Traveling through the late Ming Dynasty to promote Chinese civilization

Chapter 360 Sweeping Away the Living Li

On a bright, sunny afternoon, more than a hundred miles south of Lingao, on Houmi Ridge, Lin San led a large group of people to surround a simple village and was ordering his men to shout.

"Brothers and sisters of Luotiandong, listen up! We come from Fanbaoshan, ordered by General Liu, the military commander of Qiongzhou, to take over the thirty-six villages and seventy-two fortresses of Houmi Ridge. If you are willing to cooperate, we guarantee that we will not indiscriminately kill innocent people. Otherwise, when our army comes, not a blade of grass will grow and not a single corpse will remain!"

This village, called Luotiandong, was extremely rudimentary, consisting only of a makeshift fence surrounded by dense brambles. In the face of the heavily armed special forces, it was practically undefended. The reason they didn't attack directly but instead issued a warning first was to preserve the villagers. Otherwise, with volleys of gunfire and bayonets sweeping through, it would be difficult to leave many survivors in this small village.

Several heads peeked out from behind a makeshift thorn fence. A man who appeared to be the leader responded loudly in the Li language: "You're willing to be the lackeys of the Han people, but even your ancestors won't recognize you after you die. Get back now! Houmi Ridge is where we've lived for generations. Why should we let you take it over?"

Lin San turned around and asked, "Is the one shouting the message the leader of Luotiandong?"

A Li ethnic man standing nearby, dressed only in a cloth shirt and loincloth, nodded and bowed as he replied, "Yes, yes, this is Ma Shi, the leader of Luotiandong. He is the best hunter in the entire Houmi Ridge, capable of killing jackals with his bare hands and shooting wild boars with a single arrow!"

This man was the leader of a village that Lin San had conquered before, named Wu Shi. Now he had become Lin San's guide and vanguard in the sweep.

Houmi Ridge is an important branch of the Wuzhi Mountains, with its highest peak exceeding 1500 meters in altitude. However, the surrounding terrain is typically hilly, with a tributary of the Nandu River flowing through its foothills. Nestled against the mountains and beside the water, it is an ideal place to live. Due to its distance from the county seat and the obstruction of high mountains and dense forests, Han Chinese had not yet reached this area. Dozens of Li ethnic tribes, known as the Thirty-Six Caves and Seventy-Two Villages, lived around Houmi Ridge. These tribes relied on hunting for survival, rarely interacting with each other, leading a primitive and peaceful life. Lin San's arrival completely shattered the tranquility of Houmi Ridge.

Lin San led his guards of two or three hundred men, along with several hundred local soldiers from the early Li villages of Qingshuidong and Tinandong, who had initially aligned themselves with the Qiongzhou camp, and marched in a grand procession from Fanbao Mountain all the way here. Along the way, they wiped out several scattered tribes without encountering any significant resistance, until they reached Houmi Ridge, a mountain peak where the Li people lived in concentrated numbers, where they finally encountered organized resistance.

Lin San's tactics were simple: leveraging the overwhelming superiority of his guards, he concentrated his firepower to first eliminate the tribal leaders. Once the tribes were free of leaders, he used iron tools and salt as bait, forcing the tribesmen to choose between two options: either massacre the entire village or accept registration as commoners and become "civilized" Li people under the rule of the Qiongzhou Camp. This tactic was simple and effective. The local soldiers of Qingshuidong and Tinandong barely had a chance to fight; they were essentially just transport teams carrying iron tools and salt, serving as bystanders to make up numbers and bolster morale during battles.

Although Wu Shi wasn't a good hunter, he was quick-witted and one of the few tribal leaders in Monkey Ridge who hadn't been "beheaded." Having witnessed the guards' ability to unleash fire and light, and to kill opponents with iron pipes at the range of arrows, he resolutely "abandoned the darkness for the light," becoming Lin San's loyal follower. When faced with resistance from other tribes, he led his men to the forefront, even more actively than the guards. Lin San was very satisfied with his hard work and rewarded him with twenty finely crafted iron hooks.

For the Li people, ironware forged from fine iron was no different from the Longquan sword in the eyes of the Han people—rare and precious. After obtaining these treasures, Wu Shi became even more devoted to Lin San.

Lin San smiled after hearing Wu Shi's words.

"A hunter who can kill jackals with his bare hands? Heh..." Lin San cracked his knuckles, making a snapping sound, and looked ahead with interest. "I've been playing with guns and cannons for too long, and it's been a long time since I've fought anyone. Today I'd like to meet this best hunter in Monkey Ridge."

He said to Huang Gan, the deputy captain of the special forces team, "Since Ma Shi is refusing to listen to reason, let's not waste time and just go for it."

Ma Shi and his tribesmen stared intently at the group of strangers. He had long heard that a group of skilled Li people had come down from the mountain. They not only had excellent ironware as weapons, but also iron pipes that were even more powerful than bows and arrows. They could use flames to kill enemies invisibly and were invincible. He did not expect them to arrive at the mountain so quickly.

He encouraged his people: "Don't be afraid. We are the bravest hunters in Monkey Ridge. If we can't stop them, we will retreat into the dense forest and use traps and mechanisms to deal with them, just like we hunt wild boars."

At this moment, the familiar Li people dressed in neat bright red clothes lined up in a straight line and then picked up their dark iron pipes.

"Bang, bang, bang!" A crisp sound rang out, and wisps of smoke rose. Before the warriors of Luotiandong knew what was happening, they fell one by one into pools of blood. Some of them, not quite dead, were still twitching and struggling, trying to dig out the lead pellets from their chest wounds.

Ma Shi was both shocked and furious. Was this the iron pipe that could kill someone from a hundred paces away?

After a volley of gunfire, the guards fixed their bayonets and began their charge. If the firing continued, the small village would be wiped out; these Li people had no idea how to dodge bullets and could only stand there and take the hits.

Seeing the gleaming bayonets piercing the chests of his tribesmen, Ma Shi was enraged. He brandished his weapon—a spear with a polished stone attached to a wooden stick as its spearhead—and charged into the battlefield, deflecting bayonets after bayonet for his people. He shouted, "Go! Go into the dense forest! That's our battlefield!"

With his rich experience in fighting wild beasts, the agile Ma Shi fought against several burly special forces soldiers, holding his own and retreating as he prepared to find an opportunity to escape.

At this moment, a tall and burly figure appeared in Ma Shi's field of vision, holding a thick iron rod as tall as a person in his hand.

Seeing their captain take action, the guards abandoned Ma Shi and chased after the remaining survivors.

Lin San raised the iron rod, which reached his eyebrows, with one hand and slammed it down onto the stone, creating a whooshing sound.

Ma Shi was taken aback. How much strength must one have to generate such a whistling sound by wielding a stick with one hand? He had no time to escape and could only raise his spear to block the blow.

With a sharp crack, the spear snapped in two, while the iron rod struck Ma Shi's right shoulder without any resistance. Ma Shi coughed up blood, collapsed to his knees, and his right arm hung limply at his sides.

Lin San shook his head in disappointment: "Is this the best hunter in Monkey Ridge?" He picked up the iron rod with one hand, walked around Ma Shi, and headed towards the panicked villagers in the village, without looking at Ma Shi again.

After a while, blood slowly flowed from Ma Shi's mouth and nose. His face was as pale as paper, and then he collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes, facing the sky, his eyes devoid of any light. Behind him, shrill screams rose and fell, but he could no longer hear them.