There is a small dry hill near the river bank, south of Lushuipu.
A soldier stood quietly in the darkness with a rifle on his back, and seemed to raise his hand.
Click - a crisp and faint metallic sound, the pocket watch case jumped up quickly, but he couldn't see anything because there was no light. He still looked at it habitually, and then put the pocket watch away again. Maybe it's one o'clock now, or half past one, he thought to himself.
The sounds of shovels and pickaxes could be heard not far away. From the sounds, it seemed like both digging and filling were going on. It was the soldiers from the ninth platoon burying the boxes. It would be a burden to keep carrying them with them, and they didn't know what to do next, so they had to bury them nearby first.
There were the sounds of running footsteps, "Who?" It was the sentry asking, "Eye." He was the secret sentry posted at the entrance of Lushuipu Village. He ran back and he came back to say that something happened.
"What's wrong?" Hu Yi started asking before he even saw the figure coming.
"A group of puppet troops came from Lushuipu and headed for the mountain pass."
No need to guess, reinforcements have arrived: "From which direction? How many?"
"Southeast, shadowy figures... I estimate there are more than a hundred."
"The boxes are almost buried. You don't have to go back. Rest and get ready to leave."
"yes."
Soon after, the sound of the shovel and pickaxe disappeared, and Ma Liang's voice came: "Brother, it's done."
"Pack up and set off." Hu Yi ordered Ma Liang.
Luo Fugui asked in the darkness: "Boss Hu, can you take a break for a while? My waist is sore."
"cannot."
"Where are we going now?" Ma Liang asked again.
"Bayou Camp."
"ah?"
"Hurry up and leave now! Before the third shift, after the second shift."
The nine rows of soldiers, having unloaded their burdens, began to trot, gradually forming a line and heading southeast into the darkness. Someone in the team muttered, "You're not going to do that! I just took a breath and you come again?"
Then Xiao Hongying replied: "The fox asked me to find you, what nonsense! You squat down, otherwise how can I climb up?"
"Grandma's..."
Hu Yi took one last look towards the mountain pass, then tugged at the rifle strap on his shoulder and turned to blend into the team in the dark.
There are three companies of puppet troops in Hekou Camp. One company was sent to reinforce Luoye Village, and now another company has arrived in Lushuipu. Theoretically, there is still one company in Hekou Camp, but Hu Yi doesn't think so. It hasn't been long since the battle of Lietou Village. The puppet army suffered heavy losses at that time. Can it be replenished so quickly? Even if it is replenished, will it have time to train? Since the ninth platoon can't go back now, it's idle anyway. Anyway, go and take a look and you will know.
…
Although the puppet army is the devil's minions, the devil doesn't care about the puppet army's military expenses and various supplies. Don't think that they are supported by the devil. The devil desperately plunders them. How can they be so noble and kind? Everything the puppet army has comes from the support of the puppet government. To put it bluntly, they are still supported by the Chinese themselves, eating the food paid by the people, spending the money collected by the people, slaughtering the protesting Chinese people, and asking for favors from the devil. This logic is very ironic and seems to be untenable, but it is just like this. What's even more incredible is that some people actually call it: saving the country in a roundabout way and enduring humiliation and waiting for an opportunity.
Hekouying is not a village, but a puppet army station. There is a playground and several rows of bungalows. They don't want to use barbed wire, so they use sharp wooden stakes to build wooden walls around it. Four simple wooden platforms are set up at the four corners for observation. One side faces the river, and the other side is the gate. It's called a gate, but it's just a wide gap in the wooden wall. There are chevaux de frise and two guards standing in the middle. It's that simple. After all, the imperial army is in the area around here. Who dares to come? Are you tired of living
There was a torch burning at the gate, crackling loudly. Behind the barricades, two puppet soldiers were leisurely walking back and forth with their guns on their backs. With the extended light from the torch, Hu Yi finally managed to see the time on the dial from behind the bushes. It was 2:30 in the morning. He judged that the puppet soldiers who had been sent out for reinforcement would return in an hour, so he quietly retreated into the darkness.
Ma Liang, who had been scouting the camp in the dark, quietly came up behind Hu Yi and reported in a low voice: "There are four lookouts at the four corners, plus the two at the gate, a total of six. During that time, I heard that there seemed to be two teams patrolling around the wall inside the wooden wall. I guess it was a squad divided into two groups, with a total of about dozens of people. This is all the information that can be understood from outside."
Liu Jianqiang, who was standing nearby, listened to what Ma Liang said and interjected, "The wooden wall is not that high, we can climb over it. The lookout posts are fixed. It's so dark, and the gap between the two posts is big enough. If there's no big noise, everything will be fine." At this point, he suddenly asked Ma Liang, "Is the patrol team inside the wall always moving?"
