After the Spring Festival, there was a phenomenon of food interruption in the people's homes, and the Wugu Daoyun family had no choice but to set up a porridge shed and began to help the villagers. Yang Guofu's Eighth Route Army troops also had to rely on wild vegetables to replenish their lives. Suddenly, one day, the Quartermaster Department came to report:

"There's only five dollars left in the whole team!"

Listening to the report of the Quartermaster Department, Yang Guofu knew that the troops had now reached the point of extreme difficulty!

Yang Guofu is well aware of the hardships of the soldiers in recent times, and he has been fighting almost every day, eating almost all sorghum flour cakes and sweet potatoes with black spots, and there are more and more injuries. At present, the land of northern Lubei has a thin foundation, the people are suffering, and it is very difficult to raise food and fundraising, what should I do? ! Yang Guofu thought hard.

On this day, squatting on the barren beach of the saline-alkali land, Yang Guofu was fascinated by the clumps of tamarix: this is a unique magical plant on the saline-alkali land, they stand in clusters on the wasteland, and constantly write the tenacity and beauty of life with vigorous and rugged branches.

Their branches are jagged and cracked, pimples, simple and calm, and their appearance is not amazing, but they are the only ones who can take deep roots in this reckless wasteland. The barrenness of the saline-alkali land did not let them die, the wind and rain on the wasteland did not let them fall, and the bitter wind and rain only made them stronger, rougher, mighty, boundless, guarding this homeland, watching over this hot land......

"——Only by taking deep roots, can we grow better like these tamarix forests!" , Yang Guofu sighed to himself.

"Where are the roots of our Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army? It is among the broad masses of the people, among the thousands and thousands of ordinary people, ......," Chairman Mao of the CPC Central Committee once again sounded in his ears in his speech at the Yan'an Resistance to the Great Congress.

Yang Guofu thought about it again and again and made a painful decision:

Sell horses! — including his own maroon horse.

War horses, compared to a soldier, are comrades-in-arms, who have accompanied him in the rain of bullets, birth and death; is a brother, he accompanies him with the wind, frost, rain and snow, wind and food, and sleeps; Even, he is his own half life! In times of crisis, horses can even fight for their lives and protect their owners to escape!

"I won't do it!" , Knowing that Commander Yang was going to sell jujube red horses, the guard Liu Chun couldn't bear it even more and secretly hid the horse in a fellow countryman's house. After Yang Guofu found out, he seriously criticized Xiao Liu, but Liu Chun, whose eyes were rolling in his eyes, still stubbornly insisted and refused to agree until he was finally confined.

The jujube red horse was brought over, and Yang Guofu stood in front of the horse, patted the horse's neck, stroked the horse's mane, and couldn't bear to leave for a long time...... How many times, riding it to fight devils, remove traitors, rescue the wounded, and carry ammunition, scene after scene, clearly reappeared in front of me.

Yang Guofu slowly took out a piece of red sorghum cake left over from his pocket and slowly stuffed it into the horse's mouth. Looking at the horse's gently chewing lips, Yang Guofu's eyes moistened, and he hurriedly turned around and waved his hand at the person behind him......

The war horse was sold, and although the money was not much, the problem of food was temporarily solved, and at the same time, some people with difficult families were relieved.