plumnovel Chapter 22 The Tragic Four Tigers
Chapter 22 The Tragic Four Tigers
The severely injured Si Huzi had lost the will to live; he insisted on not dying because he wanted to take revenge.
Upon seeing that the visitor was Lu Xingzhou, he exclaimed that Heaven had eyes and had given him a chance to avenge himself!
He raised his pistol and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Click~
The two were less than ten meters apart. Lu Xingzhou had never tried being hit in the head from this spot before, so he instinctively did a lazy roll to dodge.
After getting up, he felt that his body was not injured at all, and looked at the pistol in Si Huzi's hand with a strange look in his eyes.
It jammed?!
Seeing that he was completely unharmed, Si Huzi, who was barely breathing, was furious.
Is God playing a trick on me?!
With emotions running high like this, how could it possibly slip up?!
"Aaaaaah!! I don't care, I'm going to kill you!!!"
'Click'
"I kill you!!"
Click~
"..." Lu Xingzhou was speechless and didn't even bother to dodge.
Unable to bear watching any longer, he threw a flying knife, which struck Si Huzi precisely in the throat with a "thud," giving the poor man a quick death.
"Why use a Mauser C96 (also known as the P-13) of all guns? Don't they know that even suicide is difficult with that gun?"
Four Tigers fired three shots at him in a row, but not a single bullet was fired. It wasn't because he had a protagonist's halo, but rather it was just the usual performance of the Southern Fourteen Style.
Whether the M1911 is the best is a matter of opinion, but the Japanese Nambu XIV is undoubtedly the worst pistol.
Captain Watanabe in "Underground Traffic Station" used it to commit suicide, and all seven shots jammed. That was a true display of the protagonist's aura.
It was a false alarm. After checking and finding no one else alive, Lu Xingzhou waved to the enclosure.
"Chuanwu, come down and clean up the battlefield. Sanjiangshui, take a few men and go to the northwest to bring back Bearded Man's cavalry!"
I've never heard of cavalry attacking a city, so of course the bearded men couldn't possibly charge into the city walls on horseback.
After they were wiped out, the horses they rode on their journey became the most important spoils of war for the land-based boatmen.
"yes!"
"Yes, young master! I'll go right away!"
With the crisis averted, the wives and children of each family, who had been anxiously waiting through the night, could finally sleep peacefully.
Many of the children who hadn't experienced the Bearded Man's burning, killing, and looting still had a hint of disappointment in their eyes.
That's all the beard that makes people tremble with fear?
The gunners and strong laborers split into two groups and filed out.
Some of them followed the waters of the three rivers to a point two kilometers to the west, and brought back the horses that the bearded men had tied to the riverbank.
Another group, led by Chuanwu, handled the corpses and inventoried the supplies carried by the bandits.
Men from Northeast China who haven't seen many corpses are probably not adults. They handle the corpses without any discomfort, and are even quite cheerful about it.
They were especially overjoyed when they found a few silver dollars or a gold ring.
Hammer is young and not yet at the age where he's greedy for money.
He grabbed a corpse and boasted, "See that? I killed him! A bullet right to the heart. Tell me, wasn't my shot amazing?!"
Shuanzi, who had killed three bearded men, wouldn't tolerate them: "What could you possibly see in the dark? It must have been a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse!"
Lu Xingzhou smiled and offered his encouragement.
"Hammer has good talent, and Shuanzi isn't bad either; they'll definitely be sharpshooters in the future!"
"Hehe~~ Me, I'm nowhere near as good as my boss!"
The eighteen or nineteen-year-old Hammer was carrying a corpse in one hand and touching the back of the head with the other.
Her slightly flushed, innocent square face grinned at Lu Xingzhou, creating a rather incongruous scene.
After gathering the bearded corpses from the field into a pile, many of the farmhands' expressions became less natural and composed.
The look in Lu Xingzhou's eyes was one of admiration and respect, but even more so, fear.
No wonder the bearded man broke down and scattered after only a short time!
The bodies shot to death on the fence were alright, but the rest were probably killed by the owner.
Some had brains scattered all over the ground, others had their heads drooping eerily, and still others had large holes gouged out of their kneecaps and chest cavities, with their intestines and lungs protruding—it was a truly gruesome sight.
Who could stand this?!
The men from Northeast China, who were used to seeing corpses, felt nauseous at the sight of the bandits' gruesome state.
Chuanwu also reported to Lu Xingzhou with trepidation:
"Boss, including the bandit leader Guo Shanfeng and Si Huzi, a total of 83 bearded men were killed. We killed 14, and the rest were all killed by you alone!"
