Chapter 277

"Short, short circuit!" Bruno stared blankly at the radio station that was mostly burnt black and charred, with a look of frustration. It was beyond his expectations that this radio station had completed its historical mission so quickly.

"It was just a temporary piece of paper. If it is broken, it will be broken. Let's tear it down!" Li Wei's face looked like he had known this. He originally planned to contact Bruno with a few words to avoid adding unnecessary dangerous actions to the military and civilians in the base to rescue Bruno.

"Oh!" Bruno returned to the fire with some consolation, staring at the beating bonfire. He originally planned to ask his colleagues at the base to report their safety to the family.

Chen Jiayao looked at Li Wei with complicated eyes. Few people could guess this guy's mind thoroughly.

At dawn, Wang Bao and the others continued to set off. The Japanese army that had been tracking them had long lost their direction. Chen Jiayao and the others did not have to worry about the enemy catching up all day long. They followed the orders of the first division headquarters. Wang Bao's guards and Li Wei, Japanese comrades and Bruno marched eastward to the central Hebei region, and met with the three regiments that were fighting in the Eighth and Ninth Divisions to contain the main force of the Japanese army, and at the same time escorted Captain Bruno. Captain Harvey looked for a suitable opportunity to return to the team. Because of the good relationship between the National Government and the US military, Bruno had many ways to return to the team and conveniently. It was not necessary to cross the dangerous anti-Japanese base of the Communist Party of China and find an opportunity to take over the national army in the south and send it to the task to complete.

In order not to attract attention, Captain Bruno Harvey, a pilot of the Flying Tigers, had to wear the Eighth Route Army uniform. His luminous blonde hair was covered by a gray military cap. Another American version of the Eighth Route Army appeared. Although this Eighth Route Army outfit was a friendly sponsor of the guard company commander Wang Bao, for taller Americans, they were still too thin and a little unkind. However, if you don’t look carefully from a distance, you can basically see that there are any strange people in this group of people.

Li Wei is not unfamiliar with the area at the junction of Shanxi and Hebei. When the Hundred Regiments Battle and the Counterattack of Japanese Infiltration Teams, he followed the team to fight in this area.

After walking out of the vast Taihang Mountains and entering the crowded areas in Hebei Province, Wang Bao and the others never found the shadow of the local party organization. There were dilapidated bricks and broken tiles everywhere and the burnt wood that had been extinguished early in the air filled with a strange atmosphere. Many intelligence stations that should have existed disappeared, and traces of battles were almost everywhere, which made Li Wei and the others feel a hint of chill from the bottom of their hearts. They had already expected the cruelty of the Japanese army to sweep, but they did not expect the sweep to be so thorough. Militia, guerrillas, political and publicity cadres, Eighth Route Army, and organizations that should have existed were almost gone, as if this was not a base for the anti-Japanese revolution before.

In such an area, even basic supplies cannot be guaranteed, which made Wang Bao and the others very uneasy. In order to urgently understand the situation of the Hebei base, Wang Bao and the others had to choose a village as a temporary site to go deep into the masses to understand the combat situation in this area. If they rashly look for the third regiment to return, they would probably be swallowed by the enemy and didn't know.

The soldiers of the reconnaissance company in front reconnaissanced the village in front and sent back a signal of safety.

The seventy-seventy people who said too much or too little were too little and entered the village fully armed, but did not cause much reaction from the villagers.

Li Wei still felt that it was different from usual. The villagers still cared about their farm work. They did not wave their hands from the fields and greeted them enthusiastically like other places. Although there was no bastard team that they had ever encountered to cause trouble, the grassroots cadres and personnel who should have appeared did not appear, nor did they see the existence of the people who maintained the meeting. The villagers did not seem panic because of a group of soldiers coming to the village.

Logically speaking, this situation should not have happened. Wang Bao and the others entered the village with a hint of doubt. They needed to find a place to rest. Because they had been sleeping in barren mountains and wilderness for a long time, the Eighth Route Army soldiers were fine, but the Japanese comrades and American pilots could not hold on anymore. Some Japanese comrades had diarrhea due to the lack of grain and food for a long time, and even had vitamin imbalances such as swelling and athlete's foot due to long-term lack of grain and food. Even Bruno Harvey had herpes symptoms caused by contact with unclean water sources. The decadent objects accumulated in the mountains and fields accumulated some toxicity. As long as you are not careful, you will be infected.

It didn't take much quarrel. After explaining the purpose of the visit, several villagers directly took Wang Bao and the others to several abandoned houses that were not inhabited by anyone and stationed them on the spot. The guard company found some useful things and repaired the house.

The guards' three rows and one squad in the guards encountered unexpected troubles when buying food from the villagers.

The old man who looked like the leader in the village trembled and said, "Boss! We really have no extra food!"

The boss?! The soldiers of the guards trembled in their hearts! What a strange name!

