Chapter 587: To be able to hunt this again, one might only get two chances in a lifetime, right?

"I'm aiming at that gazelle on the right with the patch of white fur on its forehead, can you see it clearly?" Li Long raised his gun, checked his position, looked at the positions of the others, and then counted the gazelles.

"Yo, Little Long, your eyes are good, you can even see the white fur on that gazelle's head?" a militia member said with a smile.

"Then let me tell you, counting from the left, the first gazelle is a female, no horns; the second is a male, black head and yellow body, that's the biggest leader..."

"That's the one I'm aiming at!" Liang Shuang Cheng shouted, "I'm aiming at the second one."

"The third one is the one I see with white fur around both eyes; the fourth is squeezed so you can't see its head; the fifth is a female, quite large; the sixth is a young male, horns just grown out, yellow head with half white fur on its body..."

Li Long described the characteristics of those gazelles, whether exposed or half-hidden, and these people also had an idea in their minds.

Of course, some felt Li Long was talking nonsense.

"Everyone aim well, when I say fire, we all shoot together!" Xu Chengjun held his gun without aiming; he wanted to see the strength of the militia.

Target shooting and hunting are different; target shooting hits dead objects, while hunting hits living things. Only by hitting living things can one be considered to have combat effectiveness.

This was Xu Chengjun's view.

"Everyone, ready—fire!"

Xu Chengjun shouted loudly, as if he were at a shooting range.

Those gazelles over a hundred meters away looked vigilantly toward this side, probably also wondering why these guys weren't leaving? What did they want to do?

"Bang bang bang bang bang..."

At the same time Xu Chengjun gave the order, the sound of gunfire rang out, almost at the same time, yet with slight differences in the finer timing.

Li Long had excellent eyesight; the gazelle he aimed at was hit directly and fell to the ground, and two other gazelles also fell to the ground, including the leader Liang Shuang Cheng was aiming at.

More gazelles were startled by the gunfire and ran away.

"Alright, eject the bullets, engage the safety!" Xu Chengjun ordered again, "Put the guns away, whether you hit them or not, everyone go over and take a look!"

The militia members habitually listened to the order to put away their guns, then carried their guns and ran toward the position where the gazelles fell, just like running to the target position.

They naturally lined up in a row, with no one moving ahead or falling behind, to ensure there would be no accidental injuries.

When they ran to the gazelles, except for Li Long, everyone else was already panting; although they weren't tired, it was inevitable that they would be short of oxygen after running a distance.

Li Long kicked the gazelle he had hit; the bullet had entered through the neck and hit the internal organs, basically causing instant death.

"Yo, Li Long, the gazelle you hit really does have white fur on its forehead." A militia member saw Li Long lift up the gazelle, took a look, and said in surprise.

Liang Shuang Cheng looked at the others, then looked at the largest one he had hit, overjoyed, and said with a smile:

"Brother Long's eyesight is really good, this one of mine is the leader, the biggest one! These horns are really long, they must be thirty or forty centimeters!"

Tao Daqiang didn't hit anything; he had aimed at a female gazelle, but when he shot, the female gazelle was startled, and the trigger of the gun he was holding was too stiff, and it hadn't been properly maintained.

He and Li Long hadn't participated in training during this militia training season. Li Long's gun was shot from time to time and frequently maintained, so naturally, there was no problem.

His gun hadn't moved in the gun cabinet and was only received last night. The children at home were making a fuss, and he hadn't bothered to manage the gun, so he hadn't adapted to it.

Fortunately, it was his own gun, and Tao Daqiang knew how to adjust it. He believed that the next time he encountered gazelles, he should be able to hit one.

A group of people carried four gazelles back in a lively manner. They had hit two males and two females, and because Li Long had described the characteristics earlier, everyone didn't fight over them.

A few who wanted to fish in troubled waters gave up the idea when they saw the ones who had truly aimed describing the characteristics of the gazelles, which were the same as what Li Long had just reported.

Fishing in troubled waters at this time would be a huge loss of face.

Xu Chengjun watched the four people carrying the gazelles return to the tractor and said with a smile:

"Not bad, to hit three from this herd of gazelles from such a distance shows that our marksmanship is still quite good. I think there must be some that were wounded, but the gazelles ran away, and we can't catch up, so let's continue forward, and if we encounter gazelles again, we'll continue!"

Four gazelles were thrown onto the vehicle, and the tractor continued to move forward. It wasn't easy to open the abdomen and remove the internal organs at this time, mainly because there were people sitting in the tractor, making it difficult to handle.

Li Long looked at the no-man's-land on both sides and sighed inwardly. At this time, this place was still all no-man's-land, but in another forty years, both sides would be reclaimed as farmland.

