On November 5, the 26th year of the Republic of China, it was cloudy and sometimes rainy. Winter is approaching, and it is just evening, and the sky is already completely dark. Anting, an unknown water town in the south of the Yangtze River on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, is in a hurry at the moment, the noise of mules and horses mixed with tired gasps, the groans of pain, not lively, but a kind of sadness, is an inexplicable solemnity and sadness, under the twilight, the mudflow generally surging westward along both sides of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, stretching to the end of darkness. Behind the hurried figure, the dark eastern sky, from time to time burst out of cold flashes, intermittently illuminating the gloomy cloud base, faintly mixed with a rumbling roar, there, that is, Shanghai, is suffering from the ravages of Japanese naval guns, making the last struggle.

The raindrops on the tracks trembled, carrying a heavy train that roared from west to east. This was the 1O7 Division of the 67th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, which had been transferred south from the North China Battlefield to reinforce Songhu. The vast majority of them do not know that the Shanghai defense line has collapsed at this moment, they are the only troops advancing eastward along the Shanghai-Nanjing line, their task is to cover the retreat of hundreds of thousands of routed troops, their task is to block them, and what kind of darkness will greet them.

More than 70 people from the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 319th Regiment of the 638th Brigade of the 1O7th Division were crammed into a stuffy tanker. The floor was covered with a layer of dead grass, and most of the soldiers lay or curl up, resting with the crisp sound of wheels colliding with the rails. There were two kerosene lamps in the carriage, one hanging in the center of the ceiling, spilling a few dim rays of light with the rhythmic shaking of the train, jumping rhythmically on the mottled carriage walls, and the other on the floor at one end of the carriage, seven or eight people sat cross-legged, and a dozen or so people stood in a circle to watch.

More than a dozen silver dollars were scattered in the middle, the second row leader picked up a cigarette with big yellow teeth, reached out to lift the kerosene lamp on the ground, unscrewed the cover at the top, put his face over and lit the cigarette, took a deep breath beautifully, and urged the man sitting opposite with a smile: "I said company commander, are you going to vote quickly? I am a pair of six, not three sixes, as for scaring you like this?"

The commander of the third company, tall and strong, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, and a square face, a northeastern man, was sweating profusely at the moment, and raised his hand to unbutton the two buttons on his chest. "Lao Tzu's last two oceans are on this ground, can't you worship the Bodhisattva in advance......?

"Don't play, don't play, damn it, you cheat money, get out of the car and let you play the main force in the second row, I'll let you have enough fun." The company commander moved back, leaned against the carriage, and grabbed the crumpled hat on the ground and fanned it.

The third platoon leader is surnamed Wang, dark and thin, with a wrinkled face, in his thirties, he looks like he is forty years old, he is the oldest in the company, it is said that he has more than ten years of military strength, and he has a kind temperament, but he is a little stingy, so even Li calls him 'Wang Lao Li'. This time he didn't participate in the gamble, because he lost all the money in his pocket three days ago, so he had to watch from the sidelines, and saw that the company commander had lost cleanly, so he sat down next to the company commander and handed him a cigarette. "Company commander, before getting on the bus, I heard that the officer who made a mistake was going to be sent to our company to be the head soldier, is this true?"

"Oh, you old man is clear-eared and clear-sighted, there is such a thing. It seems that he is still injured, and when he got on the train, he entered the carriage of the lightly wounded. The company commander groped in his pocket, took out the shriveled matchbox and wiped it hard, lit the cigarette handed by Wang Lao, took a puff, squinted his eyes and asked, "Why are you asking this?"

"Hehe, company commander, every time I make up one platoon and then the second platoon, I haven't had the turn to be three platoons, you should always make up for our three platoons with this soldier. ”

The company commander looked at Wang Lao and looked angry and complaining, and he was sneered. "Didn't you just make up for one person in your third row before you got in the car, why do you want more?"

