Chapter 264: All the strongholds have been sold. What do you think about us selling the weapons together? "Brother, what is the Taijun doing? Why are you suddenly asking us to hand over all our guns?" In the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. After rushing back to the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, Saburo Murakuchi, together with Kiyozumi Muichi and the head of the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, Shinta Takeshita, asked the puppet troops to hand in their weapons and equipment. Many puppet soldiers felt a little strange about the Japanese's orders, but they still obediently lined up to hand in their weapons and equipment according to the Japanese's orders. Among the puppet army, a puppet soldier who had already surrendered his weapon asked the puppet squad leader beside him. "I heard from the company commander and others that it seems that the Japanese are preparing to replace us, and the weapons and equipment are in the new defense area. So there is no need to bring weapons and equipment with you." The puppet army squad leader answered the questions of the puppet soldiers around him. Although it was a change of guard, the puppet army squad leader still felt something was wrong. It’s not like there haven’t been rotations of defense before, but this is the first time that the weapons and equipment have been left behind during the rotation.

"Brother, we have handed over all our weapons and equipment, what if we run into the Eighth Route Army along the way? The last time, the entire Fourth Brigade of Taijun was wiped out by the Eighth Route Army. The combat effectiveness of those local Eighth Route Army soldiers is no worse than that of Taijun. If we encounter the Eighth Route Army on the way, we will be doomed." "I'm not sure. Let's see what Madam Tai decides... Besides, this is a remote place, why would the Eighth Route Army come here for no reason? If we encounter the Eighth Route Army, the worst that can happen is that we just surrender. But I find it quite strange that the high-ranking official had clearly left the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold this morning. Why did you suddenly come back with someone?" The puppet army squad leader looked at Kiyozumi Muichi and Murakuchi Saburo standing on the top of the artillery tower, his eyes full of confusion. "Maybe the lady had just left and received the order to change guard, so she turned back and prepared to take us to Zhangzhuang to change guard? Maybe the troops from Zhangzhuang who are going to replace us are already on their way." Another puppet army squad leader spoke up. "I don't know, but I always feel like something is wrong. For a rotation like this, at most one or two Taijuns would be enough to lead us there, why do we need so many people? Moreover, that Taijun was a lieutenant colonel, and the highest rank of Taijun in Ping'an County was only lieutenant colonel. It's such a simple matter for us to change guards, so we shouldn't let a lieutenant colonel turn around and take us away halfway, right?" "Who cares? It's impossible that the Queen will ask us to hand over all our guns and then kill us all." "What are you thinking about? There are so many of us. Ping'an County is stable only because of us. It is just a dream for the Lord Taijun's thousand men to defend Ping'an County." "Why think so much? Isn't it just right to change guards? This is a barren place, there's nowhere to go if you want to eat something delicious. If we go to Zhangzhuang, at least we can go to the county town to eat some meat.” "It's a pity that Fu'an County was occupied by the Eighth Route Army. If it was still in the hands of Taijun, we could go to Fu'an County. Fu'an is much closer than Ping'an." "It's finally time to change the defense. I'm almost done with all the grass I've been smoking. I must buy a few more pieces this time when the defense changes." "Hehe, last time I used three dollars to buy a few small pills from Taijun. I heard that they were the pills that Taijun took when he was charging. That stuff is much more powerful than grass." "Well, I've bought that too, but unfortunately the lady in Xiaocao Village doesn't have many. They are all managed by Lady Nobuo Takeshita.

