The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 671 Training (Two-in-one chapter)

Time: March 12, 3, which is 11 days after the Lantern Festival, around 10 a.m.

Location: Deep in the Lesser Khingan Mountains, on a hillside with an open valley in front of it.

"Something's not right! So many days have passed, and we've done everything we needed to do. Why won't the mysterious entity let us return to the modern world?"

Squatting in front of a grave without a tombstone, Van Gogh muttered this to himself while puffing on his hand-rolled pipe.

Upon hearing this, a group of people, some squatting and some standing, gathered in front of the grave.

That is, the transmigrators such as Hu Biao, AT, Black Star, Uncle Bo, Annie, Zanana, Lao Ma, Little Henan, Mina, Xiao Cui, Lao San, Lao K, Guard, Foreman, Cross, Ji Shouxing, 803, Zhixiang, Dali, and Awei.

Although he didn't say anything, the thoughtful and confused expression on his face said a lot.

Specifically, the above refers to a total of 21 time travelers, along with the Northeast KL comrades, whose numbers have now reached 693 including the newly joined members.

After traveling through the old forest day and night, the group finally arrived at this hillside the day before yesterday.

After holding a simple but solemn ceremony and sacrificing Zhang Qingyu, that traitor, they finally buried General Zhao's head and body together.

That is, the grave without a tombstone behind them.

The bodies of Taro and Xufeng were buried along the way.

What else? Could they possibly be buried with General Zhao and bask in his incense offerings? Of course not, they're not really dead, that would just shorten their lifespan.

Why is there no tombstone? This is because they were worried that revealing General Zhao's burial location would provoke a vicious reprisal from the Japanese, causing further damage to General Zhao's remains.

After all, the Japanese devils and traitors are utterly depraved and capable of anything; we cannot have any expectations of their moral bottom line.

Therefore, Hu Biao and his men chose not to erect a tombstone for General Zhao's grave for the time being, and decided to wait until after the victory.

At that time, KL warriors will naturally erect a monument, and General Zhao will be worshipped and offered incense by his descendants every year, so that, as in history, his head will not be found until decades later.

Now that General Zhao's burial is complete, everyone is completely safe.

Based on their past experiences with time travel, in such a situation, they would have a sudden realization: in just a few minutes, they, the time travelers, would return to the modern world.

Even because they returned to the modern world, they planned to cause trouble in the island nation.

The mysterious entity should also provide them with some temporary items to briefly enhance their strength, so that they won't die in the island nation.

So what's the result? Up to this point, there's been no movement at all, and we don't know where the problem lies.

So, somewhat confused about the situation, the people reacted as described above...

After a minute or two of silence, Xiao Henan, as if struck by a thought, suddenly spoke up with a possibility:
"Do you think that mysterious entity might want us to go abroad again before we can return, as this journey is considered complete?"
After all, the Russians and their soldiers are now remembering the time we went to help them.

Faced with Xiao Henan's statement, everyone couldn't help but reveal a thoughtful expression that said, "It's not impossible; it might really be true."

The main reason was that the scenes they created in Jiamusi and Changchun were too big; the Japanese, who had lost face, naturally wanted to cover it up, but they simply couldn't.

All related information was transmitted through the Kuomintang's agents infiltrated in Northeast China.

Then, at the bald principal's instruction, the Nationalist government's newspapers began to report on a series of brilliant victories in lengthy articles.

This greatly encouraged the allied forces, both domestically and internationally.

The results of the Battle of Changchun were particularly outstanding:
According to a cautious estimate by the Military Intelligence Bureau's Changchun station, more than 5700 Japanese Kwantung Army soldiers died that day, including two generals who were among the highest-ranking officers.

More than 3600 people were injured, more than half of whom were seriously injured, and at least 900 people have been disabled after recovering from their injuries.

The number of casualties among the puppet troops and traitors reached an astonishing 8000.

The number of civilian casualties among the Japanese soldiers and their collaborators reached as high as 17,000.