"Membersman, we are the Eighth Route Army!" Chen Bao, a soldier in charge of collecting food, seemed very aggrieved. In his mind, the villagers have always been enthusiastic and hospitable, but such a cold tone and attitude really made him unable to accept it.

"I don't care whether you are the Eighth Route Army or the Ninth Route Army. No, but nothing! You just killed the whole village, and there was no food or a single piece of food!" The old man said with a crutch as if he was a little angry. As soon as he finished speaking, he coughed violently because of his excitement. Many young people in the village surrounded the neighborhood with shoulder poles and hoes and other farm tools, and looked at the guards nervously with angry eyes.

"Old man!" Chen Bao tried to establish communication with the other party with his sincere attitude.

The old man snorted directly, interrupted the guard soldier Chen Bao's words, and turned around and left!

"Squad Leader! ~ I failed to complete the mission! ~" Chen Bao, a soldier in the third platoon of the guard company, had tears in his eyes and looked at his squad leader. He didn't know what he said wrong, which would cause such a reaction. This was a great shame for the revolutionary team that was family with the masses!

"This is not your fault! Don't worry!" A squad leader Cui Tong patted the soldier Chen Bao's shoulder comfortably.

"What's wrong! Who has caused trouble and offended the villagers?" Wang Bao ran over angrily. He saw that the villagers and the soldiers who collected the food seemed to have parted in disagreement. The Eighth Route Army and the villagers have always been like family members. This kind of accident was simply to discredit the guards of the Third Regiment.

"No, it's my responsibility that it's not their business!" Bansheng Cui couldn't bear to see the aggrieved expression of the soldiers in his squad, and took all the responsibility to him.

"Old Cui! It's not me that you are, you are also an old revolutionary. Why are you so unattentional? You must maintain the image of our revolutionary army in front of the masses! Look, the villagers are angry. Has it touched the villagers' local customs and taboos?" Wang Bao had a cold face. The company commander's burden forced him to remind himself at all times that the guard company also represents a mirror of the Eighth Route Army in front of the masses. If there is a business, he, the company commander, cannot escape the responsibility of leading troops. At least he cannot escape the blame.

"Company Commander Wang Bao, don't be so anxious to hold Captain Cui accountable. First, ask Captain Cui what's going on!" Li Wei walked out from behind Wang Bao and said. After hearing what Captain Cui said, he himself was a little unbelievable that the soldiers said the wrong words. The three major disciplines and eight points of attention were almost engraved into the bones of every Eighth Route Army soldier. Even the new recruits knew that they had to maintain their relationship with the masses. The guard company was almost the old Red Army team. How could it be that such a small mistake?

Squad leader Cui Tong briefly said the incident. Wang Bao and Li Wei looked at each other. Their past experience could not tell where the words of the Class One offended these villagers.

Li Wei's face was a little gloomy and unstable: "Even if he refused to sell some food for us, he shouldn't have such a reaction!" It should be based on the base area. It doesn't make sense that the two sentences are inconsistent, which makes the relationship between the military and civilians so stiff.

No matter what, it is impossible for the enemy to use big money to disguise all the villagers in the village as traitors and spies. These villagers should be native and authentic bases. How could they not recognize them? It is very suspicious, but why? Li Wei couldn't understand.

"I also think there is something wrong! We'd better not disturb the villagers for the time being! Send a few soldiers outside the village to monitor whether anyone in the village reports the news to the enemy!" Wang Bao, the company commander of the guard, also felt that there was no need to continue to get involved in the dispute caused by collecting grain from the masses.

The plan to purchase grain supply was temporarily stranded, but it does not mean that Wang Bao and the others could not replenish the supplies. During the infiltration of anti-Japanese squads last year, Li Wei's original second platoon and third squad in the Second Battalion robbed a Japanese stronghold and obtained a considerable amount of supplies. Li Wei once intercepted some of them to hide. The hidden location was not far from here. If he didn't dig it out, it would be really bad! This was originally prepared by Li Wei for the May Day anti-sweeping this year, but he didn't expect it to come in handy.

This batch of supplies made Wang Bao and Chen Jiayao suspicious. This was not like Li Wei's usual extravagant and wasteful personality. How could this guy have predicted the future? He actually knew to hide some for emergency response. But he had never saved so much. It was really hard to see through it.

Li Wei directly took more than a dozen guard company soldiers into the deep mountains and forests again to retrieve the stored supplies. Wang Bao and his friends continued to recuperate in the village. Apart from hunting and digging wild vegetables in the wild, the guard company soldiers never asked the villagers to buy food. They usually eat by themselves and find ways to solve the problem.

In order not to arouse the disgust of the villagers, Wang Bao asked the soldiers and Japanese comrades to intentionally maintain a silence, and temporarily stopped practicing the actions, so as not to affect the lives of the villagers as much as possible. They hoped to build a bridge of communication with the villagers through actions.
Chapter completed!