War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1818 Captain Yan's Grain Collection (Part )

At about one o'clock at noon that day, Zhao Jingrong, who had taken a leave of absence, and Boss Mu, who "had just returned from Guangzhou", went directly from the dock to Musashino Photo Studio.

After learning that "Mr. Musashi" might be in "Miss Hirano's shop", the two of them immediately put down their gifts and rushed to Lihua Theater without stopping.

At the same time, Hirano Daisho, who had just finished having lunch with his sister, also got on a rickshaw and rushed from the clinic which had not yet opened to the home of his "soul bed mate".

Almost at the same time when the rickshaw turned at the intersection, Ichiro Hoshino, who had already had lunch at the Lihua Theater, immediately went downstairs, walked across the street with the envelope containing the photo, and knocked on the door of "Hirano Clinic".

While the Japanese were trying all kinds of tricks to get the girls they were interested in, Captain Yan of the grain-collecting team, after delivering the last two boxes of goods to the Ji family, rushed to the door of Wu Laocai's house without stopping, and arrogantly asked them to open the door to state their purpose.

That following afternoon, everything went smoothly beyond Captain Yan's expectations.

After learning that Captain Yan could talk to Taijun, Wu Laocai not only immediately and warmly invited the members of the grain-collecting team to keep some food for them, but also took the initiative to say that as long as their wrongly accused young master could be rescued, let alone 3,000 kilograms of rice, even 5,000 kilograms would not be a problem!

In order to show his sincerity, Wu Laocai even opened his family's granary in front of Captain Yan, put all the unhusked rice in the granary into sacks, and stacked them one by one on the mule cart.

"Captain Yan, Captain Yan."

Wu Laocai, who was so anxious that his mouth was covered with blisters, tightly grasped Captain Yan's hand and begged gratefully, "As long as you can ask Taijun to release my ignorant grandson, I will give you my life, not to mention the last warehouse of rice in the Wu family! You must accept this. As long as my grandson can be released, the Wu family will reward him handsomely!"

It's a big yellow croaker!

Captain Yan's heart skipped a beat. He even wondered whether he should muster up the courage to ask Taijun Hirano or that damn translator!

Although he was tempted, Captain Yan still said, "Mr. Wu, I am helping you, but the food is not enough to buy back this thing for your young master."

Captain Yan shook the gold bar in his hand and said, "You can't ask me to use this to bribe Taijun, right? It's fine if Taijun doesn't accept it, but if he does, wouldn't my help be in vain?"

"Captain Yan, why don't you show us a clear way?" Wu Laocai asked nervously.

"We are anti-bacteria, and we like old things."

Captain Yan said, "If you can find some nice gifts for Taijun, I can also help you talk to Taijun, what do you think?"

"Yes, there are older ones! Yes, you wait!"

Before Mr. Wu finished his words, he turned around and left the living room, walking tremblingly towards the backyard.

"Uncle Wu, what do you think this old rich man can come up with? " Captain Yan's nephew asked in a low voice.

"Just wait and see," Captain Yan said in a low voice. How could he know what the other party could come up with?

Not long after, Wu Laocai came in holding an inkstone, "Captain Yan, do you think this thing is okay?"

"Is it just such a broken thing?" Captain Yan asked disappointedly.

"Don't dare say that!"

Wu Laocai said quickly, "This inkstone is an heirloom of my Wu family. If you count it, it was at the time of the Great Resurrection. My great-grandfather passed the imperial examination twice, and when the prefect betrothed his daughter, my great-grandmother, to my great-grandfather, he gave her this clay inkstone as a dowry.

If it weren't for my bastard grandson causing such a big disaster, I wouldn't be willing to take out this family heirloom!"

"Is there any more?" Captain Yan asked greedily.

"Captain Yan!"

Wu Laocai patted his thigh and said, "Please don't tease me. Except for the lowly Ji family who eats stinky food and digs graves, it would be great if a family could have one of these treasures. I'm not kidding, this inkstone is more valuable than a piece of gold of the same size."

"Pack it up. When we get back after lunch, I'll ask Taijun to help you negotiate a settlement." Captain Yan suppressed his greed and gave the order. He even began to wonder whether he should take these things and run away.

"The meals are all arranged!"

Wu Laocai reluctantly put the inkstone into a wooden box, then carefully wrapped it in a piece of cloth and handed it to Captain Yan. He then personally took them to the side courtyard, divided them into several rooms, and started eating and drinking.

