongying's thoughts. He walked out of the headquarters, waved his hand and ordered the Inferno Unit to prepare for boarding.

  This elite team, to which Li Ruofeng has devoted the most energy, financial resources and material resources, has been training for almost a year. Occasionally, they would send out small teams to infiltrate large cities at home and abroad, disguising themselves as bandits to plunder. On the one hand, it was to train the members of the Hellfire team in tacit cooperation, on the other hand, it could also be used to accumulate wealth and alleviate the financial pressure on the family.

  Due to consideration of actual combat, the targets that were robbed first were almost all large households with relatively strict defensive measures. There were even several times when they looted the treasury silver of several county governments.

  Infiltration, ambush, infiltration, mobility, raid, sniper, explosion, climbing and other training courses have all been tested in actual combat.

  However, this actual combat is still very different from a formal war at the division level.

  Li Ruofeng has brought all of Hellfire to Gansu this time, obviously intending to make them show off their sharp fangs.

  Of course, he wouldn't be foolish enough to engage in a land battle with Hellfire. The main task of Hellfire is sniping, raiding and beheading.

  The entire Hellfire Unit, in terms of organization, is equivalent to a special operations squadron in the 21st century. It can be said that it is the first special forces unit trained according to modern special warfare concepts to appear in world military history in this era.

  Li Ruofeng had carefully read the materials about the French Foreign Legion when he was browsing the military forum before crossing over. Although it was only some superficial content, he still had a certain understanding of the purpose, training methods and combat methods of the foreign legion.

  After entering the Japanese Army Officer School in this era, he had the idea of building a mercenary force similar to the French Foreign Legion in China. He believed that after the end of World War I, there would be a large number of professional old soldiers in Europe who did not want to leave the military camp but had to take off their uniforms.

  All he had to do was find those willing to leave their home country for money and continue fighting, training with veterans in China.

  To know that after the end of World War I, Germany was defeated, and in Germany, there were too many excellent veterans who could not integrate into the ordinary world after leaving the army, eventually leading to daily drunkenness and troublemaking. Some people were completely useless from then on, while others were imprisoned and lost their freedom. Because of these people, they had no other advantages except for combat skills. They were born warriors, born to exist for war.

  As long as he had enough financial backing, Li Ruofeng was well aware that even if he wanted to form a mercenary army on the scale of an entire legion, it wasn't impossible. The one resource that this world would never lack was people.

  In the world of mercenaries, the jungle law has always been respected, where the strong are king. Mercenaries, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religious beliefs, thirst for bloodshed, love money, pursue excitement and enjoy adventure.

  With the prophetic advantage held by Li Ruofeng, he has absolute control over shaping a new mercenary culture. The mercenary troops trained in this culture allow Li Ruofeng to not spend too much thought and energy defending against their betrayal. In this regard, sometimes the meticulous Germans and stubborn Russians are more reliable than pure Chinese people.

  In this era, the vast majority of countries and political parties still don't have a concept of mercenaries in their minds. Not to mention large-scale mercenary forces.

  The French at this time still held to the idea of a foreign legion made up of native troops from their colonies. They had not yet realized that there were many veterans of military powers around the world who would exchange their combat skills for the beautiful women, money and hard liquor they coveted.

  The current Hellfire is just a small-scale experimental mercenary unit that Li Ruofeng is exploring. He needs to use this mercenary unit to discover, accumulate and perfect all the factors and conditions needed to build a mercenary unit with core cohesion.

  As for Ma Bufang's expedition, Li Ruofeng only knew that historically Ma Bufang had fought a battle with Ma Zhongying, which ended with Ma Bufang's victory and Ma Zhongying's defeat at Jiayuguan. As for where the two Mas' war was fought, how it was fought, how the troops were deployed, and how many soldiers were involved on both sides, he couldn't remember clearly.

  It was for this reason that he strongly requested not to sit in the town's military commander's tent, and instead handed over the entire battle situation to Zhuang Yu, who had already qualified as a staff officer for large-scale battles.

