The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 3 Departure
...When the veterans have free time, they always get together and talk dirty about women, as if they are only concerned about what is going on in their pants.

In fact, I can tell that most of the dirty jokes are made up by them, and many veterans are still greenhorns.

I guess they had never even seen the milky white snow, and they were talking about it with saliva flying. At that time, I didn't care to expose them at all.

But when I became a veteran, I often made dirty jokes with others, and even made more dirty jokes than them.

Because these dirty jokes can make new soldiers forget their fear for a short time, and make veterans forget the pain in their bodies and the hopelessness of the future... Excerpt from Hu Biao's diary collection "Nonsense"...

About two hours later, Hu Biao and his group set off.

In the long team, except for a leader who was about forty years old and rode a chestnut horse, everyone else was walking.

When he set out, Hu Biao didn't even get a gun.

In the entire team, only some squad leaders who were veterans carried an old Hanyang rifle.

It is said that people like Hu Biao will have to arrive at the assembly point in the Magic City and be incorporated into the new troops before the new troops will provide them with weapons and relevant training.

Fortunately, before leaving, each of them received some dry food and a pair of cloth shoes.

The dry food is steamed buns made of high-quality white flour, and the cloth shoes are new shoes with densely stitched thousand-layer soles; I heard that they are all made by local villagers who stay up late to make them.

And so, a long walk began.

Measuring each step, Hu Biao followed the road that countless ancestors of northern Jiangsu had walked, and followed the team through ancient counties, towns and villages with a history of thousands of years.

The county town and towns are small and exquisite, with carefully tended rice fields, rivers and ponds on both sides of the roads.

When passing through these places, the wind blew the golden rice waves up and down, farmers wearing straw hats worked in the rice, and fishermen on small boats cast their fishing nets.

Even the air is filled with the joy of the coming autumn and the beauty of the harvest that will soon be harvested.

From a distance, all this looks like a beautiful landscape painting.

But Hu Biao knew that such a quiet and beautiful scenery would not last long and would suffer a huge catastrophe under the iron hoofs of the Japanese invaders.

Whenever Hu Biao thought of this, he would always feel inexplicably distressed, because this was a piece of land where his ancestors who shared the same blood as him lived.

During the march, he also found out more details.

The current location here is Rugao area in northern Jiangsu Province, and the time is August 8, 19, almost a week after the Battle of Shanghai began.

At present, both sides are fighting fiercely and suffering heavy casualties, and are desperately trying to transfer troops from the rear to the Magic City.

Their team of more than 130 people was called the Third Supplementary Company of the Su Province Security Corps.

Therefore, most of the new recruits of the Third Supplementary Company around him were farmers in Rugao area, or carpenters, bricklayers and other small craftsmen.

They joined the army in a hurry and had no time for any training.

So it is said that after arriving in the Magic City, they only need to help dig trenches and carry the wounded. They don't need to go up to fight the Japanese, because the Japanese have the elite Central Army under the principal to fight them.

Probably because of this reason, these people didn't look so panicked.

However, Hu Biao, who knew a little about the history of the Battle of Shanghai, did not believe this statement at all; he knew that once the battle became stalemate, any man who could pick up a gun would be sent to the battlefield.

No one cares whether you are a new soldier or a veteran, or whether you are a logistics staff.

So, as he followed the team forward, Hu Biao kept secretly sizing up the surrounding terrain, preparing to escape at night. However, when night fell, he realized how naive he had been.

******
The third supplementary company set out from Rugao County at around nine in the morning.

Except for a short break for lunch and dry food, the team kept moving forward.

The team walked until almost seven o'clock in the evening, when it began to darken, and then they stopped to camp.

Wow! That was equivalent to a nine-hour march in one day, a distance of seventy or eighty miles. It was the first time in Hu Biao's life that he had walked such a long distance.

When he heard that he didn't have to walk anymore, he felt numb and painful all over his body, especially the soles of his feet and calves, as if he was not the one who caused the pain.

At that time, I wanted to just sit down on the muddy ground and lie down for a while.

Fortunately, the Third Replacement Company’s campsite tonight is in a town called Baipu. At one end of the town is a large Guandi Temple.

The row of more than 30 people he was in settled down in a large room on the left.

There was no bed in the room, but it had been covered with a thick layer of straw and some thin quilts. The straw and quilts had clearly been recently aired, so they should be quite warm to sleep on. More importantly, Hu Biao had only eaten some dry food at noon today, and was already starving.

