Chapter 82: Hard Path

(... When we retreated from the Songhu battlefield, we made a lot of arrangements, and almost every unit had plans to cover and block; but there were too many Japanese planes, and even those old wooden planes were sent, but we couldn't beat them; as a result, the blocking arrangements without solid fortifications in the wild became decorations. The Japanese did not need to bomb a shallow field trench, but they directly sent two planes to strafuse the trench and burst into defense and collapsed... Excerpted from "Grandpa's Memories of the War of Resistance")

The distance from Wuxi to Suzhou is not far. There is a railway. In peacetime, only one hour is enough. Even if you walk along the railway for a day, it will be a difficult journey in front of this team.

In order to avoid the small Japanese troops and reconnaissance planes in the sky that might have encountered, Cao Xiaomin and others walked and stopped in the wilderness and the paths at an astonishingly slow speed.

Every section of the road, Cao Xiaomin, who can speak Japanese, will lead ten soldiers to "escort" five or six women first, and will send a signal to follow up when confirming that there is no danger. Veterans who have been on the battlefield know that there may be Japanese lurking observation posts in the wilderness and observe with telescopes, so they dare not walk on the ridges of the wilderness, nor on the riverside. They just blindly pick the densely-wooded roads with little sight. During the walk, they will sometimes "push" those brothers who are dressed as ordinary people. Many of the women who have been ruined by the Japanese have not recovered their bodies and have gritted their teeth and followed the team along the way. The soldiers couldn't bear it in their eyes, so everyone kept resting...

With the experience of the Shao family for the past two days, everyone is more familiar with how to find food: first find a village that was slaughtered by the Japanese, and then search for the remaining sweet potatoes and radishes on the side of the village and in the fields that were turned over. Because they dared not ignite the fire and cooked, they were all raw, but they almost made a big deal - they dug up taro and still ate it raw! The feeling of itchy mouth to the stomach made Cao Xiaomin unable to forget it for the rest of his life. He had to vomit out the bottom-level goods that were not too much in his stomach and gastric acid. The vomiting almost made him so weak that he could not hold on!

There are many rivers in Jiangnan. If there is no bridge in such a winter, just swim over like this. It is basically a dead end for them who are hungry and weak all over; not to mention the consequences of women whose physical trauma have not recovered after being soaked in the wound. So once they encounter a river, they can only wait until night - in broad daylight, why does a group of Japanese soldiers have bridges that don’t walk and have to pick a nobody’s area to cross the river? As long as a Japanese man sees them from afar, they will get hurt!

Every river that is slightly wider will cause them a lot of trouble. They must make wooden rafts, tie ropes and then cut them by a few people first, and then use ropes to pull the wooden rafts back and forth to transport other people. Sometimes a river that is more than ten meters wide can delay them for half a night!

"It's so quiet tonight..." The "drunk" who had just arrived ashore threw his exhausted body to Cao Xiaomin's side... Except for the faint and unresponsive cricket chirping made by "Call Zi" in the distance, the dark night without the moon was left with darkness and silence.

It's winter, even crickets are hibernating, and only those who are desperate to survive are struggling...

In the first three days, they would hear the sound of war from Wuxi on their way forward - because the straight line was very close, they were in a good wind, and they could not only hear the explosion of aviation bombs, but also distinguish whether the 105mm or 150mm caliber cannons were bombarded. However, from noon today, there was no sound of cannons; at that moment, the women whose nerves became very fragile and sensitive felt something was wrong, and the soldiers were in a bad mood.

The woman didn’t know why, but the veterans understood very well: the absence of cannons means that Wuxi has fallen!

Another blocking battle of corpses and blood, and another farewell to countless familiar brothers... After an entire afternoon of journey, the officers and soldiers seemed very depressed. No matter how they turned their ears, they never heard a shelling again.

Although the route they chose was very remote, they occasionally had to pass or even cross some main roads. At this time, they would see traces of battle: the bodies of the Kuomintang brothers who died in battle were abandoned in the wilderness and became food for wild dogs; in the river, there were always corpses wearing military uniforms or civilian costumes floating through the river... There were traces of bombing or shelling on the high ground near many major bridges, and there were also many bullet shells. In fact, the Kuomintang army also resisted and retreated all the way in this defeat, but was still defeated.

