Chapter 7: The Clever Capture of Kang Family Town (Part 1)

  "It's possible that the captain has succeeded, and the devils are all heading in that direction. Let's hurry over." Li Baoguo analyzed.

  Indeed, Yang Jie shot and killed the devils who were exposing their heads from the alley. Unexpectedly, he stirred up a hornet's nest. After Yang Jie killed the devils, he followed Gao Junping and Nan Weiren into the courtyard. A while later, the devils coming out of one household discovered that their companion had been killed by someone and blew their whistle to gather other devils who were committing atrocities. It took a long time for the devils carrying various "spoils of war" on their shoulders to assemble.

  The assembled devils were about to search for the enemy in all directions, Li Baoguo and Zhou Shicai rushed over, and Li Baoguo's machine gun sounded. The devil soldiers were indeed some old soldiers who had been trained for a long time, except for a few devils who were killed on the spot without being able to dodge, the other devils quickly found cover to counterattack, and covered each other as they rushed forward.

  Zhou Shicai discovered that the devils were not as useless as he had imagined, but rather they coordinated with each other, were quite cunning, and their marksmanship was accurate. If Li Baoguo hadn't pushed him aside, he would have been killed by the enemy right from the start. Looking at Li Baoguo again, he sat on the ground, hugging his machine gun, muttering something to himself, then suddenly stood up and unleashed a burst of fire before quickly sitting back down, just in time to avoid the enemy's return fire.

  Li Baoguo checked the bullets and said to Zhou Shicai: "Withdraw to the village edge, you go first, I'll give the devils something to eat."

  Zhou Shicai backed away, keeping a watchful eye on his surroundings. Suddenly, three devils emerged from a nearby house. The devils didn't expect the man in tattered clothes to be an enemy, and they burst out laughing at Zhou's shabby attire. But Zhou showed no mercy and took them down. Now a seasoned veteran, Zhou calmly collected the devils' ammunition and retreated forward.

  As soon as they walked out of the alley, Li Baoguo followed up, "Quick, the devils are coming." Li Baoguo said while squatting at the corner of the wall, looking into the alley. A group of devils rushed past where the two had just been, triggering the tripwire bomb set by Li Baoguo with his grenade. With a loud explosion, seven or eight devils were blown to death, their limbs flying everywhere. The devils behind them all fell to the ground at once. Li Baoguo laughed and said, "The little devils react quite quickly, let me help them." He raised his 38 rifle and shot one of the devils who was looking around in the head, and the devil fell to the ground.

  The devils' revenge came immediately, and various urgent gunshots rang out. Li Baoguo was at the entrance of the alley, where sparks flew everywhere on the stone, and bullets bounced up and down. Zhou Shicai was so scared that he pulled Li Baoguo to run away, but Li Baoguo simply sat on the ground, counting in his mouth: "One, two, three-seven, eight, boom!" Suddenly, there was another loud explosion, this time it was three hand grenades. The devils crowded in the alley had nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide, and suffered heavy casualties.

  Li Baoguo then raised his gun and fired several shots at the devils in the alley, laughing loudly as he calmly led Zhou Shicai forward.

  Zhou Shicai looked at Li Baoguo, who was so calm and didn't take the gunfire that rang out everywhere seriously. He could easily deal with the vicious devils like a game, and he admired him very much. After the two of them turned into an alley, Li Baoguo said to Zhou Shicai: "Brother, you go to the other end of the alley and keep watch, I'll lure the devils over."

  Zhou Shicai finally understood that Li Baoguo's purpose was to let the devils follow him, so that his captain would have time. But Zhou Shicai did not regret it, he thought that if it weren't for these people who had died with their wives and children earlier, now following these heroes who killed devils, even if they died, it would be worth it.

  Yang Jue did not know that from this time on, a great general-level character who would conquer all directions was born.

  Zhou Shicai walked towards the other end of the alley, he was extremely familiar with the village and knew that once out of the alley, he would be outside the village. On his left, a solitary house occupying a high ground belonged to another outsider in the village - Wang Dachuan's family, which was in stark contrast to Li Fusheng's, as Wang Dachuan's family was extremely poor.

  Li Baoguo was shocked to find that many devils had appeared at the entrance of each alley on the street, and he knew that the devils had reacted to the explosion. He quickly slung his rifle over his shoulder, hugged his machine gun, and swept the devils on the street with a burst of fire. After that, he hid in an alley and saw four devils who had been killed by Zhou Shicai. He laid the devil's body horizontally and set up a simple booby trap using the hand grenades on his body. He ran away quickly, and the devils behind him rushed into the alley, and gunfire broke out immediately. Li Baoguo kept dodging and changing direction as he ran until he reached the entrance of the alley. He pounced forward and then rolled to the side, hiding behind a wall and firing his machine gun fiercely. The devils also stepped on the booby trap at the same time, causing an explosion. The sound of explosions, gunfire, and screams mixed together, strongly stimulating the devils' ferocity and bloodthirstiness, making them charge forward recklessly. Li Baoguo held three hand grenades in his hands and threw them out one after another, using the intense explosion to cover their escape as they quickly ran towards the outskirts of the village.

