The Second Collection of Rural Sentiments: The Mountain Cave Schoolhouse

  Zhan Biao pulled out a little old lady from the house, three people over eighty years old huddled together like children, their faces beaming with joy.

  It's unclear whether it was nasal mucus or tears. Although Xiaoyu had a face full of wrinkles, she still vaguely showed the figure and facial features of her youth, and was a beautiful woman.

  Zhan Biao also shed tears and said: "What's wrong with us, we cry as soon as we meet, let the children laugh at us." Zhan Dongdong and Yingzi were just giggling at Grandpa Da Ye's "pigpen" earlier, and they smiled at each other as they watched the old people recognize each other.

  Xiao Yu took a few steps forward, carefully examining Zhan Dongdong: "This child must be Xiao Bao's grandson, he has Xiao Bao's eyes..." Zhan Dongdong hastily called out: "Hello Auntie Xiao Yu, I'm Dongdong. I've heard of you before, you were a heroine back in the day and almost became my grandmother..."

  Xiao Yu immediately turned around and patted Zhang Biao's shoulder: "Look at you, what kind of grandfather are you, what are you telling the child?"

  Zhan Biao smiled with a smile like a chrysanthemum unfolding on his face, supporting Xiao Yu's arm and saying: "You always hit me when we meet, starting from the first time we met here."

  He said, pointing to the streets that could be vaguely seen in the breeding farm: "It was at that corner, I came to buy potatoes and radishes, and you hit me with a carrying pole on my lower back, it still hurts now."

  Xiaoyu's old face turned red, and she quickly pulled over Ju, who was bowing, to cover up and said: "This pretty girl, where did you learn so many etiquette? Are you Dongdong's girlfriend?"

  Sakura looked at what she wanted to explain and nodded to Xiaoyu, saying "Xiaoyu's mother is good." Then she bowed again.

  In the cave, the victory of killing hundreds of devils made Zhang Biao and his nine men excited for a long time. They lived a carefree life surrounded by dozens of machine guns for over ten days. Seeing that everyone had returned to normal, Zhang Biao gathered them together and put forward new demands.

  Zhang Biao first asked everyone to have a strong and healthy body, maintain sufficient physical strength, and recover from injuries. Every day, they must bask in the sun on the mountain for at least half a day, and hunt some wild game. Of course, they had to be careful not to reveal themselves and not to fire their guns easily, so as not to attract the enemy. Then, they should use this ample time to train soldiers. Zhang Biao proposed three items for military training.

  The first item is to review and improve the martial arts taught by the masters. Although modern warfare is dominated by firearms, martial arts can improve one's physical fitness and reaction ability, enhancing their military quality. This was deeply felt by them during the Japanese air raid disaster when they instinctively protected themselves.

  The second item is to continue to improve the shooting standards of heavy machine guns, familiarize themselves with the enemy's 92-style heavy machine gun, and improve the maintenance and maintenance level of light and heavy machine guns.

  The third item is to make a breakthrough in improving the operation and marksmanship of handguns, not only being a godly shooter with machine guns but also being a godly shooter with handguns. To prepare for the complex situations that will be encountered later.

  When practicing martial arts in the village, Zhan Biao was very influential. All major and minor events in the village could not be done without his design and participation. In the eyes of these younger brothers, apart from their master and parents, they were counted as him. Even his words were sometimes more important than those of his parents. Moreover, after Master's accidental death, Zhan Biao guarded the tomb for a whole year, making everyone even more respectful of him, with the trust of an elder brother being like a father.

  In the winter of 1935, with a burning desire to defend their homes and country, 17-year-old Zhan Biao led his younger comrades out to find an army to fight against Japan. At that time, they wanted to join the Red Army, which was said to be the army of the poor and the most resolute in resisting Japan, but instead they vaguely joined the Nationalist Army, which was recruiting soldiers at the time. Zhan Biao became a squad leader and remained the big brother in his comrades' hearts. Once, when Company Commander Gao wanted to promote Xiao Feng as squad leader, Xiao Feng declined, saying he would wait until Brother Zhan became platoon leader before taking on the role. Therefore, whenever Zhan Biao put forward training requirements, everyone responded enthusiastically, and they all proposed detailed objectives.

  Xiao Feng said: "I suggest we combine the Yue-style scattered hand taught by Master and the capturing fist we learned when we first became soldiers, focusing on practicing grappling and fighting..." Qiangzi shouted: "I've had this intention for a long time!" Zhan Biao nodded repeatedly.

  Liu Yang added, "I suggest we have a disassembly and assembly competition for machine guns, pistols, and shooting targets every now and then." San De immediately said, "Whoever loses will stand guard for an extra shift."

  Originally, Zhan Biao had already formulated a complete set of warning regulations, including 24-hour sentry posts at the cave entrance and lookout sentries on the mountain top. Moreover, the captured telephones were also pulled to the two cave entrances and the lookout sentries on the mountain top.

  Zhan Biao glared at San De with one eye: "You little scoundrel, you only know how to cheat. Do you dare say you'll definitely win? However, the competition method is quite good. We can have small competitions every week and a large-scale competition every month. For example, wrestling freestyle competition, boxing legwork competition, machine gun malfunction elimination competition, rifle marksmanship competition, pistol marksmanship competition... The winner will be the standard bearer, with fine wine and good liquor as rewards." Everyone passed it with laughter. Zhan Biao had always forbidden everyone from smoking, which was also one of the rules set by their master.

