"Bring me my gun." Ren Baqian beckoned to the side. Immediately, someone took the 2.15 meter long heavy machine gun and placed it in front of Ren Baqian before he wielded it in his hand.
"Bring me the trunk that contains the bullets," Ren Baqian called out once again. Then, he walked toward the entrance of the stronghold"s gate. s.h.i.+ Hu hurriedly followed behind him.
"Wake up that fellow who is still asleep." Ren Baqian said without turning his head.
At such a crucial moment, Lin Qiaole was still a more reliable option.
It didn"t mean tha s.h.i.+ Hu and the rest weren"t reliable, but they were slightly weaker compared to Lin Qiaole.
In any case, Lin Qiaole was the bodyguard that the empress had handpicked for him. As such, the empress should have a good understanding of her strength.
When they arrived at the entrance of the stronghold, the main door was currently shut. The entire place was in disorder. There were some people blocking the main door while others were looking for weapons. It was a complete mess.
"Who are those people that have arrived? How many of them are here?" s.h.i.+ Hu caught someone and asked.
"The Great Xia soldiers. There are a few thousands of them at the very least," the person urgently answered.
Ren Baqian went to the top of the stronghold and looked out. All he could see were the lines of soldiers in the distance that were as long as dragons as they advanced toward the stronghold. The front of the queue was at least a few kilometers away. It was like a yellow dragon with quite a bit of dust swept up at the back.
"Can you gauge how many soldiers there are?" Ren Baqian asked s.h.i.+ Hu first before turning back to instruct someone else, "Bring all my ammunition boxes as well as that bag of mine over."
After that, they opened the two boxes and connected the ammunition belts together.
"Looking at the amount of dust scattered, there must be at least 4,000 Great Xia soldiers." s.h.i.+ Hu silently calculated in his heart before speaking up.
Ren Baqian nodded his head and waited over there.
There was a total of about 300 old and weak people as well as 200 strong and young people. In fact, at the age of 50, aboriginals could still be considered as young and strong. At the very least their fighting capabilities weren"t weak at all.
These people were already somewhat reluctant to defend against a thousand soldiers, not to mention a few thousand of them. Although these commoners weren"t weak, they were unarmed and simply a bunch of slightly stronger villagers that were at the Man Wheel level when matched against the elite soldiers of Great Xia.
"Sir, are we going to retreat? Even if we bring along the people in the stronghold, they will not be able to chase after us if their cavalry isn"t present," s.h.i.+ Hu said softly.
"Retreat, what retreat? Winner winner, chicken dinner." Ren Baqian gave him the side-eye.
I can finally use my heavy machine gun today and you are telling me to retreat now?
After thinking for awhile, Ren Baqian said, "Let the old and weak people in the stronghold retreat first. Don"t allow them to bring anything along. We will retreat only if we really can"t hold on anymore."
After he spoke, Ren Baqian"s bag and the 20 ammunition belts were sent to the corner, while the rest of the wooden boxes were piled below.
Ren Baqian took the binoculars out from his bag. Via the binoculars, he could immediately see everything clearly. He could even see the face of the soldier right at the front.
With spears in their hands, four people in a row were headed in their direction, but he couldn"t clearly see how long the spears were.
However, Ren Baqian managed to see the silhouettes of the horses through the binoculars. Fortunately, there weren"t many of them.
"Let the old and weak people retreat first. It will be troublesome if they remain here and we actually need to escape." Ren Baqian urged s.h.i.+ Hu to execute his command.
s.h.i.+ Hu took a glance at the gun that was racked up. Although he saw the power of this thing on that same day, he wasn"t certain whether it would be able to stop the Great Xia soldiers.
The other party had way too many soldiers.
Later on, if things didn"t turn out well, he would get that girl to escort Ren Baqian away first as he and the others tried to obstruct the Great Xia soldiers for a while longer.
At the thought of this, s.h.i.+ Hu went down and made arrangements. Soon after, under the accompaniment of dozens of young people, the old and weak people in the stronghold left from the back. They then headed straight to Xiaojiang City, which would take them half a day to travel to.
The front of the Great Xia army arrived 500 meters away from the entrance of the stronghold and halted, waiting for the rest of their soldiers to arrive.
"You really want us to obstruct them?" At this point in time, Lin Qiaole finally woke up. She leaned on the corner of the wall and spoke unhurriedly.
"Fight to our deaths and do not retreat!" Ren Baqian grinned and revealed a set of ghastly white teeth.
Lin Qiaole looked at him suspiciously.
Since when had he become so strong-willed?
"How"s that? Am I strong-willed?" Ren Baqian snickered and instantly lost his charm within three seconds.
"Strong-willed indeed! As long as you don"t shout for help later, it"s fine!" Lin Qiaole threw a huge piece of White Rabbit Creamy Candy into her mouth. After that, she carefully counted the number of White Rabbit Creamy Candies she had in her purse.