  Zhou Shicai shouted loudly at the front, "It's not good! There are devils everywhere ahead!" Li Baoguo immediately understood the tactics of the devils. It turned out that the military quality of the devils was indeed first-class at this time. Although there was no commander, they could still choose the best attacking tactic according to the situation. Some devils attracted the enemy in front, while others infiltrated and surrounded them.

  "Quick, occupy that house." Li Baoguo saw the good terrain of Wang Dakuan's home at a glance and led the charge towards it. The devils also discovered this high ground, and several devils shouted as they ran towards Wang Dakuan's home. Li Baoguo's machine gun quickly told them not to have any more ideas.

  Two men rushed into Wang Daku's home, and the devils surrounded them soon after. Just as they were about to charge, some devils brought out a grenade launcher, and two cannonballs whizzed by, blowing up Wang Daku's house. Li Baoguo was very experienced and did not listen to Zhou Shicai's suggestion to enter the house. Instead, he used the courtyard wall to observe the devils and waited for an opportunity to shoot them through the gaps in the wall.

  Yang Jie led four people, with four machine guns, and encountered no devils along the way until they reached Wang Dachuan's house. They saw about eighty devils surrounding it. Yang Jie made a "person" shape gesture, and everyone understood that this meant to launch a surprise attack. After checking their weapons, Yang Jie led the charge, rushing out with his machine gun roaring, followed by Li Ying, Gao Junping, and Nan Weiren, who simultaneously opened fire, tearing open the enemy's encirclement like a sharp sword. Yang Jie and Li Ying went to the right, while Gao Junping and Nan Weiren went to the left, chasing the devils in all directions like they were herding ducks. Due to the open terrain and sudden attack, the devils had no defense and retreated to the mountains outside the village. Li Baoguo, who was surrounded, exclaimed with joy when he saw his squad leader arrive: "Old Zhou, throw all the hand grenades at the devils!" He then picked up his machine gun and chased after the devils fleeing up the mountain. Zhou Shicai threw hand grenades with great skill, accurately controlling the distance and timing of the explosions. When Li Baoguo threw hand grenades, if they were too close, he would let them smoke for a while before throwing them again. After several attempts, he found that this method was very effective, as hand grenades exploding in mid-air had much greater power than those exploding on the ground. Under Yang Jie's strong firepower and Zhou Shicai's accurate support, the remaining devils were eliminated without being able to counterattack.

  "What's he doing? And Li Baoguo?" Li Ying asked, seeing Zhou Shicai run towards the back mountain without even greeting him.

  "Follow him! Li Baoguo must have gone after the devils," said Yang Wei. "Annihilate the enemy, this guy is quite thorough in his execution."

  Yang Jing was about to chase after them when he suddenly heard Zhou Deqin shouting and running over: "Captain, Captain." Zhou Deqin ran up to Yang Jing: "Our men have surrounded four devils, but they have two big guys who are too fierce, we can't get close. The others asked me to come invite you over."

  Yang Jie knew that the "big thing" in Zhou Deqin's mouth was a heavy machine gun, and smiled at Zhou Deqin: "That's a heavy machine gun, let Nan Weiren go with you. Is anyone injured?"

  "No, I thought it was too severe and didn't dare let people rush in," said Zhou Deqin.

  Yang Jie nodded, indicating that Nan Weiren should be careful, and led Li Ying, Gao Junping to chase in the direction of Zhou Shicai. Before long, they saw Li Baoguo and Zhou Shicai squatting behind a rock, guarding against the mountain. When Li Baoguo saw Yang Jie coming, he hurried forward and said: "Captain, the devils have retreated into the cave, Zhou Shicai says this is a dead cave, we are discussing how to attack."

  Yang Jie grabbed Li Baoguo's hand, looked up and down, nodded. "No wonder it's the king of fighting, when Zhao Zilong single-handedly challenged Cao Cao's million-strong army, that was a bit exaggerated; today the king of fighting battles a hundred devils, not letting Zhang Fei of Changshan." Several people laughed at this. Yang Jie leaned against the stone, carefully observing the terrain, and found that this was an easy-to-defend high ground, although there were trees in front of the cave, but the terrain was relatively flat and open, making it difficult to hide and attack.

  Gao Junping also observed the terrain and said: "Captain, I think we can use the enemy's grenade launcher to blast him."

  "The enemy is high and we are low, besides they are hiding in caves, how can we bomb them?" Li Baoguo said in a low voice, looking ahead.

