Chapter 41

  Back at his hideout, after counting, Li Tie felt he had indeed made a small fortune.

  The ammunition and food they brought back can arm an enhanced company, and the grain they brought back can solve the problem of at least one month's rations for the troops. Due to the base area's inability to be self-sufficient in food, the food problem has always plagued Li Tie's heart. As the saying goes, with grain in hand, there is no panic in the heart. If there is no grain, then you will have to panic.

  Looking at the supplies brought by Li Tie, Er Gouzi's team leader accepted them with a clear conscience. Xiao Lizi is mine, this idea is not only Er Gouzi's inner voice but also Li Tie's inner voice. There is another saying that Xiao Lizi belongs to the county team, and the county team belongs to Xiao Lizi, and then the latter sentence is Xiao Lizi's own thought.

  Apart from the rations, Li Tie also managed to get his hands on a few bottles of fine wine. Since arriving in this world, he had only seen the fiery old pot, and hadn't come across much other liquor. This time, he discovered these few bottles and immediately stuffed them into his backpack. As for other things like canned goods, his backpack wasn't lacking either - there were at least four or five different flavors. While others carried ammunition in their backpacks, Li Tie's was full of food.

  Ammunition must be handed over and allocated uniformly by the company, of course, secretly keeping a few dozen rounds for oneself is something Li Tie won't pursue. Food can be enjoyed personally. However, in the process of enjoying it, if discovered by others, one must resolve it privately, absolutely do not make a scene at the company level, or there will only be one outcome: confiscation of food and punishment by standing at attention. As for how confiscated food is handled, that's not something an ordinary soldier can ask about, it's the company commander's responsibility.

  So, the warriors of the Fox Company usually have worse pockets than other companies, that is, they are worn out from carrying a lot of things.

  Leaving the battalion department, Li Tie returned to the mountain top base with his backpack. Using the telephone in the dark fort of the mountain top base, he first called the mountain cave base and gave Grandpa a day off to go home and take a look. Then he called the battalion department and asked for Er Gou, but unfortunately, the battalion commander was not there, and the communication officer said he had gone out.

  It seems that Lian Chang won't have this good fortune anymore, Li Tie thought as he walked home.

  The mountain cave base was originally far from the mountain top base, but since Li Tie went out to perform tasks, he handed over the task of grazing horses to his adoptive father, letting him graze occasionally when he had nothing to do, so Lü Liang rode a horse and hurried back.

  A family of three set the dinner table, Dangni stir-fried two dishes of greens, Li Tie took out a few cans from his backpack and brought out those two bottles of liquor. Just as they were about to start drinking, there was a knock at the door.

  The dry mother opened the door and took a look. There were several people standing outside the door: the captain Er Gouzi, instructor Lin Si Hai, and two small warriors from the squadron department.

  "Haha, I knew it! As soon as you little brat came back, you'd bring delicious food for your aunt. Am I right?"

  "Haha, Lianzhang. I didn't call you and nobody answered, did I?"

  "Hmm, by the time you kids call me, I reckon you'll have finished eating already." Er Gou said with a smirk.

  Lü Liang invited the instructor of the big team into his house, brought in a few small stools and added a few small bowls, and thus everyone was delighted.

  The weather is gradually cooling down, it's no longer hot in the morning and evening, and it's even a bit cold. At night, you already need to cover yourself with something when sleeping.

  The crops in the field have mostly matured.

  The yellow and heavy wheat, the golden corn, the red sorghum, and the heavy beans make the mountain slope look exceptionally beautiful. The peanuts in the ground are white and plump, and there is even golden rice in some low-lying areas. The harvest season has arrived, and some impatient villagers have already started harvesting.

  Everyone harvested peanuts from the ground and pushed corn back home in small carts. Before long, these things will become decorations in the farmhouse yard.

  The whole mountain area has become a harvest season.

  In order to defend the harvest of a year, the whole base area troops undertook heavier tasks than before.

  To ensure that the enemy did not sabotage at harvest time, Li Tie led his company to patrol the border areas of the base every day by car.

  The annual grain harvest is basically harvested during this period, so the enemy also deeply understands its importance. In the past, every year at this time, some plainclothes would be sent out for reconnaissance to see if they could make a fortune. It's also good to let oneself have a better winter.

  However, every time the villagers harvested a little, they would hide it as soon as it was dried.

  Everyone fully demonstrated the excellent tradition of the Chinese nation, moved their brains, gathered their thoughts and made hiding food a major task to be completed.

  Some of them dug a cellar at home, specifically for storing grain. The entrance to the cellar was often designed very cleverly, some were under the manger, some were under the wall, some were under the tree, and some were even directly under the small table where they ate, in short, as long as you could think of it, there was nothing that couldn't be done.

  Some people built a double-layer wall at home, which looks like an ordinary wall from the outside, but it's actually a small cave that can hide several thousand kilograms of grain without any problem.