Such a good thing, I don't know why Mrs. Takeshita Shinji doesn't allow other ladies to eat it. " "Don't even mention this little pill. Last time, a lady smoked some grass secretly, and was locked up in a dungeon by Takeshita Nobuya. He was locked up for a week. After the lady quit smoking, he was beaten severely. Do the Taijun and the others care about this?" "It seems that Takeshita Nobuta-kun's rules are very strict, and all the ladies who couldn't stand these rules were driven away by Takeshita Nobuta-kun." …… On top of the artillery tower, Murakuchi Saburo and Kiyozumi Muichi stood together and looked at the puppet soldiers below who were queuing up to hand in their weapons and equipment. Qingquan Muyi looked at the weapons and equipment handed over by the puppet army, touched his chin and thought for a while, then spoke to Murakuchi Saburo. "Murakou-kun, you probably only agreed to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army, right?" "Mr. Qingquan, I only agreed to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army. What's wrong? Qingquan, please don't do anything stupid. " Murakuchi Saburo was worried that Qingquan Muyi would suddenly have a brain storm, so he quickly warned him in advance. "Mr. Qingquan, we are now in a cooperative relationship with the Eighth Route Army and are both parties to the transaction. As a businessman, the most important thing is integrity. If we lose our credibility, who will dare to do business with us in the future? If no one wants to do business with us, how can we make money? If we can’t make money, how can we lead a good life with our families after we lose the war?” "No, no, no, Murakuchi-kun, you misunderstood me. I don't want to break the contract." When Qingquan Mu saw that Murakuchi Saburo had misunderstood what he meant, he quickly spoke up. "Murakou-kun, I understand what you mean. Since we have already agreed to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army, I will definitely not break the agreement. What I mean is, you only agreed to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army, but we did not agree to hand over these weapons and equipment to the Eighth Route Army!" Listening to Kiyozumi Muyi's words, Murakuchi Saburo was stunned. He did not agree to hand over all the weapons and equipment in the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army. At that time, he only said that the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold should be handed over to the Eighth Route Army. Murakuchi Saburo did not even consider the weapons and equipment. "It's like this, Qingquan-kun...what do you mean?" After hearing Murakuchi Saburo's answer, Qingquan Muyi's eyes lit up and he spoke. "Munkou, you see, the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is going to be handed over to the Eighth Route Army. It would be very troublesome for us to take these weapons and equipment of the Imperial Army, as well as our heavy weapons in the stronghold, with us. How about we replace them with small, light gold bars?" Qingquan Muyi’s idea was very simple. Since the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was about to be handed over to the Eighth Route Army, why did they keep these weapons and equipment? Just package and sell them to the Eighth Route Army. Anyway, the subsequent report was that the Imperial Army in the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was instigated by the Eighth Route Army, or that the Eighth Route Army had stormed the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. These weapons will also be difficult to take away by then. Instead of going through great pains to take the weapons and equipment away later, it is better to sell them all to the Eighth Route Army while they still have some value.

Especially the equipment of the Imperial Army, which used Type 79 rifles, and the bullets were incompatible with theirs. There's no point in keeping them for yourself, so you might as well pack them up and sell them to the Eighth Route Army in exchange for gold bars. I have to say that Qingquan Muyi is indeed a good material for doing business. Under such circumstances, it is also possible to think of selling all the weapons and equipment of the Imperial Army and the heavy weapons in the strongholds to the Eighth Route Army. Murakuchi Saburo listened to Kiyozumi Muichi's words, thought for a moment and then spoke. "Let's wait and see. If the Eighth Route Army is easy to talk to, we will sell all these weapons and equipment to them. We can sell them at a lower price, after all, they are not good equipment. On the other hand, if the Eighth Route Army is not easy to talk to, the weapons and equipment of the Imperial Army will be given to the Eighth Route Army for free as a bonus. We must sell our heavy weapons; they cannot be treated as extras. The Eighth Route Army may now be able to produce light weapons and equipment such as rifles. But it is absolutely impossible to produce heavy weapons such as heavy machine guns. The heavy machine gun can be sold at half the price, a little cheaper. It’s free money anyway, so we won’t lose money.” "no problem!" Listening to what Murakuchi Saburo said, Qingquanmu nodded, then called his adjutant and asked his adjutant to ask Takeshita Shinta for a list of weapons. “Mr. Qingquan, this time it’s not just gold bars, you can also use oceans to buy weapons and equipment. Qin Jun and his men may not be able to produce many gold bars. All the spoils of the Eighth Route Army must be handed over. Qin Jun and his men will definitely hand over precious metals such as gold bars. So they should have more dollars in their hands, so let's exchange them for dollars. We can exchange the ocean for gold later. It doesn’t matter if we have a little trouble. When it comes to making money, there is no such thing as trouble-free.” "Don't worry, Murakuchi-kun, I have taken what you said into consideration. We want not only dollars, but also Japanese yen and military notes. Except their own fiat currency. I have a friend in Nanjing, and he said that the Special High Section there is preparing to print counterfeit currency. Murakuchi-kun, if you still have legal tender in your hands, spend it quickly." "Well, Qingquan-kun, I'll leave the weapons issue to you. The Imperial Army has almost finished handing over its weapons. I'm going to take the Imperial Army out to hand over the weapons to the Eighth Route Army." "Bon voyage, Murakuchi-kun." …… After all the puppet troops handed in their weapons and equipment and checked them again and again to make sure nothing was left out, Murakuchi Saburo led a team of cavalrymen to escort the puppet troops out of the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold and into the wilderness. According to the agreement with Qin Yangming, they would not take action until they were at least three kilometers away from the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. So Murakuchi Saburo led his team and walked on the road in a swaggering manner without any sign of disguise. They even gathered all the puppet troops together.

