Just when Wang Xuexin was thinking about what to say to Sun Erwei, he heard the sentry shout: "There's something wrong!"
The soldiers looked in the direction indicated by the sentry and saw a troop walking along the road a few hundred meters away. Judging from the uniforms, it did not appear to be the Eighth Route Army.
This shocked the soldiers.
You must know that this is the hinterland of the base area, and enemies can actually penetrate here without any warning.
Li Yunlong quickly directed the soldiers to raise their guns and organize defense.
Wang Xuexin looked through the sniper scope toward the road and felt something was wrong.
The military uniform is the blue uniform of the Jinsui Army.
At this time, the Jinsui Army either fled or was dispersed by the Japanese. The only way to be able to walk on the road with such a large scale is...
Thinking about this, Wang Xuexin turned his head and shouted in the direction of Li Yunlong: "Captain, it may be Sun Ming's troops, they are here!"
Before he finished speaking, he saw an officer on the opposite side riding out on horseback. The man on the horse was Sun Ming. He made a trumpet shape with his hands and shouted: "Is the independent regiment opposite? I am Sun Ming!"
"
Li Yunlong stood up with a smile, put away the box of cannons, and said, "This kid still has some conscience and knows how to come to us!"
After Sun Ming broke out of the encirclement, he had been cooperating with the Eighth Route Army on the front line.
Sun Ming actually did this out of some guilt in his heart. He always felt that he owed Li Yunlong his life, and it would be shameful to hide behind him any longer.
At the same time, Sun Ming kept asking about the movements of the Independent Group, and his heart was completely relieved after knowing that the Independent Group had safely broken through.
Sun Ming said to his subordinates: "If anything happens to the Independent Regiment, we will never be able to repay him this favor in this life!"
In fact, they all knew what choice Sun Ming and his men made at this time.
Usually the soldiers of Jinsui Army are discussing in private:
"The equipment of the Eighth Route Army is somewhat inferior, but you can't stand it if you fight with them. They are really fighting against the Japanese!"
"You're right. All the officials have no airs. They endure hardships along with the soldiers. It's not like us..."
The 358th Regiment did pretty well, but even Chu Yunfei couldn't bear the hardships with the soldiers.
There is a saying that goes, "Don't worry about poverty, but worry about inequality."
A system like the Eighth Route Army in which officers and soldiers are equal without specialization is the ideal state that the Jinsui Army hopes for.
In the past, due to the limited exchanges between the two armies and the deliberate scandalizing propaganda, the soldiers did not know much about these issues and even misunderstood them.
Now, they have actually lived in the Eighth Route Army for a period of time and even fought together, and then they know what kind of army this is.
However, there are also dissenting voices:
"Aren't we soldiers fighting for food? What's the benefit of following the Eighth Route Army? We don't have enough to eat, let alone pay. Isn't it stupid to work so hard?"
This is a very real problem, and many people in the stubborn army hold this idea, especially those veterans who survived the warlord era...
In the era of warlords' melee, there was no sense of pride in resisting foreigners, nor a sense of mission to resist and save the country. They were all fought internally by the Chinese, so they developed the habit of working hard for wages.
And once this habit is formed and deeply rooted in the bone marrow, even if the war changes to a unanimous foreign war, it will be difficult to change for a while.
This may be one of the reasons why the stubborn army was eventually defeated by the Eighth Route Army.
After all, the Recalcitrant Army is an army born out of warlords. The warlord mentality is deeply ingrained from top to bottom, so there will always be problems in major strategic decisions.
Sun Ming knew what his subordinates were thinking.
So, he held a meeting with his subordinates after the Japanese withdrew from the mountainous area.
"Brothers!" Sun Ming said: "At this time, the Japanese have withdrawn from the mountainous area and set up defenses in the Yuncheng area, and the highway in western Shanxi has been opened. I just talked to the brigade commander, and he said that we can leave at any time to find the main force!"
At this time, the soldiers of the Jinsui Army who should have been cheering were silent.
I don’t know if it’s reluctance or unwillingness, or both.
Then Sun Ming said: "Sun Ming doesn't know what you think, but Sun Ming has been on the run for more than a month, but it is a period of time in which he does not need to worry about his own people secretly killing people, or the intrigues in the officialdom. It is true that the Eighth Route Army has insufficient equipment and no military pay.
.But...I, Sun Ming, did not join the army just for a meal or porridge, nor for glory and wealth, but just to recapture Yuncheng, conquer Linfen and regain Taiyuan! This is the land of my Shanxi man, the place where my father and fellow villagers stand, and
The inheritance of our ancestors! If you and I sold our lives just for a few mouthfuls of food and a few dollars, how can we face our ancestors?"
Speaking of this, Sun Ming's eyes were full of tears. He secretly wiped away the tears and continued: "Sun Ming asked himself that he could not lead you to recapture Shanxi from the Japanese, so Sun Ming only recognized one thing: Who can help me recapture Shanxi?
, I will help whoever it is! Whether it is the Jinsui Army or the Eighth Route Army, brothers can choose on their own, and I, Sun Ming, will never stop it!"
The soldiers of the Jinsui Army were silent for a long time, then they raised their guns and shouted:
"Eighth Route Army!"
"Eighth Route Army!"
…
Many people originally thought about paid soldiers, but now Sun Ming said this and stopped thinking about it.
The Jinsui Army is also different from what it used to be... Yuncheng was a major tax and commercial town for the Jinsui Army, and most of the salaries came from Yuncheng.
Now that the Jinsui Army has even lost Yuncheng, can the Jinsui Army still have the same treatment as before if they return to the Jinsui Army?
If we really want to talk about it in detail, I am afraid that the Jinsui Army will have to rely on the Eighth Route Army in the future. How to choose? Do we still need to consider it?
So everyone was willing to join the Eighth Route Army.
Then Sun Ming expressed his wishes through the brigade commander: "Sun Ming is willing to lead more than a thousand of his men to join the Eighth Route Army. He only hopes that Shangfeng will give him permission to organize our unit into an independent regiment!"
This request really put the chief and chief of staff in a dilemma for a while.
Because the tasks performed by the independent regiment at this time were not trivial. On the one hand, they were a model regiment responsible for familiarizing themselves with the new equipment, and on the other hand, they guarded the Sixth Branch Factory.
The former is easy to say, but the Sixth Branch Factory has rifle production lines and bullet production lines.
What if Sun Ming and more than a thousand people are unreliable?
This is a force whose combat capability cannot be underestimated. If they rebelled, they would overthrow the Independent Regiment and the entire Sixth Branch Factory!
But after thinking about it, the leader still said: "We should not doubt Sun Ming's army. This is not just a problem for one army, but also a question of whether thousands of troops trust our army!"
The chief of staff nodded in agreement.
If the Eighth Route Army refuses this request because it does not trust Sun Ming, a crisis of trust similar to a "domino" will soon form.
Other troops also know that once they defect to the Eighth Route Army, they will be marginalized or not treated equally, so are there still people who are willing to give up material conditions to join?
So, with a single order from the leader, he agreed to Sun Ming's request and incorporated him into the independent regiment.