Chapter 59: The World

(... When we retreat, we all lowered our heads. Not only because of the defeat, but more because we didn't dare to look at the eyes of the people who fled along the way; sometimes we would bully them, that was because we hated us! I hated why we defeated the war again! We all knew very well that every time we took a step back, there would be more land to become hell on earth... Excerpted from "Grandpa's Memories of the War of Resistance")

Wangting Town is located on the shore of Taihu Lake in the northwest of Suzhou. At the junction of Suzhou and Wuxi, the Grand Canal and the Beijing-Shanghai Railway pass by here. It is an important transportation hub between Suzhou and Wuxi and the entrance to the Taihu water network. The No. 137 Railway Bridge and the Canal Iron Bridge here are both top priority in defense.

Along both sides of the canal and along the Beijing-Shanghai Railway are all fleeing people who are inexhaustible. These people come from all places and from all places where the Japanese landed.

The officers and soldiers of the Model Battalion set up more than a dozen large pots, rice, sweet potatoes and corn in one breath, and made the aroma so fragrant. This was prepared for those refugees, but not for nothing.

"Go to your mother, I want to eat for free!" A soldier cursed, raised his butt and smashed it at a refugee who hurriedly avoided: "Do you want to eat it? In addition to porridge, there are also pancakes! Go to work!"

As long as you dig a load of soil, sand and stone at the designated location and carry it to the designated location, you can exchange it for a bowl of porridge. There are several such porridge dishes. As for those porridge cakes, you have to pay more, so you have to do physical work to exchange them.

The fields were filled with people, chaotic and black; these tired and hungry people were staring at the steaming pot with their eyes...

"Mom, I'm hungry..." "Just wait, wait... Dad will pick up the dirt soon... Then there will be porridge for you..." "June, the old man really can't pick it up. You are so good, give me a bowl of porridge..." "June, my man is going to pick up the dirt, can you get the porridge for the child first..." Every porridge order is filled with various discussions and beggings and crying... But, no! Everything must be followed! Every soldier sympathizes with the refugees from the bottom of his heart. They are all their own people! But every soldier strictly follows the discipline, and they know how important this is!

The rules were set by Cao Xiaomin. Of course, he could give the porridge to the refugees for nothing, but in this way, the refugees would become more chaotic and even rob! People can do whatever they want when they are extremely hungry, but the bayonets can keep them abiding by the discipline!

Using bayonets to maintain order and using food as a temptation, refugees are not only able to dig out the trenches and anti-tank trenches they need, load up spare soil buns, and carry combat supplies, but more importantly, they can regain order! The chaotic crowd will get used to being commanded by soldiers after drinking porridge here and continue to go on the road.

Refugees have always been around, reaching their peak on November 20th, and almost all of them are refugees within their sight. The retreating troops pass by from time to time, and these defeated soldiers will also rush to the porridge and ask for food. When eating, their emotions will slowly soothe. When talking to the defenders, they will slowly remember that they are a soldier...

"A few days ago, the Japanese did not make any noise, but suddenly they started fighting, which was even more fierce than before. All Japanese troops had tanks and heavy artillery..." After a defeated veteran ate a pancake, he came back to his senses: "We can't fight. There are planes in the sky and tanks under the ground. There are only twenty or thirty rifles in one company. The brothers are already very brave, and many people have died in battle..." Before he finished speaking, the crowd suddenly became chaotic, and several Japanese planes in the sky were buzzing and flying... "Hurry! Come here..." The soldiers who were on the porridge point ran away with the defeated soldiers...

"Dadada...Dadada..." The plane shot at the crowd on the ground. The soldiers and other soldiers who were giving porridge quickly hid in the nearby fortifications. The hungry refugees risked their lives to scoo up their own porridge! The raindrop-like bullets hit the crowd. The porridge pot was stained with blood. Countless refugees died at the porridge pot. The unbumped porridge pot boiled the blood to brown in a blink of an eye. The refugees who avoided the shooting would quickly drink all the porridge porridge. The overturned pot poured the porridge all over the ground. After the Japanese plane flew away, refugees rushing up to pounce on the ground and stuff the porridge residue on the ground and the soil into their mouths...

