Chapter 48

  The devils have started to retreat, and Second Dog ordered the first company to symbolically chase them for a bit before returning.

  Saw the cave entrance blown up by the devils. Er Gouzi ordered everyone to quickly dig open the cave.

  The entrance is no longer visible in its original form, only a pile of rubble remains, with large ones as big as fists and small ones as small as fingertips, densely packed in the direction of the original cave entrance.

  Looking at his subordinates, almost everyone was injured and picking up gravel outside. Er Gouzi's heart was also bleeding. The newly established base had been almost completely destroyed, with casualties reaching an astonishing 80%, sacrifices accounting for a third of the entire army, and injuries exceeding 50%. As for those who lost a piece of skin or broke a finger, they were not even counted as injured. If these were included, it was possible that the injury rate would exceed 90%! This was something he had never experienced in all these years.

  Although the devils have retreated, it will take a long time for the base to recover to normal due to construction needs. Even his most cherished Xiao Lizi was buried in a mountain cave, and his life or death is unknown. Without Xiao Lizi, the construction of the base may be even slower. Since Xiao Lizi learned the habit of stealing from who-knows-when, the days at the base have been much better, and they can often eat Western bread and canned goods that they couldn't eat before. The wounded use penicillin that they wouldn't dare think about in peacetime, and guns and ammunition are like a bird changing its feathers. His small squad even has an artillery company, although it was heavily damaged by the enemy, but at least it existed. Thinking of Xiao Lizi's goodness, Er Gouzi's eyes became moist, and seeing that the cave entrance had not been dug out yet, within just a few minutes, Er Gouzi's lips had grown big blisters!!

  At last, one of the warriors shouted out, "There's someone below, be careful."

  Others carefully removed the rubble from outside, afraid of hurting the person underneath, although they knew that the person underneath was unlikely to be alive, but still tried to be as gentle as possible.

  The gradually exposed area became larger and larger, finally, the person below was clearly visible. It was a devil, not one of their own comrades. One soldier spat on the devil's corpse, then roughly kicked it with his foot. The other soldiers seemed to be used to it or thought it was normal, without any expression, and continued to remove the remaining rubble. A soldier roughly pulled the devil's leg, dragged him out from under the rubble, and threw him aside, always blocking the way and getting in the way.

  Soon, more bodies of devils and puppet troops were dug out. Although the entrance to the cave was not seen, no body of a comrade-in-arms appeared, only those of devils and puppet troops did.

  The two dogs started by directing everyone to dig from the side, but eventually couldn't bear it anymore and personally joined in to dig.

  Thanks to everyone's efforts, a small opening finally appeared in front of everyone. The opening was initially only the size of a fist, but after everyone's concerted efforts, it eventually grew to the size of a football.

  Two dogs pulled open the entrance of the cave and rushed in, shouting into the darkness: "Little Li, Little Li, how are you?"

  There was no sound in the cave.

  The two dogs barked again inside, but there was still no response.

  "Dig quickly, dig quickly." Er Gouzi said to himself as he dug with his bare hands. Soon the sharp rocks cut open his hands, and blood gushed out, staining the surrounding rocks red. But Er Gouzi seemed oblivious to the pain and continued digging.

  At this moment, a voice like thunder came from the cave: "Lian Zhang, is that you?"

  "Xiao Lizi, what's wrong with you?" Er Gouz asked anxiously.

  "I'm fine, we're all fine, have the devils retreated?"

  "It's all right, it's all right. The devils have retreated." Er Gouzi kept saying, but he himself could no longer hold on and fainted directly onto the gravel. The soldiers beside him quickly carried the battalion commander away.

  With news from inside comrades, especially after hearing that comrades are fine, everyone's morale has increased even more.

  Li Tie led the warriors inside and outside together, making a concerted effort, and soon dug out an entrance that could accommodate people.

  The first one to rush out was Li Tie, who directly rushed towards Er Gouzi. Er Gouzi had already woken up and was resting under a tree. Seeing Li Tie emerge from the cave, he had just stood up when Li Tie pounced into his arms. He hugged Li Tie tightly, unable to hold back tears of joy, feeling as though they had been reborn after a great calamity, with emotions that could not be described in words.

  More and more independent guerrilla fighters emerged from the cave, followed by the personnel of the arsenal. Everyone cheered on the ruins at the entrance of the mountain cave, celebrating the repulsion of the devils' attack together.

  The atmosphere calmed down a bit. Er Gou and Li Tie sat down, looking together at the bodies of the puppet army on the three-sided mountain slope, watching the cheering crowd.

  "What a great cave it was, and now it's collapsed." Er Gouzi regretted.

  "It's okay, nothing inside collapsed, only the entrance did, and it didn't collapse much. I'll just go get some cement and rebuild a better entrance." Li Tie said nonchalantly.