From Shicheng all the way to Kuitun, and then west to Wusu and Gaoquan, both sides would turn into farmland, with prefabricated houses built, and food and cash crops like cotton, wheat, and corn planted.

Only past Gaoquan, where the Ebinur Lake Nature Reserve was, would the sides of the highway be the same as they were now, with patches of red willow and saxaul, and Gobi desert, where one could occasionally see small herds of gazelles.

It was said that in the other two countries outside the national border, because there was more land and fewer people, there were still large herds of gazelles, antelopes, and other animals.

Herds of hundreds.

The tractor continued to move forward, and after driving less than two kilometers, someone on the tractor shouted:

"What is that? A deer?"

Li Long looked in the direction the person was pointing, and his heart tightened.

That was the strange-looking saiga antelope!

This small herd of antelopes had eleven or twelve, and they were gnawing on the tender branches of saxaul on the slope to the south. They were over seventy meters away from the highway, and being on higher ground, they didn't seem very afraid when they saw the tractor stop.

"Come, come, come, no matter what it is, let's shoot it down first!" Xu Chengjun was also a bit excited. "The four who hit gazelles just now, stand out, and those who didn't participate in the shooting just now, also stand out. You, and me, Brother Old Li, you come and aim too!"

Li Jianguo himself was no longer considered a core militia member; he was holding the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle that belonged to the core militia member Li Long, which he had borrowed, the same one he had used earlier.

These people lined up, and Xu Chengjun also knew Li Long had good eyes, so he let him point out the targets one by one.

"There are nine that can be seen and can be hit." Li Long looked at the people on his left and right. There were four just now, plus Li Jianguo and Xu Chengjun, and the two who hadn't shot just now, still one short, so he shouted:

"Daqiang, come over to the very edge!"

Tao Daqiang was stunned for a moment, then looked at Xu Chengjun.

"Little Long called you, so come over, I'll give you another chance, let's see if you can hit one!"

The different characteristics on these saiga antelopes weren't obvious, and this was at a distance of over seventy meters, so not everyone could distinguish them immediately.

They could hit them, they just needed to count their own position and the position of the antelopes.

But how to count them after shooting them down?

This required Li Long to describe the different body parts of the antelopes at different positions one by one, so it would be easy to distinguish them later.

This herd of antelopes had a total of four adult males with long horns, and one young male with horns that had only grown a few centimeters, and the rest were females.

Li Long read out the differences between these "sheep" to the others while adjusting his position. After reading them out, he also stood at the fifth position from the left—the leader was here.

"Alright, now Xie Yun Dong, you give the order, just shout 'ready—fire'. Alright, everyone aim..."

Xie Yun Dong hadn't hit anything just now, but he wasn't discouraged. Hearing Xu Chengjun say this, he stood out behind the shooters, and seeing that everyone was about ready, he shouted loudly:

"Ready—fire!"

"Bang bang bang bang!" The messy yet crisp sound of gunfire rang out, and more than ten saiga antelopes fell on the spot, six of them. Xu Chengjun laughed loudly:

"Heh, I hit one! I definitely hit one! How about you guys? Li Long?"

"I hit one too."

"The one I hit might have run away..." Liang Shuang Cheng was a bit excited this time, pressing the trigger a bit too hard, and the bullet flew off.

"I hit one too." Tao Daqiang said, suppressing his excitement.

"Brother Old Li, yours didn't miss the target, did it?" Xu Chengjun asked with a smile.

"I hit one, a female." Li Jianguo said.

"Let's go, go over and see, you all remembered the marks just now, right? Let's see who hit which one?"

After being hit by the guns, those that weren't hit, or were only lightly injured, quickly jumped up and ran away. There were many red willows and saxaul here, so there was no way to fire again, basically making it a one-shot deal.

These people engaged the safety, put away their guns, and walked over. Of the six antelopes, two were still struggling and hadn't died completely, including one of Tao Daqiang's and one of Xu Chengjun's.

They wanted to fire again, but Li Long stopped them, pulled out the knife he carried with him, and slit their throats.

"It's a pity about this blood." A militia member said, "If we had taken it back alive and slaughtered it, we could have stir-fried a plate with the blood."

!.

"Alright, alright, it's hit, there's quite a lot of meat alone." Xu Chengjun scolded with a smile. "Look at your useless appearance! Alright, those who hit them, carry your own back. Those who didn't, think carefully about why you didn't hit."

The leader Li Long hit was knocked down directly, the bullet hitting its head. The female antelope Li Jianguo hit was also an adult, looking to be over forty kilograms, not light.

