Chapter 5 Chapter 5: The Bleeding Yellow River

The land in June should have been full of growth, but now there is only lifelessness.Refugees crowded the road, old and young, gathered together with various means of transportation, and marched southward.People are ragged, looking sluggish, and their dirty bodies stink in the heat.The sound of cannons kept ringing behind us, and the devils were attacking again. They never spared shells and bullets, they were here to kill people.The army was caught in this refugee flow and couldn't speed up. The horns of the military vehicles that opened the way were blown, and the wheels were about to run over the ass of the refugees, and they were still moving at a snail's pace.

A strange sound came from the sky, like the bellows of a blacksmith's shop, but soon the sound tore apart, frightening from the ears to the heart.Lao Dan recognized that it was the devil's plane, but it looked like a group.He raised his head in horror and saw four enemy planes flying over at low altitude.The crowd exploded and fell into a huge panic. They scrambled to step on the ditch squeezed under the trees on both sides.The ditch seemed to be flooded, and layers of people flooded in instantly.Lao Dan dragged his two sons to lie down under a big tree, curled up in a ball, afraid that the devils on the plane would see him.Lao Dan didn't understand why he watched the enemy plane fly very slowly, and it arrived in the blink of an eye.The first two planes strafed along the road, and the bullets as thick as corn stalks swept across, smashing people, livestock, and carriages into pieces.Where bullet holes passed, blood was all over the ground, and dead bodies laid out a blood-red road.The last two rushed to the two road ditch, they flew easily, but let the ditch's limbs fly sideways, the dead and the surviving hugged each other and slid to the bottom of the ditch full of blood puddles.There was a quadruple machine gun on the military vehicle that fired in the air, and only a few rows of bullets were fired, and the shooter was smashed into parts.People on fire were rolling all over the ground, and were smashed under by the downed car.After two rounds, the enemy plane seemed to have run out of bullets, skimmed twice like a demonstration, and headed south.Lao Dan wanted to catch his breath and continue walking.The crowd suddenly cried and rushed southward, because the enemy plane flew straight to the Wukou Bridge on the Yellow River in front!Devils want to blow up the Wukou Bridge?Lao Dan was frightened, and if the bridge was destroyed, he would have to swim across it.The Yellow River is not a Pony River, so how can you swim across it?

When we got to the river, we found out that the enemy planes didn't blow up the bridge at all, but bombed and strafed the national army engineering units on both sides of the river. They wanted to protect the bridge!Knowing this, the crowd flocked frantically towards the only bridge within dozens of miles. "Hurry up, the devils are doing this, and the plane will definitely come." The second son pulled the common people with the butt of his gun, and made a way for the company to charge.Lao Dan saw that he was reckless, and several children were knocked down, so he could only grit his teeth and rush forward.Sure enough, the devils came with more bombers, and blew up both sides of the river into flames. The blasted water jets scattered with yellow sand, blocking the nostrils and eyes of those fleeing for their lives.The troops were furious, the convoy squeezed out the animals that got in the way, and the people who got in the way simply threw them into the water.Lao Dan and his brothers held their guns aloft and were almost squeezed into meatloaf by the crazy refugees. He crossed the bridge without touching the ground.Looking back, ants-like crowds are still flocking to the bridge from all directions.On the farther horizon, the sun flag raised high by the devil cavalry was already clearly visible, and they were rushing down the hill with shouts.

Suddenly, time stopped abruptly!Amidst the explosion that shook the ground, the steel bridge beneath them soared into the air.Accompanied by the cracking sound of ear drums, Lao Dan and his brothers were thrown high to the shore and fell heavily on the ground.Lao Dan feels that the world is turned upside down and everything is turned upside down.In the yellow sand all over the sky, a huge flame mixed with red-hot steel, fragmented people, broken cars, mules and horses slowly rolled and flew to the sky, and then fell into the muddy river water, splashing pieces of muddy water. wave.A bridge disappeared into the surging Yellow River in an instant, and the thousands of refugees and hundreds of brothers on the bridge went to the sky.Lao Dan shook his numb head, and it took him a long time to realize that the engineers were killed and blew up the bridge first!