  "Didn't Old Zhou say this was a dead end? Look at the entrance, it's not too big. If we just blow up the entrance, I don't believe those little devils will dare to be living corpses!"

  "Can you hit it so accurately?" Li Ying looked at various angles, all of which were undesirable, and said.

  "Li Dui, you're challenging the credibility of 'Wang Ye'." Gao Junping said with a smile.

  "Alright, let's move." Yang Jue was quite respectful of Gao Junping's expert-level words. "Li Ying and I will take care of intercepting the enemies that rush out, while Li Baoguo and Zhou Dage will work together with Gao Junping."

  Three men quickly brought over the two grenade launchers and several shells that the devils had abandoned. Li Ying saw Gao Junping place the grenade launcher at an angle almost parallel to the mountain wall, one in front of the other. He and Li Baoguo simultaneously launched the shells, and all they heard were two loud booms. The two shells accurately landed about a step away from the entrance of the cave, and the intense explosion shook the walls of the cave, echoing inside. Immediately after, there were two more explosions. The stone ground at the entrance was blown into a large crater, but the entrance did not collapse. However, there was no movement or sound coming from inside.

  Yang Jie signaled to stop, and Li Ying rushed over quickly, surprisingly finding that the devils inside were all stunned. Yang Jie picked up a Type 38 rifle from the ground and slaughtered the stunned devils one by one without hesitation or mercy.

  "Leave one." Li Ying hastily said. Yang Xun's dagger halted stiffly in front of the last ghost soldier.

  Li Baoguo and two others came in while Li Ying was "friendly" asking about the situation of the devils.

  Originally, there were 254 devils in Kangjia Town. This time, a total of 184 devils attacked Xiao Zhou Zhuang, including one squadron leader and three platoon leaders, all of whom were annihilated.

  There are still fifty devils in Kangjia Town, thirty in the stronghold, twenty in the town government, and another fifty traitor troops, all with short guns.

  There were no puppet troops. At this time in history, Wang Jingwei had not yet formally established the puppet army, and a small number of puppet troops were spontaneously formed by Japanese garrisons in various places. The main force fighting at this time was mainly the Japanese army, while security involved a small number of Han traitor agents.

  According to the devils, there are a large number of ammunition and supplies in Dianli Tun, which will be used to conquer all the places where the Imperial Army has not set foot.

  "It seems that the devils' purpose is to plunder the people's wealth, benefiting themselves and their army. Li Ying took down this devil with one hand and analyzed, 'If we want to form our own team to fight against the devils, we must take down Kangjia Town before they are on guard.'"

  Everyone looked at Yang Jiong, and he glanced at the sky outside which was gradually darkening. He took a deep breath and said, "Prepare your weapons, we'll launch a night raid on Kangjia Town!"

  Suddenly, the sound of a crowd of people came from outside. After Yang Jie led his men out, they saw Nan Wei Ren walking towards them surrounded by the crowd, with laughter and shouts erupting from the crowd from time to time. Nan Wei Ren pointed at Yang Jie and said to an old man with a goatee beard wearing a long gown: "This is our captain." The old man walked quickly to Yang Jie's side, made a bow with his hands and said: "I am Zhou Haiqing, the clan elder of the Zhou family in Zhuang Village, representing all members of the Zhou family to thank you for your kindness." As he spoke, he knelt down on both knees. Yang Jie quickly pulled him up and said: "Elder Zhou, don't be so polite." Seeing that everyone behind Zhou Haiqing had also knelt down, Yang Jie helped Zhou Haiqing up and loudly said: "Fellow villagers, please all get up, no need to be polite. We are the Eighth Route Army, we are the people's own army, fighting against the devils and protecting our homes is what we should do, it's what everyone of you should do too. Today, many of you have killed devils, that's great! Those who haven't killed devils or didn't dare to kill devils should learn from them. Only when everyone gets up to fight against the devils will we not be bullied by the little Japanese. Afraid of the devils? The more afraid of the devils, the more they'll harm us. What can we do? If he hits me with one fist, I'll hit him back with one foot. Stand up and fight against the little devils together with the Eighth Route Army! Let's drive them out of our homes, out of China!" Yang Jie had learned enough from the movie about mobilizing the masses.

  But the people below did not get excited like in the movie, instead they were a bit **. Li Ying looked at Yang Guang's pretentious performance and couldn't help but want to laugh, looking at Li Baoguo and others, she found that these guys were listening seriously, as if they were passionate, knowing that these people felt ridiculous in their hearts, but still pretending to be serious, couldn't help but smile.

  Yang Jie also found that his speech was unsuccessful, and he pulled Zhou Haiqing's hand: "Head of the clan, please let all men between 20 and 40 years old stay, and everyone else go back."

  The clan leader Zhou Haicheng also found that his clansmen were not enthusiastic about fighting the devils, and did not ask what Yang Jue's requirements were, but instead loudly arranged to go.

