Standing on the land of Shanghai, there is a burning smell in the air
Captain Fang took our team of new recruits who had traveled thousands of miles to report for reorganization.
You can see messengers running back and forth everywhere along the way. One team of stretchers followed another. The stretchers were covered with faded sheets, and some of the sheets were still bleeding slightly.
From the temporary medical shed set up on the roadside, the uncontrollable cries of pain from the wounded were heard constantly.
This is the front line. There is no neat camp as I imagined, no loud drill slogans, only the breath of death pressing above everyone's heads.
Our batch of new soldiers who came out of the Anhui mountains were organized into 57th Division.
Chen Dazhu and I were assigned to the same class.
When I received the equipment, I got an old Hanyang Arsenal rifle and ten rounds of ammunition.
Chen Dazhu stood beside me and received his rifle. He turned to look at me and forced a smile.
"Leizi, we are divided into two groups. We take care of each other."
"Hmm."
I nodded and held the gun tightly
The team arranged for us to rest on the spot, which only lasted one day.
It is said to be a rest, but in fact it is not a rest at all, because many people, like me, were just farmers in the past and have never touched a gun in their lives.
The instructor could only seize the limited time and hastily teach the most basic skills, such as pulling the bolt, loading the gun, and pulling the trigger.
Luodian is the main road guarding Jiading. Japanese naval guns, heavy artillery, and aircraft bombed it in turn. The position was repeatedly fought over. It was lost during the day and fought hard to get it back at night. Only a few people who went up could make it out alive.
After hearing these words, many recruits in the class turned pale, some clenched their fingers and lowered their heads in silence.
The rest day was very short, and the time to breathe was probably too short. I sat leaning on the edge of the trench and took out the wheat cakes my mother had baked for me from the cloth bag. The cakes were already so hard that they were tooth-piercing, so I gnawed them and looked into the distance.
I thought again of the mountains in my hometown, my parents in the thatched house, and my younger brother playing with stones.
I don't know how my family is doing now
Is my father's cough getting better? Is my mother standing at the gate of the courtyard looking into the distance every day? Is my brother still waiting for me to go back and take him to Back Mountain to dig out bird's nests and buy maltose?
I reached out and touched my chest. There was a small stone hidden there. My brother gave it to me before he left. He said that the stone was very hard and could protect me.
Chen Dazhu sat next to me, not eating, just looking at the dark sky and whispering to himself.
"I don't know if the rice harvest at home has been finished. My wife is alone with her baby and has to take care of her old mother. It's too difficult."
I didn't say anything. Everyone was concerned.
That night, no one slept soundly. Intermittently, the dull sound of cannons could be heard in the distance, as well as the footsteps of the messengers running. Before dawn, the assembly signal rang.
We received the order and headed to the outer positions of Luodian. The further we went, the stronger the smell of blood in the air became.
Looking around, the entire defense line stretches out one trench after another, with no end in sight.
Some of the soldiers around us were veterans, with numb and calm faces. Most of them looked like us, they were fresh recruits who could not hide their nervousness.
The squad leader was a veteran in his early thirties with a long scar on his face. He inspected the trenches and warned us in a low voice.
"Everyone keep their bodies low and don't show their heads. The enemy's shelling will come soon. When you hear the whistling of the shells, immediately lie down on the bottom of the trench and stick to the soil. Don't run around and don't shout."
He paused and glanced at our young faces.
"We stay here to block them, so that the people in the rear can have a chance to evacuate to the west. Holding the position means guarding thousands of families behind us."
I set up Hanyang Arsenal rifle on the edge of the trench and half-crouched in the muddy water. My feet were soaked in the cold mud, and the old wounds from the long march were sore from the soaking, and there were bursts of dull pain.
I waited quietly.
There was no magnificent charge, no foreseeable hand-to-hand encounter. The first thing that came to the battle was artillery fire.
At first, it was just a faint roar in the distance. After a while, the sound became clearer and clearer, and a sharp whistling sound passed overhead.
The squad leader roared
"Lie down!"
Almost at the same moment, the ground in the distance shook violently. The first artillery shell landed a few hundred meters in front of the position, and a huge explosion exploded. Mud and debris rose into the sky along with the heat wave. Black smoke rose billowingly, covering half of the sky.
Then, the second shot, the third shot.
The Japanese shelling began.
The shells fell like raindrops. It was the coordinated bombardment of naval guns and ground heavy artillery, one after another, without interruption.
The earth kept shaking, as if it was about to crack. There was a buzzing in the ears, and all other sounds were inaudible, only the continuous roaring.
Mud and gravel kept rolling down from the top of the trench wall, hitting my head and back. I lay tightly at the bottom of the trench, holding my head in my hands, and burying my face in the wet and cold soil. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth.
I had imagined the cruelty of the battlefield. But when I was actually under the gunfire, I realized that words cannot describe the horror.
The sky and the earth seemed to be shaking, and every explosion made people feel that they would be blown to pieces in the next second.
