Chapter 1 Arrival in Your Honorable Territory (Part 1)

  Chu Yuan, who should now be called Cheng Jiaji or can also be referred to by his courtesy name Haoran, was walking with a group of colleagues he had just met today on the narrow and exceptionally lively main street of Wuzhen. The group would occasionally burst into laughter and conversation. It's worth noting that Chu Yuan had only known them for less than three hours, while these people were already old acquaintances of Cheng Jiaji. To be precise, Cheng Jiaji and these individuals were accomplices in the crime of stealing and selling military supplies, which in 21st-century slang would make them "sworn brothers who have shared money together".

  The reason why the situation seems so complicated and confusing is that Comrade Xiao Chu currently still has some time difference, that is, the space-time difference has not been reversed, and his head is still a bit dizzy.

  It all started three hours ago, when Chu Yuan woke up to find himself lying on an antique bed, with a pile of things he had only seen on TV beside him. This made him feel quite at a loss. To put it simply, in 21st-century terms, Comrade Chu Yuan had unknowingly offended some god or spirit, and his soul had traversed time and space. Such a clichéd plot twist was actually happening to him, who was minding his own business and had even set a wedding date with his girlfriend of five years, which was just around the corner.

  Chu Yuan was able to get into the situation in a short time, thanks to a website called "Starting Point". Usually, Chu Yuan would read a lot of books on this largest online reading platform in the country, which allowed him not to faint when he saw himself wearing a yellow National Revolutionary Army uniform and a young, unfamiliar face in the mirror.

  Even with his strong immunity to such things, Chu Yuan was still out of it for more than half a day. It wasn't until Ma Sanbao, the honest and slightly dim-witted bodyguard and orderly, repeatedly called out "Deputy Director Cheng!" that he snapped back to reality from his stunned silence in front of the mirror.

  It should be said that Chu Yuan's psychological endurance is still quite good, which should be considered a great achievement of the Ministry of Education's persistent implementation of the exam-oriented education route. Chu Yuan, who has always been mediocre in talent, has had poor grades from elementary school to high school, and his English scores are even more pitiful, he hasn't figured out the number of letters in the alphabet since junior high school.

  When he was in school, although elementary school students didn't have to learn English yet, the good or bad of English scores could also affect a person's future. With this absolute weakness in grades, it can be imagined how difficult Chu Yuan's path to promotion would be. Chu Yuan, who had long suffered from the pain of failure and frustration, naturally had to be more resilient than ordinary people, and could even be said to be somewhat numb. After all, not many people can remain unresilient after going through China's traditional frustrating exam-oriented education.

  After several hours of drastic changes, he accepted a fact in his heart that no matter what, he had become a young officer of the National Army living in the Republic of China in 1937 with a monthly salary of 80 yuan from the national treasury. The top priority was not how to find a way back home, but how to survive better in this time and space.

  He was originally a petty bourgeois living in the middle and lower classes of society. When he realized that he would not be able to return to his family for the time being, his first reaction was to ask the rough-looking orderly how much eighty yuan could buy. After figuring out that his monthly salary could buy almost two heads of cattle and several acres of land, he discovered through calculation that his current income level belonged to the high-income class in this space-time, which was even higher than his income from doing small business in recent years. If other factors were added, such as what his orderly Ma Sanbao told him earlier, it would cost less than 100 yuan to buy a 16- or 17-year-old girl as a concubine on the street during this chaotic year, which was still the price sold by human traffickers. If directly taken from her parents, it might not even be half of that price.

  This news made Chu Yuan's heart feel a bit complicated, and he couldn't help but sigh with emotion. The income and benefits of Nationalist Army officers were indeed higher than those of the Communist Army. Even in later years, the salary level of a lieutenant colonel in the People's Liberation Army was far lower than this standard. If you add the special allowance of 50 yuan, it would be comparable to that of high-level executives in private enterprises in the 21st century. It's not just enough for one person to live on, but also enough to raise one or two children.

  If Chu Yuan was immersed in joy, that would be underestimating the youth of our new era. After briefly learning about his current soul host situation from Ma Sanbao, Chu Yuan couldn't wait to drive Ma Sanbao out of the room and immediately conducted a thorough inventory and takeover of all personal belongings of the spiritually deceased Cheng Jiaji.

  An hour later, Chu Yuan sat on the chair in front of him, panting slightly. On the small Chinese-style square table in front of him were all the spoils from his frantic search earlier. There was a total of 836 francs and four cents in cash, an American Smith & Wesson 0.38-inch revolver with two hundred rounds of ammunition, four gold bars weighing about twenty-four taels, a Central Bank deposit book with a balance of six thousand francs, half a pack of Hademen cigarettes, a large stack of documents and letters, and countless other miscellaneous items. (It seems that this Cheng Jiaji is not a clean guy either, or else how would he have so much money.)

  Lit a Hardman cigarette of this era, took a deep breath, and at the same time, Chu Yuan tidied up his thoughts. Now Chu Yuan can basically confirm his current identity and environment.

  Today is December 21, 1937, also known as the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China. Nanjing has already fallen eight days ago. The Japanese army is now burning, killing and looting in Nanjing, doing all sorts of evil things. In other words, the Nanjing Massacre is underway, with tens of millions of compatriots struggling under the knife of the Japanese people. Thinking of this, Chu Yuan's heart cannot help but feel a deep sense of powerlessness. In the past, he was a complete angry youth on the internet, shouting every day that he wanted to take revenge and have a Tokyo massacre ten times larger than the Nanjing Massacre.

  But it wasn't until he left the powerful national background of this time and space that he realized how insignificant individual strength was. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but curse heaven, why others who went back to the past weren't in groups with cannons and machine guns, or at least with a computer full of advanced technology to contribute to the development of national industry. At the very least, they were like Yang Shou and his two men, carrying submachine guns and driving Santana back to the past, so that there would be some mutual support between them. But he had nothing, could only watch the tragedy unfold with his eyes open and was powerless to stop it. Even if it was a soul attachment, it should have been attached to some kind of big shot, even if not on a general's body, at least on some key figure who held heavy arms. Then he could have sent troops to Nanjing to prevent the tragic event from happening, and even if it wasn't successful, he could have rescued many innocent Nanjing civilians.

  Chu Yuan knew he didn't have the ability now, his current identity was just a major and deputy director of the logistics department of the 66th division of the National Revolutionary Army, and also the younger brother-in-law of Xia Weimin, the commander of the 66th division. He was just a spoiled young master who relied on his connections to eat. How could he possibly rescue Nanjing? It's not like he could charge into Nanjing city alone with that American-made Smith & Wesson 0.38 inch revolver on the table! Why did others return with guns, cannons, and even troops, while he had nothing? At least he could bring a laptop to intimidate people!

  Note 1: The "National Difficulty Salary" refers to a policy issued by the Military Command Department headed by He Yingqin after the September 18th Incident, which means that the salaries of national army officers were comprehensively discounted. Regimental officers only received about 70% of their full salary.

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