Chapter 198: The Beginning of the Epidemic (Asking for Subscriptions, Monthly Passes, and Various!! ）

According to preliminary statistics, less than 25,000 of the 75,000-odd "prisoners" were really prisoners of war, and the rest were out-and-out peasants. Eighty percent of them were brought from the northeast, and the remaining 20 percent were local farmers who had previously been controlled by the Japanese army.

Due to the fighting of the 40th Group Army in the Pingjin area some time ago, it caused tremendous damage to many cities, including Beiping, especially Tianjin, where all public facilities and urban defense facilities were completely paralyzed, and the damage caused by several thousand tons of explosives under Chen Feng's department was enormous.

After the war, after the Japanese army took over these places, they suddenly felt a headache, the city's public facilities were fine, and the destruction was destroyed, anyway, the residents living in the city were still mainly Chinese, and the public facilities were destroyed, and the first to suffer was the Chinese. However, the city defense facilities and port and coastal facilities are a major matter related to the safety of the Imperial Japanese Army, and if the city defense facilities in these places are not properly maintained, it is not certain when the cavalry of the Zhina people will come to the city again.

In addition, Tianjin, as the most important and only port in North China, was an important window for the Japanese invaders to plunder China's economy, the port was paralyzed, the Japanese warships and cargo ships could not dock, the materials plundered back from the occupied areas could not be transported, and the Chinese materials could not be transported to Japan.

After more than three months of frantic construction. The urban defense facilities in several cities have been restored to the pre-war level, and the public facilities in the city have also been restored, so when the lion of the 40th Group Army opened his mouth this time, Terauchi Shouichi finally pinched his nose and admitted it, which was not unrelated to the tens of thousands of Chinese farmers he originally held in his hands.

Although Chen Feng thought that the Japanese might use ordinary people to pretend to be prisoners of war, he did not expect that Terauchi Shouichi would go to such great lengths to raise tens of thousands of peasants from the Northeast. In the end, Chen Feng was fooled.

Despite being fooled. But Chen Feng did not have the slightest anger, 25,000 Japanese expatriates in exchange for more than 75,000 strong laborers, this kind of business is still very profitable, if it is compared to doing business. It can only be said that the original plan was 300% profit. Now it's 15 percent due to some changes. Although the expected goals were not achieved. However, it was still much higher than the average investment profit, so Chen Feng still felt that there was no compensation for the 40th Army in exchange for prisoners.

More than 70,000 people were added out of thin air, and this put a lot of pressure on the logistics and other aspects of the 40th Group Army. And how to resettle these more than 70,000 people is also a big problem. If all of them were prisoners of war, as long as Chen Feng gave an order, all the more than 70,000 people would be sent to the recruit camp for intensive training, and the recruits would be directly integrated into the army after the training was completed.

But unfortunately, there are only 25,000 prisoners of war among the more than 70,000 people, and the rest are ordinary people. Many of them didn't know why they were arrested, and more than half of them still had their parents, wives and children waiting for them to go back, and their hearts were not here, so they naturally didn't want to stay and serve the 40th Group Army, so how should these people be placed.

According to the pre-war plan, the prisoners of war were all gathered and prepared to be sent to the Great Black Mountain Recruit Camp for training, anyway, the 40,000 recruits had already finished the three-month recruitment period, and in a few days they would be given guns, and then they would be organized into a new unit, and these prisoners of war happened to be their successors and continued to receive recruit training.

Of the more than 50,000 ordinary people, more than 20,000 were carefree, and this part of the people was also gathered and prepared to receive recruit training. The remaining 30,000 people are with their families, and more than half of them are unwilling to stay in the 40th Group Army and want to go home, so the 40th Group Army has not yet figured out how to deal with these people for the time being.

It is obviously not appropriate to let these people go, first of all, there is not a single big son on this group of people, all the valuable things on their bodies have been looted by the Japanese before they come, why should they go back to their hometown, their home is in North China, it's okay, it's a big deal to ask for food, and they can barely go home. But here are more people who live in the northeast, Zhangjiakou is thousands of miles away from the northeast, and although this season is not cold, but the north in May is still not warm, in the middle of the night can also freeze people awake, just let these people leave, undoubtedly agree to send them to death.

The most important thing is that from Zhangjiakou to Guanwai, all the roads are the territory of the Japanese, with the ferocity of the Japanese, will they allow this group of young adults to return to the Northeast? The answer is obviously no, what the Japanese lack most now is the puppet army and free labor. Even if the Japanese army did not intervene to stop them, the bosses of those Japanese-funded companies along the road would not leave these good laborers out of their territory safely, whether they were using pits, blinds, abductions, or deception, or even directly armed to kidnap and beat them with sticks, they would have to leave these people behind, and letting them go would be tantamount to sending them to a dead end.

But no matter how the people of the 40th Group Army did their work, these more than 30,000 people still clamored to leave and go home, and even had a direct conflict with the soldiers in Zhangjiakou.

On the first day these prisoners of war arrived, the Seventh Independent Division organized the doctors of the hospital to conduct physical examinations for these prisoners of war one by one, and at the same time vacated a large number of beds to prepare to receive patients.

After a physical examination, more than 500 of the 5,000 people in Zhangjiakou City were unwell, but the vast majority of the patients felt headaches, hot bodies, and sweating profusely. The doctors in the field hospital all think that these people are just suffering from wind cold, that is, some common colds, after all, this season is the time of winter and spring communication, and they are most prone to colds, not only ordinary people, but also a large number of patients in the army at this time, this phenomenon is very normal, not to mention that these people travel long distances, do not eat well, sleep well, and are also worried about being afraid, not sick is really blessed by God.

Because of this, these patients did not attract the attention of the field hospital of the independent 7th Division, but only freed up some beds for those who were more seriously ill, and gave some medicine to each of those with less serious illnesses, and still let them live in prisoner-of-war camps.

However, in just two days, the situation in Zhangjiakou changed dramatically, and before you knew it, the number of seriously ill patients exceeded 2,000, and the number of patients seemed to be increasing, and more importantly, many of these patients were soldiers of the 40th Group Army. The first patients in the hospital were getting worse and worse, and their condition was not controlled, and even they died.

Three people died on 24 May, and as many as 800 new patients were brought in, and with the addition of those who had been sent in the previous three days, as of 4 p.m. on 24 May, the total number of patients in the field hospital of the 7th Independent Division exceeded 3,700, including 462 soldiers.

The abnormal situation attracted the attention of the top brass of the Independent Seventh Division, and after learning the details, Xu Hu immediately reported the situation to the group army headquarters, and at the same time requested the group army headquarters to send a large number of medical personnel to Zhangjiakou to support.

At first, Chen Feng didn't pay much attention. Although there are a lot of sick patients, but the number of deaths is not very many, Chen Feng thinks that it should be a relatively powerful flu, there should be no big problems, think about the outbreak of the big flu in the future must not infect millions of people, and the small flu of a few thousand people really did not attract Chen Feng's attention.

Although he did not attach much importance to it, Chen Feng still asked Hu Jishi, the chief director of the field hospital, and Fidel, a German Jewish doctor, to rush to Zhangjiakou with a medical team composed of more than 20 doctors and more than 200 nurses, and also brought a large amount of medicinal materials. (To be continued......)