My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 101 Night Bandits
"On call?"

Peng Yuanchao felt that Li Guozhu's talk was mostly empty: "We don't even know where his mine is right now, so we can't call on him if something happens. Besides, if we can't handle it, adding a few more of his people probably won't make much difference. It would be better to give us something more practical, like sending us a few pounds of gold."

Zhou Jingming rolled his eyes at him: "Brother Peng, are you still asleep? Wake up! A few pounds of gold? Why don't you just rob someone? Tell me, how many pounds have you accumulated since you came to Little Peninsula to work?"

Peng Yuanchao was stunned for a moment, thought about it carefully, and realized that he really didn't have much.

“Think carefully about what these sayings from our elders mean, such as ‘great kindness needs no words of thanks’ and ‘great kindness is like an enemy’!”

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "They saved someone's life, and now they want a few pounds of gold from them? Those few pounds of gold are more valuable than their lives."

Peng Yuanchao smiled awkwardly: "That's all I meant."

"It's already very kind of you to think of sending some wine and smoked horse sausage."

Zhou Jingming was quite open-minded about these things and never thought of arguing about them. If he did, gratitude would soon turn into hatred.

He paused for a moment, then continued, "Don't look down on them. Don't forget, they were only eight or fifteen people who came to take over the territory. Even when we cornered them in the dugout, we still managed to drive them away. What does that mean?"
This means these people are fierce and ruthless!

Peng Yuanchao nodded slightly: "He is indeed quite impressive."

"Stop thinking about all that nonsense and get back to work!"

As Zhou Jingming spoke, he walked towards the small peninsula: "They drifted so far and didn't drown, so they shouldn't be too far from here. I think Li Guozhu is a very interesting person, and I'd like to get to know him. When we have a day off, we can go to their mine and visit them."

The two returned to the small peninsula and continued with their work.

Three days later, around noon, Zhou Jingming and the others were still working on the small peninsula when they saw two people coming up the opposite bank of the river downstream.

Just like Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang when they went out to fight as guerrillas, they walked along the riverbank, digging here and there, collecting mud and sand from the cracks in the rocks with gold buckets, and scooping up two buckets of mud and sand from the river.

Jin Wangting was very protective of his home. When he spotted the two men, he rushed to the shallows where the small peninsula jutted into the river and barked wildly at them until they went upstream. Then he stood next to Zhou Jingming for a while, returned to the tent, and, attracted by something, followed them into the woods.

Zhou Jingming took a closer look at the two men. They were completely unfamiliar faces. He had never heard them speak before and didn't know where they were from. He simply assumed they were also guerrilla fighters.

No one else entered the mining site, nor did they linger there, so they didn't take it seriously.

Little did they know that on that very night, in the dead of night, Jin Wang suddenly made a sound, shouting unusually fiercely.

Startled awake, Zhou Jingming, Wu Yang, and Peng Yuanchao quickly put on their shoes, grabbed the hunting rifles placed beside their beds, and crawled out of the tent to check. The others followed suit, and Xu Youliang, Sun Chenggui, and the other two also picked up their hunting rifles.

Regardless of whether they can use them or not, if a conflict occurs, even if a gunshot is fired but nothing is hit, it can still have a certain deterrent effect.

The others picked up shovels, pickaxes, steel bars, and other handy tools and waited.

As the weather gets hotter, the dugout is slightly cooler than the tent during the day, but at night, it can feel like a sauna for a period of time.

Unable to bear it any longer, Peng Yuanchao and others had already moved out.

Peng Yuanchao moved into the tent where Zhou Jingming and the others were, while the rest were assigned to the two tents on the left and right.

As they spent more time together, they became familiar with each other and would often get together to brag, play cards, and gamble, sometimes until late at night.

These kinds of things are common in the Gold Rush Valley. Although Zhou Jingming dislikes them, he doesn't completely forbid them.

As I said before, once the gold is in their hands, how they deal with it is their business. I can't interfere, and I'm too lazy to interfere.

Fortunately, no fights have broken out over winning or losing in the past few days.

Hearing the noise and seeing a group of people come out, Zhou Jingming was quite satisfied; at least, they still had basic vigilance.

Downstream, people were seen coming up the riverbank with flashlights.

Judging from the location of the flickering flashlight beam, there were probably only four or five people there.

Traveling through the mountains at this time of year is quite unusual, and most people felt that they were likely heading towards the small peninsula.

He dared not let his guard down, so he quickly returned to the tent, put some buckshot in his pocket, and tucked two more buckshot between his fingers so that he could reload his gun when the two bullets in it were used up.

As the group drew closer, one of the Luo Yue people turned on his flashlight and shone it in the direction they were coming from.

Wu Yang reacted quickly, snatched the flashlight in one step, and immediately turned it off.

"Are you fucking crazy? Who told you to turn on the flashlight?"

Wu Yang muttered under his breath, "It's pitch black everywhere. If a conflict breaks out and the other side has a gun, they'll definitely find a place with light to shoot. Do you want to die?"

Upon hearing this, the man dared not utter a sound.

But then Wu Yang gave another order: "Everyone disperse, find a tree and hide behind it, and no one should make a sound."

These were all very reasonable points, and everyone immediately took action.

They set up camp in the clearing among the birch trees. After staying there for a while, they became very familiar with the surroundings. Even if they couldn't see anything, they could still find the familiar birch trees to hide in by their senses. However, they didn't dare to separate too far apart, worried that if a fight broke out, they wouldn't even have any help.

