The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 631 The Pioneer Corps (Two-in-One Chapter)

...Throughout the War of Resistance against Japan, those compatriots who lived in the occupied areas generally had a very difficult life under the brutal rule of the Japanese invaders.

However, the most difficult place is definitely in the Northeast region outside the Great Wall.

Despite having fertile and vast black soil cultivated and passed down by their ancestors, they consider it a crime to even eat a mouthful of rice they grow themselves.

They could not grow cotton or spin textiles, and the land they depended on for survival was plundered in large quantities by the Japanese settler groups.

Under the oppressive and unreasonable policies of the Japanese invaders, they lived a life of hardship, like livestock.

But they never gave up resisting; a single spark could ignite a prairie fire of resistance. For 14 years, the Japanese never truly conquered this land…

...Excerpt from Hu Biao's diary collection "Hu Shuo"...

Time: February 10, 1942, a little after 6 p.m., when it had been completely dark for quite some time.

Location: A room in a courtyard of a village called Misaka, which is part of the Japanese settler group's territory.

With a roar of "Baka Yalu!", Lu Dazhi, who was just two months shy of 14 years old, was slapped to the ground.

The slap was so forceful that it caused the poor boy's cheek to swell up visibly, and his mouth to taste blood.

His head was buzzing, making him extremely dizzy and disoriented.

Even so, in the immediate after falling to the ground, Lu Dazhi still made some actions that were almost instinctive, protecting himself:
He covered his head with his hands and curled up on the ground as much as he could; he clenched his teeth tightly and tried not to make a sound.

All of these reactions are lessons learned by Lu Dazhi over the past two years while working as a servant in the home of a Japanese man named Sangye Tsuo.

For example: The Japanese head of this family is a lame old Japanese soldier.

This old Japanese soldier looks to be about fifty-two or fifty-three years old. He used to be a soldier, and it's said that he became lame in his left leg during that time.

A few years ago, he was a nobody in the island nation, barely able to afford food; now, after coming to Northeast China with the pioneering group, he has become a superior person.

He married a Japanese widow in her thirties, and they had several Japanese children.

Kuwaya's second son is an alcoholic who likes to drink at night; however, he has a very low alcohol tolerance and gets drunk after only two or three ounces of that bland sake.

When he got drunk, this old Japanese devil liked to beat up Lu Dazhi, the only servant in his household.

There's no need for any excuse, or anything could just be an excuse for him to hit someone.

Just now, Lu Dazhi only made a slightly louder sound when serving the dishes, causing the bowl to collide with the table, and he was slapped hard across the face and knocked to the ground.

Just as Lu Dazhi had curled up, the old devil Sang Ye, wearing wooden clogs, kicked and punched him mercilessly.

Even though they had covered their heads and curled up their bodies as much as possible.

Every spot hit by the hard wooden clogs was excruciatingly painful, as if the skin, flesh, and even bones were about to crack.

Furthermore, Lu Dazhi was not allowed to make any screams when he was being beaten; because he knew that if he did, the old Japanese devil Sang Ye would beat him even more fiercely.

The only thing Lu Dazhi could do was keep his mouth shut and hope that the beating would end soon.

Otherwise? According to the village elders, back when he was only two or three years old, the eldest son of the Zhang family had hundreds of thousands of men and guns under his command.

They even have things like airplanes, cannons, tanks, and ironclad warships.

As a result, without firing a single shot, they abandoned such a large territory as the three northeastern provinces and its 30 million inhabitants to the Japanese, and then led their men to retreat into the interior of China.

Even with his millions of troops, the bald-headed principal couldn't defeat the Japanese.

The Japanese are constantly talking on loudspeakers and in newspapers about how they've captured places and killed countless Chinese troops; now I'm even hearing that Shuangqing City, the secondary capital, is about to be captured by the Japanese.

Those big-nosed foreign devils were also defeated by the Japanese in Southeast Asia; these short Japanese men were suddenly invincible.

