Chapter 1312: Difficulties in Marching

"The terrain of China is high in the west and low in the east, so all the big rivers flow from west to east.

However, flowing from west to east refers to the main stream, and the tributaries are mostly north-south.

The Huaihe River flows from east to west, and it has a tributary, the Baisha River, which flows from north to south.

According to the news from above, the Japanese army is attacking Gaocheng along the highway, and the Baisha River is a natural barrier.

Now it seems that the scale of the Japanese attack this time is very large. They want to attack Wuhan after taking Xuzhou.

How important is Wuhan now? Nanjing was lost, and the National Government had to move to Chongqing, but that was only the government agency, and now the military command center But in Wuhan.

Moreover, since a lot of northern provinces have been lost, in order to persist in the anti-Japanese war, the personnel and materials transferred from the northern provinces are all gathered in Wuhan.

Therefore, the reason why the Japanese army wants to attack Wuhan is that they want to achieve their goal in one battle and make China surrender.

And we are now in Nanyang, Henan, which is the closest large force there. Our army’s mission is to go south from Nanyang, cross the Huaihe River, and set up defenses along the tributary of the Huaihe River called Baisha River, so as to stop the devils for a longer time. "

The above is Shang Zhen’s general meaning of the brigade commander Liu Chengyi, which can also be said to be an order.

The Northeast Army did not have much property, so Shang Zhen and his 337th Brigade took action again, and now it has been more than two months since the 51st Army finished the battle of Xuzhou and the Lanling blocking battle.

Under the scorching sun, the exhausted division that could not be seen at a glance marched along the road.

The worry of not having enough food disappeared, but the hardship of the march came again.

An hour passed, two hours passed, four or five hours passed, and the troops were still marching forward on foot. Everyone's footsteps became heavy, and they just mechanically moved their legs to the rhythm of the large army.

"I feel like we will never reach the horizon in front of us.

I saw this forest before, and I thought that this forest might be the end, but no, there is still a horizon in front of us." Chen Hanwen sighed during the march.

"Yes, you will never reach the horizon in front of you, because the earth is round." Chu Tian gave such an answer.

The soldiers around them really heard them talking.

To be honest, how many people in China nowadays know that they are now living on the sphere of the earth? Some soldiers simply heard the term "earth" for the first time.

If it were usual, there would be soldiers asking, but this time no one took up their conversation. As for the reason, they were too tired and too lazy to talk.

A whole day passed in this march. When the sun went down, the front came to rest in place and continue the march tomorrow. So soldiers fell on this road.

Smoke from picnics began to rise, first one, then two, three, and four. It was the kitchen teams of various combat units starting to cook.

However, the smoke was quite far away, and from the sky it looked more like the smoke of foreign invasion.

"Ouch, my waist is going to break!" At this time, an officer rubbed his waist while walking along the road.

But his words happened to be heard by a junior officer sitting on the side of the road. The junior officer suddenly ordered in his slightly hoarse voice: "If anyone dares to come to us and say that his waist hurts while riding a carriage, the whole company will beat him up. I will be responsible if something happens!"

This sentence can be said to be against the superior.

Although the Northeast Army is in disarray now, how could a lieutenant colonel and a captain wear the same rank?

But when the junior officer's words reached the ears of the officer who was rubbing his waist, the officer was so scared that he turned around and walked back, still yelling: "Rebellion, rebellion, you actually want to hit the superior!"

He turned around so quickly and panicked that he directly bumped into another junior officer who was walking from behind.

"That old bastard is going to hit me again!" The officer saw who was coming and complained, but he only said one sentence when he saw the other party glaring at him fiercely, and then the other person said: "You really deserve a beating!"

The officer was so scared that he dodged and ran away. His steps were not slow when he ran away. The pain in his waist was caused by the bumpy ride in the carriage, but his legs didn't hurt.

The one who lamented that his waist was about to break was Wang Qingfeng, and the one who ordered him to be beaten was Wang Laomao, and the person he bumped into when he turned around was Shang Zhen.

This was the first time Shang Zhen glared at Wang Qingfeng. It turned out that he was just too lazy to pay attention to that fat guy.

But this time, you, a man riding a carriage, came to us walking and said that your waist hurts. You are really asking for trouble!

"Don't scratch your feet with your hands if they are blistered. It will hurt more!" Shang Zhen ignored Wang Qingfeng and shouted. The soldiers looked up at their company commander and put down their hands that were scratching their big feet.

People's feet will get blisters if they walk too much, even the old soldiers who have calluses on their feet.

"Shang boy, tell me, how far do we have to go? Are we almost there?" Wang Laomao asked when Shang Zhen sat next to him.

"It's still early. We won't be there in ten days." Shang Zhen replied.

"What? So far?" Wang Laomao was surprised, and the soldiers who heard Shang Zhen's words all looked over.

"I don't know exactly how far it is, but when I was at the brigade headquarters, I estimated the brigade commander's map, and there must be three or four centimeters in the straight line distance." Shang Zhen replied.

Maps are scaled down, so one centimeter on the map may represent 100 kilometers.

Shang Zhen said that three or four centimeters on the map means three or four hundred kilometers in reality, and this is still the straight line distance on the map. Which road was drawn with a ruler? They all have turns, so it is normal to say that it is four or five hundred kilometers.

For a tired division like them to march four or five hundred kilometers on foot is indeed a sin.

Wang Laomao was surprised for a while, and this time he didn't curse again, but he couldn't help but sigh, and then said, "It's better to go and capture strong men!"

Shang Zhen didn't answer, but what he thought in his heart was, I would rather walk with blisters all over my feet!

It was almost dark after dinner, and the snoring of soldiers sounded on both sides of the road, but there was a whisper from one place, which was some old soldiers led by Shang Zhen.

"The able-bodied men are cannon fodder for the veterans, the soldiers are cannon fodder for the officers, and the miscellaneous troops are cannon fodder for the Central Army. This is fate!" That was Gu Bing's voice.

Shang Zhen was also at the scene, but no veteran objected to Gu Bing's statement, because those who just participated in the discussion were all sensible people.

Although Shang Zhen was the company commander and a superior, what kind of superior was he? He charged in front and retreated in the back. Everyone understood that Gu Bing was not talking about Shang Zhen.

"What do you mean by exchanging space for time? Isn't it just relying on the fact that China has a large territory to delay? It's not wrong to say that the enemy is strong and we are weak, so we use the tactic of 'delay'.

But if it drags on like this, the people in the places occupied by the Japanese devils will suffer.

Then we have to divide the troops to guard and fortify each section. For example, there are 200,000 troops, but we have to divide them into many parts to release people everywhere. In the end, the Japanese devils in one place are more than our army. They have planes, cannons, tanks, and what do we have? In the end, all the people were killed. Anyway, they are not their Central Army." Gu Bing continued to complain.

No one went to talk to Gu Bing. In fact, everyone had just talked for a while and was tired.

Shang Zhen sat cross-legged on the side. He was also tired, but he didn't want to reply. After marching tired, shouldn't he let his people complain?

Gu Bing's statement is certainly biased. For example, you can't say that the Central Army didn't make any effort to fight the Japanese devils, such as the Battle of Songhu, but there are more insights.

But so what? The power to decide the direction of a war has never been in the hands of a small person with real insight.

After Gu Bing finished his complaints, he finally lay back and fell asleep, and his audience naturally fell asleep earlier than him, including Shang Zhen.

However, there was one person who was still sitting cross-legged, and that was Da Laoben.