Lao Dan looked in horror at the people fleeing on the other side. They ran desperately under the impact of the Japanese cavalry and machine guns, killing and trampling countless people to death. Finally, the living were desperate and chose to jump into the Yellow River. The crowd was like a collapsed river. Dikes, like flowing down.Those who just fell into the water were thrown down by the people behind before they had time to float.A woman with two children in her arms disappeared into the water.There were also those who stood hesitant by the river, those who knelt and kowtowed, and those who begged for mercy, were all shot and killed by the rain of bullets.The blood stained the Yellow River red, like a bucket of red material from a dyeing workshop poured into a dyeing vat!Large pieces of corpses floated down next to each other, and piled up at a bend to form a floating cemetery.

The wild laughter of the Japanese army came with the wind.A group of devils were neatly dressed and without aiming, they shot slowly at the crowd in the river, or dropped a few strings of grenades at random.Lao Dan's hair stood on end.The devils are so cruel, and the national army is so ruthless, so many refugees who failed to cross the river are left with a dead end.His strong body and the gun in his hand are so powerless in front of all this.He was suffocated by something, let out a shrill cry, raised his gun and shot towards the opposite bank.The second son's machine gun also fired, and the brothers started fighting randomly, cursing and fighting at the same time. The distance was beyond the range, and the bullets fell heavily.At this time, the whistle of artillery shells came from the sky, and a large flame exploded among the Japanese soldiers and civilians on the opposite bank.The devils must have not expected the sudden artillery fire, and there were countless casualties. Many people were blown into the Yellow River and mixed with the corpses.Shore cheered, forgetting for a moment the compatriots who also died in the artillery fire.

The order came: don't stop, keep going. There was a break in supplies, the team was exhausted, hungry, and could no longer walk.Lao Dan had sores on his mouth and tongue, his face was ashen, and he began to become night blind.After arriving at a county seat, the troops rested in the south of the city.During the few days when the enemy planes stopped bombing, sympathy groups came to the city, bringing food and vegetables.The soldiers were so hungry that they chewed the cabbage raw, and the cabbage was sweet and delicious.An old lady touched Lao Dan's bloody hands and recited Bodhisattva's blessing over and over again... There were always soldiers crying and whispering at night, but Lao Dan could sleep, but when he closed his eyes, he dreamed of the scene of the Yellow River and woke up Sweating.Lao Dan also recalled the words of the head of the regiment with pockmarks on his face, silently stroking the Japanese army knife he gave him, sometimes feeling strangely heroic in his heart, thinking that if he had the opportunity, he would definitely use this knife to chop up a few devils .

A few days later, the entire 37th Army marched towards Hubei and settled in defensive positions outside Wuhan.The troops set off on the road amidst doubts. Could it be that the Yellow River is not guarding?Most of the regiment are brothers from Henan, and if they don't guard the Yellow River, what's the point of fighting this battle?The devil will definitely kill him.Based on what Lao Dan knew, it would not be a problem for the devil's mechanized troops to build a bridge. Although there were many rivers and hills to cross, the vital points were all in the plains. How could they defend it?What if you can't keep the people at home?What will happen if it falls into the hands of the devil?Isn't it the same as Ma Yanguo said?He didn't dare to think about it.The second son wanted to discuss with him how to escape, but Lao Dan hesitated again, thinking that this would be a disservice to those brothers who died.

The troops marched slowly, the team of thousands of people was sluggish, and their heavy steps slowly synchronized, like singing an old sad song.Lao Dan looked back from time to time, only to see the same tired and remnant soldiers, and the loess trampled all over the sky. A fast horse galloped over. The soldier on the horse had a red face, a thick neck, and bullet marks on his helmet.He shouted hoarsely: "The Yellow River has opened its mouth! The upper reaches have opened its mouth!" The long dragon-like team gathered together all of a sudden, and was stunned by this messenger!Suddenly they surrounded him so heavily that his horse could hardly move.The crazy soldiers shouted, and the team immediately became a mess.

"Huayuankou! The New Eighth Division bombed Huayuankou, and the Yellow River has been diverted!" The orderly shouted out the terrible news at the top of his lungs. It was like a knife piercing into the head, like a thunderbolt piercing into the brain. Stepped on duckweed.I don't know who cried heart-piercingly, or maybe at the same time, the whole crowd became one.Who doesn't know that once the Huayuankou explodes, the Yellow River will turn the entire eastern Henan and northern Shandong into a vast ocean of yellow soup.Those soldiers whose families were in the east knelt on the ground and cried for their father and mother, it was really painful.Someone immediately called everyone to run to the north, and the officer's order added fuel to the fire, which only made people even more crazy.Many people gathered in a group and were about to go back, some pulled the bolts of their guns, but they didn't know where to point them, and some even ran away, throwing their guns and baggage all over the ground.

