Chapter 38 4. Marching and an interpretation of "soldiers"

Almost at the same time that Changsha fell, the divisions and regiments of the Japanese army marched forward without stopping. Because the battle south of Changsha was not within Xue Yue's original plan, all the roads were flat and wide. Only a few bridges were blown up by the hastily retreating Chinese army, but they were quickly repaired by Japanese engineers.On the road, trucks towing cannons and mules and horses carrying baggage flowed in a continuous line.More of course, it is a team of infantry carrying the sun flag. In late June, the weather in Hunan was stuffy and hot. The soldiers walked forward with dull eyes, sweat dripping through their clothes.From the eyes of onlookers, they must have worked very hard, but maybe they have already adapted to this kind of life, and their nerves that feel hard work have been numb.

The 133rd Regiment of the 116th Division was also known as the Kurose Regiment because of its captain Heisei Isamu Kurose. There was an ordinary soldier named Hashimoto Yoshiichi in the 3rd Squadron of the 1st Brigade.This young man from an underground town where the slums live in Tokyo is one of the eight survivors of the squadron after the Chang (Sha) Heng (Yang) battle, and he was lucky enough not to break a hair. In the 1960s, he specifically talked about marching in China in a memoir: Sometimes the officers told us the destination of the march, sometimes they didn't.For the soldiers, the destination doesn't matter, it's just names they can't remember, and they have to march anyway. The 116th Division is a reserve division that had to go abroad to fight due to the defeat of the war and the huge consumption of the war. The equipment is poor, and there are few cars. Ordinary soldiers don't even think about such a good thing as taking a car.

No matter where I go, I feel a sense of strangeness, and I feel very repulsed by the mountains, rivers and farmland there, but I can only keep walking on my feet.Veterans are not afraid of marching, and even like it, because marching prevents fighting, and fighting does not prevent people from dying.By the 19th year of Showa (Note: 1944), everyone could see that the war situation was not good for Japan. The army was no longer full of heroism and the spirit of being willing to die for the jihad at any time as imagined at home before going abroad. When marching, they usually carry rifles, blankets, 100 rounds of ammunition, 4 hand grenades, 3 days of dry food and water bottles.These things don't feel heavy after walking for a long time.At that time, if you had a pair of comfortable shoes on your feet, that would be the most comfortable thing... On June 16, the 116th Division of Hashimoto Yoshiichi bypassed Changsha while the 58th and 34th Divisions were attacking Changsha fiercely. Arrive at the Zhuzhou area, cross the Yisu River there, then cross the Xiangjiang River, and march southward across the river with the 68th Division. Arrived at Gutangqiao and Huashi on the 22nd, arrived at Baiguo on the 23rd, attacked and advanced from Donghu and Zhajiang on the 24th, detoured to the southwest suburbs of Hengyang, and fought with the security forces of the 10th Army on the 26th.

The march was sometimes unsafe. When crossing the Xiangjiang River in the Yisu River area, the 116th Division was continuously attacked and bombed by the Chinese and American air forces, and people from each unit died in the Xiangjiang River.In Yoshiichi Hashimoto's memory, the Xiangjiang River was extremely turbid, with blood-colored waves surging. The 116th Division and the 68th Division marched along both sides of the Xiangjiang River against the direction of the river. After walking for a long time, he always felt that something was wrong with this river. ). Wei Degong, a senior soldier of the 3rd Battalion and 8th Company of the 582nd Regiment of the 194th Division of the 79th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, fought in Hengyang for the first battle after joining the army.Under the leadership of the army commander Wang Jiaben, the whole army rushed to Shaoyang and Lianqiao via Xiangxiang, Gushui and Loudi, and occupied positions on the Heng (Yang) Bao (Qing) Highway.

Although he had half a year of basic quality training, especially physical training, when he joined the army, Wei Degong still felt that if he became a deserter, the first reason was that he couldn't stand the pain of marching. One day, the troops camped, and Wei Degong's squad was assigned to live in a ruined temple near a small village. After laying the straw, Zhang Baogen, a veteran in the class and a native of Henan, brought a large pot of hot water from nowhere.Zhang Baogen was a nice guy, seeing Wei Degong sitting on the grass in a daze, he asked him to take off his shoes and soak his feet together.The old man and the new man soaked their feet in the basin and chatted together. The illiterate Zhang veteran dipped his fingers in the footwashing water and wrote the word "bing" on the ground. What they said afterwards was remembered by Wei Degong for 60 years.

"Do you recognize it?" "Soldiers." "What is a soldier?" "What? This is us! You, me, Lao Hei, Lin Daya, Vice President Tian...you still ask me?" "Yes, but do you know why the word 'bing' is written like this?" "..." "Let me tell you, a soldier is just a head—a big soldier, with a gun and two legs!" "...No, it really is. Is there an extra one on the head?" "Why don't you understand, hat! From ancient times to the present, is there any soldier who doesn't wear a hat?" "Then why is there no body?"

"What do you want a body for? Walking on legs, killing people with guns, you can see the head, there is an empty space in the middle of the head. Just let us stop pretending and don't think about anything. This square is also a word for 'mouth'. Just to have a mouth? In the old life, it was said to be a soldier who eats food. Children from poor families serve as soldiers for food. Now it is anti-Japanese, and they are afraid of being subjugated slaves. Only children of rich people, students, buskers, and city people come here Serve as a soldier. Japan occupied China. Didn’t the Chinese have nothing to eat? There is another interpretation of the word ‘口’. In case of war, the word is a knife’s edge, a gun’s muzzle, or a blood hole. Now it’s called a ‘wound’ or a ‘gun hole’. '. A soldier is doomed to bleed and die..."

The word "soldier" has so many names!For these words, Wei Degong thought for a long time - during the march, during the war, and when he lay on the grass and couldn't sleep. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the 79th Army was involved in the civil war. Wei Degong took a long vacation to return to his hometown in Hubei by using the "mouth" on his right arm that was drilled by the devil's bullets, and he no longer served as a "soldier". However, Zhang Baogen, the veteran who enlightened him about "soldiers", was shot and sacrificed by Wei Degong's side when the whole army rushed 300 miles to Lengshuitan to fight fiercely with the Japanese army after the fall of Hengyang.A fountain of blood flowed in the middle of Veteran Zhang's chest, which made Wei Degong think of the word "soldier" again.

The battle was so miserable that the entire army suffered heavy casualties, and even the commander Wang Jiaben was shot and killed in battle.Cold water beach, the water is so cold!