In addition, factories, hospitals, schools, residences, and various government offices in the city were severely damaged; the new capital city that the Japanese were once so proud of may not be able to recover for a year or two.

The results described above far exceeded Hu Biao's rough estimate, and this estimate is not exaggerated; in fact, it is somewhat conservative.

The reason for this was that Hu Biao and his ilk, the instigators, underestimated the serious consequences of the unwarranted emergency notice that caused unrest among the Japanese civilians.

It is no exaggeration to say that the power of this emergency notice was equivalent to that of at least 100,000 Nationalist troops.

The bald principal's main purpose in promoting them so vigorously was certainly not to make Hu Biao and his group famous, but simply out of a desire to profit from their scarcity:

Russians and soldiers, you've all seen it now, haven't you?
Hu Biao and his men, numbering only a few dozen, achieved such astonishing results in a very short time, without any equipment or personnel support, relying solely on their beards.

If you help them arm themselves properly and organize some more decent soldiers, wouldn't they be able to take off from the spot?

So you want Hu Biao and his buddies to act as your battlefield fire brigade? Sure, but you'll have to pay extra.

And it seems that the bald principal's little scheme has succeeded.

Because Hu Biao and his men arrived here the day before yesterday, and after they were completely safe and completed General Zhao's funeral, they finally had time to set up the radio again.

Send a message to the Baota and Shuangqing areas, as well as northwestern Shanxi, that they are very safe and have nothing to worry about.

It was fine when contacting the Baota area and northwestern Shanxi, but when contacting the Shuangqing area, they kept urging them to go to the Russians' house as soon as possible.

Good heavens! They've used every trick in the book: promising benefits, talking about national righteousness, and pulling strings.

That fiery enthusiasm clearly showed that the Russians and soldiers had given the bald principal extra money, and quite a lot of it.

Unfortunately, no matter what Shuangqing said in the telegram, Hu Biao and the others never agreed; after all, they were thinking that they were about to return to the modern world, and even if they agreed, they wouldn't be able to go.

Later, getting annoyed, he used the excuse that Japanese pursuers had reappeared and abruptly ended the communication.

However, faced with the lack of a return signal, they hesitated and even began to seriously consider which company they should help as a fire brigade.

Sure enough! 803 immediately asked:
"Let's all discuss which company would be better for long-term employment."

The advantage of having soldiers is that their families are wealthy; they are definitely rich. If you were to work as their fire brigade, you would definitely reap even greater benefits.

However, the soldiers performed so poorly in the Battle of Bataan that it was difficult to fly them.

Those gray-haired beasts from the Russians are certainly fierce enough when fighting, but that's about all they have to offer.

The German troops at this time were all elite soldiers, with a huge advantage in equipment, far superior to the Japanese, making them equally difficult to defeat.

As soon as the words fell, the group started arguing about which battlefield to go to.

If everyone's injuries hadn't been completely healed, they might have started fighting on the spot.

After about ten minutes, Hu Biao, who hadn't spoken until now, finally spoke after flicking the cigarette butt, which was now almost burning hot, far away:

"Shut up, we're not going anywhere, we're staying here."

Then, without waiting for anyone to refute him, he stated his reasons:
"Based on my experience with time travel, it's impossible for such a large-scale arrangement to occur in a single time travel; so I guess the mysterious entity will arrange for us to do something in the Northeast, and we won't return until we finish it."

Just wait patiently! Sooner or later, trouble will come knocking.

Upon hearing this, the contractor complained, "We can't just sit here and wait like this; we're getting bored out of our minds."

"Of course we can't stay idle any longer," Hu Biao replied. "Let's skip this year and start training the comrades in KL properly from tomorrow."

They are experts in wilderness survival and guerrilla warfare.

However, in positional warfare, siege warfare, and large-scale troop operations, they still need to work on how to produce some DIY equipment with limited resources, especially in terms of siege firepower.

