Chapter Five: Entering Prison

  Traitor!

  Japanese devils!

  The people who were originally discussing in a low voice suddenly lost their voices, and each face was written with anger. Everyone looked at the young man together, all worried about him.

  No way, people are like knives and I'm just 'meat'.

  Forced by devils, with bayonets pointing at him, the young man, though a bit frightened, still straightened his back:

  "Who says I'm a Communist? You can't catch the real Communists, so you're arresting me to make up the numbers. I'm a university student from the provincial capital, just passing through this place."

  This is Qiao's second son, our protagonist Qiao Xiangwen.

  That night, he ran out of Qiao's compound, ran out of Chenjia Village, with only one thought in his mind:

  Save the country, save the nation, go find the Eighth Route Army.

  Yan'an, that is the sacred land of anti-Japanese revolutionary fervor, young people all regard it as a magical place, but the sky is far away, how can we go there for the time being?

  From the newspaper bought on the street, I learned that the Japanese army has launched a full-scale invasion of China. The North China Expeditionary Army has occupied Hebei, Shanxi and Henan provinces, and many areas in Shandong province have also fallen. Another route of the invasion expeditionary army, after the "813 Battle" in Songhu, quickly occupied Shanghai, Suzhou, Jiaxing and Changshu. Ha ha, my hometown in Jianghu has also been occupied by the devils.

  The little devils fought fiercely, forcing the National Government to move its capital to Chongqing.

  The Nanjing Massacre, one of the most horrific atrocities in human history, took place here, with 350,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians slaughtered by Japanese troops, shocking the entire world.

  Later, little Japan will also have its day of reckoning. After General MacArthur led the 1st Cavalry Division to land on its home turf, a "wipe out" operation left the devils speechless.

  Where there is invasion, there will be resistance.

  Wherever there are Japanese devils, there will be the shadow of Chinese troops and the angry masses.

  Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, the vast North China Plain became a good battlefield for the Communist Party-led anti-Japanese armed forces to launch continuous attacks.

  Consider going to Shandong first and take a look at the northern part of the province, where it fell early. If you can find the Eighth Route Army, that would be best. If not, then take a train from Jinan to Taiyuan.

  The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army is in Shanxi, you know.

  Through his own experience and observation, he had a very firm idea that he would never join the National Army.

  This is a total scam.

  That's not right, they retreat in defeat one after another, bullying ordinary people like wolves and tigers.

  Walking and stopping, searching and seeking.

  That day, he walked through Song Village and was inquiring about the road from villagers nearby. Seeing Japanese soldiers coming over, he dodged to one side, originally just wanting to leave the place of conflict as soon as possible and continue heading north.

  Unexpectedly, the Japanese devils slaughtered innocent people, and the dog-headed translator reversed black and white. Unable to bear the anger in his heart, he rushed out.

  "Fellow villagers, don't be afraid. China has 400 million compatriots, and they can't kill us all. As long as we unite, these Japanese devils and traitors will eventually return to where they came from!"

  Seeing the worried expressions of his fellow villagers, Qiao Wen immediately forgot about his own situation and comforted everyone.

  What a good young man, don't mention that at that time, the country was in trouble, love and hate were intertwined, now, an old lady fell to the ground, many Chinese people are already too scared to help her up, what a tragedy.

  Fellow villagers cast admiring glances.

  Steel helmets, machine guns, a blinding sun flag, and troops of Japanese soldiers.

  Half an hour later, the car drove into the county seat of Ju County.

  The Eighth Route Army was nowhere to be found, and Qiao Yun was taken back to the Japanese military camp.

  Ju County, 250 miles away from Chenjiaji.

  This county was occupied by the Japanese devil's Itabana Brigade at the end of 1937. Due to the resistance from the Nationalist army, the Japanese devils immediately carried out a bloody massacre in this historic city after their occupation:

  A small group of Japanese invaders encountered Chinese troops in Yangcun, a suburb, and had casualties. They burned down more than 20 houses in the village and stabbed eight villagers who stayed behind to death with bayonets.