Cao Xiaomin didn't know that this was because he, a time traveler, directed a victory in Wangting, which made the Japanese devils feel unbearable. After the Japanese were arranged to encircle and plagiarize the Kuomintang army in the original time and space, they were transferred to surround and kill them. In the original time and space, the abandoned corpses of the Kuomintang army who died in the battle were not driven by the Japanese for more than ten days after the war. The Chinese civilians were basically cleaned up! Every inch of mountains and rivers was mainly blood, mainly the Central Army and the Gui Army, and the Sichuan Army supplemented the cross-blocking battle and retreated while fighting. The dead officers and soldiers dyed the way from the Songhu battlefield to Nanjing with blood!

There were many corpses along the way. Cao Xiaomin and others should have given these brothers a place to bury their bones, but it was difficult for them to do it - hunger and cold caused a lot of physical strength to lose, and they were unable to go down the river to catch those floating corpses; even if the corpses passed by the way were mostly on the sections where they had to pass very carefully, they had to give up handling.

"It should be the last wide river. Maybe before dawn, we will be able to go to the outskirts of Wuxi..." Cao Xiaomin, who came back from his meditation, looked at the map under the flashlight. After confirming with the "drunk", Liu Junling immediately turned off the flashlight - they only had two captured flashlights and no backup batteries. This was the only lighting tool they could control and prevent the light from leaking out in the dark.

"Hey, who did you? Who asked you to get into the water..." A voice came over, it was Wang Ye. Someone went into the water? Cao Xiaomin hurried over...

Relying on the edge of the wooden raft, he was standing there alone in the water, looking at him with his pale face and eyes half open and half closed! Cao Xiaomin's hair tube suddenly stood up - it was a corpse!

Not all floating corpses are lying down or lying down, especially soldiers. Some of them are covered with grenades or other heavy objects, and they often stand upright in the water, which looks very strange!

"Let those women not turn their faces..." Cao Xiaomin whispered to the soldiers around him. People at this time were superstitious and could easily be frightened by such strange corpses.

This is the corpse of a Kuomintang soldier, their brother; but Cao Xiaomin was unable to catch him up and bury him, so he could only gently press him into the water and turn him over... At this time, he found that there were actually a large number of floating corpses around him, unlike the one or two corpses floating on the river in the past, here is a whole piece of soldiers' corpses!

When we arrived, we should have arrived in Wuxi. Yes, this is the first line of defense on the periphery, and we have fought fiercely here. But what if we arrived in Wuxi? The troops that supported them have retreated and Wuxi has fallen. No one knows how long they will have to walk in such a dangerous environment before they can escape the birth of heaven!

...When we retreated from the battlefield of Songhu, we made a lot of arrangements, and almost every unit had plans to cover and block; but there were too many Japanese planes, and even old wooden planes were sent, but we couldn't beat them; as a result, the blocking arrangements without solid fortifications in the field were all made into decorations, and the Japanese did not need to bomb a shallow field trench, but they directly sent two planes to strafuse the trench and broke down the defense line... Grandpa's memoirs tell in detail how they evolved from an orderly retreat to a defeat. Those jagged trenches that appeared in countless war films that were simple in later generations also had a function of avoiding the planes flying and strafing along the trench; but these seemingly simple trenches were thought out by the Chinese Democratic Party soldiers for how much sacrifice they had used!

The defeat was a real defeat; but the battle was a bloody battle; countless battle traces were left on the two routes from Jiangyin to the south and Suzhou to the north, and countless Chinese children from all over the world were left behind. Unfortunately, the astonishing sacrifice of the weak Kuomintang soldiers still could not stop the invasion of the iron hoof...

Mixed emotions, but at the same time he felt even more confused. Cao Xiaomin had tried such a hiking death, but he tried it after he came out of the Shanghai battlefield. But that time he had a destination, but this time he disappeared, and the destination that originally existed fell...

Where should I escape? As a soldier, he is still so confused. What about those refugees who are carrying their children?... Cao Xiaomin, who finally set foot on the destination, was in a mess.
Chapter completed!