Before Ma Liang could answer, Hu Yi spoke for him: "They were always on the move. During the time Ma Liang was out, I was watching the gate and saw them passing by the gate several times with torches. The wall was not low and had spikes on it. They had to move more quietly. The gap between the two patrols was a bit short."
"Platoon leader, there are only a dozen or so people we know about, and they are not the Japanese. Why don't we just do it openly and break in directly through the gate." This time it was Shi Cheng who spoke.
Hu Yi didn't say anything. Although Shi Cheng's words didn't have much technical content, they were simple and direct. The only problem was that he didn't know how many enemies were still in the camp, which could lead to accidental casualties. Although he was confident that he could push forward, Hu Yi still wanted to avoid casualties among his men. It would be safest if he could sneak in first.
Seeing Hu Yi was silent, Ma Liang, Liu Jianqiang and Shi Cheng knew that the platoon leader would soon give the deployment and he was about to make the decision.
At this time, Luo Fugui, who had never been interested in participating in these things, suddenly spoke up: "Aren't they just the patrolling ones inside? I have a way to stop them from patrolling. Who knows how many more people inside will have to come out and show their faces at the same time!"
The eyes of several people at the scene all turned to the shameless bear. Ma Liang blurted out: "You will die if I don't brag! Can you say something useful?"
Hu Yi said calmly: "Speak." But his tone had already told Luo Fugui that if you are talking nonsense, I will kick you to death right now!
…
It was quiet and pitch black, and suddenly in the night outside the gate of Hekouying, the clear and tender voice of a little girl was faintly heard.
"Poor little girl, lost her home at the age of three. She cried until the leaves turned yellow in autumn, cried until the red flowers bloomed in spring, mended flower shoes in the snow in winter, and braided her pigtails in the wind in summer. She walked from white to black, from south to north, step by step to the end of the world, year by year until she grew up..."
A puppet soldier at the gate was suddenly stunned, and he pricked up his ears to listen carefully in the distance, and suddenly asked another: "Did you hear it?"
The other one probably didn't have very good hearing, so he asked blankly, "What did you hear?"
"There's a kid singing a nursery rhyme. Listen! Listen carefully. It's right in front of you!"
Another puppet soldier pricked up his ears and, sure enough, he could hear a faint, melodious sound, as if a little girl was expressing her feelings. He couldn't help but ask, "Oh, it's true. Whose naughty child is this?"
The puppet soldier on the other side was immediately furious: "I say... you really don't understand?"
"What do you understand?" The man really didn't understand, so he replied, and then he shouted stupidly into the darkness in front of the gate: "Hey! Naughty kid, what are you mumbling about in the middle of the night? Huh? Do you know where this place is? Get out of here!"
The puppet soldier on the opposite side almost fainted and said in panic: "You, you, are you courting death?"
At this moment, a girl's voice suddenly came out from the dark night and answered: "Good man, I'm lost." After a while, she began to sing the nursery rhyme again: "Poor little girl, lost her home at the age of three..."
"Oh my God!" The puppet soldier who almost fainted began to crawl towards the camp.
Another puppet soldier stood there pondering for a while, his face suddenly turned pale, and he fell to the ground and couldn't get up. He tried to take off the gun behind his shoulder tremblingly, and finally took off the strap after pulling it. Suddenly he felt something was wrong with the gun. He looked down and saw a kettle in his hand. His eyes were fixed, his scalp felt numb, and he fainted behind the barricade on the spot. He didn't know that the gun had fallen behind him when he fell.
"Ghost! There is a ghost, there is a ghost outside the gate!" The puppet soldier who ran into the camp shouted in panic.
The two five-man patrol teams all ran to the gate to check what was going on. After a while, a few more puppet soldiers, wearing belts, also appeared at the gate. They were the cooks, orderly soldiers, etc. They were also woken up. There was a ghost? What was going on
The last officer arrived. He didn't even button his shirt. He was yawning and looked unhappy. He didn't look like a company commander or a platoon leader. He walked towards the gate while shouting, "What the hell are you guys yelling about? Ah, what are you doing? Hey, aren't you guys the lookouts? Go back to your posts!"
Not to mention the two patrol teams, even the sentries on the four corner towers ran down. One of them even broke his leg because he heard it at his post and fell off the wooden platform in panic.
"I'm not going! Whoever wants to stand can stand tonight, but I'm not going to stand. It's too damn scary. I heard that sound clearly from my sentry post..."
"Stop talking nonsense to me, believe it or not..."?/p
"Platoon Leader, if you don't believe me, go and listen. Do you think it's fake?"
