vrcanaries Chapter 158 Humph, if I wasn’t afraid of being too conspicuous, I would have brought a tank with me!
Chapter 158 Humph, if I wasn’t afraid of being too conspicuous, I would have brought a tank with me!
Early the next morning, Lin Zhenhua led the soldiers of the arsenal to start maintenance on eight armored vehicles and four armored vehicles. They replaced the severely worn parts, re-oiled the vehicles, filled up the fuel tanks of each vehicle, and loaded the previously stored gasoline into the carriages.
Li Yunlong was not idle either. This time he took out most of his family assets. The entire independent regiment had a total of 30 horse-drawn carriages. Li Yunlong took away 24 of them at once and left the remaining six for emergency use.
Li Yunlong patted Lin Zhenhua on the shoulder and scolded him with a smile: "College student, we went with a total of 36 vehicles this time, and there was no problem in transporting the equipment for two battalions. You are really smart. You actually thought of transporting equipment in the name of doing business. You are really a bad guy. You asked me to hoard a batch of food and salt before, and you had this idea in mind!"
Lin Zhenhua took the opportunity to brag, "Old Li, this is wisdom, do you understand? I am too lazy to explain to a rough guy like you, if we really go to get equipment in a big way, do you think the Japanese planes will miss this good opportunity? The Japanese fighter planes take off from Taiyuan Airport and arrive here in three or four hours at most, while we have to travel for nearly eight hours on the road. Can we be more careful?"
"We can take this opportunity to sell the pig bristles produced in our base. We have been storing them for half a year, and we have accumulated quite a lot of them. If we sell them all at once, we can get a lot of money back."
"Old Li, which battalion do you plan to arrange to escort this operation?"
Li Yunlong replied without hesitation: "For this mission, I plan to let the Armored Battalion and the First Battalion take charge of the escort mission. With the strength of these two battalions, we don't have to be afraid even if two squadrons of Japanese come. We have the advantage in numbers, and even the weapons and equipment are not bad!"
"If I wasn't afraid of being too conspicuous, I would have wanted to take those two tanks with me to prevent anyone from targeting our independent regiment!"
Lin Zhenhua retorted angrily: "If we really send out those two tanks, wouldn't that be like telling the Japanese that we are going to do something big? The Japanese will probably sleep with their eyes open at night, watching our every move. How can we transport the weapons and equipment back?"
"Old Li, I didn't plan to take those four armored vehicles, but we have to pass by Black Cloud Village on the way. The bandits in Black Cloud Village often rob people and are not honest at all. We'd better be careful. These four armored vehicles are specially used to intimidate them."
"With the cover of armored vehicles, there is no need to bring so many weapons and ammunition when we go out this time. We can just change our equipment when we arrive at the destination. Our two battalions together have more than 1500 people. Including the equipment for changing, we can bring back a regiment's worth of equipment at a time!"
"I estimate that it will only take six trips to bring back all the equipment for a division. This time, General Bella of the Third Reich will send it to us in batches. The equipment for the second regiment should arrive in five days. We will set out in the afternoon and will definitely be back before breakfast the next day. We can do it without anyone noticing. There will be no problem at all."
Li Yunlong approved of Lin Zhenhua's arrangement. The two had discussed the matter many times and had made several action plans. Li Yunlong originally planned to take three battalions with him, but the three battalions together had more than 2000 people, which was equivalent to the full strength of a regiment. If the Japanese got the news, they would definitely not stay in the Xiaozhangzhuang stronghold honestly, and would definitely find a way to interfere, which might cause some variables.
The soldiers of the Armored Battalion and the First Battalion began to assemble at noon and set out on time at two o'clock in the afternoon. The two battalions escorted the pig bristles to be sold and left the base in a mighty manner.
Yamamoto Ikki, who had been keeping a close eye on the Xiaozhangzhuang stronghold of the Independent Regiment, learned the news an hour later and asked curiously, "Hirata-kun, I noticed that you don't care about this matter at all. Shouldn't we send someone to stop it? Even if we don't take action, we can always have Taiyuan send fighter planes to bomb it. We can't just watch the Independent Regiment sell the bristles anyway!"
Hirata Kojiro laughed and said, "Mr. Yamamoto, you only see the surface of some things, but not the deeper things. We should not stop the Independent Group from selling pig bristles. Instead, we should strongly support them and even escort them, because the final buyer of their pig bristles is the Imperial Army!"
Seeing the puzzled look on Yamamoto Ikki's face, Kojiro explained like a teacher: "Yamamoto-kun, the best bristles in the world are all produced in China. Bristles are mainly used to make brushes. I don't need to explain their importance to you. You should know how important they are to military production. We really can't live without them!"
