Chapter 85: The Enemy's Back

(...After every great defeat, many of us have lost behind enemy lines. Many of them never crossed the front line and returned to the army but stayed to fight guerrillas. They organized various local armed forces to fight against the Japanese, and later were appointed by local administrative agencies, which were anti-Japanese guerrillas spread across the occupied areas during the War of Resistance Against Japan... Excerpted from "Grandpa's Memories of the War of Resistance Against Japan")

In early winter, after the war, there were still birds singing! It was not the noisy jackdaws, but the local small tits that stayed overnight. There were still quite a few, and the chirping and crisp chirping woke Cao Xiaomin up.

Wake up but not uncomfortable, it was very comfortable. Cao Xiaomin hadn't had such a beautiful sleep for a long time. When he was escaping in the wilderness, his limbs were cold and stiff when he woke up every nap, and he had to stretch and move for a while before he could smoothly. But it felt so good to wake up this morning, because he was full last night and had a quilt to sleep.

The place where the night is still open-air wilderness, or rather, it is in the graves, sleeping with the local left-behind villagers where their ancestors buried their bones.

Looking up at the twilight sky, the green pines and cypresses embedded in the sky, Cao Xiaomin was unwilling to leave the warm bed, but his mind was soon back to reality, back to yesterday afternoon...

Tanghe really turned out to be as Lao Zhang said, even the river water changed color. On the banks of the pond, the Japanese were escorting groups of surviving refugees digging pits, and some people were fishing out the bodies on the shore.

The corpses were thrown into a large pit, regardless of military and civilians; just sprinkle with lime and fill it with a thin layer of soil, and you can also see the calves of a Kuomintang soldier tied with gray leggings that happened to be exposed in some burial places...

The "Jiezi" who followed the reconnaissance, Liu Junling and "Daozi" and others scattered around to see the surrounding situation. Behind the small Tuqiu, there were only Cao Xiaomin and Lao Zhangtou.

"This battle lasted for three days, and we have a lot of troops. In addition to your 74th Army, there are also 'Kaozi' and the 54th Army and the Sichuan Army. They seem to be from the 23rd Army. They don't even have fortifications, and they just lie down on the river bank by the pond to fight the Japanese. They don't have many guns and insufficient firepower, so they are crushed very badly by others. Every time a Japanese plane flies along the river bank, there are heavy casualties, so they have to replenish new recruits from behind..." Lao Zhang said with tears in his eyes, and he turned around but saw Cao Xiaomin staring at him coldly.

"Tell me, your identity, now there are only two of us..." Cao Xiaomin said: "What you said cannot be the situation that you could see in half a day yesterday. How many days have you been watching? Also, an old man who is so erect that he can tell everything he sees like a storyteller should not be a grave-seeing person. Finally, I have never seen any ordinary person who can know the numbers of so many troops so clearly..." Cao Xiaomin stared at Lao Zhang's head: "There is only the 14th Division in his mouth, but he has never mentioned the 54th Army... No need to quibble, if the answer you said cannot satisfy me, this is the place where you buried your bones..."

"This... is really worthy of being the world-renowned anti-Japanese hero, Captain Cao..." Old Zhang smiled and said, "You can believe me. If I wanted to sell you, you would have died long ago... Everyone cannot be exposed, so some people have to stay and continue fighting... Captain Cao reminded the old man, I am still very young and it is easy to show off... I am the 'Boss' (Dai Li) person. It turns out that he is really a grave-seeker. After three months of training, he was ordered to stay and continue the war of resistance..."

It is not difficult to get a bald head. Lao Zhang and his team have long been ordered to do this, and their joints have been opened. They can spend some money to exchange for a bald head of another dead person. There are also money-greedy among the Japanese.

"Is there any way to arrange the women we brought? Deliver to the rear..."

"Look tomorrow, let's see tomorrow, I'll go find someone tonight..."

Then they remained silent. The two of them watched behind the small mound as the famous Kuomintang soldiers on the river bank turned into unknown corpses buried in thin soil.

If it rains, will their bodies be washed out? Will their families receive pensions?... The dusk is getting thicker, but the people behind the small mound are still staring at them intently, as if they want to remember all this seriously...

Just after breakfast, Lao Zhang came back, with three people and the head of the Bald Group Leader.

"This is Mr. Wan. These two are the heroes of Hua Jinglin and the heroes of Hua Xianglin... This is the leader of the camp, the leader of the warrior Cao Xiaomin, who broke through the siege alone and the Shao family won the first victory..."

