Not enough Japanese devils to kill? 1.4 billion people volunteer for the Battle of Shanghai.

Bian Yun looked at Gao Zhihang and said earnestly, word by word:

"Captain Gao, I assure you, from now on, no one will dare to bully us again."

Gao Zhihang nodded vigorously.

At that moment, Bian Yun and Gao Zhihang simultaneously heard someone on the shore shouting, "He's fainted! Someone over there has fainted!"

The person who fainted was the young sailor on the Ninghai who only had one leg left.

Bian Yun ordered the "Yangtze River" to quickly approach the "Ninghai".

Before the two ships were even fully alongside each other, Bian Yun was the first to jump over, stepping onto the blood-soaked deck of the "Ninghai".

Physician Su Jing followed closely behind, carrying a medical kit, moving as swiftly as a cheetah.

She knelt beside the sailor and quickly examined him: turning his eyelids to look at his pupils, feeling for his carotid artery, and checking his wounds.

"His left leg was blown off from the middle of his thigh. The wound was uneven, which was probably caused by shrapnel from a near miss."

Su Jing spoke very quickly, "Excessive blood loss, extremely low blood pressure, heart rate of 140 beats per minute—she was only able to shout that because of adrenaline."

As she spoke, she took out a tourniquet, a blood plasma bag, and a syringe from her medical kit.

Apply a tourniquet tightly to the proximal end of the stump.

The blood plasma was applied, and the needle was inserted into the vein.

Cardiotonic agents promote blood flow.

"Team Leader Bian," Su Jing looked up, her eyes above the mask calm, "how long until you return to the new China? Take him back; there's still hope."

Bian Yun looked at the countdown in his mind:

"Countdown to the return of the People's Republic of China in 2025... 58 minutes and 49 seconds."

"Less than an hour," he said, then crouched down to look at the young sailor's pale face. "Can his leg... be reattached?"

Su Jing, who was cleaning the wound, paused upon hearing this: "With the medical conditions of 2025, her life can definitely be saved. As for the leg... the golden time for limb replantation is six to eight hours, and at least two hours have already passed. Moreover..."

She looked at the wound: "A shrapnel wound, the tissue damage is severe. Even if the severed limb is found, the success rate of replantation is less than 40%."

Bian Yun was silent for two seconds: "Forty percent... is enough."

He looked up at the sailors who had gathered around him: "Where's his leg? Where's the leg that was blown off?"

The sailors looked at each other in bewilderment.

An older veteran, speaking in Mandarin with a heavy Ningbo accent, said, "We can't find him. That shell just exploded right next to Shuisheng. The blast wave threw him here, and his leg... I don't know where it went."

Bian Yun stood up and looked around the deck.

The foredeck of the Ninghai was a mess. Shattered gun barrels, twisted steel plates, charred wood chips, scattered shell casings, and... mutilated limbs.

War never leaves anyone with a whole body.

"But I know," the old soldier continued, his voice trembling slightly, "that Shui Sheng has a birthmark on his left calf... It looks like a maple leaf, red. When he was a child, he fell into the river, and his mother said it was a mark from the river god, to protect him from drowning."

Bian Yun's eyes lit up: "What shape? How big?"

"It's... about the size of a thumbnail, on the outside of my left leg, in the middle of my calf."

"Okay." Bian Yun turned around and shouted loudly to the entire deck—to the sailors still able to move on the "Ninghai":

"Everyone—!"

"Find the leg—!"

"Find the left leg, the leg with the red maple leaf birthmark on the calf—!"

"That child is only nineteen years old—!"

"We must ensure that he...walks on the road to a new China with both legs intact—!!!"

The order was passed down.

Initially, it was just a few dozen sailors on the "Ninghai" searching.

Soon, sailors from the Yangtze River also joined them.

Qin Feng led his men off the assault boat and onto the "Ninghai".

"Look closely at your calf!" Qin Feng shouted. "The birthmark is on the outside of your left leg, red and maple leaf-shaped!"

They searched the entire deck but couldn't find the leg.

Meanwhile, the people on the riverbank also heard about it.

"Find the leg! A sailor's leg has been blown off! We need to find it and reattach it!"

"What kind?"

"Left leg! There's a red birthmark on my calf, like a maple leaf!"

"Please help us find it!"

Men, women, and children began searching along the riverbank. They rummaged through the reeds, bent over on the mudflats, and rummaged through piles of debris that had drifted ashore.

The news reached the heavens.

To be precise, the message reached Le Yiqin, who had just made an emergency landing on the mudflats on the north bank.

The 21-year-old pilot from Sichuan also had his own plane severely damaged. During the emergency landing, the landing gear broke, and the belly of the plane plowed a deep trench in the mudflats.

He had a scratch on his forehead, but he was fine.

As he climbed out of the cockpit, he heard the shouts of the people on the riverbank.

"Looking for legs? What legs?" He grabbed a middle-aged woman who was running.

The middle-aged woman, panting, exclaimed, "That little sailor who shouted 'Long live the People's Republic of China!' His leg was blown off! We need to find a leg with a birthmark!"

Yue Yiqin paused for a moment, then laughed—a bittersweet laugh.

"Well, the Air Force has turned into a search and rescue team."

He turned and ran to his plane, took out a signal gun from the cockpit, and fired three red signal flares into the sky.

—This is the assembly signal for the Fourth Battalion.

Soon, the pilots of the other three Hawk IIIs who had successfully made an emergency landing ran towards this side.

Two other parachuting pilots also limped over.