Wang Lao squeezed out a wronged face: "What? What do you say that fourteen-year-old doll? Standing without a gun, eating no less than others, not wanting a row or two rows, is it because you even shoehorned it into me by the adult, can it be regarded as a supplement? I have to say this, at the moment, we even have forty-two people in the first row, twenty-five people in the second row, and we in the third row? Four people! I have to count my platoon commander and the bear child, I am not even as good as a squad leader." ”

"I said Wang Lao, you veteran oil, don't be in the blessing and don't know the blessing. We have been dissatisfied with the formation since we entered the customs, and the top has not given us a few heads of garlic, what can I do? We have been in this company since we entered the customs, and you don't know how many stubbles have been changed in the first platoon? How many more have the platoon commanders changed? How did I become the company commander? Why don't you switch with the platoon commander?"

Hearing this, Wang Lao raised his eyes and scanned the surroundings, and when he saw that no one cared, he said, "Look at you, you will raise the bar if I say a few words to you." I'm not a young man, this body is weak, dizzy and useless, how can I hit the main force, it's okay to support the corners. This time I made up for such a person, and I couldn't show this one when I put it in the first and second rows, and I gave it to me, then I could barely make up enough for a class, isn't it so reasonable?"

The company commander pondered in his heart, you Wang Lao didn't suspect that there were few people under his command in North China, and now that you have such a person, you are rushing to ask for it. This is not normal, this is absolutely abnormal! Before getting on the bus, the battalion commander said that the kid was the captain of the supervision team, and he let go of more than a dozen deserters when he was in Linluo Pass, but he was removed from his post and expelled from the supervision team. It doesn't seem to be anything strange, is it because that kid used to be in the overseer's team? Wang Laojiao wants to take advantage of the relationship when he wants to be a deserter in the future? It's impossible! If this old guy really wanted to escape, wouldn't he have run away a long time ago, and what is the plan to drag it out until now? It's kind of interesting, old fox, no matter what your plan is, since you took the initiative to come to me, then I have to pluck a few hairs from you.

After making up his mind, the company commander dusted off the cigarette ash on his body and grinned: "Old man, I remember that a while ago on the battlefield, you touched a pocket watch, right, how is it, have you been a fool......?"

Hu Yi leaned against the corner of the carriage of the lightly wounded and sick, his legs stretched and half lying on the thick hay, covered with a dirty and greasy broken blanket, and closed his eyes to recuperate. When I entered the customs, I took the train, and when I first got on the train, I had a fresh energy, and when the train started, I knew that I was also guilty of taking the train. The trains on which the army rode were no more than passenger trains, with chairs, windows, and toilets, and were all freight cars; stuffy tankers were good, at least they were not exposed to the sun or rain, and they were the worst when they were assigned to open wagons or even flatbed wagons loaded with baggage, and the wind alone blew people into raisins. Before getting on the train, Hu Yi received a notice to go to the new company to report, and when he passed through a stuffy tank car specially arranged for the lightly wounded, he immediately claimed that he had not recovered from his bullet wounds. Later, I learned that the third company I was going to was also a stuffy tanker, so I didn't regret it, at least the wounded carriage was thick, quiet, and there were few people, the place was spacious, and each person could also receive a military blanket, although the blanket was small and broken.

The troops set off from Xinxiang on 30 October, arrived at Xiaguan in Nanjing on 2 November, and after a short rest, marched east to board the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway. Although the regular collision of the moving wheels and the rails, the creaking and twisting of the carriage and the whistling of the wind echoed in the carriage all the time, Hu Yi was still keenly aware of the faint roar hidden behind these sounds, this sound was so familiar, like a magic spell, even when he was asleep, he could distinguish it and wake up immediately, and brought inexplicable numbness and headaches. As the roar gradually became clearer, Hu Yi knew that the battlefield was approaching, and he was about to get off the car, although this was Jiangnan, but the sound was the same wherever he listened.

As the sliding door of the heavy carriage rail was opened, the cold and damp face woke everyone in the carriage, and in the hazy night, the white vapor released by the steam locomotive floated from time to time on the dim platform, and a large mass of diffuse drifted on the platform. The roar of the heralds was heard in the distance: "All the 1O7 Division get off the bus! Stand by now! No noise! Stand by now...... No noise......"

