Indiana Jones

Chapter 542 The Ups and Downs of Troubled Times (07)

Originally they wanted to have a good ride, but they ran into a situation before they ran far. They heard gunshots, so they immediately gathered up the reins to look for the source of the sound. It didn't take long for them to find the situation on the other side of the hillside. A few men who looked like bandits were beating a woman with a tree, and beside them were a few shivering women with ropes tied to their bodies. Although they couldn't say how pretty they were, it was obvious that all of them were pretty. young.

The bandit with the vertical bar was still cursing, it seemed that the beaten woman was caught trying to escape.

The bandits nearby looked lazily, and one of them smoked a cigarette and said, "Don't fight, it will waste your time, and you won't be able to go back to the village no matter how dark the ink is."

"Stinky bitch, you bitch, you can't beat me if you run away, and I'll break your leg." The bandit pumped hard again a few times.

"Okay, just be careful, go back and smoke and drink."

"Why are you so anxious, these women can't possibly belong to our brothers." Another bandit said, "Aren't you the head of the family?"

"The big creditors are all small, and all of our brothers are still naked." A bandit complained, "They only care about their own romance and happiness, and they don't think about their brothers."

"It's not easy to be able to eat enough food these days, do you still have time to think about other things?" The smoking bandit stood up, "Hurry up and go! Don't fuck off when you meet Lao Fengshan's colleagues."

"It's seventy or eighty miles away, can they come here?" Another bandit said disdainfully.

The smoker snorted: "Then I don't want to waste my time here, it's better to go back to sleep than wandering in this forest."

Si Xuanyi and the others roughly figured out the ins and outs. These women were snatched to honor the leaders above. In fact, in this era of war and chaos, such things are everywhere, and it can even be said to be commonplace, especially in this place where bandits are rampant. Robbery of women from good families happens from time to time. As ordinary people who have difficulty in self-protection, they are powerless to resist.

Si Xuanyi looked at the bandits and said coldly, "Get rid of them."

Although this happened every day, he would never tolerate such a thing happening in front of his eyes.

"Just waiting for your words..." Li Siming pulled out a short gun from his horseback, checked it, and called Fang Yuanshan to go with him to occupy the commanding heights, and the others also prepared their own weapons to outflank the bandits.

Si Xuanyi and the woodcutter made a detour to the side and used the cover of the trees to push forward. Several bandits were driving several women on the ground to stand up and walked towards them.

"Boom..." Li Siming opened fire first, and the last bandit in the team was shot in the back of the head, and Tianling Gai was directly thrown away. The bandits in front seemed to have gone through a big battle, and they shrank subconsciously almost instantly. He threw his neck at the tree closest to him, but before he reached the place, there was another continuous gunshot. Several people who surrounded him opened fire at the same time, three or four bandits were killed, and the rest found that something was wrong. Seemingly running into the woods, Si Xuanyi and the others fired a few more shots and killed two more. Only then did they understand what was left, and immediately dropped their guns and knelt on the ground and shouted to surrender.

"It's not bloody at all, so I just surrendered..." Fang Yuanshan was speechless. He thought he would experience a very fierce battle, but he didn't expect it to end so soon.

Several women were scared and shivered on the ground, Si Xuanyi shook his head: "Don't worry, we are here to save you."

But the woman still didn't respond but sobbed softly.

"Which village are you from? We'll send you back." Si Xuanyi asked again.

Still no one responded to him, Si Xuanyi shook his head and went to deal with those bandits first.

"Which hill are you from?" Li Siming had already started the interrogation.

"Master Hui, we are from Black Eagle Village." A bandit said obediently.

"Crack..." Li Siming lashed out with a whip, "Should I just answer a question if I ask it?"

"Yes yes yes..." The bandit was so frightened that he continued in fear and fear, "Our village is just five miles away at the top of the west mountain. The leader of the first village is Wu Tianlong, the leader of the second village is Wu Tianhu, the leader of the third village is He Yunfeng... "

"Crack..." Li Siming whipped the whip again, "Choose the key point."