  "By next year, we'll have planted fruit trees on all three slopes. In a few years, we'll have fruit to eat. The soil that has drunk the enemy's blood will surely produce a bumper harvest." Li Tie said, pointing at the three slopes that had been blown up by landmines, speaking to Er Gou.

  Xiao Li has already started making plans for the future, and Er Gou can't help but get excited too.

  "It's just that our artillery company is completely wiped out, most of the personnel have sacrificed themselves, and both big guns are also completely destroyed. Although there are still some shells left, without the big guns, they can't be used. Alas, what a pity. It seems that Second Dog Battalion Commander still attaches great importance to the artillery company, although it was crippled by the enemy from the very beginning."

  "It's okay, as long as there are people, we can rebuild the artillery company."

  "Oh? You have big guns?"

  "Heh heh, how do you think the devils surrounded us? It was only because I went to rob the devils' artillery that they were led here."

  "It's really you, I said so, the reinforcements can't arrive that quickly, haha, what a thrill, awesome." Er Gouzi's interest was greatly increased. "Quickly tell me, how did you rob the enemy artillery?"

  Li Tie told Er Gou about how he led his men to capture the enemy's big cannon, and Er Gou listened with great enthusiasm, rubbing his bald head and repeatedly saying "good".

  When they heard that the independent regiment had seized the devils' cannons, all the soldiers were overjoyed. Everyone was excited and worked together to restore the entrance of the cave in a short time, removing all the bodies of the devils and puppet troops from the bottom layer. Then, Li Tie led his men to drive out the devils' cars, nine cars in a row, with four of them towing cannons behind, neatly arranged at the foot of the mountain. Seeing these things, the soldiers cheered and shouted, their voices echoing through the clouds, dispelling the shadows left by the enemy's destruction.

  After the war, it must be cleaning up the battlefield.

  Everyone settled the wounded, and since there were more people, the battalion established a health team. On the basis of the original medical soldiers, some warriors with a little medical foundation were recruited to join, and some female soldiers were also recruited. After training, they became nurses. Due to the use of some relatively advanced medical equipment and some special medicines, the effect was still quite satisfactory. Because there were many wounded soldiers this time, the health team couldn't accommodate them all, so a battalion's camp was vacated and temporarily used as the new residence of the health team. The medicine captured last time had hardly been used, so the medicine was still very sufficient. This laid a good foundation for the recovery of the warriors.

  All the bodies of devils and puppet troops were uniformly cleaned up, buried on the hillside, and trees were planted on top. Living without evil deeds, after death, make a little contribution to the greening of the motherland.

  Finally, after a preliminary count, more than 700 long and short guns were seized, more than 20 grenade launchers, and countless ammunition and supplies, the piled-up supplies made Deputy Squadron Leader Chen Shitou, who was in charge of logistics, worried sick - where to put all these supplies?

  Fortunately, Second Dog's team leader was quite resourceful and soon converted some of the barracks into warehouses, which relieved Old Chen's worries.

  After sweeping the battlefield for a day, the reinforcements finally arrived. Seeing the large number of casualties in the troops, the leader of the Eighth Route Army blamed himself for acting too slowly and causing such great losses to friendly forces.

  But Er Gouzi didn't think so, two days' time, hundreds of miles of mountain roads, it wasn't easy.

  The newcomer is a guest, and the second dog child lets the relief troops rest for a while before going back, but the old eight-way leader who brought the team saw that others had already solved their own problems, while they themselves didn't help with anything, and always felt it wasn't quite right, so he wanted to take his men back.

  Let others help, but don't show any gratitude yourself, this is not something Er Gouzi would do.

  Under the insistence of Er Gouzi, Lao Ba Lu finally agreed to rest here for two days before returning to their base.

  At night, Er Gouzi set a banquet to entertain Lao Ba Lu. Seeing the wine and meat on the table, Lao Ba Lu felt dizzy - how did he end up feeling like a guest instead of someone who came to rescue them? Surrounded by thousands of devils, they could still eat so well? Look, there were mushroom stewed chicken, braised pork, canned meat, and many other dishes that he had never seen before. Even the landlord's family wouldn't eat this well during Chinese New Year.

  After having enough wine and food, Old Eighth Route inspected the battalion's camp. When he saw that Second Dog actually had big cannons, his mouth was so shocked that it couldn't be closed. Who could believe that a small county battalion would have four big cannons, as well as cars? As for machine guns, they were almost one per squad. It was truly rich! If their own troops had these weapons, would they still need to ask others? Poorly, his own regiment only had two light machine guns with not many bullets, and as for small cannons, there were indeed two, but no shells. Looking around again, the small cannons were at least two per company, seemingly unused, what a waste!

  Lao Ba Lu looked on with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. He was too embarrassed to say anything, but Li Tie standing next to him had already noticed his expression.

  The next day, Lao Ba Lu insisted on leaving no matter what.

  People are envious of others until they die. Compared with these people, I am not even as good as a beggar. Where did these guys get so many good things? It's really incomprehensible.