Xiang Xiaoqiang fell rapidly with his eyes closed, the wind whistling in his ears, and nothing in his mind. He followed the training steps, and after counting enough, he pulled the ring fiercely, and with a "bang" sound, a huge pulling force lifted him up.
As soon as he mentioned it, the sound of the wind disappeared and the surrounding area suddenly became quiet.
He opened his eyes and looked up first. The huge white umbrella above his head was open and bulging. He breathed a sigh of relief and began to look around.
The surroundings were very quiet, there was no sound at all, and I couldn't feel it falling at all. It seemed like it was still and floating in the air. This feeling was very comfortable.
In the distance, a dozen white dots were scattered in the night sky, sparsely scattered, some high, some low, some big, some small. Those were the parachutes of bicycles, packages and their brothers.
He counted and found exactly nineteen flowers. He couldn't tell how far away they were from him, but it looked okay. It didn't look like they were scattered. It shouldn't be too difficult later.
concentrated.
Xiang Xiaoqiang breathed out a sigh of relief. This was their best dance ever, much better than the three times they danced in the previous three days of training.
good sign.
…
I don’t know how long it took, but more than a dozen umbrella flowers in the distance fell to the ground one after another, and then they were pulled and shrunk by people, and they disappeared one after another.
Xiang Xiaoqiang lowered his head and stared at his feet, watching the gray ground getting closer and closer, the two or three trees on the field ridges quickly growing in size, and then even the dead grass and dirt were visible.
There was a sudden sound of wind in his ears, and he retracted his legs, his joints were hit hard, and he rolled to the ground. The parachute above his head covered him like a curtain.
Xiang Xiaoqiang rubbed his sore legs under the parachute cloth, and was glad that he still didn't break his leg after his fourth skydive. Even though it was a parachute, he knew that even a professional paratrooper would break his leg if he was unlucky.
He grabbed the heavy umbrella cloth with both hands and pulled himself out one by one. As soon as his head was exposed, he stopped and listened with bated breath for a while.
The surroundings were very quiet. Since it was winter, there were no insects or frogs chirping in the fields at night. There was no wind either. The situation in "Band of Brothers" where someone parachuted out and was dragged ten meters out by the strong wind did not happen.
Xiang Xiaoqiang quickly untangled the parachute rope on his body, took off his skydiving vest, and used his hands and feet to gather the large piece of white parachute cloth into a ball.
He sat the umbrella cloth under his buttocks, checked a big box in his waist and another Luger pistol, and took out a silencer as big as a small corn cob from his coat pocket and tried it.
Spin it on the Luger. It's good, it's not damaged. Then spin it off and install it again.
Xiang Xiaoqiang raised his eyes and looked around. Although the moonlight was very bright, he still couldn't see how far away he was. About ten meters away, under a dead tree, there was a large grave with lush grass and a few stones piled on it, like human heads.
Xiang Xiaoqiang felt panicked for a while, so he took out a small whistle specially made by Dongchang, put it on his mouth and blew it gently.
There was a pitiful cry of an owl in the silent night sky. Although Xiang Xiaoqiang was mentally prepared, hearing his own whistle still made his hair stand on end.
This kind of cry can travel very far, and it is very scary in the silent winter night. He took another deep breath and blew gently.
After a while, in the bare fields in the distance, there was a faint sound of soil being broken. Xiang Xiaoqiang immediately pulled out the speed switch, leaned down, stared in that direction, bit the whistle, and blew lightly again.
A white thing appeared in the distance, floating over one after another. Xiang Xiaoqiang's scalp felt numb, he turned on the machine, pointed there and drank softly:
"stop!"
The other side shouted softly:
"Uncle!"
It's the sound of a snail.
Xiang Xiaoqiang let out a long breath, felt relieved, lowered the muzzle of his gun, and sat on the parachute bag.
The snail carried a large ball of white umbrella cloth on its shoulders and pushed a bicycle with one hand, swaying over.
"Very good," Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said, "You are the first one. Are you hurt?"
"Don't worry, uncle, nothing's wrong!"
The two of them sat on their respective parachute bags, slowly checking the equipment, and continued to blow the whistle to Xiaoqiang to summon others.
Within ten minutes, everyone was pushing their carts and the last person was dragging a large cylindrical bag.
