Chapter 1144: The Ascent
After several rounds of shelling, Cheng Xu tilted his head back, his gaze fixed on the mountaintop.
White smoke billowed around the peak, sand and ash filled the air, and visibility plummeted to 32%.
Good. His great-grandmother's figure was completely out of sight.
Only then did Cheng Xu give the order, "Ascend the mountain!"
Without his great-grandmother in sight, Cheng Xu was exceptionally valorous, leading the charge, he was the first to rush up the slope. The soldiers of the First Regiment immediately followed, their flintlock rifles fitted with bayonets, surging up the mountain behind Cheng Xu.
As they charged, the soldiers murmured, "General He is truly General He," they whispered, "worthy of being one of the Three Heroes of Liaodong, always leading the vanguard, first to charge."
"Exactly!"
"If even the general dares to charge like this, how can we, as mere foot soldiers, hold back?"
"Brothers! Charge!"
"I'll take a bullet for General He!"
"You idiots! Where would these savages get flintlock rifles? You should be saying you'll take arrows for General He!"
And so, their sentiments unified, the soldiers howled, "I'll take an arrow for General He!"
They surged up the mountain like a torrent, running even faster than Cheng Xu. In moments, a large crowd had bypassed him, scrambling up the slopes using both hands and feet.
Cheng Xu muttered, "Why? What's suddenly gotten into them? Gao Family Village doesn't allow scrambling for spoils of war, running so fast won't get you any extra loot."
The soldiers, however, paid no mind to his grumbling, continuing their furious charge up the mountain.
Meanwhile, the savages on the mountaintop, after the relentless bombardment, had few remaining with a clear mind. With a collective shout of panic, they scrambled down the other slopes in a chaotic escape.
Some, in their panic, chose the wrong path and inexplicably ran south.
That direction, however, led to a sheer cliff, below which the Yangtze River churned. One unfortunate soul slipped, letting out a shriek, and tumbled over the precipice, plunging into the river.
This section of the Yangtze, known as Copper Gong Gorge, was famed for its turbulent currents and jagged rocks. Falling into it was no heroic dive from a story, where the protagonist magically survives! The savage certainly wasn't so lucky; as he fell, his head struck a jagged reef, with a sickening splat, blood and brains splattered across the rocks.
Ma Qiang and Wang Wen, lost among their subordinates, were also fleeing frantically towards the northern slope. Behind them, they could hear the continuous crackle of gunfire – "bang, bang, bang" – and, from time to time, a subordinate would fall.
Some of their men had lost even the will to flee, huddled on the roadside, clutching their heads, shouting for surrender.
They genuinely feared that their captors would slaughter those who surrendered, but soon realized their pursuers had no intention of doing so. Anyone who surrendered was no longer chased.
Upon this realization, large groups of savages squatted down, clutching their heads, ceasing all resistance.
Behind Ma Qiang and Wang Wen, their numbers steadily dwindled.
Either fallen to their deaths, shot by flintlocks, or simply stopped running, choosing surrender to save their lives.
The two men scrambled down Tieshan Ping, crossed a mountain gully, and on the other side, another peak emerged: Yufeng Mountain. In a desperate state, they began to climb its slopes once more.
But the previous scramble, a mix of tumbling and clawing, had already drained their strength. To attempt another arduous climb up a perilous mountain now? That was truly wishful thinking.
They barely made it halfway up before their energy gave out. Wang Wen's foot slipped, and he began to tumble down, bouncing and scraping along the mountainside. His body became covered in bruises and abrasions. He rolled for a considerable time before finally coming to rest at the foot of the mountain.
Just as he stopped, he felt a large foot press down on him.
He looked up and saw, to his astonishment, that the foot belonged to a dockworker named Jiang Daliang.
Wang Wen was overjoyed. "Daliang... quickly, carry me, help me escape... I'll give you money... ten taels of silver... twenty if you want..."
"Pah!" Jiang Daliang spat, glaring at him. "Didn't you ever wonder how these newcomers from Shaanxi found Tieshan Ping? And why am I here?"
Wang Wen's eyes widened in fright. "You... you brought them here."
Jiang Daliang chuckled darkly. "You guessed right! And your reward... a carrying pole to the head."
With that, he hefted his large carrying pole, and with all his strength, brought it down with a resounding CRACK on Wang Wen's head.
Elsewhere, Ma Qiang, struggling halfway up Yufeng Mountain, could go no further.
He turned his head and saw, to his disbelief, that members of the Shaanxi militia were still pursuing him from below.
Ma Qiang cursed under his breath. "These damn Shaanxi folk, what do they eat to grow so strong? Why is their stamina so incredible? Bloody hell, are they better at climbing mountains than I am, a Sichuan native?"
Little did he know, these were the elite First Regiment of Gao Family Village!
Since the seventh year of Tianqi, they had been blessed by the Heavenly Lord, enjoying good food and restful sleep for ten years. Every day, they underwent rigorous training. A double-peak challenge like Tieshan Ping combined with Yufeng Mountain might have posed a challenge for the Xiaolangdi militia or the Puzhou militia.
But for the Gao Family Village First Regiment, it was merely flat ground, wasn't it?
One of the First Regiment's vanguard soldiers leaped and bounded across the slope with incredible speed, approaching a cliff face twice his height. He sprang upward, his toes finding purchase twice on the rock face, and with effortless ease, he scaled the cliff, pulling himself to the top. He moved with the agility of a monkey.
A chasm nearly ten feet wide, he cleared in a single stride.
Thorns and low bushes blocking his path were no obstacle. With a few fluid movements, he vaulted over them with ease.
Ma Qiang watched the man close in, growing closer and closer, feeling as if an actual human being couldn't move like that. He shrieked in terror, "What kind of monsters are you? What kind of monsters?!"
The vanguard soldier grinned. "Oh, savage chief, run all you want, keep running," he taunted. "Do you really think you can escape? My first-class merit won't slip away because of you."
Ma Qiang let out a furious roar, drawing a great sabre. "I'll fight you to the death!"
He lunged forward, slashing his blade at the vanguard soldier.
The vanguard soldier wore a look of utter disdain. "That's all you've got?"
With a sway of his body, he effortlessly dodged Ma Qiang's blade. Then, employing the "Ghost-God Fist Technique" that Padi Tu had secretly learned from a cliff face and later taught to the veteran militia, he snapped Ma Qiang's wrist with a sickening CRACK.
Ma Qiang screamed, "Ahhhh!"
Before his scream could fully fade, the vanguard soldier had already seized his neck, and with a swift twist...
The battle was over.
That evening, the heads of Ma Qiang and Wang Wen were hung from the south gate of Jiangbei City, facing the churning river waters, visible for every dockworker to clearly see.
Every dockworker couldn't help but spit in contempt at the two heads, a glob of spittle landing on the ground beside them.
Large crowds of impoverished common folk gathered around Cheng Xu, bowing repeatedly. "Instructor He," they cried, "thank you so much!"
"These savages have been rampant for too long," they added, "and the government couldn't do a thing. It's all thanks to you!"
"We truly owe you this time."
Cheng Xu smiled, waving a hand at them. Just then, Jiang Daliang approached him, lowering his voice. "Instructor He, I have another piece of intelligence for you... Not far from here, to the northwest, there's a place called Dragon Head Temple, where ten thousand bandits are encamped. Their leader is Er Zhi Hu, and they're planning to attack Chongqing City."
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