Although Mr. Wu was a landlord, and although he did entertain Captain Yan and his group of about 100 people with all his heart, even so, the lunch was just brown rice and pickled radish, with a plate of stewed fish, a plate of scrambled eggs, and a bowl of egg soup for each person.

The meal looked simple, but it was quite good. They couldn't usually eat this. For this reason, the members of the grain-collecting team were all eating happily.

At the table with Captain Yan, his two confidants, and Wu Laocai, there was an additional dish of roast chicken and pickled duck eggs, and there were two servants beside them who were responsible for pouring wine for them.

The courtesy and flattery during the banquet made Captain Yan and his two nephews feel like the masters. Naturally, no one noticed that one of the glasses of wine that his cousin had filled again and again by the servants was poured from a separate small wine pot.

For safety reasons, and also because they were anxious to go back and claim credit, the grain-collecting team naturally had to go back before dark. For this reason, Captain Yan did not drink much during this meal. In the second half of the afternoon, around three o'clock, the mule carts loaded with sacks of rice set off on the journey back to the city under the shouts of the members of the grain-collecting team and the repeated instructions and expectations of Wu Laocai.

It was not until the grain-collecting team turned the corner and was blocked by civilian houses and Wu Laocai personally closed the gate that he asked, "Second brother, can that crippled lackey really save my grandson?"

"Count on him?"

Mr. Ji, who came out of the side room with his hands behind his back, snorted, "He definitely can't be rescued, but don't worry, your grandson will be released in a day or two at most."

"Okay, I, I believe in my second brother!" Wu Laocai said gritting his teeth.

"Do you regret it?" Mr. Ji asked with a smile.

"I bother!"

Wu Laocai spit on the floor tiles, "What do I regret? If I regretted it, I would have stopped my son from following your Shuhan to die on the battlefield."

"Don't you regret it this time?" Mr. Ji asked.

"No regrets"

Wu Laocai seemed to have aged ten years in an instant and said, "If my son dies, my grandson will take over. If my grandson dies too, damn it, I will take over myself!"

"Don't worry, your grandson won't die." Mr. Ji patted the other person's shoulder and said, "Wait, the show has just begun."

The drama had just begun. The grain-collecting team had just left the village when Captain Yan's nephew covered his stomach and said, "Uncle, I, I can't do it. I have to go to the toilet. You go first, and I'll follow you later."

"Your damn dog stomach can't hold two ounces of oil! Go quickly!" Old Yan, who was still looking at the inkstone, waved his hand impatiently.

“Maybe I ate two extra bowls of rice for lunch.”

Captain Yan's cousin had already covered his butt and dived into the wasteland on the side of the road before he could finish his words. However, he had no idea that some of the sweet osmanthus wine he drank at noon had been soaked in senna leaves overnight.

As this cousin occasionally ran to the roadside to take a dip, and then occasionally followed the team's stop-and-go pace, the grain-collecting team, with a rich harvest, was getting farther and farther away from the village.

"Uncle cousin, I still need to take a poop." Captain Yan's nephew said as he ran into a forest on the side of the road.

"Don't bring this bastard who delays things with you next time." Captain Yan's nephew complained dissatisfiedly. They had waited for him three or four times along the way.

"Everyone has diarrhea sometimes."

Captain Yan, who was in a very good mood, consoled him, "Nephew, you have been to school for two years. Show me, is this thing really that valuable?"

"I didn't learn this in the two years I studied at school."

Captain Yan's nephew scratched his head, and then he whispered in Captain Yan's ear as if an idea had suddenly dawned on him, "Uncle, when we get back, find an antique shop to check the price. If it's really expensive, you can spend extra money to buy a cheaper one and give it to the Japanese. They can't tell the good from the bad anyway."

"You're really smart, kid! Let's do it!" Captain Yan made the decision immediately.

"I don't think we should rush to hand over the five thousand kilograms of rice this time."

The nephew lowered his voice and said, "It's great to pay two thousand kilograms. The rest can be saved for next time. We may not meet a sucker like Wu Laocai next time."

"But his grandson."

"We still have Captain Jin," the nephew continued to play tricks, "Let Captain Jin go and negotiate. What does it have to do with us if the negotiations fail?"

"You kid! You kid!"

Captain Yan became more and more satisfied, he even had the illusion that the other party was his military advisor.

Of course, putting aside the fact that the illusion is not real, the cousin who was squatting in the toilet and shooting javelin at this moment was hit on the back of the head with the box gun that they had just delivered at noon. This was not an illusion.

"Why the hell hasn't that lazy donkey come back yet?"

