"They surrendered!" Che Zhen shouted, "They raised white underwear!"
Jiang Ye hurried towards Che Zhen's direction. He hid behind half a ruined wall and pointed outside the wall.
Jiang Ye cautiously peeked out. Dozens of meters ahead, there was a series of shell craters. Many assault rifles were held upright, like a small forest. White underwear hung from each muzzle, fluttering in the wind.
"Are they lace ones?" Jiang Ye was dumbfounded.
"Huh?" Che Zhen was startled, poked his head out to take a look, and quickly retracted it. "They really are! Do the men on this planet wear lace briefs?"
Jiang Ye handed the rocket launcher to Che Zhen and took the assault rifle from his hand.
"I'll go take a look. If it's a feigned surrender, they'll definitely shoot me dead. You continue fighting with your men," Jiang Ye said and started walking forward.
Che Zhen reached out and grabbed him. "Commander, let me go!"
"We can revive if we die, what's there to fight over? Obey orders!" Jiang Ye said irritably.
Che Zhen retracted his hand, squatted behind the wall, shouldered the rocket launcher, and aimed at the long street.
A series of clattering sounds came from behind. The soldiers all loaded their magazines to full, their expressions solemn. If their commander met with an accident, they would open fire immediately!
Although dying here didn't matter, Jiang Ye's heart still raced violently as he left the cover.
There were two burnt-out ambulances by the roadside. Nurses' bodies were still lying under the cars. The white coats were reduced to tatters, a gruesome sight. The cars had been burnt out at least five or six hours ago, when the rioters had already controlled the vicinity. Some dead civilians could still be seen by the roadside. The bullets had entered their backs. More than half of them were elderly. Rioters, rioters, the name was not undeserved.
The asphalt road was covered with shell craters, the surface wrinkled like parched fields. Jiang Ye walked forward unhurriedly, pointing his gun barrel at the craters.
Finally, he reached the edge of a crater.
The sight before him stunned him.
Several craters were filled with women, at least sixty or seventy of them. They were the ones holding up their guns in surrender. They were in all sorts of attire: sportswear, home clothes, skirts, and some were even wearing professional suits of white-collar workers. Every one of them had terrified eyes, wide open like small deer struck by a hunter, trembling and gasping. It was clear they were too scared to move. Each of them also held a blue silk scarf.
"Who's the leader?" Jiang Ye asked. He feared the word "leader" might no longer exist in this era, so he quickly added, "Where is the officer? Who is commanding you?"
"The person commanding us is in the bank on Southeast Street, and you've already killed him," a woman in a short skirt said, trembling. "We are civilians. The Blue Scarf Army tricked us, saying there was food and flu medicine at their place. When we got there, they organized us into a unit, gave us guns and blue scarves, and ordered us to guard here. They said to shoot anyone without a blue scarf on their face. If we let one escape, they would execute one of us. If we ran, we would also be shot."
"Are there any Blue Scarf Army members nearby?" Jiang Ye asked.
"We don't know. It's just us on this street."
"What's your name?"
"Kyoko Hagiwara."
"Throw out all your guns, leave no weapons behind," Jiang Ye pointed at Kyoko Hagiwara. "From now on, you are the officer of these people. You will obey me directly. My name is Jiang Ye."
"Yes, Mr. Jiang!" Kyoko Hagiwara quickly waved her hand. "Everyone throw away your weapons!"
A jumble of metallic sounds followed as the female soldiers scrambled to throw out their weapons as if they were hot coals. Submachine guns, assault rifles, light machine guns, pistols, shotguns... the weapons were a motley assortment, but all were older conventional types.
Jiang Ye waited until all weapons were thrown out of the craters and nodded. "I am a rescue team sent by the military to take you away from here. You opened fire on civilians, and the number of people you killed, and the crimes you committed, I will not deal with for now. The military will be responsible for your trial later. Now, if you want to live, go to the hospital and help carry the wounded. We will drive the red rescue vehicles over soon, and you will be responsible for getting the wounded into the vehicles."
"After all the wounded in the hospital are evacuated, I can take you away. If you have any relatives, call them to come to the hospital. None of you are allowed to leave the hospital, or you'll be shot."
"Alright, let's go!" Jiang Ye waved his hand.
"Everyone follow me! Let's move faster!" Kyoko Hagiwara shouted, pulling a young girl beside her out of the crater.
Jiang Ye turned and returned to the cover. He said to the soldiers, "One person per vehicle to drive. Park the rescue vehicles at the hospital entrance and wait to pick up patients. The rest of you continue to maintain vigilance on the nearby streets. Do not let any armed rioters pass."
"Yes!" The soldiers acted quickly and moved out of cover.
Jiang Ye also ran back to the intersection to drive. Just as he started the rescue vehicle, Li Nannan's voice came from the vehicle's broadcast.
"How's it going on your end? I've brushed another car and I'm heading to the hospital!" Li Nannan's voice was urgent. "Don't take any rash actions. Wait for me to get there before engaging the enemy! This batch of rioters has some military training, you can't handle them yourselves!"
"It's basically handled," Jiang Ye said. "I've sent some soldiers to maintain vigilance in the surrounding areas, and I haven't heard any reports of enemy activity." "I led them down a street, blasted open a bank, and killed the Blue Scarf Army members who were robbing the bank. Then, sixty or seventy enemy female soldiers surrendered. They said they were tricked into coming here. Their leader was killed, so they surrendered. I've asked them to help move the patients."
"Stupid! What if there are suicide bombers!" Li Nannan was anxious. "Have them all withdraw!"
Jiang Ye had already driven the vehicle to the hospital and could see the surrendered enemies helping to carry stretchers.
"Don't worry, it's fine. They're already busy, and no one is exploding," Jiang Ye said, opening the car door.
The siege of the hospital was finally lifted. Jiang Ye led his troops to transport patients back by the vehicle, working for over ten hours. A total of 12,870 people were transported. In addition to the patients, many infected medical staff were also evacuated. Finally, the surrendered prisoners were also gathered and transported to the airport.
Upon arrival at the airport, the prisoners were all handcuffed, their identities recorded through facial recognition, and escorted into the spaceship's prison cells. They would await trial.
Jiang Ye and Li Nannan returned to the base in the same car, both intending to log off.
"What will those prisoners be sentenced to?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Most likely a fine and they'll be done with it," Li Nannan said. "Whether they were forcibly recruited at the last minute or not."
"Why?" Jiang Ye frowned.
"It's been too chaotic during this time. There are probably hundreds of thousands of similar rioter groups on various planets. We can't execute them all, can we?" Li Nannan said calmly. "Sentencing isn't just about actions, but also about the social impact. If they were sentenced to death, and it could prevent such situations from happening, they would definitely be sentenced to death. But in their case, if society collapses and becomes paralyzed, such things will definitely happen again. Sentencing them to death won't change anything, so they'll be let go. That's my understanding, but there might be variables."
"I see. What about these patients? Can they be cured?" Jiang Ye said. "Most of the people saved today are patients."