Spy Wars: I can get rewards by being a bully!

Chapter 1143 The Japs are coming

Beihezhuang, Ningjin County.

This is where the Sixth Military Sub-district operates.

Although it was called a military sub-district, it actually only had two regiments of the Jizhong Base Area Garrison Brigade, also known as a regional team. In later anti-Japanese war movies, people often called the platoon leader, which was actually almost the same as the regimental commander.

Of course, some of these groups may be very small. For example, the Thirty-One Regional Team, which was wiped out in history, only had about three hundred members.

Currently, the base area has about a thousand combat personnel and possesses approximately eight hundred rifles.

If you include the logistics personnel, a regiment has about 1,500 people, which means that nearly half of them do not have guns.

The people of Beihezhuang spared no effort in supporting the Sixth Military Sub-district. This place was originally a fertile land, located by the Fuyang River with irrigation. Geographically, it was closer to southern Hebei, with good sunlight and heat conditions, and the land was not barren, allowing for a good harvest.

However, being able to harvest grain does not mean that people will live a better life.

Since the fall of Hebei Province, traitors from all walks of life have been seizing land on a large scale, and many ordinary people have been forced to become tenant farmers.

Speaking of this, it's better to be a tenant farmer for a landlord than a traitor. Some landlords would leave enough food for their tenants to live on, but traitors don't care about that. In Beizhuanghe, the traitor landlord Guan Yanzhe proposed a "dividend equally" theory.

What does "equal distribution" mean? When the wheat harvest is finished this season, the farmer takes the grain, and the tenant takes the bran. This is called equal distribution, meaning half for you and half for me.

Bran is the seed coat left over from processing wheat. This stuff was later generally used to feed chickens, which shows how absurd it was!

Later, the 31st District Team came here, blew up Guan Yanzhe's pillbox, and ransacked his home. Guan Yanzhe fled to Hengshui.

Then came the land redistribution, rent reduction, and interest reduction. That year, many ordinary people ate white flour buns for the first time.

People set up griddles to bake oil cakes, carried them to the team headquarters in large baskets, and pooled their money to buy red flowers, which they then hung on the soldiers without explanation to express their gratitude.

Finally, the district captain, Liu Chengzhi, had someone give the villagers a few silver dollars.

An old man, wearing a short jacket, with a bare chest, a white beard, and a hunched back, suddenly burst into tears. His eyes widened, and he said excitedly, "Captain Liu, giving us money is like slapping us in the face! You led the soldiers to drive away Guan Erguizi and gave us land. When the bandits from Dongshan came, you guarded the earthen fortress with guns, and a young boy was even shot dead! We saw it all! We are peasants, why should we let you take care of us like this!"

Liu Chengzhi and the soldiers around him also had tears in their eyes. "Good, good! Old man, we'll accept it! We're not some kind of military officers, we're your sons and daughters, this is what it means to be a soldier's son!"

The old man smiled and said, "Yes, yes, the soldiers are good. Isn't it our duty to make pancakes for our own sons?"

These good days lasted for less than three years.

This is the third wheat harvest. The wheat here ripens early, and now it's all spread out to dry. We winnow it when there's a breeze, and then collect it into the stacks.

In the team headquarters, Liu Chengzhi frowned as he looked at a slightly worn and rudimentary map.

He was smoking a hand-rolled "cannon," filled with sun-dried tobacco from the villagers. Sun-dried tobacco is stronger than flue-cured tobacco. Liu Chengzhi took a deep drag, and thick smoke rushed into his chest, then turned into a column of smoke that he exhaled from his mouth. After he finished exhaling the column of smoke from his mouth, the last bit of smoke came out of his nostrils.

"We've received orders to organize an evacuation as soon as possible! There's a pillar! There's a pillar!"

"To!"

"Go find the village elders and have them beat the gong. Tell the villagers that if they can, they should cross the Fuyang River and head south to hide in the Jinnan Military Region. They can come back after the Japanese leave!"

The soldier named Youzhu couldn't help but ask, "Squad leader, what about us? Should we retreat too? If we leave, the Japanese will definitely burn, kill, and loot. Not all the villagers will leave, especially the elderly and the weak..."

Liu Chengzhi took another deep drag on his cigarette. "We've been ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare based on the terrain and villages. If things don't work out, we'll retreat south as well. Go and deliver the message first, I'll go discuss it with the political commissar!"

Hearing that the Japanese were going to raid again, some people had already started packing up their belongings.

Everyone had become quite adept at dodging raids. They would leave behind their rations and seeds, and either exchange the rest for money or sell them in the cellar. They would then cleverly disguise their belongings so that even if the Japanese came to search their homes, they wouldn't be able to search every corner.

The large livestock were taken away, while chickens and ducks had to be left behind or simply eaten. People kept bringing chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry to the team headquarters, saying it was a waste for them to eat them themselves, and that it would be better to give them to the soldiers as a dish. There were also a few wounded soldiers in the team headquarters who had fought against bandits some time ago!

After settling in, the people rolled up or bundled their belongings. Those with wooden wheelbarrows were better off, but those without had to carry them on their backs. The people, young and old, left their hometowns to escape the beastly Japanese devils.

On the third day after the villagers of Beihezhuang evacuated, a boy of about thirteen or fourteen years old wearing a straw hat rushed into the team headquarters.

"The canal! In the canal! Someone has spotted the Japanese in the canal!"

Liu Chengzhi suddenly stood up and recognized the child as Gou Dan from the children's corps. "Gou Dan, who told you that?!"

"I was on guard duty on the main road. Starting in the morning, groups of refugees came from the west. They all said that the Japanese had reached the canal!"

The canal is located west of Beihezhuang, a large market town, and it's only a few dozen kilometers away from here!

"Tell the villagers to leave quickly, blow the whistle to assemble, prepare for battle, have the first and second companies follow me to Xiling to block the enemy, and the third and fourth companies assist the villagers in their evacuation!"

The regiments under the Sixth Military Sub-district were organized into small regiments and large companies, such as the 31st Detachment. They did not have battalions, but had four larger combat companies, each with more than two hundred people.

Liu Chengzhi led the first and second companies on an emergency departure to a high ground more than ten kilometers west of Beihezhuang.

Some of the soldiers here had just enlisted at the end of last year and had little experience in counter-sweeping operations. Fortunately, they had been training frequently, so although they were tense at the moment, they were not panicked.

"Check your guns! Set up the machine guns and get to the makeshift fortifications!"

Each company in the 31st District had two light machine guns, most of which were captured from the puppet army during previous anti-mopping-up operations. With this level of equipment, they were already considered quite strong in the Jizhong base area.

As for ordinary soldiers, each gun is only equipped with twenty rounds of ammunition, and only "veterans" with more than one year of combat experience are entitled to an additional ten rounds.

The soldiers held their breath and focused intently on the hillside.

In the distance, on the road, came up a disgusting khaki military uniform.

The devil is coming!