"Even the Empire buys a large amount of bristles from China every year. I have been in charge of this matter before. I have to privately purchase millions of yen of bristles from the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army every year. The independent regiment's trading target this time is the 326th Regiment of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army. The regiment commander is Xue Changkun. This person is a greedy and cowardly villain. He dares to resell anything. As long as you can pay, he doesn't care who you are."
"Before, Li Yunlong bought a batch of guns from this person, but he spent a lot of money. After a few visits, the two of them established a connection. This was told to me by my insider who was planted in Xue Changkun."
"According to the intelligence we got before, the independent regiment is seriously short of salt. I guess they went to Xue Changkun this time to exchange salt. We don't need to care about their transaction this time. Just watch it. In the end, the goods will fall into our hands anyway. There is no need to make unnecessary efforts. How can we destroy our own things?"
The mustache on the corner of Yamamoto Ikki's mouth curled up. He really didn't know that there was a hidden story in this. He didn't expect Hirata Kojiro to know so much. He almost ruined the big plan. He sighed helplessly: "Hirata-kun, I never thought that I would become the biggest clown and almost ruined the empire's big plan. In the future, I will inform you in advance before taking action, so as to avoid hitting our own people!"
Hirata Kojiro stroked the mustache at the corner of his mouth and smiled meaningfully: "Mr. Yamamoto, I am not as useless as you think. I will give you many surprises in the future! I know more than you can imagine. In these two or three short years, I have woven a big network. Otherwise, my uncle would not have entrusted me with such an important matter. Many things are not as simple as you think. Sometimes, some people act so stupidly because they do it on purpose!"
The gathering hall of Heiyun Village.
The boss Xie Baoqing has been having a very uncomfortable time these days. The last time the Japanese attacked the independent regiment, his business was suspended for a month. Hundreds of brothers in the mountain stronghold had no income from food, drink, and defecation. Life in the mountain stronghold became hard all of a sudden, and his brothers were full of complaints.
"Damn it, these Japanese guys started a fight with the independent regiment, and in the end it was our Black Cloud Village that suffered the disaster. Who the hell can we go to for justice?" The second in command, Shanmaozi, cursed.
Xie Baoqing did not speak, Shanmaozi continued to stir up trouble, "Brother, you know what kind of life the brothers have been living for more than a month. We have been living on the edge of a chair, not to mention meat and wine. Now we can't even drink porridge. If this continues, our Black Cloud Village will have to disband!"
"Brother, before, whenever there were supplies passing by our village, they had to leave two trucks as tolls. A few days ago, the Japanese and the independent regiment were fighting, and we lost a lot of income. The merchants who used to pass by here have gone to other places. If this continues, we will have nothing to eat. The little food in our village can't even last until the summer harvest. We have to think of a way to solve the brothers' food problem. We can't let the brothers go hungry every day, right?"
Xie Baoqing narrowed his eyes and asked with a gleam of lightning: "Mountain Cat, I understand what you mean. You think I don't want to pick a fat sheep to kill? It's because the Japanese devils have been restless these days. Otherwise, I would have led people down the mountain a long time ago and would not stay in this mountain village and listen to your nonsense!"
The second in command Shanmaozi lowered his voice and said, "Brother, what I want to talk about is the Japanese. They are the biggest fat sheep. As long as we get close to them, we can live a life of eating meat and drinking wine in large bowls. It depends on whether you can make up your mind."
Xie Baoqing narrowed his eyes at Shanmaozi and sneered, "Shanmaozi, you still want to fool me at this time. Do you really think I don't know what's going on in your mind? I don't care how you got in touch with the devils. If you want us Heiyun to make another move, the devils must show sincerity and pay me 60% of the deposit first. After the deal is done, the remaining 40% must be paid in person."
Shanmaozi knew that he couldn't hide it from Xie Baoqing, so he said directly: "Brother, this time the Japanese want our independent regiment to attack, and they will give us 2000 yuan for killing one person in the independent regiment. They gave us a deposit of 100 yuan and asked us to hand over heads within a month. This is not difficult for us in Heiyun Village."
"The Japanese came to me and told me that they only wanted heads. As for who we find to do the job, they don't care. They can sell us guns, ammunition and food, but they require us to kill 500 people from the independent regiment every month. I said I would come back and think about it, and I haven't agreed to them yet!"
Xie Baoqing didn't expect that Shanmaozi was so bold that he actually teamed up with the Japanese to deal with the Independent Regiment. He thought they were just trying to steal the Independent Regiment's supplies and had no intention of becoming an enemy of the Independent Regiment.
"Mountain Cat, let me think about this matter carefully. Don't agree to the Japs for now. Let's see how the situation develops first! Previously, the Japs sent out a regiment to attack the independent regiment, but only more than 100 people escaped. This happened just over a month ago. I don't want to follow in the footsteps of the Japs. I'll arrange for someone to go down and take action first! I can't make the decision on such a big matter. Please contact Captain Xie and ask him if he can do this business?"