"What's going on?" a pilot asked.

Yue Yiqin explained it simply.

The pilots looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Looking for legs?" A pilot from Northeast China named Liu Cuigang scratched his head. "This job... we've never done it before."

"Even if you've never done it before, you have to do it," Yue Yiqin said. "Did you hear what that child was shouting just now?"

"I heard that." Liu Cuigang grinned. "'Long live the People's Republic of China,' that's tough."

"Then let's help our brave brother get his leg back," Yue Yiqin said. "Our plane is gone, but our eyesight is still good. If we can't fly, we can always climb a tree, right?"

And so, a comical yet tragic scene unfolded.

Six Chinese Air Force pilots, four of whom were ace pilots who had shot down Japanese aircraft, climbed trees by the river, onto dilapidated rooftops, and onto watchtowers that had not yet completely collapsed.

Like a group of monkeys, they occupied the high ground and scanned the entire riverbank and river surface with the sharp eyes of a pilot.

"There's something in the reed marshes to the east that looks like a leg!"

"A piece of wood has drifted in from the west, and it looks like there are clothes on it!"

"The middle of the river! What's floating in the middle of the river?!"

They shouted, and the people below ran over to see.

No.

neither.

Time passed second by second.

Countdown: 47 minutes.

Just then, a sailor from the "Ninghai" peeked in and hesitated before saying, "Commander Chen, Captain Gao... I think... I know where that leg is."

Both of them looked at him at the same time.

The veteran walked in, rubbing his hands nervously: "I was next to Shuisheng when the shelling happened. I saw... his leg was lifted up by the blast wave, flew over the gunway, and fell into the river."

"In the river?!" Gao Zhihang frowned. "Isn't that a disaster?"

"Not necessarily." Chen Jiliang struggled to sit up. "The current in this section of the Yangtze River isn't strong; if something falls in, it won't drift too far. Besides..."

He looked at the veteran: "Did you see which part of the river it fell into?"

The veteran walked to the porthole and pointed outside: "Over there, starboard forward, about... fifty meters."

When the news reached Bian Yun's ears, there were 41 minutes left on the countdown.

"In the river?" Bian Yun rushed to the starboard side and looked at the murky river water.

The current wasn't swift, but the river was wide and at least ten meters deep. Falling in with one leg in was like a needle falling into the ocean.

The Yangtze River cruise ship has underwater detection equipment—sonic horns and underwater cameras. But those are used to find submarines and mines, not to find a leg.

"Turn the sonar to the highest precision," Qin Feng ordered. "Scan that area of ​​water."

Soprano Zhao Hai operated quickly.

The sound wave image on the screen begins to generate, showing the topography of the riverbed: silt, shipwrecks, rocks, and aquatic plants.

But it doesn't have... the shape of a leg.

"No way." Zhao Hai shook his head. "The sonar resolution isn't high enough, and the legs are too small. They'll blend in with the debris at the bottom of the river and be indistinguishable."

Bian Yun stared at the river surface and suddenly asked, "What's the water temperature?"

"Right now? About eighteen degrees," Qin Feng said. "What's wrong?"

"Eighteen degrees..." Bian Yun calculated quickly, "Human tissue decomposes more slowly in cold water. But more than two hours have passed, and the muscle tissue may have started to swell and change color..."

He turned and shouted to everyone on deck:

"It can swim—!"

"Come in the water with me—!"

"Seize it! We'll salvage it even if we turn the river upside down!"

After saying that, he started to take off his coat and was the first to jump into the Yangtze River.

thump.

The river water was icy cold.

Then, thump, thump, thump—

On the "Yangtze River", crew members who could swim jumped overboard.

On the "Ninghai", a sailor who could swim jumped off.

On the riverbank, even the locals who could swim jumped in.

Hundreds and thousands of people jumped into the Yangtze River in October, like dumplings being dropped into boiling water.

They splashed and dived in the water, groping along the riverbed.

The water was very murky, with visibility of less than half a meter. You could only feel your way by hand or foot.

A crew member from the "Yangtze River" touched a piece of wood and excitedly held it up: "Found it?!"

No.

It's half a mast.

What a waste of your time.

The countdown is now on: 33 minutes into this life.

Underwater, Bian Yun had already dived three times.

Each time, I hold my breath for more than a minute, grope around at the bottom of the river, and then float to the surface to breathe.

On his fourth dive, his hand touched something in the mud.

It's not wood, it's not stone.

It is... an elastic, fabric-covered, cylindrical object.

His heart was pounding. He grabbed the thing and pulled it out with all his might.

It's out.

It's a leg.

Wearing tattered blue military trousers—the trousers of a Chinese Navy sailor.

Bian Yun surfaced, panting heavily, and lifted the leg: "Found it—!!!"

Everyone on the river looked over.

Su Jing shouted from the boat, "Are there any marks?!"

Bian Yun turned her legs over to look at her calves.

There is a birthmark.

Red, maple leaf-shaped, about the size of a thumbnail.

On the outside of the left leg.

"Left leg—! There's a birthmark—!" Bian Yun roared, "It's Shui Sheng's leg—!!!"

Cheers erupted on the river.

Everyone in the water, on the boats, and on the shore cheered.

That cheer... was complex.

There was joy, relief, and a sense of "damn, I finally found it."

There's also a hint of... absurdity, like finding joy in hardship.

—We fished out a leg from the Yangtze River.

—For a nineteen-year-old child, so that he could set foot on the land of the new China in a peaceful and happy way…