In the courtyard of the Guandi Temple, several large pots had already been set out. In addition to steaming white rice, there was also a pot of stewed duck with dried bamboo shoots and a pot of large fatty slices, which were emitting an extremely tempting aroma.

I don’t know if it was because I was so hungry, or if these pollution-free farm ingredients cooked on a wood stove were particularly delicious.

Anyway, Hu Biao finished a big bowl of food in just three or four minutes, and it tasted so delicious.

Feeling hungry, Hu Biao took his empty bowl and walked towards the big pot with a stern face, intending to say a few free words to a few local fellows helping in the kitchen and get another bowl to eat.

Even if there is no vegetable, a bowl of white rice with a big spoonful of oily soup will be fine.

Unexpectedly, Hu Biao walked to the big pot without saying a word.

A man in his thirties waved a spoon and served him another large bowl of pointed rice, and even poured a spoonful of oily soup on it at the end.

But when getting food, the man said with a smile in Rugao dialect, which Hu Biao could actually understand:
"Boss, you can eat as much as you want. Make sure you eat enough and eat well. Only then will you have the strength to help us fight the Japanese."

As soon as the man's voice fell, an old woman beside him continued:

"I heard that the bosses are marching all the way to Shanghai to fight the Japanese, and they will stay overnight in Baipu. Everyone, you bring a duck, I bring a few pounds of rice, and he brings a piece of meat, and we will have a meal together.

We were asked to do it all together, just to express our gratitude to the people of Rugao."

After hearing what the two people said, Hu Biao suddenly felt that the food was very hot and he could not eat it anymore.

How could a wretch like him, who was planning to run away, be qualified to eat the food that his ancestors had scraped out from their teeth...

It was still early after dinner, not even eight o'clock in the evening, but Hu Biao didn't even wash up. He lay on the straw and soon began to snore loudly.

Of course! Although Hu Biao was very tired, he didn't really fall asleep.

He just closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. After experiencing a brief feeling of guilt during the meal, the boy still planned to run away at night after everyone fell asleep.

No matter where they run to, they will not follow the 3rd Replacement Company to that damn Battle of Shanghai.

The reason for running away was the same thing he had said many times: even without a rookie like him, this war would still be won in eight years.

"One more of me is definitely not too many, and one less of me is definitely not too few." After telling himself this many times, or after convincing himself with this sentence again, Hu Biao began to wait.

In the following time, Hu Biao's wait was very long and painful.

On the one hand, Hu Biao, who had never walked such a long distance, was very tired at the moment, even more tired than working a night shift at the express company, and he wanted to have a good sleep immediately.

After pretending to be asleep, he needed to exert a lot of willpower to prevent himself from actually falling asleep.

On the other hand, after the new recruits had all gone to bed, the squad leaders and platoon leaders, who were veterans, gathered together, still eating, drinking, and making loud dirty jokes.

How can I describe the specific content of the dirty joke? It's hard to describe in a few words.

For example, there are stories about how they used to peek at the beautiful sister-in-law next door taking a bath, or how they would hide in the haystack at the entrance of the village and secretly kiss Erya from the village.

Both the speaker and the listener were very engaged, but as a modern person, Hu Biao always felt that these statements were too fake.

It feels like something that was made up by some greenhorns, combining rumors and their own fantasies.

After all, before Hu Biao fell asleep, he had dated three girlfriends, and he lived with one of them for more than a year. At that time, their cohabitation was almost like being married, so they had already understood what they should have understood.

As for the girlfriend who claimed that she would only marry him if the minimum betrothal fee was 30 yuan after the breakup, who did she marry now?
He didn't want to know, nor was he interested in knowing, so he wished her all the best.

However, the situation that almost broke Hu Biao's defense was the second squad leader with a mouthful of yellow teeth. He drank rice wine in small sips while shouting about his embarrassing experience with saliva splashing:
“I was only 17 years old that year, but I was a well-known handsome young man in the surrounding area.

I forgot why I started swearing at Erdan from the same village that day. You all know that country folks don’t have many rules when swearing at each other, and they always use dirty tricks.

I had just cursed "Fuck your mother" when I felt someone pulling my clothes from behind.

I turned around and saw that it was Erdan's sixty-year-old mother. The old woman said to me, "Come in." I was stunned when I heard that..."

After being confused for a few seconds, Hu Biao finally realized what that "come into the room" meant.

Good boy! When he realized what was happening, he almost laughed out loud, revealing that he was just pretending to be asleep.

It took a lot of effort to hold it in, but it was so hard...

(End of this chapter)