"..." The bandit was stunned by his beating, and he didn't know what he wanted to know, so he refused to speak.

In fact, Li Siming's purpose was to make him confused. The bandit was not sure what he knew, so he didn't dare to talk nonsense to him.

"I heard that you have robbed all ten miles and eight villages?" Li Siming began to ask some very marginal questions.

"No..." The bandit opened his mouth, but finally swallowed the words again.

"You bastards are too disrespectful. What are you doing with so many women? What else can you do besides bullying the common people? If you have the ability to fight the devils..." Li Siming whipped him again, "This is a woman in Where did you get it?"

"Wangjiazhuang..." the bandit said enduring the severe pain of being whipped, "I wanted to do a big business, but I didn't grab anything. The big boss was angry, so he picked a few women and asked us to bring them back. He Take the remaining brothers and continue to find a place to do business."

"You bandits, you are not wronged to be shot eight times." Li Siming scolded angrily.

"Grandpa, please spare me, the little one is also eating for nothing, and those who are in turmoil these days are also forced to do nothing, if they don't grab something to eat, they will starve to death!" The bandit begged for mercy with snot and tears.

Li Siming sneered: "Then you can't live by bullying others, killing people and stealing goods."

"I just fell into the grass and didn't do anything bad for a few days... I was just a handyman... I was wronged! Grandpa, please forgive me..." The bandits kowtowed like garlic.

"He's been a bandit for a long time." A woman suddenly said from behind, "I just went to our village and robbed it several times. I remember him. He was the one who took away the cow from Uncle Wang's house in the east of the village. He was kicked and broke two ribs."

"Don't listen to the girl's nonsense, he must have admitted the wrong person. I just started this job, less than three months." The bandit quickly argued.

"Things that deserve to die..." Li Siming kicked him in the face, and then fired several shots, killing all the bandits.

"How far is your village from here?" Si Xuanyi asked the women.

"It should be less than thirty miles." One of the women said timidly.

"Then let's go, I'll take you back home." Si Xuanyi said.

"Can you take us to Xihe County? We're not going back to the village," said one of the women.

"Why?" Si Xuanyi felt strange.

"The people in the village are not men... They were given to the bandits to protect themselves." Another woman said angrily.

"There is such a thing?" Si Xuanyi didn't quite believe it.

"We are not locals, we escaped from a difficult situation. Although we have lived in their village for a year or two, they still treat us as outsiders." A woman said, "Unless we and our family are pushed away as protection money when we come here." Gave it to the bandits..."

Si Xuanyi really didn't know what to say. They thought that such a thing would happen. It seemed that xenophobic things happened everywhere, and people would do anything to protect themselves.

"What about your family?" Li Siming asked.

"Those who were killed were killed, and those who were arrested were arrested... We can go to Xihe County and wait. As long as we don't get ruined by these bandits, we can hope to meet our family again if we can survive, and return to the village... maybe we will be arrested again." Bring it back." A woman said with despair, "But no one knows whether I will survive to meet my family..."

"What's wrong with the world..." The woodcutter sighed.

"Okay..." Si Xuanyi nodded after thinking for a long time, "Xihe County is 35 miles away from here, we can take you there."

"I'm afraid I won't be there tonight..." Li Siming said.

"Bring the horses of those bandits over and let them ride them. One horse should be enough for two people." Si Xuanyi said, "Go as far as you can, it doesn't matter where you go."

There are indeed enough horses, but few of these women can ride horses, and some people will fall off the horses if they are faster, so they can't pick up the speed at all. In desperation, they can only slow down and catch up when it gets dark Come out halfway.

They found a sheltered place to camp, and several women hid together and stayed far away from them, not daring to approach them.

Si Xuanyi just lit them up and left some food for them and didn't bother them anymore. He knew very well that these women couldn't feel safe in front of them.

"There are bandits everywhere here, we have to be careful, half of the people sleep at night, and half of them keep watch." Si Xuanyi said.

"Oh, when will we be able to live a quiet life, when will we not have to worry about going out without being robbed?" Fang Yuanshan said while eating.