"Bang!" There was a clear gunshot, and the rioting crowd fell silent. At the sound of the gunshot, a war horse came slowly, and Captain Mazi sat firmly on it, holding a smoking rifle. "Brothers, listen to me!" He looked around the audience, with blue smoke coming from the muzzle of his gun.This majestic and calm voice stunned everyone. They squeezed their heads together, tear to tear, and looked at him longingly.Head Mazi looked solemn, reined in his horse, lowered his gun, and said slowly after a while: "Blowing up the embankment of the Yellow River must be an order from above. To tell you the truth, I guessed it, my home is there Nearby." He paused, lowered his head, as if he was holding back tears, but raised it up again, straightening up as if he had made a decision. "Because we can't do it without bombing! We suffered a lot from fighting the devils on the plains. Even if we defend the Yellow River, we can't survive for many days. The devil's planes and heavy artillery attacked fiercely, and the tanks pushed again. Although the soldiers were brave, they couldn't stop them." Stay... the large army is fighting, we lost in the front, lost all the way, although we killed a lot of devils, we still lost a lot; but we won again! Because of the delay, we didn't let the devils beat them down so quickly ...It's just that there is not enough time, not enough time for the people to transfer, and not enough time to establish a new line of defense. Everyone saw how close the devils were yesterday. It will fall into siege; let the devils occupy Wuhan, and the ten corps in the entire East China theater will be wiped out, and the factories and people in the east will not be able to evacuate, and it will not be far from the complete subjugation of the country...Blowing up Huahuakou, many of us will die The whole family may be destroyed, but the Japanese armored forces and vanguard units will also be destroyed. Tanks and cars will not be able to get through. Our large forces can retreat to the hills in southwestern Henan, and we can rebuild the defense line outside Wuhan... Brothers, this is an unavoidable sacrifice! Our family members died at the hands of the Japanese, and died in the Yellow River. It is a death anyway. We have to charge this account to the Japanese devils! Take this blood debt from the battlefield. Win back! Fighting kills people, but first there must be people and soldiers, as long as there are people and soldiers, we can fight back sooner or later... After kowtowing, follow me!" Lao Dan clearly saw that a stream of tears rolled down the face of Head Mazi.He jumped off his horse, dropped his gun, and knelt on the ground with a plop, facing the direction of the Yellow River, tearing his throat and shouting: "My father and my mother! My son is not filial, so I can't come to rescue you, and I can't collect your corpses for you! When the Japanese devils are beaten away in the future, I will come to build graves for parents and burn paper for parents!" Crying loudly, he slammed his forehead on the ground heavily. With a clatter, thousands of soldiers knelt down, some wept with their heads in their arms, and some kowtowed to the north. The crying sound pierced their hearts, and scared the horses of Commander Mazi to turn around on the ground.I don't know who fired the gun, and soon the gunshots rang out.Lao Dan and Er Zi couldn't stop crying, the family might have been washed away by the Yellow River.The second son was crying like hell, calling for his mother non-stop, digging the soft ground with his fingers.Lao Dan stood up crying and crying. He didn't know what strength to find to stop his grief. He just looked at the brothers who were crying and shooting at the sky all over the ground. He knew that he couldn't go back after the breach of the Yellow River. After the Huayuankou embankment was blasted, the Japanese attacking troops were indeed blocked by the endless yellow soup, and a lot of them were washed away quickly, and a large amount of armor and baggage were soaked in the mud and turned into scrap iron.Lao Dan didn't hear the devil's cannons for several days, and there were fewer planes.Sure enough, the Japanese army suspended its attack plan from north to south, and the national army did not have to worry about the Japanese army driving straight down for the time being.The troops from all sides retreated safely, some of them retreated into the west of Henan, and some of them entered the outskirts of Wuhan. The troops entered the city defense of Wuhan late at night.Lao Dan saw rows of terrifying anti-aircraft guns standing on the outskirts of the city.Soldiers in brand new uniforms and mighty helmets saluted them.When entering the urban area, Lao Dan climbed up and looked far away, and was surprised to see Wuhan City, which had become a large barracks.There are troops, tents and vehicles stationed everywhere, with different clothes, different accents, and different flags, but they share a common fighting spirit. The city is brightly lit all night, and millions of people are building fortifications.It was also the first time he saw national army planes flying in formation along the river in the dark, and the first time he saw the Chinese