Wang Lao threw away the cigarette butt, stretched his waist fiercely, looked at the wet platform under his feet, looked around, threw the 79 rifle in his hand behind his shoulder, walked out of the pile of people in the third company, tore off an old poster on a low leeward wall nearby, folded a few stacks and sat on the ground against the wall, and the three soldiers looked at each other and followed the leaning against the wall to leeward. The cold, mottled walls reflect the figures of four soldiers, which are the three rows. Among the three soldiers, the tallest and strongest man was called the big one, honest and diligent; the tallest and most ordinary one was called Zhao Yong, who loved to complain: Standing as tall as a gun was a fourteen-year-old silly boy, who begged at the Xinxiang railway station and followed the troops on the train in order to eat.

"Platoon commander, did you really give the pocket watch to the company commander?" the big man asked Wang Lao with a wink.

"Well, give it to him. It's useless to keep things that don't bring with you in life and don't take away in death. ”

Hearing the platoon commander say this, Zhao Yong on the other side snorted and interjected: "I heard you right, right? You can't afford to be an early Wang Laojiao! Why is this so wrong when this comes out of your mouth." ”

"I'm older, I've seen it, I've changed my personality, you know a fart. ”

Zhao Yong looked at Wang Lao with a light look, smashed it, smashed it, pondered for a while, and said: "Platoon commander, I don't understand, isn't he just a captain who has been taken down, you are willing to exchange your pocket watch for it." Besides, it's not like I haven't seen it, just supervise those goods in the team, except for standing up and fighting deserters, can you still have a fart? Not to mention that he used to be a little fart official, do you want to ask for an ancestor to offer? I think you are really old and confused. Well, that's not what I said, even Li said that. ”

Wang Lao didn't pay attention to Zhao Yong's words, but just looked at the figures who hurried by outside the platform, every time the east flashed, the flow of people in the distance would suddenly become clear, and then fall into darkness, becoming shadowy, as if a large area of gray souls wandering in hell.

Is Wang Lao really confused? Of course not. Ken gritted his teeth and gave the pocket watch out because Wang Lao knew who that person was. Hu Yi: Since he was a child, he was a beard (the Northeast folk call bandits called beard), at the age of seventeen, he joined the Northeast Army, and was a first-class student of the 11th phase of the Dongdaying Lecture Wutang, and after entering the customs, he served as the commander of the machine gun company directly under the division, with the rank of major, and when the heavy machine gun company was completely wiped out when the Japanese army was blocked on Jinpu Road, he survived one, and his superiors thought that he was the commander who was not in charge of the heavy machine gun company, so he was demoted to a captain and transferred to the supervision team, and as a result, he privately let go of more than a dozen deserters on the battlefield, so he was exempted from the rank of one qiē and completely became a soldier. The reason why I know this is because one of Wang Laojiao's friends is from the machine gun company, and when I was drinking in the past, I heard my friend mention the matter of their Hu company commander, of course, this friend also died in the random gun company at that time. Because I know this person, I will naturally pay attention to the news in many ways.

Wang Laojiao is not a bad person, nor is he a good person, he is just a veteran ruffian with more than ten years of military experience. I can't do anything but carry a gun, and if I really leave the army these days, I will definitely starve to death. When I was in Pingjin, I saw the students shouting about the country and the nation, Wang Lao didn't understand it, and he was not interested, the only hope was that the bullets on the battlefield could be far away from him, and it would be a blessing to live one more day. Although he doesn't know a single big character, Wang Lao is not a fool, and pulling Hu Yi into his third row is not to admire heroes or to climb power and take advantage of power, not to mention that he Hu Yi is now a down-and-out phoenix who is not as good as a chicken. But no matter how down-and-out the phoenix is, it is still a phoenix, and its knowledge and experience are definitely much better than themselves, on the battlefield, at a critical time, this down-and-out phoenix may be able to save his life, this is the real little Jiujiu in Wang Lao's heart.

Tips: The new domain name "biquge.info" has been launched by Biquge, and the original domain name is about to be discontinued. Please tell each other, thank you!