Old Sean and Catherine lived in Jiangbei in this way. But the scenes of the battle they longed to see did not appear, and everything was as calm as before 1937, with the peasants plowing, resting, going to the city to catch the market, and living their idyllic life day after day.

Because there was no fighting, there were no wounded, and the elder Sean had no ability to do anything as a field doctor, so he could only treat the local farmers, but Catherine interviewed many guerrilla fighters and civilians and obtained a lot of first-hand information.

Catherine asked Chan why he had maintained a tacit understanding with the Japanese army and did not invade each other.

"It's not a tacit understanding, it's that neither side has the strength to change the status quo, which is the so-called strategic stalemate stage." Chen Zikun explained, "Although our army has the ability to recover the big cities, but it can't hold it, and the Japanese army also has the ability to concentrate its forces to sweep and force us into the mountains, but they don't have enough troops to hold the vast countryside. ”

"But, after all, they are hostile sides, if you need to go to the area occupied by the Japanese army to do something, how can you ensure the safety of personnel coming and going?" Catherine took a pencil and scribbled in her notebook.

"There are no obstacles, the Japanese army is limited in number and cannot block all the roads, and most of the defense is undertaken by the puppet army." Speaking of this, Chen Zikun laughed heartily, "Puppet army, you know, that is a group of guys who see the wind and steer the rudder, they don't dare to offend the Japanese, but they don't dare to offend me." ”

"Why?" Catherine was puzzled.

"Because they are all locals, their wives and children are still living here, their seven aunts and eight aunts, and their family's ancestral graves are all in Jiangbei, offending the Japanese is nothing more than a death, offending me, that is, life is better than death, do you understand, it is a threat that is more frightening than death."

"Can you be specific?"

"Generally speaking, we don't blame the puppet army that serves the Japanese too much, after all, everyone has to eat together, and many military and political personnel of the puppet government, from the division commander to the regiment commander, to the village chief, the maintenance president, or the squad leader in the stronghold, will work for us secretly, receive the imperial army during the day, and call the guerrillas at night, and if the Japanese have any sweeping operations, we will always get the news in advance, as for those stubborn guys, we will put them to death, and sometimes they will suffer together with their families, that is, they will be wiped out."

Catherine gasped: "Do you mean that the whole family will be killed, including the old man and the children?" ”

Chen Zikun said: "Not only that, but even the ancestral grave will be dug open and violently corpsed. ”

"It's cruel." Catherine's voice trembled a little, "How many families have you destroyed so far?" ”

"In fact, no one has ever been exterminated, these traitors are so good that they curry favor with both ends, and no one can be offended."

Catherine sighed: "Survive in the cracks, live without dignity......"

Chen Zikun said: "Don't be sad for these traitors, if you must watch a battle, the Eighth Route Army is going to knock devils in the coal mine in Longyang recently, I can arrange an interview with you." ”

Catherine said excitedly: "The Eighth Route Army, that's the *** army, I've always wanted to unveil their mystery." ”

Without further ado, Chen Zikun immediately began to arrange, and two days later, Shuangxi took a squad of soldiers to escort Catherine to the vicinity of the county seat, where people from the Eighth Route Army picked up people.

A burly man stood under a big tree, wearing a top hat, sunglasses on his face, wearing a black silk shirt, with an open arms, a white gown inside, a wide cowhide belt with copper buckles around his waist, two Mauser pistols, the front sight was foiled, the nose was wide open, and a Japanese daisy brand bicycle was parked next to it.

The man gritted his teeth and smiled: "My name is Zhao Ziming, Chen Zikun is my uncle, we are all our own people, come with me." ”

Catherine said, "You're alone?" ”

"One of me is enough." Zhao Ziming replied with confidence.

So Catherine climbed into the back seat of Zhao Ziming's bicycle and began a journey to the base of the Eighth Route Army.

To get to Longyang, you need to cross a railway branch line, which has always been a key defensive area for the Japanese, with not only turrets and barbed wire, but also ironclad cars patrolling back and forth, and the defense is impermeable.

At ten o'clock in the night, Zhao Ziming took Catherine to the railway crossing and shouted at the gun tower: "Lao Zhao has something to do today, brothers, it's convenient." ”

The above replied: "Commander Zhao, please take it, in two hours, the Japanese advisers will come to inspect, and we will not invite you to come up for tea." ”

Zhao Ziming arched his hand: "It's easy to say, goodbye." ”

In this way, they crossed the railway line without danger and arrived at the base of the Eighth Route Army, and the female reporter from the United States was warmly received by Commander Wu Changqing and Political Commissar Ye Xuefeng, Catherine's Chinese language was not very good, and the Jiangbei Special Commission also sent a translator over, a middle-aged man with a white face and a polite manner, who looked like a teacher, spoke English well, surnamed Zheng, and was said to have graduated from Jiaotong University.

