Chapter 14: Cunningly Taking by Force

  Newcomers find it hard to mix in, I hope everyone will recommend and collect more. The East will ensure that the update is guaranteed, and the book will not be too supervised.

  Witnessing the explosions in front of him, Yang Xing couldn't help but feel a deep sense of emotion.

  In history, there may be such and such debates about the firepower of the Liberation War G army. When Yang Xing was young, he also heard some jokes: it's not that the National Army is incompetent, but rather the G army's firepower is too strong.

  But in various public materials, the weapon that G army is best at is undoubtedly hand grenades. We have seen too many textbooks, whether it's Fei Du's bridge seizure, Dong Cunrui's bunker explosion, or Huang Jiguang's blocking of the enemy's eyes, and there are too many records of reasonable use of hand grenades in the 74 Xisha Sea Battle.

  From the current situation, in the absence of artillery support, when it comes to close combat, hand grenades are undoubtedly a powerful weapon.

  This is also a tactic that Yang Xing has been training for the past few days, which is to use grenades and other weapons to blast away enemies hiding in fortifications when approaching them, thereby suppressing their firepower and eliminating their will and courage to engage in close combat.

  Seeing more than 50 bandits in a state of panic and disarray, with their morale plummeting to an all-time low, fleeing in disarray after being hit by consecutive grenade attacks from the government troops, Yang Xing knew that victory was within sight and immediately ordered a full-force charge.

  The bandits saw this desperate fight, and when they saw the government troops opening a path with hand grenades, like raindrops flying in front of their eyes, making bursts of explosive sounds, and then saw the government troops advancing forward along the blasted road, although there were still one or two who wanted to resist stubbornly, most of them fled backward.

  The artillery regiment quickly occupied the mountain pass and rushed towards the Gathering Hall.

  But what was strange was that when they approached the gathering hall, the panicked bandits suddenly turned around and ran back.

  Through the telescope, it turned out that Zhang Aiwu, who was responsible for the sneak attack, had already arrived at the small road. At the same time when the main force of the artillery company was fighting against the bandits at the mountain pass, they quickly occupied the Hall of Righteousness, taking advantage of the emptiness of the bandits' rear. Now they are pointing their guns outward, intercepting the bandits who are fleeing to the Hall of Righteousness.

  Seeing their old nest being destroyed, the bandits were even more flustered and fled in all directions, some running forward and others backward.

  Yang Xing saw that the overall situation had been decided, and he ordered one platoon to attack from the front, while the other two platoons outflanked from both sides, in order to surround and annihilate all the bandits.

  In less than 30 minutes, the encirclement was formed. Under the threat of the shining bayonets of the artillery soldiers, they were forced to surrender without a fight. More than 20 bandits were captured, and the rest were killed or wounded.

  Looking back at the artillery company, since it was an ambush, only 3 comrades died in battle and more than 10 comrades were injured. This is undoubtedly a thorough and complete victory.

  Yang Xing arrived at the gathering hall, surrounded by several class leaders, and saw that the room was in disarray. It turned out that during the artillery company's attack, the bandits had recklessly celebrated their successful looting of the previous night.

  After hearing the disturbance at the narrow pass, although dozens of bandits came to reinforce, they were unable to exert much strength due to a night of turmoil and half a day of drinking, normally able to use 10% of their strength, this time only able to use 1%.

  With the addition of official military tactics, it was possible to quickly eliminate Wang Daban, a notorious bandit.

  Yang Xing was just about to interrogate Wang Da, asking him about the stolen treasure, when a soldier rushed in and found dozens of girls inside the room. Upon inquiry, it turned out that they were kidnapped by bandits.

  Yang Xing was overjoyed to think that he had been robbed by bandits and made a zhailang's wife, so he personally interrogated Wang Dabao and his four family members, while also ordering someone to interrogate the several women, saying that whoever had merit would be spared by the army.

  Wang Danna looked like a cultured and refined person, with the appearance of a scholar, walking on the main road, it's hard to associate him with being a bandit leader. As a bandit leader, after being captured, he naturally knew it would be difficult to avoid legal punishment.