Zhou Jingming and his group, who were carrying guns, each found a tree to hide under and stood in front of the crowd.

On nights like this, the men knew that only the guns in their hands were truly reliable.

Soon, the people approached to within twenty or thirty meters of the dugout and stopped.

The dogs were barking so fiercely that they clearly knew they couldn't avoid alerting the gold panning team at the mine site.

They had only seen a flash of the flashlight, and then there was no further movement. They were unsure of what was happening near the tent and dared not approach rashly.

One of them shone his flashlight towards the tent. Zhou Jingming immediately raised his gun to his face, aiming at the man's position. He saw the man immediately lower his flashlight beam, and he could vaguely hear some soft voices, as if they were discussing something.

Soon, a voice came from the woods: "Friend, we're just passing by, we mean nothing by it!"

Zhou Jingming thought for a moment and replied, "You've already entered our mining area. Since you don't have any other intentions, leave now. If you come any closer, don't blame us for being impolite. Our guns don't have eyes. If you want to pass, take a longer route."

His words were quite impolite.

On the other hand, facing a group of people who might have designs on the small peninsula, a bloody battle could break out at any moment, so there's no need to be polite.

One of the people in the woods said dismissively, "These guys are pretty arrogant..."

But before he could finish speaking, he was immediately yelled at by another person: "Shut up... let's go!"

The group turned on their flashlights and, instead of lingering at that spot, circled around to higher ground in the woods and continued upstream.

Jinwang's barking stopped only after the group had gone far away, and Zhou Jingming and the others retreated back to the shack.

"Judging from their actions, it seems like they're coming for us. Their approach just now was more like a test, and some of them seem to be quite dismissive of us."

Zhou Jingming's expression was somewhat solemn.

Peng Yuanchao simply cursed, "Damn it..."

As they were talking, Jinwang suddenly started barking at the woods on the riverbank below.

The people who had just breathed a sigh of relief were suddenly on edge again.

This time they were smarter and all sought shelter in trees.

Zhou Jingming and the others raised their guns again.

After waiting for a while, the sound of footsteps tripping over grass and branches came from the woods. The sound wasn't very chaotic, and it seemed that only one person had come up.

Soon, a familiar voice came from the woods: "It's me, Old Wu!"

It was Wu, the head of the downstream team.

Zhou Jingming put his gun away: "Chief Wu, what brings you here?"

Wu, the foreman, didn't rush to speak. He held up his flashlight and, with the light dimmed, approached the group before saying dejectedly, "Don't even mention it. We were robbed tonight. Just now, this group of five men suddenly crept up to the entrance of the dugout and cornered us inside... Damn it, they all had guns and forced us to hand over the gold."

Peng Yuanchao was startled: "You gave it to me?"

Wu, the foreman, shook his head and sighed: "What can we do if we don't give it to them? If we really piss them off, a few shots will take down all of us. That's what bandits are capable of. It seems that Zhao, the foreman downstream, and his men have also been robbed."

These bastards must have rushed in along the ditch. How are you doing?

Zhou Jingming frowned: "Thanks to Jin Wang, we knew about the movement in advance and knew we were on guard. They said they were just passing by, went around to higher ground, and continued upstream... Let's go and check out the small peninsula!"

Upon hearing this, the group quickly turned on their flashlights and jogged towards the small peninsula.

Looking upstream, I saw that Zhang and his men were sweeping their flashlights around randomly, but they weren't panicking. They must have heard Jin Wang's shout and were on guard in advance.

The two mining sites are only about a hundred meters apart, and Jin Wang's voice is enough to carry.

Upon closer inspection, several flashlight beams could be seen flashing in the woods on the uphill slope. These must be the same people who had appeared there earlier, and they were continuing to walk upstream.

Sun Chenggui looked upstream and muttered, "I'm afraid more people will suffer!"

"Definitely... Five men, five guns, that's enough to intimidate a lot of teams. They're robbing their way up the ditch. These guys are really greedy!"

Zhou Jingming turned to look at Wu, the foreman: "Were many of you robbed?"

Wu shook his head: "Not much. These days, gold dealers come into the mountains every few days. We just sold our gold a few days ago."

As you all know, the gold content at our mine is only average; we're just barely scraping by. We haven't gotten much these past few days!

"As long as the loss isn't too great..."

Zhou Jingming nodded, then asked, "Wu, what are you doing up here at this time?"

Wu paused for a moment, then said, "I...I just came up to take a look."

Zhou Jingming chuckled: "What's so interesting about this? Something just happened, you should hurry back and be more careful in the future!"

"You're right, I... I'm leaving!"

Wu hesitated for a moment, then left with his flashlight.

Watching him walk away, Zhou Jingming called out to the crowd again, "Everyone, go back and get some rest. We have work to do tomorrow!"

As the group walked back, Peng Yuanchao asked in a low voice, "Brother, do you think we should remind the people upstairs? After all, there are two or three of them who have sent us things before."

"I didn't force them to send it! They were just worried because they saw that we had fought two tough battles."

In their minds, we weren't seen as good people, just a potential threat.

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "Why should we do something that might cause us trouble? These bandits who come to rob us in the middle of the night are not as simple as you think. Besides, Jin Wang shouted so loudly just now, he should know what he needs to know."

　Thank you to my friend Tianya Zhiyin for the generous donation!

　　There will be another update in the evening!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)