  Some even joined together with several families to dig a tunnel and hide their grain in it.

  In short, it is estimated that by the end of autumn harvest, there will be hardly any grain left in the villagers' homes.

  Every day, a battalion is on patrol outside, and the other battalions, except for some who are on combat duty, all help the villagers near their garrison to harvest.

  Due to the vastness of the base and its width, it's very hard to prevent enemies from entering the base. Li Tie also took this into consideration. Even tigers have moments when they doze off, let alone ordinary people.

  Based on this, Li Tie shifted the focus of his patrol to several locations where grain harvests were relatively abundant.

  First of all, it is the area near Wujia Village, which is relatively far from the base area. This area is also a hilly region, but due to its relatively dense population and slightly higher living standards.

  Around Wujia Hill, about ten or twenty miles around, the land has been developed into fields. The crops in the field are still passable, of course, relatively speaking, and cannot be compared with today's high-yielding fields.

  The main grain crops in this area are millet, sorghum and corn, as well as sweet potatoes. However, since the sweet potatoes are not yet in season, there is no need to worry about them. As long as the millet and corn are harvested, the other crops such as peanuts and rice will be minimal and do not need to be considered.

  In general, people harvest the sorghum and millet spikes, dry them in the sun, thresh the grains, pack them into bags and store them. As for corn, they harvest the corn stalks, dry them directly and then store them. Since these crops are relatively easy to harvest and dry, Li Tie estimated that within five or six days, this area would basically be able to complete the harvest.

  Leading a car with a mounted light machine gun and five Fox soldiers, Li Ties patrolled the area.

  Three days passed in a row without finding anyone suspicious.

  Li Tie was puzzled, the devils shouldn't be so quiet, this area is not particularly far from the devils, and the road is relatively flat. The devils also know that there is a lot of grain in this area, and they used to come with puppet troops to rob grain every year. Why didn't any of them come this year?

  Abnormality is ominous, too quiet must have a conspiracy.

  Let a small team leader continue patrolling, Li Tie returned to the base and asked Er Gou for information.

  Because Li Tie was always running around outside all day, even the intelligence squad couldn't find him sometimes, so they had to give the intelligence directly to the battalion commander.

  Li Tie returned to the squad's quarters when Er Gouzi, the squad leader, also happened to come back from outside. It seemed that he had been helping others with their work and his clothes were soaked through. He picked up a tea jug of cooled boiled water and gulped it down in three or four mouthfuls. Wiping his mouth: "Is there any news about the devils?"

  "Hmm? You don't have any information about the enemy here either?"

  "No, in recent days, not only has your squad's situation had no intelligence come over, but even Number One hasn't had any intelligence."

  Number one is Li Tie's arrangement to infiltrate the enemy's plainclothes team as an undercover agent, namely Li Wenmeng, the second son of the enlightened landlord Li Sanlian. Since his contact with Li Tie, he expressed his intentions to Li Tie, who then arranged for him to be an undercover agent for the Eighth Route Army, letting him contribute to the resistance against Japan. Initially, Li Wenmeng was unwilling, and his heart was set on joining the Eighth Route Army directly. After Li Tie explained the importance of being an undercover agent and promised to let him return to the Eighth Route Army at an appropriate time to participate in direct combat, he agreed.

  Due to the heavy casualties of the Japanese plainclothes team, almost all the Japanese devils were killed on the battlefield, and those who returned were very few. Among the puppet troops, only a handful of plainclothes agents returned, with fewer than ten out of over 40 returning. Before Banta could investigate this matter thoroughly, the Eighth Route Army launched a surprise attack and captured the county seat in an instant. Lieutenant Colonel Inoue, who had just been appointed, also fled back to his garrison in disarray shortly after his return.

  Looking at these defeated soldiers, Itoda was angry but had no good solution. When he was in charge, he didn't gain anything either. The county town was already lost, so the loss of a few people from the plainclothes team was just a small matter. So the plainclothes team's case was dropped.

  The unequal board led people to re-"liberate" Meng County, and the Eighth Route Army took some things with carts and withdrew from the county seat, as a result, they "bloodlessly" re-occupied the county seat.

  As a result of this lesson, Itoda decided to personally guard the county town for a long time from now on.

  It's now the season for autumn harvest. The Japanese are drooling over the grain in the mountains. Japan is a small country, and the war is all about money and food. The entire country's grain production isn't enough to feed the whole army, so they can only invade other countries to obtain the strategic resources they need. Except for a small amount of grain transported from their homeland, most of the Japanese military's grain supply relies on plundering locally. Although it's tempting, they don't dare to openly rob people, because if they do, they might not get much grain and would exhaust themselves in the process. The grain is still in the fields and hasn't been harvested yet, so even if they try to rob people, they won't be able to get much.

  He is waiting for an appropriate time.