Just when the 1st Brigade was stationed in Hejian County and solved the problem of Gao Shuncheng's troops, Li Qing commanded the 3rd Brigade to divide the road and pounced on Wuqiang, Shenxian, Xianxian, and Jiaohe.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Zhong Zanda, the head of the Ninth Regiment, and Chen Zixu, the political commissar of the Ninth Regiment, led the troops to arrive around the county seat of Wuqiang.

This Wuqiang county was originally occupied by Duan Haizhou's department, and after the army's large-scale purge began, Duan Haizhou led his troops to break through and transfer. Because Wuqiang is an important fulcrum on the Cangshi Road, after the occupation of the army, not only a large number of troops were stationed here, but also a puppet army was dispatched to assist in the defense. This part of the puppet army is the three departments of Shi Province that were originally active in the east of the Fuyang River.

It turned out that in the encirclement of the iron arm of the Yue army, Shi Sheng's three divisions were defeated and scattered by the Yue army, and Shi Shengsan surrendered to Yue Kou with a group of remnants such as Chen Lianju and Zhou Chaogui, and was reorganized into a regiment of the puppet North China Public Security Army. The use of military waste allows the three leading departments of Shi Province to temporarily assist in the defense of Wuqiang County.

Last night, the captain of the army stationed in Wuqiang informed Shi Shengsan that the imperial army was going to Baoda Road to pursue the Eighth Route Army, and asked him to lead his troops to stick to the county seat of Wuqiang.

Where did Shi Shengsan know that the Yue army was retreating in a panic, thinking that the Yue army was really going to pursue the Eighth Route Army and hand over a huge Wuqiang County to his own management, and he was happy for a while. After sending the army away, Shi Xingsan directly asked people to arrest the daughter of a shop owner, and a little Dengke came.

On the morning of the first day of the new year, Shi Xingsan woke up and took two puffs, and after he was addicted, he saw that the girl he had caught last night was still curled up on the bed crying, so he yelled impatiently: "What are you crying about?" Lao Tzu took a fancy to you, and you were a blessing from your ancestors burning high incense for eight generations. Women are born to make people sleep, and it is much better to let Lao Tzu sleep than to let poor ghosts sleep! If you weren't for the fact that you were still smart, you wouldn't sleep if you wanted Lao Tzu to sleep! If you dare to cry again, Lao Tzu will send you to Yu himself, and let them spoil you to death! ”

The girl stopped crying and stared at Shi Shengsan with a pair of frightened eyes.

Shi Shengsan felt that it was really fucking unlucky, wasn't she just a yellow flower girl? Lao Tzu has slept a lot in this life, and he is crying like this girl, how can Lao Tzu pull the team and be the commander?

Shi Shengsan, who felt unlucky, no longer paid attention to the girl, turned around and walked out of the bedroom, and went to the regiment headquarters.

Sitting on the Taishi chair and blinking his eyes and thinking for a long time, Shi Xingsan asked the orderlies to call Chen Lianju and Zhou Chaogui, saying that they were going to entertain the gentry and celebrities in the Wuqiang County Political Axe Courtyard, and let the two of them go and prepare.

This Shi Shengsan is different from Gao Shuncheng, Gao Shuncheng is a native of the country, believes that rabbits do not eat the grass by the nest, and generally does not do great evil locally. Shi Xingsan was born in an old soldier, traveled south and north, and has already developed a black-hearted spleen, believing that there is good grass next to the nest, why run around. Otherwise, he would not have crossed the river and demolished the bridge, and brutally killed Ji Mengkuan's father and son. What's more, Gao Shuncheng immediately negotiated surrender when the devil's army arrived, and the troops did not suffer any losses. Shi Xingsanyi saw that the devil's army was sweeping, and immediately concentrated his troops to escape, but he was unlucky, the intelligence was not good, and he fell into the devil's encirclement, and when he was about to raise the white flag and surrender, the devil's firepower had already been launched. In addition, Shi Xingsan and Zhou Chaogui killed Ji Mengkuan's father and son unpopularly, many people didn't want to follow him for a long time, but they were afraid that he would not dare to flee, and the army was beaten, casualties and escapes, and the 7,000-strong army soon left only a thousand people, and the army did not want to see him, only gave a regiment number, not to mention, and the issue of military pay was not even mentioned.