So, what can these ordinary people do when they're all empty-handed?
They could only struggle to survive under the Japanese invaders; for every step the Japanese took forward, they had to retreat.

In the words of the village elders, "Just live, live like cattle or horses; no matter how hard the world is, people have to keep living..."

I wonder if that old Japanese devil, Sanya Tsugio, had been upset somewhere during the day.

Or perhaps his flirtatious Japanese widow wife secretly gave him a new cuckold's horns.

Anyway, I beat him particularly badly today. Even after kicking him several times, I was still not satisfied, so I picked up a stick and started whipping him.

So much so that Lu Dazhi had a gut feeling that this old Japanese devil was probably going to kill him today.

Therefore, he couldn't help but look towards the Japanese widow and several Japanese lads at the dining table; he tried to plead with them to save him.

Because if I die, I won't be able to bring any food back to my blind mother. What will happen to her?
What happened? Those people were either still eating their food or didn't even glance in their direction.

Or they might be like that brat Sang Ye, looking at this side without the slightest pity, even with a cruel look in their eyes, wishing they could snatch the stick and beat themselves in place of their father.

After letting out a long, silent sigh, Lu Dazhi suppressed his original intention to beg for mercy.

Filled with grief, indignation, and bewilderment, the young man couldn't comprehend how these Japanese settlers could be so inhuman, despite being born as human beings himself.

It is said that when they first arrived, they were just clearing land in the wilderness, and the locals were very polite in asking them how to grow crops.

After only a few days of peace, these Japanese devils revealed their true colors.

The Japanese devils actually tried to forcibly buy their best farmland from them for 3 yuan per hectare.

Lu Dazhi's family originally owned seven hectares of good land. They weren't exactly wealthy, but as long as they were willing to put in the effort, they could still live a decent life.

The Japanese soldier wanted to buy it for about twenty yuan, but the family naturally refused.

That day, my grandfather, father, several uncles, and all the adult men in the family were captured by those black-skinned dogs who served as dogs for the Japanese, and the crime was "colluding with bandits".

After agreeing to sell the land and emptying their possessions to bribe officials, the arrested person was released.

My grandfather and second uncle died a few days later because they were beaten so badly.

To survive, my father and two uncles had no choice but to work as tenant farmers and hired laborers for these Japanese soldiers. They cultivated land that was originally their own, and after a year of hard work, they could only get some coarse grains, which, even with wild vegetables, were not enough to fill their stomachs.

In the following days, my father, several uncles, and their family members died one after another from starvation, disease, or freezing.

In the Lu family, he is now the only son left, along with his mother who has cried herself blind.

To survive and to support his blind mother, Lu Dazhi had no choice but to work for the Japanese.

Although he is almost 14 years old, he has been so thin and weak that he has not been able to get enough to eat for years. He doesn't even look as tall as the 11 or 12-year-old Japanese brats.

So even if he wanted to be a tenant farmer for the Japanese, no one would hire him, and he could only become a servant for the Sangye family.

The pay for servants was even lower; there was no wage at all. They were provided with two meals a day and ten pounds of cornmeal at the end of the month.

In comparison, they are not even as good as their dog; because their dog can eat leftover white flour buns, rice, and even meat.

However, the cornbread that Lu Dazhi usually ate was often mixed with a lot of sand.

"God! Open your eyes! If I must die today, please, send down a bolt of lightning and kill me and all these Japanese devils from the Sangye family!" Lu Dazhi cried out in his heart...

As it turns out, praying to God is useless these days; otherwise, why didn't those four islands of the Japanese sink into the sea?

Fortunately, just as the poor boy was about to faint, a series of gunshots rang out from outside the village, and Japanese soldiers shouted "Enemy attack!"

At the commotion, Sangye Tsujio finally stopped hitting the blood-stained stick in his hand.

At first, he was filled with joy.

