Chapter 215 214【Escort】
More than 170 bandits were tied up in the open space outside the village. There were more than a dozen corpses, including the bandit leader Zhang Mingjiu, who were dragged and laid out. Zhou Hexuan didn't feel anything when he killed someone, but now he couldn't bear to see the corpses.
They are all Chinese, so why kill each other?
The villagers who had won a great victory did not have much joy, and they hugged their dead or injured relatives and cried.
Zhou Hexuan walked over and asked, "How about the casualties?"
Huang Ziming sighed, "21 of us died, 6 were seriously injured, and nearly 100 were slightly injured."
Although the villagers stood guard against the wall, and their number was more than three times that of the bandits, the death toll was more than that of the bandits. Whether it is a red-tasseled spear, a hoe, or a shoulder pole, people are often injured without dying, but the bandit's rifle can kill with one blow.
"What are your plans in the future?" Zhou Hexuan asked.
"When the Red Gun Society was established, it originally wanted to fight against the government," Huang Ziming said. "Now that the government is gone, there are more and more bandits. There is still a group of bandits in the northeast, with a number of more than 2,000. Although they don't have muskets, they We still have to be careful. As for the captured bandits, they can only be sent to Tai'an Road, where the provincial capital of the Nationalist Government is located."
"I also learned about it a few days ago," Zhou Hexuan squatted down and drew a simple map, pointing and saying, "This is Jinan, and the surrounding counties such as Huaiyin, Changqing, Qihe, Licheng, Jiyang, Zouping, Zhangqiu, etc. , and now there are no military leaders. These places are nominally under the jurisdiction of the Nanjing government, but the county magistrates are appointed by Beiyang. Now there is a famine, and there are a lot of refugees. It is easy to cause continuous banditry.”
Huang Ziming said: "I have no choice. The Red Spear Club organized by Brother Ma and I has less than a thousand people. We only care about the villages and towns near Zhangqiu, and we can't manage it any farther away."
Zhou Hexuan said: "I just asked the captured bandits. They captured Qidong County two days ago. However, due to lack of manpower, they did not dare to defend the county seat. They set up their nest in a village on the outskirts of the county. There are still A lot of meat tickets are kidnapped children of rich merchants in Qidong County, and there are only more than 20 people left to guard them. Hurry up and take people to capture the village and rescue those meat tickets. good luck."
"Okay, I'll take someone there right away." Huang Ziming said immediately.
Zhou Hexuan suddenly smiled and said, "Brother Huang, do you want to be a handsome man?"
Huang Ziming was startled when he heard the words, then shook his head and said, "I don't have that ability, I'd better stop wishful thinking."
"Listen to you, you are a sensible person who has read books, at least stronger than Zhang Zongchang, the devil king of the world," Zhou Hexuan analyzed, "Until the Nanjing government and the Japanese negotiate a solution to the Jinan incident, the Northern Expeditionary Army dare not send troops to the surrounding area. County towns. For at least half a year, these places will fall into anarchy and need a strong force to maintain order. I think you are a good candidate."
Huang Ziming was a little moved, but he was not blinded by ambition and lost his mind. He said: "I don't have enough manpower. If I want to expand my army, I need money and food. But I don't want to rob, whether it's robbing big households or robbing people. I can't do that kind of thing."
Historically, Zhang Mingjiu took advantage of this chaos to grow from more than a dozen defeated soldiers to 200 bandits. After capturing several county towns in succession, his reputation rose to prominence, and nearby bandit gangs competed to vote, growing to 2,000 in less than half a year. In order to raise soldiers, he robbed and kidnapped in various ways, and even directly ransacked the homes of the rich gentry. In the end, he got hundreds of guns and became a tyrant around Jinan, and was recruited by Sun Dianying as brigade commander.
"I feel more at ease if you can say such a thing," Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "so I asked you to save the meat ticket and make good friends with the wealthy gentry. These rich businessmen and landlords, they also I hope to have a reliable military leader, so as not to suffer from banditry again. You go to Haosheng to make contact, and I will help you get a certificate of forming a security regiment from the provincial chairman Sun Liangcheng, and then the wealthy gentry in each county will pay for the soldiers."
The security regiment was a legal local armed force in the early years of the Republic of China, equivalent to a derivative of the Baojia system, and somewhat similar to the regiment training troops in the late Qing Dynasty.
Huang Ziming said happily: "If this can really happen, it will be good. If I have a security team, I will kill all the bandits in the surrounding counties!"
Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "It will be half a year or a year before the Northern Expeditionary Army finds time to come back and occupy Jinan City. By then, your security team should have a certain size. It is up to you to choose whether to disarm and return to the fields to disband the troops, or to accept the regular army. "
"It's better to be a regular army." Huang Ziming said happily. His family used to be rich peasants and small landlords. They had studied in private schools and elementary schools, and they also had vision and pursuit.
Zhou Hexuan said: "Then it's settled. After lunch, you take people to the outskirts of Qidong County to rescue the meat tickets, and then give me some people to escort these bandits to the provincial capital."
The villagers in Caozhuang were already burying pots and cooking. The victims were claimed by their relatives, and the wounded were sent to the county town to find a doctor for treatment.
As for the injured bandits, I can only say sorry. Nowadays, there is a shortage of supplies, but humanitarianism is ignored. If you can survive the fortune-telling, if you can't survive, you deserve it.
After lunch, leave immediately.
Huang Ziming took more than 200 members of the Red Gun Club to the suburbs of Qidong County to rescue people and kill bandits. Zhou Hexuan took 50 people and escorted more than 100 bandits to Tai'an. They each divided half of the rifles captured in that battle just now.
By the time we arrived in Tai'an, it was already the next morning, and this was the result of the overnight journey. On the way, two bandits were seriously injured and died. Zhou Hexuan asked people to dig a pit and bury them. It was considered the utmost charity not to let their corpses lie in the wilderness.
Tai'an City was guarded by a regiment of the Northern Expeditionary Army. Seeing Zhou Hexuan coming with more than 200 people (including members of the Red Gun), he immediately became vigilant and even set up machine guns.
"Who is it?" The city defense soldiers shouted.
Zhou Hexuan stopped the crowd, and walked to the gate of the city and said, "I am Zhou Hexuan from the Tianjin Jimin Association. I came to Shandong to provide disaster relief. I encountered bandits on the way. Fortunately, there were local red guns to help. There were more than 100 bandit prisoners behind me. Please come and receive it from Tai'an's chief!"
Soon a young officer came out with a heroic appearance. He saluted Zhou Hexuan and said, "Hello, Mr. Zhou. I am Zhao Yunxiang, the head of the Special Task Force of the First Front Army of the Second Army of the National Revolutionary Army. I am in charge of stationing in Tai'an!"
"Hi, Head Zhao," Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "I want to see Chairman Sun, is he free?"
"I can inform you." Zhao Yunxiang had obviously heard of Zhou Hexuan and knew that he was a famous scholar.
Zhao Yunxiang is very young, just turned 23 years old. He was born in a poor peasant family, and his grandfather was a martial arts examiner during the Guangxu period. With his background, he became the head of the colonel at a young age, and it was only possible in the war years, and he was killed step by step from the small soldiers.
At this time, Sun Liangcheng, the chairman of Shandong Province, and Zhao Yunxiang, the head of the spy group in front of him, were both old subordinates of Feng Yuxiang. They are now relatively progressive soldiers, but unfortunately they became puppet soldiers during the Anti-Japanese War, but during the War of Liberation, they revolted and joined our party.