Captain Yan, who had already finished smoking a cigarette, spoke impatiently with a hint of vigilance, "Old Yang, you, you take someone to check it out. If it doesn't work, bring him back to me."

"You guys, follow me."

The driver, Lao Yang, gathered his men and told them to hold their guns and walk into the woods on the side of the road with extreme caution, while they all called out the cousin's name.

"I'm here!" the cousin responded, "I sprained my ankle!"

This useless bastard!

Captain Yan cursed and relit a cigarette.

"boom!"

Just at this moment, a gunshot was heard in the woods, and the cigarette that Captain Yan had just lit in his mouth fell on his crotch as he trembled.

"There's an ambush! Hurry!"

Amid the screams of Lao Yang and others, a series of gunshots were heard in the woods.

However, before the members of the grain-collecting team could pick up their rifles, and even before Old Yan could shake off the cigarette that had fallen on his crotch, guerrillas appeared on both sides of the road, some holding box guns, some holding rifles, and even submachine guns!

"Put your hands up! Surrender your guns and you won't be killed!" One of the young soldiers holding a Sichuan-made Thompson submachine gun shouted in a loud voice.

"Wow!"

The grain collectors, who had no time to reload their rifles, simply threw their weapons all over the floor. Even Captain Yan subconsciously threw away the Japanese-made lighter in his hand.

However, his nephew subconsciously reached out to the Czech-made light machine gun that he and another confidant were in charge of!

"boom!"

With a gunshot, the nephew was hit in the temple by a bullet and fell to the ground on the loess road with a thud.

After the shot, Captain Yan's face turned pale and he raised his hands very quickly. He didn't even dare to pick up the cigarette that had fallen in his crotch and had burned a hole in his cotton trousers.

"Who is the captain among you?"

The young soldier holding a submachine gun in his hand asked. At the same time, the other guerrillas rushed forward and swiftly picked up the rifles dropped by the grain-collecting team members. By the way, they also took away the light machine gun that had not had time to fire a bullet.

"Are you the captain?"

A soldier walked up to Captain Yan and asked, "Are you Jin Fengrong? We have caught you."

"Sir, sir, this is a misunderstanding. This is a huge misunderstanding. I am not the Jin Fengrong you are looking for!"

Captain Yan explained in panic, "My last name is Yan, Yan. You guys, are you all dumb? Tell the commander quickly! I am not Captain Jin."

"Aren't you Captain Jin?"

The soldier frowned and turned his head to look behind him, "Captain, why is Aqing's information wrong?"

"Shut up!"

The "detachment leader" rebuked the "straightforward" soldier and personally interrogated Captain Yan in detail, especially focusing on the situation of Captain Jin Fengrong.

At the same time, the rest of the guerrilla fighters also stripped all the equipment from the more than 100 grain-collecting team members - including the lunch boxes that also secretly contained medicines or ammunition.

Soon, the grain collection team, which was less than 100 people, squatted on the roadside with their heads in their hands. Captain Yan also watched those soldiers steal the valuables such as gold bars, silver coins, and clay inkstones from his arms, and even left him his Japanese lighter and cigarettes.

“I will seize the food and weapons.”

The captain said, "Tell Captain Jin, I'm also warning you that working for the Japanese devils will lead to your death. We Chinese people don't fight against Chinese people, but next time I will catch you."

After a deliberate pause, the detachment commander patted Captain Yan's sweaty face and said, "Next time, you'll have to save your life."

"Yes, yes, we will never dare to do it again, we will never dare to do it again!"

Captain Yan started to shift the blame in a panic, "We were forced into this, we were also forced by Jin Fengrong!"

"Go talk to Captain Jin about this."

The captain waved his hand, "Go away! I'll spare you this time!"

"Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir!"

Captain Yan bowed repeatedly and called on the unarmed grain-collecting team members to run back, but he could not even take care of the body of his own nephew, let alone the bodies of the driver Lao Yang and others.

"Who chose this Captain Yan?"

It was not until the grain-collecting team ran away that the detachment leader asked curiously.

"The Sixth Master of the Patrol personally picked it out."

The one who answered this question was the driver, Lao Yang. Behind him, there were also many members of the grain-collecting team.

Further back in the woods, the cousin's body had been slit at the neck by his former fellow grain-collecting team members, and the blood had spread all over the forest.

"Thank you for your hard work"

The captain did not salute, but clasped his fists and asked, "Where are you going next?"

"Sixth Master said that this batch of goods is very important."

Lao Yang said, "We brothers will escort the goods together. When the goods are delivered, we will be ready to join the battle on the spot. From now on, we will live or die."