  Watching Yang Xing being interrogated, he was as stubborn as a dead pig not fearing boiling water, and didn't utter a single word. Yang Xing had people use torture on him repeatedly, but they couldn't get a single sentence out of him.

  Yang Xing was furious, and just then Yang Da Niu rushed over and whispered a few words in Yang Xing's ear. It turned out that Wang Da had revealed the location of his treasure to someone else, on the condition that he would be released and given 100 taels as a reward.

  Yang Xing was overjoyed and immediately brought this woman back. She was in her early twenties, dressed extremely seductively, and at a glance, it was clear that she came from a brothel.

  Looking at Yang Xing, so young and vigorous, he actually still wants to take advantage of the situation.

  He furrowed his brow but still held back, and after inquiring further, he agreed to her terms. He immediately led the way to the cave where Wang Da hid the treasure, which left everyone astonished.

  After a thorough search, it was found that there were more than 50 gold bars and over 1 million taels of white silver in the treasure cave, not to mention countless other precious jewels.

  Yang Xing was overjoyed and couldn't believe that Jin Tang was so wealthy. Wang Da Nao had accumulated such a large amount of property during his years as a bandit.

  However, upon closer consideration, the problem becomes very clear. Sichuan has always been a heavenly kingdom, and the Chengdu Plain is the most prosperous place in Sichuan. The local people are quite wealthy, and after the late Qing and early Republic of China periods, when the world had just experienced turmoil, some wealthy families accumulated too much wealth over several years.

  Immediately report the victory to Tao Zechun and Yin Changheng, and ask for instructions on how to dispose of the large amount of assets. At the same time, station the artillery company at Yanshanzhai to thoroughly eliminate the remaining bandits, and summarize the experience and lessons learned from this battle.

  But without a doubt, the news of the annihilation of the bandit king Wang Dagna by the artillery spread quickly. The county magistrate of Jintang County, Liu Xiantao, and the owner of Luojiazhuang Village, Luo Yuan, among other local gentry, immediately rushed to Yanshan Stronghold in groups to pay their respects.

  This made Yang Xing quite surprised, and Liu Er Gou spoke up: "Commander, it's better not to see them. In my opinion, they probably know that we seized a large sum of money from Wang Da Nao and want to come and divide the spoils."

  Yang Xing laughed and said: Deputy Commander Liu, didn't we plan to give them a portion? Why not see it, this is even more revealing that we have ghosts in our hearts.

  He immediately brought several rows of people to Jin Yutang to meet County Chief Liu and a group of wealthy officials.

  As expected, after Yang Xing's military campaign was like a god and annihilated the bandit leader Wang Dagna in just one day, County Magistrate Liu suggested that since Wang Dagna was a local bandit leader, he should be interrogated locally.

  Yang Xing laughed and said: County Magistrate Liu, your heart for the country and the people is commendable. I represent all the soldiers of our artillery unit in expressing gratitude to you. However, during the process of suppressing the bandits, Wang Dagna and his three sworn brothers escaped. Now, I am dispatching troops to search for their whereabouts. If we find Wang Dagna and others, I will definitely report it to Your Honor and the local gentry.

  Luo Yuan stood up, his face full of gratitude: "Commander Yang, thank you very much for eliminating Wang Dagnai, this bandit leader. You also know that two days ago, Wang Dagnai robbed my Luo Family Village and looted all our family's wealth. Commander Yang is a fair and just official, he will surely do justice for me."

  The people around, who had also been robbed by bandits, all knelt down and cried out the year and month they were robbed by Wang Da's gang, and how much money was stolen.

  Yang Xing furrowed his brow, just as he was wondering how to respond, when the messenger who had been sent to report their victory to Commander-in-Chief Tao Zejun and General Yin Changheng suddenly rushed back. Yang Xing hastily opened the envelope and saw on the rice paper that Tao Zejun had written a single line of words: "Agree with your allocation plan, declare to the local government, surrender 2 gold bars, 10,000 taels of silver, all allocated to Jindong County."

