The ins and outs of this attack were quickly pieced together through the back-and-forth conversations between the militia captain and the police chief. The reason for the assault by this group of lone traders was solely to execute a decapitation strike.
It is well known that Guatemala indeed has seventy thousand criminal organizations, most of which make their money from prohibited black industries like gambling and drugs.
The thugs who previously attacked Liang En and his group belonged to one of these criminal organizations, which has about seventy armed members.
Compared to the top gangs with thousands of members, this gang is quite small, but in this remote and desolate area, a force of over seventy people can still dominate.
This is why the organization had the confidence to send a messenger to the town and openly ask the local people to grow various unique crops.
As the organization grew, they felt they could move beyond just being middlemen and start integrating production and sales, and their armed strength certainly gave them enough confidence.
However, in a country that has been in a civil war for over thirty years, the locals are definitely not docile lambs. After a simple comparison of strength, the townspeople resolutely refused their request.
The reason for this choice is simple: compared to current economic and food crops, which can find many different dealers, if one cannot sell them, they can still use them themselves. Once they start growing unique crops, their lifeline would be in the hands of the gang.
Everyone knows the disadvantages of monopoly, not to mention when a group of lawless thugs enforces it. Even without thinking too hard, it’s clear that if they submitted, the townspeople's income would drop significantly, and they might not even be able to sustain themselves.
On the other hand, official personnel in Central American countries are also extremely unreliable. Even when it comes to fighting evil forces, they often just randomly pick a few people to make a show of it.
Moreover, during these operations, they generally don’t make an effort to avoid civilians or reduce various collateral damages. If civilians are close to the target, there is a not insignificant chance that they might be shot or bombed.
Not to mention that before any official action, those criminal gangs would have already received information and fled, but the local townspeople with homes and businesses certainly cannot run. Once discovered cooperating with the criminal gangs, they could easily be arrested and blamed.
This is why the town firmly stated its refusal, and the town's armed forces also ensured they had enough confidence to say no to the gang of thugs.
As a country that has been in civil war for over thirty years, those villages that still exist today are not easy to deal with, like this time Liang En's target, Maria Town, which is such a settlement.
The entire town is located on a peninsula by the river and is not only fortified with a 3-meter high rammed earth and timber wall complete with trenches and shelters for defense but also has a militia of about thirty people.
Of course, here the militia refers to professionally trained non-professional armed personnel. Besides them, nearly 300 people in the town are capable of taking up arms in resistance, working together with the fortifications to cause significant casualties to attackers without heavy weapons.
This is why the criminal gang previously did not want to attack directly because with their numbers, a direct attack would be no different from suicide, so they had to find another way.
Through their informants, they identified the positions of the leaders of the town's armed personnel and attempted to ambush them on this road, to execute a decapitation strike against the defenders of the town.
Unexpectedly, what is usually a scarcely traveled road saw three vehicles at once, all filled with elite armed personnel, resulting in half of their best attackers dying in the woods.
For Liang En and his group, being involved in a conflict for self-preservation was within their expectations since coming to this place meant being ready to fight.
However, what they didn't expect was that they would be able to kill 15 men without any injuries on their side and force another nearly 20 to flee in disarray.
After dragging the school bus from the roadside and changing its tires, they continued their journey to the target town with the weapons and ammunition they had just seized.
It must be said, the local criminals, especially those from small-scale criminal organizations, don't really live that well. For instance, the spoils they had just seized were quite poor.
Out of the 15 guns, only three AK-47s and one M14 could be considered standard weapons. The rest were either various single-shot or double-barreled shotguns or purely makeshift weapons made of iron pipes and wooden barrels in a rough style.
Especially those makeshift weapons, which seemed unreliable at best, giving the impression that firing them was as dangerous for the shooter as it was for the target, perhaps even more so for the user.
Because they unexpectedly saved the lives of the local police chief and the militia captain, the rest of
their journey was significantly smoother than even the best scenario they had previously imagined.
Not only did they smoothly obtain the supplies they most needed in the town, but they also gained three professional hunters who had been hunting in the vicinity to guide them.
More importantly, they saw some small jade pieces dredged from the river, confirming that the ore deposit was indeed upstream.
With the help of these professionals, their subsequent journey through the jungle was much easier than expected, at least now this road was much closer and easier to travel than the one they had originally planned.
After riding to a flat area on a mountainside, everyone quickly started to set up camp for the night, and Liang En walked forward with a guide to a small mound a few dozen meters away.
After clearing the tropical plants from the mound, Liang En discovered that it was not just a mound but a ruin with Mayan-style stone carvings.
One reason for choosing this route today was because it was easier to travel, but another reason was that after learning of Liang En's identity and goals, the previously rescued police chief and militia captain prompted everyone to recall the ancient ruins nearby, and someone remembered there seemed to be ruins here.
Moreover, this town was actually built on an ancient village. Before setting out, Liang En had even specifically visited the town church and recognized the Mayan patterns carved on the foundation stones.
While it is said that all surviving Mayan architecture is stone, in reality, most ancient Mayans lived in huts made of wood and various tropical herbaceous plants, with only the nobility and clergy able to live in stone buildings.
However, here in the tropical rainforest, those structures made of organic materials easily completely disappear in the forest, leaving those rare stone constructions to represent ancient Mayan architecture.
For the ancient Mayans, the ability to construct stone buildings was a sign of a very important location, and theoretically, a barren and desolate place like the previous one should not have had such high-class buildings, let alone now in the jungle.
So, seeing these remains, Liang En felt even more confident about finding the mine, as a significant jade mine would have been enough reason for the ancient Mayans to build stone structures in such a place.
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