Bright Sword: Japs, times have changed

Time comes the next day.

The "bandit suppression" operation also arrived as expected. The assembly call was sounded early in the morning. The teams of the first and second companies were at the base, and the assembly call woke up many people.

The assembly call had not been sounded for more than a month, which made the people mistakenly believe that war was about to break out again, and they couldn't help but feel sorry for the children in the team.

Zhao Yuling put on her clothes in a hurry and ran to the snow to look around anxiously. When she didn't see the familiar face, she hurriedly ran to Lin Qiang's house and knocked on the door.

"Who is it? Come in, the door is open!"

In the room, they were discussing with Wu Zhe and Xu Lang, who had no assigned tasks, how to start some side jobs. There were thousands of people in the battalion, and they couldn't all stay in the base and do nothing.

The sudden knock on the door interrupted the three people's thoughts. Only after the door was pushed open did they see clearly who the visitor was.

"Zhao... Ling'er, why are you here?"

When Zhao Yuling saw that Lin Qiang was not the only one in the room, she became a little shy again. Standing at the door, she whispered, "Brother Lin, are we going to fight again?"

"No."

Lin Qiang asked curiously, "Why are you asking this?"

"fine."

Zhao Yuling was too embarrassed to express her feelings in front of outsiders, so she made up an excuse to fool them. After getting the answer, she said "don't bother them" and then closed the door and ran away.

Wang Qiang chuckled and said, "Battalion Commander, when are you going to invite us to your wedding?"

Wu Zhe on the side also laughed and seemed to want to make a joke.

But the next second he stopped laughing.

"Go, do 200 push-ups at the door. Come back in when you're done."

The smile disappeared from Wang Qiang's face. He went to the door with a sullen face and started doing push-ups.

Wu Zhe was watching from the sidelines, feeling lucky that he didn't say anything, when he heard Lin Qiang say, "He said he didn't say anything about you, right? You idiot!"

"Commander, I didn't say anything!"

Lin Qiang looked at him with a grin: "How could I not know what you guys are thinking? Hurry up and go, or you'll lose three hundred of them if you delay any longer."

"No, Captain, I'll go right away."

Two or three hundred push-ups were not even a warm-up for them, and Lin Qiang did not really want to punish them. He was just avenging his previous actions.

Lin Qiang is a very vengeful person.

The six company commanders would make fun of him whenever they had the chance, and now was the chance, so they would collect some interest first.

When I’m busy, I always feel that time passes quickly, and in the blink of an eye it’s afternoon.

It gets dark early in winter, and it gradually gets dark after five o'clock.

At this time, the training of the new recruits in the base was nearing its end, and they began to gather and disband.

During this peaceful period, as the team's strength increased, the base's canteen more than doubled in size.

Zhao Dezhu also got what he wanted. The number of people in the cooking team and the logistics team exceeded 200.

Originally, Lin Qiang planned to arrange four to five hundred people, but was rejected by Zhao Dezhu. In his words, too many people would be useless and difficult to manage.

With the increase in the number of people in the kitchen team, the team can eat much faster.

In the past, because the kitchen staff was too busy, the people would go to the canteen to eat together. Now that the kitchen staff is not busy, and it is winter, it is inconvenient for the elderly people, so they all go to the canteen to eat together.

Before dinner was over, Zhang Yuntian was the first to return to the base, and with him came more than two hundred refugees who looked like beggars.

Among them, more than a hundred were bandits who had become bandits, but now they had chosen to join the independent camp, and there were dozens of them, including the elderly and children.

"Commander, I'm back."

Lin Qiang went up to him and asked with a smile, "How is it? Is there anything wrong?"

"No, they all cooperated very well. When we went there, this group of people were planning to take down one of the Japanese artillery towers."

Hearing this, Lin Qiang looked at the weapons these people had on them: Type 38 rifles without stocks, bayonets tied to wooden sticks, and some even used hoes.

With such combat effectiveness, let alone taking the artillery tower, I'm afraid they can't even defeat a squad of puppet soldiers.

Zhang Yuntian explained, "They were at their wit's end. There were over 200 mouths to feed. When we arrived, many were nearly fainting from hunger. When the soldiers gave them their rations, they didn't eat them themselves first, but gave them to the elderly and children first."