The Japanese planes often come, and the same scene happens every time. After the Japanese planes leave, they will leave corpses on the ground. Those corpses will be carried to the loose river and buried in a straw. Someone with relatives crying, while those without relatives will disappear silently from the world... As for the situation of being beaten even more miserable, they will get a simple treatment from the military doctor, and then stuff a cake to them and let them fend for themselves - the army can't take care of themselves and can't take care of so many!

Not long after, the big pot would be put up again to continue making porridge. The porridge was quickly filled with people... Death, hunger, chaos, panic... The scope of the target was gray and dead, and there was no vegetation, and they were all trampled by refugees. The blood in the air and the aroma of sweet potatoes and corn mixed together to form a special smell. The dirty crowd struggling on the edge of death looked like a living ghost... Is this a beautiful Jiangnan by the 800-mile Taihu Lake? Everything that was shown in front of the officers and soldiers makes people suspect that this is the Naihe Bridge in front of the gate of hell, and there is no feeling of the world!

"After landing in Liuhe in Taicang, the Japanese burned and killed all the way. They burned more than 2,000 houses of six or seven hundred households into scorched earth in Youjiaqiao and 72jia Village. Nearly 100 villagers were killed, and even beat people as live targets, stabbing children to death on bayonets for fun..." A refugee was taken to resting officers and soldiers and told the tragic scene he saw in Taicang: "The Japanese captured eleven innocent people, nailed ten of them to the long wooden lattice window, dismembered them alive, poured tinder oil to burn the body, and put the heads of these ten people into sacks. The one who was forced to live was picked up by the Japanese brigade headquarters to seek credit and reward..."

"The Japanese demolished the houses of ordinary people, tied people to the beams of the roof, poured them on tinders, and threw them into the canal before they died, so that they could float around with the water..." The refugees who escaped from the suburbs of Wujiang said another indignant situation: "Those beasts will commit violence and kill any woman regardless of age, and even the old lady in her seventies or eighties will not let go..."

Listening to the groups of refugees who fled from different places, they told about their escape from death, and the cruelty of the Japanese. The officers and soldiers had long lost the excitement and passion of the previous few days, and their expressions became cold and ferocious... This is the psychological training content specially arranged by Cao Xiaomin, in order to let the officers and soldiers dissolve their passion as soon as possible, in order to let the officers and soldiers understand what kind of beasts they are facing - the War of Resistance is not a occasion to show heroic spirit, it is just a nation's struggle at the critical moment of life and death!

A large number of corpses floated in the Grand Canal every day, some of which were tied to wooden beams, their hands and feet were tied to wooden beams, and their bodies were burned to pieces. I don’t know if they were burned or drowned. When all kinds of tragic corpses soaked in the river water first appeared in the canal, the soldiers would fish the corpses up and bury them; but in the past two days, when the corpses were no longer one or two, but were constantly floating down, the soldiers could only let them float in the water...

...When we retreated, we all lowered our heads. Not only because of the defeat, but more because we didn't dare to look at the eyes of the people who fled along the road; sometimes we bullied them, that's because we hated us! Why did we defeat the war again! We all know that every step back, more land will become hell on earth... Cao Xiaomin kept muttering this passage in his grandfather's memoirs: We all know that every step back, more land will become hell on earth... After entering Wangting for several days, he was busy supervising the construction of fortifications and educating him of the angry young soldiers. He only hoped that the Chinese Democratic Party soldiers would take less!

"Why? They're all crying?" Cao Xiaomin walked into the fortification with a steel helmet, and saw the soldiers who had just heard the refugees' telling each of them with tears on their faces: "Every time we take a step back, we will have an extra piece of land and become a hell on earth!... In order not to take a step back, the seniors of the Model Camp, my old brothers and I, holding explosives bags and grenades, died with the enemy one by one; my tears were sobbing after that time, and I only let myself bleed!"

Cao Xiaomin gently wiped a soldier around him with his sleeves to dry his tears: "When crying, people will tremble and cannot catch the gun... Brothers, Wujiang has been lost. Now the Japanese are attacking Suzhou, and it is our turn next! There are all the people behind him, and the Chinese Democratic Party soldiers have no way out!"

"There are all people behind you, and the Chinese Democratic Party soldiers have no way out!" As Cao Xiaomin walked all over the garrison, the slogans before the Shao family war sounded again in every pit in the model camp. The eyes of both of them looked at the battalion commander were already full of arrogance and excitement, but today's soldiers had murderous aura in their eyes!
Chapter completed!