"Are you from the Ninety-sixth Division?" Tang Cheng looked at the dozen defeated troops in front of him in surprise. Tang Cheng, who had been huddled in the shelter outside Mandalay City, knew that the Fifth Army had the Ninety-sixth Division.
establishment, but he did not know that at the time when Huang Hanju left Myanmar, the 96th Division was resisting the attack of the two main divisions of the Japanese army in Pingmanna alone. The 96th Division suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Pingmanna, with a total of
8 officers were killed and 77 officers were wounded; 2,570 soldiers were killed and 1,346 wounded..
What was really strange about Tang Cheng was not that these broken troops belonged to the Ninety-sixth Division, but that he was curious about why these people from the Ninety-sixth Division did not retreat with the military brigade, but instead scattered in the mountains and forests like other broken troops.
"You also know that our Ninety-sixth Division suffered many casualties in Pingmanna. After receiving the order to retreat, our division followed the military headquarters at the beginning. However, we encountered a small group of soldiers on the way.
The Japanese were intercepting and beating us, and the troops at the rear were dispersed. We were chased into the woods and had no direction. We could only ask the locals for directions as we walked."
Tang Chengxin said that the locals you found had no good intentions, otherwise you wouldn't have turned back. If your group hadn't happened to appear behind that group of Japanese troops, you guys would have all been blamed here if there was any trouble.
The veteran sitting and talking with Tang Cheng is named Dong Liancheng, but Dong Liancheng, who has the rank of sergeant, is a veteran who has been in the army for more than 6 years. Otherwise, these stragglers would not be able to follow him willingly in the woods when they are separated from the main force.
Spin around.
"Since that's the case, just follow us. We are all going back to China anyway. It's better to walk together. If there are more people, we can have someone to take care of us when we encounter Japanese soldiers again." Tang Cheng could tell that Dong Liancheng
They are different from ordinary defeated troops. Dong Liancheng can also see that this group of people in Tangcheng is not simple. The battle just now is a good proof. Although it is impossible to follow such people all the time, but after all, there are many more
To ensure their survival, Dong Liancheng directly agreed without consulting his companions.
"This gun is indeed a good thing. I killed one-third of the 40 or so Japanese soldiers by myself. If I were still using the old Mauser rifle, I would probably be able to kill no more than 6 Japanese soldiers at most."
"Having agreed with Dong Liancheng to join forces, Tang Cheng immediately went to Hou San's side and asked the military doctor who came down the gentle slope to re-examine the wound on his chin. The loud voice of the dice was very loud down the gentle slope.
It was so conspicuous that Dong Liancheng and his group looked over one after another. Yanlong, whose marksmanship was not bad, stared at the sniper rifle in Dice's arms without blinking.
"Okay, just calm down for a while. I know you are great. You are the best in the world." Hou San, who finally couldn't stand it anymore, stuffed the bullet-filled helmet into Dice's arms. Dice's arrogant face was eye-catching.
It was really disturbing. The helmet that Hou San stuffed into Dice was full of rifle ammunition, which was replenished for Dice. After killing more than 40 Japanese soldiers, Hou San and the others seized a lot of money, so Hou San simply replenished it all at once.
Dice and more than a hundred bullets.
There were too many Japanese-style 38 rifles seized, and Tang Cheng and the others obviously couldn't take them away. Tang Cheng called Dong Liancheng and Hou San to discuss it, and decided to let more than half of the manpower replace the Japanese 38 rifles, at least for a while.
When they encountered a small group of Japanese troops, they had a source of ammunition replenishment. "Stick the grenades evenly to ensure that everyone has grenades, take away raincoats, military blankets and water bottles, and concentrate Mauser rifle bullets for good marksmanship."
"
Tang Cheng was the commander and the only one among them who could use the Japanese grenade, so the grenade captured from the Japanese army returned to Tang Cheng. Ma Dazhuang was fortunate enough to become Tang Cheng's gun mount and ammunition.
He was not only responsible for carrying the grenades for Tang Cheng, but also the 4 captured grenade grenades and 6 grenades. "Let's go, share the things, and everyone will take some." Tires
We couldn't take the bicycles that were already deflated. Fortunately, there were more people like Dong Liancheng and everyone brought some, so we could take away all the supplies that were originally tied to the bicycles.
Returning to the state of marching on foot again, Tangcheng and the others also began to slow down a little. They discovered several battlefield traces where the Chinese army and the Japanese army fought. Tangcheng and the others were finally able to confirm that the current direction of travel was correct. They left.
It had been a whole day since they killed the 40 Japanese soldiers in the open area. Tang Cheng and the others had not met a single living person. Dong Liancheng and the others were used to this situation during their escape, but in Tang Cheng's view, it was quite different.
Question, a feeling of uneasiness and restlessness began to rise from the bottom of Tang Cheng's heart.
Finally, after climbing over a mountain, Tang Cheng finally understood what was causing the uneasiness and restlessness in his heart. Yanlong and Dice, who had gone out to serve as scouts, discovered corpses again, a large number of corpses. Not counting them all in one place.