After counting the number of people, Xiang Xiaoqiang said with a smile:
"How about it, brothers? This dance was good, no one broke his leg. Is it a good sign?"
Everyone seemed very excited and whispered:
"Good sign good sign!"
"I didn't say anything!"
"Victory begins immediately, success is imminent!"
Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded, looking at the morale, there was no need for another pre-war mobilization. He took out his luminous pocket watch and looked at it, it was half past three.
He immediately directed everyone to open the cylindrical bags and take out everything. Finally, he took out an engineer shovel and spent twenty minutes taking turns digging holes and burying a bunch of parachutes and empty cylindrical bags in the field.
Then they began to divide things. Each person had a Qing army infantry backpack, which contained a set of common people's clothes, a raincoat, a medical bag, two bags of compressed biscuits and a can.
Xiang Xiaoqiang himself, Snail and Dongchang member "Stomach Pain" were identified as officers at the sticky pole department, with a Pelugu pistol on their waist and a powerful potbelly box hidden in their arms. The others were all soldiers, and everyone
A Mauser 98 rifle with 50 rounds of ammunition, three Qing army standard wooden handle grenades hanging on his waist, and a big belly box hidden in his arms.
Except for the two machine gunners, each of the others had a Thompson submachine gun. They were not equipped with the 30-round magazine, but were equipped with two 50-round drum magazines, which were packed together with the gun in a large canvas bag under the front frame of the bicycle.
Qing army's military bicycles usually have a large canvas bag like a postman under the front beam. When riding, ammunition, water bottles, pumps and other miscellaneous things are stored in it. Now it is suitable for submachine guns.
The "Woodpecker" machine gun was wrapped in oilcloth and clamped on the rear frame of a bicycle. The machine gunner's front pocket did not contain a submachine gun, but just machine gun ammunition.
Xiang Xiaoqiang is a captain, and the other two "officers" are lieutenants. Each of the three of them has a suitcase, one containing a radio, and the other two containing explosives, detonators, detonators and other equipment.
Xiang Xiaoqiang was surprised when he got the explosives given to them by Dongchang, because he found that they were not bundles of explosives as he imagined, but heavy pieces as big as matchboxes, with the words "
When I opened the paper package, I found that there was no sugar or pastry inside, but a light gray substance similar to dough or putty.
Then, Xiang Xiaoqiang was surprised to find that this was a plastic explosive. He only knew that the first widespread use of plastic explosives was during World War II. However, that was "widely used". Dongchang was a secret service agency and had been equipped with such things a few years earlier.
It's also normal.
This kind of thing is like plasticine. It can be shaped into various shapes at will and stuffed into a narrow space. It has stable performance and will not explode when heated or hit. It can only be detonated by inserting a detonator, and it is extremely powerful.
, best suited for things like blowing up railroad tracks.
The most famous plastic explosive is the later C4 explosive. The performance of that thing should not be too stable. It will not explode if it is hit with a gun or thrown into a fire. The only way is to use a detonator. Xiang Xiaoqiang does not know if he has plastic explosives on hand.
So stable, anyway, he knows that there is no problem at all if he sits under his butt and is bumped around in the car.
To be honest, there is a lot of equipment, and the total load is not light. The Mauser rifle alone weighs seven and a half kilograms, the Thompson submachine gun nearly ten kilograms, and the Woodpecker twenty-four kilograms (fortunately, there is only one). But based on their mode of transportation
Mainly the bicycle, not the legs, so the weight of more than 20 kilograms is nothing.
Moreover, Xiang Xiaoqiang positioned this operation as a raid, not a long-term guerrilla behind enemy lines, so firepower was far more important than flexibility.
In addition, according to intelligence, the prisoner-of-war train is equipped with four machine guns, two water-cooled Maxim heavy machine guns, and two Deggarev light machine guns, which are Soviet-style turntable machine guns. The four machine guns, two on each side, radiate from both sides of the railway.
The firepower can be said to be quite powerful.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the two machine guns on one side of the train were suppressed, Xiang Xiaoqiang did not choose a light machine gun at that time, but chose the slightly heavier but surprisingly powerful "Woodpecker" general-purpose machine gun. The so-called general-purpose machine gun is between light and heavy machine guns.
When equipped with a bipod, it can be used as a light machine gun, and when equipped with a tripod, it can be used as a heavy machine gun. In this era, there is only one type of mg34 (woodpecker). The German army just equipped it last year, and it can be said that it is still a "concept gun".
