Volume 1 Wuchang Vortex Chapter II Illegal Armed Forces
The scorching sun made it impossible to get excited. Although the soldier driving the car kept shouting and cracking the horsewhip, the wheels of the car still rolled forward slowly.
Yang Qiu, who was carrying a gun like everyone else, changed into a short coat. The slightly open collar made him look more heroic, but only he knew that he was giving the baby in his arms a "sunbath".
An ordinary baggage soldier in the Hubei New Army has no money, no people, and no territory. Even if he was a soldier in his previous life and worked in a car factory, he cannot make anything now even if he takes the latest 29-axis linkage machine tool from Germany.
Industry is not just a word. Even if you have piles of machines, you still need skilled workers and huge resources.
So, you bastard in the hat, you are just making fun of me!
"Brother Yang, who is teasing you? Hey, what kind of gun is this?" Bingwen, who was riding in the same car with Yang Qiu, turned his head and saw Yang Qiu playing with a pistol he had never seen before. His eyes lit up and he immediately came over.
"My second uncle bought these from America." Yang Qiu suddenly had an idea and pushed the responsibility onto his second uncle who was doing business in Shanghai. He said, "He was afraid that I would suffer a loss, so he bought these two pistols for me at a high price for self-defense."
Bingwen didn't suspect anything. Nowadays, many rich kids like to buy a gun for themselves. Although Yang Qiu's parents had passed away, he had a good family background in his early years and his second uncle was doing business in Shanghai, so buying a gun was not a big deal.
"stop!"
When Yang Qiu was introducing the pistol to Bingwen, before he understood what was going on, he heard a loud shout from the front, followed by the sound of bolts being pulled all around, and the bearded Ma Kui rolled behind the carriage.
With a height of 1.78 meters, Yang Qiu undoubtedly stood out from the crowd in this era. He quickly saw the situation ahead. He saw several big men wearing black short coats suddenly jumped out from both sides of the valley in front of him, and these guys actually had weapons in their hands.
Mosin Nagant!
After seeing the gun in the other person's hand, Yang Qiu was shocked.
If he didn't like guns, and if he didn't have this kind of old gun in the Xinhai Revolution Memorial Hall he had visited before, he probably wouldn't be able to tell what kind of rifle the other person was holding!
The Mosin-Nagant rifle is a rare item. During the Beiyang period, the army was basically dominated by German and Japanese weapons. A small amount of French and Italian equipment also flowed into the country, but Russian rifles... were rare!
There was only one channel through which these rifles, which were not even fully equipped to the main Russian forces, entered the country.
The victor of the Russo-Japanese War that just ended, Japan!
The Russo-Japanese War was the first time that the Mosin-Nagant was put into actual combat in the Far East. After Japan's victory, it seized a lot of them, but due to different models, most of them were lost. Unexpectedly, some of them actually flowed into the country.
The intuition he had developed in the military in his previous life made him narrow his eyes suddenly. A strong sense of danger emanated from those inconspicuous men in black with guns. These people were not simple at all as they could get weapons from the Japanese.
"Who is coming?"
"I am Xiao Anguo, and I am here to escort a batch of mountain products to Chengdu on the orders of my boss."
"Mountain products? Open it and take a look." The man in black was holding up a Mosin-Nagant, and his eyes kept sliding towards the carriage as he spoke. This gave Yang Qiu a very strange feeling. It was not surprising that there were checkpoints in Sichuan at this moment , but these people seemed... unauthentic.
"This is inappropriate..."
Seeing a man in black clothes walking out with a gun, Xiao Anguo hurriedly went up to negotiate with him, but before he could say a few words, the other party asked to check the carriage, which made him a little nervous. You know, these guns are now powder kegs, and it would be really bad if they were exposed.
