Chapter 25 Toshiro Diary (23)

This group of innocent and poor peasants have been oppressed by warlords for a long time and live a hard life.The wheat harvest was not good, so the farmers lived a poor and miserable life for generations.And now they weep over the horrors of war. What should they think, what should they hate, what should they curse, these unlucky people? What's more, they will be locked in the basement as soon as they finish work every day. March eighteenth. New information came: "35,000 student troops plan to cross the Yellow River and attack Xinxiang." We're all getting jumpy. "On the top of the mountain in front, there are two or three people who look like sentries walking around." In the evening, the sentry of our army reported.

Is the battle about to start?We are ready to fight anytime.At this time, the sentinel came to report again: "In the village to the east, there are more than a dozen people who seem to be digging trenches." Let's go out and check together.There are indeed more than a dozen people digging pits, are they enemies? At this time, someone said: "They must be digging graves for those who were killed by us a while ago!" This is quite possible.That was the village that was massacred a while ago.But the squad leader still ordered: "Fire a grenadier and see!" "The distance is six hundred and fifty."

"preparation……" "Boom!" The projectile was fired over, "The flowers exploded with a bang, and the dozen or so people who dug the hole immediately fled around and disappeared without a trace. We were like children setting off firecrackers to scare passers-by. Smiling and walking back indoors. Just as we were having dinner, the sentinel came to report again: "There is a fire in the village that has just dug a hole, which may be a signal of the enemy's attack." The information kept coming. The team leader summoned the team leaders to tell everyone to prepare for the battle, and ordered them to wear military uniforms to sleep tonight.

"These bastards are really coming!" We lay down and waited, not daring to relax, but nothing happened that night. There are two teenagers in our dormitory.One was requisitioned yesterday, and the other is the younger son of the postmaster's family. We nickname them Taro. Jiro.The director's son is Taro. Taro is like a wounded sparrow, with a sad and melancholy face, lifeless. He should have been killed along with his brother.But thinking of his young age, he didn't kill him. We believe that the postmaster was in collusion with the enemy, both inside and outside, and the price was the tragic death of his son.

Taro watched as his brother was killed.Ever since he saw his own flesh and blood burst into blood and died tragically before his eyes, he had lost his life and was overwhelmed by grief. We were anxious to revive the poor boy, and we tried to be as kind as possible to him.We let the two teenagers sleep on straw mats under our bunks, and then waited for the enemy to attack. Before long, it was dawn, and the sun rose above the ground as usual. March nineteenth. The coolies were brought out of the basement, ate some leftovers and started working again.In view of the current military situation, we have to speed up the construction.In order to have a wide view without any obstruction, we also knocked down the house of the director's family, and installed barbed wire across the railway.

Even if one or two Chinese walk by us, our nerves tense up. When we were working, four Chinese people ran across the top of the mountain.Intuition tells us that these people are suspicious.Immediately two or three soldiers chased after them and shot, but missed.The soldiers chased them in the direction they were running.At dusk, they caught a cow and twenty chickens and came back, shouting: "The bandit has been caught!" The "leader" among the "bandits" will be kept until a few days later, and the second largest "pawn" will be used by us to feed our hunger.

In the evening, the armored train stopped at our guard and the squadron leader stepped down from it.The squadron leader said: "We also need to set up sentries on the hill behind!" The squad leader retorted: "No, it's dangerous to set up a sentry there." The hill behind is some way away from our dormitory. To get there, you have to cross barbed wire, giant horses (Japanese army terminology, specifically referring to fences built with wood to prevent enemy invasion.) and high piles of bricks built after the house was demolished. .At night, the light is dim, and you can only see a distance of more than ten feet. If the enemy sneaks up and throws a grenade, the sentry will be killed immediately, and there is no need to report the enemy's situation.We both thought it was very unwise to set up a sentinel there.

Finally another post was placed at the entrance to the rear of the dormitories. Obviously there is a squad leader, why did the squadron leader come to check the security situation and give orders?The squad leader muttered in a low voice: "It seems that I still can't trust me!" It seemed to be quite emotional. There are four Manchurian railway personnel at this station. They are the drunkard stationmaster who claims to be a Kyushu man, the deputy stationmaster who likes to talk dirty, and two young middle school graduates. In the evening, the squadron leader drank wine with the squad leader, station master, and deputy station chief.After a while, one bottle bottomed out, and the second bottle was also empty.When there was only a little left in the third bottle, both the stationmaster and the deputy stationmaster were drunk.The station master began to comment on the security status of Arai's second team, with a sense of disdain in his words.

I was very angry when I heard this, and I walked out of the room and said to Lieutenant Takiguchi who was standing guard: "They are just station staff, what right do they have to make irresponsible remarks about the military and military affairs? When he commented on the injured Second Lieutenant Arai, he was too That's not a bad word." Just as I said this to him angrily, the squadron leader probably thought it was strange for me to suddenly walk out of the room, so he quietly followed me out.He said a few words to me, and his tone seemed to be comforting and reprimanding. After returning to the room, the squadron leader pretended to be drunk, and chatted with those station personnel.After a while, the squadron leader said to me: "Dongjun, you really know how to pretend to be dumb!"

"What? Pretend to be dumb! Why do you say I'm pretending to be dumb!" I was secretly angry. These inconsiderate staff kept shouting loudly and hindered our sleep. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became, and I said, "We are protecting you, and you must sleep within the allowed time. You should also be quiet." It's one o'clock!" They only replied: "I'm sorry!" Then they spit and talked, without any intention of stopping. In the end, the deputy station master took out some pornographic books and handed them to us, saying they were books about combat.

What a jerk.Thirty-five or six-year-old people are still reading this kind of book with great interest?I looked down on him from the bottom of my heart and threw the book out. After returning to the lounge, I dug out Turgenev’s prose poems that my cousin Yingliu Jun had sent me a few days ago, but I couldn’t read a single line of them.Put down the book and go to sleep, but I can't fall asleep. March 23rd. Now, as long as they are from China, the soldiers will fight without hesitation or hesitation.It is easier to kill with a bayonet than a chicken.In their opinion, the corpse of a Chinese man is not worth a dead pig. Among those coolies was an old man.His face is very ugly, giving people a sense of evil intentions, which is quite annoying.The soldier in the barren mountain said: "Your face is really annoying. If you were dead, you wouldn't dangle in front of me." After saying that, it was a knife, which may have stabbed the old man's lungs. He vomited blood, struggled on the ground for a while, and then stopped moving. After noon, a forty-year-old Chinese man came from the direction of Ji County carrying his luggage on a stick.Private Noguchi immediately went to stop him from checking his luggage, and told the Chinese to walk towards the other side of the mountain.The Chinese didn't know anything, and walked forward step by step, never thinking that death was approaching him. After Noguchi waited for the Chinese man to walk a hundred meters, he put his rifle on the mound and aimed at him, like a child shooting a sparrow with an air gun, ready to kill for fun. Two gunshots ended the life of a Chinese man. Now the soldiers think that a pig is worth more than the life of a Chinese, because the pig can also be used for a full meal.