Hearing that the civilian casualties during the battle were so huge, Yang Zhen frowned deeply. Considering the Japanese army's consistent style and its ability to ignore even its own people when necessary, in During the battle, the Chinese in the city will not be evacuated.
In addition to not treating the Chinese as human beings at all in their eyes, the greatest use of these Chinese to them is that they can be used as human shields at any time, so even if the battle is fierce, they will not I would think of evacuating the Chinese people in advance.
Linxi has been an important transportation thoroughfare for the entire northern region of Rehe since ancient times. It is surrounded by the Mongolian League Banner. Now it is the only county seat in the entire Hung Anxi Province. It can be said to be the commercial center of the entire Hung Anxi Province. It starts from the Zalut Banner in the north. It is the commercial distribution center of the entire Mongolian inhabited area in Western Manchuria to the Keshiketeng Banner in the south.
There are a large number of merchants concentrated here. At its peak, there were thousands of merchants in Linxi County alone, employing tens of thousands of people. Even now, there are hundreds of merchants. Compared to the Mongolians who are accustomed to nomadic herding, Most of the residents in Linxi County are Han Chinese.
This is very rare in the entire Western Manchuria area west of Tongliao, which is mainly a Mongolian inhabited area. When the 23rd Division of Hailar retreated, it was able to eliminate all Mongolian and Han people in the city without threatening it. The common people were slaughtered, and now the 23rd Division would not consider the casualties of the Han people.
Yang Zhen was mentally prepared for the fact that ordinary people might be accidentally injured in the battle for Linxi County. When Wang Guangyu first entered Linxi, he had warned him that he must pay attention to the Japanese army's use of the Chinese. The purpose of human shield is to fight in the wild as much as possible to avoid attacking the county town and causing heavy casualties to the people.
But no one expected that although it only lasted a few months, with the Kwantung Army's supplements at all costs, despite the heavy losses during the previous retreat from Hailar, twenty-three men had already recovered all their strength. The division will put up such a tortoise formation that you can do whatever you want, but I just won’t show up.
Not to mention that the Japanese army, which has always advocated the offensive, in addition to adopting constant tactical counterattacks to delay time, basically only carried out defensive tactics of passive defense relying on the completed fortifications. In desperation, in order to eliminate the 23rd Division as soon as possible , if field battles fail, they can only be replaced by strong attacks.
In the battle of Linxi, tens of thousands of civilians suffered casualties, which can be said to have set a record for the largest civilian casualties in a battle since the emergence of the Anti-Japanese Alliance. However, as long as the Japanese army did not take the initiative to abandon Linxi County, the 23rd Division would remain in power. Judging from the defensive strength in Linxi County, this kind of accidental injury is very avoidable.
If Wang Guangyu hadn't used the tactic of luring snakes out of their holes to annihilate most of Linxi's defenders in the wild, the remaining 20,000 people would probably not have survived. After all, cannonballs and bullets don't have eyes, and people can He could tell whether the opponent was an enemy or a friend, but he couldn't tell the difference between bullets. Especially when the enemy he faced was an unscrupulous army, it was difficult to avoid accidental injuries.
In response to Wang Guangyu's self-blaming expression, Yang Zhen shook his head and said: "This time the situation is tense and the situation is special. Moreover, I am partly responsible for the time I set for you to die. The blame cannot be all on you, so I can forgive you for this." Once, but there is one thing you should remember, it will not be the same next time. If something similar happens again, even if the number of people lost is only one-tenth of this time, I will deal with you seriously."
"Why are we fighting bloody battles on the battlefield? As a senior commander, you should know that what else do you want us to do when the common people are all gone? So I don't want a similar incident to happen again. We will never Don’t forget, we are the people’s army.”
"As for now, you should immediately coordinate with Yi Jianping, deploy a group of capable political workers from the Political Department, and immediately go to the masses to comfort the people. In addition, you should increase the intensity of search and rescue. As long as there is still a little hope of rescue, we will Don’t give up any effort.”
"Under the ruins of the entire county, there must be quite a few survivors who have not been discovered. Although the Japanese army will not build civil defense fortifications for the Chinese, nor will they allow the Chinese to build civil defense fortifications, the common people in Linxi County I’m sure every family has a cellar for storing vegetables in winter.”
"Although these cellars are not as good as specially built civil defense fortifications, they still have certain protective capabilities. As long as they are not directly hit by artillery fire and the people hiding in them survive, there is still no big problem. You also know the actual situation on the battlefield. , as long as they are not exposed on the battlefield and are not killed by stray bullets and shell fragments, people can still survive."
"Although it is a little simpler and the protection is a little worse, it is much better than nothing. However, these cellars have simple exits and are generally located around buildings, especially houses. The distances are relatively close and can easily be As long as the collapsed buildings are not crushed, there is still hope for rescue. You must organize manpower to clear the ruins as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary casualties caused by long-term lack of oxygen."
In response to Yang Zhen's request, Wang Guangyu nodded and said: "No. 1, don't worry, we have done what you said. Political Commissar Yi is now leading the personnel of the Political Department to appease the rescued people. Logistics The Ministry of Health has also allocated a batch of food relief, and the Ministry of Health is also doing its best to treat the injured."
