Burma, 1942, Northwest of the Miwa Highway

The rain was pouring down, and the endless primeval forest was even more damp and muddy, and if you weren't careful, you would slip and fall on your body covered in muddy water. It doesn't matter if it's muddy water, countless locusts in the muddy puddle will take the opportunity to burrow into your clothes and suck your blood desperately, and everyone's legs are full of wriggling locusts.

Zhao Zhi looked at the densely wriggling locusts in the mud pit, his throat twitched, and he retched while hugging the big tree beside him. In fact, he had semi-high-waisted American-made military boots on his feet, and his legs were thickly leggings made of old military uniforms, and the locusts could not stick to his flesh at all. But even so, seeing the wriggling locusts in the mud pit, Zhao Zhi couldn't help but feel disgusted.

"Nothing to do, right?" Hunan soldier Changmao helped Zhao Zhi. Long hair is called Yu Deshui, he is a sapper, because he always said that his ancestors were generals of the Taiping Army, so everyone called him Long hair.

"Little white face, stay away from the long hair, be careful that your ass blooms" Uncle Guo in the back opened his mouth and shouted at Zhao Zhi. Zhao Zhi didn't react for a while, and was about to ask what Uncle Guo meant. Holding his long hair, he quickly spoke, and shouted at Uncle Guo, "Okay, you Uncle Guo, you old guy who has been half cut into the ground in the dog's day, why do you always ruin the reputation of others?" ”

"You're a rabbit on a dog's day, and you like to stare at men's butts all day long, aren't you disgusting?" The pouring rain did not lower Uncle Guo's loud voice, and everyone laughed in the ranks. Uncle Guo's name is Ma Yunbiao, he is almost fifty years old this year, and it is said that he is related to a certain bigwig in the military department. Participating in the expeditionary force into Burma, I originally just wanted to mix up some qualifications so that I could be promoted to an officer, but I didn't expect to be chased into this vast mountain forest by the Japanese army. Uncle Guo and Long Hair are the two living treasures in the team, and if they don't make a few scenes every day, they will be full of energy, and everyone will feel that something is missing.

In fact, Zhao Zhi was very depressed, three days ago, Zhao Zhi's Fifth Army directly under the team was surrounded by the Japanese army on the Miwa Highway, and when the breakthrough occurred, Zhao Zhi and the large army were scattered, and as a result, Zhao Zhi who broke out of the encirclement ran together with a group of guys from the new 22nd Division. After some counting, among the dozens of people who ran out, Zhao Zhi, the captain, had the largest military rank, so the quartermaster Zhao Zhi became the supreme commander of this small army of rout.

The soldiers of the Nationalist Army, who had been chased and beaten by a small group of Japanese troops in the dense forest, had long become frightened birds, and they did not have the courage to turn around and fight again, so they just walked silently in the dense forest, silently walking in the direction of home.

Sleeping in the open air, he walked in this dense forest for two days and two nights as if he was desperate, without stopping for a moment, and a lot of heavy equipment was thrown in the dense forest and lost to the Japanese army. It's not that you don't want to take a piece with you, but there is really no way to bring it, the humid and hot dense forest consumes everyone's physical strength, and those heavy equipment really can't be handled. There is now a shortage of food and clothing in the team, even the most basic bullets, there are only a few per person, and there are only 4 grenades in the team of more than 50 people.

In the dense primeval forest, there was nothing but locusts and pouring rain, except for their team of people who were anxious to go home. Zhao Zhi looked up at the gray sky, wiped the rain on his face, touched the Browning pistol on his waist, lowered his head to follow the soldiers in front of him, brushed aside the branches and vines, and worked hard to move forward.

Almost all of the remaining 50 people in the team are from the first regiment of the new 22nd Division, and all of them are veterans temporarily recruited in the Tengchong Defeat Shelter, and they are veterans who have fought many defeats. These people are very good at fighting, how to dodge shells, how to avoid Japanese scouts, these are all lessons learned with flesh and blood in many defeats. It was with the existence of these veterans that Zhao Zhi and his team survived the two-day rout, but they never engaged the Japanese army.