The situation where we can't take down a Japanese pillbox even after losing many men, like before, must not continue.

Oh, right! There's another crucial point: we need to let them, who are cut off from information, see hope, see some hope of driving out the Japanese invaders, and strengthen their confidence that the War of Resistance will be won.

Therefore, in addition to training military personnel and equipment manufacturing skills.

The key is to analyze the international situation for them, letting them know that the Japanese are already on the decline and their power is limited.

“Then stay and train the comrades from KL,” Annie shouted in agreement.

The others remained silent, but their nods signified a consensus. Little did they know that their decision would drastically alter the course of the lives of this group of KL comrades.

It is important to know that in the coming years, after the war between the two parties begins...

Our Party has a severe shortage of personnel who understand the main battlefield, especially those in command of large-scale operations; those who were already quite qualified were promoted at an astonishing speed.

The premise is that they can live until that time...

******
The next day, at 6:30 a.m., the sky was already beginning to lighten.

The main reason is that by this time, compared to when Hu Biao and his group first arrived, the weather had gradually warmed up.

Even deep in the Lesser Khingan Mountains, where temperatures are even lower, the lowest temperature at night is only minus thirteen or fourteen degrees Celsius, while during the day it is close to zero.

The temperature is gradually improving, which is naturally a good thing, as it will make sleeping at night more comfortable.

In addition, during this season when the snow is just beginning to melt, hunting and finding edible plants are much easier.

If there's anything unpleasant about it, it's the severe chilblains on everyone's bodies. In this kind of weather, they're incredibly itchy, and they can't scratch them, because if they break the skin, it'll be a huge problem.

At this moment, however, the three PLA veterans, Black Star, Old K, and Zhixiang, could no longer care about these things.

At their prompting, Xiao Henan puffed out his cheeks and blew the reveille loudly.

After the reveille ended, the three of them, each in a makeshift shack area, shouted at the top of their lungs: "Assemble! Everyone, get up and assemble immediately!"

A dozen minutes later, looking at the group of KL people in front of him, who were lined up in a sparse queue, their clothes were in a bad state, and they were yawning heavily.

Kurohoshi, who was standing at an impeccable military posture, couldn't help but frown deeply.

Before this, he naturally knew that one of the bearded men had basically not received any formal military training, and even most of the proper KL soldiers had not had the opportunity to receive training.

So they decided to spend three to five days focusing on improving the military bearing and posture of these people.

In short, making them look like soldiers and instilling a sense of military discipline will make training them in other military subjects much more effective.

But when the time actually came, Black Star realized that the workload seemed to be even greater than he had imagined; however, no matter how difficult it was, he had to complete this training task.

After exchanging a glance with Old K, who was also frowning, and Zhi Xiang, they realized they were the same people on the other side.

Black Star took a deep breath and roared at the crowd in front of him:
"Before you joined KL, you were all江湖人士 (jianghu figures). No matter what bad habits you had, just the fact that you risked your lives to fight the Japanese makes me, Black Star, consider you all good men and my brothers."

You might be a little lazy and have some bad habits, but we won't bother with those.

But since you have become soldiers, you naturally need to act like soldiers.

The assembly arrangements for this morning weren't clearly explained beforehand, but starting tomorrow, everyone must complete all preparations, including getting up, washing, and assembling, within 10 minutes of the reveille.

If you fail to do so, there are plenty of punishments waiting for you.

However, before that, I can give you a chance to withdraw voluntarily. Now, as long as someone is willing to leave KL, I will naturally not hold them to military standards.

We'll drink and eat together as before, so as not to damage our past relationships.

After saying that, Black Star waited silently, hoping that someone would voluntarily withdraw.

This deathly silence lasted for three minutes. During this time, some people straightened their backs, some puffed out their chests, and some became serious.

They tried every possible way to make themselves look more presentable, but no one was willing to give up.

Seeing this, Black Star nodded with satisfaction and roared again, "Since no one is quitting, don't blame me from now on."