"At the suggestion of Political Commissar Yi, we adopted a work-for-relief method, organized young laborers to clean up the ruins of the county town, and conducted rigorous search and rescue operations. At the same time, we also conducted a rigorous search and rescue operation on a large number of Japanese corpses and Japanese expatriates inside and outside the city. bodies, disinfected and buried.”
"Although the temperature on this dam is relatively cool, it is summer after all. Once a large number of corpses rot under the high temperature, it will be really bad to cause a plague. This thing is more terrifying than war, and it is far more lethal than artillery shells. Even more serious, once a plague occurs, not only the common people but also our soldiers will be difficult to escape."
"No. 1, can you ask the rear to airlift a batch of lime and special anti-epidemic materials to us? There are too many corpses, and the lime in our hands is a strategic material controlled by the Japanese army, so the quantity seized is not large, and we still need to To disinfect the entire county battlefield, the quantity is really insufficient."
Yang Zhen was very satisfied that Wang Guangyu and the others had already started the follow-up search and rescue work. As for the lime he requested, Yang Zhen shook his head and said: "I can ask the rear to airlift a batch of lime for you, and We are replenishing a batch of medicines. However, the corpses of the Japanese soldiers should not be sterilized. Instead, pour gasoline or kerosene on them and burn all the viruses with a fire. The plague will be gone. There is no place to bury wild beasts on our Chinese land. .”
There is a punishment in ancient China called breaking the bones and raising ashes, which is a manifestation of holding the dead accountable. Although it does not appear in any law, it is undoubtedly more unacceptable than digging up graves and whipping corpses. Although Yang Zhen said These four words were not mentioned here, but they always reminded Wang Guangyu of this word. Moreover, the attitude of No. 1 made him naturally think of what happened in Hailar at the beginning of the year. The 23rd Division was responsible for this. The massacre that was caused.
As one of the witnesses of the Hailar Massacre, Wang Guangyu is very aware of the excitement that this massacre in Hailar, which can be said to have happened under the eyes of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, brought to No. 1. If it had been another Japanese soldier, No. 1 I'm afraid this decision will not be made, but as the main culprit of that massacre, No. 1's decision to make this decision may have some other flavor here.
In order to avenge the tens of thousands of people who died in Hylar during the retreat of the 23rd Division, No. 1 had sent out all the aviation forces with all the combat effectiveness at hand, and adopted all possible means to attack this Hylar giant. The culprits of the massacre were hunted down and annihilated.
If the 23rd Division, which was almost forced into a desperate situation, had not detoured to Outer Mongolia, I am afraid that my opponent today would have changed. Before I detoured to Linxi this time, No. 1 once explained the combat mission. He has repeatedly emphasized that no matter how high the price is, the 23rd Division must be completely surrounded and annihilated in Linxi.
This is not only the need of the overall battle, but also to avenge the tens of thousands of people in Hailar who died tragically under the knife of the Japanese army. This is a military task, but it is also a political task. It is also a reminder to other Japanese divisions to let them understand. Once the Chinese become vengeful, they will be even more vicious than them.
Although Wang Guangyu also hated the 23rd Division, he did not agree with Yang Zhen's method of crushing bones and scattering ashes. This is not only a tradition in China for thousands of years, but also in Wang Guangyu's case. In Guangyu's opinion, this approach is a bit too extreme.
Since the Japanese soldiers have been killed on the battlefield, the account has been settled. At this time, it is obviously a bit awkward to attack the corpses. Moreover, Wang Guangyu's command does not have that much gasoline to burn so many corpses. Using precious gasoline to burn these corpses is obviously a waste.
Seeing that Wang Guangyu was hesitant and wanted to persuade him but hesitated to speak, Yang Zhen stood up and walked to the door of Wang Guangyu's headquarters. He listened to the rumbling sound of artillery not far away and was silent for a long time. Cai Dao said: "I admit that burning the corpses of these Japanese soldiers is indeed a revenge for the massacre of the 23rd Division in Hailar."
"I am not that open-minded. Soldiers fight on the battlefield. No matter what the reason is, as long as he died in battle, his body should be respected, because we are all soldiers, and war is our duty. What's more, It is our mission. From the day we put on the military uniform, we should be prepared to be shrouded in horse leather."
"But an army like the 23rd Division, which is like a beast that slaughters my unarmed innocent people, does not deserve any respect, because what they have done is not even worthy of the word soldier. An army whose opponent is The enemy, not the innocent people who did nothing to harm them."
"Broken bones and ashes, in my opinion, is the lightest punishment. If there was no discipline, I would have killed all the prisoners alive, so that all the Japanese soldiers would know that what they did was absolutely unacceptable. Without being punished, let them consider whether they can bear the price of our revenge the next time they raise the butcher's knife."
"But we are not beasts, we are soldiers, so I cannot do such a thing, and strict discipline cannot allow us to do such a thing, cremate the bodies of Japanese soldiers who died in battle. First, the Japanese soldiers themselves have cremation This tradition of the war dead is due to the fact that it is summer, and the corpses left unprocessed for a long time can easily cause plague."
"The third point, as I said before, is that there is no place to bury these beasts on China's land, and they are not exposed to death in the wilderness, which is already cheap enough for them. Also, our air transport capacity is limited. At present, we can only ensure that you and the support There is not much spare power to transport you enough lime necessary for marching into battle."