Counting it this way, after hunting twice, the Li family already had three, which no one could compare to.

Some were envious, some were jealous, and some were whispering strange things.

But they didn't dare to speak loudly; if they spoke loudly, someone would definitely help the Li family speak.

After all, they had the ability.

Ten sheep, not a small number. Each of the two tractor buckets took half, and it wasn't easy for people to sit.

Xu Chengjun still wanted to go, and Li Long suggested:

"Captain, let's process this meat first, otherwise, when it freezes later, the blood in the stomach won't be able to be drained, and it will stink."

"You're the expert, you have the final say." Xu Chengjun followed the advice. "How do we do it?"

"Open the abdomen, if you don't mind the trouble, take out the internal organs and put them in a bag to clean later—of course, squeeze out the feces in the stomach and intestines first. If you mind the trouble, just open the abdomen and release the gas."

"Alright." Xu Chengjun agreed. "Let's just open the abdomen and release the gas, that way it will freeze in a while, and we can process it slowly after we go back and thaw it."

He still wanted to hunt a few more times. After all, such good resources and such good opportunities were rare right now. After two days, when the militia training was completely over, the guns would have to be handed over to the township.

Although he had ways to get guns, it wasn't easy for other militia members to get them, and it wasn't easy to drive these tractors out either.

Just opening the abdomen was fast. After Li Long opened the abdomens of those gazelles and antelopes one by one with a knife, they threw them onto the vehicle again, and after the militia got on, they started the tractors and moved forward again.

He could hear people in the vehicle discussing that this thing wasn't like a gazelle, wondering what kind of thing it was, and some didn't care, meaning as long as it could be eaten, it was fine.

Moving forward, they walked past Anjihai and continued west for another two or three kilometers, almost to Kuitun, before they encountered the largest herd of gazelles they had encountered on this hunting trip.

There were over twenty, all eating grass in the bushes to the south near the mountains.

The red willow and saxaul here weren't dense, nor were they tall. The tender branches were often gnawed and couldn't grow tall, basically around one meter.

The shoulder height of these gazelles was about the same as the bushes. When they lowered their heads, they were in the red willow bushes, and when they raised their heads, they were higher.

Because the red willow and saxaul were sparse, these gazelles could be seen very clearly.

Xu Chengjun excitedly directed the tractor to stop and said:

"Alright, alright, the last chance, everyone, from left to right, get ready. This time you don't need Li Long to mark them for you, right? With such a large area, if you hit the wrong one and fight over it later, no one will get anything!"

The range where these gazelles were located spanned nearly a hundred meters. With such a large range and them being quite scattered, there was naturally no need to mark them again.

This time, Li Long planned to aim at a large female gazelle to take back for meat.

He was also thinking about how to exchange the male antelope others hit back.

Of course, not by trickery; if they were willing to exchange, they would, if not, they wouldn't. No cheating.

Because on average, one person could aim at three or four, there was no need to fight, but orders still needed to be given.

This time Xu Chengjun also wanted to hunt. Since everyone wanted to hunt, he simply said:

"After aiming, report the number, don't make the sound too loud, and then wait for my order to fire. With so many gazelles, if you hit one, if you are confident, you can aim again, the more you hit, the better..."

After speaking, he signaled that everyone could aim in a free posture.

Li Long looked at the one he was preparing to aim at, and there was a half-grown male gazelle next to it, so he planned to hit two at once.

"Ready—fire!" Xu Chengjun had also aimed, looked left and right, and then pressed his gun again, shouting while aiming.

He had already fired when he shouted to fire, while others were half a beat slow, having to wait to hear it before firing, so quite a few didn't hit anything.

But because there were many targets, and those gazelles didn't seem to be afraid of people, most people hit one.

"Bang!"

Gunfire rang out again, and someone saw it was Li Long firing, so someone said with a smile:

"Little Long, you fired late."

"Not finished yet." Li Long smiled, "I hit two."

"Heh? Really or fake?" Someone who hadn't hit even one asked unconvinced.

"Of course it's true, one large female, one small male." Li Long said, "The female has a few black patches on its body, and the male has two circles of white fur on its butt."

Seeing Li Long describe it so clearly, that person stopped talking.

"Alright, quickly engage the safety, let's go, go get the gazelles." Xu Chengjun had also hit one this time, and he said:

"We have to go back as soon as possible. The barracks must have heard the gunfire by now, and if things go wrong, they might come over in a while. Although we are hunting normally, it's troublesome if people ask."

A group of people immediately engaged the safety and lined up to look at the gazelles.

Li Long carried the two gazelles he hit, feeling satisfied as he walked back.

Enough. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 588 =====