Originally, Dongchang recommended him a Czech-style light machine gun, which is the kind of thing in Anti-Japanese War movies that roars at every turn, stands up and shoots, and then gets shot and sacrificed. There is no doubt that the Czech-style light machine gun is the most popular one in this era.
An excellent light machine gun that shoots very accurately and is lighter than the Woodpecker. But it uses a magazine to feed ammunition, with only twenty rounds at a time. The rate of fire is also slow, and its firepower is too weak to suppress the firepower on the train. And "
The Woodpecker weighs only 12.1 kilograms as a general-purpose machine gun, and 9.6 kilograms as a light machine gun. Carrying it is really not as good as carrying a Woodpecker.
After the weapons and equipment were distributed, Xiang Xiaoqiang looked around at the team members. They were all full of energy, with excitement on their faces, breathing white air, and high morale.
He was very satisfied, took out the compass and looked at it, determined the direction, thinking:
The first thing to do now is to find out where we are and how far we are from the Jinpu Railway. Only in this way can we contact the rear and ask them to tell us how to contact the local underground organization and get help.
But now all I can see is farmland, and I don’t know how far away the nearest village is and in which direction. But there is a field trail about ten meters away, running north-south. First, ride along it in one direction, and you should be there soon.
You can see villages.
Thinking of this, he ordered:
"Get on that trail and go south first!"
After giving the order, everyone pushed the bicycles, one foot deep and one foot shallow, to the field road, got on the bike, and rode south.
Xiang Xiaoqiang rode in the front. Although there was moonlight and it was not difficult to see, it was still very unclear. He had to ride very carefully, otherwise he might fall into the field accidentally. Because of this, he rode in the first place.
A position to lead the brothers.
This kind of bicycle is an old-fashioned No. 28 large black frame bicycle. It is very tall. Xiang Xiaoqiang can barely stretch his legs to support the ground.
The air in the winter nights in the north is cold and dry, and it feels like filling your lungs with lead. The surrounding fields are silent, except for the occasional jingle of ten bicycles due to bumps. In the distance, there is a vast black night, and in front of you is only the white mist you exhale.
This feeling is very good, completely getting rid of the uncomfortable coldness and humidity in Jiangnan winter. Breathing in the cold and dry air, Xiang Xiaoqiang feels like he has returned to his hometown.
…
Although their group is equipped with powerful firepower, their concealment is very fragile. Explosives and radios are in their bags. A simple search will expose them all. So Dongchang arranged the most terrifying stick-sticking place for them.
Identity, complete with stick ID.
Their IDs are not temporary fake IDs. It can be said that they are all genuine. The ID itself is actually a small book. There is nothing true or false. Dongchang's technology can make it exactly the same as the one made by Sticky Stick. The so-called
The fake certificates mean that the General Administration of Sticky Stickers in Beijing did not register them. After the local sticky sticks office checked them, they called Beijing to inquire. If there is such a person, it is true. If there is not, then it is fake.
In order for this team to withstand the expected interrogations before the operation, including the interrogation of the Sticking Office itself, Dongchang spent a lot of money and mobilized a senior spy from the General Administration of Sticking Office in Beijing who was a high-ranking official to specially target this team.
The ID numbers, names, etc. of the ten people are registered in the General Administration. In this way, at least in terms of documents, the team is impeccable. But the cost is high. Once the operation fails and the team is captured, the spy in Beijing who filed the records for them will
Exposed. This matter was an order personally issued by Shen Rongxuan, the director of the Dongchang Factory, after weighing it for a long time.
Therefore, before they started to rob the train, as long as their identity at the "sticky pole" was not revealed, no one would dare to search them, only they could search others. And after Dongchang's careful arrangements, it was basically impossible for this level of identity to be revealed
broken.
Unless you really memorize the idea enough, before taking action, you actually have a direct confrontation with the Fourteenth Gege, or the group at Pukou Sticky Rod. But if you really memorize the idea, then don't say anything and pull it down.
…
After riding for a while, the gray ground in front suddenly disappeared, and a large black thing appeared. He raised his left hand to Xiaoqiang and snapped his fingers. The nine bicycles behind him suddenly braked to a stop, and he also lifted his legs.
Take a fork and stop on the road.
