Mengshan Army

Now finally comes the prisoners.

After Maoyang Town was captured, there were a total of 113 officers and soldiers who were taken back to Mengshan. The largest officer was Liang Huada, the baggage officer.In the past two months, Liang Huada has gone through a complicated mental journey.

At first, Liang Huada thought that he was bound to die.

The officers and soldiers generally killed the bandits who were captured in battle, and then recruited or let go of ordinary congregations.

The bandits did the same.The first thing they did after returning to the mountain was to carefully screen the captured officers and soldiers, with the purpose of finding the officers.In a passionate mood, he did not deny his identity, and in fact there was no need to deny his identity anymore.He had already recognized his position in Maoyang Town.

Liang Huada told the bandit leader who was interrogating him, that is, the big man who almost sawed off his neck, shouted, "I am the only officer in the captured new army, and I have already disgraced Master Yuan. Do whatever you want, But please don't embarrass my soldiers."

"Why should Captain Liang panic? Since he didn't kill you then, he won't kill you now." The young bearded bandit uttered standard Yanjing Mandarin, "My name is Long Qian, and I'm an officer of the eighth team in Mengshanzhai. Now I am the commander of the Mengshan Army."

"A bunch of bandits, they still have the face to be called the Mengshan Army. If you let go of me and my soldiers, I can plead with Mr. Cao to spare you from dying, otherwise..." Liang Huada did not believe the words of the bandit leader, but showed a sense of heroism , at least not in words.

"Captain Liang, since ancient times, we have been kings and defeated bandits. How do you know that my Mengshan Army will not achieve a great success? Besides, let's not mention your Lord Cao. Cao Kun is already my defeated general, so it is not worth mentioning." Besides, he might not dare to invade Mengshan again." The bearded bandit who claimed to be Long Qian grinned, "I'm afraid he can't take care of Mengshan Village now, and wiped out the majority of Mengshan Village. Your Lord Cao is probably thinking about it. How to report the results to Yuan Shikai, and ask for rewards. If you admit that Mount Meng is still occupied by bandits, Mr. Cao’s results will be greatly reduced. Maybe you number one hundred and ten will be automatically ignored by Mr. Cao?"

Liang Huada snorted, "Don't lie to yourself. Within two or three days, if Mr. Cao's elite soldiers climb the mountain again, it will be the day you will die!"

"Haha, it's easy to wait for two or three days. However, as you said, when your Lord Cao goes up the mountain, you will die. Privately, I feel that you shouldn't expect him to come..."

"Despicable! A bunch of despicable bandits!"

"Since you call him a bandit, of course it's not that noble...haha."

"The killing of captives has been inauspicious since ancient times. I am willing to exchange my death for the lives of my subordinates!" Liang Huada was very afraid that this ruthless bandit leader would really kill captives.The horror scene in Maoyang Town is still in my heart and I can't get rid of it.Thinking of this, Liang Huada couldn't help touching his gauze-wrapped neck.

"I already said not to kill the prisoners, why didn't Captain Liang believe it?"

"Then what are you going to do with us?"

"Don't worry, I won't kill prisoners." Long Qian said with a faint smile, "The killing of prisoners is unknown. How can I not understand what famous generals in ancient and modern times did not do? But I can't let you go so casually..."

"What do you want to do?" Hearing Long Qian's extremely arrogant words, Liang Huada couldn't help being extremely contemptuous, a bandit who was just lucky, actually put himself shoulder to shoulder with famous generals in ancient and modern times.However, Liang Huada was unwilling to provoke this person any more, because he had already said something unknown about killing the prisoners.

"Captain Liang, if I release you to go down the mountain, are you going to return to your hometown and spend your life in farming and business?"

Liang Huada was speechless for a moment, of course he would not take off this military uniform.The defeat of Maoyang Town was not his own fault, and Cao Kun would not blame him very much, but Mr. Yuan, who is far away in Jinan, cherishes his talent as much as his life...

"So, I won't do stupid things." Long Qian stood up, "Since you are the highest officer of the captured officer army, I will appoint you as the deputy battalion officer of the prisoner-of-war camp. I will send the battalion officer. You follow me. If you follow my orders, your life will be safe, you won’t go hungry, and someone will treat you when you’re sick. But,” Long Qian said coldly, “If you plot to cause trouble, I won’t be polite, and you’ll be executed on the spot! The battalion officer's military order will also be punished, you go back and tell your soldiers, if you want to reunite with your family safely, don't make wrong decisions."

Of course Liang Huada didn't want to die.He considers himself a professional soldier of this era, and the German instructor's scriptures, which are known for their strictness, do not have the clause of being captured and self-defeating.