The people on the perimeter set off firecrackers, but they only killed 14 people in total.
Lu Xingzhou, who moved silently, killed 69 people all by himself!
The way people looked at him was as if he were a vengeful ghost.
It was too dark at night to see exactly how Lu Xingzhou killed the bearded man, but it was certain that he did not use a gun, which unconsciously added another layer of mystery to Lu Xingzhou.
"King of Hell" Lu Xingzhou calmly and casually gave the order: "The count is done. Cut off the bandit leader's head and keep it. Dig a pit and burn the rest of them together. Scatter the ashes into the Xiliao River to feed the fish!"
A bunch of bastards who give birth to sons without dermatitis can forget about getting a proper burial; they don't even deserve to be fertilizer.
Glug~
Lu Xingzhou's calm tone, which treated human life as worthless, sent chills down the spines of the farmhands.
The promise of being well-fed every day and eating meat every month might have made some farmhands lazy.
For a long time to come, no one will dare to outwardly comply with him but inwardly defy him.
This goal has been perfectly achieved.
With a thunderous thud, Sanjiangshui led a dozen or so men back with his horse caravan.
"Young master, three bearded men saw me leading men over from afar and ran away. I couldn't stop them."
"It's alright, let's just run."
If he doesn't run around spreading his fame, how can he possibly intimidate the bandits?
There were a total of 122 horses and 6 large carts.
It seems this group of bearded men hadn't expected to break their teeth and were prepared to eat and take as much as they wanted.
Lu Xingzhou quickly surveyed the area and found that, apart from the red horse that Guo Shanfeng was riding, which was quite well-fed and strong, the rest were ordinary Mongolian horses that could only be used for riding on the road.
It would be strange if a bunch of bearded men all rode fine horses.
A horse can eat several times more than a human.
There are fewer than 200 people in the enclosure, so there's no need to keep more than 200 horses for now. We'll have to get rid of some of them later.
Chuanwu also reported on the remaining spoils that had been counted:
"There were 66 homemade cannons of various types, 15 rifles, including 2 single-shot Mausers, 1 'Nine-Shot' rifle, 2 'Nine-Shot' rifles, 3 old-style rifles, 2 'Mauser C96' rifles, 3 'Water Bead' rifles, and 1 hook rifle. There were also three pistols in total: 2 Mauser C96 pistols and 1 Mauser C96 pistol. A total of 1653 rounds of ammunition of various types were found, along with gold and silver jewelry and silver dollars, totaling more than 500 yuan."
Lu Xingzhou looked disgusted upon hearing this.
"These poor bastards!"
Sanjiang Shui laughed, "Hehe~ Young Master! They're here to rob us, why would they carry much money on them!"
Lu Xingzhou understood now. No wonder he said that the man with the beard didn't practice with guns; it really was a gathering of weapons from all over the world!
It's one thing that there are fewer than 100 guns, including German, Russian, Japanese, and American types, but this "Malianxiang" (马连箱) is probably the local name for the Austrian Mannlicher rifle. They have all the Austrian guns, I don't know how it got in here.
With bullets of different calibers not being interchangeable, even regular armies, let alone bandits, would struggle to withstand the supply pressure.
"Sell all the homemade guns, and distribute the various types of guns and bullets among the families, ensuring that each family has at least one gun for self-defense."
The vast black soil region isn't only threatened by beards; it's common for lynxes and Siberian leopards to roam around. Its manpower is far more valuable than a few old rifles.
After collecting the bodies and supplies, Lu Xingzhou suddenly remembered:
"Huh? Where's my prisoner?"
Shuanzi, who looked honest but was unusually bold, replied:
"Boss, it's right here!"
Looking at the bearded prisoner, whose nose was running from the cold and who was blinded by snot, Lu Xingzhou was certain that he was fully capable of leading the way, and made arrangements:
"Let everyone go back and get some sleep. At dawn, we'll go to the bandits' den and make a fortune!"
Since Guoshanfeng and Sihuzi have both perished here, Dayanggou Gangzi has no value anymore, so let's just eliminate them completely.
Compared to the meager earnings that the man with the beard carried around, this was the real money-maker.
The farmhands, whose morale was high, suddenly burst into howls and wailing:
"Oh~ Hoho!"
"Playing the bandit gang, making a fortune!"
"I'm going to kill a few more brats!"
After a while of commotion, arrangements were made for people to keep watch and guard the prisoners, and everyone went to sleep in their rooms.