Although Zhou Chaogui was born as a peasant, this guy was thorough and extremely cruel, and when he heard that Shi Shengsan was going to entertain the gentry and celebrities in Wuyi, he had already understood it and knew that Commander Shi was going to make a fortune. immediately ran out and gathered the team to inform the merchants in Wuqiang County.

Chen Lianju was a little worried that he would be disgusted by being too hasty, and asked if he would inform the imperial army to avoid misunderstanding.

Shi Xingsan glared at him and said, "I can't wait to loot it first, who doesn't like money?" If it weren't for money, women and land, why did I come so far to fight China? Don't worry, we are inviting these merchants and gentry to drink and preach goodwill, and it is too late for me to be happy. When the money is in hand, just give a little to myself. Besides, they didn't say that they would pay us for the military, so let the brothers drink the northwest wind during the New Year? ”

While the two of them were talking, Zhou Chaogui ran back with a lot of urine and opened his mouth to shout: "The commander is not good, the imperial army is back and has entered the city." ”

"What did you say?" Shi Xingsan stood up immediately.

Zhou Chaogui took a few breaths, and then said: "Commander, I took the brothers to arrest people to the banquet, and as soon as I went to a shop to arrest the boss, I saw that the imperial army had returned, and all the brothers were disarmed, saying that we were in rebellion. Now, the Imperial Army has marched to our barracks. I slipped back to report the news. ”

Shi Shengsanyi was taken aback when he heard this, if he let him disarm the team, then he would still be a fart? But you can't play tricks with yourself, you will die faster like that. It seems that it can only be soft, break the wealth and eliminate the disaster!

Hurriedly asked the orderlies to bring their money boxes, took out a few small yellow croakers from it and put them in their pockets, Shi Xingsan pulled Chen Lianju and Zhou Chaogui out of the regiment headquarters with the guards, and walked towards the street, ready to find the imperial army to explain the misunderstanding clearly.

When I walked to the street, I found that the imperial army had blocked the county seat, and my regimental headquarters was surrounded by the imperial army, and the streets were full of imperial soldiers with rifles with bayonets. As soon as they saw a group of people from Shi Province walking out of the puppet army headquarters, those imperial soldiers were not polite at all, and when they came up, they beat them with the butts of their guns, and they also confiscated all the guns of a group of people. Shi Shengsan saw that it was not a play, and hurriedly shouted: "I am Shi Shengsan, the commander of the security corps, I want to see Taijun, I am loyal to the imperial army." ”

The shout worked, and the Imperial soldiers stopped beating. Shi Shengsan was still wondering, daring to love the imperial army could also understand Chinese, so he heard an imperial army officer ask: "You are Shi Shengsan?" ”

Shi Xingsan nodded hurriedly, and wanted to speak again, so he heard the imperial army officer say: "Platoon leader, report to the regiment commander, catch Shi Shengsan." ”

Only then did Shi Shengsan know that he had been fooled, where was this imperial army, it turned out that the Eighth Route Army was coming to attack the city in disguise. It's just that I don't know where this Eighth Route Army came from, and Meng Qingshan's Hebei guerrilla army doesn't have such good weapons and equipment. This is over, if it falls into the hands of the Eighth Route Army, where will he still die!

Thinking in his heart, his hands didn't stop, Shi Xingsan stomped his feet, bowed his waist, and rushed towards the officer of the Eighth Route Army, wanting to grab the hostage and protect him from escaping.

Who knew that this group of Eighth Route Army disguised as an army was not only well equipped with weapons, but also very hard in their hands, only listening to a few fluttering sounds, several bayonets stabbed Shi Xingsan in the back at the same time, lifting him high and falling to the ground.

