Wandering the Heavens

Chapter 310: Sword 13

"Shut up, everyone!" Xie Baoqing saw that these brothers were talking more and more outrageous and quickly shouted at them.

"Brother, we are facing a powerful enemy. You still have to come up with an idea to reassure our brothers! It's unrealistic to wait for the Eighth Route Army to withdraw on their own. Why don't you send someone to ask them?" The Sixth In Command also disagreed with sending gifts.

Why would you make friends with the Eighth Route Army? They may not look down on you, the bandits.

"Who will go?" Xie Baoqing asked the leaders present.

Everybody looked at each other and shook their heads. Everyone knew they had to go over and ask about the conditions, but no one had the courage. Normally, they were so majestic and imposing when pointing guns at ordinary people, but now, facing the Eighth Route Army, they were so cowardly that they dared not step out.

While they were wasting time, Yu Xian, led by a guide, went around the back mountain and came to a cliff with sparse bushes.

"Comrade, this is the back mountain. The Black Cloud Village is behind it." The guide said, pointing at the cliff in front of him, holding a pipe in his hand.

Yu Xian observed the entire cliff, and after checking the compass to determine the location, he asked the soldiers and guides to wait there. He took out the hemp rope that he had prepared long ago and tied it around his waist, put his gun on his back, took the bayonet and climbed up, following the bushes and the place dug out by the bayonet.

The cliff was more than 20 meters high. Yu Xian climbed up while digging a place to step on. It took him almost an hour to reach the top of the cliff. After observing the surroundings, he untied the hemp rope around his waist and tied it around a thick tree trunk. After he was done, he pulled the rope three times, signaling the soldiers and guides that they could come up.

After another twenty minutes, everyone came up, and after counting the number of people and equipment, everyone continued to set off. After climbing this cliff, the rest of the road was much easier, no matter how steep it was, but you had to be careful of the bandits' sentries.

I don’t know how long we walked, but finally at dusk when the sun began to shine golden, we reached the top of the mountain and saw the Black Cloud Village in the valley.

It is summer now, and once the sunlight becomes soft, it will not be long before dark, so we must buy time. Yu Xian took out a small mirror, calculated the angle, and reflected the sunset to the command position of the large army.

"Chief of Staff, there is a situation on the top of the mountain!" The soldier whose eyes were hit by the reflected light hurriedly reported to Zhang Dabiao.

Zhang Dabiao, who was resting with his eyes closed, stood up, picked up the telescope and looked at the top of the mountain. After confirming that Yu Xian was ready, he ordered the second battalion and the first company to launch a feint attack to create noise to attract the attention of the bandits.

"Everyone, attack!"

Zhang Dabiao put down his binoculars, took off his hat, picked up a Type 38 rifle, aimed at the village gate and fired. The sound of gunfire broke the tranquility of the valley. The soldiers of the first company remembered Yu Xian's words and after entering the battlefield, they looked for the bandits' heavy firepower and hidden targets. Now that they had received the order to shoot, they all aimed at the targets they had long selected.

The village was thrown into chaos. Xie Baoqing and a group of bandit leaders rushed out of the hall built of thatched huts and ran towards the village gate.

"It's now."

Yu Xian ordered the soldiers, who were ready to fight, to grab the ropes and go down from the top of the cliff to occupy the shooting position set up by the bandits on the mountainside, which could monitor and control the two-kilometer battlefield. Regardless of the risk of getting their palms rubbed by the hemp ropes and getting injured, they went down the cliff as fast as possible.

There were five bandits at this highest observation and shooting position, and they were all nervously watching the exchange of fire at the village gate.

"Brother Zhuzi, didn't the Eighth Route Army charge and fight with bayonets because they had no bullets? How come after fighting for a few minutes, they only fired a few dozen shots and didn't charge forward?" A bandit looked at the battlefield in confusion.

"They just broke out, and they need the strength to charge back!" The bandit leader in charge of this point was very confident in his judgment.

"Brother Zhuzi is right!" Several bandits spoke in flattery.

"The leaders are the same. The Eighth Route Army has come to our doorstep, but you are acting like turtles and letting us brothers watch this useless place. There are those large and small cliffs in the back mountain. Only someone with wings can fly up. If we were asked to guard the gate of the village, we would have rushed up with machine guns long ago. So what if they are the Eighth Route Army? We are the ones who call the shots in this area within a radius of dozens of miles! "The bandit leader said complacently as he looked at the battlefield.