More than twenty puppet soldiers were crowded in a mess on both sides of the gate. The light from the torches illuminated their frightened faces. They stared at each other with wide eyes and pricked up their ears into the darkness. The man who had fainted behind the chevaux de frise was still fainted. Everyone was busy listening in panic and had no time to wake him up.
After a while, the puppet soldiers who were looking out of the gate took a breath at the same time. Sure enough! It was true! Hearing is believing! In the middle of the night in the wilderness, a little girl sang a nursery rhyme. What is this? Can someone explain what this is
"Um... what? You guys, come over and take a look." The puppet army platoon leader's face turned pale. Holding on to the door, he couldn't help but take a step back, trying to let the puppet soldiers around him go into the darkness to understand the situation.
Unfortunately, no one spoke, no one moved. This must be a ghost, even if you have a gun, it's useless, anyone who goes there is a fool!
…
The last figure also climbed into the wooden wall. Three groups of figures appeared in the camp, splitting into three groups, crouching and quietly rushing towards the bungalows. Group one crossed the playground in the middle, group two slid along the left wall, and group three was on the right. They passed by the windows of each room one by one, but they were all empty. It didn't take long for the three groups to meet each other.
This time, the team leader Hu Yi appointed Ma Liang, because things like internal conflicts require more ingenuity than clumsiness.
"I look here and there's no one." Shi Cheng whispered to Ma Liang.
"There was snoring in a room, maybe one or two people. I left two people to block the door and didn't do anything as you said." Liu Jianqiang continued to speak, but his tone was very unhappy.
Ma Liang's eyebrows twitched in the dark. The squad leader had actually predicted it right. The camp was empty! The girl sang the nursery rhyme well. All the twenty or so puppet soldiers sang it together. It seemed that what Officer Su said was right. Sometimes, superstitions should be dispelled, but not including the enemy.
Pointing at the gate, Ma Liang ordered proudly, "Left, center, and right, keep your positions unchanged. Close in a fan shape. Do not fire without my order."
Hu Yi, who was lying in the dark with a rifle in hand, looked at the camp gate quietly, and finally put down his gun. More than 20 puppet soldiers were gathered together, and they didn't even have the courage to come out. After such a big commotion, only these people appeared. It seems that these are the only ones left in the Hekou camp. With the torches of the puppet soldiers themselves, if Luo Fugui, who was beside him, fired a burst of bullets, he could knock down half of them directly. However, considering that Ma Liang was not easy to be the commander, the ninth squad should cooperate.
Ma Liang's voice suddenly rang out from the darkness of the gate: "You are surrounded! Everyone get down! We are the Eighth Route Army!"
"Hehehe..." Luo Fugui laughed: "Boss Hu, how is it?"
Hu Yi looked at the puppet soldiers who were dumbfounded, and stood up from the darkness with his rifle in hand: "Not bad, the girl sang well!"
"What?" The bear rolled his eyes. "You're giving her the credit? This idea was mine..."
The little girl cleared her throat and walked out from behind the tree: "Ahem, is this a sticker? It's obviously my singing that's better!"
"Damn it, I can't tolerate you two!" Luo Fugui picked up the machine gun helplessly and climbed up. Li Xiang, Wu Shitou and Xu Xiao also walked out of the bushes.
…
No matter what, I dare not imagine that the Eighth Route Army can come to Hekouying, and the blockade line has almost been completed, and this is an occupied area. Without a single shot, Hekouying was occupied by the 9th Platoon.
Hu Yi came to a room, looked at the two second squad soldiers watching by the door and behind the window, turned around and asked the puppet army platoon leader behind him: "Who is inside?"
"It's the instructor, ah, not that one, it's the devil, it's the devil."
The snoring in the room was still going on, completely unaffected by the noise outside. The door opened, the puppet army platoon leader went in first, turned on the light, and then Hu Yicai appeared at the door.
There was a conspicuous painting of "Wu Yun Chang Jiu" hanging on the wall, cups and plates were scattered on the desk, the room was filled with the smell of alcohol, and a Japanese soldier was slumped on the bed in disheveled clothes, snoring loudly.
"Runny nose."
"have."
"Get him out of here."
Liu Jianqiang brought two soldiers into the room and dragged the Japanese soldier's legs out. With a thud, the Japanese soldier's head slid off the bed and fell to the ground. He finally regained some consciousness, groaned a few times, and was dragged out the door.
The puppet army platoon leader stood close to the wall, secretly glanced at the Eighth Route Army officer's face, and found that he was not paying attention to him, so he quickly raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his head, not daring to breathe.
In the light, the man with broad eyebrows and narrow eyes was calm and indifferent. He walked a few steps to the window, pushed it open, then slowly walked to the desk, sat down with a big horse and a golden knife, and took out his pocket watch.
Click—it’s a little after three in the morning.