This time, Chen Lianju and Zhou Chaogui, who were beaten to the side, were scared of incontinence, and the feces and urine came out, and the smoke was stinky.

The officer of the Eighth Route Army scolded the bad seeds, and asked the soldiers to tie up Chen Lianju, Zhou Chaogui and their guards, and walked into the puppet regiment headquarters by themselves.

This officer of the Eighth Route Army is Song Wenhu, the heroic platoon commander who is guarding the west gate under Tianshui City. After the Tianshui War, Song Wenhu went to the teaching team of the Seventh Army Corps again for training and was received by the regiment commander Liu Yimin. After the training, Liu Yimin personally ordered the general to transfer Song Wenhu from the 38th Regiment of the 13th Division to the 39th Regiment as the company commander, that is, the commander of the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Brigade after the reorganization.

When the Ninth Regiment rushed to the vicinity of Wuqiang County this morning, it knew from the mouths of the villagers that the three divisions of Shi Province, which had just surrendered to the enemy, were defending the city, and that the army had quietly withdrawn last night. The regiment commander Zhong Zanda and the political commissar Chen Zixu discussed, and simply continued to disguise the army and enter the city directly, without wasting ammunition.

The troops all wore leather boots and military coats, as long as the hat and armband of the Eighth Route Army were removed, and then the steel helmet and the small sun flag were put on, and it was not troublesome to change clothes.

The puppet army guarding the city thought that the imperial army that had gone to pursue the Eighth Route Army last night had returned, and the sentry didn't even dare to let out a fart, and the troops swaggered into Wuqiang County.

Song Wenhu is already an old Red Army and an old Eighth Road, and he has become a good fighter, so he took his company directly to the puppet army headquarters, and on the way, he not only arrested the puppet army led by Zhou Chaogui to arrest the shop owner, but also beat the rabbit with grass and caught Shi Xingsan. The fly in the ointment is that Shi Xingsan was stabbed to death by the soldiers when he tried to resist, and the public trial conference could not be held.

By the time Zhong Zanda and Chen Zixu entered the city, Wuqiang County had already returned to the people.

If it is in a normal year, at this time, Wu Qiang, who is known as the hometown of wood-paneled New Year paintings, is the time when the Spring Festival couplets are red, firecrackers are springing, and every household is fragrant with dumplings. Due to the great purge of the devils, the anti-armed forces from all walks of life in Wuqiang's activities retreated, and Wuqiang's lives were devastated. Zhong Zanda and Chen Zixu traveled all the way, and on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, all villages, villages, and towns were quiet, and there was not even a single sound of firecrackers.

Chen Zixu is a cultural person, and he knows Wu Qiang's wood-block New Year paintings very well, and knows that Wuqiang's New Year paintings are as famous as Tianjin Yangliu Youth Paintings, Shandong Weifang Yangjiabu New Year Paintings, Jiangsu Taohuawu New Year Paintings, Sichuan Mianzhu New Year Paintings, and Henan Zhuxian Town New Year Paintings, and is known as the hometown of Chinese New Year paintings. The themes of Wu Qiang's New Year paintings are diverse, the images are simple, and most of them are closely related to the reality of life. There is a folk saying that teaches "South Peach (Taohuawu) Beiliu (Yang Liuqing) on painting villages, and the number of farmer New Year paintings is Wuqiang", which is the artistic characteristics of Wuqiang's wood-board New Year paintings: local atmosphere and local characteristics. Chen Zixu's favorite is the opera story in Wu Qiang's New Year's paintings, when he was a child, his family often tried his best to ask people to buy this kind of New Year's paintings, and now he still remembers a song that his father taught him to praise Wuqiang's opera story New Year's paintings: "Shandong Liufu half the sky, not as good as Sichuan half of Sichuan." It is said that Tianjin is densely populated, and it is not as good as Wuqiang Nanguan. Singing thousands of operas a day, I don't know where the stage is. ”

Seeing that the county town of Wuqiang was slaughtered and there was no New Year's atmosphere, Zhong Zanda and Chen Zixu immediately ordered the troops to change back into the clothes of the Eighth Route Army, unfurl the national flag, and announce to the masses that our army had recovered Wuqiang.