But these were the last words he said in his life. Yu Xian and several soldiers came over under the cover of rocks and bushes. While he was looking ahead and pointing at the mountains and rivers, Yu Xian and the soldiers jumped up from all directions, covered the five men and stabbed them to death, successfully seizing the shooting position.

After killing the bandits, the soldiers dragged the bodies out of the position and began to check the equipment. The bandits had equipped this point with a machine gun and two hundred machine gun bullets.

"Machine gun team, use this machine gun to shoot the bandits and bandit leaders guarding the village gate. The rest of you will snipe the bandits' heavy firepower and the more hidden shooting positions in the front." Yu Xian said as he pulled out his pistol, loaded a flare into the chamber, and shot it into the air.

Seeing the signal flare rising from the back of the mountain stronghold, Zhang Dabiao's old habit came back and he grabbed a Czech light machine gun and rushed forward. Xie Baoqing and other bandit leaders didn't know what was happening when they heard gunshots behind them. After that, they didn't know what happened because their lives were in darkness...

The battle was over in less than ten minutes. Among the more than one hundred bandits in Heiyun Village, more than thirty were killed on the spot, including the leader Xie Baoqing. The second in command Shanmaozi was a smart man. He pretended to be a corpse and avoided the machine gun fire.

However, Yu Xian was not worried that he would be alive, because he would be handed over to the border government for public trial, and he would not be able to escape execution for what he had done in the past.

While the soldiers were escorting prisoners and cleaning up the battlefield, Zhang Dabiao was arguing with Yu Xian, because he felt that since Yu Xian had such a large territory, the Second Battalion should take more of the spoils.

"Yu Xian, how about I exchange the Second Battalion's base with you?" Zhang Dabiao was somewhat tempted when he saw the camp.

"Chief of Staff, it's too late for you to change now." Yu Xian knew he was joking.

"You are a shrewd boy. I'm afraid you have been eyeing this land from the very beginning." Zhang Dabiao said meaningfully.

"Chief of Staff, what you said is right. I just saw this place on the captured map and was attracted by it. It's not a big deal." Yu Xian was very humble at this time.

There is nothing that can be done about it. Zhang Dabiao is the chief of staff and was also his former battalion commander. If he acts too cocky, he will be punished.

"Brother, you said it's such a good place, and it won't take much effort to defend it. How about I take more of the spoils this time?" Zhang Dabiao put his arm around Yu Xian's shoulders and said enthusiastically.

"Chief of Staff, I don't want these captured items anymore. How about you take them all?"

Yu Xian broke free calmly. Everyone who hangs out with Li Yunlong is of the same character. If the leader likes something, the subordinates will follow suit.

"Really? You are not kidding me, your brother!" Zhang Dabiao asked seriously.

"You are kidding me! Chief of Staff, we have given you all the prisoners, and you still want more captured spoils. Of course, you are my old superior, and I have to agree to it since you asked. But I have to lead the troops! You don't want the soldiers in this company to say that I, the company commander, am a coward who even had the captured spoils taken away..." Yu Xian bargained seriously.

"What you said is very serious. In any case, I have to take at least 20% of the spoils. You only have more than 60 people now, and I have more than 200 people. Weapons and equipment are seriously insufficient. You don't want them to fight the Japanese with only fire pokers, do you?" Zhang Dabiao said this in a pitiful way.

He knew Yu Xian's character. When he and his regiment commander Li Yunlong were on the battlefield, they were always hot-headed and liked to charge forward, considering weapons and equipment more important than their lives. Yu Xian was the opposite. In his words, if you lost your weapons, you could get them back, but if you lost your life, you would lose it. So he was very cowardly in the battle, and Li Yunlong felt sorry for the bullets and grenades he used.

"Chief of Staff, just let your Second Battalion fight the devils! Not only are the devils watching my place, we also need weapons!"

Yu Xian also started to complain. Everyone knows how to play the emotional card.

Zhang Dabiao didn't expect Yu Xian to return his words to him. This place is indeed easy to defend but difficult to attack. In the past, everyone was too lazy to care because Xie Baoqing's price was not enough. Now that the Eighth Route Army has taken over, the Japs, the Central Army and the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army will be very upset. It is certain that they will cause trouble every other day.

However, Zhang Dabiao could not back down, because he was really short of weapons, and he would feel bad if he didn't get more here. The two men bargained in front of the soldiers for almost an hour, and they took away 10% more of the captured goods.

After the deal was done, both parties were happy and lived happily ever after.

Despite this, Zhang Dabiao was still unhappy because Yu Xian said something directly after distributing the spoils.

"Chief of Staff, it's getting late. I won't keep the comrades from the Second Battalion for dinner!"