  More than 50 people in the city were killed for refusing to wave flags to welcome the Japanese army.

  Dozens of shops were set on fire and destroyed.

  Three nuns from Jingxin An in Chengxi were raped and killed by devils, and then the temple was burned down.

  Apart from witnessing young women being raped on the spot, Japanese troops also rounded up young women from refugee camps and suburban areas, taking them to barracks, outposts, and forts for collective rape and molestation.

  TMD is not a thing, a horrific news is that a 28-year-old 'woman' was caught twice and escaped twice. Each time she was caught back, she not only suffered endless destruction but also got beaten after being raped. Once she was tortured to death and thrown into a small river next to the fortress, fortunately, she was found and rescued by a fisherman, but her body has been completely disabled.

  When the local women heard that Japanese devils were coming, they avoided them as if they had seen real ghosts. Those who were slightly pretty used charcoal to blacken themselves and disguise their beauty.

  Here, the Japanese army recruited a large number of civilian workers to transport materials and carry military equipment, ammunition, food, and fodder. If they moved slightly slower, they would be kicked away, hit with rifle butts, and each meal only had plain rice and rotten vegetable soup. Some secret rooms and hidden fortifications were forced to be built by the civilian workers, who were all killed once the work was completed.

  After the Japanese army occupied Ju County, many villages were deserted, and houses destroyed by the enemy were everywhere. The grain, livestock, and property looted by them were countless.

  Of course, this is not a place where the main force of the Japanese army stayed for a long time.

  The county town was occupied by a battalion of the Japanese Army's elite Ito Division. After the outbreak of the July 7 Incident, the Fifth Division was deployed to northern China under the command of Itagaki Seishirō and entered combat at Nankou on August 16, Pingxingguan in late September, Xinkou in early October, and captured Taiyuan on November 8; along the way defeating more than 30 National Revolutionary Army divisions and earning the nickname "Steel Army" for the North China Expeditionary Force.

  Ju County is just a pawn of the Itagaki Corps. They want to manage this place well and make it their own rear base.

  In recent days, the Japanese army has been intensifying its preparations, and the next target of attack is Linyi, a key town in southern Shandong Province, which is very close to Xuzhou, the "gateway" to northern Jiangsu. Xuzhou is the hub of the Longhai Railway and also the location of the Nationalist Party's Fifth War Zone Command Headquarters.

  The Battle of Tai'erzhuang took place shortly after, where it would become Itagaki's shame, and there his army was defeated by Li Zongren's troops, humiliated to the point of almost taking his own life.

  That was also the first major victory of the Chinese army after the start of the war of resistance.

  Before this, the Japanese army in North China, especially within Shandong province, was on a winning streak, unstoppable.

  On the evening of December 23, the Japanese Tenth Division launched a surprise attack and forced its way across the Yellow River. Three days later, Jinan fell.

  January 4, 1938, Tai'an and Qufu fell.

  January 11, Jining fell.

  Relying on advanced weapons and the "spirit" of Bushido, in just a few months, the Japanese invasion army achieved unexpected results on the North China and East China battlefields. However, what also caught them off guard was the tenacious resistance of Chinese soldiers. Although the National Army retreated step by step on the main battlefield, the Japanese army's casualties were extremely heavy. In the Shandong Lu North Battle alone, the Japanese army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and in the battles to capture Qingdao and Yantai, there were more than 3,000 casualties.

  On the front battlefield, after all, it is still visible. Relying on the advantageous troops and equipment, the Japanese army occupied an absolute upper hand.

  You think you're good, I'll play a different trick on you, won't fall for your trap!

  Soon, the Japanese army in Shandong was in a state of distress. The Communist Party-led anti-Japanese armed forces were everywhere, including the Eighth Route Army, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, guerrilla units, and militia. They employed various tactics, such as ambushing sentries, blowing up pillboxes, destroying highways, raiding logistics, sometimes advancing and sometimes retreating, which made the Japanese dare not venture out alone at night.