"What's wrong?" The man in black with a gun pointed at Yang Qiu and others and said vigilantly: "Sichuan has been in turmoil recently. Our boss has followed the order of the Gelaohui to strictly investigate this section of the road. Now we suspect that you are spies sent by the Qing government to seize the railway!"
"Oh no, it's the Pao brothers who are related to the Kuomintang!" Ma Kui came close to Yang Qiu and muttered.
"Brother Pao? Brother Lao Hui!"
Yang Qiu remembered the saying "A friendly call to the Gelaohui will remind you of the many knights in Xichuan". According to legend, the Gelaohui and the Tiandihui were connected. In the late Qing Dynasty, these Pao brothers, who gathered in groups of three or five, carried fierce knives and roamed the towns and villages, had a great influence in Sichuan.
Seeing Yang Qiu frowning, Ma Kui thought that Yang Qiu didn't know about the Gelaohui, so he introduced them while being cautious: "The Pao Brothers are also called the Gelaohui. They are very famous in Sichuan. One of the heads of the family, Qin Zaigeng, is said to have joined the Kuomintang in recent years. Judging from this situation, we can't get through."
"Brother Ma, there is something I don't understand. We are government troops, so why do we have to hide and evade? What can they do if we reveal our identities directly?" Yang Qiu asked pretending to be a fool.
"How is it?" Ma Kui sneered, "Sichuan is now full of party members, Guangzhou and Shanghai have all come to interfere, plus these native Pao brothers who are fearless, it won't take long for the news that we brought guns to the Sichuan Governor's Office to spread throughout Sichuan."
"It's spread, so what's there to be afraid of?" Although Bingwen was born with a baby face, he had a bad temper. He said angrily after hearing it.
"Huzi, Bingwen. You are still young. This place is not like other provinces. Sichuan has always had a fierce and complex people. There are also the Miao and Tibetan natives backing them up. Now there are Kuomintang members stirring up trouble. Even Lord Zhang and Lord Li dare not underestimate them. That's why they ordered us to travel light and secretly escort them. If it were simple, we brothers would have to suffer this."
"Revolutionary Party..." Yang Qiu muttered softly. Seeing that Xiao Anguo was still arguing with the other party, he asked, "Brother Ma, do you believe them?"
Ma Kui smiled, took out a cigarette from his pocket but didn't light it. He put it under his nose and sniffed it, then suddenly asked, "Huzi, you've been studying abroad in Shanghai for seven or eight years, don't you believe in their nonsense?"
Yang Qiu was slightly stunned. He didn't expect that this bearded and rough-looking Henan man would ask him a question. After all, in recent years, people like him who went abroad or attended new schools or foreign schools for a few years and received new ideological education, all of them talked about revolution.
To use the popular term of later generations, this is called...fashion.
But can fashion save the country?
If it were the old Yang Qiu, he would never have wavered in this belief, but modern people who have just visited the Xinhai Revolution Memorial Hall and know the decades of domestic chaos after the Xinhai Revolution do not know what to choose. Especially facing those gangsters who are just gangsters who use the name of revolution to make a fortune, the party members actually cooperated with them and equipped them with guns bought from Japan, which in itself explains a lot of problems.
Yang Qiu took a deep breath and lowered his voice: "Brother Ma, have you heard of this saying?"
"What?"
"Illegal armed forces!" Yang Qiu uttered these four words with a crooked mouth. Bingwen, who was on guard nearby, had been listening with his ears perked up. After hearing it, he also grinned.
"Illegal armed forces?" The snickering laughter made Ma Kui scratch his head. He was still wondering what this meant when Yang Qiu suddenly noticed something flash in the bushes in front of him, and then all the hairs on his body stood up.
"Fuck, how could they have this thing!"
"Scatter and hide!"
In a flash, Yang Qiu first used both hands to push Bingwen and Ma Kui to the side. Before the latter two could get up, he jumped onto the carriage, kicked his legs hard, and used the force to pounce on Xiao Anguo like a falcon.
"My lord, be careful!"
