Shang Zhen and the others didn't know that they had somehow escaped another disaster.
If Wu Keyong hadn't asked them to go out to hunt down the Japanese scouts, then they would definitely defend Wu Keyong's side.
So when the Japanese scouts launched an attack on Wu Keyong, even if Shang Zhen and the others could save Wu Keyong's life, they were destined to suffer heavy casualties.
Life is like this, the future is full of unknowns, not to mention this is a rapidly changing battlefield.
But despite this, Shang Zhen's retreat to Nanjing was by no means smooth.
Following the retreating troops, Shang Zhen and the others first went south, and then headed west along the road.
Poor Shang Zhen and the others didn't have a map of the country in their hands.
In their minds, they always felt that Nanjing should be to the south of Shanghai, but when they asked about the defeated troops around them, they learned that Nanjing was to the west of Shanghai.
They could only follow the defeated troops, and two days later their group appeared outside a village.
As for the name of the village, they didn't know it at all. They got off the road and went directly to the village because they were already in dire straits.
Hunger, fatigue, and lack of sleep were all intertwined. They had to find a place to have a good meal and then rest.
But when they were still four or five hundred meters away from the village, they suddenly heard gunshots coming from the village.
The gunshots were not dense, but they were by no means sparse. And to the ears of veterans like them, most of those gunshots were from Japanese Type 38 rifles.
Shang Zhen scanned the surrounding terrain, left the path to the village, and pointed to a forest on the right.
The forest is on the edge of the village.
If they wanted to enter the village, it was undoubtedly the safest way to go through the woods.
"Aren't the little devils massacring the village again?" Mr. Wang asked breathlessly as he ran towards the woods.
Judging from the physical strength of people like Shang Zhen, they wouldn't be so out of breath just by running, but they were so hungry that they almost ran out of energy.
"You won't know until you see it." Shang Zhen replied, still running forward.
However, judging from Shang Zhen's judgment, it was not necessarily the Japanese army that was massacring the village. It was most likely that the Japanese army was fighting again with the defeated Chinese troops who had retreated from the Songhu battlefield.
Because based on the position they have reached now, the Japanese troops chasing them are usually only small groups or scouts of the Japanese army.
Although the Japanese invaders were extremely cruel, the Japanese army had to prioritize their killings.
Their first target must be the fleeing Chinese army. They have no need to raise the butcher's knife against civilians, or they don't have the leisure time yet.
After entering the woods, Shang Zhen continued towards the village, and he naturally ran to the front.
Erhanzi and Huzi died, which made Shang Zhen's heart hurt.
So he felt that even if he was sacrificed, it should be him, not his brother. So what reason does he, the leader, have for not running at the front?
But just after Shang Zhen ran in the woods for a while, he suddenly stopped and turned around with something in mind, and then the flower mechanism in his hand was lifted to the left.
No one can remember how many steps they will run in their lifetime. For people, running is a human instinct.
For a soldier who has experienced hundreds of battles, no soldier can remember how many times he fired his gun.
So Shang Zhen pulled the bolt of the gun, held the flower mechanism between his shoulders, and then made a shooting posture. That was extremely skillful!
But just when he pointed the muzzle at the target he suspected, his finger that had already touched the trigger stopped, because under the muzzle he saw five or six people looking at him with frightened eyes. Take care of your own people.
These common people are all women and children, and there is not a single man.
One of the young women subconsciously hugged the child in her arms tightly, but the child was sucking milk!
And right next to the woman, there was a seven or eight-year-old boy standing, looking at Shang Zhen and the others in surprise.
"Don't be afraid, fellow citizens, we are China's soldiers!" Shang Zhen said immediately.
Then the muzzle of the flower machine in his hand was pointed at the sky to show that he was not hostile.
At this time, the soldiers following Shang Zhen saw that they were ordinary people, and they only moved their guns without raising their guns.
"What's going on in your village?" Shang Zhen asked immediately.
But the answer to him was silence.
Among the women and children, the younger ones could not speak yet and were nursing, while the older ones were still in shock.
"Don't be afraid, fellow villagers. We are our own army. Tell me what happened in the village?" At this time, Chu Tian took a step forward and asked with a gentle face.
"The Japanese are here, fighting with you." Finally an older woman answered.
Although the dialect was difficult to understand, fortunately, what the woman said was somewhat close to Mandarin, and Shang Zhen and the others really understood it.
"How many Japanese are there?" Shang Zhen asked.
Shang Zhen and the others have become accustomed to being Japanese invaders and Japanese devils.
He now calls the Japanese devils Japanese, no doubt so that the woman can understand.
"I don't know." The woman replied, but he was afraid that his answer would dissatisfy Shang Zhen, so he hurriedly explained, "The Japanese entered the village and killed many people. We ran out because we were afraid. We didn't know they had any how many people."
Shang Zhen frowned.
As a veteran of the battlefield, Shang Zhen now understands how important it is to understand the enemy's situation.
If the number of the Japanese army is large, then they may avoid its edge. If the number of the Japanese army is not large, then they may as well fight with the Japanese army.
But that woman was just an ordinary woman. As an ordinary citizen, she saw the Japanese invaders entering the village and killing people. She was frightened. How could she possibly know how many Japanese bandits there were?
"There are more than twenty people." This was a crisp voice, but it was the little boy standing next to the woman who spoke.
"Little guy, how do you know?" Wang Lao Mao asked.
"I was playing on the sand pile at the edge of the village. I saw them running over and I counted them." The little boy replied.
"Have the Japanese soldiers seen you?" Little Dustpan asked curiously.
This was the first time that Xiao Dustpan said something unrelated to Erhanzi since Erhanzi was killed in battle.
"I saw it, but they went after the people in front of them, wearing shabby clothes like you." The little boy replied again.
Obviously, the little boy didn't know that the clothes Shang Zhen and the others were wearing were military uniforms.
But what is conceivable is that, as Shang Zhen deduced, broken troops entered the village, and then the Japanese army chased them, and then the two sides fought in the village.
When Shang Zhen saw the little boy looking at himself and others, his fear turned into curiosity.
In this way, Shang Zhen somewhat believed what this little boy said.
It is said that newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. Obviously no one told this little boy how terrible the Japanese invaders were.
Precisely because he didn't feel nervous and was playing next to the sand pile, he inadvertently noticed the number of Japanese troops.
This situation is like a murder taking place somewhere.
People at the scene at that time forgot the characteristics of the murderer out of fear. Instead, a little boy playing outside the door clearly remembered that the murderer had a mole on his face.
"How many people are there wearing rags like us?" Shang Zhen asked cheerfully.
"There must be more than ten!" This time it was a woman who answered.
"More than ten?" Shang Zhen pondered for a moment, then looked back at his people and shouted in a low voice, "Come on, kill those idiots!"