"Ugh"

The captain sighed and raised his hand solemnly to salute.

The members of the grain-collecting team who pretended to be dead just clasped their fists together. Old Yang even said, "It is our honor to be able to shed this dog skin and not have to die on the battlefield for the sake of our country with a bad name. Compared with Master Liu and the others, we are not as good as them. They have a harder time."

At this point, several members of the grain-collecting team happily took off their puppet army uniforms, took the clothes that the Ji family's housekeeper and his men had brought over, and put them on.

"Brothers, take off your clothes. Let's go fight the Japanese!" Lao Yang said with high spirits.

"Let's go fight the devils!"

The other members of the grain-collecting team also responded in a low voice with high spirits, and followed the steward who came to pick them up onto a road that led to an unknown destination.

"We have to sacrifice our lives to fight the devils"

The guerrilla fighter who was the detachment leader said, "Otherwise, we can't justify the injustice they have suffered."

"Since Fengtian, I have suffered enough injustice."

Liuzi clenched the newly captured box gun in his hand and muttered to himself, "Fighting the Japanese is the only way to survive, and it is also the only reason for us to live."

"Captain Yan, we have to find a way to survive," the grain-collecting team members who had already run two miles said breathlessly. They were also discussing the issue of "a way to survive."

"How about we run away?" Captain Yan, knowing that he had caused a big disaster, suggested.

"You can run away, but we have a family and a business, so we have nowhere to run."

One of the drivers reminded him, "We lost 5,000 kilograms of rice, as well as our guns and mule carts. If Captain Jin finds out about the inkstone from Wu Laocai, Taijun may not let you go."

"Captain Yan, you have to leave a way out for all of us." A big-headed soldier said tremblingly.

"Yes, Captain Yan."

Another driver reminded him, "I just listened carefully. The young officer missed a word about Aqing's information. Captain Yan, if I remember correctly, your cousin who has diarrhea is called Aqing, right?"

"Yes, Captain Yan."

Another driver reminded, "We all heard it, and those officers will let us go, I'm afraid."

"What the hell are you talking about!" Captain Yan didn't dare to let the other party continue, "Shut up, let me think about it! Don't say anything!"

After saying that, Captain Yan was no longer in a hurry to continue his journey. He just squatted there, covered his head and started thinking.

The grain-collecting team members around smiled at each other secretly, but did not urge the deputy captain. They just sighed from time to time to create a good atmosphere.

It's true that Captain Yan has a talent for being a puppet soldier. In less than a cigarette's time, he came up with an idea.

"Listen to me carefully!"

Captain Yan said with a fierce attitude, "We brought back a full 8,000 kilograms of rice this time! All ten large carts were filled to the brim. We emptied all the rice from the rat hole of Mr. Wu's family."

"Captain Yan, how about we talk about the lesser amount?"

A driver reminded him, "If you lose 3,000 kilograms, you'll get slapped at most, but if you lose 8,000 kilograms,

"You don't know anything!"

Captain Yan, with a mad face, yelled and cursed, "When I say eight thousand kilograms, it means eight thousand kilograms! At least eight thousand kilograms!"

Seeing that no one objected, Captain Yan continued, "On the way, at least two hundred guerrillas ambushed us, and they even had the damn devil's grenade launchers.

Our cart was full of rice and couldn't move fast, so we just relied on the ditch and used up all our bullets with the guerrillas. More than a dozen of us died, and we were outnumbered and captured. Do you remember that?"

"remember!"

Several car drivers responded in unison, and even secretly gave Captain Yan a thumbs up in their hearts. This guy is really good at making up stories!

"Also, there is no such thing as a leak of information. Our grain collection team is a solid team, and we don't have any signs of being a guerrilla group at all!"

Captain Yan threatened, "Think it over carefully. If anyone lets slip, no one will be happy!"

"Think it through!"

Several car drivers responded in succession, saying, "Just make it up. No matter what, the blame will ultimately be on Captain Yan."

What kind of pressure could those coachmen have? As for whether the Japanese believed it or not, it was none of their business.

"Let's go! Let's go back!"

As Captain Yan spoke, he had already grabbed a handful of dirt and stood up. He rubbed it all over his body and said, "Pretend to be more decent. I've been to the battlefield before! We just fought a war, how can we be as clean as we are? Hurry up!"

"All listen to Captain Yan!"

Several car drivers tried their best to hide their true emotions and told their men to grab a handful of dirt and pat it on themselves - just like they were acting.