Xiang Xiaoqiang tried his best to observe the large piece of black in front of him. It seemed quite big and stretched over a large area, both to the left and right.
He waved his hand back to tell them to stay where they were. He pulled out the speed switch and carefully rode forward a few steps. He was surprised and stopped suddenly.
A breeze blew by, and sparkling waves appeared on the large black thing.
This is a large body of water.
Xiang Xiaoqiang put the gun back in, got out of the car and pushed forward, arriving at the water's edge.
Now I can see it more clearly, this is a big river, it looks quite big, nearly a hundred meters wide. There is no embankment on this side, it is a slope of soil that slowly extends into the water, with only a few clumps of weeds.
What kind of river is this? It’s so wide, so it’s definitely not an unknown river. What kind of big river could there be in this area?
Xiang Xiaoqiang snapped his fingers in the air again and shouted softly back:
"Everyone come here!"
His subordinates gathered around one after another, all staring at the big river in front of them. He took out the map to Xiaoqiang and ordered:
"Raincoat, flashlight!"
He opened the military rubber raincoat, climbed into it, turned on the flashlight, and looked at the map. He looked at the large area drawn out by the pilot before parachuting. This was a map of the eastern part of the Qing Dynasty. It was very detailed. This area
Dozens of rivers are marked out. Main streams and tributaries are intricate and intricate, like a spider web.
He looked upset and shouted:
"Zi Teng!"
Stomach pain came in.
"Ziteng," Xiang Xiaoqiang looked at the map and asked, "How wide a river would be marked on a map like yours of Dongchang?"
He scratched his head with a stomachache and said:
"Not necessarily, maybe a few dozen meters. Anyway, there are certainly no small rivers in the fields. A river this wide must be above it."
It was as if he hadn't said anything. Xiang Xiaoqiang shone the beam of light on his face and stared at him.
If your stomach hurts, quickly block the bright light with your hands and say with a smile:
"Team...Captain, that's not what I meant..."
Xiang Xiaoqiang said coldly:
"Then what do you mean? That's an interesting answer, isn't it?"
I was stunned for a moment because of my stomachache. I didn’t expect that this young boy would really look down. Thinking about Shangfeng’s instructions, he should not only observe Xiang Xiaoqiang, but also obey his orders. But obedience is the most important thing. As long as he does not surrender to the Qing Dynasty, he will
Be absolutely obedient to him.
He quickly stared back at the map, thought about it carefully, and replied:
"Captain, look, let's use the elimination method first. It's definitely not the Yellow River. Are you right?"
After he finished speaking, he stared at Xiang Xiaoqiang, observing his eyes. Xiang Xiaoqiang glanced at him, stared at the map, and analyzed in his mind:
Judging from the approximate position before parachuting, the Yellow River is indeed within the possible range. However, the lower reaches of the Yellow River near Jinan are mainly mountainous, and now it is obviously surrounded by vast plains. Secondly, although the river is wide, it has no levees and no
Maybe the Yellow River.
Thinking of this, he nodded to Xiaoqiang, looked into his stomach-ache eyes and said:
"Yes, that's right. It's not the Yellow River."
"Well," Stomachache saw the confidence in Xiang Xiaoqiang's eyes, confirming that he had come to his own conclusion, and then lowered his head and continued, "Captain, if we look again, it shouldn't be the Huaihe River. Right?"
Xiang Xiaoqiang stared at him impatiently and said directly:
"Are you trying to say that the Huaihe River Basin has many tributaries and a dense water network, but when we skydived just now, all we saw at high altitude were fields and not a single river? Also, the air in the Huaihe River Basin is not that dry?"
Stomachache smiled and said:
"Haha, yes, these are the two items. Okay, let's take a look now..."
"Du Ziteng, listen carefully," Xiang Xiaoqiang pulled his face, shined the flashlight on him, and said coldly, "I don't care what position you hold in the East Factory. Now we are all behind enemy lines, and our lives are tied together. I am
Captain, you are the team member. I may not be as professional as you in some things, but everyone here has something professional and something unprofessional. If I ask you, if I need you to provide professional advice, you have to say it, and you have to say it in one breath.
, you are not allowed to lie to me. After I complete the mission and return, I will ask you to be my teacher, and I can study with you exclusively, but here, I only need you to tell me that I don’t want you to attend classes.”
She had a stomachache and opened her mouth wide, staring at him dumbfounded, unable to say a word.