Since this Wuqiang is famous for New Year's paintings, there are many opportunities for people's education and exchange, and many years later, an old Balu recalled the experience of Wuqiang's persistence in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and said with deep feelings: "Wuqiang is a place where the people's cultural quality is high and their consciousness is high. "Teaching the Ninth Regiment to change its clothes and play the national flag, Wuqiang County was lively, and the common people poured into the streets, surrounding the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army to ask questions. Firecrackers also sounded, Spring Festival couplets and New Year's pictures began to be posted, and every household had a New Year's atmosphere.

Taking into account the factor of the bombing by the planes, Zhong Zanda and Chen Zixu ordered the troops to immediately mobilize the masses to leave the streets and go home for the New Year, so as to avoid being discovered by the planes and carrying out the bombing. In addition to the vigilant troops, all units took their squads as units, brought rations and gifts, and went to the homes of villagers in the county seat and the villages and towns around the county seat to celebrate the New Year and to publicize and mobilize the masses.

After arranging the rest of the troops and the New Year, Chen Zixu asked Zhong Zan to guard the regimental headquarters, and he took the guards to Nanguan, and plunged into the treasure house of Wuqiang's wood-block New Year paintings, and began to appreciate it slowly.

Chen Zixu knew that during the period from Kangxi to Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, when the Wuqiang woodblock prints were in their heyday, there were 144 painting shops in Nanguan alone, with workshops in front of the shop and behind the workshop, production and marketing in one, and thousands of farmers in more than 60 villages around had painting workshops, and there were more than 180 wholesale stores in other places, and the New Year's paintings were sold all over the country. The area around Nanguan was "every household dyeing, every household Danqing", forming the largest creation, production and sales base of New Year's pictures in the north. Although it is now the period of the Anti-Japanese War, the army only arrived here in this large-scale encirclement and suppression, and the time is very short, and the poison to the New Year painting industry is limited. As soon as he knew that the Eighth Route Army had recovered Wuqiang, it was estimated that the owners of those painting shops would soon open for business.

Chen Zixu felt that since joining the Red Army, the first day of this new year was the most leisurely. The troops fought successively, and the army was terrified. When I arrived in Wuqiang, I could fulfill the dream of visiting the production process of New Year's pictures since I was a child.

Tribute paper, door paintings, middle hall paintings, strip screens, Buddhist paintings, god codes, window paintings, couplets, shadow murals, kang paintings, lamp paintings, group calligraphy paintings, opera story paintings, agricultural customs paintings, current affairs news paintings, satirical humor paintings, auspicious allegorical paintings, etc., etc., made Chen Zixu look intoxicated. In the end, in a workshop specializing in making comic books, Chen Zixu remembered the smart and lovely eyes of Xiao Zhenghe and Xiao Dongjin, so he took out his allowance and bought a large stack of comic books for the guards to send back to the regiment headquarters.

Chen Zixu was about to go back to the regiment headquarters when he saw a little soldier arguing with the owner of a painting shop. Hurriedly stepped forward to take a look, it turned out to be Yan Su, who had joined the army in Tianjin. Chen Zixu knew that Yan Su was a native of Xushui, Hebei Province, and graduated from the Jinghua Academy of Fine Arts in Beiping and the Beiping Art School, and studied painting. After joining the army in Tianjin, he was assigned to the Political Office of the Third Brigade and the Ninth Regiment of the Sect. Why did this little guy get into an argument with his boss?

When I heard it, I realized that Yan Su, like him, was obsessed with New Year's paintings, and he accidentally stained a New Year's painting just now. He wanted compensation, and the boss saw that he was a soldier of the Eighth Route Army, so he refused to let him compensate, and he also gave him the New Year's painting.