Hearing this, Lin Qiang was deeply moved: "Fortunately, we arrived early. If we were a step later, these people would have either starved to death or died at the hands of the Japanese."

"Who says it isn't?"

Lin Qiang ordered the soldiers to take the elderly and children to the resettlement camp. He then addressed the combat-ready group, saying, "My name is Lin Qiang, and I'm the commander of the Independent Battalion of the 386th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army. Regardless of what you did before, you now have two paths to choose from."

"If you're willing to join our independent battalion, please report to Captain Zhang and they'll arrange for you. If you're not willing to join the army, please put down your weapons and stand to the left. I'll arrange for someone to take you to the camp."

"Don't worry, even if you don't want to join the army, no one will chase you away. There are empty houses in the camp, and we will provide you with shelter and supplies."

"Okay, now let's start choosing."

I thought these people had suffered for so long and wanted to live a comfortable life, but I didn't expect that as soon as Lin Qiang finished speaking, everyone acted in unison and stood in front of Zhang Yuntian.

"it is good!"

Lin Qiang said loudly: "On behalf of the Independent Battalion, I welcome you all to join us. I also hope that you will abide by the military regulations and discipline of our Eighth Route Army."

"Captain Zhang, take them to the recruit camp and start training after two days of rest."

"Yes!"

The so-called recruit camp is actually a camp set up temporarily by Lin Qiang. In order to increase the team's strength, new recruits with no combat experience will be concentrated and trained in a unified manner.

Moreover, there must be a special forces team to supervise the training, so Lin Qiang never cares about the progress of the recruits' training.

As time passed, all the teams finally returned before it got completely dark.

The situations were pretty much the same. These so-called bandits were just a group of refugees who wanted to survive. They didn't join the Eighth Route Army because they were worried that they wouldn't have enough food and clothing even if they did.

However, the situation of the independent camp left them dumbfounded. The Eighth Route Army, which had always been living in difficult conditions, actually had such a paradise.

Compared with other places, it would be an understatement to call Independence Camp a paradise.

There were also quite a few people willing to join the army, with more than 700 people in total in the three waves.

The team was expanded again, and Lin Qiang's face was filled with a satisfied smile.

The mission was completed, and Lin Qiang immediately called the brigade commander to report.

On the phone, the brigade commander smiled happily: "You have quite an appetite, kid. There are nearly two thousand new recruits. Do you want me to help you digest some of them?"

"Thank you very much for your kindness."

Lin Qiang decisively declined: "If I can't even handle this amount of troops, then I don't have the battalion commander position anymore."

"Hahaha, that's fine."

After chatting for a while, the brigade commander suddenly expressed his gratitude to Lin Qiang: "Lin Qiang, I really have to thank you this time. After you finished the battle, the strength of my entire 386th Brigade has doubled, and the combat effectiveness has more than doubled."

"Look at what you said. Without the help of other brother troops, I can't win this battle."

Lin Qiang responded: "Commander, I want to thank you and all the Eighth Route Army soldiers. Without their dedication, there would be no me, the commander of the independent battalion."

"Okay, okay, I don't like talking about this."

The brigade commander changed the subject and said, "I have another mission for you. According to headquarters, the entire Jin Province was affected by that battle."

"The Japanese lost two brigades, forcing them to halt their sweep of the entire Taihang region and instead begin clearing out the occupied areas. They are also continuously shrinking the buffer zone between the enemy and us, repeatedly launching probing attacks against our troops."

"To prevent the Japanese from further persecuting the civilians, headquarters ordered the independent battalion to create the appearance of liberating the county town, forcing the Japanese to shift their troops to the defensive."

Lin Qiang immediately perked up when he heard this and asked, "Brigade Commander, can I make this fake play real?"

"No."

The brigade commander didn't give Lin Qiang any chance to maneuver around. He flatly rejected Lin Qiang's plan: "This is an order from headquarters. The mission of the independent battalion is to create an illusion. The more realistic the better, but we can't really do it."

"I know that with the combat effectiveness of the independent battalion, it would be easy to liberate the county town, but doing so would likely affect the boss's plan."

"You have your battles to fight, but before that, you must complete the orders given by headquarters."

Lin Qiang knew that there was a big battle to be fought next, so he stopped worrying about it: "Yes, I promise to complete the mission!"