Chapter 513: Interception

"This damn place is nothing but bites — not even a ghost in sight. Where's this Lao Qi supposed to be!?"

Song Wu sat on a broken tree branch, swatting at the dense, swirling mosquitoes with utter disgust while grumbling with a pointed edge to his words.

"Shut your trap, you worthless fool!"

Wu Sanye, wearing a knock-off boonie hat, high-top water-buffalo leather battle boots, and a gray security uniform, had been leaning on his gun and gazing into the distance. Hearing Song Wu's complaint, he whipped his head around and cursed him out fiercely.

Everything started a few days ago.

A few days earlier, after Wang Bo had sent off Gu County Magistrate, he immediately issued combat preparation orders to the Pioneer Army's core command staff. Then, three more days passed, and the Headquarters, now fully prepared, began its formal pre-battle mobilization.

All Pioneer Army soldiers training at Huangpu Port received the order: rest and refit, prepare for the bandit suppression campaign.

Since this was the Pioneer Army's first official operation, the Headquarters prepared thoroughly, intending to crush the target, the Lao Qi bandit gang, in one overwhelming strike — securing a victorious debut for the New Army and boosting morale.

Over the next three days, combat briefings were held level by level, from top to bottom, with the sole purpose of making sure every soldier knew who their enemy was and what they themselves needed to do.

Under these circumstances, Wu Sanye, as a squad leader, also took his team in rotation to attend the briefings. There, the squad members saw a massive military sand table — the detailed terrain of Guaitou Wa, mapped through aerial surveying and on-the-ground reconnaissance, was fully displayed on it.

A Staff Officer speaking with a peculiar accent tirelessly explained the terrain of Guaitou Wa on the sand table, pointing out every navigable waterway and landing point in this web of rivers.

Stroking his chin with one hand, Wu Sanye stared at the waterways of Guaitou Wa winding and coiling across the sand table like a nest of snakes, and fell into deep thought.

Truth be told, Third Lord was quite familiar with this kind of terrain — back when he operated out of Zhang Sutan in Shanghai, the landscape there was the same: a web of waterways.

It was precisely because he understood this that Third Lord had a bit of a headache: a waterway network favors the defender, easily absorbing the attacker's numerical advantage. Five hundred men or a thousand men made little difference — once you went in, you'd just scatter.

Furthermore, since this was a large-force operation, they couldn't possibly move like the Special Detachment and launch a deep-night raid. That meant a large-scale daytime encirclement would make it all too easy for the local boss, Lao Qi, to scatter and escape.

Wu Sanye's concerns were, in fact, shared by many others. And this was precisely the focus of the Headquarters staff's plan.

Considering that the actual combat strength of the Lao Qi bandit gang was certainly no match for their own, the plan assigned only one hundred men to the main strike force tasked with striking straight at the heart. This time, the Headquarters placed the operational emphasis on casting a wide net and establishing control points.

The over five hundred Pioneer Army soldiers deployed for this campaign were ultimately divided into several dozen independent squads of varying sizes, each inserted at different critical nodes around the perimeter of Guaitou Wa.

The next step was to leave it to fate: once the squads were deployed, they could only rely on themselves to handle any situation. The Command Post had no way to receive real-time battlefield feedback — after all, these men had no battlefield data links; communications depended entirely on shouting.

In essence, this entire series of Pioneer Army activities within Great Ming territory was actually training and drilling for future colonization in the wider world.

This model meant the Transmigrators would not provide the Pioneer Army with further information-based support. In outposts far from home, there would be no phones or drones — only savages, disease, disasters, and broken supply lines. To survive, they'd have to rely entirely on themselves: fighting on the ground, enduring hardship and suffering — this was to be the Pioneer Army's norm from now on.

In fact, aside from this first battle, which needed a victorious debut, the Transmigrators would gradually phase out golden fingers like drones and special forces forward reconnaissance in future bandit suppression campaigns, simulating a true war environment for the Pioneer Army.

Even this was already pretty good. After all, on Great Ming soil, the Pioneer Army could always get sufficient supplies and regular army support. In the future, once they went to the South Seas or the Pacific, going months without seeing a single supply ship — that would be the real test.

The mobilization results were excellent; nearly everyone approved of the plan and was brimming with confidence.

There were two reasons for this. First, in these Ming people's prior understanding, war meant going in completely blind and then just charging forward when it was time to risk your life... Why would a General-in-Chief ever discuss strategy with common soldiers?

So this new style of mobilization and assignment was a complete revelation to the Ming people: knowing the enemy's strength and scale, knowing their own squad's objective, knowing what they themselves were supposed to do — this left the native soldiers extremely satisfied. They felt respected and gained a sense of control over the battle situation.

Second, the training over this period hadn't been for nothing.

Through mastering various advanced weapons and military skills, through comparing their current lives to their pasts, and on top of that, eating well, dressing well, receiving full pay, and having officers who didn't bully their subordinates, the natives easily reached a conclusion: the unit they belonged to was fully capable of defeating those bandits, and everyone was willing to fight and die for it.

Diamonds against bronze — morale came naturally, no heroic speeches needed.

Next came the Pioneer Army's unique "mission acceptance" phase.