Every time she ate a piece of White Rabbit Creamy Candy, she had to recount the total number of candies she had. This may be related to the early death of her math teacher, but she feared that she would lose her candies.
"Leave two people behind to fill the ammunition belts with bullets. Everyone else, get into your positions and defend properly. For every guard, there should be three young and strong people present," Ren Baqian turned around and shouted. At present, three a.s.sembled ammunition belts were placed on the ground, each of which was made up of five normal ammunition belts and 300 rounds of bullets. Similarly, 300 rounds of bullets were also loaded into the gun.
The Great Xia soldiers outside didn"t wait for the rest of the soldiers to arrive. Instead, they marched into their battle formation and advanced toward the stronghold.
Although the footsteps of the 1,000 soldiers weren"t in order, it made Ren Baqian, who was at the top of the stronghold, s.h.i.+vered.
"Let them come closer, just a little closer in case they escape later!" Ren Baqian mumbled softly. He looked into the scope and aimed as he pointed the muzzle of the gun toward the front of the battle formation.
Frankly, saying that he wasn"t nervous at all was a lie.
In front of him was a battle formation of 1,000 soldiers.
Even though Ren Baqian had a heavy machine gun in his hand, he was still somewhat anxious.
Not only was he nervous, everyone else was nervous too. Let alone those young and strong people, even though they had kick-a.s.s character, they were up against 1,000 elite Great Xia soldiers. Under this sort of situation, staying here was practically the road to death.
It already showed a great deal of courage for them to stay here at this moment.
Among them, there were people who were reluctant to part with their stronghold. Also, there were people who had the thought of obstructing the Great Xia soldiers while letting the old and weak leave first. They would only leave when they really couldn"t obstruct the Great Xia soldiers any longer. This was the opinion of the majority of the people.
Each and every one of their faces tightened while they fixated their gazes on the Great Xia soldiers in the distance. They were also clenching weapons such as clubs in their hands.
"Hu Zi, don"t be lenient later," someone said to the youngster beside him.
"Look at me smash their brains into pieces later." That youngster was holding on to a thick wooden club. It wasn"t long before he asked, "Can we obstruct them?"
"Obstruct? Obstruct what? There are a few thousand of them! Just try to stall the time. We will only retreat when they are a distance away and we can"t obstruct them any longer," that burly man responded.
As for the other guards, they were ready to fight to the death so that Ren Baqian would be able to flee at anytime. However, they were still looking forward to the weapon that Ren Baqian brought and whether it could really obstruct the Great Xia soldiers outside of this stronghold.
Looking at the other party"s spears that were pointing ahead, they were approaching the mark that was 200 meters away from the stronghold.
"Whoos.h.!.+" Four or five arrows were shot into the Great Xia battle formation.
There had been no communication between the two sides from the beginning to the present. Regardless of whether it was the elite soldiers of Great Xia or the young and strong people from the stronghold, they were all silent.
From both parties" perspective, the other party wasn"t only an enemy, but was also from a different tribe. As such, only one party could survive.
A few Great Xia soldiers got hit and silently fell to the ground. There was only a slight disturbance within the battle formation before the rest of the soldiers stepped over their bodies.
This silence, as well as the intensive footsteps, made Ren Baqian"s heart feel even more stifled.
A smile appeared on his face, just like the smile he had when he was the Honglu deputy and instructed Xiong Pi to hang that Lian Family"s guard. It was very good-natured, and he was able to conceal his innermost thoughts. As such, it was impossible to notice what was he actually thinking about.
"Bang, bang,bang...!" Ren Baqian squeezed the trigger and a flame shot out of the muzzle of the gun that was half a meter long.
Now, the Great Xia soldiers in the battle formation weren"t silent anymore. At the split second when the tongue of flame was spurting out from the gun, it set off a storm of blood. Severed bodies, limbs, and internal organs were flying everywhere as many people collapsed without a word. But, there were still many people with severed arms or legs who were screaming miserably on the ground.
When a 12.7mm bullet hits a person"s body, it would practically slice through his or her body. However, if it hit another area, it would cause broken limbs to fly everywhere.
Furthermore, from Ren Baqian"s point of view, his first shot hit the chest of the man in front, created a huge hole in his chest, and even broke another person"s leg at the back.
From the scope, he clearly saw the Great Xia soldiers getting blown to pieces and falling in rows as they let out blood-curdling cries. It was as if they were wheat that was being cut.
Visceral fragments were sprayed from the wounds and spilled everywhere.
Most people still didn"t know what had happened when all of a sudden, they found a piece of their body missing.
Like a scene in Asura"s h.e.l.l, it left everyone in the stronghold dumbstruck.