The Hua family is a local family. Hua Linglin used to be the inspector general of the Yixing police station. Now he witnessed the Japanese gangs rampant in the village and was determined to organize an anti-Japanese guerrilla team. He was the one who wanted people like Cao Xiaomin.

As for Mr. Wan, it was very mysterious without saying anything. Cao Xiaomin guessed that this person should be Lao Zhang's online.

The "knife" who cried and robbed the world and buryed a group of soldiers with his elder brother's head. The Hua brothers also went out among the soldiers to find someone. Only then did Mr. Wan start talking to Cao Xiaomin.

"There are two things that are very tricky now. I don't have enough people and want to borrow Captain Cao's troops..."

What Mr. Wan wants to do is to save prisoners and kill traitors!

"In the battle of Wuxi, thousands of brothers fell into the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese are short of labor, but it is hard to say whether these brothers will have a way out if they recover. I would like to ask Captain Cao's men to take advantage of the opportunity when the Japanese troops are now transferred to attack Jiangyin to rescue the brothers..."

Another time to rescue prisoners? In the battle of Suzhou, the scene of being chased all over the city came to Cao Xiaomin's mind again.

"There are those traitors. When the people of Wuxi fled, except for some of the families left behind from wealthy families, most of the remaining people were people with other purposes, such as us; there were spies and traitors..." Mr. Wan said: "The Japanese probably organized guerrillas in the occupied areas, so they took the initiative and bribed a group of traitors to form an anti-Japanese guerrilla team under the organization of the Japanese spies, and were ready to use this method to gather the anti-Japanese forces first and then fight them all in one place..."

"These two things are unrestrained, so I will arrange them. Our troops will fight to complete the task..." Cao Xiaomin agreed readily, and he was able to rescue thousands of brothers and kill a large number of Japanese spies and traitors. Why not do it?!

The conversation ended soon, and the Hua brothers returned happily - more than 20 soldiers were willing to stay. Once these soldiers who had been on the battlefield joined, they would inevitably bring great momentum to their organization of guerrillas and could also act as instructors to train those civilians with only passion into soldiers.

"Brother Hua, I wonder if there is a way to take those women to the rear?" Cao Xiaomin wanted to solve this problem that he was most troublesome.

"This is no problem. Old Zhang talked about this yesterday..." Hua Linglin agreed: "Now the Japanese troops have all been pressed into the Xicheng Line or transferred to Jiangyin. In fact, there are no soldiers in the suburbs. We locals are free to come and go, and it is easy to take them to a safe place..."

"But they...they have had some very painful experiences..." Cao Xiaomin hesitated and didn't know how to say it.

"Captain Cao, there are some things that needless to say. I understand that many villages here are also being harmed..." Hua Zhenlin said: "They will recover, no one will discriminate against them. There will be some sisters with the same experience accompanying them, and some families who have lost their relatives in the war accept them; those shames will become the past and they will get better..."

A craze surged in Cao Xiaomin's heart, and his eyes were a little red: People only know how to pay attention to those "heroes" who killed more in troubled times. How many people can understand the meaning of the most humble but tenacious life?

Hua Zhenlin's plan was that that night he would take the soldiers who were about to become guerrillas to escort the women to a safe place, and then go to the receiving point to take them around the Japanese to leave after Cao Xiaomin and his team completed the mission.

...After every great defeat, many of our brothers were lost behind the enemy, and many of them never crossed the front line and returned to the army but stayed to fight guerrillas. They organized various local armed forces to fight against the Japanese, and later appointed by local administrative agencies, the anti-Japanese guerrillas that were spread all over the occupied areas during the War of Resistance Against Japan... The guerrillas mentioned by Grandpa were about to leave the army, and everyone was packing their luggage - without extra luggage, just sorting out the military appearance. They wanted the people to understand that joining them is a regular army, and everyone on the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War is a regular army!

Those women could not trust strangers completely. If the twenty or so soldiers were not accompanied, they might not have left at all. The grave was full of sad farewell crying. The woman who had once pounced on Cao Xiaomin's arms and cried had once again wet his military uniform with tears, but he didn't know how to say a word except for gently patting her back with his hand.

They cannot be allowed to have a kind of emotional dependence, otherwise they will no longer be independent; especially for soldiers, soldiers are the most unreliable reliance in this era, and they may die tomorrow...

The night is getting darker, and there is a confused future for some people in the dark, and it is also an unknown death trap for some people; the guerrillas and women have left, and the officers and soldiers who have just experienced a life-long death are going to join a new battle.
Chapter completed!