Suddenly there was a burst of birdsong ahead, and the goats at the head of the queue raised their hands and signaled the team to stop, telling everyone to be on guard. The birdsong was sent out by a scout, and the first point was that the Japanese army or something else had been spotted.

The other soldiers also scattered, lying in twos and threes in the bushes, and no one cared about the locusts in the muddy water. It's been two days since they've entered the forest, and this is the first time they've heard the scout's alarm, and everyone is nervous.

Zhao Zhi hid in the bushes, clutching his Browning pistol tightly in his hand, and looked nervously ahead. Zhao Zhi, who had attended the officer's short training course, knew how important it was for soldiers to cooperate with each other when they were about to fight. Once the war starts, whether these guys will listen to their own commands is another matter. Besides, with their own pitiful military literacy, it is estimated that these soldiers and ruffians will not listen to themselves.

The goats at the head of the team, half-crouched on the ground, looking hard ahead. But in this dense forest, you can't see much at all, and you can't hear anything other than the sound of rain. The goat waited for a while, and his heart couldn't help but be anxious, and he slowly drew the bayonet on his waist, and was about to touch it.

Suddenly, the bushes in front of him shook, and a head poked out, it was a scout machete. He raised his hand and shook it at the goat, signaling that it was all right. "It's all right, get up," the goat stood up, beckoning to the soldiers who were on covert alert. The machete is an outlier in the team, he is a Yi ethnic group, his village was bombed by Japanese planes, he carried a long knife into the expeditionary force, ready to go to Burma to fight devils. But before the devils killed a few, the expeditionary force was scattered, this guy doesn't talk much on weekdays, and sharpens his long knife when he has nothing to do, saying that he wants to cut off the heads of 100 devils and avenge the villagers in the village. The machete grew up in the mountains of Yunnan since he was a child and was familiar with the mountains and forests, so he acted as a scout to open the way for the team.

The goat is a Shaanxi baby, he was a hunter before he became a soldier, and this guy ran fast on the mountain road, like walking on the ground, so everyone called him a goat. Moreover, the goat's marksmanship is very good, and his ear power is excellent, so he became the vanguard of the team. The vanguard was the most dangerous, but the goat was not afraid, he thought of his brothers who had died in battle, and he wanted to meet them.

The machete rushed out of the bushes, and Zhao Zhi and the others surrounded it, without waiting for everyone to speak. The machete said with a cold face, "Ahead, there are a lot of dead people"

They are all people who have experienced life and death many times, and who has never seen a dead person. But the tone of the machete made everyone feel that something was not quite right, and there must be something different. "Everyone, be careful, goat, you take a few people to a few people to see the situation first"

Although the pouring rain had subsided, the ground was still muddy. The goats and the others could only follow the machete and walk along the edge of the bushes. Because only the roots of the shrubs there are developed, and the branches and leaves are mixed with muddy water and leaves, which is obviously much easier to walk than the muddy water that is all over the ground. Dense bushes are also good shelters, and in case of emergencies, they can be effectively camouflaged and protected.

Bypassing a few tall old trees and a bush, a clearing appeared in front of me, and the lush long grass was washed by the rain, and the color was extremely green, like a thick green blanket, which was pleasing to the eye. It's just that a pile of corpses appeared very abruptly in the green carpet, and the tattered expeditionary army uniforms and medium-sized rifles on the corpses proved that these corpses were some soldiers of the expeditionary force.

The machete pointed at the corpse and whispered, "At first, when I saw the reflection of the spear here, I thought there was an ambush, but later I found out that they were all corpses"

Then Zhao Zhi, who followed up, sighed and said, "They are all people who died for the country, bury them." You can't take them back, but at least don't let them be violent corpses in the wilderness" After speaking, Zhao Zhi took off the steel helmet on his head and bowed deeply to these corpses. Goats and others naturally followed suit. The machete, who believed in the gods, even fell to his knees and kowtowed a few times with words in his mouth.