  The most influential one was the Lao Mountain Uprising on January 1, 1938, after which the Shandong First Guerrilla Division was established, representing the anti-Japanese armed forces in Shandong at that time.

  This was also the first regular armed forces of native Shandong under the leadership of the Communist Party.

  This team, in accordance with the Yan'an directive, "every Communist Party member, take off your long gown and go to the guerrilla team", "those who have money contribute money, those who have strength contribute strength, those who have guns contribute guns". While fighting against the Japanese in raids, they also paid attention to doing a good job of propaganda and mobilization work, mobilizing fellow villagers and progressive young people to join the anti-Japanese army, and vigorously launching the anti-Japanese national salvation movement, initiating guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

  After the Japanese army occupied Ju County, they were frequently attacked by guerrilla forces. The most bizarre incident was that a lieutenant colonel with two soldiers went to a restaurant for dinner and his head mysteriously "disappeared". According to the reports of the two soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Murayama was ambushed by guerrillas while using the restroom, beheaded, but it wasn't until the soldiers didn't see him come out for a long time that they went in to check and discovered this. However, the restaurant owner repeatedly recalled that he didn't remember any strangers coming. The Japanese army's small team leader, Lei Ting, was furious, arrested many people, but ultimately couldn't find any evidence, so he randomly killed two civilians and perfunctorily concluded the investigation.

  After that, similar events followed one after another, especially in the vast rural areas of central and southern Shandong Province. The guerrilla forces' shadowy figures came and went like ghosts, dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese army's long battle lines, greatly boosting the people's courage to fight back against aggression and defeat the enemy.

  It was against this backdrop that, targeting the Shandong region already occupied, the main force units such as the Fifth Division of Itagaki, the Tenth Division of Isogai Rensuke and the Fourteenth Division of Tōjō Hideki marched southward, directly attacking Xuzhou to seek out the National Army's main forces for battle. At the same time, the garrisoned Japanese troops, using the occupied county towns as units, generally left one company to guard each county, consisting of over 50 Japanese soldiers, who worked together with 200-300 puppet army security brigades and joint defense brigades to implement control measures. Their main task was to use war to feed war, plunder resources and guarantee frontline supplies.

  Another important task is to surround and suppress anti-Japanese armed forces.

  At this moment, their way of fighting is no longer a large-scale battle, but to find time, gather intelligence, and suddenly launch a surprise attack on the Japanese armed forces, and the village sweep is the most commonly used method.

  The group of devils that Xiang Wen met were the Japanese troops stationed in Ju County.

  After being taken back to the Japanese army's barracks, Wen Yide sternly and solemnly recounted the incident in detail, demanding punishment for the Japanese troops who had indiscriminately killed innocent people and a public apology with compensation. The interrogators knew that what he said was reasonable, but if they were to follow this logic, the Japanese invaders would have to apologize for killing so many innocent Chinese people, which was absolutely unacceptable to them.

  Faced with such a bookish and unyielding young man, the interrogator was at his wit's end.

  Whether it is an anti-Japanese element or whether it incites the masses to be dissatisfied with Japan, this was originally a baseless crime. After several interrogations, it ultimately could not be concluded.

  As for demanding compensation and apology from Wen, it was pushed aside, only saying that the person involved had been punished and sent to the front line in Tai'erzhuang.

  Especially when the interrogator knew that the young man's father was a well-known rural gentry in the nearby area, he didn't dare to be too rude to him.

  During the Japanese invasion of China, many innocent Chinese people were imprisoned and tortured for no reason. At one point, so many Japanese prisons were overcrowded that some places even used ordinary houses as makeshift prisons, with only a few guards and torture instruments, turning them into living hells.

  Qiao Wen is about to meet someone in prison, who will have a great impact on his life, ideals and even love.

  Tomorrow will arrive.