Finally, the peachy incident was dealt with without danger, and the fire in the backyard was extinguished.

Just when Yang Bangzi and Shimizu Daizuo were both aiming at their respective targets, a sudden natural disaster forced both sides to temporarily put down their targets and devote their energy to another battle!

The main task of the 11th Division became drought fighting! The main task of the devils has become to increase the siege troops, take advantage of the drought to cut off the supply of the Eighth Route Army as much as possible, and weaken the combat effectiveness of the Eighth Route Army!

Originally, just like the same period in 1940 and 1941, during the period from January to early April 1942, the northwest Hebei region was relatively stable, and the most common phrase that cadres and soldiers said when they sat down to eat and chat was: "The year is good, but there is no need to fight." This period was also a good time for the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and various sub-districts to stabilize and readjust.

However, in the early spring, when the ice and snow melted and everything recovered, the whole of North China did not have the beautiful scene that spring should have, and the Hebei, Henan, and Shanxi regions were suffering from hunger, disease, and extreme drought. Thousands of miles of red land, starvation everywhere.

North China has not had a good year since 39 years, either floods or droughts, or there is an insect plague or something, Yang Bangzi They have been eating black nests for almost two years!

In 1942, Hebei, Henan and several surrounding provinces were faced with a drought rarely seen in history. According to statistics from Henan Province, a political officer, and Bai Xiude, an American who participated in the disaster relief, 5 million people died of starvation due to drought in Henan Province. Whether it is a novel or a movie, the famine of 1942 is depicted as a great drought in the spring of that year.

There is a great drought in Henan. The same is true for Hebei. Even in a normal year, the self-produced grain in the western mountainous area of Pinghan Road is barely enough to sustain most of the year, and the surplus has to be fed by buying grain from the fertile Jizhong Plain. In a year of floods and droughts. For most of the year, Luxi Mountain has to buy grain to make a living.

Moreover, during the war years, a large number of troops of the Eighth Route Army and anti-Japanese government offices were stationed in the barren Luxi Mountains, and the food and clothing of these cadres and soldiers who were out of production had to be bought in large quantities from the Jizhong Plain to survive. In the past, due to the interception of the devils and traitors along the way, the Eighth Route Army had to send troops to arm trafficking. Now dig deep trenches along both sides of the Pinghan railway line. The connection between the western mountainous areas of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei anti-Japanese base area and the eastern plains was completely severed, and the anti-Japanese base areas in the western mountainous areas fell into the most difficult and difficult situation.

The jurisdiction of the 11th sub-district is basically mountainous, and since the end of the devil sweep at the end of last year. In addition, the sub-district and the administrative office took care of the people's daily life, and many people who dragged their families to the plain area to ask for food and seek refuge with relatives and friends have turned back to their homes in the mountains, and the supply of food has become tense again!

As mentioned earlier, 1942 was a major event for the Eighth Route Army of the Northwest Hebei Division. It was the devil who dug a deep ditch on each side of the Pinghan railway line. This seemingly inconspicuous deep ditch. However, it has a significant impact on the mountainous base areas west of Pinghan Road.

The purpose of the Japanese devils digging this deep ditch was to cut off the connection between the central Hebei region east of the Pinghan Railway and the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area in the mountainous area west of the Pinghan Railway. This deep ditch parallel to the railway has one on each side of the railway line, which is more than two zhang deep and nearly ten meters; It is two or three battles wide, and it is also about ten meters, separating the mountainous area in the west of the Pinghan railway line and the Jizhong Plain in the east.

Cutting off the connection between the mountainous area west of the Pinghan Road and the fertile Jizhong caused the greatest damage to the Jin-Cha-Ji Eighth Route Army was hunger.

This ditch began to be dug in the second half of 41 years, and Yang Bangzi and they fought with this ditch when they went to Baoding. Don't look at a few people, dozens of people who climb down in the dark and climb up looks easy, in fact, they are all empty-handed climbing. After the robbery of the train, in order to transport supplies, nearly 1,000 people were mobilized on both sides of the ditch to respond, how many times can such a scale of action be stopped? The devil is not stupid, once he let you pass, he will tie the hole for you next time!

In 1942, not only the first sub-district and the Pingxi anti-Japanese base area, but also the entire Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei anti-Japanese base area fell into the most difficult, barren, and darkest historical period since the Anti-Japanese War. Almost all the human, financial, and material resources in the anti-Japanese base areas have been squeezed out and consumed by the war for several consecutive years.

Yang Bangzi and Hong Mei built this piece of land from scratch together, and their family background was not rich, and most of the property they worked hard to get was also handed over to the military region.

The villagers began to go to the plains in droves last winter to ask for food, which was caused by the emptiness of their families, and even some landlords who had some family backgrounds in the past also reduced three meals a day to two!

When dealing with drought, you have to deal with devils, devils are not wooden stakes, poking there and not moving, they are enemies who will be killed at any time!