"It will be a peaceful and prosperous world. I guess I won't be able to survive at this age. You still have hope." The woodcutter said.

"It's easy to drive the little devil away, and the rest is the Chinese people's own business, which is easy to handle." Si Xuanyi said, "As long as it can calm down, it's fine if there is no war."

"I hope this day will come sooner, so that we can have a peaceful life," said the woodcutter.

"It's not easy for me..." Li Siming was not as optimistic as others at that time, "It's been more than 100 years since the Opium War, and it hasn't stopped. This peaceful life is probably far away. I hope our future generations don't have to live in chaos. day."

Si Xuanyi nodded: "That's right, the Republic of China hasn't really subsided until now, and we can only think about future generations."

"Stop talking nonsense, none of us have a wife." Fang Yuanshan said, "But the old man should have a grandson, right?"

The woodcutter didn't speak, but shook his head. He was eating his own food. It could be seen that he didn't want to continue this topic, and it seemed to touch on something sad about him.

"Go to sleep when you're full..." Si Xuanyi pushed Fang Yuanshan who wanted to continue asking.

They don't know anything about the woodcutter's past, but some have heard of it, but they can't confirm whether it's true or not. It seems that this old man has an unbearable past. In order to protect his family, he went out alone, as if to take away all the troubles , As for what exactly happened, no one knew, and he never said anything.

"There are more than a dozen groups of bandits who occupy the mountains and are kings around here. Wu Tianlong's group can be ranked in the top three. It has a lot of power and a relatively large range of control." Li Siming quickly changed the subject, "It is also the most vicious group. There are hundreds of people under him, and they are notorious in ten miles and eight villages."

"You know a lot..." Fang Yuanshan said.

"Who is as careless as you, we should learn more about the situation on the way we are going." Li Siming said, "This is the intelligence information I asked the local military command. Although it is not detailed enough, it is better than nothing."

"Now that these bandits are left alone, it's time to live freely. In the enemy-occupied area, the national army can't reach the devils. They run amok here, killing people, eating meat, and drinking in large bowls, causing harm to one side." Si Sylphy said, "The military command tried to recruit these bandits for use in the war of resistance, but very few of them were recruited. How could these guys be easily controlled when they are used to such a life?"

"There are eight hundred bandits like this all over the country. It is said that there are hundreds of thousands of people and horses together. Some of them have developed into local armed forces and warlords. In troubled times, all heroes rise together, and some become kings on their own. Those who rely on the devils to dominate one side, but there are not many who do serious things, and there are very few people who do not run wild in the village." The woodcutter said, "So, this peaceful and prosperous age did not come so quickly."

"It will come sooner or later, we must believe that there will be such a day." Si Xuanyi watched the half crescent moon in the sky being swallowed up by dark clouds little by little, "Otherwise, what's the point of our struggle?"

"The ancients said that after a long period of time, there must be great peace. After the chaos, there must be great tranquility. The broken mountains and rivers indicate that the great unification will not be too far away. This is the law and necessity of history. This era will pass sooner or later, and the peaceful and prosperous age will not be too far away. After all, this land has experienced After experiencing too much suffering, we need a chance to recuperate and recover." Li Siming said, "Anyway, we are already working hard for all of this, and it is good to do our best."

"Let's sigh less and do more, it's time to go to bed..." The woodcutter seemed to have lost interest in this topic, he yawned, leaned aside, and closed his eyes.

"You little devil can't hold on for long... Our hard work already has hope." Si Xuanyi said, "So everyone should work harder and strive to live to see that day come. Even if we don't see peace and prosperity, we still have to see Until the little devil gets out of China."

"Hmm..." Li Siming nodded, "I believe this, the little devil is indeed almost finished, and now even the upper echelons are discussing this issue."

"If we get rid of the little devil, can our work come to an end?" Fang Yuanshan asked, "Without the little devil, we can retire, and we can just hand over all these jobs to those archaeologists?"

"It would be great if it was really as simple as you said." Si Xuanyi smiled wryly, "Don't worry, even if the little devil leaves, we are still busy."

(End of this chapter)