  Cheng Yi thought for a moment and then proposed his own suggestion: "Brother Biao, I think we should take advantage of this time to learn some culture. I can teach everyone to recognize characters. In the box of books captured from the devils, I found our 'Three Character Classic', 'Thousand Character Essay', and also a book of Confucius' 'Analects'. Ah, yes, there's also a set of 'Jin Ping Mei'."

  Cheng Yi is a junior fellow apprentice of Mo Rigen. When he was in middle school, his father forced him to return to the village to practice martial arts due to his weak physique, and he can be considered a scholar in the village.

  Zhang Biao rarely smiled: "Cheng Yi's idea is good, we will intensify learning to read and write, and become a soldier who can not only fight but also be literate. Let's count this literacy and cultural study as the fourth item in our military training."

  The lively and tense military training began, and the cave became their school. The daily schedule was to get up at 6:00 am for martial arts practice until 10:00 am for lunch (to save food, Zhang Biao stipulated two meals a day), then spend two hours learning to write 10 characters (later changed to 5 characters), one hour cleaning and disassembling the heavy machine gun, and take a half-hour nap around 1:00 pm. In the afternoon from 2:00 to 6:00, practice various shooting techniques, and review literacy after dinner. Sometimes Cheng Yi would read aloud a passage from "Jin Ping Mei" in the evening, but later Zhang Biao cancelled it, saying that it was easy for the soldiers to get sick from listening to romantic stories.

  During this period, nine national army elites were rapidly improving their overall quality. Due to the concentrated time and energy, the training gains were great, whether it was martial arts, marksmanship or literacy, all of which have been greatly improved. As for the past Japanese army, they did not easily take action because the conditions were not as mature as last time.

  Before long, a winter had passed. In early March, the National Army had not yet returned, and those who waited foolishly later learned that during this period, the Japanese army captured the capital Nanjing, killing 300,000 soldiers and civilians, and the National Army continued to retreat. The Japanese army stationed troops in the occupied areas, built artillery towers, and a puppet government was established. The only thing that brought comfort to people was that the Communist Party-led New Fourth Army, Eighth Route Army, and large and small anti-Japanese guerrilla forces fought bravely against the enemy and the Japanese army.

  Dying to wait for the return of the National Army, Zhan Biao and others couldn't wait any longer, they had to think of a way to establish contact with the outside world. They needed to get acquainted with the local folks. As for how Zhan Biao and his nine brothers got to know the local folks, it all started from Kao Shan town.

  At the foot of the mountain, five miles away from the town of Kao Shan, had long attracted the attention of Zhang Biao. Every day he would observe it with a telescope for a while. But he never sent anyone down to enter the village because he had encountered local farmers on the mountain several times and felt very hostile, they ran when they saw him and didn't answer questions.

  But after the spring is open, it's not possible to enter the village either.

  Zhan Biao felt that the village and the outside world were in communication, because there were always horse-drawn carriages and cars entering and leaving the town, and occasionally Japanese troops would enter. But on the mountain, it was equivalent to being isolated from the outside world, without knowing any news from the outside. How far has this battle gone? What is the national situation? We should go into the town to investigate.

  There's another reason, although they didn't starve on the mountain, they were close to running out of food. Long-term consumption of compressed biscuits and lack of vegetables led to nutritional disorders. San De would vomit acid water whenever he saw compressed biscuits. So it was necessary to go into town to buy some rice and vegetables. Additionally, they wanted to buy a few sets of casual clothes, as apart from National Army uniforms, they only had Japanese military uniforms, which were inconvenient for going down the mountain or standing guard.

  On a windy and sunny spring afternoon, Zhan Biao and Xiao Feng went down the mountain. The fields already had green shoots, and in the distance, there were farmers busy at work in twos and threes. They agreed that if there was an enemy convoy coming from the north, they would signal with smoke on the mountaintop lookout post.

  Two men wearing freshly laundered National Army uniforms, each with two handguns tucked into their waistbands and a backpack on their back. The backpacks were filled with some spoils of war looted from the devils - they had no money to buy vegetables so they had to barter for them.

  Zhan Biao had thought of several situations, such as encountering devils or villagers who only wanted money and not goods, etc., and had made preparations to deal with them. But what Zhan Biao never expected was that they had just entered the village and hadn't even gone a hundred steps when they heard the sound of gongs ringing out, and suddenly dozens of villagers and over ten fierce dogs poured out from the streets and alleys, the villagers holding hoes and iron rakes and shouting "Soldiers, get out!" as they charged towards them.

  Zhan Biao looked at the situation, although he wasn't afraid of the villagers, but these dogs were quite troublesome. Moreover, they couldn't shoot at ordinary people, so he led Xiao Feng to turn around and retreat into a small alley.

  As soon as they entered the small alley, they met a half-grown boy holding a small wooden stick and silently welcoming them. This time, Zhan Biao did not retreat again, he stood still and let the stick sweep over him. But the boy saw that Zhan Biao was not fighting back and kept hitting him, in the blink of an eye, he had hit Zhan Biao's waist and back three or four times. Xiao Feng then picked up a tree branch from the side of the street to fend off the few dogs rushing over.

  Although Zhang Biao was patient, these three or four flat baskets still made him lose his temper. He lifted his leg and lightly kicked the boy's buttocks. Suddenly, a girl's voice shouted out "Oh no!" Zhang Biao couldn't believe it and kicked the girl's buttocks again. The girl burst into tears, threw down the flat basket, covered her buttocks and ran towards a group of villagers who were chasing after her.