Chapter 54: The Crisis of Song Village

  Song Village is the village where Zhang Pai and others are hiding, it's a big village, not the small village with over 100 households where Liu He is located, Song Village has a population of over 2,000 people.

  As soon as Zhang Paichang said that recruitment was possible, Li Dage's courtyard was immediately surrounded by young people, and naturally there were also some middle-aged people and children. They all wanted to shoulder guns and fight against the devils.

  Soon, Zhang Paichang selected more than 150 new soldiers. Not enough weapons? Who says not enough weapons? One rifle per person, light machine guns can be shared by three to four people, and grenade launchers can be shared by five or six people.

  What, you don't like throwing grenades? I'll tell you, others want to use them but I won't let them. It's just that you look sturdy and suitable for using grenades. If you use the grenade well, later on I'll give you a cannon to use. What, you don't know what a cannon is? It's a long tube with two wheels at the bottom, where you put in a huge shell, and there's a rope, when you pull it hard, you'll hear a loud "Boom!" sound, and then dozens of devils will be blown to death far away. What a great profession this is!

  Never mind whether there are cannons or not, just pretend for now. If you want cannons later, that's fine, the devils have them, and you can go capture them yourself.

  What, you said you didn't want to fire the machine gun, are you stupid or something? This is a machine gun, all you have to do is pull the trigger and it will shoot out a string of bullets, those devils will fall down like cut wheat. Do you still want to switch to a rifle? Little Wang, come here, this machine gun is yours now. How about that, don't you want to fire the machine gun again? Isn't that just great?

  These new recruits always have this and that requirement, fortunately, the platoon leader used to be a staff officer following a political commissar, so he's not worried about being eloquent, after all, ideological work has a good tradition in our party and army, educating these new recruits is still a piece of cake.

  Since you've become a soldier, you have to start with sentry duty. Old soldiers, in this wartime, who has the time to stand guard? If there's free time, it should be used to teach new recruits about fighting devils and surviving on the battlefield. So the old soldiers brought by Zhang are now all instructors for new recruits.

  Maybe Zhang Paichang listened to Song Cunzhang's words, maybe not. Maybe it was him who started arranging these new recruits to stand guard and patrol. In Zhang Paichang's mind, he might have thought that these new recruits were standing guard for their own villagers, so naturally they would be very trustworthy. However, he overlooked the fact that these new recruits really had no military quality at all, and didn't even understand what war was, only knowing that fighting would result in death, but not knowing how people would die. Moreover, Zhang Paichang also neglected to monitor the Japanese corpses outside, so things happened like this.

  "Hachigaya, the corpses of great Japanese soldiers cannot be desecrated by those Chinese people. I will make them know that Japanese soldiers are not to be trifled with. Come on, surround that village for me. You guys, be careful and go quietly, don't let the Chinese soldiers discover us. I want revenge."

  The devils also had their scouts, and when this Lieutenant General called Kimura found out that one of his teams was annihilated and stripped naked, he got very angry. Although he was angry, he still had some caution. He wanted revenge, he wanted to vent his anger, and naturally, Song Village nearby was a good target. The excuse was easy to find: your village is closest to the scene, so it's likely that you did it, or even if you didn't do it, your village must know who did it.

  "Tai Jun, this person really wasn't killed by us, and our people wouldn't shoot a gun either." Song Village Head still had a glimmer of hope in his heart. Since the guns have all been taken back by you, can you let the villagers off?

  Can the little devils reason? The answer is naturally negative, they will not reason with you. If they were reasonable, they would not have invaded China and even came up with a local name, what's called "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere".

  "Your conscience is completely gone, our soldiers didn't bully you, but you killed our soldiers and even stripped off their clothes. You're dead."

  Beasts will not reason with you, they want to bite you without needing a reason.

  "Captain, something's wrong. Do you know Song Village?" "Ah, I do. Isn't it that village near where we ambushed and killed the devils for the first time?"

  "Captain, it's not good. Two more teams of devils have surrounded Song Village and the villagers have been rounded up. Machine guns have been set up all around, they may open fire, just like what happened in Ma Family Village."

  He panted heavily, speaking hastily, "Speak slowly, what's going on." "Captain, there's no time, let's talk on the way." "Alright, assemble everyone, throw away unnecessary things, leave a few people to watch, and have everyone else follow me at full speed, target Song Village."

  "Captain, this time our scouting team used long-distance transmission, my message is from the long-distance transmission, we must hurry up, otherwise Song Village will be the second Ma Family Village."

  Long-distance transmission, as the name suggests, is to transmit messages through bird calls over long distances. This requires specialized personnel who know how to send and interpret messages. In the scouting team, less than half of the people can do this. It not only requires good memory but also a large lung capacity. Each sound must be transmitted five miles away in order to quickly get the message into Liu He's ears.

  "Captain, it's okay, there aren't a lot of gunshots coming from over there, which means the devils haven't started shooting yet, we can still make it," Li comforted Liu He, who had been anxious all along. On the way, Liu He couldn't help but blame himself, thinking that he should have led his men to wait around Song Village for a while until things blew over before leaving. He had always known that those little devils were beasts, so how could he have overlooked this?

  "You let them all go, the people I brought to kill, whether you want to kill or cut them is up to you, but you must let the villagers of Song Village go." Zhang finally couldn't bear it anymore and walked out from the crowd.

  "There's me, and there's me...". All the soldiers also followed Zhang Paichang out, "Want to know? Good, I like warriors like you. However, I still don't believe that several of you are murderers. Speak up, who exactly is it, and where did they go?"