  The crowd dispersed in a flurry of discussion and speculation, leaving the men standing there at a loss.

  Suddenly, a man came running along the path, shouting: "Benefactors, team leader!" The people all looked down and saw that it was Li Fusheng, who rushed straight to Li Ying's side and knelt down: "Benefactor, please, no matter what, you must come home with me once, let me show my gratitude."

  Li Ying dodged to one side: "Captain."

  Yang Jie came over with a smile and said, "Mr. Li, if you really want to show your gratitude, then I won't be polite." He pointed at the remaining men and said, "I hired these people to work for one night, each of them will get ten big silver dollars, how about that?"

  Li Fusheng nodded without hesitation, "No problem. Is there anything else that requires Li's assistance, Captain?"

  Yang Jiong was taken aback, took a closer look at Li Fusheng, and couldn't help but feel a good impression of him. "Mr. Li, thank you for your support in the fight against Japan. Would it be possible to trouble you to arrange for someone to prepare dinner for these people?" Yang Jiong asked politely.

  "The captain was polite, and I, Li Mou, had read a few days of books after all. 'The rise and fall of the country, every man has his responsibility' is still understood. As long as it's anti-Japanese, Captain, even if I go bankrupt, I'm willing to do it." Li Fusheng said with great enthusiasm.

  Yang Jie felt very uncomfortable in his heart. Historically, the main force of revolution was peasants, but now the awareness of these peasants in front of him was not even as good as that of the object being overthrown.

  "This saying 'A reader is a nation's seed' is so true."

  Li Fusheng bid farewell to Yang Jiong and left, Yang Jiong found that the people who stayed behind heard that they could get 10 big oceans in one night, their expressions changed immediately, and the way they looked at Yang Jiong also became very lovely.

  Yang Jie sighed in his heart, but still loudly said to the crowd: "All those who are willing to be soldiers and fight against the devils, step forward!"

  More than 50 people stood up and lined up in a row.

  "All of you who have hunted and know how to use a gun, step forward." Yang Wei loudly said to the people who stepped forward. Thirty young men stood up, standing in a neat row.

  "All of you who have practiced martial arts, step forward." Yang Jue said again to these thirty.

  Eight more people stood up. Yang Jiong loudly commanded: "Li Baoguo, Nan Weiren"

  "Charge!" The two men shouted in unison, taking a step forward. With only the two of them, they gave off an aura as if there were thousands of people. Yang Jiong was very satisfied with their coordination. "Take these 22 comrades to the village, pick out the best weapons and clothes, then give them some simple training. After that, go to Li Fusheng's house for a feast."

  "Yes!" The two raised their hands in salute and ran to the front of the small team, shouting loudly: "Attention, right turn, quick march!"

  Under the influence of the two, that small team walked in a neat and uniform pace towards the village.

  "Zhou Deqin, Zhou Shicai step forward!" Yang Jue pointed at the eight people standing up. "You ten, each of you go and choose ten more people, you will be their team leaders."

  After a while, a team of 100 people was selected and lined up in ten columns under the command of Gao Junping. Yang Jie let the rest of the people go to the village to clean up the battlefield, stipulating that the searched goods belonged to individuals, guns, ammunition, and clothing belonged to the team.

  Standing in front of these hundred people, Yang Jie finally felt a little something. He said loudly: "Tonight we are going to attack Kangjia Town, but don't worry, you won't be needed for the battle, your task is to guard, remember which squad you belong to and obey discipline. Although you are only soldiers for one night, you should know that 'military law is like a mountain', fighting means death, whoever dares to take advantage or loot, don't blame me for being ruthless!" By the end of his speech, Yang Jie's eyes gleamed with ferocity, and a burst of murderous aura erupted, even Zhou Haicheng standing at the side shuddered.

  The moon on the ninth of April has been more than half round, the hazy moonlight shrouds the mountains and woods, with water vapor rising, vaguely blocking the distant scenery. Although the moonlight is not very bright, it can always bring a little comfort and light to the hearts of those who travel at night.

  When Yang Jiong led the troops to Kangjia Town, it was already past twelve o'clock. From time to time, someone in the team would yawn, and then the captain's rebuke came. Yang Jiong ordered the team to gather, and the atmosphere suddenly became tense and suffocating, especially for these villagers who had never fought before, with a thrilling and exciting feeling of tension.

  Yang Jie called the ten captains together, repeatedly asking about their respective tasks in the battle plan until everyone was flawless. Yang Jie, for commanding this motley crew, and Li Ying and others formulated a very detailed battle plan. In the plan, according to Yang Jie's requirements, each small team's position, task, attack and retreat route, battlefield discipline, etc. were all specified in detail. Yang Jie did not know that this battle plan would win him many excellent soldiers.