The battalion officer was quickly dispatched, a middle-aged man named Du Sanli, whose leg was injured and limping.Du Sanli introduced himself as Long Qian's old subordinate. He used to be the head of the eighth team, but now he is the battalion officer of you defeated generals.Following Du Sanli to the prisoner-of-war camp, he was in charge of managing a hundred prisoners of war, and there were more than a dozen armed with live ammunition. They were all wounded and sick, and their bodies could not withstand heavy doses of military training. They were sent by Long Qian Watch prisoners of war.

Their attire made Liang Huada angry, because they all wore the uniforms of the new army.At first glance, he thought he was his comrade in arms.

Du Sanli gathered more than a hundred prisoners of war and "trained" him. He had no experience of speaking in front of a crowd, so he stuttered and spoke Yizhou dialect. Half of the prisoners didn't listen. I knew what he was talking about, but Liang Huada heard clearly. What Du Sanli meant was that you bastard officers and soldiers are now my captives, and you are only allowed to obey my orders honestly, and you are not allowed to talk or act indiscriminately.Hmph, our captain has explained, whoever dares to resist or escape by force, the knives and guns in my hands are not vegetarians!

Following Du Sanli were two staff officers from the staff group, who registered the names, places of origin, types of arms, positions and ages of the prisoners one by one, and divided them into five teams, appointed team leaders, and divided the guards into groups. Each squad has four guards.Roll rolls are done every morning, before lunch, and before going to bed at night, and those whose names are called stand on the other side, so that no one can pretend to be someone.Du Sanli announced viciously that if someone in any team resisted or escaped, the whole team would suffer accordingly.

This one is more vicious.Liang Huada found that after a few days, the guards all recognized the prisoners in charge, which made the escape more difficult.

Except for this group of guards who were obviously wounded, there are more than a dozen strong bandits who come to act as temporary guards every day. The group does not divide into groups, but occupies the high ground around Dongzhai. In a word, the bandits have strictly formulated Detention measures were put in place to prevent the captives from resisting or escaping.

Liang Huada observed the situation calmly. During the day, they worked under the supervision of armed guards near No. 30. At night, the brothers were locked in several rooms with missing windows and exposed roofs. There were armed bandits guarding the door. All the huts must be reported first, and they will be killed immediately when they go out without calling the report!

Before long, the bandits made doors and windows, which, although crude, made it more difficult to escape once they were shut back into the house and locked.There was a chance during the day, but the dozens of steel guns squatting around him made him lose his mind.

Liang Huada thought that to escape, he needed to find out the terrain and the loopholes of the bandits.So he used the opportunity of eating to discuss with several leaders of the captives, and explained the current situation and his plan, "We can't escape right now, because the conditions don't allow it. We can only pretend to cooperate with them and let them relax their vigilance. At the same time, pay attention to observe the terrain, and if there is a chance, we will grab the gun and kill it."

Several leaders expressed their willingness to listen to his orders.

However, not everyone was willing to listen to Liang Huada's order.On the fourth night of being locked up in Dongzhai, three soldiers from Li Fu's troop escaped in the early hours of the morning. They managed to evade the guards' surveillance and escaped from Dongzhai.Liang Huada, who was sleeping soundly, was awakened by the sudden sound of gunfire outside. His first reaction was that Master Cao's troops had killed him up the mountain.It was only after seeing a large number of bandits with live ammunition outside that they realized that someone had escaped.He immediately called several officers and asked them to check how many escaped?Who are there?The situation was quickly found out, a total of three ran away, all soldiers from Li Fu's unit, and one of them was a shed.

He didn't care about thinking that he and his companions would be punished, and hoped that these three guys could escape down the mountain smoothly.In that case, the news will reach Mr. Cao or the nearby government, and he will be saved.

But Liang Huada's hope was in vain.Of course they were not given breakfast, and a hundred bandits rushed to the East Village and surrounded Dongzhai, calling names repeatedly to verify the number of people.Then he and a dozen officers identified by the bandits were held incommunicado.In the middle of the morning, the three escaped companions were captured and brought back, one of them was already dead, and was carried back by the other two companions with bruised noses and swollen faces.Then they were escorted out of the house one by one, and lined up to an open space in the west of Dongzhai. The bearded bandit leader Long Qian said to them coldly, "I can't blame me for being ruthless. You violated my rules first." He ignored that. The two unlucky ghosts cried for mercy, and ordered the two captured soldiers to be hacked to death with a knife in front of the 110 prisoners who had not escaped!

"Captain Liang, as I said, you will be punished for violating orders! Everyone in the team you and those three people are in will be beaten with twenty army sticks each, and they will not be allowed to eat for a day. If a similar situation occurs again, kill them all!"

The two living people were separated instantly.The bloody scene scared a few timid soldiers to pee their pants.

"You guessed it right, my bullets are limited, so I have to use a knife." Long Qian stared at Liang Huada coldly, "I hope this kind of problem won't happen again. Captain Liang, don't test whether my words mean anything."