The comrades around him clung to the mud, and some were trembling uncontrollably.
After a round of shelling paused for a moment, the squad leader immediately shouted to count the number of people and check the damage to the bunker.
Everyone struggled to raise their heads, their faces were covered with mud, their ears were ringing, and their hearing had not yet recovered.
I gasped for breath, trying to steady my mind. My eyes swept across the entire trench, and a new crater appeared not far away, and a small piece of the trench wall collapsed.
I relaxed a little and was secretly glad that the shells did not fall on our section of the trench for the time being.
But I'm out of luck.
The second round of shelling soon followed.
A sharp sound ripped through the air, and the sound was closer and harsher than before. I heard the squad leader yelling, "Get down." I subconsciously curled up my body and pressed down to the bottom of the trench.
The cannonball landed about twenty meters away from me.
boom
A huge explosion exploded beside me. A bright light flashed, and a violent shock wave swept over
I felt a huge force hit my back hard, my whole body was violently overturned, and I hit the trench wall hard.
My ears were completely deaf in an instant, and the world suddenly became quiet, leaving only a continuous buzzing.
Hot soil and broken stones fell down like a blanket. I wanted to struggle and hold myself up, but all my strength seemed to be drained out in an instant.
There was severe pain in the chest, and every weak breath involved a tearing pain.
My vision began to blur, and the picture in front of me was sometimes clear and sometimes black.
I turned my head with difficulty and looked twenty meters away. A huge deep pit had appeared there, and the soil was still rolling and rising.
The two brothers who were guarding that position just now are no longer visible.
Chen Dazhu was not far behind me. He struggled to get up, his face covered with mud. When he saw me lying in the muddy water, he crawled towards me desperately, opening and closing his mouth as if calling my name.
But I couldn't hear any sound, I could only see his anxious and panicked face.
I wanted to open my mouth to respond to him, but no sound came out
Warm blood flowed out from the corners of his mouth and dripped into the turbid muddy water.
I know, I'm going to die
There is no vigorous fighting, no face-to-face with the Japanese with bayonets and red eyes.
Traveling thousands of miles, enduring thirty-one days of marching on foot, enduring the layers of blood blisters on my feet, and overcoming the endless fear in my heart
I walked to Luodian, a flesh-and-blood mill, and before I had a chance to fire a shot at the enemy, I was hit hard by a shell that landed twenty meters away.
This is my fight. Bland, hasty, short. No legends, no feats
It's just the most common ending among tens of millions of ordinary soldiers in troubled times.
His consciousness gradually faded, but in his mind, those images surged up uncontrollably.
I saw a thatched house in the mountains. Before dawn, my mother handed the cloth bag to my hand, her eyes were red, and she told me to go home alive.
I saw my father holding on to the door frame and whispered to me, come back alive.
When I saw my brother, he hugged my legs and cried. He put a small stone into my palm and said that the stone could protect him.
Seeing the big stone rolling at the entrance of the village, Captain Fang smiled and called me Wang Lei. Three stones can withstand the wind and rain.
On the march, I saw Chen Dazhu squatting in a ruined temple, helping me bandage the festering blisters on my feet, and told me that I looked forward to going back alive and watching my children grow up.
My name is Wang Lei.
Three stones, I thought they could withstand artillery fire and wind and rain.
It turns out that stones can also break.
But I don't regret it.
I am still afraid of death, and until now, I still want to go home. I want to go back to the mountains of Huaining, I want to see my parents again, I want to see my younger brother running up to me with a pile of small stones and excitedly telling me that they are gems. I want to touch the old buffalo at home again, and I want to sit next to the cowshed and enjoy the mountain wind.
But I've come this far and haven't stepped back.
I changed from the Dog Leftover who was hiding in the mountains and was afraid of fighting, to the soldier Wang Lei
I stood on the Luodian position, standing in front of millions of people.
My hometown in the rear, my parents, my younger brothers, and the millions of ordinary people in the mountains will no longer face the Japanese butcher's knife. Because we are here.
Even if I can only stand here for a short moment.
The turbid muddy water reached my cheeks, and it was bitingly cold. My eyelids became heavier and heavier, and my strength gradually dissipated.
In a blur, I seemed to see a moon rising in the sky. It was the same moon I saw every night on the march.
It shines on the Huaining mountain village thousands of miles away, on the thatched hut, on my family. It also shines on the scorched earth of Luodian, on those of us who are buried in a foreign land.
Chen Dazhu has crawled to my side. He stretched out his hand to hold my shoulders, his lips kept trembling, and tears mixed with the mud on his face and flowed down.
I used up my last bit of strength, raised my hand slightly, and touched my chest
There, I hide the small stone my brother gave me.
If I were still called Dog Leftover, wouldn't I die?
(Actually, the writing is not very grand, it is just an autobiography of a small person. Last time I saw a video of Battle of Shanghai. There are some with names and surnames, but most of them are unknown heroes like Wang Lei. They lived small and died silently. But I think such a person is more tragic. He is in the history books, but not in the history books.)