Not only was he finally saved, but the gunshots meant that the heroes of KL were attacking the village; once the heroes of KL stormed in, they could wipe out these damned Japanese devils.

However, they quickly realized that the heroes of KL, having been hunted down by the Japanese for so many years, no longer possessed their former strength.

On the contrary, Miyong Village was one of the first villages established by the Japanese settlers. It was surrounded by high walls and watchtowers, and every household had a gun. The heroes of KL would probably not gain any advantage here, and might even suffer a great loss.

As expected! The old Japanese devil, Sangye Jiro, showed no sign of panic on his face. Instead, a hint of ruthlessness and a sinister smile appeared on his face.

Despite limping on one leg, he rushed into the bedroom at top speed.

When they came out, they had a Type 30 rifle in their hands, which was the standard rifle of the Japanese troops before the Type 38 rifle was issued.

Then, Sangye Tsuji rushed out of the gate and joined many other Japanese soldiers with guns on the main road in the village.

A dark mass of people, exuding murderous intent, rushed towards the direction from which the gunshots came.

Behind them, the Japanese widow peeked out, looking around with an expression of anticipation for a good show.

She and Sang also had several little brats, each of them brandishing a bamboo sword while shouting, "Banzai! Kill them all, kill all these Chinese dogs!"

These lowly creatures have no right to possess such a bountiful land…

******
"Oh no! The Japanese have spotted us first! Old Hu, we need to think of something quickly!"

Looking at the Japanese soldiers who were firing at this direction from two or three hundred meters away, with rifles constantly being set up in makeshift pillboxes or on walls.

Frost, a newcomer who just transmigrated this time.

He lay prone in the thick snow, gripping an M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle tightly in his hand, and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

Speaking of which, Lu Dazhi was silently thinking of the heroes of KL, which naturally referred to Hu Biao and his group.

After deciding on Mirong Village as their target, the group of 41 people, including Xie Laoyan and four others, immediately put on their skis and sped towards the village.

Before setting off, all six newcomers received their own complete sets of equipment.

An M35 steel helmet, a DIY bulletproof plate, a set of equipment including a chest strap, binoculars, a gas mask, a water bottle, a mess kit, leg wraps, two small melon grenades and two wooden-handled grenades.

The only difference among the six is ​​their weapons.

Han Shuang, a five-year veteran of the PLA, was assigned an M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and 150 rounds of 7.62*63mm rifle ammunition.

This is a weapon with a longer range and greater power, but it is also more difficult to operate.

The other five people, including the female streamer Xiaobai, were issued an M1 carbine with 200 rounds of 7.62*33mm ammunition.

The reason why the weapons used by the newcomers are so different.

For novices with no experience in using weapons, rifles from World War II were too difficult to handle; instead, carbines like the M1 were more suitable for them in terms of rate of fire, range, and power.

The soldiers started developing this thing in 1940 and began mass production in October 1941, so there was no need to worry about not being able to bring it all with them.

Oh, right! When they wiped out the Japanese punitive expedition, Hu Biao and his men didn't take any of the weapons and ammunition they captured, except for some small melon grenades.

In addition to giving everything to Xie Laoyan and the others, they also gave them two MP28 submachine guns and some magazines and bullets.

Therefore, Xie Laoyan and the other four people had a large number of weapons and ammunition hidden in the small village.

These days, they're either carrying submachine guns or Type 38 rifles, and they have plenty of ammunition, giving them a real sense of upgrading from rags to guns.

After setting off, the group hurried along and finally arrived at the outskirts of the Japanese settler group in a village called Misaka Village a little after six o'clock.

To Han Shuang's surprise, these semi-military Japanese settler groups, probably because they had committed too many atrocities in their daily lives, were quite cautious.

Even in such a cold season, many sentries were stationed on those small watchtowers.

So much so that as they approached, the sentries above, taking advantage of the moonlight, spotted them from a great distance.