As soon as he heard that this was the reason, Chen Zixu stepped forward to persuade him and simply bought this New Year's painting.

Yan Su saw that it was the political commissar who arrived, and hurriedly saluted the report, and then blushed and watched Chen Zixuan buy paintings.

At this time, Chen Zixu suddenly had an idea, and said: "Boss, I think our Wuqiang's wood-block New Year paintings are indeed good." It's a pity that now is the period of the Anti-Japanese War, and the people of the whole country are concerned about how to protect their homes and defend the country. ”

Chen Zixu said this, the boss and Yan Su's eyes lit up, and they said that this idea was good. Yan Su is even more gearing up, and he wants to draw one for everyone to see.

The boss saw that the two Eighth Route Army were polite and polite, and knew that he couldn't intervene, so he hurriedly asked the guys to lay the table, took pen and ink paints and rice paper, and asked the comrades of the Eighth Route Army to draw a draft first.

Yan Su held the pen in his hand, and the sound of the cannon on the Lugou Bridge sounded in his ears, and what shook in front of him was the tragic scene of the burning and looting of the Yue army that he had seen all the way from Beiping to Tianjin, and tears fell from the corners of his eyes involuntarily.

As soon as Chen Zixu saw it, he knew that Yan Su's mood was fluctuating, and he hurriedly said: "Xiao Yan, don't just think about the brutality of Yuekou, think about the ambush battle at Pingxingguan, the ambush at Yanmen Pass, the ambush at Guangyang Pass, and the bombing of the enemy airfield at Yangmingbao by our Eighth Route Army, think about the recovery of Taiyuan by our instructor and the total annihilation of 40,000 elite people of Yuekou, think about the surprise attack on Tianjin by our army, and then think about the elimination of the 21st Division and the fourth brigade that you participated in, and think about the heroic posture of our soldiers of the Eighth Route Army when they charged. ”

With this inducement, Yan Su remembered the scene when he first met the instructor in Tianjin, and he cried in surprise! Thinking about what he has seen and heard in this heroic unit since he went south from Tianjin, he feels that he is drawing his comrades-in-arms, and the scenes of destroying the 21st Division, mixing the Fourth Brigade with Reading Power, and breaking through the Deshi Line and Cangshi Road have emerged in front of him.

Chen Zixu took a look, and on the screen, a mighty and tall soldier of the Eighth Route Army had an August 1 automatic rifle hanging on his chest, stepping on a little devil, and stabbing at the devil with a bayonet in his right hand. After reading it, Chen Zixu said okay, the boss came over to take a look, it was indeed very good, but the characteristics of the character image were slightly different from Wu Qiang's New Year's painting method. After obtaining Yan Su's consent, the boss took the brush and modified it slightly.

After Yan Su saw it, he felt that the level of this boss was not ordinary, and when he asked, he knew that he was a very famous woodblock New Year painter in Wuqiang County. Now it's no longer polite, a few people studied and discussed together, and soon colored.

After the painting was completed, it was already evening, and the boss asked the man to invite Zhang Fuwang and Xiao Furong, the woodcarvers who were in the county seat, to engrave the plates, and invited Ren to frame the painting in big black tones and Han Wannian, and make it overnight.

By the time of dawn, this New Year's painting called "Fighting the Han Dynasty" was made. Chen Zixu looked at it, the picture structure is compact, the theme is prominent, the characters and scenes are concise, the composition is full, the lines are rough, the colors are strong, and he is so busy shaking hands with several masters one by one. When it was over, Chen Zixuan picked up Yan Su, slammed it in the air a few times, and said loudly: "Comrade Yan Su, it's good!" I want to report to the division commander and ask for credit for you. I took the first painting with me and put it back on the door of the division commander's apartment. ”

In this way, the Wuqiang Anti-Japanese War New Year painting, which was well-known in the painting world in the future, was born in advance!

(To be continued)