  He smiled and said: Gentlemen, let's do it this way. We will definitely go all out to catch Wang Dagnan and retrieve your treasures with all our might.

  County Magistrate Liu was overjoyed when he heard the news. Wang Dabao, after all, was the leader of a gang that had robbed tens of thousands of taels of silver and treasure, and if he were to be captured, not only would it greatly benefit his own career, but also, more importantly, the hundreds of thousands of taels of treasure could be divided among the county of Jintang.

  Yang Xing, although the commander of the artillery regiment, was a trusted aide to General Yin Changhe, but he was still young and decided to gather troops from all directions to search the mountains and capture Wang Dahan and his accomplices in order to recover the treasure.

  After seeing off a group of local gentry from Jindong County, Liu Ergou's face showed a worried expression and he said: "Lian Zhang, it seems that Jindong County wants to swallow up these treasures."

  Yang Xing nodded and said: "Yes, we Chinese people rarely show up when doing things. But when it comes to taking credit, one person runs faster than the other."

  The next day, while patrolling the mountain, Wang Dagnai and his four trusted followers were forced to jump off a cliff in full view of everyone, burying themselves at the bottom of the valley.

  Yang Xing then brought the remaining bandits to trial, and finally found where they had hidden their treasure. When he opened it up and looked inside, there were two gold bars and 12,000 taels of silver.

  Seeing only this wealth, Luo Yuanda, the owner of Luo's Village, was very dissatisfied. To know that just two days ago, his family had been robbed of tens of thousands of taels of silver.

  When chasing after Wang Da's treasure, it turned out to be just a small change from his household.

  However, now that all the clues are gone, Wang Dagnai and other leaders jumped off a cliff and died in front of everyone. Most of the bandits on the mountain were either shot or exiled, so who can say how much wealth Wang Dagnai really had?

  Under Luo Yuan's strong demand, Yang Xing organized local villagers to search the mountain for 3 days, but Wang Danna's huge wealth was still nowhere to be found. With military orders in hand, Yang Xing summoned County Magistrate Liu Xiantao and other officials to discuss a plan for distributing Wang Danna's vast fortune.

  Everyone heard about the division of money, and one by one they rushed to speak out loud that Wang Dagnie had robbed them of so much, if calculated according to the amount reported by each rural squire, Wang Dagnie had robbed 200,000 taels of white silver.

  Seeing everyone arguing with red faces, Yang Xing laughed and said: "Everyone is a local gentry, many of whom have read the classics in the past. How can you speak so unreliably? Wang Dagna may be hateful, but in a small Jin Tang County, how could he rob such a huge amount of wealth?"

  Luoyuan's face turned bright red as he said: "Commander Lian, I don't know about others, but my Lu family was robbed of this much."

  Yang Xing laughed and said: "Everyone, you see if this is okay. My brother and I have military duties to attend to, we can't stay here with everyone. As for Wang Dabao's property, do you think it's okay to distribute it like this? You should know that in other places where bandits were suppressed, the bandit's property was directly confiscated as military pay, but only our Sichuan army is a righteous and benevolent army, so we share the wealth with everyone."

  Luo Yuan's expression eased a bit, and after a long while, he said: Commander Lian, to be honest, you people are more fair than other armies.

  Overjoyed on the surface, he immediately threw out his own wealth management plan, that is, 2,000 taels of silver as military expenses for the artillery company to clear the bandits, and handed it over to the model regiment. 1,000 taels of silver as labor costs for the fellow villagers who searched the mountains for a day, were personally distributed by the artillery company to each villager. Another 9,000 taels of white silver and 2 gold bars were allocated by Jindong County to the robbed wealthy families and ordinary people.

  As for this allocation plan, the most just thing is how the gentry of Jintang County allocate these 9,000 taels. Yang Xing knew that this was absolutely a thankless task and immediately returned it to County Magistrate Liu Xiantao.

  As a result, apart from those wealthy families who were robbed and dissatisfied, everyone else was relatively satisfied.

  Newcomers find it hard to mix in, I hope everyone will recommend and collect more. The East will ensure updates and guarantee that the book is not too supervised.