All we can do for those martyrs is to move their bodies into a deep ditch and bury them hastily... This can at least prevent their corpses from being exposed in the wilderness and eaten by wild beasts.
We have also thought about taking their bodies back, but there are no conditions. The main reason is that we are still on the way to find the cultural troupe, and we don’t know when we will go back. Carrying the bodies forward will undoubtedly affect us to a great extent.
speed and increase the risk of being discovered by the Vietnamese army. The result of this will undoubtedly bring many uncertain factors to the mission. After weighing the balance, we finally felt that rescuing people was more important...
We often have to make such choices on the battlefield, and usually we put saving others first. This does not mean that we do not respect the martyrs, but it is a reality, a reality that the dead cannot die... For the martyrs who sacrificed, we
Nothing can be changed, but there is still a chance to prevent more soldiers from becoming martyrs. I believe that those martyrs will also understand our approach.
After advancing for several more hours in the dark night, our speed became slower and slower.
The first reason is that it is difficult to distinguish the footprints on the road in the dark, and sometimes there is no road at all. This often makes Chen Yiyi take the risk of using a flashlight covered with a black cloth.
Another more important reason is that we are getting closer and closer to the target... Although it is a good thing to be close to the target, we must know that the Vietnamese army is also chasing the cultural troupe, which means that we are more likely to encounter Vietnamese army agents.
Rather than a cultural troupe.
This also forced Chen Yiyi to stop after the last ten minutes of difficult tracking.
Captain Luo quickly called a few of us for a small meeting...
"The situation is like this!" Captain Luo said in a low voice: "The second squad leader judged from the traces that the cultural troupe should be nearby, so now there are two questions... one is how to avoid the Vietnamese army, and the other is how to follow
Art troupe identifies and contacts.”
I looked at Chen Yiyi, wondering how she came to the conclusion that the art troupe was nearby from the traces. You must know that this neighborhood seems to be no different to us, it is all dark.
Later I learned... People like Chen Yiyi who crawled out of the jungle naturally have a way, and there is more than one way: trampled weeds on the ground, broken branches, broken kudzu vines... all of these
As long as you carefully observe their breaks, you can roughly judge the time when they were broken.
Of course, things like branches will not break by themselves. It is people who break them, people passing by. So by judging the time when they were broken, you can also know when the people passed by.
It's just that this trick is easier said than done. The reason is that if you want to judge the time from the broken branches, it requires long-term comparison and observation.
After a long time, no one answered Captain Luo's question, so everyone turned their attention to Chen Yiyi.
Chen Yiyi shook her head helplessly and said: "If this is the Vietnamese army, there may be a way. In this case, they use the agreed animal sounds to contact and identify, but now we have to find the art troupe..."
Needless to say, we also know the next thing. We have not agreed on a contact method with the art troupe, so this method obviously will not work.
"Then... all we have to do is call in a low voice!" Liang Lianbing felt helpless.
But obviously, this is quite dangerous, and it may not have any effect. The reason is that in this darkness, both the enemy and ourselves are in the dark. If we call in a low voice in Chinese, then okay... This is undoubtedly telling Vietnam
The Japanese are in our position, but what about the art troupe? They will most likely think that this is a trick of the Vietnamese to lure them out and remain silent. After all, there are many Vietnamese who can speak Chinese, right?
Therefore, it has to be said that this is the last resort. The result is that not only will one not be able to contact his own people, but it will also lead to death.
"Is there no other way?" Captain Luo asked. He also knew the dangers of doing so, so he would not do it unless it was absolutely necessary.
Then there was another period of silence. There was no code agreed upon in advance, and the art troupe could not be contacted by radio. What else could be done?
"Or..." Scar frowned and said, "Just wait until dawn!"
Captain Luo looked at the time, shook his head and said in denial: "There are still more than four hours before dawn, and we don't have that much time!"
After thinking about it, I hesitated and said: "Company Commander, can we do the opposite?"
"What is the opposite?" Captain Luo seemed to be waiting for me to speak, and then asked: "Tell me..."
I said, "If we can't call in Chinese...why can't we call in Vietnamese?"
Chen Yiyi couldn't help but feel a little strange: "Can people from the cultural troupe understand Vietnamese? And the Vietnamese can also understand Vietnamese, right? What effect can such a call have?"
In fact, the soldiers also had the same doubts. I quickly explained: "I mean... what we are calling is not the art troupe, but the Vietnamese Japanese!"
"Call Yue Japanese?" Everyone couldn't help but cast a surprised look at me.