Beginning in March, the devils began to draw troops from Xuzhou and other places to the north, and deployed more than twice as many road-guarding troops along both sides of the Pinghan Line as usual, with the purpose of one thing, to tightly block the supply line to the base area of the Eighth Road in the west of the road.

In the past, it was possible to send grain and other materials to the base areas through several secret grain transportation routes, but now it is difficult to transport supplies to the base areas because the devils have strengthened their control over the blockade line.

Due to the further depletion of manpower and property in the already very barren anti-Japanese base areas, and the need to deal with the increase of troops in the eastern, northeastern, and southeastern directions, a large number of militiamen and improvised guerrilla units were needed to carry out the tasks of surveillance and confrontation, so that the young and strong men in the rural areas of the 11th Division had been recruited.

In March 42, the spring ploughing in the base area was all done by some women and old people, and there were no young men in sight. Because of the severe shortage of labor, the agricultural output in the base areas has been further reduced. In addition, the Eighth Route Army, which was isolated from the rich Jizhong region and could not transport grain into the mountainous areas, was bound to be emaciated and malnourished one by one, so that it would not only be unable to fight on an empty stomach for a long time, but also lose the ability to move at night due to the large number of night blindness.

Originally, the 11th Division, which had seized a lot of goods and had abundant material reserves, was also short of supplies and difficult food and clothing due to the increase in population, and the scene of neatly dressed soldiers and strong horses in previous years was no longer visible.

We can't let the troops and fellow villagers be trapped to death by drought and devils! Yang Bangzi brought down the team that was still training from the horse post, and planned to go to Jizhong to get grain through the blockade line, but before they could act, bad news came from the first division, and the grain transportation team of the first division was ambushed by devils in civilian clothes, and lost 100 people.

Through reconnaissance, it was found that the devils were facing the line of the 11th Division in the north and south of Majiataizi, not only the original trench or something, but they also built a new dirt road not far from the inside of the blockade ditch, with armored patrol vehicles patrolling non-stop, and also built artillery towers in the villages where there were no garrisons before.

You can't fight hard, you can only find a way from other aspects. Although there are tens of thousands of catties of grain from Guojiabaozi and the grain obtained from the robbery of the devil's train, if they are all distributed at once, I am afraid that it will be dealt with for three or two days, and the sub-district and the administrative department held a joint meeting and decided that this part of the grain will not be used until the last resort, and will mainly be used to help the people.

Food must be plucked out of the mouths of the soldiers and cadres of the troops and organs! Yang Bangzi demanded: The original quota of one pound and two taels per day for the cadres of the first sub-district should save two taels of grain per person per day; The combat troops, which originally had a daily ration of one and a half catties, saved one or two taels of grain per person per day (in those days, one catty was 16 taels of scales, and the supply of grain and materials was far inferior to that of the Pingxi base area in the first sub-district, and even only six taels of grain per day, and they could only drink vegetable porridge).

In addition, the sub-district also ordered all units and organs not to pick wild vegetables, poplar leaves, and elm leaves in the vicinity of the station, and to give them to the common people in the vicinity, and the troops to go to the distant mountains to pick them.

The newly established Ministry of Supply could not even guarantee the supply of cadres and soldiers of the 11th Division, and one person in military uniform. Because there are very few places where cotton is produced in the mountainous area where the 11th sub-district is located, folk spinning and weaving cloth is also extremely rare.

It turned out that Hong Mei was going to send cadres to Jizhong and several surrounding counties to purchase cloth, but now it can't be done, and the devils have also discovered that cloth has become a material in short supply for the Eighth Route Army, and the sales of cloth, and even dyes and so on have begun to restrict sales, and the cloth that can be purchased can only supply a small part of what is needed.

In order to give priority to the protection of combat troops, many cadres of the Ministry of Political Affairs, the Ministry of Supply, and the Ministry of Health put on civilian clothes. At that time, in order to solve the problem of military uniforms for the troops, the Ministry of Supply could only go to Jizhong to make cloth, and even ran farther, and went to Xingtai, Handan and other places in the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan border regions.

In the countryside in these areas, the only thing that can be obtained in the countryside is the coarse cloth woven by the local people themselves, the coarse cloth of purple flowers and the coarse cloth of black color. The purchasing staff of the Ministry of Supply buy whatever cloth and clothing they see from the local villagers, and what color does it matter?

Because the cadres of the Political Department have to move around frequently, go to the grassroots level, local governments, and the common people, many cadres usually do not wear leggings, and dress like fellow villagers, only a hat of the Eighth Route Army, a belt tied around the waist, and leggings tied on the legs can also indicate their identity as the Eighth Route Army.

has his own territory, he has lived such a search, and the whole day is so difficult, Yang Bangzi really can't swallow this breath, and after thinking about it, he decided to go to Ludong to find a way!

It just so happened that Secretary Zhang of the underground party in Baoding sent someone over and sent some salt and medicine, and Yang Bangzi sent Xiao Liangzi to follow the traffic officer back to the city, and brought a message to Mr. Zhu to see if he could find a way to get a batch of grain. (To be continued......)