This July, the weather in Anqing is just as humid and muggy.

Even late at night, it was still so hot that people couldn't sleep, Okamura Ninji sat up from the tatami mat and found that his forehead, face and body were covered with sweat, and the whole person looked as if he had just been fished out of the water, and there was a buzzing buzzing sound in the dark, as if there were dozens or hundreds of bombers bombing him indiscriminately.

It's not a bomber, it's a mosquito, but it's more terrible than a bomber.

As a senior commander, Okamura Ninji knew very well that malaria was a very terrible disease, and once it broke out on a large scale in the army, the consequences would be unimaginable, and what worried Okamura Ninji even more was that the humid and sultry climate of Jiujiang and a large number of rotten corpses were a breeding ground for a large number of mosquitoes and flies carrying malaria pathogens, and a large-scale outbreak of malaria seemed to be inevitable.

Okamura Ninji had sent a telegram to the base camp requesting an urgent supply of tonic water, and the tonic water and quinine tablets stockpiled by the PL Army were also being loaded and shipped to the front line.

But this is not what Okamura Ninji is most worried about, although malaria is terrible, after all, there is no large-scale outbreak now, what worries Okamura Ninji the most, and he can't sleep at night is the battle situation in Jiujiang and De'an, the offensive of the Matsuura Division on the Nanxun Line has lasted for more than half a month, and the ammunition consumption has not been calculated, but there is no progress.

In the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army base camp had high hopes for Okamura, and the commander of the Central China Army, Tian Junliu, also specially called Okamura to Nanjing for a long talk, in addition, the strength of Okamura Ninji's army was also one and a half divisions more than that of Higashikurenomiya Tsusahiko's army.

At the beginning stage, it was quite smooth, and the Hatian detachment, which could only be regarded as a miscellaneous force in the Japanese army sequence, was like a bamboo, and even Keanqing, Madang and Hukou, Zuihou and Jiujiang also went down in one go, just when Okamura Ningji believed that the national army had been weakened and the Beijing-Shanghai rout was about to be repeated, Xue Yue gave him a blow on the Nanxun line.

Thinking of the Nanxun battle situation, Okamura Ningji suddenly did not have a trace of sleepiness, got up at the moment, pushed open the bedroom door and walked into the study, the light in the study was on, but the voltage provided by the generator was not stable, and the light flickered on and off, adding a bit of depressing atmosphere to the study that was already dim and dignified.

Okamura Ninji breathed a sigh of relief, as if he was about to exhale the turbidity in his chest, and then walked to the desk and picked up a magnifying glass and stepped on the large map flat on the floor.

In the coastal areas of Beijing, Shanghai, and Pingjin, especially in the four northeastern provinces, little Japan has sent engineers to secretly draw maps, but China is too big and too big, and even though little Japan has been secretly surveying and mapping for decades, it cannot map the whole of China, so it has no choice but to send agents to steal the map from the Chinese side.

At this moment, the map that Okamura Ninji stepped on was stolen by the Banxi agency from the confidential room of the Beiyang warlord Sun Chuanfang more than ten years ago, and Okamura Ninji was very dissatisfied with this map, which was not only confusing and full of errors, but also made people even more infuriating that there were many common sense errors.

But there is no way, no matter how dissatisfied Okamura Ninji is, he can only use this map.

Okamura Ningji's gaze moved a little bit on the map with the magnifying glass, and finally stopped at Xingzi, about the plan of flanking Xingzi, Okamura Ningji has been brewing for several days, the aviation reported that there are only a small number of Chinese garrisons near Xingzi, and there is a gravel road that can be passed by cars leading directly to Mahuiling, if a strong force can quickly capture Xingzi, it can occupy Mahuiling before the national army in front of the Nanxun line can react.

Once the Japanese army occupies Mahuiling, it will not only be able to cut the Nanxun line into two pieces, but also encircle the hundreds of thousands of national troops gathered at the northern and western feet of Lushan in one fell swoop.

However, what made Okamura hesitate was that the forces in his hands were seriously insufficient.

Don't look at the strength of the army on the books of the five and a half divisions, but now the only ones that are really in place are the Matsuura Division, the Hakuda Detachment, and the expansion of the North China Garrison Army.

After more than half a month of fierce fighting, the strength of the Songpu Division has been sharply reduced to less than 10,000 people, and this amount of troops is still a little reluctant to maintain the offensive on the Nanxun line. If the troops are forcibly divided, once the national army on the front of the Nanxun line reacts and takes advantage of the situation to counterattack, even Jiujiang will be lost.

Okamura Ningji couldn't help but curse the bureaucrats in the base camp in his heart, the battle of Wuhan had been almost two months old, and the 1st Pei Regiment, the 10th Pei Regiment and the 10th Pei Regiment had not yet arrived, and the efficiency was too low, and God knew when it would be able to hit the city of Wuhan.

Okamura Ninji actually wronged the officials of the Japanese army base camp, and they really didn't mean to delay.

As the Sino-Japanese war escalated and expanded, casualties and equipment losses became more and more large, and the operation of the war machine of small Japan became more and more difficult.

The 1st Pei Regiment, the 10th Pei Regiment and the 10th Pei Regiment successively participated in the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Nanjing, and the Battle of Xuzhou.