fleet cruising on the river.Everything shows that the city of Wuhan is well prepared and its soldiers are strong.Lao Dan learned from the staff officer of Regiment Commander Mazi that the national army has 7 regiments spread out to defend in the north, east and south of Wuhan, and 18 group armies and 97 armies are concentrated in Poyang Lake, Dabie Mountain, Mufu Mountain and both sides of the Yangtze River. Among the natural barriers such as mountains, rivers, lakes and harbor branches.This is a brand new battlefield. Compared with the upcoming battle, the battles he has experienced before seem so slight. The defense of Wuhan will be a large-scale and decisive battle since the Battle of Xuzhou. I am very confident, and feel that what Captain Mazi said by the Yellow River makes sense. Lao Dan's company was assigned to the salient part of the south of the Yangtze River, and stood firm with the other five companies to block the Japanese troops who were going upstream from the Yangtze River and might land on the south bank.Behind them is the reinforced concrete circular fortification built by the 37th Army.To Lao Dan's relief, the heavy artillery regiment located in the deep position can directly cover the landing point under the high ground.The firepower configuration of the six companies is highly dense, and each company has seven or eight light machine guns and two heavy machine guns, enough to block every inch of land by the river.The barbed wire fence is densely covered by the river, and below it is a minefield that wants to blow up the ants.Three or four freighters were blown up in the Yangtze River, and one of them had a slanted corner.They are used to block the enemy's warships, and the devils can only use small boats to go upstream if they want to go ashore.The fortifications on the west bank of the river are extremely magnificent. The one-meter-thick reinforced concrete blockhouse looks like a huge coffin, and it seems that the Jade Emperor couldn't take it.Those huge muzzles are hidden in rows in bunkers, and the devil's small planes will not blow them up.Not to mention the 30-meter anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns beside the fort.The outer positions on the banks of the Wuhan River were guarded against danger, with sufficient soldiers and food, and continuous fortifications had been completed before their arrival.The convoy came head to tail day and night, bringing in mountains of ammunition and supplies.There was also the medical team that Lao Dan saw for the first time, beautiful women in white clothes with bright red crosses painted on their chests and backs, and they smiled kindly. "Brother Dan? Have you ever seen this formation?" Er Zi asked him. "We have come to the world, and we haven't seen many of them in the future." Lao Dan rubbed the smoke pot of the horse smoke pot, regretting not looking for shredded tobacco on him. "Look at those women? Hey, the clothes look nice." Er Zi pointed to a few nurses and said. "Is it because the boobs look good? You dick, seeing a woman is more exciting than seeing a devil." Lao Dan poked him with a cigarette pot, and stared at the women, stared, stared, and also looked at the women. The bumpy tits were swallowed by their close-fitting nurses. "Brother Dan, I counted the people from Banzi Village, and there are only a dozen or so left, and two of them are disabled." "Well, we are lucky." "I don't feel afraid of death now, but I'm afraid that I haven't even fucked a woman before." The second son clenched his fists. "Then let's do one..." Lao Dan put his hands behind his back on purpose. "Do you think it's catching toads? People in the city think highly of us? You can pin the military medal to scare me, and I don't have any balls..." The second son said angrily. "I'm still thinking about this, I'll give it to you, I'm still in a panic here..." Lao Dan took out the badge and wanted to pin it on the second son. "Don't don't...it's yours, you show off to your wife, I earn it myself..." The second son blushed, "Your name is taking advantage, Ma Yanguo is right." The second son nodded as if Thoughtful, he looked straight at the nurses.Lao Dan followed suit and felt that there was a plump nurse whose back looked like Tweety, so she just sat there silently. Lao Dan no longer sleeps in the open, and has a clean tent and camp bed at night, and there are new spittoons and buckets beside the bed.Lao Dan always wonders why there is no water in it, how can I drink it?It was only later that I realized that it was a urine bucket.I also go to a marching canteen for meals every day, and the master chef brings them out in pots, grinning like a pig's face.The food was delicious, the steamed buns were firm, the rice grains were plump, and the pork pieces were like small fists with roots.It's a pity that this master chef is from Hunan, and he puts chili in everything, and the porridge has a spicy taste.After eating and drinking enough every day, the troops began to make demands. Commander Mazi came several times. One day he said he needed to do laundry, the next day he said he needed to train in the queue, and the day after tomorrow he said he was not allowed to take off his hat and roll up