Now, the 5km trail run begins. You are not allowed to eat breakfast until you finish the run.

The last fifty runners will wash the feet of the first fifty runners that evening.

After saying that, disregarding the extremely exciting emotions of everyone present, he turned around and took the lead in running.

After a moment of stunned silence, everyone took off running, stepping on the thin layer of snow that had fallen the night before; given how much these people valued their reputation, they were unwilling to miss out on breakfast.

Not to mention that at night, they also had to wash other people's smelly feet.

"Keep your speed and stamina. You're going to run five kilometers in one go, so don't exhaust yourself at the beginning," Old K shouted, reminding them before starting to run as well.

As for the elephant, it ran up in the last position, like the last man in the formation.

We're prepared to help anyone who gets exhausted or twists their ankle if they do.

In short, despite their harsh words, they secretly do their best to provide these people with as much protection as possible.

Driven by the same sentiment, at this very moment, Hu Biao and the other 18 remaining time travelers were busy preparing breakfast for everyone in a makeshift kitchen made of a large shack.

Wild vegetables such as shepherd's purse and dandelion are either eaten raw in salads or stewed with meat.

This kind of breakfast might be a bit greasy, but having a bowl of it on a still sub-zero morning will definitely make you feel warm and comfortable.

There's a prerequisite: that the KL warriors who completed the 5km trail run still have the mood for breakfast...

At 10 a.m., facing the two companies under his command, Zhi Xiang, with a serious expression, issued an order that left people both amused and exasperated:

Turn towards the rope, turn towards the rope, turn towards the towel~

There was nothing that could be done about issuing such a strange order.

After conducting a survey, Hu Biao and his team realized that among the 693 people, only a little over 100 could write their own names, and the rest were basically illiterate.

This leads to a situation where many people don't know left from right at all; you might kick them a couple of times to teach them temporarily, but after a while, they forget everything again due to nervousness.

When the instructors, including the elephant, gave the commands to go forward and backward, everything was fine.

When the commands to turn left and backward were given, good heavens! The sight of two faces facing each other in the team bursting into laughter almost made Zhixiang and the others faint with anger.

There was no other way but to tie a straw rope to my left leg and a towel to my right leg to distinguish them.

Why not keep it simple and roll up one pant leg to tell the difference? Well, it's quite cold outside.

And you know what? This method and password, although they look and sound rather strange, are actually quite effective.

As dusk settled, the ranks of these KL warriors had undergone a dramatic transformation compared to that morning…

At 8:30 p.m., a bonfire had been lit on the original training ground, along with several pine resin torches.

Under the torchlight, pointing to a small earthen stove that barely reached his waist, Uncle Bo gave a final summary of his lesson:

"Alright! This is the overall structure of this 'one-foot-falling' stove. Everyone must remember it well."

He can not only quickly dry your wet shoes and socks, but more importantly, he can quickly melt down the shells, iron pieces and other metal materials you usually collect and melt them down into grenade casings.

Add some explosives or black powder, attach a wooden handle and a fuse, and you have a hand grenade.

That's right! Uncle Bo is teaching these people how to quickly make hand grenades—the poor man's cannons—in guerrilla warfare.

As for whether such a technology is practical or not? Of course it is extremely practical and easy to use.

Every KL warrior stared wide-eyed at this simple stove that could be quickly built during a short break, with materials readily available everywhere, and desperately tried to memorize every detail.

In this way, there's no need to worry about not having enough grenades. After all, even the worst grenades are better than none at all.

Ten minutes later, Mina replaced Uncle Bo and began her lesson.

More accurately, Mina was training everyone on the current global situation, letting them know that the Japanese were not invincible.

His opening line was: "Comrades, the Japanese devils' good days are like a rabbit's tail, they won't last long."

Why am I so sure? Because last December, at sea in a place called Pearl Harbor, they launched a surprise attack on Uncle Sam's fleet..."

(End of this chapter)