Then, while shouting "Enemy attack!", he started firing at them.

A very short time later, more figures carrying guns and wearing kimonos appeared behind the wall, stood on some stools and platforms, and joined in the firing.

Although most of the guns in the hands of these Japanese soldiers were discarded weapons from the regular Japanese army.

Most of them were Type 30 rifles, and there were not many Type 38 rifles. There was only one Type 11 light machine gun at present, but with seventy or eighty guns firing at them, the threat was quite astonishing.

In an instant, they lay down and hid in the snow to avoid the snow.

Bullets whizzed overhead, or struck the snow around them, sending snowflakes flying onto their heads and faces.

Such a scene still made Han Shuang extremely flustered.

There was no way around it! He was indeed a PLA veteran, but this was his first time participating in such a real combat situation; hence the scene at the beginning above where he exclaimed in surprise.

If even a veteran like Han Shuang reacted this way, then the behavior of ordinary people like Awei from the modern world was naturally even more appalling.

The five men not only lay face down on the ground, but also buried their heads in the cold water as if they were complete novices, caring only about their heads and not their backsides...

When Han Shuang's exclamation reached their ears, Hu Biao and his fellow veterans didn't take it seriously at all.

Just kidding! If they were really determined to launch a sneak attack tonight, would these Japanese devils have discovered it?

Approaching so brazenly, they were confident that even in a direct confrontation, they could easily wipe out this Japanese village and seize the truck along the way.

In the time that followed, Hu Biao, the leader of the time-traveler team, did not need to issue any orders.

The other veterans had already taken action on their own and launched a counterattack against the Japanese.

Furthermore, their incredibly seamless teamwork and the wild, sweeping battle left even the rookies like Frost completely dumbfounded.

With a 'snap', Uncle Bo was the first to strike.

Almost the instant the gunfire rang out, at a distance of 250 to 260 meters, a light machine gun with a blunt handle in a makeshift Japanese pillbox, which had been roaring, immediately went out of service because its main gunner had been killed.

In an instant, the density of Japanese firepower in the village decreased by at least 10%.

The Japanese assistant gunner was shocked to see this and quickly moved to cover the position of the Type 91 light machine gun. However, he was shot dead by the warehouse manager as soon as he had his hands on the butt of the gun, without even a chance to fire.

However, Uncle Bo was completely ungrateful for the warehouse manager's help; instead, he immediately started cursing.

"Warehouse manager! Who do you think you are? Do you think I can't even suppress a light machine gun? Go shoot your own target, don't steal my food."

As he spoke, Uncle Bo fired his Mauser sniper rifle again, killing another Japanese soldier who was trying to fill in and pick up the Type 96 light machine gun to continue firing.

Within just five or six seconds, three people had been killed next to this Type 96 light machine gun.

So much so that although there were still some Japanese soldiers nearby, no one dared to approach this thing that represented death.

After being scolded by Uncle Bo, the warehouse manager didn't take it to heart. The main reason was that the angle of that target was just too good, and it was really tempting not to take the opportunity to fire a shot.

He pulled the bolt and fired a new bullet.

He didn't even bother to properly aim with the 6x sniper scope when he raised his gun; he simply locked on by feel and pulled the trigger, firing at a high-value target he had just found.

The next second, a Japanese soldier wielding a katana, who looked to be of some status, revealed a burst of blood on his left cheek as he emerged from behind the wall.

Without uttering a sound, he fell backward to the ground, already dead.

Subsequently, as he and Uncle Bo continued to fire, each shot they fired was able to kill a Japanese soldier rather than wound him.

It has a bit of the legendary "Little Li Flying Dagger, never missing its mark" feel to it.

With just the two of them and their two sniper rifles, they were able to suppress the Japanese firepower very effectively.

However, compared to some members of the transmigrator team, these two exceptionally outstanding snipers were actually nothing in terms of suppressive fire...

(End of this chapter)