Sunlight.
Green gauze tent.
Green and yellow wheat fields.
People began to come in and out of the city on the highway.
There were men, women and children, but no young girls.
They sell vegetables on burdens, or carry sacks on their shoulders, or hold baskets in their hands.
The world is not good, and survival is the only luxury.
The common people, who were so poor that they could barely sustain the wheat harvest, were trying to figure out their own solutions.
Borrowing grain from relatives is the first choice. If you can't borrow it, you can borrow it from the landlords in each village. If you can't borrow it, you can only sell the fields left by your ancestors.
A village outside the east gate of the ancient city.
Nie Ziwen, who fled from the south to live with his uncle here two years ago, makes a living by teaching village children how to read, writing letters for people, and writing memorial texts.
Now my wife is seriously ill in bed, and my uncle's family has no food left.
He has no land here, let alone any property. It seems he doesn’t even have anything to sell.
Nie Ziwen, dressed in a long gown, stood at the entrance of the Xu family compound in the next village.
A detective team member at the door sneered: "You have come here to borrow money every month since the Chinese New Year. Do you really think that our uncle Xu is a good person?"
Another one followed and advised: "Let me tell you, give your daughter to my uncle as a concubine. How good would it be to live well and drink well?"
Nie Ziwen's face was dull and he shook his head: "Although my Nie family is poor, we have not yet sold our sons and daughters."
"Haha, then you go find your uncle Nie, he is Commander Xiaosong's guest."
"Bah, even if I starve to death, I will not eat his food."
"Yes, you have the guts. You don't want to go to your family, and you don't want to send your daughter over. It's for Uncle Nie's sake that I didn't ask you to pay back the food. My uncle is kind-hearted, but you are a poor man and you are making trouble on your face." Got it? Get out of here."
"I am a great teacher at Provincial City Middle School, how dare you say that to me."
"Okay, I respect you as a man of letters, but how can men of letters be useless these days? The Imperial Army School in the city is recruiting teachers, and you said you don't want to be a dog. Since you have the backbone, why do you have the nerve to come to a dog to borrow food?"
When the detective team member next to him heard what his companion said, something was wrong: "Hey, Xu Erbangzi, how dare you call our uncle a dog?"
Xu Erbangzi was stunned for a moment: "Hey, that's wrong. This poor guy wants to be a bitch and build a memorial arch. How can there be such a good thing in the world?"
"Nie, if you have nothing to do, get out of here and don't come here early in the morning to mourn."
Nie Ziwen had no choice but to turn around and leave.
I only drank a bowl of millet soup last night. My chest was pressed against my back and I was a little dizzy from hunger.
The thin figure walked step by step on the path in the middle of the wheat field.
From time to time, I look at the ancient city wall not far away that seems to have never changed since ancient times.
In order to survive, his family rented a piece of land from the landlord Wang's family, but the wheat in the land was still filling.
The sweet potatoes haven’t bloomed yet.
It seems that I have no choice but to grind a handful of wheat and add red leaves to make porridge.
He felt that he really didn't have the strength to walk home around the mass graves in front of him.
I planned to take a shortcut back to the village through the sorghum field next to the wheat field.
"Stop!" A low cry came from the sorghum field, and two young men with patches on their bodies appeared in front of him.
"Hey, isn't this Teacher Nie?" The speaker was Guo Hui, the eldest son of Dongguo in the village. I had long heard that he was "rebelling" with the Eighth Route Army!
"Guo Hui? What are you doing here?"
"Teacher Nie, did you go to the Xu family to borrow food again?"
"Well"
After the two sides greeted each other, Nie Ziwen continued to go deeper into the green gauze tent.
The soldier next to Guo Hui asked: "Should we control him?"
"No, Mr. Nie has a lot of backbone. The Japanese asked him to teach in the city several times but he didn't agree. He stayed in the village to teach the children how to read. After a while, everyone got together and sent ten pounds of fried noodles to his family." After that, Start digging through your dry food bag.
Nie Ziwen tightened his belt and slowly walked to the big locust tree in the south of the village. He felt like the world was spinning. He couldn't hold on any longer and fainted in the wheat field next to him.
After a while, Youyou woke up and heard someone muttering.
"Hey, if we catch that guy Guo Hui this time, it won't be complete until the Guo family is bankrupted!"
"Be careful what you say, there are eight informants in our city defense army."
"You get paid as a soldier. You take the pay of the imperial army and still think about causing trouble all day long. We must find out all those with evil intentions."