  For the 8,000 well-equipped and fiercely armed troops to ambush the cavalry brigade coming from Liangzhou, Li Ruofeng knew without thinking what the outcome would be. His goal was not that cavalry brigade, but how to lead the Inferno Brigade with its unique powerful mobility, to infiltrate behind Ma Bufang's back and capture Ma Bufang alive.

  In less than three minutes, all personnel of Inferno had boarded the vehicle.

  Li Ruofeng was about to open the door of the Ford Edge car specially prepared for him by his fourth uncle Li Chengxiao, when he saw Zhuang Yu walking slowly into the headquarters courtyard.

  "Is everything all right on your end?" Li Ruofeng asked with a smile.

  "Of course, it's all settled. I've already ordered Zheng Yang to lead the team and set off first." Zhu Yu replied with a casual smile. He seemed to have spent more time with Li Ruofeng and didn't appear as rigidly formal as Si Hu and Biaozi. "Young Master, you can't be done with Chairman Ma's meeting so quickly, can you?"

  "It's already taken so long, and you're still saying it's fast?" Li Ruofeng replied irritably.

  "No, sir. You and Chairman Ma rarely meet, and since you've met, I think there's a lot to talk about between you two." Zhuang Yu said somewhat unexpectedly: "I think you two have a lot in common, can be called a temporary spark, Chairman Ma doesn't have the bad habits of other warlords, you should appreciate each other, it's a pity you didn't meet earlier!"

  "How could I feel more and more that... no, Chief of Staff Zhuang, you didn't deliberately invite Ma Zhongying over, did you?" Li Ruofeng seemed to have suddenly thought of something and asked with wide eyes.

  "Young master, why would you say such a thing?" Zhuang Yu asked with a puzzled expression.

  "You bring Ma Zhongying over and arrange for me to meet him, so that you can use Chairman Ma to keep me stuck in Ganzhou and unable to leave, thereby achieving your and Sun Zhen's ulterior motive of keeping me away from the front lines of battle, right?" Li Ruofeng asked with a guilty conscience.

  "My goodness gracious, young master, your imagination is a bit too rich, isn't it?" Zhuang Yu replied with a wry face.

  "Really wasn't it you guys who did it? Just a coincidence?"

  "It's absolutely just a coincidence, young master, I guarantee it."

  Li Ruofeng raised his hand and knocked on Zhuang Yu's head, laughing and scolding: "Even if it's a coincidence, you two stinky brats also have the suspicion of trying to use this coincidence to not let Ben Shao escape. What are your little minds thinking?"

  "Haha, Master Li is as clear as a mirror!" Zhuang Yu gave Li Ruofeng a timely and well-deserved flattery.

  "Damn it! The Tree of Life, Zheng Yang, how long have they been gone?" Li Ruofeng flipped his wrist to look at the Swiss-made mechanical watch that Lin Xiuer had specially given him.

  "Almost an hour." Zhuang Yu then took out a silver pocket watch from his upper pocket, opened it to take a look, and replied: "At the speed of our march, we should be arriving at Shan Dan soon."

  "Just made it." Li Ruofeng seemed to mutter to himself, then opened the car door and got into the driver's seat, started the engine, turned the car around in the courtyard, and when he passed by where Zhuang Yu was standing, he stopped the car, stuck his head out and said: "Ma Zhongying is still at headquarters, you have time to chat with him more. Remember one key point: Xinjiang!"

  "Uh-huh, young master. I know what to do." Zhuang Yu nodded in response.

  Li Ruofeng turned his head back, waved his hand towards the rear, and drove the car out of the headquarters compound in a cloud of smoke.

  Behind him, Geronimo climbed into the passenger seat of the lead Dodge Ram, stood on the running board and waved his hand, shouting: "Hellfire, advance!"

  Then, fifteen trucks, spaced five meters apart, formed a long line and quickly drove out of the headquarters compound, heading rapidly in the direction of Shandan.