Again, due to the aforementioned theory of colonial self-governance, the Headquarters had no intention of forcibly assigning missions to each squad. Instead, they broadly divided the missions into two main categories: assault and perimeter control. On this basis, squads could volunteer and freely combine to take on missions.

During this phase, a minor dispute broke out within Wu Sanye's squad.

First, the old brothers like Song Wu and a few others voiced their opinion: join the one-hundred-man assault team, strike straight at the heart, capture the bandit chief Lao Qi, win a huge reward before the General-in-Chief, and make a name for themselves in the Pioneer Army.

But Wu Sanye, after questioning He Biandan in detail, put forward a different suggestion: lie in wait at a certain node west of Guaitou Wa...

Wu Sanye's judgment was naturally well-founded. First, given the large troop movement, he judged that the Lao Qi gang would certainly detect trouble early, would certainly not resist head-on, and would scatter and flee.

North of Guaitou Wa was Zengcheng, east was the Zeng River, and south was the direction the main force was coming from. So, drawing on his experience as a boss, Wu Sanye judged that the core figures of the Lao Qi gang would definitely escape westward, heading straight into the mountains.

This judgment, combined with the layout of the gang's core area provided by He Biandan, ultimately made up Wu Sanye's mind: set up a control point at a perimeter node, leave it to fate, and wait for the rabbit to run right in.

And so, after overruling his men's dissenting opinions, Wu Sanye went to the Staff Department and received a perimeter control node assignment.

Next, on October 15th, the Pioneer Army assembled at Huangpu Military Port in the early morning hours and set out.

The main force first traveled nearly fifty li by water, then, as dawn was breaking, landed at a pre-prepared private port on the outskirts of Guaitou Wa, establishing a landing point and a Temporary Command Post.

Next came the squad-by-squad deployment: teams that had received maps and full equipment sets boarded their own boats and headed for their respective control points.

One hour after the perimeter squads departed, the assault force, composed of one hundred men from mixed branches, also set out on time, charging along the shortest waterway straight toward the bandit gathering point at the center of Guaitou Wa.

Wu Sanye's squad, having moved into their ambush position ahead of time, could only wait quietly in the shrubs after making some necessary preparations.

This waiting was pure agony, because no one knew how things would turn out. For all they knew, Lao Qi and his crew might have already been wiped out in one fell swoop, leaving them no choice but to slink back to the landing point at the appointed evening hour.

And then came the scene from the beginning.

Although they'd smeared a strange-smelling insect-repelling grease on their faces and hands, the dense swarm of flying insects in the shrubs was still unbearable. On top of that, with so much time passed, their mood grew increasingly irritable, and that was when brother Song Wu blurted out: "This damn place is nothing but bites — not even a ghost in sight. Where's this Lao Qi supposed to be!?"

"Shut your trap!"

In the next instant, Song Wu backed down.

He knew Third Lord's temper and understood that when the other man's face went cold, he was truly angry, so he dared not say another word.

The truth was, despite his expressionless face, Third Lord was also very agitated now — a full hour had passed since he'd led his squad to this river fork, and the entire time, the surroundings had been utterly silent, with nothing happening at all.

Bearing the pressure of decision-making, Third Lord's gaze toward the river flat ahead finally betrayed a trace of impatience.

Fortunately, heaven helps those who persevere. In the end, Wu Sanye's meticulous analysis of the battle situation paid off: not long after, a sudden disturbance arose in the reeds across the river, and then the reeds parted as two speedboats emerged from within.

"Grab your gear, silence, prepare volley fire — targets incoming!"

Whether or not it was Lao Qi coming, Third Lord finally felt at ease now: at least they'd netted one nest, so they wouldn't have to go back and be mocked and shown up by those others, right?

In the next moment, the two speedboats rushed onto the river flat, and eight or nine men in short coats jumped down from them.

The ambush point Wu Sanye had chosen was, geographically, the closest spot to the mountainous area northwest of Guaitou Wa. The entire river flat, aside from the man-trapping swamp, had passable ground roughly in a "U" shape. In the middle was a thicket of thorny shrubs that required cutting to pass through, and on either side were paths leading to the mountains — one wide, one narrow.

Very quickly, that group of men headed toward the wider path where the ground was firmer.

In the next instant, Third Lord, who was half-crouched in a standard shooting-ready stance, felt someone poke him in the waist.

"Third Lord, the tall, pale-faced one in the middle — that's Lao Qi!"

The speaker was He Biandan, his face alight with excitement.

"Hahaha, what are we waiting for then — open fire, shoot!"

With the Third Lord's explosive shout, four gunmen in a row instantly stood up from the shrubs. The next moment, white smoke and a thunderous roar burst from the gun barrels together; four men of the Bandit Gang, already within thirty meters, were immediately blasted to the ground.

Wu Sanye, deeply versed in the secrets of leadership and a veteran of countless large-scale brawls, would naturally never shout something as brainless as "charge for me, dammit" at such a life-or-death critical moment. After firing that first volley, he simply abandoned his gun, yanked the steel knife from his waist in one motion, and was the very first to charge out: "Together, shoulder to shoulder!"

Yet there was one tall, burly man whose steps were even swifter than the Third Lord's: He Biandan.

The lad wore armor and held a hexagonal steel pipe high, charging out just like that, the very first one.