With a wave of Long Qian's hand, the bandits swarmed up, dragged Liang Huada and the prisoners of that team out, knocked them down in front of everyone, and cracked their military sticks.

The guards on duty who neglected their duties last night were also punished. Each of them was beaten with twenty army sticks. The captive battalion officer Du Sanli was temporarily recorded for this beating because of his leg injury.

﹍﹍

The prisoners of war were all locked up in the Mengshan Mountain Village, and this military building was burned down by Cao Kun, leaving it in ruins.Shortly after the escape incident, Du Sanli began to use prisoners of war.His first order to the prisoners of war was to repair the Dongzhai. He brought some tools, so under Du Sanli's order, the prisoners of war felled trees and built walls with mud, and became civilian husbands.Including Liang Huada and the dozen or so captives who had not recovered from the military sticks.

It was not an easy job, because the lack of tools made everyone's work more difficult.The prisoners of war had to make mud bricks, burn earth bricks, cut down trees to make beams and pillars, and rebuild their houses on the site of the burned houses in the original Dongzhai.The only trouble is that there is no need to dig the foundation.The prisoners had to work for nearly ten hours a day, and they were exhausted to death.What comforts me is that I can basically eat enough.

After experiencing the escape incident, the captives were frightened, and each of them dared to run away at the risk of being beheaded.At least for the time being, the thought of escaping was suppressed.

As time passed by, Liang Huada gradually discovered something unusual about this group of bandits.

Liang Huada was surprised to find that this group of bandits managed the prisoners of war very well. As far as labor was concerned, each team had a clear quota every day, and no additional work would be dispatched until the work was finished, even if it was ahead of schedule.Moreover, Du Sanli also announced that the entire Dongzhai restoration project must be completed on time. If it is ahead of schedule, there will be rewards, and if it is delayed, it will be punished.The progress is checked every day, and the teams that cannot finish will not be given food until they are done.Since the start of the project, a total of three teams have suffered from starvation.

Every day they sent people to the big house of Guangming Temple to carry back the food in wooden buckets. Liang Huada did not do this himself. The soldiers who listened to the food said that the leader of the bandits was the same as what we ate. At first Liang Huada didn't believe it, but later he believed it , I can't help feeling a little strange in my heart.

At first, there were two incidents of guards beating captives, one was discovered by patrolling Long Qian, and the other was reported.Both cases were dealt with. The bandit who beat the prisoner for no reason was punished. The bandit who wounded a prisoner's jaw with a gun butt was beaten with ten army sticks in public, and the other bandit who punched and kicked the prisoner was locked up. confinement.

Afterwards, such things were basically eliminated.

"The one whose surname is Liang," said Du Sanli, who was dark-skinned, short and fierce-looking, and was a soldier that Long Qian valued very much.He was seriously injured in the leg during the blocking battle at Tianmen, so he stayed in Duduzhai and did not participate in Longqian's "expedition". At first he thought he would die, but he miraculously escaped the capture of the officers and soldiers (in fact, he just left hastily) A cutscene), when Long Qian returned to the mountain with victory, Du Sanli's injury was mostly healed, but the injury to the leg bone eventually caused him to lame one leg.This is the main reason why Du Sanli was sent to be the head of the prisoner-of-war camp.

Of course, Du Sanli would not call Liang Huada a deputy battalion officer, but Long Qian told him that he must play Liang Huada's role in managing those captives, and he must go through Liang Huada to give orders to the captives, at least not without him, so Du Sanli shouted loudly first. Guo Liang Huada said, "Our captain has an order to finish the work one day ahead of time, and we will be rewarded with a meal of meat. If we finish the work a day later, we will be punished with a meal of hunger. You go tell your bear soldiers, they are all fucking good for me! Damn, don’t you understand that this is for yourselves? Don’t you understand that this is our captain taking care of you so that you don’t suffer in the rain? According to my surname, each person is rewarded with a bullet, which saves trouble!”

It was still cold at that time, curled up in the dilapidated house at night, freezing to death, building the Dongzhai was really for their own good.Everyone from Liang Huada knew this.Most of these captives were engineers and soldiers, and they really used the right people to build houses.

"Officer Du Ying, when the quota is not completed?" Liang Huada put down his work and said, "You owe us at least two meals." Liang Huada knew that according to the time given by the bandit leader named Long, They could complete the Dongzhai renovation project at least two days ahead of schedule.In fact, because the Dongzhai project is in the finishing stage, two teams were drawn out and led by Liang Huada to do hard labor in Duduo Village more than ten days ago. return.

"Liang, don't worry. Our captain means what he says, and what he promises to you will be fulfilled."

Unexpectedly, after the Dongzhai project was completed ahead of schedule, the bandits really fulfilled their promise. Du Sanli brought a pot of delicious braised horse meat, and everyone could share half a bowl. Liang Huada finished his portion in a few bites, almost biting off his tongue.