Chapter 133: Troops at the Village Entrance

The Yuan Dou set sail promptly at three in the afternoon. Due to unfavorable wind direction, the ship tacked and circled on the sea surface until the evening rising tide, when it beached and rushed ashore at a pre-selected lagoon shore on the Seven Shares Beach.

The gangplank was lowered. Marines with faces fully painted in green, red, purple, and black war paint disembarked first. They did not advance to scout — drones were providing cover overhead, and no natives had appeared within several kilometers.

The straight-line distance between the Seven Shares area and Dayuan was only 15 kilometers, with flat coastal terrain in between, entirely within the communication range of the Tayouan Telecom Company, so the officers could contact Shang Hall at any time, whether by mobile phone or walkie-talkie.

After eating a sufficient amount of venison dinner aboard the Yuan Dou, the soldiers of the Temporary First Battalion queued up and walked down the gangplank by the last lingering glow of the sunset. The power of the sandalwood cudgels made them quiet and swift, without the clamor and noise that inevitably arise from motley troops.

Some soldiers carried a back-basket containing supplies. Led by the point soldiers with painted faces, the formation rounded a stretch of wetland teeming with waterfowl and took a short rest and reorganization on a patch of dry, fine sand.

After checking equipment and formation, the troops set off. There were no heroic speeches to rouse them — the natives could not understand them anyway. They only needed to know that this time they were going to make trouble for the Madou and Xiaolong people, and that was enough. Both sides had been slaughtering each other for countless years — the enmity ran deep.

Once the troops set off, everything fell into a familiar routine: tall point soldiers carrying red cold-light sources, marines emerging from the surrounding vegetation from time to time, these men with faces covered in war paint and strange ornaments (night-vision goggles) worn on their heads or shoulders, issuing curt commands from their mouths as they guided the formation forward.

The Transmigrator Officers, holding AK rifles fitted with Picatinny rails and tactical flashlights and covered airtight from head to toe, were responsible for maintaining the formation and handling unexpected incidents. All in all, there were no particularly special unexpected incidents to handle — the drones overhead had already helped remove the greatest risk: people.

From the shore to Jiaxi Village, the largest village of Xiaolong Village, the straight-line distance was 10 kilometers. The most difficult part was the first 8 kilometers: there were large stretches of wetland that had to be rounded.

The troops set off at 7 p. m., slowed their pace, and following the route scouted in advance, under a sky full of starlight, slowly rounded all dangerous areas, including one hamlet belonging to Xiaolong Village. During this period, the troops rested three times, and it was not until 4 a. m. that they arrived at a bamboo grove less than 1 kilometer from Jiaxi Village.

The moment Han Bo reached the location, he did not bother settling the soldiers but hurriedly used the walkie-talkie to communicate with Qian Tieshan, who had long since lain in ambush at the native village entrance.

After confirming there was no unusual movement in the target village, Han Bo took out his mobile phone and made a phone call to Wang Xiaohui, who was waiting for news at Shang Hall: "Set off. This side has already succeeded in the sneak attack. Tora Tora Tora..."

Wang Xiaohui cursed him with a laugh, then hung up the phone. His current coordinates were Chikan Military Camp, and he was about to set off immediately. The military camp was in chaos, with 400 natives and some Ming People temporary laborers gathered inside. This motley force no longer needed concealment. If they set off by boat now, they could probably reach Jiaxi Village around noon.

If it were daytime, one could see Jiaxi Village directly by passing through the bamboo grove where the Temporary First Battalion was resting. However, it was now night, and with the bamboo grove blocking the line of sight, all soldiers were ordered to rest and reorganize on the spot and wait for daylight.

The soldiers sat on the ground, panting heavily. Thanks to the training from the previous period, tonight's operation had gone fairly smoothly. The soldiers had actually walked over 20 li on foot, which was no easy feat. In comparison, the dozen or so wounded lying on stretchers no longer counted for much.

Nearly all the folding stretchers prepared in advance were put to use this time. As soon as the rest and reorganization began, Dong Qiang, serving as a makeshift military medic, disregarded his own utter exhaustion and began treating the wounded's injuries.

The sole tent in the formation was pitched. Dong Qiang brought the apprentices he had personally trained into the tent, then turned on two camping lamps inside: without the tent's cover, the mosquitoes and insects of the wild would swarm toward the light source in overwhelming numbers, making it utterly impossible to treat wounds.

The wounded could not be stuffed into the tent. Fortunately, most of the wounds were on the feet, so it sufficed to stuff the legs and below into the tent. Dong Qiang directed the apprentices to use scissors to cut away foreign objects embedded in the wounded's feet, then used tweezers to debride, disinfect, and finally performed the suturing himself. He busied himself until the sky was faintly brightening before all the wounded were treated.

By this time, there was no longer any need for caution. The soldiers of the Temporary First Battalion, having eaten cold rice balls, formed into a two-column file under low-spoken commands, stepped onto the paths trodden daily by the natives, and filed toward Jiaxi Village. At the same moment, Chikan Wharf was in an uproar, as Wang Xiaohui and some Transmigrators were striving to herd the temporary laborers onto the boats.

Meanwhile, a native Warrior on night watch in Jiaxi Village also walked out of the settlement at this time, patrolling in the direction of the troops.

This sentry Warrior had been somewhat puzzled since the latter half of the night. Looking out from the enclosing wall at the village head, he occasionally glimpsed faint flashes of red or white light in the distant darkness. This struck him as very novel. The Warrior had never seen cold-light lamps, nor had he seen tactical flashlights, so the concept of "strangers approaching" simply did not exist in his mind.

When the early morning light was just dawning, he walked this way out of curiosity, wanting to see what he might discover. He had not walked far before his curiosity was satisfied — a large body of troops was rounding the bamboo grove through the misty light and walking toward the village. These strangers, whose whole bodies were clad in strange clothing, appeared in the Warrior's eyes at that moment like demons from afar, slowly pressing closer.

An instinctive terror enveloped the Warrior's entire body in that instant. He turned nimbly and sprinted madly toward the village. However, before he could accelerate, from within a sago palm thicket beside the path, less than 5 meters away, a colorfully patterned arm reached out. A P226 pistol fitted with a silencer fired immediately. The Warrior was knocked to the ground by three consecutive shots. One bullet struck his head, so the death scream he would have uttered before dying could not escape.

Daylight shone brightly. The natives on the wall top began shouting in alarm. At this moment, Han Bo, standing outside the village, was already completely unconstrained. Following the village terrain map scouted in advance, he boldly and openly began directing the troops to divide their forces, blocking the front and back gates, and beginning to catch the turtle in the jar.

Jiaxi Village had a population of at least 800. In later generations, that would count for nothing, but here it was the single largest village of Xiaolong Village. The entire village was wrapped tight and secure by a wooden palisade and an outer perimeter of thorny shrubs, with only two paths for entry and exit: the front and back gates.

A situation of being trapped inside the village by a large body of Warriors had never occurred historically. Even when the Dutch rallied over a thousand men to come slaughtering, the natives could learn of such a clamorous display very early on. Thus, the atmosphere in Jiaxi Village at this moment was somewhat panicked and chaotic, with many people standing on the wall tops to watch.