The Eighth Route Army planned to attack the Shuanghe Coal Mine in Longyang County and pull out the nail, and the troops had three months of weapons and ammunition for this mission.

Ye Xuefeng said that this is a great opportunity to show the Eighth Route Army's heroic resistance to Japan to the world, and it must not be given up, but Wu Changqing said that if the female reporter has three strengths and two weaknesses, the gains outweigh the losses, Catherine watched them argue on the side, and finally Zheng Translator said lightly: "We can send soldiers to protect the safety of American friends, and if one squad is not enough, we will send a platoon, in short, at all costs, we must not only show the bloody side of our Eighth Route Army, but also ensure absolute security." ”

The Eighth Route Army sent ten soldiers to be responsible for Catherine's safety, and the soldiers surrounded Catherine like a moving human wall, and when she needed to climb up to take pictures, the soldiers would set up a human ladder, and when the troops were moving quickly, the soldiers would march on her back.

When the battle began, Catherine was only 200 meters away from the front line, and witnessed the soldiers fall one after another, one by one under the guns of the devils, in order to overcome a machine gun bunker, the Eighth Route Army paid at least a dozen lives, and finally a small soldier risked his life to rush over and pull a grenade and die with the enemy, before the roadblock was solved.

The battle lasted for six hours, the Red Flag was finally planted in the Shuanghe Coal Mine, the remnants of the enemy were cleared, Catherine was allowed to visit the battlefield, and everywhere was still filled with gunsmoke, bullet holes, blood flowed all over the ground, and the shutter of the camera crackled, but Catherine's heart became heavier and heavier.

Turning a low wall, a shocking scene appeared, hundreds of bodies were neatly arranged on the ground, just yesterday, they were still alive young men, but today they have become cold corpses, the parents, wives, children, and children of the family are still waiting for their return, Catherine picked up the camera, but silently put it down, tears came out of her eyes.

Several soldiers were busy around a corpse, trying to remove a light machine gun from his hands, the flesh of his hands was charred, and a bullet had a large hole in his stomach, and he was still staring at him with rage.

Zheng Translator told the story of this martyr, it turned out that at the last moment of the battle, the devil could not support and tried to escape, a squad leader broke through with a light machine gun, this soldier stepped forward to block the enemy, but at the critical moment the bullet was blind, he rushed up and tightly grasped the hot machine gun barrel, and exchanged his life for victory.

"Why did he do that?" Catherine asked.

"For the sake of light machine guns, the Eighth Route Army lacked weapons, a company only had one machine gun, and it was easy to be suppressed by the enemy in battle, and in order to fight for a machine gun, it was often necessary to pay a great price." Translator Zheng said lightly.

Catherine said, "I have some money here, can you please pass it on to his family?" ”

Zheng translated: "He has no family, his parents were burned alive by devils in the sweep, his pregnant wife was also killed, one corpse and two lives, there are many soldiers with a fate like him." ”

That night, Catherine wrote a lot in her notebook.

The Eighth Route Army captured the Shuanghe Coal Mine, seized a large number of military supplies, and suffered heavy casualties, Wu Changqing asked Chen Zikun for assistance, so the elder Sean Stanley rushed to the field hospital of the Eighth Route Army with his surgical instruments to operate on the wounded soldiers and show his strengths.

Under the tent of the field hospital, the garbage cans are littered with blood-stained gauze and removed stump meat, and an operation is underway, and the elder Sean wears a mask and holds a hacksaw to amputate a young soldier whose leg has been blown off.

The soldier was only sixteen years old, with a faint layer of fuzz on his lips, his eyes were crystal clear, and his legs had suppurated, which would be life-threatening if he had not been amputated.

But there was no more chloroform, and old Sean could only amputate his leg without anesthesia, in the end, he was an old military doctor who had experienced World War I, he picked up a saw and pulled it quickly, and it took less than a minute to saw off a leg, and the young soldier bit a wooden stick, sweating profusely in pain, but there was no sound from beginning to end.

"Forty seconds has already broken my record during the Battle of the Marne." Old Sean wiped the blood from his apron, lit a cigarette and sat on the ground, his hands trembling a little.

"Uncle, do you still hold on?" Catherine asked with concern.

"My hands are okay, but my heart is not good, I am old, my heart is soft, I can't do this work, unless there is enough anesthetic." Old Sean shook his head, his spirit a little depressed.

"I'll go find their commander to solve it." Catherine walked quickly to the door of Wu Changqing's headquarters, and heard a burst of passionate music, and the radio came out of the Japanese naval march.

Wu Changqing, Ye Xuefeng, and Zheng Yi and others were listening to the radio, and their expressions were all grim.

This is the radio of the puppet central government, and a glutinous female voice says: "The Japanese Navy sank four aircraft carriers and two battleships of the US Navy at Midway, and won a decisive victory, and since then the Japanese Empire has become the most powerful country in the Pacific." ”