Behind the flat slope, hundreds of corpses were scattered among weeds and shrubs. The humid heat of northern Myanmar had caused these corpses to be highly decomposed, but they in Tangcheng still recognized from the color of the military uniforms on the corpses that they belonged to their national army.
Robe Ze.
"Get back, get back. You all think it's too slow to die, don't you?" When the military doctor who caught up from behind saw these rotting corpses, his first reaction was to take some from his medicine box.
He put a homemade mask on his mouth and nose, and then waved his arms to drive Tangcheng and the others back. Although the military doctor was a half-baked doctor, he also knew how germs were transmitted. So many corpses were rotting here. If they were accidentally infected,
If infected with the germ, none of them might survive.
After retreating for more than 200 meters, the military doctor took off the mask covering his mouth and nose and breathed a sigh of relief. "We are leaving here, can't we do something for them? Just watch them die here.
Finally mixed with the loess here?" Tangcheng had seen not only thousands of corpses, but he had also seen scenes even more tragic than before. He just couldn't stand the corpses of these national soldiers lying in the wilderness like that.
"What can we do? What else can we do if we don't just throw them away like that?" The military doctor's eyes also had moisture in his eyes. There are only about 30 of them now, and there were at least three to four hundred corpses in the area just now. It is up to them to bury the corpses.
, it will take at least a whole day. It is not difficult to bury the corpse. The military doctor is mainly afraid of the germs on the corpse. If it is really contaminated, it will be a trivial matter for many people to die, but those things are contagious.
of.
Everyone was looking at Tang Cheng, and many people's eyes were filled with moisture like the military doctor. Tang Cheng lowered his head, took out a cigarette, lit it, took one puff and threw the cigarette on the ground. "All the dead people.
They are our brothers in the national army. Now that we have encountered them, we cannot ignore them. When one day we die in the wild like them, I think you will also hope to have someone to help collect the bodies." Tangcheng has already done this.
Once the decision was made, the others had no choice but to obey. Besides, what Tang Cheng said just now also spoke to what they were thinking.
Without engineering shovels, they in Tangcheng could only use gas masks seized from the Japanese army as masks. They first used bayonets to dig trenches in the fields, then used grenades to blast holes in the ground, and finally used bayonets to slowly expand them.
The two female soldiers standing in the distance had already burst into tears because all the corpses were so rotten that they couldn't even move the corpses because Tang Cheng had thick cloth wrapped around their arms and hands.
As long as the force of the hand is a little stronger, the corpse full of corpse water and maggots will be scattered into rotten flesh and skeleton.
"If this doesn't work, let's just set it on fire, and finally put the ashes into the pit." Everyone knew that there was no way to move all these corpses into the pit, but Tang Cheng didn't say anything, and no one of them dared to say anything.
They set fire to the corpse, but in the end the military doctor couldn't stand it, so he went to Tang Cheng and suggested burning the corpse. "It's better to burn it. After all, it's like collecting the corpse for them. These brothers shouldn't know how to do it on Huangquan Road."
Blame us."
Tang Cheng thought for a while and nodded in agreement. The oil pulled out from the motorcycle was poured on the corpses. With just a match, the corpses turned into blazing charcoal fire. Standing upwind, Tang Cheng and the others kept watching.
Seeing those corpses finally burned to ashes by the fire, the sullen Hou San took Barbarian Niu into the forest to chop back a tree. After working hard for a while, he finally made a piece for these unnamed corpses.
A very simple tombstone.
The words on the tombstone were carved by Tang Cheng himself. There was no ink, and the final color was blood. Yanlong caught a snake from the forest. The snake meat was used as lunch, and the snake blood was brought by Tang Cheng for the words on the tombstone.
The words are colored. The words "Tomb of 300 Martyrs of the New 22nd Division" on the tombstone are very neatly carved by Tangcheng. The white wood stubble with the red fonts looks a bit shabby, but under the eyes of Hou San and others
In my eyes, such a tombstone is better than the stone tombstone that the old man from the country spent a lot of money to buy.
Tang Cheng had no way to confirm the identities of these corpses. He only confirmed from a document dropped among the corpses that there were people from the New 22nd Division, so he simply regarded these corpses as belonging to the New 22nd Division. The bullets on the corpses
The holes have been confirmed to have been left behind by Japanese bullets, but most of the corpses had their arms tied behind their backs. This shows that Tang Cheng is a bit hard to accept. 300 people, which is the number of people in two companies, are so willing to be killed by the Japanese army.
He was beaten to death in the wilderness with his hands tied. In Tangcheng, he would never have done such a mindless thing.
It was speculated that these corpses were all killed after surrendering to the Japanese army. Hou San and the others felt very uncomfortable. Since they had surrendered to the Japanese army, their death was in vain. "Forget it, everyone is already dead, don't say such angry words
It's over." Tang Cheng felt very uncomfortable, but as the commander, he couldn't let this emotion spread, so he could only stop it with words.