"Boy, if you want to live a long life, the long-term solution is to keep a low profile. When you fight with the Eighth Route Army later, don't rush forward. Guns don't have eyesight."
"Tch, I'm looking for something valuable in a dangerous situation. I'll reward you with ten yuan for killing an Eighth Route Army soldier. I'm hoping to kill a few Eighth Route Army soldiers this time and then marry a concubine."
"Why haven't those bastards from the detective team arrived yet?"
What do they care about? All we have to do is guard the bridge and shoot black guns.
The person who was shot this time was a brigade commander from the Autonomous Army. The Autonomous Army didn’t send anyone, so why did they provoke the Eighth Route Army?
Brigadier Li must be from the Eighth Route Army.
Is Balu stupid? How dare you come to rob the imperial army's execution ground?
I guess this battle will last until dark. Let's go to the kiln for a walk after it's over.
"Stop talking, someone is coming."
Nie Ziwen saw two guerrillas sneaking out from the green gauze tent in the distance with guns in hand.
He quickly crawled along the ditch on the edge of the wheat field with his feet and walked around to the east of the village and quickly disappeared into the village.
As soon as Guo Hui walked out of the dilapidated courtyard where Nie Ziwen was staying, he bumped into Teacher Nie who was returning.
Nie Ziwen looked at Guo Hui: "Why are you here?"
Uh, I sent some food to your family.
"Get out of here!" This guy has no good intentions. He came to deliver food. He was definitely a weasel giving New Year greetings to a chicken. He was probably looking for his daughter.
Guo Hui smiled awkwardly: "Hey, I will give you food, please pay attention to what you say."
Nie Ziwen said with a dark face: "What kind of intentions do you have, you think I don't know?"
"Okay, I still have something to do, let's go first."
"wait"
"Uncle, do you have anything else to do?"
"Are you going to rob the execution ground?"
"Oh, what did you say?"
"There are people from the city defense army hiding in the south of the village. When I just passed by, I heard them muttering that they were going to kill all eight roads in one go."
"Hey, it's nothing. I don't have any family matters to do, so I'll leave first."
The edge of a sorghum field.
Villagers with patches on their shoulders, elbows, and knees looked around.
A traitor from the detective team in black came to the edge of the green gauze tent and asked, "Why are you here now?"
"Don't you want me to see clearly? They are hiding in the sorghum field to the east of the village."
"you sure?"
"Of course, they hid in the sorghum field last night. My second boy was watching them."
"how many people?"
"It's probably a few dozen at least. There are still some things I haven't seen clearly, it's more than a hundred."
The traitor picked out a few notes from the bag and picked the one with the largest number: "Okay, you did a good job. Later you can register with the detective team and receive fifty kilograms of millet."
The man looked excited: "Then I'll go back first."
"Hey, don't get too close to them, just look at them."
"Don't worry, I can still handle some of my things."
In the fields, the traitors from the detective team dressed in black hurriedly ran toward the blockhouse.
He wanted to go to the blockhouse and make a phone call to the city to report the movements of the Eighth Route Army.
I accidentally got bitten by the rope on the ground.
Overwhelm a piece of sorghum stalk
Suddenly two young men dressed as villagers, covered with sorghum leaves, appeared next to them.
A man carries a rifle on his back and holds a scythe in his hand.
Another young man with a short gun in his hand stepped forward, stepped on the traitor's neck and asked proudly: "Bitch traitor, let me see where you are going to run!"
Turning his head to look at the black muzzle of the gun, half of which was dark and half of which was a bright sickle, the traitor was frightened to death: "Eighth Master, please spare your life, I have an eighty-year-old mother."
"You can spare your life, just tell me everything you know!" The man with the gun took off the gun from the traitor's shoulder as he spoke.
With the knife held to his neck, the traitor dared not hide it.
He poured the beans into the bamboo tube in a panic and told everything he knew about the situation.
"Unfortunately, there is no useful information." The man holding the short gun whispered to the man holding the sickle next to him.
The man holding the sickle covered his mouth and suddenly dragged the sickle across the traitor's neck.
The man with the gun quickly jumped away to avoid getting blood on him.
Weighing the traitor's shell gun, he looked at the traitor who had half of his neck cut open and seemed to be deadpan. "Don't look at me like that. I really didn't kill you. I didn't do it with my hands."
The dog traitor no longer twitches.
The young man carrying two guns began to grope the traitor: "I said, can't you strangle him to death?"
Another one stuck a sickle into the soil and wiped away the blood: "Do you want to kill the villagers and his son who tipped off the traitors?"
(End of chapter)