However, at that time, the comprehensive national strength of small Japan was far superior to that of the Nationalist Government, and although it was difficult, in early August, the 1st Pei Regiment and the 10th Pei Regiment were finally replenished and rushed to the Jiujiang battlefield, and then the troops immediately launched an attack on the Nationalist Army in three ways, the 1st Pei Regiment went straight to Tianjia Town, the gateway of Wuhan Zuihou, along the narrow strip south of the Dabie Mountains and north of the Yangtze River, and the 1st Pei Regiment went straight to Ruichang along the south bank of the Yangtze River with the cooperation of the Botian Detachment.

As for Ito Masakaki's 10th Regiment, in accordance with Okamura Ninji's long-brewing idea, they crossed Poyang Lake by boat and launched a surprise attack on Xingzi, the "weak point" of the national army.

Yu Huan felt a little lightheaded when he got up early in the morning, reached out and touched his forehead, which was slightly hot, and forced himself to get up to take care of the wounds and change the medicine for the dozen or so wounded people he was responsible for, and then he was about to go to Cao Jiao to ask for a few quinine tablets, Yu Huan suspected that he also had malaria, this disease was not a joke.

Yu Huan originally wanted to follow Shu Tongwen to Yan'an, but was resolutely opposed by the family, this time even her cousin Ye Ruxue, who had always loved her, did not support her, and retreated to the second, Yu Huan could only join the 19th team, and the family was originally resolutely opposed, but Yu Huan forced him to die, and his parents could only give in.

Yu Huan thought a little naïve, she thought that now that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party have cooperated, then one day she and Shu Tongwen will meet on the battlefield of resistance against Japan, and then secretly join the Eighth Route Army with Shu Tongwen, and then her parents will not be able to control her, but she doesn't know, she almost can't Zaijian Shu Tongwen.

Yu Huan found Cao Jiao, the captain of the health team, and asked, the quinine tablets were long gone.

The medical conditions of the Japanese army were far better than that of the national army, which was plagued by malaria, and the national army was even more difficult, and the Matsuura division died of hundreds of people because of malaria, and Matsuura Junrokuro was so anxious that he jumped there, but hundreds of people died of malaria every day on the side of the national army, and what was even more worrying was that the commanders of various units were still helpless.

Due to the weakness of the national industry, the Nationalist Government even had to rely on imports for a plate of gauze, not to mention first-aid drugs such as sulfonamide powder, quinine, and anesthetics; after the large-scale outbreak of malaria on the battlefield in Jiujiang, the Nationalist Government urgently asked Britain, France and other Western powers for help, and the Western powers took the opportunity to raise the price of medicines, and the Nationalist Government could only grit its teeth and bear it.

Sadly, just such a pitiful medicine has to be ruined by some national army generals.

The medicine is limited, but there are many factions within the national army, and the local troops of the Central Army have opinions, you give the civil engineering department, and Hu Zongnan's department has opinions, and Zuihou has no choice but to divide them equally.

Zhang Fakui, the commander-in-chief of the first corps, did it even more brittlely, and after getting the tonic water, he gave each soldier a small bottle, and said that there was a cure for the disease, and there was no disease prevention, but the sick were not cured, and the non-sick were not prevented, and Zuihou was still infected, because the quinine water had to be drunk together to be effective, and one bottle was useless.

Of course, Xu Nineteen would not waste the precious medicine like this, but the quinine assigned to the Nineteenth Brigade by Shangfeng was just that, but the number of officers and soldiers infected with malaria in the past half a month has increased unabated, and the only quinine tablets and quinine water were quickly exhausted, and the officers and soldiers who were infected in the back could only lie there and wait for death.

When Ye Ruxue came over, Yu Huan had already started a high fever, and began to talk nonsense, shouting Awen vigorously.

Looking at her cousin who was talking nonsense on the simple hospital bed, Ye Ruxue was so anxious that tears rained down, she didn't know what to do, when Xu Shijiu walked in, Ye Ruxue suddenly grabbed a life-saving straw like a drowning person, grabbed Xu Shijiu's arm, and begged with tears: "Captain Xu, save Xiaohuan, please." ”

Xu Jiu looked at Cao Jiao with his eyes, Cao Jiaomei choked back tears and shook her head, there are really no quinine tablets.

Seeing Cao Jiao shaking her head, Ye Ruxue couldn't help crying, and Xu Shijiu's eyes also dimmed, why didn't he want to save Yu Huan? This girl can be a beautiful girl in the barracks but is willing to eat, nursing dozens of wounded and sick people every day and never shouting tired, even at the risk of death, she has never flinched, the brothers of the 19th Brigade have long regarded her as their sister, and regarded her as an inseparable member of the 19th Brigade, why would he want her to leave?

But what can be done? Although Xu Shijiu can fight, he can't conjure a small bottle of tonic water.

"Cold, cold, cousin, I'm cold......" Yu Huan, who was still too hot just now, suddenly curled up in a ball, and even his teeth began to tremble when he spoke, but his consciousness was clearer, Yu Huan was obviously aware of the fate he was about to face, and tears also flowed in his beautiful eyes, looking at Ye Ruxue and crying softly, "Cousin, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid ......"