It doesn't look like a normal marching formation at all. Saburo Murakuchi was worried that the Eighth Route Army scouts had not arrived yet and that they would miss the time and place, so he slowed down and walked leisurely forward. "Brother, is there something wrong with you, Taijun? If we are ambushed while marching like this, we won’t be able to escape.” Some puppet soldiers noticed something was wrong and saw that the Japanese had crushed their troops into a densely packed group. If you encounter danger, there is nowhere to hide with this formation. "Don't mention it. I also find it strange. Your Excellency wouldn't make such a low-level mistake. He would have sent cavalry out to explore the way first. He wouldn't even know how to form a formation, right?" "Something's wrong. I think it's very wrong. Damn it, isn't this how we escorted the men? It's just that the men were tied up, but we weren't." "Don't tell me, we really look like conscripted soldiers now. Are you really planning to treat us as such? I heard that a group of miners died at Shuiquan Coal Mine. Are you going to send us to Shuiquan Coal Mine to dig coal?" "You're an idiot. The spring is so big, do you really need to force us to be miners?" "So what do you think Taijun is taking us with him for? Isn't it really a rotation of defense?" "What else can we do if we don't change our defense? You can't possibly sell us out to the Eighth Route Army, right?" "What a joke! The Queen wants to kill all the Eighth Route Army soldiers right now. How could she possibly sell us to them?" "But I feel like we might be going to Zhangzhuang to build fortifications. I heard that the Eighth Route Army has a lot more cannons, and ordinary artillery towers and bunkers can't stop the Eighth Route Army's artillery at all. Most likely, the Lady wanted to strengthen the defensive fortifications of the Zhangzhuang stronghold, so she sent us to build the fortifications. Otherwise, why would they take away all our guns? Isn't it because they are worried that we might cause trouble with guns in our hands? Especially since there has been a large-scale defection among the Imperial Army recruited in Shanxi, the trust of the Grand Master in our Imperial Army is already very low.” "Hey, we are so unlucky. Everything was going well, but we were tricked by those bastards. In my opinion, you should kill all those guys. Didn't they register their household registration when recruiting soldiers? If the lady just kills them one by one according to the household registration, I don't believe that anyone would dare to defect." "You think everyone has registered their household registration like us. Most of the Imperial Army in Shanxi were originally the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army. I heard that Yan Laoxi did not have enough military funds to support so many troops, so he ordered part of the troops to surrender and used the money from Taijun to support his own troops. Then when the Imperial Army in Shanxi was recruiting soldiers, many of them were only nominally loyal to the Emperor, but in fact they still obeyed the orders of Yan Laoxi. So the soldiers recruited were all ruffians, hooligans, bandits and the like. These people have no native place at all, there's no point in killing them. As for those who have families, if the Queen dares to take action, then the remaining Imperial Army will run to join the Eighth Route Army or the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army in a minute. "

"That is to say, all of us have been registered by Taijun. If we dare to defect, Taijun will find our hometown in a minute. At that time, all the family members will be sent to do hard labor if they don't die." "I haven't been home for three years. I don't know how things are going at home. I don't know if my family has received the military pay I sent back." "Don't worry, the military pay will definitely be received at home. In this respect, Taijun is better than Baldy. We use the mail arranged by Taijun. Taijun is watching, and no one dares to do anything." "Hey, look, what is that?!" "Oh no, that's the Eighth Route Army!" "Tai-jun!?" "Why did Taijun run away?!" "Why is Taijun standing with the Eighth Route Army?!" (End of this chapter)