"That's right!" I nodded and said, "My idea is...the Vietnamese army suffered heavy casualties in the previous battle. We all saw 56 corpses on the road, right? Then the Vietnamese army at this time is probably insufficient.
Even the art troupe is a bit overwhelmed!"
The surrounding soldiers couldn't help but nodded. There was no doubt about this. The total strength of the Vietnamese army chasing the cultural troupe was only more than a hundred people. The two martyrs on the road shot and killed 56 people. If based on this casualty ratio, the remaining
How could the dozens of Yue Japanese that had fallen be enough for the troops of the art troupe to give them a few hits?
In fact, it should be said that that battle was also a special case. The quality of the combat troops of our People's Liberation Army was not as good as that of the Vietnamese army, let alone the artistic soldiers of the art troupe, not to mention that many of these artistic soldiers were female soldiers who needed protection.
It's just that... that battle seemed to have frightened the Vietnamese army. This may be the reason why the art troupe still exists until now.
So what are the Vietnamese troops waiting for?
Waiting for daybreak? This seems impossible. There is no doubt that night battles have more advantages for the Vietnamese army who are familiar with the terrain and are good at jungle warfare.
So there is only one answer, and that is that they are waiting for reinforcements, waiting for reinforcements that can eat up the art troupe in one bite.
"So..." After a pause, I continued: "Anyway, it's dark now and the Vietnamese army can't see our uniforms. We can pretend to be their reinforcements and call out the Vietnamese in Vietnamese. It's almost like finding the Vietnamese."
That is to say, we have found the art troupe... On the other hand, we don't have to worry about causing misunderstandings among our own people. The art troupe is hiding from the Vietnamese army now, isn't it? If we call them in Vietnamese, it will only make them hide deeper, and we can rest assured to deal with the Vietnamese army.
It’s done.”
"That's right!" Scar nodded and said, "The current strength of the Vietnamese army should be about the same as ours. Let's deal with the pursuers of the Vietnamese army first. Then we will explain how to contact the art troupe. Isn't it just for our pleasure?"
Captain Luo thought for a while and said: "We can try it, but we have to do a good job in identifying it ourselves, otherwise it will be a mess and it will be a mess!"
Of course, Captain Luo's worry is justified, because we are prepared to attack but not prepared. If we continue to fight randomly because we cannot identify it, and the result is similar to the casualties of the Japanese soldiers, it will be very uneconomical.
However, this problem does not seem to be difficult to solve. All you need to do is tie a white towel or the like on your arm.
Some people may say...is this move too old? Yue Japanese often use this move on the battlefield, right?
But things are often like this on the battlefield. Although some tricks are old, they are very practical. For example, tying a white towel... We have agreed in advance, and everyone is mentally prepared, so we are sure when we see the white towel.
They are our own people. But what about the Vietnamese army? Although they also know that tying white towels is a way to identify ourselves and the enemy, they feel uncertain and unprepared, so they hesitate in their heads...
It is precisely this hesitation that determines the success or failure of each other's life and death.
So the plan was quickly finalized. Since we were preparing for a night melee, we all had bayonets attached to our rifles in advance, and then we lined up and carefully searched in the dark along the path.
But something different from the previous plan...we didn't call in Vietnamese, but talked in low voices.
The reason why we do this is because we take into account what Chen Yiyi said before. In this case, the Vietnamese devils will usually use the sounds of insects and birds to communicate... So, if we still call in Vietnamese at this moment: "Comrade"
!Comrade...where are you?"...That's not too obvious. It's hard for the Japanese to even think about it and become suspicious.
So we thought of a way to let a few people who can speak Vietnamese go in front, such as me, Chen Yiyi and Scar... The three of us walked forward while chatting in Vietnamese.
And he was still very quiet for fear of being heard by others.
The topic of conversation is the corpses we saw before. For example:
"The Chinese [***] are so abominable, they actually killed so many of our comrades!"
"Yes! Catching these Chinese people must not make them feel better!"
"I just don't know where they are hiding now!"
…
It is conceivable that if the Vietnamese Japs discovered such a troop in the dark, their first thought would be that it was their own troop. At most, they would secretly frown: How could this troop be so careless?
We haven't sent out any contact signals here, and we don't have to worry about being misunderstood by friendly forces or discovered by the enemy.
Sure enough, after only ten minutes of progress like this, Chen Yiyi secretly tugged at the corner of my clothes in the dark.
I was shocked and stopped talking. After listening carefully, I noticed a few inconspicuous but very regular crickets chirping from the grass on the left... (To be continued.