his sleeves.Lao Dan and the second son were so uncomfortable being cleaned up, but they didn't dare to disobey it in the slightest, because as long as the battalion commander and company commander found out, they would starve for two meals, and maybe they would be punished for emptying the toilet in the middle of the night. The army and the people are busy day and night.There are quite a lot of condolence groups from Wuhan, bringing good performances and strange movies.Don't care what it is, Lao Dan can't understand it at all, he just thinks that the women on the stage are all handsome, with tall and straight tits, which makes the things below dance wildly.That movie was really scary, an iron guy spit out white smoke and rushed towards the soldiers like a big worm.Lao Dan and Er Zi turned their heads and ran away, the brothers knocked them off their feet. Every day, people lined up in small teams carrying poles to condolences. The soldiers saw different trust and hope in their eyes, and they really regarded themselves as things.The warm and united anti-Japanese atmosphere made Lao Dan forget those indelible pains.Sometimes he wished that the devils would go ashore tomorrow, stuff them under the knife to enjoy themselves, and then cut them into strips for the second son to barbecue. Lao Dan is the temporary deputy company commander, and he is required to attend battalion meetings as required.The company commander was an orderly from the former commander of Mazi, and he was also from Zhumadian. He told him to go to the meeting and just sit and listen. Don't fart in the meeting, don't smoke, and don't squat on the stool like in the barracks.Lao Dan obediently listened, and having a meeting was more nervous than fighting.I was startled when I saw the battalion commander. It was the one who went to the village to conscript and speak. I only knew today that his name was Wang Lijiang. In the past three days, meetings have been held at two ends, and the regiment has issued clear combat orders, and the training has become more ruthless, and the soldiers must be taught to read and understand a few Japanese. Is this fatal?After a lot of meetings, Lao Dan gradually gained some experience of being an officer, and began to care about the places where his subordinates eat, dress, birth, and birthday, and understand the emotions on the square in Erlidi. "Did you sleep well last night?" "Does the wound still hurt?" "Miss your wife?"The company has recruited more new recruits, just like when he first came here.Not long after, everyone began to respectfully call him "Old Company Commander", omitting the dangling "Dan". The gossip is pervasive, making the whole city extremely hot.Legend has it that the devils and the outskirts of Wuhan had already started a war, and the fight was so dark that dozens of national army planes dangled around every day, after all, more went there than returned.After they left, Jiang An was as quiet as anyone else.The battle seemed to happen at any time, but it never came. A large number of wounded soldiers were brought back from the lower reaches, but they did not bring back any conclusive news.The soldiers were like inflated balls, with nowhere to vent their bulging fighting spirit.The majestic military songs on the loudspeaker made my stomach sick, and those movies could no longer scare the soldiers, so watching them was boring.There are not many condolence groups who give food and drink, opera singers don’t come, and there seems to be not enough cigarettes and butt wipes. No matter what to wait for, no one can stand it for a long time. Lao Dan fiddled with all kinds of guns when he was free, and even took apart the grenades to see what was going on. At night, when no one was around, he would wield a knife a few times.The unique knife skills of the horse smoke pot are engraved in his mind, which is the capital of desperate efforts. He plays it seriously in the middle of the night, and often plays it with a heroic taste. He is sweating profusely, standing by the riverside with the full moon hanging , Let the urge to slash in all directions drive away the melancholy.Seeing him clicking in the middle of the night, the second son squatted and looked at him from a distance, and when he was done, he came over and teased him with a stick. "What's wrong? Learn kung fu to deal with your wife?" Lao Dan laughed slyly, and made a gesture to chop off the second son, but the second son ran away, and there was a big hairless tree by the river——because it interfered with the shooting, the branches and leaves were ripped off.The second son went up like a monkey and continued to talk about his wife Kong Wu, thinking that Lao Dan was raped by a woman on the kang.Lao Dan wanted to climb up to beat him, but Er Zi urinated while humming Henan opera.Lao Dan was out of breath and threw all kinds of stones, which made the second son squeal and shrank into a night owl hiding his head and showing his feet under the moonlight. That day, Lao Dan was very homesick, so he returned to the kang in his dream, gently pushed open the crooked door, pushed aside the bead curtain made of date pits, opened the warm quilt, and covered the sleeping Tweet like a branding iron.